Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What the Vikings win over the Dolphins told us about.... everything

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles go through the Vikings-Dolphins tape and stats, from Za'Darius Smith and Danielle Hunter's huge days to Patrick Peterson's good numbers to the interior offensive line issues to Kirk Cousins' short passes and break down what it means for the rest of their season. -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and it is a tuesday morning left guard with former minnesota viking jeremiah searles and jeremiah i'm gonna throw this right at you right away the other day in the post game pod paul hodowanek started his comments with how

do they keep getting away with this jesse pinkman from breaking bad that was how he started it uh and i feel like you might have some similar comments after uh watching the tape i i just as i watched the tape i was like i'm gonna say the exact same things i've said the last four or five weeks like it's it's the same thing but somehow they find a way to win at the end. And I don't necessarily know if it's, they find a way to win at the end or the other team just refuses to win at the end. You know, that's like the other team, Chicago had a great chance. Miami had, they all had these chances at the end.

And there's something to be said about players making plays and big time plays and it matters, but it just seems like our luck is we're just riding the lightning dude just riding the lightning straight to five and one i don't know how much longer that lightning lasts uh well at least a couple of more weeks although people are arguing people are saying people are that uh there are people out there that have twitter accounts that have tweeted at me those are the people um by the way those types of arguments like don't don't do that that's that's bad uh don't base it on twitter bots or whatever but no it is true that people are saying that uh taylor heineke might be more dangerous to

the vikings than carson wentz which i think just shows you where we're at right now stop no that's real but no that's yeah and it should that shouldn't be a real thing like Carson Wentz is a middling quarterback where Taylor Heineke is clearly a backup but still they're gonna face Taylor Heineke they're gonna face a Marquise Brown list Arizona Cardinals so uh can they keep getting away with this I think the answer is yes but I what I want to ask you about after we play the intro of course is uh some of the specifics of that game and whether we should like how we should interpret them basically but let's play the intro first to really get us going here what's that sound you hear coming from the trenches it's former minnesota viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles.

It's time for the Tuesday morning left guard show on Purple Insider. You're too strong, my dog. You're too strong. There we go. Banger every time. Zedarius Smith, Daniil Hunter, your thoughts? Savages. Do more of that. I mean, what was it, 11 pressures from Zedarius Smith, Daniil Hunter, your thoughts? Savages do more of that. I mean, what was it? 11 pressures from Zedarius himself. That's incredible. I mean, that's something I haven't seen done since like Chase Young at Ohio State type numbers or Aiden Hutchinson in college.

You know, that just doesn't happen in the NFL. You guys, you get a guy that can have like seven or eight, which is an outstanding game. But I think he had what two sacks and 11 pressures I mean that's an unreal stat line and against a Miami front that has been decent now granted they've had Skyler Thompson Teddy Ridgewater Tua and so the timing and everything's just an absolute dumpster fire in their backfield but overall those two guys played at a really elite level on the road you know it's one thing to, it's one thing to get that kind of performance from when you're at home and you're jumping the snap count and you're doing all those things, but to go down on the road and someone else's place where noise isn't exactly a huge factor and really just win what you and I talked about last week,

guys winning their one-on-one matchups. Like that's something that if that is sustainable, then yeah, they absolutely can keep getting away with this on defense. If you have that many quarterback pressures, but if you start playing better quarterbacks and as you watch around the league and you see quarterbacks that are identifying, they're getting put under pressure like crazy. I think about that game last night, Russell and Herbert, they weren't taking sacks because they were just blitzing like crazy and just getting the ball out. But I think that if you can rely on those dudes up front to get after the quarterback, Daniil and Desarius specifically, then it allows you to play that shell coverage

that you want in the back end and keep everything in front of you. I was thinking about this watching last night's game as well, because the health of the Miami offensive line was a major problem without Teron Armstead. I can guarantee you Zedaria Smith doesn't get 11 pressures against Armstead, even if he played very well. But those two teams have missed offensive linemen. I think what Corey Lindsley was out for the Chargers and then Garrett Bowles out for Denver. It's like in the NFL, there's kind of a solid offensive line can get you a lot of places.

Right. But if you lose one guy at a premier position, especially like left tackle, you go from being like pretty solid to just a dumpster fire. And that's exactly what happened with Miami and credit to Zedaria Smith and Daniel Hunter. They took advantage. Hunter also had six pressures, which we would have been talking about a ton had Zedaria Smith, not just rip their faces off and eaten them uh but Daniil Hunter getting it going here was something that we've been wondering kind of what's going on is he fitting in this uh defense and I'm not ready to say that it's the same and that he's fully adapted considering who he was going against and like you said Bridgewater and Thompson were holding on to the ball a lot and so forth but I think that they need that version of Daniil Hunter the rest of the year in order to slow down when they do face some better offenses, which, believe it or not, will happen.

Yeah, and I think the biggest thing is I think Daniil specifically is finally rounding back out into midseason form. You know, a guy that missed a lot of football, still finding his way, getting his rhythm, getting his timing back. You saw it all kind of come together this week in his pass rush. He was really coming off three. Usually all defenders make their moves off three or five steps. He was getting to his third step, making the inside move or getting to the fifth step and planning and making a move.

And the thing I loved is his power looked back. You know, a lot of his sacks early in his career because he was so much powerful and he was able to just long arm dudes in the chest and drive them straight back into the quarterback and then make a move late off of that. And you saw him start to get back to more of that. I'm just going to run through you, use my length, use my power and push you back and then finish at the quarterback instead of trying to do the jump out and around and the avoid stuff, which he is great at, but it's so much easier to do those other stuff of the avoid and the more finesse pass rush moves when you've established a power move against a tackle over and over throughout the game and make him start thinking that that's your number one then you jump around him where it's kind of been

flipped for him which makes sense when you're dealing with a neck injury oh yeah right and that's the thing with hunter where it's like how much should we react to the slow start uh was a question because i'm not sure that it was a perfect fit i'm still not sure it's like how much should we react to the slow start uh was a question because i'm not sure that it was a perfect fit i'm still not sure it's a perfect fit with him standing up on that wide nine type of uh you know way outside the tackle like that's a long way to go for someone who isn't the von miller quickness um but i also think that with him and irv smith who has not quite gotten it together yet either we still need to look at how much time those guys missed and consider that like you don't just pop right back

up like there's uh there's a long road back to becoming who you used to be when you go through some of these injuries and I think that like it's just so vital to them in the second half and when we talked about the bets that this team made they really made a bet at the beginning of the year that these guys would stay healthy and that they would generate the pressure by themselves and that's been a roller coaster a little bit uh but if it looks like that the second half of the season and that's the whole thing here it's like everyone knows including kevin o'connell and kurt cousins and everybody else that it can't look like this all year and have you still end up being a legitimate contender.

But if we're looking at something that would be a sign that they can improve from where they're at, I think this was it against Miami with those two guys. Yeah, I mean, and to go back to what you said, like look at Saquon Barkley. It took him a full year to get back to being an elite player. I mean, last year everyone was like, he's washed, he's washed he's done get him out I mean he's coming off an ACL I mean it takes guys a long time to get back when you're when you take a year or so off of football like it's not just the

physical side of it it's the emotional it's the timing it's the learning how to prepare every week like you kind of have to retrain everything so that's a big reason why I think those two guys Smith and Daniil like said is taking a little longer to get back to it but to go to your second point of just it can't look like this i mean part of me says i agree with you what other partners like why not both those guys have done it in their careers at a consistent level for a long time that i mean pro bowl levels multi-sac double digit sack types years so there's part of me that wants to be like maybe you can maybe these two can play at this level the entire time the rest of the year and keep going but i just think it's probably an un it's not a realistic goal but i think that

there's a slim possibility that these two guys can stay healthy and turn it on here in the last 10 weeks of the season or whatever it is here and look like that and win another eight or nine games like it's it's a very real possibility but the problem like you said one of those dudes gets hurt just one and misses three or four games you're i don't even know if you win 50 if both those guys aren't fully healthy yeah and i meant from a broader perspective like they can't get out yardage did by uh 200 yards They can't, they cannot,

they really can't. And this is, you know, sort of a thing that, you know, I've been trying to kind of tiptoe around exactly to get it, to get it right. Because I,

it's not like I don't think there are five in one team because that's their record and you are what your record says you are. But when you rank in the bottom third of the league in offensive and defensive yards, it's not exactly inspiring to what you're going to be. And I think that where this happens is with the secondary for the Vikings, because when you have performances like that on the defensive line and you still end up giving up yards like that, 300 and something yards passing to Teddy Bridgewater and a bounce interception, a fumble, but they were moving the ball and moving the ball and moving the ball. And your punter bailed you

out that if your punter wasn't a Greek God, then they probably score quite a bit more. Like the secondary issue, is it scheme? Is it the way guys are playing like one thing that really pops to me is that in Zimmer's scheme nickel corners seem to thrive and of and of course Eric Kendricks really seem to thrive in coverage but Kendricks's PFF grades and coverage are the worst they've ever been this year I don't think he's like massively changed as a player and Shannon Sullivan the nickel corner is being left on an Island too many times. And I just don't think that's really him. But I, I guess I wonder what, from you watching it back, you think is the reason why the secondary

is giving up so many, so many yards. And it's not just dink and dunk. I mean, there were a lot of big plays in that game that they gave up to Tyree kill and Jalen model. I think it's a lack of aggressiveness and I don't necessarily know if that's and I mean I obviously know it's not like by an individual player player by player because you see it kind of across the board of it's the mentality that's been instilled to them since this defense got put in of keep everything in front of you right so if you're planning on keeping everything in front of you your ability to take risks and your ability to try and bait

a receiver and a quarterback into a throw, you don't really have as much luxury that because the coaching point you do what your coach says is keep everything in front of you. So that means give good cushion, stay back, like don't let anyone run by you, nothing over your head. Well, if that's the case, then the deep in routes and the over routes in the middle are always going to be open because you don't want to get burned badly. You know, and I agree. I think the nickel corner used to be such a strength for us. You know, when you talk about guys and I just don't think Sullivan's quite there as a player to be able to say, hey, you're one on one run around with this dude who's in the slot. And they might move good guys who are really fast, shifty or lanky or whatever they are.

Like that's a matchup as an offensive guy that I would look at and be like, let's that on the spikings defense right like attack Sullivan attack the nickel corner let's stay away from Patrick Peterson let's stay away from Cam Dantzler and keep it in the middle of the field because Harry's playing 20 yards off the ball you know like that's kind of the weak spot and so I think overall it's just a lack of aggressiveness versus Zimmer's defense was ball in the air is ball mine you know that you heard him talk about that all the time like if the ball's in the air is ball mine. You heard him talk about that all the time. If the ball's in the air, it's the DB's job to go up and make it his versus I think ball's in the air here, it's tackle first, make sure the guy gets on the ground instead of going after him, just getting after and getting really aggressive after the football.

Yeah, and I totally get that, but we don't have to play what does that stat mean with the fact that the Vikings are giving up first downs on almost 40% of past plays, which is the third worst in the NFL. I mean, and if you were trying to keep everything in front of you, well, that's a really hard task against Tyree kill who can just run by you like that

pivot step thing that he does, where he catches the ball slams on the brakes, pivots backward, and then runs by you is bananas. But you also know who you're facing there. And I get it. Like you're facing there and i get it like you're not giving up bombs and they haven't given up too many of those at the same time they're giving up lots of yards after catch and and to me if you're giving up a 17 yard pass or a 26 yard

pass like those are pretty impressive plays that a lot of times if you're giving them up uh they're going to result in teams finishing those drives and scoring touchdowns, which it did for the Dolphins late in the game, and they had a chance to go win it if Jalen Waddell doesn't fumble. And for me, that requires, I think, an adjustment at the bye week where they have to change the way they're asking guys to play because they just cannot be so terrified of giving up a shot here that you'd almost rather give up every once

in a while a deep shot than 15 yards over and over and over and over again which they have well you know i hope that and again i hope they go on the bi-week and they have the same confidence level you and i have in desirous and daniel going okay the our pass rushers have figured it out like our pass rushers are starting to click, put it together. That means we can be more aggressive with our DBs now. You know, I think a lot of it was, I mean, we watched Justin Fields, who I've watched Chicago on primetime now twice and makes me want to bleed just straight out of my eyeballs. But every time I watch them, Fields is running for his life.

The dude is running for, he just can't get set in the pocket. And I mean, halftime of the other night, he was walking to the locker room and it looked like he was just like kill me kill me because like he was just getting like he just looked in so much pain but then i remember watching the vikings game and he looked like he had all the time in the world back there and he was just picking apart a defense he looked like so i mean i think that part of the reason too that we haven't been so aggressive with our dbs is because we're worried about the time in the pocket. So if we can take a combination of the stuff that you and I just talked about, which is the pass

rushers figuring it out and having more trust in the DBs, like that's the combination of like, all right, they're getting there. So that means balls coming out quicker. So that means get up and press these dudes, stay in their hip pocket. Hey, if you see the sand, Harry, jump it, have the confidence and the trust to tell a guy like that, hey, do you, go make a play. Instead of saying, hey, no, stay back here, stay the wall, like stay the picket fence, whatever it might be, that shell coverage that Troy Aikman loves to draw on the freaking yellows.

All that stuff, be more aggressive, but it all is a combination of complementary football on the defensive side of the pass rush and the coverage melding into one. Can we just stop for a second and appreciate the uh aging patrick peterson and how well he's played so far this year here's another what does this that mean he has allowed only 50 completion percentage into his coverage 14 for 28 so far this year and the irony is that Patrick Peterson does not really like the PFF target numbers and I get why because sometimes it's just closest man and that might not have been your fault and there's always going to be flaws but his have been really good in the last

two years and he he complains about them uh but uh 55 quarterback rating on throws into Patrick Peterson's coverage I mean I think what we're seeing here is a Hall of Fame player who has adjusted his game as he's gone along in his career and is really comfortable with how they're playing and can see things happen in front of him and react to them as opposed to maybe having to play tight man coverage all the time like Zimmer wanted him to, though he was good last year. But, I mean, I just think from a football-y football perspective, play tight man coverage all the time like Zimmer wanted him to though he was good last year but I

mean I just think from a footbally football perspective a hall of famer shows up on your team you're like okay cool I guess but he might be washed and he is not I mean he has turned out to be like the bets that they made with some of the old players that may not have been high percentage bets with Zedarius Smith and with Patrick Peterson so far have really paid dividends. And I'll be the first one to eat crow on that one. I mean, last year I was, I was not a huge fan of Peterson. Like I know his numbers were good, but there was times last year I felt like he was kind of shown like he's lost a step or he's then I'll be the first one to say on the show. I've said that. And so I'll leave my words on that. He's playing in a very, very high level.

And when you play in a league like this, that you're the receivers are becoming more and more of the dominant focal point and pass interferences are becoming more and more ticky tacky and all the stuff inside like it's really hard for corners to stay elite and play at that top level and you're right the great ones adjust you know the the ones that are too prideful to change or the ones that have too many issues and say it's not my fault or whatever like those guys really struggle but the great ones adjust and he's adjusted beautifully in 2022 folks those who know me well are aware that i'm not a big drinker but when my neighbors recently dropped by they were surprised to see a bunch of tall boy cans laying around no i didn't change my life choices those cans were liquid death water in particular particular, I've become a big

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let's switch over to the offensive side you should have seen kevin o'connell's face when i told them that kirk cousins was second lowest in average depth of target in the entire national football league in fact i can call this up it's kind of it's kind of wild actually uh because when you look at the other quarterbacks that are also there and boy has it been a year for quarterbacks um but you're talking about daniel jones matt ryan stodd baker mayfield like uh not every you know not everybody is bad but i mean even the way stafford is played he's one of the lowest in average depth of target because he can't push the ball down the field with his broken elbow or whatever um but i think

i i didn't go back and analyze the tape of o'connell's face but just that uh the impression i got was that he didn't know that's that or was maybe a little like yeah yeah that's great that's great to hear um why is that why is that i i went i did an article looking for explanations and o'connell said in his answer yeah that's what i'm going to be looking at for sure kirk cousins threw one pass that traveled over 20 yards against the miami dolphins one and his percentage of passes that are going beyond 20 yards is half what it was in 2019 i mean he's uh one of the lowest in the league i think it's also second in the league in 20 plus yard passes down the field uh what what is what is

happening there i think it's a combination of last year we relied a ton on the play action boot deep shot you know that was a big part of the offense i mean and that's where a lot of those big highlight plays came versus this year it is more of the quick passing game and getting the ball out uh but you know it's one of those things that if that becomes your identity then teams don't respect the deep ball and then it becomes really hard to run the football which we've seen you know Dalvin had that great run but overall the running game hasn't been something that everyone's been like woohoo I mean we're paying this running back a absolute bleep ton of money and it's just not awesome you

know he sheds his moments but when you don't have any threat of down the field and defenses every week, pull up the defensive game plan on a Tuesday to play the Vikings. And they look at that side, go, they don't they don't throw the ball down the field. Let's leave the safety in the box. Right. Like until we prove that we can stretch a defense out like that on a consistent basis, the running game is going to be the thing that suffers. And so I think that that's an all encompassing thing as to why is it's scheme, it's protection, it's what's working right now. And also it's kind of like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. We're five and one, right? Like until something rears its ugly head as to like, this is the reason we lost, or this is the reason we're losing. It's human nature to not really want

to change everything that's going on because it seems like it's being okay right now. Doesn't it feel like though, with the passing game, the wheel is going like kind of – It's got the high-speed wobble as you go down the hill. You know, it starts to high-speed wobble, and you're like seconds away from death or catching it. Yeah, we're riding that wave. It is really fascinating, though,

how different Cousins statistics look from last year, and it's a long season season and this could certainly change, but I think it's requiring a really close look. I mean, you can't punt 10 times a game. Like that's just as simple as that. You cannot have nine, three and outs in your first 11 drives.

Like that's not going to work very well last year though. Kirk cousins was eighth in terms of the percentage of his passes that went 20 plus. So he was one of the more premier deep passers in the league. And this year he's not even close to that. He was also graded by PFF as the fourth best at throwing the ball down the field. And that that is just not who they have been so far. And I guess I wonder if teams are sort of daring them to do this or if cousins, because you did see a,

a pretty heated conversation with cousins and O'Connell. If the whole thing about training camp is always, we can kind of spot some of the things that might be problematic down the road. And there was a lot of confusion, a lot of things that cousins didn't seem super comfortable with and i i just think we've seen that like throughout the first half of the season that there's just a lot of times where he's ripping the helmet off or he's going to right over to o'connell or whatever

and and i think that it's really on o'connell to adapt what he's doing here i think he's tried with some of the bootlegs and the under center stuff but I think that there's just some things about this offense that Cousins does not seem to feel very comfortable with when you think back to when they played the Saints you know and then he misses those two wide open touchdown passes you know how much is O'Connell tried to dial it back so that those would have been 20 yard down the field touchdown passes you know and it's like okay Kirk is missing those or he's not seeing those. So it might be this thing where O'Connell's trying to, like, dumb it down a little bit, but Kirk almost feels like now it's too dumb.

You know, like, it's like they're trying to find a way to live together in coercion with everything that's going on, but it just seems like there are different pages at times. You know, and that's something that's hard to do. The great news is it hasn't cost them games yet. It cost them one, but, you know, that's the kind of stuff that you see can cost you complete games that's the stuff that you can see lead to huge rifts between quarterbacks and ocs and head coaches and i mean all that and i mean we all know that kirk and has his has his ups and downs right but right now with the way that kirk is playing i feel like with a bye week it's the time to really kind

of open it up and allow him to give enough rope to run or hang himself with. You know, I think now's the time for that with the bye week. And I think that more than anything, they need to talk to each other about this. Like, yes, it's very hard to do when you're traveling to London, coming back, playing a game, heading down to Miami and so forth. But I think this would be the time to have a, like go through with a fine tooth comb and look at everything that's worked and everything that hasn't and ask why it has or why it hasn't. I mean, when you look at the tape,

now I haven't looked at the Miami tape yet to see how many receivers were running open, but throughout the season, I've noticed that there are a lot of open opportunities. And that's when you see O'Connell kind of throwing his hands up or receivers looking around or whatever. It's like another thing that you just can't have happen through the rest of the season to be a real contender. If you have some of this confusion, but that's what, what five and one buys you is you can be like, well, all right, it's a thing we've got to fix and improve on. But if you were three and three, you would feel like the world was kind of ending after that game.

Like if they lose and three and three, you'd be like, this is a catastrophe. Yeah. Ask the Packers. Right. Right. The Packers are in the exact same. The Bengals are in the exact same situation, right? They had bounces at the end of the game that went the wrong way for them and that's how they lost three games i mean everyone in the league is winning these games right at the end and so that's why i have to give the vikings a ton of credit like the players are making plays at the end when it matters but then the difference is are we part of that group that's just getting lucky at the end or are we part of that group

that's the contenders that are winning football games from start to finish? And you're right. It buys you that we're here. And I think the other piece of that is, you know, if there's guys running open and there's plays, like it's not like we don't have the talent. You know, some of these teams just don't have the talent to win. Like I look at a team like Denver and they have the talent to win,

but there's, I mean, there's not guys running open. There's not people that Russell's just missing, in my opinion, you know my opinion you know and so that's where like this is not getting fixed anytime soon versus you look on the Vikings it's like they played well enough to win but there's also so much more left on the table for them that the field is just I mean they're leaving points on the field offensively to where that's the stuff where it's like it's going to get fixed because eventually it's just going to be too wide open. They're going to see it too many times. And so that's where I think I give us the edge of like we're right in the high end of that middle of the pack of the NFL.

You know, there's the low end where it's like, all right, better luck next year. You know, and then there's the elites where it's like, okay, you'll probably win your division and go to the playoffs. And then there's this mid group. And I think the Vikings are at the top of that mid group that are really going to make a push to win the division and have a chance in the playoffs and as of right now football outsiders has them as having the fourth highest odds to make the playoffs of any team in the nfl uh so it's like the the path has been cleared for you but i think that it's also fair to start raising the bar

for this team instead of saying like oh well just get back to the playoffs and make everyone not feel horrible about everything and vibes and whatever well i think that's off the table and when we talk about it i think it has to be more harsh in a way because you have raised the bar for yourself by starting five and one so now it's like okay you're a good you're a good team and you're in that pack now prove that you're for real for real um i don't think anyone expects them to be quite as good as someone like buffalo but i think you do expect them to play on the same level as of as a philadelphia or as a dallas like get up into that conversation with those best teams uh in order to do that though jeremiah they cannot have interior offensive linemen

with the following pass blocking grades. Uh-oh. 45.0 out of 100, 36.5, and 20.4. That's disgusting. That's three guys, all bad. I don't even think if you add all three of those it's equal to 100. Let me see, yeah.

What is it? So it's 30, 60, no, I don't even think if you add all three of those, it's equal 100. Let me see. Yeah. What is it? So it's 30, 60. No, I don't think. 45, yeah. Yeah. Is it close? Is it close? I think it's close.

Yeah. That's close. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing is you have three guys that are playing like one. Can't do that. You know, and we talked about it. That is always in. It has been the question mark of this offensive line is Garrett Bradbury can he continue on the pace that he was playing at or was it eventually going to be like

oh there he is you know the good news is our tackles are still playing really well um but you know you're going to take your lumps with rookie O-lineman um with Ed Ingram you know I think that I praised him a lot early in the season and rightfully so he earned that but it just comes with being a young player at any level college as a freshman rookie in the NFL like you're gonna take your lumps you're gonna run into players that are grown men and Christian Wilkins is a very good football player in the NFL and he kind of took his turn going up and down the interior of the line of who he wanted to beat at that point in time um you know but overall those guys have to play better in order to win and we talk about the struggles in the run game.

Those three guys not playing well is another reason why it's not been able to just open up and crease and go. And not just a loaded box, but just not be able to move the downs and the double teams and the fits weren't great. I think ID purposes, I think everyone looked like we were ID'd okay. I didn't see any free runners or guys not getting blocked. It's just a matter of physically getting the guys blocked and using the technique that they're being taught. Cause I know Chris Cooper does a great job with his technique. They it's so funny about how like small sample sizes can impact how we feel

about a team or statistics or whatever. And even single seasons can be this. So of course a few games, but you know, people were asking me like, Hey, you know, Garrett Bradbury's like in the

top 10 in PFF pass blocking grade what's going on there that game sunk him to 19th place oh my yeah he went from in the top 10 to 19th place and still overall he's more toward the middle but I think with that and uh just ahead of him I'm not, are Pat Elfline and Mason Cole. You're lying. Yeah, but I do think that it sort of says something about how much competition on a week-to-week basis really determines some of this stuff because when they were facing Christian Wilkins, that dude is a monster, and I would put him among the top category of grown men who have thrown the

vikings interior offensive line around but i think it always starts there it always starts there with with cousins with the running game if the running game isn't working which it truly was not for 98 percent of that day uh that it's it's just no matter who you are as kevin o'connell no matter who you have around him the the receivers, whatever else, it's always going to be the kryptonite. And I don't know what the solution is because I don't think you can expect a rookie right guard to be way better than he's been so far throughout his first season.

I don't expect Bradbury to be completely different when he faces elite competition. And Ezra Cleveland is just going to be the best guard or the worst guard in the league from week to week it's remarkable when you look at his grades it's like a 88 pass pocket grade and then a 45 like uh what happened you don't like the heat like i don't know yeah i mean consistency is the number one thing you look for out in an offensive line can you do it week in and week out which is what's so impressive about what darryl saw no neil do week in and week out and the greats do week in and week out and i think that you just look to

build that more and more and you're right garrett's going to be who he is you don't change you don't change yourself completely in year five is this year five for him right four four year four right you don't change yourself completely in year four you can absolutely continue to grow and get better and i do think he's taken strides to being a better player this year. But again, a lot of it's that we're not under center as much. So that pressure numbers out there, but when you can't run the football and you allow guys to just continue to pin their ears back and rush the passer, there's a combination of guys are getting pressure. And there's another reason why we're short yardage, short yardage on our passing. If you got guys in your face,

you get rid of the football faster. Folks folks i know you've heard me talk about soda stick for a long time now but i'm telling you you have to start following them on social media for new fresh gear they are releasing all the time of course they have the classics like the moss moon design and the metrodome shirts and hoodies but as the local teams go along in their seasons soda stick is constantly putting out new stuff whether it's the new horn state gear or the vikadantis rex shirts lots and lots more from all the minnesota clubs go to sodastick.com and follow them at sodastick on twitter that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com on twitter and use the code purple insider to get 15 off your purchase um he went from solid to second most pressures allowed in the league at center how

many pressures did he give up uh well he's at he's at 12 right now normally centers don't have super high pressure right that's why i was like what was he at before the game how many does it say how many gave up last uh yeah i could pull that up i could pull that up i'd be curious because i mean if we're gonna if we're gonna bang on the miami defensive line offensive line for giving up 11 pressures to one guy i feel like to that far, he probably had to give up at least five or six. Yeah, he gave up four. Yeah, that's a lot for a center. Four pressures, to put in perspective,

four pressures for a center is a lot in a game. We were talking about how Daniil Hunter had six as a D-end as an elite number. If you're a defensive tackle rushing over a center, getting six or getting four, that is a very, very high number. You know how many jason kelsey's given up all year zero three three so so bradberry gave up more pressures in one game

than kelsey did and that's and that's always been i think that's always been the thing with bradberry where it's like it's not terrible every week but when it's a mismatch that's where it gets problematic and i don't think that there's any changing that at this point. It's something that everyone who's coached him and this recent team has had to deal with. And I don't think it's disappeared because he got off to a halfway decent start. Now, let me ask you about the Packers real quick. What's up with that? I mean, what's, what's,

what's your answer for what has happened there does it have to do with some sort of uh psychedelic tea or uh have you tried that stuff i don't know i don't know i've heard it's all the rage up there in green bay uh i think the biggest thing is just the absence of davante adams and i mean that in no one obviously no offense is built around one player but when you had a guy in a security blanket that – Rodgers has been known that when he finds a receiver he trusts, he's just going to plug him. And you saw it in the back half of that game.

After Lazard caught that touchdown, he just started like, where's he at? And he just pinged it, Lazard, Lazard, Lazard. He just doesn't have that in a consistently high-level receiver. Lazard is not Devontae Adams. Now, the run game i think has been better with aaron jones and stuff but i just i don't know what's going on it just seems like rogers is just at a loss for his weapons and it's always been that rogers been able to overcome it right it

was like he has no one to throw to and then he figures it out i think it's finally caught up where he just doesn't have enough weapons and the o-line is beat up enough i mean it helps having batyari back but the o-line is not where he can stand back there and jerk the ball off, jerk the ball off, jerk the ball off, and then throw it around. That's just not what he can do this year, which is making him really struggle. The not-safe-for-work elements of everything you just said.

Jerk the ball off? The quarterbacks jerk the ball back off all the time. It's what the O-linemen call it when they hold onto the ball. Jerking the ball off that's it the quarterbacks jerk the ball back off all the time it's what the old linemen call it when they hold on to the ball just jerking the ball off back there and that's not nsfw boys nsfw yeah yeah definitely uh not not safe for work i'm glad you at least explained that this is some sort of football term but uh it is 100 of football term ask any old linemen because if you're back there as a quarterback doing what you're doing it's not a fun time for us um it is interesting though that all of a sudden now rogers is making it known that he doesn't want as many motions and things going on uh publicly now i think there's really something to this because we love priest that motion but i also think this

happened with d filippo and it might be happening with kevin o'connell where big offensive smooth brains they start to be like oh i know all the secrets i know all the things but at the same time the more you put on everyone's plate the more there's a chance someone gets confused by something and if you have a bunch of rookie receivers with aaron rogers and you're saying motion adjust do that like receiver's a complicated position i i do think there's something to what he's saying and i also think the vikings need to think about it as well how much are you asking everybody to understand before the snap because if it's too much then you get throws to nobody which we've seen a lot of times with the vik Vikings and a lot of times in Green Bay yeah you can out think yourself you know and especially in Green Bay I think Green Bay more I think the receiving core in Minnesota is a little more seasoned than Green Bay's but I mean you talk about rookie receivers I mean and Aaron's been no secret since

training camp he hasn't been a fan of some of these young receivers and then Christian Watson who they draft in the second round on North Dakota State, blows a hammy. And so now your speedster to blow off the top is gone. And now you're talking about throwing balls to Samari Touré, who is an undrafted kid out in Nebraska. And I mean, it's Robert Tundin and Alan Lazard. Other than that, like he doesn't trust anyone else to throw the football to. And that's a big problem when you have a team that is built around him

just spreading it all over the yard. And they don't have an elite offensive line. They have an okay offensive line with some serious weaknesses. But you know, he can't sit back there all day and wait for one of those two or three guys to get open. He kind of has to make quicker reads, which has never really been his thing.

No, like it's, it's amazing how even the greatest quarterbacks sometimes have like a little bit of a weakness. And I always thought that one of the reasons why zimmer got after rogers pretty well is because he would force him to speed up a little and that's not what he wants to do he wants to roam back there and look around and wait for his guy to get open and it's just not happening this year i i don't know that that's going to improve a ton but i think it's the biggest challenge matt lafleur has ever faced is that now rogers has publicly told everyone he doesn't like something you're

doing like now now what do you do do you do what he says and look like he's running the franchise or do you say no aaron we're going to keep doing my motions and then he's mad at you like yeah aaron runs that program let no one fool you aaron rogers has complete control of that offense just like tom brady had complete control of the offense in new england like if you don't like something you probably come out and say it but also it takes it so that if they keep doing it rogers has now washed his hands of the problem right like everyone wants to be like oh it's rogers fault it's rogers fault he basically was like we don't like this this is the problem if we keep doing it not my fault i'm still the greatest i still can do like he's he's cya'd himself

but if they stop doing the motions and it's still a problem then it's cya on um the floor side so it's kind of like who's willing to throw themselves out there on the sword here or who's willing to try and make the other one prove that they're wrong. Do I want to ask what CYA is? Cover your ass. Oh, okay. All right. Trying to be NSFW. Yeah, I think that one's okay. There have been bleeps in the past.

I don't know. That's fair. I get excited. Two quick things. First, how many wins do the Vikings end up with? What's your pick now? I think I said nine originally i'm gonna go with i'm gonna go with 11 i think 11 is i think i think i'm ready i think 11 is where i'm at i

think 11 is is a very doable number with the schedule that we have yeah i picked 10 initially but i think now is time to bump it up by one i'm not gonna bump it up farther than that until they prove it at least play with buffalo play with d Dallas you know those kind of things we'll see on that uh love to see it hate to see it do you want to start you got something oh yeah love to see it as I don't have to watch the Denver Broncos on primetime again the rest of the season because my gosh that team sucks they are so bad and just a terrible football team like there's just all around I mean I wanted that game was like both these teams a deserve to tie but mostly the Broncos I mean mostly the Broncos it's like oh they got it three and out three and out three and out like Russell

Wilson 10 of 10 to start the game everyone's like he's back Russell's dealing three of like 12 to finish the game or whatever it was just absolute atrocities in denver right now i believe he threw 12 passes and gained 15 yards in the second half so and you saw the receivers talking on the sideline too it's like oh oh is there trouble in paradise are we not riding anymore hey broncos nation are we not are we not riding anymore because it doesn't seem like people are real happy at the altitude i have a question for you yes so before the game russell wilson tweets out a picture of himself just clearly taken by someone else and then ends up coming off of his twitter account just like okay so contrived right it's like russ looking intense walking into the stadium but it's just so so contrived which is everything

that's that's Russell Wilson right how much does that matter to dudes in a locker room if someone I don't want to say phony because I don't know the guy but I just know that his his persona is it's very easy to sort of spot that it's not really real it's like something he's trying to invent uh how much does that matter to everybody you know it it doesn't matter a ton of the locker room because guys like that i mean russell and josh and patrick they don't run their own accounts they don't like they have someone else that runs all of that half the time they don't even know what's going out that's what they pace i don't i don't mean the twitter though i mean like the actual let's ride and all that genuine. Being genuine.

There's something about it if it is genuine. I'd never played with him. I don't really know anyone that's played with him. I really want to get a client on the Broncos and just be like, so who really is Russell Wilson? Did you see the Marshawn thing? I did not. Marshawn Lynch said that if he wants to talk to Russell Wilson,

he has to go through his manager. He doesn't have, he does not have Russell Wilson's number. My mind was blown. I did not. Okay. That changes everything. You can't be that guy.

Nope. You can't be, especially making as much money as you do. Like you gotta be, you gotta be there for your dudes. Not just when the cameras are on. Cause, cause Richard Sherman made a comment.

It was on Richard Sherman's podcast and he made a comment kind of like well you know because Marshawn said I really want to talk to him and so Richard Sherman says why don't you go through his manager and Marshawn said if I don't have your number myself I'm not messing with you and uh it was just like, what? I mean, that's tough, though. If you are so I'm on a different level, I'm the rock star, and you guys all just exist around me, I think that is something that's tough for everybody to deal with. I mean, you saw it was, in my opinion, it was the demise of Kaepernick.

Besides the after, I'm talking about after, I mean, before he was kicked off the field for being terrible at football and then he, the kneeling thing, like that's beside the point, but I had no guys and, and Booney being one of them that after the, he came super and signed the fat deal and took him to super, like he just changed who he was as a person. And he lost the entire football team, you know, and when you're the leader in the quarterback, you can't, you can't lose the entire football team or let alone your offensive line or just the offense in general um things go south in a hurry i mean celebrity and money power uh and all that sort of stuff um is not for

everybody i'm gonna go i love to see it new york jets good for you new york jets i mean three they have just been such flaming garbage for so long and Zach Wilson didn't even play well in this game the other day but Robert Sala I thought was a great head coaching candidate when he's in San Francisco he goes there immediately he's got to play a rookie quarterback there's so many things going wrong but now their defense is on point and Wilson is starting to show some signs. They could be a really good team going forward. And you just like teams that have been down for this long, the Giants, too. And you love to see when they get a good coach who seems to know what he's doing.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is you're starting to see these coaches that were specific, right? Like Saul is a defensive guy and Quinn Williams is excelling that versus Dables, an offensive guy and Saquon and Daniel Jones. Like the mastermind coaches that make the head, the jump to head coaches are great. So, no, I agree with you. I think the Jets are really fun to watch. And it was wild to me. I was like, if the Bills lost to Kansas City, like the Jets were supposed to be in like first place in the NFC. I was like, oh, my gosh. And what world do we live in that the Jets are in first place and the Packers are three and three? No, it's just it's a wild world in like first place in the entities i was like oh my gosh and what world do we live in that the jets are in first place and the packers are three and three you know it's just it's a wild world in which we live in um my hate to see it uh is gonna have to be that i can't just re-watch alabama and tennessee over and over and over again because my gosh what a fun football game that was

to watch i'm just gonna say love to see a college football this year. It's just been unbelievable. My wife was calling TCU and their game, and that came down to the very final moments. And I think it was overtime in that game. And then so that was happening. And Bama, Tennessee is happening. It seems like every week that there has just been so many crazy,

exciting games. And a lot of times with college football, my criticism is, yeah, the games are close, but they're kind of garbage. But I don't think that's been the case this year. I think there's a lot of great quarterbacks. There's a lot of players who maybe stayed in college still who might be on their sixth year, like the Tennessee quarterback who's older than I am. Yeah.

You know, you know, it'd be great. He's the only college quarterback where we could actually talk about like Vinny test the birdies or T Martin would be like, remember T Martin to throw into peerless price. Me too. Dude, that's how I'm recruiting a kid from BYU. The Mormons out there.

He did his mission trip. He graduated high school in 2015. I was like, Oh, how old are you? I was like, I graduated in oh nine. I was like,

I'm only six years older than you. This is a little strange. But no, yeah, college football has been fantastic this year. And I'll say this. I'm a big fan of I love the NFL with the Polish Project that it is. But there's something about watching a college football game that comes down to the wire. And those stadiums are just so much more intense and so much more exciting. Like a great college football atmosphere is one that you just cannot beat.

Did you donate to Tennessee to help them replace their goalposts no i did not but i know that the guy that i i feel for is that poor turf manager because that field has just got to be trash because that's a grass field like that dude's out there with a fine just just trying to lift every blade of grass up today just like please, please come back. Maybe it's, maybe it's like the field in England where they just motored out one field and brought in the other one. We can't, we can't afford,

but them not being able to afford goalposts is hilarious. It's just like, I don't know how much you pay your head coach. How many hundred thousand people were there at how much a ticket the other day. So how many donations did you get from, you know, people after that one? yeah anyway they did get the people to pay for their 150 000 goalposts yeah

that you hate to see you hate to see people being asked to pay for a goalpost after beating alabama for the first time in however many years well uh this is fun as always and um you know we'll actually just sit and watch stress-free football this week but don't look at the schedule anybody do not it's horrible there's like two games worth watching on the entire schedule next week tough year for the nfl but uh not a tough year for the show great job jeremiah and uh we'll talk again soon man absolutely see you next week