Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What we learned about the Vikings from the Super Bowl

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Matthew Coller hosts a round table with Manny Hill and Brian Murphy discussing how the Eagles won the Super Bowl and what the Vikings takeaways should be. Plus we preview what's next for the Vikings and look at other things we learned from 2024 NFL season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and it is once again roundtable time with Manny Hill and Brian Murphy and fellas. The National Football League season has come to an end, and what a horrendous and boring and shameful display of football that we were all subjected to on super bowl sunday guys i cannot express how deeply disappointed i was in every moment of that

football game however we now have a complete 2024 which means we can look at it in its entirety and we can move on officially to the nfl off season which i hope provides a hell of a lot more entertainment than quarters one through four of the super bowl so let's get your reactions to that first and then we'll talk about what we think the vikings should learn from the super bowl which i think we're all going to be maybe on the same page with. And then I want to talk about looking back at 2024 and what we will take away from it, what we learned from it. We talked about last week, what we'll remember from it. I want to talk about what we learned from it. So Manny, let's begin with you, your reaction to the Super Bowl. Yeah. Cue the Jim Moraora rant if you're a Chiefs fan, right? Just any Jim Mora rant.

Whether it's Diddley Poo or playoffs or whichever one. Yeah, that was bad. 34-0 at one point. Patrick Mahomes getting some Kirk Cousins statistics there in the fourth quarter, picking up a couple of touchdown passes and all of that stuff it was it was bad and I was very let down I was already

sort of let down because it was a matchup you know we talked about this kind of not really being the matchup that I think a lot of people wanted to see because I think people are kind of bored with the Chiefs and you know maybe if you're a Vikingsikings fan you're really tired of the eagles and all of that but to have this game go the way it did on top of that it's just sort of like the double whammy it's like this isn't even really the matchup that i wanted and then we get a blowout like come on that's not fun um i was at least hoping that the game would be close and competitive and an epic type of finish kind of like what last year's was with the chiefs and niners um but we didn't get that we got the eagles being clearly the better football team top to bottom um and they showed it and hats off to

howie roseman man like what an executive that team that he put together this year, especially just really, really impressive. And the Eagles showed it last night. Well, I, I have a message also for the quarterbacks who got sacked a bunch of times in the playoffs and struggled is it happens to a lot of guys and it's certainly happened to Patrick Mahomes and there will never be an answer for a defensive line being as dominant as it was but Murph I totally agree with Manny that we were struggling the last two weeks to muster any sort of conversation about the Super Bowl we were sitting here being like does anybody want to have the legacy talk no does anybody want to

talk three feet you kind of did you're like maybe yeah I'll talk three Pete? You kind of did. You were like, maybe, yeah, I'll talk three Pete. And then there was no point whatsoever of this, uh, of even watching past about the, uh, the second quarter. So, uh, how disappointed were you after thinking that they did have this exciting historic thing on the table and that just went poof. Well, it doesn't necessarily diminish how I feel about the chiefs per se. I mean, yes, they had the opportunity to become legends and do something no other team has done. It doesn't erase what their success has been, but it does demonstrate how utterly dominant Philadelphia really,

really was. And I think we had been, you know, with the chiefs that had sort of been a, when are they going to wake up? When are they going to get their act together? Oh, by the way, they just won 15 games. They have Arrowhead, and they do what they do. Until they finally ran into a team that was able to exploit all of those weaknesses. And as I was thinking of the matchup last week, you know,

we were trying to play, you know, the hero, villain, good guy, bad guy, good cop, bad cop. You know, who are you rooting for? Who do you hate? It was hard to even gin up a lot of that. But what I was kind of looking forward to was I thought, well, we may not have the personalities and the exact teams that we want. We may be tired of looking at these two franchises having so much success, but at least the matchup seemed pretty even and toward the, you know, it fed that whole, well, you may not like this game, but it may be a hell of a game. I mean, I thought it was going to be a little bit tighter

as a defensive struggle, which was blown out of the water very quickly. But what I think it really is, and it pains me to say this because I just don't have a lot of affinity for any kind of Philly fans or Eagles fans in particular, but you can't deny the top-to-bottom job that the front office, the coaching staff, and just that defense in general, what they were able to do in Vic Fangio all throughout the season, they really were dominant. And there was a few side shows with Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown

and Nick Ceriani kind of having an emergency crisis meeting and chirping at the fans and their 2-2 at the bye. Just a little bit of a Tempest, nothing, nothing to see there because this, this team was no doubt the best team in the NFL from November 1st on and proved it every week. I think, you know, the only game they lost was when Hertz was hurt and, and concussed. And Jane Daniels, you know, had another epic comeback. Besides that, I mean, you're looking at a really hell of a run to finish a season. So as disappointed as I am in how the

outcome turned out, I think it does. And Kyle, you wrote about this today. We can get into a lot of it. It really does. You know, the Super Bowl champs usually set a template. It's a copycat league. But I think there's a, and I don't know if there's a template for replicating what the Eagles do, because you don't just draft, develop, and put together defensive fronts that can terrorize, you know, three-time Super Bowl MVP quarterbacks the way the Eagles did. The Vikings have money to spend. I don't think there's any doubt this Super Bowl and this season was won at the line of scrimmage. It sounds old school, but the best rushing team

with the best defensive and offensive lines walked away with 18 victories this year in the Lombardi Trophy. It's so funny because we always want to make so much, as you were talking about about out of, well, what can we take into the off season from the geniuses? Remember when the Eagles won the first time, everybody started going for fourth downs after that. They also tried RPOs that don't work that great in the NFL all the time for a lot of teams, but they won with RPOs. So now we're going to do that. And we're going to

do the formations they did. And it's, you know, that is the copycat league, but also the formula for winning the super bowl always in forever is to have the best team in the NFL. And we make it about a lot of other things. That is the most blatantly obvious captain, obvious thing you could ever say. But also even with missing Jalen hurts at the end of the season, the Philadelphia Eagles still finished seventh in scoring and they finished second in defense. And they were one of the best in terms of point differential. There was one team that could have beat the, Oh my gosh, Murphy. Just whack that lap.

There was one team that could have taken on the Eagles and that was the Detroit Lions and they lost all their players and that's the other fundamental truth to winning the Super Bowl which is you have to have the best team and the best team has to be healthy because I think toe-to-toe Aiden Hutchinson that whole d-line Carlton Davis a healthy defense for the lions could have matched up with Philadelphia, but they were really the only ones and they have the strongest overall rosters. And that's what got them there.

And another thing I wanted to say is a big takeaway from this to me is that I think the discussion of the O line and Dline is where I started last night. I spent a half an hour ranting about it's finally time. Kwesi, get me a guard. Get me a DT. I was that lunatic right after the Super Bowl. But I do want to make the point that Philadelphia wasn't a great team without Jalen Hurts. When he got hurt and they had to play Kenny Pickett they weren't very good or Tanner McKee or whoever else had to come off the bench they Jalen Hurts does not get any credit for this because the defense played so well but this game could have been much tighter had he not flown up and down the field by throwing the football. And this whole thing was, well, if you make him one dimensional, he just throws the ball.

Well, then the Eagles are going to fall apart. It's all about Saquon. It was hardly about Saquon. And I would like to see people talk about Jalen Hurts as one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL this year. I was looking back at the athletics rankings for the tiers, which comes from the NFL and executives and coaches. And they had Jalen hurts, I think four or five spots behind Aaron Rogers and right in the same range as Kirk cousins. Like, you know, I think that we cannot

let it get lost. How special he is throwing the football down the field, running the football, which has to be vital for the Vikings in the future with their quarterback. He's a special runner, the tush push, everybody else tries it, but Jalen hurts squats like 7,000 pounds. So he's always able to get it. And when he had to scramble, he made plays. He made good decisions. Even the interception was an arm punt. It wasn't that big of a deal. He played awesome football and they did pay him by the way, and still found a way to build this team, but they did that mostly through the draft. So I just wanted to kind of like all the narrative is about how they played on defense. That is totally deserved.

And Vic Fangio proves it's about the roster and not the system. Cause Ed Donatell tried the same system here and it completely failed so may ed was somewhere sipping a diet dr pepper going oh yeah oh i might have been sipping something stronger who knows uh is there anything stronger for football than diet dr pepper please sponsor my show so anyway anyway, uh, Manny, I just thought, uh, if we're looking for takeaways that weren't the truly obvious that that one seems to be overlooked, even though Jalen Hertz did win the MVP of this game. Look guys, I am just about at the age where I'm starting to notice that hairline fading a little bit. So if you're struggling with the same problem, allow me to make a suggestion. Give him a try, try Try HIMS Hair Loss Solutions and you'll be

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details and important safety information. Yeah. I tweeted out, uh, when they, when the NFL Twitter account tweeted out that Jalen Hurts was the Superbowl MVP, I tweeted out when the NFL Twitter account tweeted out that Jalen Hurts was the Super Bowl MVP. I quote tweeted it and said, I guess should have been a running back. I guess like everybody initially thought and asked him in the draft process way back when. Yeah, I mean, he has been this good for a few years now Jalen Hurts you know I mean I think

the the biggest thing is you know because he is an exceptional running quarterback as well I think the the overall view of him sometimes is that it's because it's not the traditional sit in the pocket you know go through progressions and deliver the football down the field all the time because he can actually tuck it and run it's not the type of quarterback that a lot of people like to see for whatever reason um but you know i think this goes into i know we're going to talk about the things that we learned in the 2024 season he's jaylen hurts really represents a a direction that this league is going that it has been going for a number of years now but it's really solidified that running quarterbacks are are the way to go and not just saying quarterbacks that only run and can't deliver the football down the field quarter quarterbacks that can run the way Jalen Hurts does, the way Lamar Jackson does, and can also throw the football down the field with accuracy and touch and the right decisions being made when they are throwing the ball down the field that's the way to go because these defensive fronts are getting better and better

and better and faster and quicker and more athletic and more dangerous and the schemes are getting trickier you've got to be able to have a guy that can move around and extend plays the way that jaylen hurts can't and the way patrick mahomes i mean could you imagine if patrick mahomes watching the game last night you you'd imagine if Patrick Mahomes wasn't mobile. I mean it, that would have times. He didn't look like it. Yeah. There were times he didn't look like it.

But if he was a guy that couldn't extend and move around in the pocket, the way, you know, we have seen him do that game would have been a lot worse for him even. So I think Jalen hurts really represents something that we've been seeing for a while now that, you know, if you really want to win at a high level, you know, you've got to have a quarterback that can move around with his feet and also be able to push the ball down the field and make the right throws

that we've seen the traditional quarterbacks make. So he deserves a ton of credit for his performance. This is two Super Bowls in a row now, or two in the last three years, but two in a row for him where he's played really, really well and given the Eagles a chance to win. It's just two years ago they didn't win because Mahomes made some plays as well. Last night was different and, you know, not different for him. He played great again, And hats off to him.

He was just fantastic. And I think it's time for a lot of people to give him his flowers that he really deserves. Can I piggyback on that real quick? I thought it was really important for him. And I was really impressed with how quickly he was able to connect with A.J. Brown and his receivers. And it wasn't just that they were pushing the ball downfield, but there were some touch passes that he had to make that were just spot on. And you think if your adrenaline's gunning and it's the Super Bowl and you've

been waiting for a week and you got the flyover and the anthem and all the, you know, you'd be throwing the ball 10 rows into this crowd. I thought he was so locked in and just showed so much poise on that opening drive. And, uh, you know, they, nobody, everybody might've been waiting for a Saquon Barkley home run, but instead what they got was a really, uh, dialed in Jalen hurts. Yeah. And a completely bogus pass interference penalty that, uh, it was a bad call. It was a bad call, but, um, still, uh, the internet exploded for only about 15 seconds. And then they realized that this game is not going to be close no matter what happens with the refs. Uh, as far as Jalen hurts goes just to tack on a little bit more to

that. I mean, it's kind of who he was as a college quarterback, the calmness that he had. And in both super bowls, he is kind of a force because he never seems panicked. He always seems ready to go. And even in the interviews that he was doing after the game, he was still very calm and there was no panic in him. So I think that is something that is a cheat code for them with having a quarterback that's like that. And look, every team who wins the Superbowl

has great players around their quarterback period. So it's like, well, he has great players around like, Oh no, take the ring away. Give me Joe Montana's ring. Give me Peyton Manning's ring. Give me Brett Favre's anyway. So we don't have to go much farther than that. Trent Dilfer can keep his. He was, yeah, he, he had nothing except even on offense offense he had quadri ismail on offense but so as far as the vikings go i want to do this and not just because it's so obvious that the guard and the defensive tackle or the position they need to go after i just feel like every single person knows that so i want to present this in a little bit of a

different way. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to take me inside the head of someone with the Vikings watching the Superbowl. So imagine that you are in the football cave with someone. It could be anyone. It could be Dalton Reisner if you want it to be. I mean, that wouldn't be my first pick maybe the coach maybe the GM maybe the future quarterbacks or whatever and I'll start just to show you what I mean if I'm Sam Darnold watching that game I'm thinking oh oh oh it was all Sam's fault because it's, I'm doing the DiCaprio meme. I'm like, that's what happened to me guys. I'm still good. And also if I'm Sam's agent, I'm like, you guys saw what happened to my homes, right? I mean, it wasn't Sam's fault. I mean,

it could happen to anybody. So I actually think you w you wouldn't think in a logical world that something like that would impact how Sam Darnold is viewed, but I think it kind of will. I think the world will be more forgiving because the Rams beat the heck out of Jalen Hertz in that game when they faced him and they destroyed Sam Darnold. But if it can happen to my homes, if it can happen to Herbert, if it can happen to Stroud, it can happen to Mahomes, if it can happen to Herbert, if it can happen to Stroud, it can happen to anyone. So Manny, whose perspective do you want to give me from the Vikings watching the Super Bowl? I'll give you Kevin O'Connell's perspective. I think watching this game and to your point

about Sam Darnold, I think it kind of shows, yeah, it wasn't entirely Sam's fault what happened in Detroit and what happened, certainly what happened in Arizona against the Rams in the playoffs. That some of this stuff is about, we've got to do a better job of protecting him. We've got to do a better job of finding ways to get the ball out of his hands quicker. Because looking at that Super Bowl last night, Patrick Mahomes, he got into a lot of trouble when he dropped back and he couldn't find anybody right away and he had to kind of sit in the pocket. And then when the pressure came, he had to kind of escape and roll out to his right, roll out to his left.

And when he couldn't find anybody, he had to resort to running. And a lot of times he didn't have enough time to even take off and run. The Eagles defensive front was just so fast and able to get to him. So I think if I'm Kevin O'Connell, I'm looking at that and I'm saying, okay, defensive line on my own team, probably need a little help there. Try to find a way to get some beasts on my interior of my defensive front. And I've also got to find a way, even if I'm not bringing back Sam Darnold next year, I got to find a way to protect J.J.

McCarthy as best I can because these teams are are figuring out that you apply pressure with just your front the fact the Eagles didn't blitz at all at all that's what it is just astonishing to me that they didn't need to blitz Patrick Mahomes at all so um yeah if I'm KOC this is what I'm looking at I'm I am looking this is what I'm looking at. I'm, I am looking at the trenches. I'm looking at the offensive line, certainly, but I'm also looking at the other side for my guy, Brian Flores and saying, let's find a way to get him some, some beasts up front as well to help out Grenard and Van Ginkle and Dallas Turner, as he comes along with, uh, with being able to put pressure on opposing quarterbacks as well. Uh, Mel kill says, uh, we'll always be the 82 Chargers.

You can't stop me. What a reference, Melkill. The 82 Chargers with Dan Fouts and John Jefferson, Wes Chandler, just throwing it all over the place. And if it hadn't been for a negative 20 degree day in Cincinnati, I think, right? So anyway, there's your history lesson. But if I'm KOC to add onto that, Manny, I'm thinking about, okay, they rushed for the

whole game. They didn't blitz. And how many times did Kansas city run the ball? Almost none from the very outset. They just had no answer. They did not make them pay for just having those four guys up there and not selling out to stop the run. And on the other side, Kansas city had to sell out to stop the run and gave up those deep passes. And I don't know what the answer is for the Vikings. If it's trying to draft O'Marion Hampton, or if it's trying to, I'm not sure, just beef off the line enough to hire a new run game coordinator. Haven't heard anything about that. But when I watched that game and I see the response to the secondary for Kansas city struggling to cover the receivers, cause they're focused on the run game.

When I see the fact that Kansas city could not counter with the run game. It just made me think if you want to be a complete team, you just, I think the big takeaway for me, Murph is you just can't be half a team. You just can't, you just can't say, well, we do this well in this horribly and we'll be fine. Well, you will against the Titans, but you won't against the Eagles. So anyway, get inside somebody's head, Murph. All right. Well, I'm going to try to set this up a little bit. So like I, I, all this talk, you know, and you mentioned the Superbowl is always a template for copycatting, right? Because, well, look at how great this worked. So I don't know if there tends to always be an over, like an overcorrection a bit where everybody buys into the

latest fad. So the Vikings, uh, with all that as a backdrop, because we have so much uncertainty at quarterback, uh, in addition to maybe, are they going to try to tinker with their identity? So I'm thinking if I'm Justin Jefferson, I wonder what team this team is going to like, what offense and what team am I going to be playing on and what role am I going to be have come training camp as this all unfolds after the year I had. But Collin, you've talked about KLC's really baked-in scheme, which is long developing routes, downfield, always pressing on the gas, always pushing downfield, maybe to the detriment or afterthought of the running game.

And one that was exposed because, you know, Jefferson's running 50 yards downfield and can't get open when Darnold's face planning on the turf in a sack. I'm wondering what he's thinking. Am I going to be now a, a short route, uh, speed guy in the middle of the field more? Am I going to, am I going, you know, how's that going to affect me, my production? He's never been much of a diva. He's got his money, so I'm still not sure how much he's going to want to give it away a little bit more to the running game, give it away to short passes. And then, again, who's going to be throwing those passes? And if it is J.J. McCarthy, are they, after sort of developing half-baked through this season while he was recovering, the offense that Sam

Darnold ran, is he going to be, you know, throwing a little bit of a curveball? These are all hypotheticals, but they all come to mind because, again, when teams do try to make big changes every offseason but then predicate them on the outcome of a successful team or Super Bowl or particular scheme, how much of your identity are you willing to redefine a bit to do that? Because if you're trying to punish defenses who are blitzing you, what is that going to mean for how your routes are going to develop, your dropbacks? What's McCarthy going to be? And the running aspect of McCarthy coming off knee surgery, what are they going to allow him to do right away? What's he going to be capable of doing right away? So if I'm Justin Jefferson,

I'm not only wondering who's throwing me the ball, I'm wondering how I'm going there to catch it. And I'm wondering if I'm going to have to, I'm going to be the same, you know, home run hitter I was last year. If we've got a rookie slash second year quarterback throwing short passes and we're pulling down the ball and running more what's in his head i know what's in his wallet what's in his head yeah i like i like that i like that perspective because if jj mccarthy's the quarterback i think that they play a little different football we saw this in training camp last year where sam darnold's ripping it deep down the field and darnold did by the way finish as one of the better short passers in the league.

But he was only something like 15th in actual attempts, his percentage of attempts that were under 10 yards. And then the screen game was just once again, not effective past like week three or something. It's just sad. So there's that. But with Jefferson, there were a lot of times where they weren't just getting Jefferson the ball. Like we all want to see. I've had the rule in the past that if Jefferson doesn't get 10 targets, someone goes to jail. And there were too many times where someone

had to be put in jail and spend 24 hours thinking about why Jefferson didn't get his targets because he is that good. And he is that effective in all areas of the field. But I think with him, he is one of the very few guys that does not have a kryptonite. He has had Mullins thrown him the ball. He's had Kirk throw and it's short to him more often with timing routes on short outs and things like that. I would say the trick plays haven't worked that well with him throwing it. But aside from that, I mean, he's been used in every way. He's been more of a slot receiver and then he's been more of an outside receiver. Like there really isn't anything that he can't do. I do think though, if I'm Jefferson, I'm a little like, okay, well, I've got to

potentially learn another quarterback here. And I would like to know who the quarterback is and what we're doing and imagine him with three years in a row of the same quarterback would be kind of fun to figure that out. If I'm, if I'm in Kweisi Adafo Mensah's head, I am thinking, please be ready, JJ, please be ready. Because what I want to be able to do is I want to be able to go out into that free agent market. And I want to have a checkbook full of blank checks that we can walk up to a lot of free agents. And everyone's naming Milton Williams and Trey Smith. We're not sure if those guys are coming back to their own teams. Usually when they win Super Bowls, players like to stay with their team that won Super Bowls.

So we'll see about that. But whether it's them or if it's the 20 other guys that we've identified as Tevin Jenkins or Javon Hargrave as a free agent or whoever else, whatever Brian Flores has on the grocery list, it has been one of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's best accomplishments to put them in position to be cap healthy. They were in hell with the salary cap with Rick Spielman and with Kirk Cousins

contract, which is not exactly the same as Sam Darnold. And I've been over that on the show about 50 times, but there are concessions. If you have to franchise tag Sam Darnold because O'Connell wants JJ to wait and wants Darnold back, there are concessions you have to make. There's structures that you have to use that will have void years at the end, that will push money down the road, that will make it a little more challenging. Now, they worked around 70 million of dead cap. It's not impossible. They did that this year, but it will be more challenging and if i'm quacey i'm like guys i spent my whole time on this this was my dream this is three years realized of a guy who sold the wilfs ownership on we are going to competitive rebuild we're going to set the cap

right we're going to draft this quarterback and I am going to spend the absolute mother bleep out all your money. And I'm going to get the best roster in order to do it. And if they have to, because of the way they feel about McCarthy and where he's at, if they have to bring back Darnold again, it's not impossible. People need to stop saying that. But if I'm a quasi, I'm really hoping for my scenario to come to fruition. At least I would think so, Manny.

Or Brian. Just real quick. But can the question you posed, the original question, is can Kwesi go to JJ and say, are you ready? Can you help me? Can I do this? Is he going to be able to? The question really is, can he have that answer on March 5th? He may not. I mean, to me, he's going to have a better answer

on August 29th than he will on March 5th, but you know, that's where the deals are done. So that, that, you know, when you originally asked me that, I thought, well, that's, that's going to be tough to answer in three and a half weeks. Well, and the question is going to be, what do you do if you let Sam Darnold go, or if you tag him and trade him to another team, and you plan to go with J.J. McCarthy, and then to Murph's point, what if J.J. McCarthy is not ready? Then at that point, who do you pivot to?

Are you bringing Daniel Jones back at a reasonable price for a backup that might have to start to begin the 2025 season until McCarthy actually is ready to go from a physical standpoint? I don't think there's any question McCarthy would be ready to go from a mental standpoint. He seems to have everything up here to be able to step into the role. But, you know, I think the concern is, you know, coming off of the injury, is he going to be in a physical form to be able to step in week one, 2025, and to be able to play at a fairly high level,

even for a 22-year-old that's going to be starting in the NFL for the first time? Because this is a team, again, we've talked about, this is a team with veterans that have already gone through a 14-win season with a chance to win the division on the last week of the season. So these are guys that have been in the league for a little while now that want to win and want to win right now. We've talked, Carla, you and I have talked for a couple of years now about how Justin Jefferson is a guy who is a veteran now.

He's 25 years old, but he's a veteran. He's been on this team for a while now. He has wanted a high level. Seen a lot of confetti fall on other guys. Yep. Yep. And this is a guy that wanted a high level in college and he wants to win at

a high level in the national football league. And so, you know, the Vikings are going to have to sort of balance that. You know, if you let Sam go, which, you know, a lot of the fans want to see Sam gone and want to move on to McCarthy and all that, you got to hope, like you said, Collar, Kweisi has to be hoping that McCarthy is going to be ready to go. And I think it's still a little bit up in the air.

I think I'm leaning towards believing that he will be, but that's honestly, I'm just being optimistic. I'm skeptical of a lot of the sugar-coated quotes that are coming out about him. Yeah, and I think it just has, I think you just have to hope for their sake, I think you have to hope that he's going to be ready to go because this is a team that's going to be expected to at least compete and,

and push the Detroit lions a little bit in the NFC North and make some noise and be a team that wins, you know, at least like 10 games and can make the playoffs and McCarthy's going to need to be ready to play in order for that to be accomplished. Uh, let me get to a couple of comments here. Hamza says, seems like there's more and more steam that Darnold will be elsewhere. Schefter mentioned the Raiders. I did talk about that last night.

Schefter, before saying the Raiders, said the Vikings want him back. So I think that nobody knows what's going on. But Palisaro, Fowler, and Schefter have all said something to that effect of well we think that the vikings might want darnold to return but this could happen this could happen this could happen which sounds like what nobody knows nothing is what it really sounds like to me and o'connell is always going to be complimentary of his quarterbacks he was complimentary probably in about 14 different times of brett rippon this year. Brett Rippon was the practice squad quarterback. And yet at times he went into detail about how much he was happy with Brett Rippon. That's who Kevin O'Connell is. You can't

look into the quotes. So that's one thing. And obviously the Raiders should be in for Sam Darnold. I just don't think that other teams being in sways us or quotes or, or anything like that. They're going to figure this out in the coming weeks, but I don't think that anybody but them knows. And that bet has always paid for me. I said, no one, they're not telling anyone when they're signing TJ Hawkinson. And then they announced it. No insider even had it. They're not telling anyone what's happening with Justin Jefferson. And guess what? It was two seconds before it came out to us, the official release that Schefter had it right. So they didn't even leak it, if you will, until it was already signed. And it was before training camp, which none of us really even expected. Derisaw, his signing came out of

absolutely nowhere. And when Kirk left, they didn't show their cards at all on Kirk. They kept saying, we love them. We want them back and everything. They didn't tell us secretly and whisper Kirk's gone or anything. We always just have to find out together when it comes to these big things, even though insiders are going to try. Um, Mel kill says, uh, JJ is only 23. I believe it is 22. Uh, it's okay for them to take their sweet time prepping him. I tend to agree, even though America doesn't want that, or at least the upper Midwest. Brian's Horror Corner says the Vikings won't be able to fix all their needs in one off season. I don't know if I agree with that because they have so many of the major pieces set.

There's a quarterback here one way or the other and then the money to spend the money to spend and the culture to bring guys to and the ownership to spend the dollars to get them and uh they may have some extra draft capital okay so i did think of this too so morgan says uh with the VR, he can get mental reps in the off season. Where's the VR setting for what happened last night? Hey, the Vikings. Hey, this is my thing. The Vikings play the Eagles next year. Show me the freaking VR setting with that.

That's my thing about McCarthy. Okay. And, and look, he might be perfectly ready, but in terms of like trying to prep someone for playing in the actual NFL, where's the VR setting for that? And that's what I want to make sure he's ready to face and ready to bounce back from before we completely just say, Hey, JJ, go out there because I want you out there. I want to see you like, that's not how I do it. I do it thinking they're, they're playing them next year and they're playing the Lions next year and they're playing Michael Parsons next year.

It's not going to be an easy debut if it's going to be a debut. So anyway- They're playing TJ Watt next year. They're playing Baltimore next year. Look, Washington's going to go sign five guys on the D-line. They saw that game. They know who they got to play.

I'm just saying that that's part of my thought process. I mean, the VR is a wonderful, nice thing when your knee is hurt, but it's not going to help you deal with that. So anyway, Murph, who else do you want to, did you do one Manny? Did you, or wait, no, we all did. Yeah, we all did one. Okay. Back to Manny. Who else's head you want to get inside? I want to get into the head of, and I don't know if it's any one particular player, but just the running back room for the Vikings.

It's, you know, Murph kind of touched on it a little bit. You touched on it. It's just what, if I'm a running back on the Minnesota Vikings in 2025, what are things going to look like for me? Are we going to see some upgrades on the interior of the offensive line is is are there going to be some tweaks to the scheme that will allow me to have some success rather i'm you know if i'm aaron jones signing a new contract and coming back if

i'm cam akers signing a new contract and coming back if i'm a free agent if i'm a draft pick let's if you know the vikings if i'm ashton Genting and the Vikings want to use a first-round draft pick to bring me in, what is this going to look like? How am I going to be able to have the most possible success? And because we saw, and look, we know Saquon Barkley is a beast. I mean, he's been one of the elite running backs in the league for the last five, six years. That offensive line is also very great,

but we've seen what a really dominant, effective running game can do for you when you also have a quarterback that can move around, obviously, like Jalen Hurts. But when you have an effective running game, the options that it gives you offensively to be as versatile as you humanly can be. If I'm a running back, I want to be a part of something like that. That really gives me some opportunities and it's going to help the young quarterback if it's J.J. McCarthy as well. The more successful I am as a running back, the more successful J.J. McCarthy is going to be as well. And the more successful the team as a running back the more successful jj mccarthy is going to

be as well and the more successful the team and the offense and everything will be so i'm looking at it from the perspective of a running back like what is this going to look like for me if i'm a new guy coming in or if i'm like aaron jones or somebody that may be coming back yeah don't draft me is what you're saying that's oh oh m oh, Marion Hampton pulls an Eli Manning. I won't go to Minnesota. They don't run the ball. Uh, I do, I do think, uh, Murph that, uh, when it comes to the run game, or I should have directed this to Manny because you said it, the run game.

I really do think that the interior line and the talent of the run of the lack of explosiveness from the actual runners, an old cook, an old Jones, a Madison that never had it to begin with. I think that that does deeply influence how they handle that run game. But I think that what you're saying is, is absolutely valid. So what do you got Murph? Whose head do you want to get into? You know, it just came to me a bit. I'd forgotten about him a little bit and I'm really curious. I would love to be in the head of Brian Flores on a lot of, a lot of levels, but specifically he has now been passed over again in the latest cycle.

He still has pending litigation against the Dolphins, I believe, and the NFL for discrimination, you know, he also maybe handed a raft of talent. Now, he's made hay with a lot of kind of, you know, plug and play and matchups and trying to get, you know, be exotic and deceptive and leaky at the same time. Now, if, you know, if they go all in and fortify the defensive front and grab another cornerback too, how unleashed can Brian Flores then be next year if he can have a four-man front and wreak havoc like Philadelphia

and drop another defender. You know, imagine how many opportunities Van Ginkle will have roaming the middle of the field. I just feel like, you know, he – and if I'm him, I'm thinking, and I don't know anything about this litigation, but you've got to figure it's going to settle or run its course at some point. And maybe he's got a little – you know, he's got a little bit of fuel in that motivation tank for, I'm going to just, I'm going to go Fig Fangio. I'm going to be the most valuable coordinator in the NFL this year with all of this talent, high price talent.

I've got my horses now. We know what we can do to wreak havoc on opponents. We've had that opportunity. We've seen how individual players have kind of adopted their roles, but how about we just designate and just call? And like a lot of the Eagles players were talking about last night. I mean, anytime Vic said anything, we never questioned at all. And we're always in the right position to make a play.

You know, I just wonder if he's now motivated because again, he wants to be a head coach, but boy, you want to talk about the mother of all statements he could make next season with a, you know, a top five defense, top three defense, um, and unleashing, you know, a boatload of talent that, uh, quasi brings in. I think if you're Brian Floresores probably in the second quarter you're on the phone calling quasi over and over and over again saying we can do this we and and flores has the command of the room that you're talking about that's been very clear over the last two years he's developed the defense that these players love and they buy into and they feel

ownership of and all those things but it when it always comes down to in the NFL, it always comes down to roster. And when you have two defensive tackles that were making a grand total of $4 million playing a side of Harrison Phillips, and you're trying to pace together the cornerback position, it's just, there's only so much you could do. You have to blitz like there, you weren't going to get pressure by throwing in, you know, Jonathan Bullard or on early downs. He's just not going to get to the quarterback. He's going to stop the run, but he's not going to get to the quarterback. So that means you got to send Ivan pace. You got to send

Cashman. You got to send Mattel is time and time again. And I think Flores loves blitzing, but I also don't think that he needs to blitz every play. If he had the horses to not like, he knows how to create coverages and zones and all those types of things and deception at the line of scrimmage, but you need the dudes in order to get after the quarterback. And those dudes cost money or draft capital. Something really important. I think when it comes to the drafting is I look this up all 11, the top 11 guys paid at the

defensive tackle position are all drafted in the first three rounds. And eight of those 11 are in the first two rounds. So maybe something to keep in mind in a draft that's got five, six good defensive tackles. You can't wait around. It's nice that they drafted Levi Drake Rodriguez. It's nice that Jalen Redman had a few good games. If you want a dude who looks like Milton Williams, a third rounder or Jordan Davis or Jalen Carter, especially you got to spend draft capital on it.

So that's probably what I'm calling about. If I'm Brian Flores, I totally agree. Murph, if you're Flores, you're coming off this year being like, look what I can do with not too bad talent. Give me three, four more players. Now I want to do this. I want everybody to do this last one. And then I want to talk about what we learned about the rest of the league through the 2024 season. And then we have a special introduction of a new purple insider intern that is coming up in about 15, 20 minutes. I want all of us to, you can pick your Wilf, put yourself in the shoes of a Wilf, whichever one you like.

Oh, I'll be Mark here. Put myself inside Mark shoes. If I look at our roster and I look at our coaching right now, and I'm Mark Wilf and I, and I'll, um, maybe wipe my mouth with a hundred dollar bill first. And, uh, after eating, but, uh, I don't, what would I do with billions of dollars? I wonder, but anyway, that was the first thing that came to my mind with better material was, was use money as napkins. That was the first thing that I'd thought of for not what I would buy, but I would use money as,

as dive into a big pool of money like Scrooge McDuck did on a duck tails back in the day. Exactly. Uh, anyway, I think I'm looking at Mike, the coaching staff, the culture, the roster, the cap space and saying, why not us? And I know why not us it's because the drafting hasn't been good enough. And I know everyone's like, you yell at me for saying the drafting. I know, but that's the gap is a couple, a couple of players, a couple of drafts that go well, and that needs to start happening. Now drafts take a couple of years.

They've drafted guys, Nolan Smith, Nolan Smith was Dallas Turner. Everybody Nolan Smith couldn't play last year. They were talking about what a joke he was, and he was a beast in this game. And so that's what Dallas Turner has to become. And JJ McCarthy has to become Jalen Hurts. He has to be at a certain threshold. But I'm looking at this and going, it's not crazy. It's not crazy.

It's easier to get defensive tackles than, say, Jefferson or Derrissaw or Grenard or Van Ginkle even. I mean, like it's easier to find a defensive tackle. They're kind of a lot of them this year. And what I'm doing is I'm not moving my bar. If I'm the Wilfs now 14 wins, I think I'm being more reasonable, but I'm not moving my bar, no matter who's playing quarterback or what our coaches and GMs decide from this team is going to spend a lot of money this off season. And it better be good. It better be damn good next year because I see the bones of what they have in a lot of this roster. So pick your Wilf and give your wealth perspective um i'll i'll take lenny because lenny's the guy that you can sit in a corner booth with with a glass of scotch and drill into a lot of life lessons and uh he also knows where the bodies are buried but he's also a guy that would be like look you hired this young guy off Wall Street. Let him roll.

This is it. This is the fourth year, the fourth draft cycle, the fourth free agent cycle. He came in with a plan. He sold the plan. He even branded it, you know, competitive rebuild. There may be T-shirts made to go around that Lombardi trophy if it ever happens here. But it's time. It's time to let your protege and your on the clock now, the contract clock, now that KOC has been signed, to really to step on the gas and leverage that analytical mind and that pile of cash and that template of,

of teams that you've built and coaching staff and the bones of this roster. It's time for you to augment it and put it together. Howie Roseman is getting a lot of headlines today because of this Philadelphia win. That doesn't always happen for a GM. It's usually the head coach that takes the glory or a coordinator who called something spectacular. But no, I mean, it's, it's, you know, the G you know, Howie Roseman deserves the bow he's taking. And I, that should light some competitive juices for quasi as well. But yeah, if I'm the Wilson, I'm like, have at it young man, this is what you sold us four years

ago. It's yours now. Take it. Also, by the way, the way that I acted could not have been farther away from Mark Wilf if I tried. Like he is, he's a very, very calm guy. He's not loud. He's not super outgoing and he does not wipe his mouth with a hundred dollars. Hey, you got to own that caustic joke, man. Don't be backtracking now.

I'm not, I'm not backtracking now. I'm not. I'm not backtracking. I'm only laughing at how different that was. Me, me yelling, go win now. Like, that's just not how Mark Wilf is at all. I could see Steven Jones wiping Jerry's mouth with their money. Let's move on from that completely. And Manny, go ahead. So I'll take Ziggy since Carla, you took Mark and, and, uh,

Murph, you took Lenny. So I'll, I'll take Ziggy by default. And I'm going to say, look, I I'm the chairman of this team. I've been kind of the, the, the head honcho of this team. Certainly I was the face of ownership for a really long time. And, you know, Mark, you've kind of taken a little bit more of the public speaking stuff the last few years, and it's great, and I appreciate it. But damn it, we've owned this team now for 20 years, and we're on our fifth head coach. And we just gave our fifth head coach a really nice contract extension. We love him. We think he's doing a great job so far through the first three years.

But we got all this cap space. We've got some young talent. We've got some veteran talent. Got a young quarterback that we're trying to develop. It's go time. Let's spend, spend, spend. Let's spend this cap money. Let's develop this quarterback. Let's develop this quarterback let's go it's time we just had

the super bowl in our backyard seven years ago and we saw this same team that just won the super bowl last night they wanted on our home field that should have been us there it wasn't good enough what we've been doing is great but it's not not good enough, and it's time to go. The expectations need to be high, and I'm looking for another really, really good season. You won 14 games with Sam Darnold last year. You can win. You can manage to win 10 to 12 with J.J. McCarthy, and if you can't, after we spend all this money in the offseason, bringing in even more talent, then I don't know what we're doing here. So it's time to

go spending my money. Let's go, let's build this team up. And, and, you know, like my brother, Mark said, why not us? I don't even know if I said that, uh, Ty says, don't tell Howie that the draft is random. Do, uh, are you aware of some names like Andre Dillard, Sydney Jones, Jalen Rager being selected above Justin Jefferson. If anything, the Philadelphia Eagles unequivocally prove how random the draft is because the same people completely botched like four years of draft picks.

And they did pick Jalen hurts though. So the process was good there, but they missed on a bunch of guys and then they had to go down and then they built up on hitting on a bunch of guys by getting rid of a lot of the old players for draft capital and then spending some of it on AJ Brown. So that's, that's kind of funny, uh, the way that the NFL works, but real quick. Um, if, if we're the Wilfs here and we're sitting around, let's just say we're sitting around, we're just hanging out as Wilfs do and be like, Hey,

so what do you guys want to do at quarterback? Um, Lenny, what would you say? We drafted the kid for a reason. Now, you know, you want to open it up as a competition with Darnold maybe, but, you know, don't be afraid to be bold and lean into what you wanted a year ago. This is – it had a hiccup. It had a complication, a good complication. But he was the 10th overall pick, and this has been a hell of a class.

And look at how the rookies have performed this season. There's no reason to believe McCarthy, with the tools in place, including a revamped defense, as Manny said, couldn't compete for 10 to 12 wins. What do you think, Zig? Yeah, to Lenny's point. I mean, look, all the other teams got to play with their young quarterbacks last year. They got to play with their young quarterbacks last year.

They got to play with their new toys in 2024. It's time for us to play with our new young quarterback, our new toy that we drafted 10th overall. As Lenny said, we drafted him for a reason. This is our guy. We love and we really appreciate what Sam did for us in 2024. But if we're not going to be able to bring him back at the right price, and if our young guy in J.J. McCarthy is ready to go in 2025,

it's time to go with him. If I'm Mark, because he's the one that will eventually talk about this, so I'll try to think of how he would actually say it. I think what he would say is that we just hired, or we just paid Kevin O'Connell. Okay, he wouldn't say we just paid him. He would say that we have the utmost belief in Kevin O'Connell, in part because of the way that he has worked with quarterbacks

since he's been here. And we trust him to be the steward of the quarterback position and guide us to the right decision. I think that's something that Mark might say. And you know what? If I was the owner of this team, I would actually feel that way. I feel that way now. And I don't even own the team. I have felt this whole off season. Like if Kevin O'Connell, who is as good at this with quarterbacks as anyone I've ever seen for coaching. If he does not feel like it's a good idea to throw the kid in there, then don't, I don't know which way he wants to go as far as Darnold, but don't, like don't rush it because

you've got time. And Jalen hurts is great evidence for this. He did not play in his first year. And in his second year, I believe that was him sort of barely playing and showing some flashes. And then he takes them to the playoffs and then he takes them to the Superbowl and then he gets his contract. He was not come out of college, Jalen hurts, go win. And they talked about him as a guy who was raw and needed development. And he did. And so I think of that as we are in a huge rush with everything. That's how it always works. But if I am the billionaire owner who plans on owning this thing for a lot longer than

just next year, I'm going to trust the guy that I just gave many millions of dollars to run the team, to run the team his way. That's how I would handle it. Okay. Let's wrap on this and uh, and go back to yourselves for this one, the 2024 season. And please don't say that defensive lines win championships because they always have. It's not, it's not a new thing. It's not a new thing. So, uh, I believe Joe green might have commentary on how defensive lines can dominate in a Super Bowl, right?

So the thing that you learned for the 2024 season, the biggest thing, and I've got an article on this with like 50 things coming out, everything from we learned that Aaron Rodgers is cooked to we've learned that KOC is one of the top coaches and things like that. Give me a thing. Give me a thing you learned. Um, go ahead. I hate, I hate to go dark, but you know, my son, my 14 year old son was watching the game and, uh, you know, he knows a ton more about sports than I do, but I couldn't tell for a while we were at a family party. I couldn't tell if he really, really did believe the conspiracy theories that are, that are all over social media about how,

you know, the NFL was rigged for the Chiefs vis-a-vis their officiating. So much so that, you know, it was a topic of conversation during Roger Goodell's Monday State of the League press conference. The Officials Association felt compelled to sandblast it as hard as they could. And we're in this weird era here where what the truth is, is fungible. But what we watch on TV as the NFL, the best unscripted entertainment out there, if there's a whiff that it really is scripted, why are you watching? Because then there's no point point but i don't know how corrosive that can be so i'm not saying gloom and doom here but i just it struck me that it's it was such a thing that it was at the forefront and driving a lot of conversation and you don't you

can't tell me social media didn't blow up yesterday after that first controversial penalty. Officiating had no impact on the game. So that was striking to me. I mean, criticism of officials has been growing. It's a tough league to officiate. The players are so fast. Are they keeping up with the technology, the replay, all of that? It should all be an open conversation.

But if we can't agree that this is not scripted entertainment, if that's entering the conversation at all, that's troubling. And my son, of course, didn't believe it all. But there was a time the way he was talking throughout the game where I wondered, because that's where they're at, that's where they live now, is on their phones. So, you know, warped reality, man. It kind of seeped into the Super Bowl.

It most certainly did. And I think that there's, well, first of all, it's obvious, Murph, that Roger rigged this to be a blowout, to throw him off the scent, and he made a secret deal with Mahomes that he's going to win next year's Super Bowl if he throws the, no, I'm just kidding. He's a Jedi. It's all Jedi right there. This is that he's going to win next year's Superbowl. If he throws that, no, I'm just kidding. It's all Jedi right there. This is where, this is where it's going. But I do think

that the NFL has been neglecting things that are right there in front of them that other leagues have put in that the UFL and the XFL have put in a, not just a replay person who they throw to Dean Blandino, but he's mic'd up and they go up to him. And he tells you on TV, if you've never seen this, watch the UFL this year, there was a pass interference in a UFL game. Yeah. I watch them and they were like, okay, there's the flag. And the coach says, nah, that wasn't pass interference. I'm challenging the, the, the ref on the field goes, uh, Dean Blandino was that pass interference Blandino on camera shows us. Okay. Here's exactly where the interference was. This is what the rule is back to you. It took like 30 seconds. It was transparent. This whole secretive likes, Oh, somebody buzzed down and

moved the football before Will Riker kicked it. Like what the hell? Why? Huh? Like there's the, there's just this shroud of secrecy that I think they've brought on themselves and the chip in the balls hard. But,

but that thing has been their making is part of that. And the other is just society being what it is. Uh, and everyone wants to believe there's a secret cabal or whatever. But I do have an interest though, in the issues with gambling around sports. There is an umpire in baseball who just got tossed because of this and Shohei Otani that was beyond shady. There have been multiple NBA players. One of them who is banned for life. It's concerning that the legalization of gambling and the explosion of all these things has seeped into the actual sports world in ways that I think for a long time, people said

that it might. So that's too much on that subject. But I do think it's something that they have to really address. They can't just say, oh, it's something that that they have to really address they can't just say oh it's internet nuts um manny all right i have refrained from addressing this at any point during the 2024-25 season The new NFL kickoff is stupid. It is stupid. It looks stupid. It has changed nothing. We still see too many damn touchbacks. It is pointless.

It's pointless to watch a network come back from break, watch the kicker kick the ball into the back of the end zone, and then, oh, we'll be right back. can go back to break go back to break i it's so stupid bring back the original kickoff and then allow us to have some surprise onside kicks again because those were kind of fun remember that happened to the super bowl remember sean Payton did that in the Super Bowl? Howard did it a long time ago, too. Yeah, it changed the course of that game. Those types of things are fun to see. If you're not going to go back to the way it was,

and I understand there's always injury concerns about the old kickoff rule and everything. If you don't want to go back to that, then just get rid of it altogether. And if you're going to start a team start a new possession have them start at the 25 yard line or maybe you'd have them start at the 40 yard line but it's like second down right away or something you know what i mean if they want to decide to start further up or something like that but the the way they're doing

it right now is just utterly pointless because we barely see any kick returns. It looks really awkward and weird. We're still seeing a lot of touchbacks, which make it completely pointless. And the fact that you've taken away a sort of a surprise element that kind of makes things interesting if you're able to execute it and get it done the right way. Get rid of the kickoff or go back to uh the way it used to be i do have some stats on this manny i was just going to ask i want to know how many returns and tds there were i i don't know how many tds there were but i have or any without even looking i have the yards per return increase and the increase in uh returns per team there There were only in 2023, to show you how pointless it was,

there were only 18 returns per team for the season for the entire year. So they averaged 18 returns, which is just one a game per team. And this year that went up to 28. So it did increase. It did not increase massively though. That's not, when Cordero Patterson comes into the league, it's 60, the guy's getting

50 to 60 returns, multiple per game. And now it was ever so slight. And in terms of yards per return, it went from 23 to about 28 yards per return. It did not bring us back. I think that's probably the disappointment and i agree with you on the onside kick they've also litigated the hell out of that to the point they're so worried they're all player safety it's like one play every 14 games it's like what are we talking about here i mean the old kick onside kick got it i think recovered like 15 to 20 percent of the time it

was a legitimate play and now they've made it. So you can't put guys over there and it's impossible to get, uh, unless you're the bears against the Vikings. Yeah, exactly. Um, Josh Oliver,

I think it wasn't he out and that's why Johnny Munt had it. Wasn't that the, anyway, that doesn't matter. So there's, there's the, there's kind of the stats on that. It was slightly better.

It did not completely fix it. So I agree. I didn't just slander Josh Oliver, did I? You did. Yeah, it was because he wasn't in. Oh, it was Johnny. Sorry, Josh. Yeah.

Oh, Josh has great hands. I mean it. He has phenomenal hands. He would have gotten that. So for me, since I've made a list of like 47, I'm not sure which one to actually go with, but I think the biggest takeaway is that we forget where we stood on stuff. We just, something happens and then we accept it and we move on to the next thing. And I want to pull back to before the season, there's questions about whether Kevin O'Connell is going to be

the long-term coach of this team. There's questions about whether kevin o'connell is going to be the long-term coach of this team there's questions about whether he can handle the quarterback position without a veteran in there and what type of leader he was and was 2022 just kind of fluky and what you know whatever kind of season and then 2023 he gets half a season with kirk they go four and four it's not that impressive what is he really as a head coach? And I think this year was him really coming into his own and there's ways to go. There is things to improve on to get to the next level. And there's roster things to improve on to get him there. As we see from Nick Sirianni, who I think has grown as a coach.

But now we know about Kevin O'Connell. This is a coach you keep for a really long time. This is a coach that you want, even if you have a regression year, Hey, you're not even having that discussion about this guy. You are always keeping his systems in place. They could be improved and his leadership in place going forward into the foreseeable future. And you build the rocket ship around him and try to take it to the moon and you swing and you swing and you swing with a coach who you know can do it. And he needs way better results in the playoffs. Two embarrassing losses in the playoffs are not good enough. That's happened to a lot of coaches, Sean McVay. I mean, Nick Sirianni lost the super bowl, then lost to the Bucs last year. Like, it happens.

That's got to change. But I think we learned this year that they have one heck of a head football coach, coach of the year in Kevin O'Connell. And I can't think of a more important takeaway. You can get guards. You can get receivers. You can get corners. You can do whatever. How many good head coaches are in the league?

When you get one, you keep one. So that's kind of my biggest takeaway. Also another takeaway, these round tables are fun as hell. I enjoyed these round tables. I would like to do more of them in the future. Murph, I'm really glad that we switched it up a little bit so I could sleep in and in the morning and then do round tables in the evening. Manny, of course, this was wonderful. And, uh, for both of you guys, the end of the season does signify, uh, that now you won't be every single week guests. Cause I would not want to subject you to that, uh, in February. So we'll check in with you guys when things happen, of course, for more round news, maybe big Darnold news, maybe. in debt, in appreciation for both of you, your, your time, your passion, what you guys have put

into this thing to purple insider, to help me make this work, to provide the best possible content we can for everybody who tunes in. It means so much to me. And I appreciate both of your friendships so much. And I just need you to show up a little earlier before we kick off Murph. But aside from that, uh, no, I'm just kidding. I, you know, that's something I can work on in the off season. No question. That's right. That's right. And hold me accountable in OTAs. And Hey, Manny's head didn't freeze. So this year, so it really shows you that we can make it prove. No, I honestly, truly, I know that our audience loves both of you guys and I love both of you guys. So thank you so much for all of your work this year and onto the off season, and then we'll do it again next year. So thanks guys.

Thanks everyone. Getting better every day, man. That's the goal. It's 1% better every day. Thank you both. And we'll see you guys later, but that is not the end of the show because we have a very important next step. And that is an announcement that we have a new purple insider intern. And before I welcome in our new intern, I want to let you all know a little history of the purple insider intern. Okay. Back in 2020, after Sports Talk Radio had had enough of me and there was this pandemic thing that also caused me to lose my job at 1500 ESPN, I started Purple Insider and I was doing it myself and just trying to do the podcast. this. And I got an email from a guy, Paul Hoda, who said, can I help you out? My internship got canceled because of COVID. And I had no idea what to do with them, but I was like, sure, why not? And so Paul joined and we worked together. He wrote a weekly article. He did post-game podcasts and he grew and grew. And it was great to see he went to the U Minnesota. And eventually after his internship time with me was over, he got a job working at PGA tour dot com, which is him writing for basically the PGA's website, doing videos, things like

that. Great stuff. So he's covering Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and all those guys. And I'm very proud of it. So then I did this book on pro football focus called football as a numbers game. Feel free to check it out on Amazon since one of the PFF interns actually just won the Superbowl, uh, with them anyway. So I, uh, as I was writing that book, I got to know people with PFF and they said, Hey,

we've got this person who wants to understand content better. Her name is Haley English. Can you take her? And I was like, yeah, sure. Okay. Brought her on. We worked together for a couple months in the off season and she did incredible analytics work that was way beyond my comprehension. And not long after that, she was hired by the Detroit lions to work part-time with them. So she went in 2023 to work with the lions. They made her full-time this year. And I saw her in Detroit week 18 as her team was whooping the heck out of the Minnesota Vikings. But, uh, she has become one of their key analytics people for the Detroit lions organization. So, Oh, geez, from the show, remember Haley quite well, and she's thriving there. So now we welcome in

the very next purple insider intern with the bar set extremely high. And you're going to have to forgive a little bit for the camera and the audio for now. We're going to work on this. Clay Petri, who went to Penn, actually goes to Penn right now, currently played football at Penn and is an excellent writer. If you want to check out purpleinsider.football, his debut article, and he is going to be joining me twice a week on the live stream to do what we call Clay's Corner. So as I answer questions and things like that, Clay is going to come up with five headlines and go through them. We used to call it Hot Routes. We're going to call it Clay's Corner. We had Haley's Heroes, Once Upon a Time. So that is your thing. So I welcome you, Clay Petri.

Please introduce yourself to the Purple Insider audience, my friend. Yes. Thank you, Matthew, for having me on the show. Trust me, everybody, I am okay. I'm not a hostage. This is just my dorm room. Like Matthew said, we'll be making upgrades soon, but I'm excited to be here. Glad to make my debut and get introduced to

a bit of Vikings Nation. We'll see how this debut to podcasting goes. Hopefully, I'll be more Jaden Daniels than someone, Kale Williams, let's say it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, very good. Yeah, very proud to have you.

And one of your teachers there is actually a Vikings fan who listens to the show. He reached out to me, said, I got a guy who I think would be very good for your show. So the expectations are high. The pressure is on. And once you get the camera and we'll get you a little light, it'll look a little better. It's there's, there's, there's tricks to this podcasting thing that can make me even look not too bad. Right. You always want to leave room for improvement, right? You don't want to start off too hot, set the expectations too high.

It's all about, yeah. It's all about the development curve. It's all about progress. So we are going to debut something we'll be doing over the next couple of months, Clay's Corner. So you have come up with, this was your first homework assignment outside of your article. Again, purpleinsider.football. Go check it out. It's excellent. You wrote about your career and how it ties into something jj mccarthy's going through really really well done go check that out but you have five headlines that you want me to react to that was your homework assignment so let's kick it off fire away with your first headline let's get Yeah. So obviously the super bowl was yesterday.

It's a hot holiday. And, uh, obviously the Eagles won with a dominant 40 to 22 win over the chiefs. Um, I know you praise Jalen hurts earlier in the show, but who, or what do you think was the X factor in that game?

Yeah. I mean, so when I think of X factor, I think of something that is not right out in front of us, right? Like the small thing that is not the defensive line killed the offensive line, right?

I think that the X factor is probably the fact that Kansas city and one of their super bowls had Isaiah Pacheco, who was really dangerous and really good for them. And he got banged up and it was just not the same. And they tried to bring in Kareem hunt. He wasn't the same. And they just seem to, no matter when they were playing,

they did not trust them. And maybe some of that was the offensive line in the injuries. But I also felt like they went into this saying, we're just going to throw the ball 57 times. And our running game is basically going to be quick passes to Xavier worthy. And they just had no answer. And it felt like the Vikings against the Rams where there wasn't this, Hey, you're going to rush for, and you're going to drop everybody back, but we're going to pound and wear you guys down.

And that kind of thing. There was absolutely none of that. The other X factor I was trying to, I mean, maybe I can't quite squeeze this into X factor, but throughout the season, they just went through a lot, the chiefs. And I, and I don't, I'm not crying tears for them. I just mean that they had to move a guard to tackle and they really struggled to win games. And Travis Kelsey looked old the whole year. And as he was reaching down to catch a pass, he just didn't have flexibility to go get it, which I know is a bad pass, but like, that's one he's caught a hundred times.

Mahomes does the shot put pass all the time. and Kelsey just didn't have the same sort of juice and I think that part of it and then Chris Jones didn't have the same impact and part of it might be that some of their key pieces just weren't as good as you'd expect them to be and they have been in the past and they were able to eke by because they have the best quarterback. But once they got here, that was just not enough. So I think we looked overlooked a lot of it because of the homes, but going forward, I mean, I don't know if Travis Kelsey is going to keep playing. He doesn't look like a guy that should continue to play. He looks kind of like one of the all-time great players who's done. So that would, what's a, what's uh what's yours you got an x factor yeah i mean obviously i think it would be easy to talk about how they didn't blitz they only

rushed four still got to them but i feel like that's pretty obvious i feel like the biggest thing for me is kind of you touched on the chiefs although they've been there one at the past two years it seems like they were the ones that kind of had to prove themselves that like they didn't have the energy going into the game and we could see that going like with the the deandre hopkins drop which is completely out of character for a sure-handed guy like him or like you mentioned the kelsey uh struggles as well so they just missed a lot of opportunities and then also jalen hurts was amazing i'm he played really well um through the air through the through the ground with his feet. Um, so I'm really glad he's going to get the recognition he deserves from here on out.

I like that as an X factor of pressure, uh, because with the three Pete and that also another part of it too, could be how many football games of the chiefs played versus every other team over the last couple of years. I mean, they, the, the Eagles were a young team. I mean, they have a lot of young players. Milton Williams is not, he's been a part-time player for a couple of years and Nolan Smith is young and Josh sweats, not very old. These are young guys. And, but the pressure element, you got a three Pete, the goat quarterback. And you're right that even the sideline reporters were kind of down there saying this just doesn't have a lot of juice to it for them. And they seem deflated

right off the start, you know, and part of that might've been, they played ahead from a lot this year and hung on. Like we're going to play ahead by a score. We're going to get a last second field goal. When you get down 10 to a team like the Eagles with that defense, the way that they plowed them in the first couple of drives, they had to feel like it was 40. I felt like it was 40 and you know, from playing the game, when you're out there, the other team is more physically gifted than you. If you get down 10, it feels like you're, you're climbing a mountain.

So I like that. Uh, next question. What do you got? Yeah. Um, so for the second one, so we'll move past the Superbowl. We'll go to NFL honors. And obviously Josh Allen took home the league MVP, despite Lamar Jackson being named first team all pro at the quarterback position. What do you make of incredible. And I wonder if Jane Daniels is going to be in this conversation in the future. I did think of that with those two guys. I have gotten to the point through the years where I just don't get too involved with the MVP. I mean,

both guys, I've seen the internet fighting about it all year long. Is it going to be Allen? Is it going to be Lamar? I mean, Lamar was certainly deserving. There's MVP fatigue when it comes to this. It's like how you could have just named LeBron the MVP about 14 straight seasons, but we got to give it to somebody else. And even Mahomes is in the conversation as well when you win 15 games and so much pressure is on him.

But when I look at Josh Allen, my big skepticism going into the season was, can they actually win without a number one wide receiver after losing Stefan Diggs? And I do think that it helped that they played the AFC South, that there was a big gap, I think, between the good teams and bad teams this year. That's why a lot of teams won 13, 14, 15 games that may change in the future, but to have no true number one and have to be the running game, have to be the passing game, have to kind of kind of like play point guard in a lot of ways and not just push it down the field because he didn't have anyone who could catch it.

I thought his adjustment was incredibly impressive to get them to that point. And really they should have gone to the Super Bowl and their one drive away, their one pass protection away, their one Dalton Kincaid catching it. But I thought he did more with less, but I mean, whoever they gave it to, I wasn't going to be mad about it. I just think that it was kind of, this happens with the Oscars. It's his turn. It's like, is it his best movie? Maybe not, but it's his turn. So that's how I felt about that. How did you feel about it?

Yeah, I believe we had like four legitimate candidates with Josh Allen, Lamar, Saquon, and I even like Joe Burrow. A lot of people go with the, because most valuable is hard. A lot of people it's voted mainly on who's the best player, best quarterback on the best team. That's kind of how it's voted in the past. But if you want to literally break it down to most valuable, the things Joe Burrow did with that team this year were unbelievable.

So I'm a big fan of his, and I hope they hold on to T. Higgins because, God, that they hold on to T Higgins because God, that offense is so dynamic. So, uh, and I, and I want them to be able to compete with the chiefs again. I don't want to, I want the chiefs to have an easy way back into their dynasty ways. So it is amazing though about coordinators and how the Cincinnati defensive coordinator got talked about, like he was a wizard and then he loses some

players and then he's an idiot and gets fired. And, you know, the same thing with Houston, where they have some injuries with the receivers, then CJ Stroud's not as good and he gets fired. And so that's all that's that made me think of like burrow and having them where they were with a defense that bad was very impressive from him. But I just don't think we're ever going to get to that point where a team that's out of the playoffs playoffs we're going to give somebody the mvp although if you know your uh history they did once give a kicker the mvp in the 80s so i guess that uh crazy things yeah things have happened yeah uh next question all right so the next question is about the hall of fame um the class of 2025 has been announced and Vikings legend,

Jared Allen finally made it to Canton reflect on his career and tell us why you think he deserved the gold jacket. I think defensive end pass rusher is probably the easiest position to decide on with the hall of fame, because we have such a clear metric that tells the story of what a player was. If someone is a quarterback, I mean, usually the hall of famers will eventually sort of show themselves, but even then the Eli discussion, the Matthew Stafford discussion, you're kind of like, well, if Matthew Stafford had played for a different team, would he be a clear Hall of Famer? Or if Eli, this is something no one ever brings up.

If Eli retired at age 33, he'd be an easy Hall of Famer. It was really the rest of his career. He was 77 and 51 with two Super Bowls at the time that he turns like 33. And then he plays five more years and ends up with a 500 record and just as miserable after that. So, you know, I think, I think about that all the time about how impacted which quarterbacks might've been in the hall of fame. Had they played for better teams right along the way? I mean, there's no way Kurt Warner's a hall of famer.

If he doesn't land with Tori Holt, who should be in Isaac Bruce, et cetera. So that does not apply to defensive ends because it's you and it's the tackle and you go get the quarterback and we've just got the numbers right in front of us. I think that Alan, by his numbers was a very clear hall of famer. He had one of the greatest seasons of all time, and he had a burst and a drive and a strength that was hall of fame worthy and when you had him on your team you felt like he was a one-man pass rush all of that is great i do think that there are other players as they attempt to raise the bar as they say by limiting the hall of famers that they've made a huge mistake now because there are players who are in who set the precedent

and then you're leaving out, you're putting in Andre Johnson, but leaving out Jimmy Smith. That's a joke to me. Like Andre deserves to be in, but Jimmy Smith was every bit the receiver that Andre Johnson is. And so was Torrey Holt. And now those guys either got to wait or won't get in. And from the Viking connection, Harrison Smith. Now I always thought he was kind of borderline because he's got six pro bowls. That's good. He's got one all pro it's not enough. There's not a lot of playoff action there, not his fault, but that's going to influence. But now if they're raising the bar, it's going to be almost impossible for him to get in anytime soon. So that's kind of the way that I, I viewed the hall of fame. Did you, were you an Eli person or not?

See, I'm, I'm kind of in the air with Eli cause I'm with you. If he, if he had a shorter career, we would think completely different of him. But a lot of my life was seeing him under throw odell beckham and have struggles with uh like stretching the field so i don't it's hard but when you beat tom brady twice in the super bowl it's like everybody wants to see you in there so even if you don't deserve it we need him in there just for that period it's all it's always been a funny way to talk about it for me it's like all the guy did was just beat Brady twice in the Superbowl. You're like, wow. I hope at some point somebody says that about my quarterback,

you know, like, Oh, I would have, what an idiot he was for doing that. Like, it's just sort of a funny criticism and it's also not true. I mean,

they were double digit win teams throughout his entire early part of his career. But that's the thing is I sort of remember Eli 05 to 2012 as being like one of the elite quarterbacks in the league. But he also was in the same era as Breeze. He's in the same era as late Favre, early Rogers. And the guys who are at the top had better statistics than him in the regular season, even during that time,

which is going to put him just a notch behind. So I don't, I think he'll eventually get in, but I didn't think they would do it this time. Uh, all right, we need, uh,

maybe I should make a football noise to go on to the next question. All right. All right. So for the next one, um, let's talk some more Vikings action. Sam Darnold was nominated for comeback player of the year, but ultimately Joe Burrow won the award.

How do you believe voters should look at the comeback player award and should it be reserved to those who strictly come back from injury? I never understood at all how a player who was just bad and ended up as the comeback player of the year. I do. What is he coming back from? Sam Darnold didn't come back from anything. He was the backup quarterback in the super bowl. What is he coming back from coming back from just not playing as much? I just never. And the fact that they did that for Flacco coming back from being old and ineffective versus a guy who died on the field and had to be brought back to life. That sounds like a comeback. The fact that DeMar Hamlin played

the full season is one of the craziest things to ever happen in sports of all time for this, the most random event. And then all the people who had to take to get him back and the fact that he could build up his body again and also have the mental fortitude to go play absolutely no way i'm stepping on the field again i mean if i if i bump my leg against the bed frame i want to throw the bed out the window and never use it again i mean this guy like unbelievable and he doesn't win this award that i what what i think about the comeback player of the year award is it just means nothing. It just means nothing to me. I don't even want to know who won. It just is so ridiculous and silly. I think personally, it should always be a guy who came back from injury. There's enough

to choose from on a yearly basis. So I thought, okay, that's great. They picked the right guy, but I had just got nothing for this award. Yeah. I think if you want to count coming back from playing for the Jets and the Panthers as a comeback, like sure, that's one thing. But obviously, I don't think we should hold that to the same standard as an injury, especially one like DeMar's. So I agree with you there. I really don't care about the award, but it is nice to see those who do get injured and come back get recognized for their grit and their mental toughness. Because like you said, if DeMar Hamlin, if that situation happened to me, I know 100%,

I'm not stepping back on that football field. Because that's, it wasn't even like head to head. It was literally just a normal looking tackle. And it led to what it did. So yeah, that's, that's how I feel about it. All right. Last one. Or I should do should do you know blue

all right let's get into some hypotheticals um so last week miles garrett officially requested a trade stating that he wants to go to a super bowl contender and doesn't believe that the browns are on the right track to making that happen um first off do you think the vikings have what it takes to make a move for a year and if not where do you think would be the best fit for him what do you think it was that tipped him off that they weren't maybe just years and years of being bad i don't maybe let me make let me make another diverting point here and then answer the question which is the viking just won 14 games and everybody wants the new quarterback and I get it. And I'm with you and all that,

but the NFL has this way of you think, well, you know, if they took a step back next year, I'd be fine with it. It just throws you life, throws you curve balls. The Cleveland Browns head coach last year, coach of the year, Kevin Stefanski. A Penn guy, by the way. Did you know that? Kevin Stefanski went to Penn. Of course you knew that.

Because I have family members that went to Cornell and I had a Cornell shirt on and Kevin Stefanski said like, oh, are you like an Ivy League guy? I was like, oh no, no, no, sir. No, I'm not. So anyway, that's not the point. It's just that things change so fast in the NFL. You go from coach of the year to your best player in the league demanding out.

As far as the Vikings chances, I think they're very low of attracting Miles Garrett, but they do have one thing that Cleveland needs really badly and very few other teams can trade them and that is sam darnold and if you look around the league how many teams can say we could trade you our starting quarterback who just won 14 games the answer is zero which also maybe someone who likes the team should fans should have some respect for like how much it's difficult to win 14 games in the NFL. Sometimes it got lost because of the playoff thing. But the whole point just being that, uh, the Vikings, the, the offer I put together, uh, when this first happened, when

Garrett first demanded a trade was, I think it was Darnold and maybe like a next year's second and Dallas Turner for Miles Garrett. It's a lot. It's the best player in the league. My only fear with Miles Garrett is this was one of the first analytics studies I ever did when the Buffalo bills signed Mario Williams a long time ago. They thought that they were getting the Miles Garrett of the league. And he really was at that time, top draft pick, unbelievable pass rusher. And I remember looking into the history of pass rushers, especially if they came into the league early, often they peaked at 26, 27, 28, but past the age of 29, there were some special guys in there throughout history, but often past 28, 29, they were not the same, that most of their value had already been established.

They had already had most of their career. And I think Jared Allen's an example of this. If I'm not mistaken, Jared Allen may have retired at like 33. I mean, he was a bear maybe by 33. Like you're getting Miles Garrett. If you do a trade like that, you're getting him for a couple of years of whatever is left of his peak, which will still be good, but probably not quite that level unless maybe he's Julius peppers. And you probably don't want to give up someone

like Dallas Turner who you need to be cheap and good. That's the other part too. Yeah. They've got cap space. They don't have endless cap space so i don't think that i i would not put it at a very high percentage three percent maybe but i did come up with a pretty compelling offer though i think what about where do you think miles garrett lands yeah i'm i feel like a team that's going to make a move for him has to be like a hundred percent all-in win now because this isn't Khalil Mack 26 years old like he's 30 which which is old in the football league unfortunately but he's obviously he's still a dominant player I think the commanders would be a great fit for him um got the quarterback on a rookie deal just made it to the NFC championship I feel like they have a really good culture building there um but other than that I I really see him in the NFC North honestly

um the Lions make a lot of sense um even the Packers they need an edge rusher but I feel like they kind of have a lot other needs that they might need to address uh and so they might not be able to go out and get him but that's as long as he's not on the Packers, I'm pretty much cool with whatever he decides to do or whatever the Browns decide to do. I should mention to the audience now that you are a Chicago sports fan, which how did that end up happening?

You didn't grow up in Chicago, right? So I actually spent four years there when I was younger. My dad was in the Navy, so we kind of moved around a bit, but he is from chicago so he brainwashed me as a young kid that's why you can see the cubs flag in the back too as well so it's been rough but if it tells you anything it shows you that i'm loyal so well and we'll have that conversation as we go forward about what the bears are doing in the off season what to expect expect from Ben Johnson and all those other things. But we have a lot of NFC North talk, so you will fit in just fine with that. And let's see.

I think Haley was also a Jets fan before coming on. So it is not a requirement to bleed purple to come on the show and be the intern. Let me give you a round of applause for your debut a great job clay petri the new purple insider intern great things on the way from you clay both here and on the written side over purple insider.football again go check out his great writing debut it was ivy league i'm just gonna say it it was ivy league so uh you gotta go check that out and And I'm really looking forward to being able to see you clear and in the lights when we get you the, uh, and so forth, but great, great, great job. Clay's corner is going to be a great bit on the show.

As we go forward, you'll be joining me regularly and, uh, I appreciate it, man. So welcome aboard. Thanks for your time. And we'll talk to you again soon. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm glad to be a part of the team and I'm looking forward to future shows. Very good. And thanks everybody for tuning in to a great round table

and to welcoming Clay. A lot of you in the comments appreciate that. So thanks everybody for another great chat. Good show. And we will talk to you all again very soon. Clay, what we do at the end of every show, we say football.

So take it, just take it away. I can't, you're, are you setting me up for a Liam Cohen Duvall moment? Like I don't, I need a, I might need a rep to see what I need to.

Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Just, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like young player, Sam Darnold, JJ McCarthy. Watch him. Okay. Well, need a rep to see what i need to okay yeah fair enough just yeah okay yeah yeah yeah like young player or sam darnold jj mccarthy watch him okay well i've got a couple of different ways so

sometimes i'll end it by saying football and sometimes i'll say football so it's kind of whatever the vibe is i think uh i think the vibe like, hey, the season's over. Super Bowl was crap, but football. Football. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. The season's over. Super Bowl did not go how a lot of fans wanted, but football. Football. All right. Perfect. Take care, everybody.