Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What if the Vikings win? what if the Vikings lose?

Episode Date: September 19, 2020

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Joining me, patrol football focus, Eric Eager. What is up, Eric? I'm so happy that we have football that I can't, you know, I've gotten over the fact that Vikings got their asses kicked on Sunday. It is a different kind of sadness that overtakes the state of Minnesota when they lose to the Packers. If they had lost to, I don't know, the Arizona Cardinals in week one and looked bad, I think a lot of people would have went, hey, come on,

it's week one. They'll turn it around. But when it's the Packers, it's just devastation. And I spent my entire Friday mailbag talking people off the ledge. What would it take to fire Zimmer? He just signed a three-year extension, okay? Should they bail on Mike Hughes yet? Mike Hughes is in the same spot right now where Trey Waynes first started becoming a starter in the NFL. Same timeline in his third year. Same with Mackenzie Alexander. Deep breaths, everyone.

Here's what we're going to talk about. First of all, some games around the league we're going to get to eventually here that are really interesting and impact the Vikings in different ways. But what if they win what if they lose Eric if the Vikings win this game against the Indianapolis Colts what do you think happened if I told you yeah they beat the Colts on Sunday yeah I think people are going to be probably, you know, fairly okay with the state of the team. They might not, it might not be warranted. But I think that all will be forgotten. I think people will write off the Green Bay loss as a loss to a really good team.

And they'll say, look, we're one and one. You know, we've won a road game that we were not even favored to win. We lost the game we were favored to win. And, you know, so all those things, all is right in the world. I think that's going to be the view. It's probably not going to be the right one because, you know, Indianapolis is just a team where there were a lot of outcomes and people weren't, I think, properly pricing in the likelihood that they

might not be good with Phillip Rivers. And if they lose this game, I think that's probably the case. I think they're the 0-2 team that everybody thought was going to be good that ends up not being very good. Well, so from the perspective of on the field, though, like what would the Vikings have to do, I mean, to beat the Indianapolis Colts? I mean, you need to – I mean, they need to basically have Jeff Gladney come in and be a revelation. Cameron Dantzler has been ruled out for this game relatively recently.

He's struggled sort of keeping up with the deep speed that some of the Packers had in a receiving core that I think is not particularly good. The Colts, I think, are a little bit better. They at least spent a draft pick in this last draft on a wide receiver, Michael Pittman. They have T.Y. Hilton, Jack Doyle. It did not practice on Thursday. You know, Zach Pascal was limited in practice, as was Pittman.

But I think that they have a better receiving core. So the Vikings are going to have to, if they win the football game, get better play out of a secondary that's already shuffling pieces. They're going to have to get pressure on a quarterback who was only under pressure about four or five times last week against Jacksonville, whose defensive line is no better or worse than the Vikings is currently. A lot of things have to turn from last week. The way that I've been looking at it is I don't expect that to happen on the defensive side.

I don't expect anybody to wave a magic wand over Yannick Ngakwe and all of a sudden he gets seven sacks and turns into Derek Thomas. I think that there's still going to be a ramping up period for him. And then also, I'm not saying he's not a very good pass rusher, but he's not a put the team on your back as one individual and carry a pass rush by yourself. I think that Daniil Hunter is that good. I'm not sure Yannick Ngakwe is that good.

And I also think from only seeing Jeff Gladney for a few snaps last week, that tells us where they believe Jeff Gladney was, and I wouldn't set the expectations super high there either. Also, the Colts love to spread it out, which is actually what the Packers did last week, surprisingly. We would have thought, oh, they're going to go I-formation because it's Matt LaFleur, and he comes from the Kubiak and Shanahan coaching tree, and all of a sudden they come out

and they use a lot of spread sets that put those cornerbacks in one-on-one situations. Well, we saw the same thing with the Colts against Jacksonville last week, that they were using some of those classic Andy Reid or Doug Peterson type route combinations to get corners one-on-one with receivers. That's going to be a big problem. So I've been thinking all along here it's really on the offense it's really on can Kirk Cousins go and shred a very poor secondary for the Colts I tend to think after watching last year when he did it multiple times and throughout his career that this is the type of game where Kirk Cousins has 300 yards three touchdowns a huge quarterback rating and performs really well unless that offensive line gets blown up by DeForest Buckner and Justin Houston. Yeah, although Justin Houston, I don't know, like,

as a guy who follows the Kansas City Chiefs extremely closely, I look at DNP from Justin Houston this week on Thursday, and I think to myself, what the hell does that mean? Because that was him the whole time he was a Chief. But, you know, there is something with his calf there. the hell does that mean because that was him the whole time he was with it was a chief um but you know he there is something with his calf there i think if he doesn't go that's a huge break for the vikings because he's he's a legit man up up front not only um rushing the passer but he sets a better edge than i think any edge player does in the entire league in the run game. So he's a handful.

Kamoko Ture is a good player as well for them. And obviously Buckner, you know, I had this, you know, Twitter exchange with some Vikings fans that like, they're like, you know, the drop off from Alphaline to whomever this week is not going to be a big deal because Alphaline was going to get his ass kicked by Buckner anyway. And so was his replacement. So like, it's going to be a tough one for the Vikings. But, like, again, I think some of their success is going to be dictated

by the game script. And, you know, they had positive game script in that game for about a quarter on Sunday. If they can maintain it for, you know, two quarters, you know, Kirk was the second most accurate quarterback in the league last week, you know, in our ball charting. I mean, he was amazing. You know, once he got going, it's just it took him forever to get going.

And part of me believes, you know, that Green Bay brought the pass rush early in the game and got sacks and sort of laid off of him, you know, in the middle of the game. If the game is close the whole time, does Houston ever relent – or Houston and, you know, Houston, Buckner, Trey, all those guys, do they ever relent and give Kirk a chance to have some of the success he had in the second half of the game? That remains a question for me. And Kenny Clark going out in the second half was a huge deal to their pass rush, and I got a few questions about Garrett Bradbury, who had a good PFF grade in week one, like, well, it does help when the second

or third best player at that position in the entire NFL goes out with an injury and then it's just somebody else. DeForest Buckner is not going to give you that break. Real quick on the Elfline injury, I agree that he was going to get smoked by DeForest Buckner, but here's the one area where I'm not certain it's an upgrade to have Elfline be out. Well, for one, usually coaching staffs that watch these guys through an entire training camp don't make mistakes on who should be starting. And this particular coaching staff, you'd have to go through and find me all the players that they missed on in terms of their evaluations because I don't think there have been many.

Or you weren't starting this guy and you should have started that guy. Maybe Laquan Treadwell just playing too much is the only one I can think of. But even then, they didn't have very good backups in that situation. If Elfline, who is bad, was already playing over Drew Samia, who they've had a year and a half to look at or a year and a camp to look at and they didn't start him, I think that tells you how they feel about him. And Elfline is good in one area and that is run blocking he was I think in the top 15 of guards and run blocking last year by PFF and he's always been good in the screen

game we don't know that Drew Samia can run block or block in the screen game and if he gets similarly beaten in the past game now there's no positive to having that position yeah that's true I mean I'm always a little skeptical the Vikings Vikings' rankings of O-linemen considering in the last, what, 20 years they've drafted, like, one Pro Bowl alternate season in the entire group. So, like, you know, they're great at corners and they're great at all these other, like, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But, like, I think maybe since Bryant McKinney was drafted, they have won,

and it's Khalil's 2012 season, which, again, Khalil blew up in their face too. So – but, yes, you're right. I mean, the fact that he's an NFL starter, you know, and market efficiency is being what it is, it's obviously a downgrade. I just – I just don't – in the passing game, I just don't see anybody on that Vikings team being able to block Buckner. And that's why, you know, the Colts were able, the Colts needed to pay him $21 million a year and trade the 13th overall pick to acquire him. He's just a really good football player.

And, you know, made, you know, the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, it gave them hell, you know, basically that entire game as well. So it's just going to be a tough one for them. You know, I look at the Vegas spread. They were three-and-a-half-point favorites when the things opened in, like, May. And then they closed as two-and-a-half-point favorites. They were favorites to beat the Packers. They're currently now three-point underdogs on the road. And as we talked about with the Vikings game last week,

home field advantage not being what it is, this means that the betting markets are still considering the Colts a better team on a neutral field. And not only that, but we're seeing more money. It was two and a half when it opened. The events of last week have people fading the Vikings more than fading the Colts. That's a really interesting development.

I think you and I having more of a sober view of the team would have said last week was more expected than I think most people thought. But here, you know, it's going to be an upset for Minnesota if they go into Indianapolis and win. Well, and let's talk about the what if Indianapolis wins, meaning the Vikings lose. So we'll start with the sort of what will be the reaction and then what will have had to happen for the Colts to win. So the reaction, I think, from the Vikings fan base will be tank for Trevor. But I don't think that this team is, and I, you know, I got that a few times last week. I don't think this team is anywhere close to being bad enough to tank for Trevor. They have far too much talent and there isn't much talent that you could just pedal off at the trade deadline. I mean, maybe you'd trade Kyle Rudolph, Anthony Barr.

Probably no one's taking that contract. There aren't, like, a bunch of old veterans who you could say, oh, well, Terrell Suggs, you can go help the Kansas City Chiefs. You don't really have that with this team. And you also have a quarterback that in his worst year, his team goes 7-9. In fact, a very similar type of situation with Washington team and you also have a quarterback that in his worst year his team goes seven and nine in fact a very similar type of situation with Washington where they lost some of their stars to free agency from 2016 to 2017 and then Cousins got them seven wins but couldn't get them more than that based on

his individual performance but I think that we start to have a conversation if they go 0-2 who who are we supposed to look around at and say, what should have happened to prevent this? And also, what does this mean toward the future if this is how they're going to start? Because there's not an easy turnaround. There's not a Giants or there's not a Washington or even a Philadelphia last year to help them turn things around.

This schedule continues to be hard. Right. It's almost silly to think of this as a must-win game, but, you know, if they lose and, you know, Chicago beats the Giants as five-and-a-half point favorites and Green Bay as six-and-a-half point favorites beats Detroit, you're already two games out of first place in the division, and that's not a great place to be. You know, but I agree with you. The team is sort of like a made hand at this point, for better or worse. The guys that they have on the team, aside from, it's silly to say,

but aside from Yannick Ngakwe, there are not like rentals on this team. They're not guys that you can sort of – I mean, Ngakwe is probably the biggest trade candidate if they were to actually want to move you know, move on from a player. Barr is a long-term deal here. Obviously, O'Neal is, hopefully. Folks like that, maybe Riley Reif. But, I mean, the fact that they don't have Ezra Cleveland active in week one of his rookie year when he's a second-round pick is a tough one.

So, it might be a season where, you know, they continue to play hard and everything, and we're looking for, you know, some positive things out of Gladney, Dantzler, you know, some of the young guys, maybe Troy Dye gets some playing time and so forth. But it's bleak if they lose. And I think the way in which they could lose is obviously simply not being able to cover, you know, some of the things that Indianapolis does. And then I wouldn't say getting unlucky.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, and Vikings fans know this by watching them against the Chargers in last December, the Chargers give you – Rivers gives you things. You know, they outgained the Jacksonville Jaguars for over 200 yards last week, but Rivers gave them two interceptions. The rookie, C.J. Henderson, out of Florida was awesome, made some plays off the ball. He looked really like Jalen Ramsey-like. If Rivers gives the Vikings those two extra possessions,

that's really what Rodgers refused to do last week, was to give the Vikings any sort of breaks. Rivers will probably give the Vikings breaks. If he doesn't, if they get unlucky, if they don't hold on to those plays, that might be the contributor to a loss in my opinion. And the other thing about Rivers that, I mean, he does give you the opportunities so the Vikings have a chance to get an interception, get a pick six. Last year against the Chargers, you mentioned, it was a close game at halftime.

Rivers was moving the ball against the Vikings' defense, and then he gets strip-sacked, just kind of going for it at the end of the half. Fadi Adenabo runs it back for a touchdown, and then second half he's playing hero ball and throws a bunch of picks, and it gets kind of sad after that because it was a Vikings' home game in Los Angeles. But if they don't take advantage of those opportunities that will come, he's going to get the ball out quick, and he has some playmakers to get the ball into the hands of.

And Paris Campbell looking really, really good in his first game, really. I mean, being like a healthy receiver with a full offseason. I think he even had like a car accident that was mixed in. The guy had a lot of things go wrong for him. But now he was getting separation big time against Jacksonville in that first game when I went back and watched it back. And I don't know if there's a Vikings corner who I'm sure can cover him or T.Y. Hilton and then Pittman is mixed in.

And we know that they're not going to pressure Rivers. So it's really does Rivers just throw it to the wrong person or just heave up and take a risk and you take advantage of it? But I think that the fact that he gets it out in 2.3 seconds and has one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, there's a good shot for him there. The other thing, too, is I'm not convinced that this Vikings team can stop the run. Early in the game, Green Bay ran pretty well. Later on, of course, they didn't. But early in the game, they ran pretty well on the Vikings.

And you're talking about an offensive line that can really run block against an interior of the Vikings defensive line with a backup nose tackle starting and a three-technique who I'm not sure is an NFL player. Right. And, you know, I know they lost Marlon Mack, you know, last week. But, you know the the standing assumption is that running backs are pretty replaceable and even and even among that like last night we saw in the Cleveland Cincinnati game that if you have a big run if you have a

running back that breaks tackles at the rate that guys like Nick Chubb and Jonathan Taylor who the Vikings are going to see on Sunday that can be be a problem. And the Vikings, since the days of Dennis Green, well, no, since the days of Floyd Peters and Jerry Burns have been a turf defense, a small defense that has had a problem with big running backs. And Zimmer's roughest days, I remember back when the Vikings were playing in TCF Stadium, they were on a five-game winning streak, and Eddie Lacy came in in the cold and just gave them fits, even though he was 30 pounds overweight.

And when I look at Jonathan Taylor, I think that's the kind of running back that the Vikings often struggle with, those big bruising backs that have the speed to break a long one. And as you said, their defensive line is not a bunch of starting NFL players. And so there's going to be a lot of pressure on Eric Hendricks and Anthony Barr. And we've seen that those guys can thrive when Linval Joseph is taking blockers away or, you know, they're playing a team without talent, you know, up front. But right now, like those guys are probably going to be asked to do too much.

And if it's a game like last week where they get behind um i have a hard time seeing them being able to hold the point of attack down long enough to you know steal possessions from indianapolis want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original minnesota sports inspired goods they just launched their official collaboration with bud grant yes bud grant you can now get your official Bud Grant shirt and Man Cave art print. If you haven't seen it yet, you have to check it out, and we're going to hook you up with free shipping for your order. Use code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping.

That is SOTASTICK, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. We'll get back to the conversation in just a second but first this football season will be very different and pepsi is here to get you ready for game day no matter how you watch this season yeah it was a little weird outside u.s bank stadium not to see people tailgating but that means you've got plenty of opportunities to watch the game from home and enjoy a crazy, because you know it will be crazy, Vikings season. Pepsi is the refreshment you need to power through game day and become a member of the League of Football Watchers.

This passionate fan group are the ones who are the real generational talents that Pepsi fuels. Because Pepsi is not made for those who play the game. It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi made for football watching. So I jumped on your point about what it would take for the Vikings to lose the game first and not the big picture. So let me circle back to that. If they go to 0-2, then I don't know that we're having the same sort of how can they

get it fixed that we've had before. I mean, so, for example, when they lost to Buffalo in 2018, we went, okay, that was just a disaster. Everything went wrong for them. Cousins got sacked a couple times. They couldn't block. But, all right, they have a chance to turn this around still. They go out to Los Angeles. They lose that game in wild fashion where I think Jared Goff had a perfect

quarterback rating and they threw for 500 yards. And so this discussion was still, how can they fix it? Can they get it turned around? They should be able to. Oh, and two, I'm not sure if there are buttons to push here. There aren't buttons that magically make Everson Griffin show back up or that make Michael Pierce not opt out or that, you know, make their interior offensive line better. I think where we end up, where we're going to end up going, rather than looking forward and saying, all right, this might be a year to evaluate a bunch of people.

I think we're going to go backwards and look at this off season and go, you extended cousins, right? And you traded for Ngakwe. Okay. Like those are sort of win now type of moves, even though Ngakwe can be a long-term player for you, but a very expensive long-term player, not someone you're drafting in the first round who is on a rookie contract. So that's more of a win now move because of his expense. And, you know, you kept Riley Reif rather than playing, say, Rashad Hill or Ezra Cleveland. So you didn't treat this like a rebuild year. You signed Michael Pierce. And yet, you know, I think we're going to be looking at it and saying,

did you just miss? Did you just kind of misunderstand what this was going to take? Or I think that's the way we end up looking at it. Rather than saying, okay, all they need to do is, you know, Zimmer needs the scheme X, Y, and Z. I think it's going to be a very different conversation than it was in 2018. Yeah, I think the last time the Vikings, you know, let's say they lose, okay? The last time they had a season like this, the head coach got fired.

You know, in 2013, they were coming off the 10-6 season. Terrific individual performances by, you know, in 2013, they were coming off the 10-6 season, terrific individual performances by, you know, Adrian Peterson, Antoine Winfield, and some players on the defense. They got rid of their best player on defense in Antoine Winfield. They tried to run it back. They made free agent acquisitions like Greg Jennings, you know, but it was a weird thing because Ponder was sort of this quarterback that, you know, lacked direction. Now, Kirk is obviously a lot better than Christian Ponder,

but the defense is in similar straits, right? They were sort of this elephant in the room that you're kind of like, well, okay, Peterson can sort of make up for this in much the same way that we're all saying, well, maybe Zimmer can make up for this. And then that ends up not working. I mean, they lost, you know, opening day to Detroit by double, you know, by two scores. They lost a close one to Chicago, close one to Cleveland.

They're 0-3. And, you know, but there was not a ton. There was Xavier Rhodes as a draft pick, Patterson as a draft pick, you know, Sheree Floyd. So there were some young players to sort of look at. But it was sort of this, okay, you know, there's not the cornerstone, for example, quarterback. Like if things go south this year, Kirk's going to be the quarterback

all 16 games. There's nothing to figure out about Sean Mannion. If things go south this year, you know, it's going to be, it's not going to be like 2014 was where, yeah, the year didn't go particularly well. There's some unlucky balances, and that's why you're not in the playoff race. But we get to watch Teddy play, you know, the remaining 12 games, and that's extremely encouraging. There's not really that going on this year for the Vikings. And, you know, I remember as an observer of the 2013 season, it was just kind of, eh, every single week. And I hate to say it, I hate to see that.

You know, I think that the Vikings, you know, will have a good chance to win Sunday, and they have to, and I think in order to avoid that. And that's what I was going to ask is the difference between winning and losing in terms of their playoff optimism. Because with seven teams going into the playoffs, that changes everything for me. If it was only six teams, even after last week, week one, results are wonky and so forth, I would still say, oh, man, I'd put it under 50%.

But if they win and go to one and one, and you can be an 8-8 team and make the playoffs this season with a very, very long way to go in this NFL season. You mentioned on the forecast podcast about the Carolina team that went to the Super Bowl and how they lost week one to a terrible Saints team. It happens. And I do think that'll be a little more of the feel if they win is, hey, look, no one thinks that you're the Super Bowl team at this moment, but there's a long way to go and you can make the playoffs. If they lose, what would their play? Well, tell me the difference between winning and losing and your mind and their playoff odds. Yeah, you know, I think so right now we actually have them at a 26% chance to make the playoffs. If they lose, that number is down to the base rate,

which Justice Mosqueda tweets out the Owen Tombstone. Basically, you have a 10% to 15% chance of making the playoffs if you go 0-2. That's basically where the Vikings are. I think they're more towards a 50-50 proposition. The interesting thing with these simulations is that, you know, we had the Vikings with, I think, relatively close to a 50-50 shot to make the playoffs before the game. They dropped down so much because they were favored. You know, it's why, you know, the Colts loss is so bad

because when you look at the season, you've got to win the games that you're supposed to win and steal a few that you're not supposed to. This would be a sort of a mini steal for the Vikings. And if they do it, I think they're in that 40 to 45% range. The tricky thing is, again, it has to look at what's going to go on with Chicago and Green Bay. Both teams could be 2-0 after this week. And both are expected to.

That's really the one. If you're a Vikings fan, you're really hoping that Detroit wins this weekend because that sort of muddies the waters in the NFC North. And you're also really hoping that a team like Atlanta wins against Dallas. You're really hoping that, you know, San Francisco – you're hoping that the Jets, you know, are the second team as seven-point underdogs to beat San Francisco because that's really what you're banking on this year is that the NFC is so flat and

there's so much parity that at eight and eight, you're almost a shoo-in to make it. Okay. Before we look at some of those games a little bit closer, I just, I'm sort of stopping and marveling at the difference between this game and how big the season swings on it. Because if you go one and one, then we're talking about, okay, figure out who your corners are and they need to just keep making progress under Zimmer as we've seen many corners in the past do. We have certainly seen in the past where corners have a tough start and then they get things turned around. We've seen Zimmer scheme things. My guess is that this week he's

going to focus on disguising coverages rather than blitzing, which he did a lot against Green Bay. So maybe that's the tweak that they make. We'll be saying they have a good enough offense to carry them a little bit and win them a game. And all of a sudden you've talked yourself into it. If they lose, it's who can you trade? It's all over. Everyone failed.

And I guess that is why we enjoy the National Football League. Yeah, right. And there are plenty of playoff teams that have that weakness. The Vikings have never been that team under Simmer. Right. Yeah, for sure. That's a tricky one. Yeah.

And it will be interesting because, yeah, this is a team that goes 5-0 and then misses the playoffs, not a team that goes five and oh and then misses the playoffs not a team that goes oh and two and then comes back and somehow does it or at least that hasn't been their history so uh Chicago at New York boy anybody who is blessed enough to get to watch that football game gotta have mercy on you but I mean Chicago we're not like saying they're decent after last week right DeAndre Swift should just catch the ball and walk into the end zone and win the game for Detroit. Yeah, that was the most disappointing game of the weekend

as somebody who has thought that Detroit had a shot all year. It kind of slipped through their fingertips. Now, Detroit was an example of coverage mattering, right, because all three of their starting corners by the time the game was over were on the sideline injured or inactive. But the hard thing here, if you're a Vikings fan hoping that the Bears lose, is I think the Giants could stake a pretty reasonable claim as the worst team in the NFL.

Daniel Jones did fine the other night, but they had the most unique scheme in the NFL this year so far. No motion, no play action, low ADOT. That's just a recipe for disasters in offense. Chicago is still pretty good defensively, not great anymore, and the Giants have difficulties up front. The game, I don't know if I'll turn into the game other than, you know,

the brief, like, NFL red zone, you know, when they go to it. But if you're a Vikings fan, I think you've got to hope, you know, that the Bears fall. We have the Bears with a 69% chance to win the game. I'm saying it. Nice. That would be a huge, huge loss, though, if they did

come away, but I agree with you on the Giants. I look forward to the Giants drafting the best running back in the draft number one overall next year. That'll be super fun to watch. Detroit at Green Bay, I mean, how much do you take away from Green Bay smoking the Vikings last week?

Because I'm sure that Green Bay fans have decided that they're going 13-3 again, and PFF was wrong, and all the regression people were full of it. But, I mean, Detroit has enough talent to go to Green Bay and beat them, and I really think you watch the first half, the first even three quarters of the game, and it's 22-10. Green Bay has not moved the ball like crazy Rodgers may one or good one or two good throws and then the fourth quarter they just start running away with it and the Vikings defense falls apart I don't think that necessarily means that Rodgers 2013 is back all of a sudden and he's going to win the MVP and that they should

be the Super Bowl champions I think that they're still probably closer than we think with Detroit. Yeah, it's a tough matchup for Detroit because, you know, their corners, you know, they might get Daryl Roberts, they might get Trufant. But, you know, Justin Coleman just got put on IR. Okuda is going to make, you know, a start. The thing that I, you know, they can't get much of a pass rush, but, you know, Green Bay doesn't give up much of a pass rush even to make a start. The thing that I – they can't get much of a pass rush, but Green Bay doesn't give up much of a pass rush even to the best teams. Rodgers only had a 46.1 pass rating the very few times he was pressured

against Minnesota, but 13.3% of his throws were big-time throws. It was an unbelievable performance by him. The only way Detroit, I think, has a chance in this game is if they score 40 points. And I think that's possible. If you look at, you know, Green Bay's defense, especially if Kenny Clark is injured and he looks questionable, you know, with a groin, they're not that good, right? I mean, the Vikings, with one wide receiver, really, you know, did a lot of damage to them. And so if I'm Detroit, Detroit's six and a half point underdogs,

we give them about a 31% chance to win the game. They just need to move the football, and they need to not make mistakes. They need to get big chunk plays, and they need to hope that the Packers, their secondary receivers don't do to them what they did to the Minnesota Vikings. Because I think if they do, you know, Patricia from the Belichick tree could probably come up with a scheme to do what, you know, Belichick always used to do to the number one receivers, which is, you know,

put a Kuda on the number two guy and bracket the hell out of the number one guy. I think that they, that has to be their approach Sunday. And if that works, Detroit could win just by scoring the football because Green Bay's defense is not that great. Get back to the conversation in just a second. But even though sports took a break, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that makes hiring more important than ever.

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Go right now to Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through September 30th. All right, I got two NFC teams that I have my eyes on for the playoff race with the Vikings. If the Vikings win here, or they go 0-2 and then they reel off a couple of wins. But just as we go into the middle of the season,

I'm intrigued by two NFC teams that could play a role in that sort of bottom 6-7 seed. Can you guess who they are? I don't think that they're super obvious. Okay. That are – okay. Football team? Football team is correct, yes.

Yep, that's right. They're playing at Arizona. I think Arizona might be good, but we'll see. I think Washington will win that game outright. Think so? I really was impressed at the end of last year by Dwayne Haskins, and their D-line destroyed the Vikings' offensive line. It was just that Case Keenum was the quarterback.

He got hurt. Haskins came in, didn't know what he was doing. When I went back and reviewed that game. They didn't support Haskins last year. But they were good before they had Chase Young. And now I think that they're really, really good. And they might, because of that division, have a chance to go 9-7, 8-8. And so football team is one of them.

Do you know the other one? I don't because they play each other. So Arizona seems like one, but maybe not. I don't – because they play each other. So Arizona seems like one, but maybe not. You're in the right ballpark. Los Angeles Rams. You're right. That is correct.

Yeah, those are the two teams that I was looking at after the way the Rams played against Dallas, which it was not offensive pass interference, and Dallas should have won. Also McCarthy made the right decision on fourth and three, but you know, just move on from that. Los Angeles, I don't think is great. Their offensive line still didn't look very good. And I'm not convinced that Jared Goff takes them to 13 and three again in the number one offense, but there's enough there that they could be one of those teams like they were last year. But now there's that seven seed and there's some intrigue. And I think that those two teams are going to be fighting with the Vikings for a spot eventually, even win or lose eventually down the

road, they're going to be in that, uh, in the hunt graphic. So what do you think you think Washington's going to beat Arizona? That's a little bit of a hot take since it's in Arizona. And Los Angeles at Philly. I think Philly stinks. Do we agree Philly stinks? Yeah, Philly opened last weekend as three-and-a-half-point favorites against the Rams. And after everything shook out last weekend,

the Rams flipped all the way to one-point favorites. Now it's moved a little bit over to back to Philly at one point, you know, minus one. But that's a humongous move in the NFL. I think it's a huge overreaction. I think Philadelphia, you know, is better than what they showed. I think Washington matches up really well with them. I think familiarity, you know,

a home division underdog is a good early season bet usually just because of familiarity and things like that. I think Philly rebounds this week, but I agree that, I mean, there's this path where the Rams are good again. I think that they're a little bit too much like the Vikings defensively and that they rely on a small subset of really good players and, you know, patch it up everywhere else, which I think if an offense is functional can really go after them. I love Washington. I have Washington making the playoffs 34% of the time, which is more than what I had the Vikings at.

I have Washington with it. And part of this is that they play in a bad division. I currently have Washington winning 7.3 games, which is the second most in that division. You know, they're currently in first place, you know, by themselves, which is hilarious. But, you know, when I look at this week specifically, you know, I really liked Arizona as a bet to make last week against San Francisco,

and I watched the entire game. And that game was a game lost by the 49ers. It was not won by the Cardinals. The Cardinals, you know, Murray was still under seven yards, averaged at the target, under six yards for pass attempt. You know, their defense, Isaiah Simmons, wasn't ready for the NFL yet. They have to show me, they have to beat Washington, I think, handily for me to really buy in here, because I think Arizona was a little bit fraudulent week one.

We saw that they beat the former NFC champion, and we rushed a judgment there. But I think it was a lot more of San Francisco just being straight-up awful in that game as the reason that they won. Okay, favorite game of the week before we wrap up? Well, I think it's obvious. I think the clear favorite game of the week is New England against Seattle, so I'm going to throw that one out. My favorite game of the week, I think it's going to be the most entertaining game,

is the Atlanta Falcons at the Dallas Cowboys. I don't think that there's any amount of defense that's going to be played in this game. Yes, that's a 38-41 potential there. I am really interested to see what New England has for Seattle because I came away from week one thinking, I don't know who's beating Seattle. As much as in recent years we kind of looked at them and said, well, they're not really the same.

Jamal Adams blitzing 14 times in the first week, that's a game changer on their defense. And it wasn't a game that Vikings fans were putting down as a win anyway in Seattle, but they looked really, really strong. But, you know, it was fun to watch Cam Newton and a Patriots quarterback run option, maybe the first time since Michael Bishop. There's a deep... That's a great one. Yeah. Michael Bishop was the last backup quarterback before Tom Brady. Yeah, that's right. And he had the strongest arm maybe ever, and it didn't matter because he wasn't good at football.

So anyway, Eric Eager, the PFF forecast is absolutely fantastic with you and George Shahuri. You guys had Peter King on recently talking about his season predictions. So you guys have had a ton of really cool guests. And if you gamble. Including you, the founder of uh purple insider i indeed uh did make an appearance and also if you are a gambler there's a lot of great advice there as well most of the time uh so uh make sure you check out eric and george in the

pff forecast podcast and eric always appreciate your time and we'll do it again soon thanks for having me on the wait is finally over. Football is back. You might not be at the game this year, but you can still be in on the action at BetOnline. BetOnline is going the extra mile to make sure that you can get in on every possible change to win this season. From game spreads to totals to team and player and coaching props, BetOnline gives you more options to wager than anywhere else. You can get in on their season opening bonuses today

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