Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Why hasn't the Vikings defense dominated? Analyst Cody Alexander breaks it down

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Defensive analyst Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters joins the show to discuss the Vikings' defenses struggles this season. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduel, Matthew Collar, here. And welcome back to the show, Cody Alexander of Matchquarters.com, who in the recent past, we have always called upon to explain to us why the Vikings defense was so good. But this is going to be a new assignment. Actually, it's been a while since we have had a breakdown of what is going wrong, with the Minnesota Vikings defense, and I highly suggest if you are into X's and O's film breakdowns, matchquarters.com is the best resource. And I have heard from NFL sources that they read it

every single week. That is a true story. Cody, where do we even begin with the Vikings defense? I think let's let's go back to the offseason and kind of big picture with this thing. Last year, one of the best defenses in the NFL kind of built a certain way, some veteran corners, run stuffers in the middle, outside linebackers doing a lot of different stuff. It's a very different look on defense. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I thought that a lot of this would work because they had struggled to get interior pressure in the past. So sign the DTs, go forward there. Safety has been a replaceable position in this defense. All right, you let Cam Bynum go. That's okay. But the overhaul on the defense,

after it was so good, rather than kind of running it back has not worked out for them at all. Do you look back at the offseason and say, hey, maybe we could have seen some of this coming? Or is it more of just a surprise that this didn't work out? Yeah. So if you look at pre-by week, everything looks pretty much normal. Everything looks fine. Yeah, the offense is what it is. We don't, the quarterback situation is what it is.

But the defense looks good. And then you come off of the by, which you're thinking, okay, any kind of tweaks or any kind of problems that, you know, Flores might have seen early, we're going to get those fix and then move on. But, you know, pre-show we were talking about there was a play against the Eagles where it essentially highlights what we talked about in the off season of the they bring A.J. Brown across their in-man coverage, Mattelis waves Rogers off, and takes A.J. Brown. And A.J. Brown goes and scores a touchdown. And I'm watching the game like, what are we doing? That's confusing to me. But I think that then you go to the next game. And one of the issues that we talked about in the offseason again was, look, they have kind of given up a little bit in the run game to have a better pass rush with the argument that even with a mediocre run defense, we will be able to, you know, be okay because we're just going to be so much better.

on the pass rush in the last two games we've seen secondary issues the secondary is not very good and it was a major concern i told you that uh in the off season i was very concerned with the secondary and then we see the chargers they get alt back and they say we're going to go back to what we were doing a little bit that game plan was very much 2024 instead of 2025 i mean prior you know the first four weeks of the season i mean they were trying i mean it was really weird watching a hardball team try and spread into Greg Roman. It's like Greg Roman got a dropback passing playbook and was like, let's see how this stuff goes.

So I think what we talked about in the preseason was this is going to be a little bit rough in the run game. The secondary to me is really scary if you're not hitting home. And here we are. We're not hitting home like the Denver Broncos. And you don't have the secondary play on the back end that you were hoping for. So it was, I mean, was Cam Bynum going, something that you feel like there's a trickle down effect of, or, I mean, it's really a lot of new players, but I think I would have thought, okay, Stefan Gilmore, a great player, NFL legend, but like 100 years old. And Shaq Griffin, I thought, had a pretty good season for them.

I was a little surprised, actually, that they didn't bring Shaq Griffin back for depth because he ended up signing with the practice squad of the Seattle Seahawks. So they elected to go with Jeff Okuda there. And I think from my seat, having seen Brian Flores' bets on defensive players pay off. So his assumption that Theo Jackson could step in for Cam Bynum, his assumption that Jeff Okuda would be a fit here and that moving on from Mackay Blackman was a good idea after Blackman had a really rough camp, there was a lot of benefit of the doubt that was built up over these last couple of years, and to see it fail is pretty surprising.

So, I mean, that's, I think why, even though there were some questions there, and I was skeptical about some of the moves like bringing in Okuda or even asking Isaiah Rogers to be a starter when he had never done it before, even Kevin O'Connell said, hey, when Flores really wants a player, we just believe him and we just go with it. I think he had earned that from some of the success, but I think it also shows maybe they believed in themselves a little too much when it came to, their ability to evaluate and bring in players who had not had a previous track record of success.

Yeah, the secondary to me is very confusing. And the way that they've kind of gone about the secondary, really for the past, really since Flores has been there, has been very confusing. You know, you mentioned on the Cam Bynum, I don't think that it is any surprise that the Colts defense is one of the better defenses in the NFL. They got a legitimate defense of coordinator. And he had been wanting to do some of the stuff that Forrest does, which is the five-man pressures with zone coverage behind it. We're still in a situation, you know, we talked about this in the off season of where I thought maybe they would run a little bit more man.

We're still not, I mean, we're still not there. I mean, they're still at the bottom third of the NFL in man coverage. So I was like, okay, Okuda Rogers, man coverage, you're going to play, you're getting rid of Cam Bynum. And look, I think too, Harrison Smith is one of those players that you're going to let him play until he can't. I think we're kind of at that point now. I think we're kind of seeing it. Once that wall hits, it hits. You don't know when it's going to hit.

But he has such a tremendous year, really past couple years, you just let him play until he can't. The problem that you have with that is that there's no backup plan part of that. You look at this secondary, too. I think Byron Murphy is an adequate, he's an above average corner. You have really Theo Jackson, who has really just not really a proven player. You have Isaiah Rogers who has not ever been a starter. Jeff Okuda, yeah, he's a first-round draft pick. But for whatever reason, what he did in college has never translated, ever.

I mean, he's never been able to find an area where or a team where he's felt like they've been good. Then you look at it, and it's a bunch of guys that are just names, right? Like, you can't, hey, I don't remember that kid or, yeah, we've had that kid on the practice squad for a couple years, and then that's it. I mean, what, at one point, there were only like four corners on the entire roster. And so that's, that to me, that part of the roster construction, I've never understood. I understood the D-line moves. I understood giving up a little bit in the run game. I understood exactly what he was doing there.

But in terms of the secondary, it's been very confusing, really, the past three years of kind of who they're choosing to play, who they're choosing to keep and get rid of. So do you think this is more of a, it's the, the Jimmy's and Joe's and not the X's and O's? Does it look different to you, anything that Flores is doing with the secondary from last year? Well, I think what he's trying to do is play more regular defense. And I say regular because we've talked about this ad nauseum. of just how unique this defense is with the pressure element, guys stacked on the line of scrimmage. If you go and you look at this year,

they're trying to play more, you know, quote, quote, defense. They're trying to play in base personnel and then doing some coverage rotations and doing things on the back end within zone. They're still not trying to play a bunch of man, but they're trying to play more defense. We saw early in the season, they were running some Fangio-adjacent coverages

where they're rotating the cover two side, you know, basically running quarters to one side, cover two to the other, moving that cover two side, much like you see with a lot of these teams now, kind of picking that up, the five-man pressures are there with zone coverage. They're still doing a lot of those elements. It's just kind of toned down. The problem is I really think they thought going into the season that this defensive line was just going to dominate, and it wouldn't really matter.

And what we're seeing is that the D-line isn't dominating. that if Cashman's not playing linebacker, we're in trouble, Andrew Van Ginkle not playing, you know, Dallas Turner's talented as a pass rusher, but still, we're not there in what this system asks him to do. He's not like a Nolan Smith, right? I think Nolan Smith is probably his best comp in terms of what,

but you don't run the Fangio system. You're not dropping him back half the time. You're not doing that, you know, that's not something that they want to do. So I think what you lose in the run game, you've kind of like it's kind of dropped your defensive talent a little bit and so now teams are willing to be like look we'll throw at you that's fine as long as we get it out zone coverage now your ds are going to have to deal with it and then we have matchup issues like we saw in the in the Eagles game and it's just it's it looks like a hot mess sometimes if you guys have been wearing hats or trying different haircuts in order to cover up for your hair loss trust me I totally feel you and maybe you've tried different hair loss solutions and nothing works. Well, I've got something for you then. It's called Hymns. Hymns offers convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments with ingredients that work. And you can do it

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for that route. It was an unbelievable route. It's a great throw. It's a great protection scheme to have six men on the line of scrimmage to give Jalen Hertz time. there were several plays where Hertz extended the play and, you know, they couldn't bring him down. So then it's more time that someone has to cover. But when you have great cover men, then you're not as concerned about that.

And that's why a lot of the analytics, which I know you enjoy, will tend to find that the coverage performance is more predictive of great defense than the pass rush performance. Because even if you get there, if you have quarterbacks who aren't going to go down easy like Jalen Hertz or like Justin Herbert, they're going to extend plays. they're going to find guys open down the field. And that kind of brings me to just sticking with the coverage here, and then we'll get to the front seven. There has been a trend, though, going back to last year. And I understand how this is. Like, in basketball, hey, look, if you're facing Steph Curry,

he's going to score points on you and your defense is going to look worse. So that does go for Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert, and Jalen Hertz. But great quarterbacks or even good quarterbacks have just had no problems with this defense. Jake Browning does and Dylan Gabriel does. And you mentioned how the defense had looked pretty good on paper at the beginning of the season, but they hadn't really played any good quarterbacks. You know, Caleb Williams being the best of those and he had open receivers that he missed because Caleb Williams, as soon as they played accurate quarterbacks with experience

who can read defenses and make throws into traffic, there hasn't been any real issues there. And Jared Goff has shredded this defense repeatedly, especially in the middle of the field. I mean, is that something that is just, hey, that's the league and when you're facing great quarterbacks, or is there something with this defense that is kind of gimmicky in a way that it can fool bad quarterbacks, but not the guys who know what they're doing? Well, a lot of times what they're trying to do, especially is with so much edge pressure a lot of the times is that they're trying to, the blitz kind of is the coverage. So they're saying, look, we know you're probably going to throw into the blitz.

But because we're sending it off the edge, we're not just necessarily giving you that free access throw. We're going to be right in your face. I think what has happened is that a lot of the nickel pressures, the safety pressures. So Mattelis blitzing, Smith blitzing. If Ivan Pace is in the game, we know he's going to blitz. You know, using essentially attacking the B gaps has been something that has been commonplace now for the past couple years. So I think a lot of times these pressures get predictable. And when you have teams that understand that quarterbacks that can do it,

you also mention a lot of these good quarterbacks and then really the last two teams that you've played have really good offensive lines when they're all healthy. And I think that that's been something that you've seen trending against the Vikings is later in the season, teams especially in the division, have already seen this. They have a plan for it. They start adding motion. They start adding, you know, six-man protection schemes, seven-man protection schemes with motion to then create problems and matchups in the back end. And then they understand where the space is because at the end of the day, this really is a too high defense that wants to play a lot of zone coverage. They're going to send pressure more than anybody else, but it's going to be really in the quarters or the cover two universe.

And so what happens is these offences know kind of like where that. space is and they know that we're going to send a guy into that space every single time. And so what happens, and we talked about this at the beginning, is when you have the inability to play man coverage. So go and look at if you've watched the Broncos at all, this is what that defense really wants to be is a five-man pressure team. Now, they have a defensive line. They don't do a lot of blitzing with the back end, but this is a team that really wants to have five-man pressures, and they want to run man. coverage. Well, when you're elite at both of those, that's really difficult because

there's no air on the back end. And then the quarterback has no time to throw. And so when those mesh together, that's a really good defense. When you play zone coverage and those blitzes aren't hitting, teams are not, remember we've talked about this before in the first two seasons with this, especially early, early in last year, teams were just like, well, let's just throw screens. That's exactly what they want you to do. Throw the ball behind the line of scrimmage into zone coverage a lot of eyes a lot of guys moving down we're going to go ahead and get it now teams are like no we're going to go ahead and throw a little bit further down the field and i think that that's kind of been the problem and one of my criticisms of this

defense has been what are you doing on the back half of the season to kind of flip the script first year it was we're going to be basically facemilter 5 000 on early downs drop eight cover two on on third down and everybody knew it was it right and then later in the season team just started like jordan love the you know golf let's just throw the ball deep it's one-on-one it's my guy's better than your guy i'm just going to throw it eagles are another great example that have really taken it the eagles have really never struggled against this defense just in terms of we're just going to throw the ball deep to our guy he's better and so i think that that's kind of been that flora's this year's trying to fix this by playing defense but the

back end just isn't there it feels like also there is a trickle down effect of a few different things at once, not having Harrison Smith early in the season and then Harrison coming back from his health issue, not being able to play 100% of the snaps. He is just getting back to full health. And that's the guy who's kind of the director out there where he's the one that's seeing things. He's the one that's making checks and based on his film study and what he's identified with the offense. He's changing the defense. But they haven't be able to do that a whole heck of a lot. And I think that Harrison hasn't gotten his burst back from where he was last year. And I don't know that if it's coming back. And there's been a trickle down to

Josh Mattelis where he's had to play in coverage a lot more. And you could see it in the numbers of where he's lined up. He is a box safety. That is his best role. It's not even close when it comes to playing in the deep area of the field. He's way, way better in the box. But he's had to play a lot more deep and he's had to play a lot more one-on-one type of coverage. I also think Andrew Van Ginkle being out, I mean, that's a second team all pro there and Van Ginkle lining up in lots of different places, being great at dropping back in coverage, winning on pass rush reps, running stunts, excellently like he did last year to pick up a number of sacks.

And as you mentioned, Dallas Turner, Turner spent the entire training camp in one role. And then Van Ginkle gets hurt and it's like, oh, can you just go be that guy who is a you know, eight-year pro, who's done everything, who's one of the most unique and best players in the NFL, why don't you just go emulate that? I think that some of these things, we can break down the schemes and all that, but some of it has been just breaks that they didn't expect to get.

Yeah, 100%. Look, we talk about it earlier. Cam Bynum leaving as much as Harrison Smith is making checks. Cam Bynum was also making checks as well, cleaning up a lot. And again, that trickles down to Mattelis doesn't. have to be the guy in the back all the time it messes to look you want him playing nickel you don't want him playing deep safety when you don't have a guy back there that you trust like

harrison smiths out well okay crap he's going to have to play deep safety he's the only other guy that knows so you have a lot of these guys that are really really good in one area and then you lose them and now it's like oh okay well the guy behind him like dallas turner is good at pass rushing. He needs to play edge. That's what he needs to play. Van Gogh can get pulled back into the second level and play linebacker just as good as he can play on the defensive line. So you lose that ability. Think about all the plays Van Ginkle made of like perimeter throws or things where he's just batting him down. He sees it. He's able to feel it and get it get it out. I think that you hit the nail on the head. When you lose this defense works, if everybody is healthy, when everybody's not

healthy and you start kind of picking apart again we've seen this now the past three seasons is when you have injuries at certain positions and those guys go down this defense really struggles because you don't have i think of it like this like if you remember you know like in the NBA like it used to be like all you need is the three guys and then just dudes that waste space like we're seeing that here where like yeah but what happens if one of those guys goes you have no you have no bench and so that's where they've paid so much money to these starters and they've kind of focused on,

and you know, Flores, Flores is not going to sub guys out. So you have no bench, and this is what that looks like. So let's dive deeper into the front seven there because Van Ginkle, also another thing is too, that when it comes to setting the edge,

Van Ginkle is a very strong dude. And I think he can take on tackles where Dallas Turner is just not there yet as a 22-year-old player. And I think that myself and everybody else wants a determination on Dallas Turner, what he's going to be for his entire career, but being asked to play 60 snaps a game in a role where the opposing team is running a lot because your offense has been losing. I think it's just not advantageous at all for him.

And that's what I was going to ask is just how much game script matters to defense. Because I think that when, and this is how quarterback, this is my argument for quarterback wins, is that it impacts everything. It impacts the defense. If your quarterback is playing great and you're winning all the time, then your defense can be like, let's go sack some quarterbacks. But when you have the 27th best quarterback play in the league and your team is losing, they can hand off all the time. The Eagles can take a shot down the field. Why not?

We're up by, you know, two scores here. Let's take a shot and try to put a dagger in him. I think that we see a lot of that here that the idea was you're playing from ahead. Your offense is going to be good. and so Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen, these guys are just going to come in and rush the passer all day. We're not even going to worry that much about the run because that's kind of how it was last year.

They were ahead. I think that they trailed for four minutes in the first five games of the entire season last year. And then later on in the year, when they had tougher games, teams could run against them. They were not invincible against that. So how much do you think that it's the construction

of the front seven when it comes to the run defense and how much is just other teams are in a position where if they're up 34 to 10, they're going to be handing off a lot. No, exactly. This was built to be a front running defense, just like you said, or in a shootout defense, where we know that we're going, like our offense is going to score.

We know it's going to put some pressure on the opposing team. They're going to have to throw the ball. When they throw the ball, we're going to have the guys, really the horses to go run that guy down. And I think that that, to me, is part of this where it's almost like the defense in Minnesota is almost like the Miami offense. It's, I always joke, it's like a meme offense where like everybody has to be healthy or it doesn't work. Like one guy gets hurt and it's like, oh, okay, well, because we only run to the perimeter and we only throw in the middle of the field. So it's like if one guy's gone, like we don't, well, the defense for Minnesota is like that in the sense that if teams,

can just sit back and really use game control and control us on the line of scrimmage through running the ball early, then we're pretty much screwed because the whole point of this was our secondary only works if the pass rush is there. And yes, I'm a big believer in pass rush over coverage, even as a DV guy, a really good pass rush cleans up a mediocre secondary. But there are some things like you mentioned. Like if they're able to, to really control that, be on top of the, and ahead of the chains, then it dictates back to the offense. They're going to constantly be the ones, you know, setting the table, whereas a defense, where

Flores has really excelled is when he gets to set the table, when I get to attack you, I know what you're going to do because it's a predictable down. And yeah, game control really matters. And I would, I hope that like, if you're a fan, like really pay attention after the first drives of each half of like really pay attention who's winning the game like who's winning the line of scrimmage who is moving the ball because at the end of the day that team dictates and you look you run to win you pass the score and that is just one of those football axioms that like never changes right like you you run to win you pass to score and if you're winning

you run the ball to keep that you know so that you don't we don't get these shootouts where teams can kind of get momentum. And so that's really been one of those things for the Vikings is that the inconsistent run defense has led to teams being able to stay on the field. And then that's when you end up with a 3417 ball game. And I also think that, you know, other teams are paying attention to, to what you're doing. And when they see Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen on the field and they know that these guys haven't been good run defenders in three or four years, I mean, I loved what Pittsburgh did against the Vikings where they were like, you know what, let's throw a sixth offensive lineman on and on one of their explosive runs it's

darnel Washington who is six foot seven and two 80 and then a backup tackle and then a tackle and a guard versus like Isaiah Rogers Josh Mattelis and you know maybe Dallas Turner or Jonathan Grinardt's like they're going to win that battle and you know Philadelphia didn't run the ball very well but I thought that they understood that to some extent the chargers they just got up in the game and then they were handing off handing off and the defense is getting worn down. I mean, the Vikings are one of the worst in the NFL in terms of plays per drive on offense, one of the worst in terms of time of possession on offense, and all of that,

it adds up. But I do think that when you look at the players that they invested the money in, that there was a huge risk that they were taking when they decided to sign players who were in their 30s to contracts of significance. It was not a one year, $5 million deal for Jonathan. Allen. This is a, I believe it's a three-year deal that they signed. It's more of really a two-year contract. But still, I mean, with cap hits that are that are big. And I'm all for building around the rookie contract and spending the money and in the offseason, I like the general idea.

But then when you look at the weaknesses of the defense, putting so much money into two guys that now, I mean, I think Jalen Redman is out playing either one of these guys by a country mile. And that's an undrafted free agent that they got from last year. I think that that right there was a questionable investment, even though interior pressure should have been something that they were really looking to get after. Well, and look, I thought it was a little bit questionable too with letting Harrison Phillips go, just knowing that there's really nobody

on this defensive line that can't him stop the run. That's just like, that's what I do. I think we saw this with the Rams, the Rams last year, in their cheetah package. There's a defensive structure, not defensive play calling, but a defensive structure similar to what the Vikings are trying to do. It's the Rams. The Rams are trying to play a ton of dine.

They want a bunch of dbs on there, which means they're trying to have five or six DBs on there at all times, and they want that five-man rush. Well, what was the problem? They have no nose. So they, you know, they let Bobby Brown go to the Panthers. And who did they go get? They get Puna for from across, you know, crossed L.A.,

hey, come over here and come be our nose. And then, oh, all of a sudden, this defense now works really well. And it's like, yeah, that's part of it. You have to have, sometimes you have to have somebody that can do the dirty work. And I thought that that was always one thing that Harris Phillips did was just he did the dirty work inside. He was not concerned about getting, you know, seven, eight sacks. He was okay with the two that he probably got just because he mauled the center and the guy fell over or whatever. Like, he was fine with that.

but he you know that guy as you know he's a typical note dirty former wrestling champion like like that's the guy you want in there and i feel like they've kind of lost that element and it keeps cashman clean we know when cashman is clean and he can you know go and get the ball he's really really good and i think like what they've had to do now is anytime so if you're a fan and you need to know the blitzing is fun as a defensive coach but if you are living on that to make the play for you and to win the game for you, you're going to get burned more than you are. That's why you have to really look at these efficiency metrics for the vacancy defense. If you look at DVOA, they're bottom third. But if you look at EPA, they're top 10. Oh, that's great. That's because they have a ton of splash plays.

They're also giving up a ton of plays on the back end and then these long runs, too. So it's like you said, per play on average, you need to look at this whole picture. and not just, you know, be select the one narrative of, oh, no, we're fine. I think the last two games really proved that there's some serious things going on on this defense. I really don't like small sample size EPA because the Cincinnati game was like one of the best EPA defense games ever. And that was against Cincinnati, who was awful and fumbled the ball every time.

It was like, that's never going to be repeated ever again. Isaiah Rogers had a 99.9 pf grade, like, come on. I think you're not going to be able to do that on a play-to-play basis. You know, I think you bring up a fair point and Vikings fans have wondered about this. When they let Phillips go or they traded Phillips, my thought was, okay, that must mean that they believe so much in Levi Drake Rodriguez and Jalen Redmond that they felt those two guys won the job. And I think both of them have been fine, but it's not the same role as you mentioned.

And maybe they were thinking, well, we're going to change this up and just how we play. It's going to be different. And Phillips isn't as good of a fit. But when you have, and I'm not saying Mackay Blackman has even been good for Indianapolis, but when you have a corner that all you have to do is nothing, just keep him on the team. And a nose tackle where all you have to do is nothing just keeping on the team. And you let two of those key guys go, somebody's going to have to step up and really prove it. And they have not been able to do that to fill in the role there,

whether it's the Okuda sort of depth corner or whether it's the run stuffing. I think it's a lot of different things that have all played into this being nowhere near as good of a defense. And that's what I say all the time. I'm sure you do is how fragile defenses are from year to year. I think this is really the proof that you can't, when you build a team and you go into a season, you can't just assume you're going to have an amazing defense. And I think the Vikings really did that this year thinking that, okay, well, our quarterback play can be

average or whatever. will just be great because of our defense. Now, the Vikings are playing the Detroit Lions this week. On a fan duel, the over 100 for this is 48 and a half. So I think that there's some expectation from the betting market that the Lions are going to score. And I would agree. But I'm curious what you see from a new look alliance defense that will be going up against J.J. McCarthy because Kelvin Shepard stepping into that role for the first time, former NFL linebacker,

I wondered when he got hired. Could this actually be an upgrade? Everyone was talking about whether losing their D.C. But I thought Aaron Glenn's defense was fairly basic. Have you seen it look different? Is it similar? Like, what is J.J. McCarthy going up against in this Detroit Lions defense? No, I think you hit the nail on the head.

I mean, I look, anytime that you have that brain drain, we saw this in, I mean, look at the Ravens right now. You know, Dean P's retires is like, I'm officially retiring. You lose Anthony Weaver to Miami, Denard Wilson, to the Titans, and now all of a sudden you're stuck with a, you know, a 30-something coordinator who was really just a, you know, assistant linebacker coach a couple years ago. And I think that that was a little bit of a concern. But what Kelvin Shepard has done is taken essentially the foundation of what Aaron Glenn had been working on.

Now, they had been doing some different things. Like Aaron Glenn really just wants to run a five-man front. He wants to basically play defense like the Broncos. He wants to five-man front. He wants to play cover one. one on every down if you can't. He was forced to put in some quarters and some other things, you know, as that, just because their secondary, especially at corner, was kind of slipping.

You are going to get Brian Branch back. They have two really good safeties. But what he's really done is they're able to do some different things. I thought what they did, you know, with basically using their safeties as lever tools to kind of go away from and take away different players on that defense. So it's not just, hey, we're getting in cover one. No, you're going to have help. I think, too, with that defensive line, everybody's pretty much healthy.

They use Derek Barnes as basically a leveraging tool on the front. He's number 55. You're going to see him. He's not a sexy player. But what they do with him is line him up on the tied end. They do different. They can drop him into coverage. They can pass.

They can just say, hey, just jam the tight end so he can't go down the field. So these are all things that he's been in. able to do in this defense yes it has the same kind of glen feel that you have but it's more nuanced and i think that he's really made a name for himself you know he's really surprised me with some of the things that he's been able to do yeah i i thought the same thing because you figure well inexperienced guy he's just going to come in and try to run the same system and is it really going to work and so forth but uh i think another thing too with uh when the vikings have played Detroit, the most underrated player in the National Football League, the whole league, Cody,

Alex Anzolone. I think he is the key to this entire operation, his coverage, his ability to stop the run. He's really like, you know what's gone for linebackers? He's like when linebackers were men. Like, I mean, he can really cover. He's like a modern linebacker that way. This dude is strong. He could take on offensive linemen and cause a lot of problems when he's in the lineup.

I think he makes things way more difficult for everybody on offense. No, 100% agree with you. He's one of those guys that when he got hurt last year, that defense cratered. Now, they had it, they had, they basically had 49er injury luck on defense at the end of last year. But when he's in the game, him and him basically controlling Jack Campbell, telling him where to go, things like that, you know, with him in there. And then, you know, this is a team, too, that wants to play a lot of base. They want that those guys in there. They do not want to play a lot of sub-packaged defense, and they're able to do that because

they can play some man coverage, and then they play some quarters as well, which is basically man-with-rules. So they're able to do a lot of that with base, and the reason why they're able to do that is with Anzolone, because his ability to be able to cover Jack Campbell's ability to cover running backs out of the backfield, and then Barnes just being able to just, you know, mall tight ends, they really are difficult. matchup on defense because they can do a lot of different things. And then you add Shepard in there.

I thought here's a, you know, their last game was against the Buccaneers that had Egbuka and Evans. Now, Evans ends up getting hurt, but they played a bunch of like within their cover one ways where they could double Evans, who is a vertical threat, but then also have a backstop for Egbuka, who's basically now become another power slot in the NFL. Well, Addison and Jefferson are kind of the same way of like, hey, they, they, got a plan in place. They can do this. And it's on tape that, hey, we're a lead at this. And I thought it was really, really clever what he was able to do. And that's a wrinkle that I don't

think that Aaron Glenn has. And so I agree with you. I think that this is a, you know, this is a defense that, man, this, this conference has really become a fun defensive conference with Flores, with Dennis Allen in Chicago. Halfley has done an amazing job with Packers. And then now Kelch Shepherd. It's like, Jesus, murderers, Roe, D.C. in the north. Yeah, this is where I think a lot of folks thought that Detroit was going to fall off. And I think they improved in that area. And since they've been able to survive on the offensive line, if not be just as good, at the top of the list for Super Bowl contenders, the Detroit Lions.

So let me ask you one more question about this Lions and Vikings matchup. Let's say J.J. McCarthy gives you a call this week. Sometimes this happens for you for players, give you a call and says, Cody, I need, I need one, I need one thing that I, that I can beat this lion's defense on. What, what would you suggest for the Vikings young quarterback to look for that he can beat the lion's defense on? Well, I do think that they're secondaries a little bit beat up. And it's just, look, I think the, the key to success has always been with the Vikings

is give the ball to Justin Jefferson. Just find a way. They're going to try and play a lot of man coverage. Yes, they're going to have some certain things to cut him off and to double him. but I think if you can use some of those underneath throws, underneath the man coverage, underneath these safeties that are going to attack, I still think that you have to find ways to get him the ball. I think this offense struggles when they can't get him the ball

or they just kind of ignore him or he's not necessarily the focal point. Look, Jefferson is, I think, one of the few receivers. I think there's really only about him, A.J. Brown, and you could probably argue C.D. Land where it does not matter. Get him the ball. It doesn't matter. Just throw the ball to the guy. And I know that if you were looking for some more of a nuanced or fancy answer, but I do think like there is a real thing about, like, we make football so more complicated than it is, is you need to be able to get him the ball. You need to be able to find him on that ball on some of those end cuts, especially those deep, those deep digs. where you're running away from hand coverage and you're running underneath of those safeties, occupying whatever kind of robber player that they're trying to play with on the other side with Addison, because you're going to have to pull them apart. So when you bring them together, that can create problems.

Or if you put them on the same side, that can create problems for defense. So use those tools, but get Jess and Jefferson the ball. Yeah, there's a great play that they ran against Philadelphia, where those two guys are on the same side of the field, and Jefferson runs a post, and Addison goes straight down the sideline. And I think it's against cover two, but the safety's like, uh, Jefferson. And then Addison that's up wide open. It's like that they are really good of doing it. Those plays are out there. Quarterback has to find it. Offensive line has to block it up. But the over under for Jefferson on Fandul is 73 and a half. And if he goes

over that, that means it probably went really well for J.J. McCarthy. If not, uh, it means it was a long day. Cody Alexander matchquarters.com. If you are a full football freak. You're into the X's and O's. You're coaching at any level. Highly suggest it. And I know lots of folks in the National Football League read your work. So I do too. As a long, long time subscriber of match quarters, thank you so much, Cody, for the very in-depth breakdown. And I have a feeling we'll be getting together again, not too long in the future from now talking about, well, how do they rebuild it in the off season? That could probably be a take. So we'll see where it goes from here. But thanks again, man.

and great to get together with you. 100%. Always a pleasure. Thank you.