Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will Parkinson of Turn On The Jets talks about a must-win vs. Vikings

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Will Parkinson of Turn on the Jets about the desperation the Jets have to win this game and then discusses how many teams are better than the Vikings with Manny Hill Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show from the Turn on the Jets podcast, Will Parkinson, Mr. Cortland D3 himself on to break down Vikings and Jets. No one in my audience understands that, but if you came from New York, you would. What is up, Mr. Parkinson? How you doing, buddy? Good, man. Good. I'm excited. We get to have a little bit more of an exciting quarterback matchup in this version of Jets-Vikings. I'm excited for a team.

You know, this matchup, I think everyone was really looking forward to before the year, just, you know, Rodgers against the NFC North again and London game. And, you know, I was more optimistic about the Vikings than most people, but I did not expect 4-0. And so, yeah, no, I'm ready to excited to get into it. Well, we actually do have the receipts. You did say that in the off season, you did say that you would not be surprised if Sam Darnold came to Minnesota and played well, but you know,

you're, you're a football guy. You played football, you're big dude, you're tough, but I want to talk about your emotions okay I want to talk about how it feels for somebody who watched what Darnold dealt with in New York how that all went down to then be 4-0 with another franchise so I think this this is a conversation around Sam and young quarterbacks and Kevin O'Connell obviously talked a lot about you know a lot of times you know teams can kind of ruin quarterbacks more than honestly quarterbacks can sometimes ruin themselves. And, and Rogers talked about for about, you know, as Rogers always does for at 25 minutes on this topic,

I thought his comments were actually extremely insightful when it comes to football. I'm not sure there's a better person. Roger's going to be way better than Brady in the booth. Just hold me to that. But I think the same thing was was was always the jets were largely at fault but sam to his own i think admission he talked about today with you know with the media uh where yesterday i'm not sure when that clip was from you know i didn't play well enough and sam didn't he had moments and um you know i think this comes back to the carolina panthers had baker

and sam on their roster two guys who we'll see if Sam's able to continue this throughout the rest of the year and kind of become this year's Baker in terms of any earning. Does he earn, you know, from Minnesota a two-year extension and they let JJ sit another year? Who knows? That's obviously a conversation for another day, but I'm extremely happy for Sam because he always handled himself like an incomplete pro, faced the media,

took questions on Gase and Le'Veon Bell for years and some really bad Jets teams, frankly. And I just – I think Jets fans around the country, obviously mostly in New York and New Jersey, are all really happy for him. He's not in the Jets conference, so it's not like he's tearing it up with the Patriots and stuff like that. And so I just think that the fan base and myself, you know, I'm extremely happy for him.

I wish it would have worked here. It didn't. But, yes, there was a path to trading back. And, you know, you draft Sewell or Devontae Smith and all that stuff, and maybe it would have worked. But I'm happy. He cannot be in a better situation coaching, staff-wise, talent-wise, and honestly division-wise right now.

Like this kind of felt like a perfect match at the time when we talked about it in april or whatever that was and it feels even more like a perfect match now he's an mvp front runner yeah i mean and he has played comfortably he has been a leader for the offense he has come through in the very few situations where he is needed to be clutch there is a rule for that there's a rule for that when your dog barks in the very few situations where he is needed to be clutch. There is a rule for that. There's a rule for that. When your dog barks in the background, you have to make a dog pun. Okay.

So that's your next challenge here after I throw this back to you. But Darnold has been just so comfortable with this situation and with Kevin O'Connell, with his wide receivers, and he looks very happy out there playing football like he is playing fast he's playing on time for the most part outside of a handful of plays against the Green Bay Packers I want to know from you what it was in New York specifically that made him the quarterback that he was there because we can kind of go yeah it was gaze and it was you know maybe the receivers and whatever but is there is there something lurking around the corner that we

haven't seen yet with darnold that took him down there or is this just a totally different person yeah i think it's a mixture of both i i think sam's a guy who i don't believe played quarterback until you know until high school like wasn't like you know, he's a linebacker. If I'm not mistaken up until high school. And I think in the high school he played a lot. Like he wasn't a guy who got to USC as this, you know, elite 11 had been playing quarterback since he's four years old. And, you know,

his dad's been training him doing quarterback drills, reading cover two and cover three defensive Sims, biggest issues at USC is biggest issues with the jets and you know i think have always been ball security in terms of just a little loose with the football at times kind of you know a little bit out to lunch you know for lack of a better term or um you know and just just a little loose with it right and then the second thing was kind of overthinking at times it felt like when sam got in a rhythm and he was confident just letting it rip there's very few guys that could throw the football better than him. But it was this, especially against the Patriots, against other teams where he would see a multitude of different

coverages, didn't feel it, and then would start to kind of spiral. And that's kind of the two things with Sam. And it feels like this year, he's done a good job of, Kevin O'Connell's limited how much thinking he's had to do and again that's not an insult to sam he's just like sam's not the highest football iq guy you're ever gonna see he's extremely talented and he's smart but he's not like again he's not a cerebral genius you know that's gonna be like that's why he's kind of a weird backup quarterback just because like he's not like a guy's gonna mentor a young player he's like the guy that sometimes needed to be mentored he sat with kyle and you know for a year and now he's been

with o'connell so it's that and then the ball security we've seen sam a couple of times this year the san francisco game in particular he had the he did throw it forward but he almost will levis one and you're like you're like ah sam like it just feels like this year he's limited the pumpkin moments for sam he had a couple like self sacks with the Jets where he'd run out of bounds and you're like, throw the ball away. He's going to throw it away, right? And then he took a five-yard sack. He's just limited those mistakes.

And then we've seen, obviously, when you have a Justin Jefferson, now with Jordan Addison back and Aaron Jones, kind of just everyone calming him down. And he's playing – like I said, he's playing confident. He's a guy that is very special. It's just again, limiting those, those, Oh man, what are you doing moments? And O'Connell mixed with maturity and you're seven. Now he's, he's in his mid twenties. He's kind of,

some of that's out of his game at least through, you know, through a month or so here. It's so funny about how thin the margins are and you didn't mix in the dog pun, so I'm disappointed. Oh, I'm getting on. I have one in the back. Keep that in the back of your mind. I'm ready for that because he has had that dog in him so far. But to your point, he has had a couple of the moments, and he's gotten away with them so far.

And I think that if even when he has those mistakes, like a red zone interception, which he's now had in two games out of his four, that they are so good around him that you can make up for that, that there are other quarterbacks in the league who are very good, who make big mistakes. But if you have Justin Jefferson catching a ball on third and 10, it's flying out of the, you know, out of the sideline and make it a Chris Carter catch or make it a Randy Moss catch down the sideline. And then you have open receivers on third downs and you can have a play action game built off of Aaron Jones.

You can afford a mistake or two a game and get away with it and still have a top-notch offense and still top-notch performance. It feels like with the jets that the margins were so thin and the offensive line wasn't very good. So that compounds things when you're getting pressured, but it also feels like he would get in a rut and then he just would not be seeing anything for weeks on end. And I think that the confidence factor is just going to be huge for him. We haven't seen him get punched in the mouth at all so far this season. When that does happen, how does he quickly get

out of that? I think is probably my biggest question. Yeah, that's mine too. I think, look, Sam's not going to have 13 more weeks of, you know, maybe he's this year's Kurt Warner and, and that, and that ends up happening. And he turns into a pumpkin three years down the line after two Superbowl runs. And then maybe that happens. I don't he turns into a pumpkin three years down the line after two Super Bowl runs. And maybe that happens. I don't know. I hope for Sam's sake he has extreme amount of success. I just think that the expectations also were so high.

He was billed as the savior in New York and the Jets kind of made it. So it was like Sam had to do everything. He was just the quarterback's going to fix all these other problems. And this kind of feels like the opposite. It was like, hey, man, like no pressure. You're going to come in. And I don't know. I thought he'd probably play eight or 10 games this year.

And then they turned it over to JJ when they were like four and six, a little Eli Manning, Kurt Warner from the Giants. We're like, you're still good and you're going to play in this league. And like, you're going to be a free agent and walk after the year. You've got good tape. Thanks for your service. Like we need to turn it over to the young guy. I just, for me with Sam, it's,

I feel like they've done a good job too of not letting him get like flustered with pressure. But the Jets, the offensive line again, wasn't great. And, you know, it's well documented. And then that division where, you know, Buffalo and Miami, that was kind of the years where Miami was blitzing like playing man 60% of the time. Brian Flores, obviously, you know, and so to me, yes, Sam's going to have moments this year. And I honestly think he might have a little bit of a moment this week where it might be more of like a, play okay. He might have one or two turnovers.

But you mentioned something there that I think is the biggest difference in that margin for error. Sam still has turned the football over, right? And he's got, you know, and I think he's got a fumble of three interceptions, if I'm not mistaken. So he's got 11 touchdowns. That's the difference.

With the Jets, it was like 200 yards, one touchdown, one pick, generally speaking, outside of that really, really amazing end of his rookie year. Now it's like, hey, if you're going 275, three touchdowns and a pick, you'll take it all day long. So, yeah, I just think that he's he almost changed his game a little bit like he's just taking shots and like that's that confidence football so mental man like you could just tell like i don't know rogers wasn't feeling it early on in week one right and like you could tell week three like he came out they went down

there and rogers was like slinging it around running the football doing all this crazy stuff and it's like oh you even the great great great ones are on confidence, let alone guys that are, you know, middle of the road starters, I guess. Right. And I think that coming over to the sideline and having a former NFL quarterback there, and then also having Josh McCown there has done a lot for him. It's almost like they've designed this ideally. If someone just said to you, hey, what's the best way you could make a quarterback a success? Well, give him the best receiver in the world,

a coach who is a former quarterback, a former teammate coach of his quarterback who had been just about everywhere. Oh yeah, a Pro Bowl running back in the backfield, and they're going to get a tight end back. All of this has come together for him, and he's maximized it in these first few weeks and become one of the best stories in the NFL. But as you mentioned, this Jets defense is still good. Hey, look, the Jets held Bo Nix to 60 yards

passing. Did they win? No, but they still played pretty good defensively. And also Quinn and Williams exists. And anytimeikings have faced a monster defensive tackle it is a problem for them give me what you think the game plan for the jets defense will be against sam darnold yeah i think the game plan so two weeks ago when the jets played new england uh they just blitzed the crap out of um dog crap out of Jacoby Brissett. They, you know, they think they blitzed on, I believe, 47% of dropbacks. The Jets are usually like four man rush. This is what we do.

We're going to sit in quarters, sit and cover three, a little bit of man on third downs. They blitzed them all day long. And I believe, I think seven or eight sacks like 47 or 51 pressure like they got after him i think you'll see more of that last week against bo nicks while they had success um they kind of used more of just went back to rushing for they had a spy on bo nicks and it worked right like you have 10 points and he threw for 60 yards. So, again, the passing defense outside of that Niners game has been quite good. I just think this is a game now where probably should be blitzing more. This is going to be a – the whole point of having a Sauce Gardner, DJ Reed,

and Michael Carter is so you can – when you need to play in certain matchups, you don't have to sit back and zone and just – we'll see if the Jets do it. They're pretty stubborn about their scheme.bert sala is like this is my scheme this is what we do we're going to be better than you what we do and that's great that's a great mentality and talking point and all that stuff but um they did that two years ago when they played minnesota and it worked fine but like minnesota had a bunch of hey we're going to get after kirk cousins with four and we're gonna like we're just going to cover J.J. and zone. And, like, yeah, J.J. wasn't amazing.

But Minnesota still won the game. They put up 20-plus points. So it's got to be a little bit of a different strategy. You know, again, the Jets don't do well against screens, so I would assume if they start blitzing, O'Connell's going to go to more of the screen game with Jones and guys like that. I just – this defense needs to get more takeaways. They're very good. They're very good.

They're very sound. They're very like, bend, don't break. They'll give you field goals all day long if you take them between the 20s. I just, I think the one thing that, again, we talked about with Sam is like, the way you force Sam into bad mistakes is you speed the game up for him. You muddy the waters. He feels like he's getting hit. Any quarterback, doesn't matter who it is, right?

Rodgers didn't look amazing last week. He got hit 15 times. So, yeah, I think they'll try to blitz a lot more on Sunday. It won't be six, seven, eight guys like a Rex Ryan level blitz, a Wink Martindale type of thing, but it might be bringing Quincy Williams at times. Maybe it's bringing a slot corner blitz. Just integrating stuff in there and changing up coverages

is probably the best way to go to, to try to beat this Vikings team. So this off season, I was following a sauce Gardner on Twitter and he was taking up golf. Now I really like golfing shocking that a football reporter with no other real discernible physical skill would like golf. Uh, but I was enjoying watching someone discover the game. First of all, he needs to understand if there's lightning out there, you do not go play golf where there's lightning. But otherwise, so interesting to watch a pro athlete at the highest level have his own struggles and not understand how to be consistent with his swing and things like that, talking about trying to hit it too hard, which all of us do.

I want you to explain to me Sauce Gardner, but through the terms of golfing. What kind of golfer is Sauce Gardner as a football player? As a football player. Yeah. I would say – Find him through golf. Sauce is a – this is a good question. Sauce is a guy like obviously, from a stature perspective,

is like the former football basketball classic, like comes in annoyingly athletic. You're playing with like three other like semi-fat dad white dudes. And like it's like, oh, this guy steps up. I never swung a golf club before and like hits a 285. And I'm saying that because usually that's the comment I get of, like, buddy, if you could just hit it straight. I'm like, yeah, I know.

I wish I could hit it straight too. Sauce's game is very much extremely technically sound. Fundamentally wise, he is as good as it gets. He can run with anybody, but he also can be physical enough. Really good hands, really good quick feet. So I'd say from like a golfing perspective, he's a guy who his driver, which I would maybe consider like more of like the interception turnover machine type of the trade digs of the world, his driver's okay.

But when it comes to his irons, his short game, his putting, he's as good as it gets. He's a guy who like if he didn't need to ever take his driver out of his bag, he'd shoot a 70 every day. But he does take his driver out of his bag once in a while. So maybe he shoots a 74 75. That is a tremendous description. It's really along the lines of what I was thinking about him as such a consistent technical player. He would be the guy who knows how to spin the ball and just put it right next to the cup where all of us roll it by every single time, because we don't know how to do that. You're like, man, why are you so consistent at chipping and putting

where everybody else wants to swing the driver? His consistency on a down to down basis. Every time I see him is just so impressive. And I feel like elite corners always fall in those two buckets. There is either the, and I think Stefan Gilmore is this way, extremely technical, very consistent, gets more past breakups than he does pick sixes. And then there is the guy who takes the big risks. The Asante Samuel gets the picks, the Marcus Peters, right? But they're also going to give up the big plays as well. And I think that the technical guy is harder to play against. And the technical golfer is more annoying. I don't care if you smash the drive.

I mean, if you're not going to finish with a birdie, then what difference does it make? But this guy is just going to go hole after hole. We won't go any farther with that. But I did enjoy following him. And I think this is a great battle with him and Jefferson. Do you think that he follows Jefferson, or do they not really play that way? So they do it sometimes.

It'll be, my guess is it'll be like 30% or 40% of third downs or a pound of passing situation. The Jets will play man, I don't know, somewhere in the 20s probably on 30%. I'd let him just follow Jefferson all day long and say like let let these two guys just go at it and then say we trust dj rita michael carter to be better than your guys and again i like jordan asson a lot i mean i'm a usc guy so i i love jordan asson but he's a game he's a guy who like jordan asson's one thing it's just extremely like he's not a strong player like he like physically like you can get him off his spot and he's coming back from an injury in a pretty tumultuous offseason so again he's played well last week but um dj reed makes a lot of money like you'd hope you could

trust him i i just think that you get more burned by like by saying like oh we're gonna take every like if justin jefferson has 15 or 21 targets and they just he burns sauce all day long but the rest of the offense does nothing i almost feel like that's probably a better strategy than hey we hope everyone like we're gonna make sure like he doesn't eat too much but then it i don't know maybe it leaves um you know jefferson on uh i don't know tony you know tony adams for some reason at some point it's like ah do we really want that matchup? Sauce Gardner is going to get paid, I don't know, probably four years, $105 million in five months' time.

At some point, maybe just let your guy travel a little bit. I'm not asking to have the Revis treatment where Revis is a one-on-one player. We're never going to see anything like that again. But I don't know, some third downs. They did last year against Keenan Allen a little bit they've done it at times but maybe this week is the week to say i don't know let's give them 20 snaps just man coverage one-on-one you take this out of the field you and jj are going to go at it and you know make sam make a mistake make sam stare down justin jefferson and there's a strip sack or make him look away from an open Addison

because they're so keen on Jeff like that's just to me I when it comes to start it's always the argument with like a LeBron in basketball or you know other guys where it's like do you want them to score do you want when LeBron is 20 assists they're unbeatable if LeBron scores 50 like that means nobody else is doing anything so I I don't know. Weird reference, I guess, but it kind of does the same thing a little bit. No, it makes complete sense. I think that if you're Kevin O'Connell, you're spending the entire week and the entire flight trying to figure out ways to get him away from Sauce Gardner, which this is where O'Connell really cooks the most is finding ways to get Jefferson on mismatches. There's a lot of those bunch formations. They'll line them up tight to the formation. They will motion him. They've put him in the backfield numerous times so far this year. So he's doing everything and anything

to hide Jefferson. And when you put them in those bunches, it's really hard because you have three players going in all different directions for those guys. And oftentimes you just have to play it where you take the side of whichever way the guy goes. And it makes it harder for someone like sauce Gardner to just stay on them. But if Gardner is staying on them, then you know that, and then you can do some pick stuff, you know, this, the cat and mouse game between these two teams. And I have a ton of respect for Robert Salas. The defensive mind is going to be super fun to watch. But we have gone too far without talking about Aaron Rodgers. My thing is, people have heard me say it all week, I'll say it again, don't look at last week and say, oh, Rodgers is cooked or something like that.

You are just asking for it because people thought a little bit of the same thing. I want to say, was it around 2018 where they had a bad year in Green Bay? And then 2022 wasn't really going the same. And then he demolished the Vikings. But where does he stand right now? Because this is a different human being with a repaired Achilles. Yeah. I mean, look, he ran for like 30 yards last week.

He's been moving up really well the last two weeks. He didn't get banged up at the end of the last. He took a lot of shots last week. The Jets offensive line the first three weeks was a top five unit in terms of pass pro. They were horrendous on Sunday. Everyone on that team was. Brees Hall played the worst game he'll ever play in his life.

I'm talking Pop Warner to do the NFL. He has never played that bad. Negative 16 rushing yards over expected. He gave up a sack and a half, a drop, and two false start penalties. That doesn't tell you a guy is just like not mentally in it for a game. He'll be much better this week. I'm not sure you could possibly be worse. Gary Wilson struggled.

But like Rodgers overall, the arm is still awesome. The mobility is actually better than I probably, I think anyone thought after two weeks, and definitely probably better than anyone expected coming into the year. He's had two really good quarters against Tennessee. He had a full game worth of really good quarters, obviously against New England and probably a quarter and a half good against Denver. They've only had one game where they've played a complete game of offense. When Rodgers gets going and they stack together first downs, they pretty much score every time. It's like they're 12 plays, 75-yard drives for over a nine-minute stretch,

and it's like this is surgical, you know, surgical Rodgers. His numbers against the Vikings all time are astronomical, obviously. I think it tweeted that's like 7,000 yards, 57 touchdowns, eight picks in 29 games. Obviously, Vikings fans are very familiar with that. But the one thing I think with Rodgers right now is he doesn't have full trust in everybody around him, and I think that could be taken advantage of. It's also the Jets' play calling, frankly, is –

it's going to be one of two ways on Sunday because this is the way it's been pretty much through the first, I guess, yeah, 20 games of Nate Hackett being the Jets' offensive coordinator. Their offense either looks awesome against New England. Game plan was fantastic. The second half against Tennessee really good or you know even last year against Houston Hackett had a great game plan against D'Amico Ryans I mean he made Zach Wilson look like not the worst NFL player we've ever seen like it was impressive there's also

other games where if it doesn't go like what he thought it was going to be going to the weekly let's just say he goes into this game and says Flores is going to blitz Rogers because that's what Denver did which probably is what's going to happen. And he should do that, right? The Jets didn't prove they could stop it. I'm not sure what the Jets game plan was last week because Vance Joseph, I think brought pressure with Denver, like the highest rate in the NFL coming into the week. They brought it even more than they brought pressure the time before. And they beat up Rodgers a little bit and the Jets didn't adjust. So I think didn't adjust. So I think Vikings fans are going to see a pretty similar version of Rodgers to what they're used to.

It'll look a little different. We'll see that the field conditions and different things like that, it's kind of always hard to tell with these international games. But generally speaking, I don't think you should expect too much different than what we've seen. Even if he's not 100% peak MVP Rodgers, he's still ability-wise pretty close to that. It's just a matter of did him and Garrett Wilson get into a rhythm early?

Does the Jets play calling? Did the Jets do a good job of picking up some of Minnesota's early blitzes and things like that? Because if they do and actually use a screen or some type of thing and not just do Aaron Rodgers drop back in no motion type of stuff, which is possible, then it'll look very similar to Vikings fans, you know, kind of what they're familiar with. The blitz part of it is really interesting to me because the Vikings have mixed and matched this year rather than just blitzing all the time. But it's so funny in the NFL, and this is why it is the week-to-week league, is because you get smoked on a blitz the one week,

and then, of course, the next team says, well, we're going to do that too. We're going to take advantage of that. But the Jets have spent all week trying to figure that out. If you do have a running back that isn't picking up pass pro, I think against Brian Flores, that is going to be a major, major problem. It's just that the Vikings can send people from so many different spots. And this is why they're using Blake Cashman sometimes as a decoy blitzer to have edge rushers get opportunities. You're seeing safeties coming on blitzes, linebackers,

Josh Metellus is kind of both. That looks like it could be very difficult with the Rogers thing, though. It isn't so much to me, can he still throw the football, or can they protect him, or can they run around him? It's really about how this is vibe-wise for the Jets. I know that people can make too much of certain things, like going on vacation in the offseason during minicamp and all that. That became a big discussion,

but vibes wise, it's been odd. Uh, and last week it was just odd when they show Garrett Wilson running around, he turns around, wait, where did you think I was supposed to be? Rogers is looking at him. And as, as marvelous as Rogers was against the Vikings. So many times the times that he wasn't, he was always looking at his receivers like, what were you doing? I was doing something else. I told you to do whatever. The offensive line struggling with the cadence thing, which the word cadence is really having a week on television.

I mean, what is happening here? What is that? Because that, I think, is the thing holding them back, not him throwing a football. Yeah, look, I think the biggest thing in team is for the Vikings defense is like they give up a ton of yards but they also have taken the football away a ton so you know if you can it's the give and take there you have Rodgers and this offense like Rodgers always been a body language guy it's just it is what it is right Brady did it all the time Peyton used to do it like these great quarterbacks just expect they're so competitive they're so intense they

expect perfection every throw rogers had a few misses on sunday he'd won a breeze hall one and tyler conklin that like i don't know if it's the weather i don't know what it was but you know just he missed him and he owned that um the cadence thing was as a joke i think it's one of sal's stupidest comments he's made since he's been in charge of the jets. Rogers cadence is a legitimate weapon. I mean, Vikings fans know better than anybody. Like he's, he's already had two free play touchdowns this year.

Like this, it's what he does and it gets them in advantageous situations. And it's able to help him, you know, diagnose what the defense is going to do as well as not just jump off sides, but like Jason McCourty on ESPN talked about today when Flores was, was in new England,

you know, they were like, Hey, every time Rogersgers takes his hands out of his his hand warmer there he's gonna you know we're gonna go back to where we are and he said rogers would killed them you know on cadences because they would jump early and they devon mccourty and jason mccourty would fly out and go back and like try to go deep half and rogers like oh you're a cover too cool now i know what you're doing doing rogers trust lazard right now he trusts mike williams to an extent him and garrett not being on the same page is extremely confusing and i say for two reasons one every camp practice i was at was just like watching brady to moss or you know cold pepper to you know moss and cart like it was they were just torching people, whether it was joint practices, their own practice.

They could not have been more on the same page. Garrett's pressing right now, I think, to some extent, where him and Brees both are ascending superstar-level talents in this league and have shown moments where they're superstars. But so much of like finally got the quarterback and you know and we finally and we're getting all this respect and love and then it was just like I think they're like almost expecting it to happen now and it's not hasn't fully happened and it's like you start pressing more and more um it'll get corrected I don't worry too much

about those guys in terms of long term I just think that was one of those games where the play calling was bad, the weather sucked. It was a lot of like we just came off and everything was rolling. What's happening here? I'm kind of not happy it happened, but in a sense, kind of lit a little bit of a fire under their ass in terms of both those guys getting it right and then also it probably is going to push them into getting Devontae

in the next three to four days. Like, that's sometimes a loss you might look back on as a good thing. Again, the Jets have to respond. And if they don't win probably two of the next, at least two of the next four, you know, Minnesota, home Buffalo, at Pittsburgh, and then home at New England, you know, then it's a different conversation. Then this wasn't a good loss. It's a frustrating loss. And it's the vibes coming out of it. Again thing the not on the same page a lot of just like New York mixed with Rodgers mixed with you know a bad performance this is what's going to happen

because the week before hey Rodgers the MVP conversation you know look at this throw to Garrett Wilson the Jets are going 15 and 1 or 15 and two, like week to week league, man. It's, this is what it is. Oh, exactly. Well, and this is, I think the Vikings biggest concern, because of course the Vikings going in four and L are feeling like they should win this game and their fans are feeling like they should win this game or the better team. But with you, you just don't really want to play a team that came off a game where they're starting to have a panic week because then you get and we're just going to set a record for cliches here but the kitchen sink game is real where a team starts to feel it if we don't turn

around right now we're in a lot of trouble kind of a desperation type of situation whereas the vikings are coming in everyone's talking about how great they are. The vibes are very good. Everyone is very happy. It's just, there's a little bit of a clash there of one team feels like it's cruising. Another team feels like it better win this football game or this season is potentially going to be a calamity. And that's, that's, I think a scary proposition for the Vikings.

Now, what do you want to know from me? What are you, what do you want? What are Jets fans interested on the Viking side of things? Yeah. Like is this defense real? I think it's the real question is because Flores is defenses over the, you know, over the years, I think, you know, it's been really good at times. And then there's been kind of later in the season. And, you know, sometimes it's like people kind of figure him out a little bit and, you know, it's been really good at times. And then there's been kind of later in the season. And, you know, sometimes it's like people kind of figure him out a little bit and, you know, figure out some of the pressure. I think a lot of the players in this team are – we've got a lot of good guys, good players.

I think this is more of a group of, like, talented group, but not – this isn't, you know, the Niners defense of three or four years ago where it's like three all pros in every spot. It's a lot of good players. Like, you know, whatever. Is this, how good do you think this defense actually is? Is it really the best defense in the league? Or is this more like the top 10 group

that's playing out of their mind right now? Yeah, I think that it does have a case for being the best in the league. Now, part of this is they play Rogers, then Goff, then Stafford in these next few games. So the tests will continue. But I think last year it was so much about blitzing. It was so much about confusion for the other teams that eventually when they had a few

players get hurt and they were doing the same thing week after week, that opponents started to figure them out at the end of the year. Cincinnati was really the one that figured them out. And then everybody copied that from there on after. And it was not the same defense as it was early in the year. The biggest difference is all the talent that they brought in. You are very familiar with Andrew Van Ginkle and how good he is. I feel like only AFC East observers know how good this gentleman is at football. But Jonathan Granada at 12 and a half sacks last year, he's getting about five or six pressures a game,

at least for the Vikings. Blake Cashman, who you said, hey, watch out for Blake Cashman. This guy's going to be good. And Gophers fans and Jets fans united over that one. But he's been phenomenal. Not just okay, actually phenomenal. Total game changer for this defense. He's great in coverage.

He's great at blitzing. He is a hard tackler. And then really, to me, the person who pushed this defense over the edge was Stephon Gilmore, that he looks great. He looks young for someone who's 35 years old and that other teams just don't even throw at him. There is, there is

a legitimate fear of throwing at Stefan Gilmore still that we see from opponents. I think last week, the Packers targeted Byron Murphy 15 times and Gilmore three, and that just kind of tells you where it's at. So if you have so few weaknesses, if the weakest player on your defense is Byron Murphy, Jr. A proven starter over years, that has been so massively upgraded for them. And to have a more dynamic pass rush that's not just Daniil Hunter and blitzes, but actually three or four guys that can get after the passer or more has made it really impressive. And he's just advanced. He's got all these veteran players. You're not trying to cover up for any rookies he can put everything on their plate and these guys can handle it so where the real battle is this week is the checks at the line of scrimmage you

know rogers loves that he gets the line of scrimmage but this defense is built so cashman can check or harrison smith can check at time. So they'd go back and forth. Well, they're going to check out of a play. They're going to show a coverage. Then they're going to change that. That cat and mouse game between him and Harrison Smith for years has been phenomenal. And I think specifically for this game, it really will be with what Flores is designed. Yeah, no, it makes a ton of sense.

That's kind of how I feel on the Vikings defense. I just like, you know, you watch it, um, not only, you know, uh, in the back on tape, but obviously, uh, you know, obviously in person every week. So, and you know, on TV, obviously. So, um, yeah, that's kind of how I feel with this defense. I think it's a really good unit and I think it's, it's going to stay as a top 10 unit all year. Okay. Here's what I want to do to end the show. Well, I have a list here of players who played for the vikings and jets and my god is it

glorious it's i mean we've we've got everything from deep cuts to superstars darnold farve bubby brister jay fiedler the crossover players here ty conklin is another one who i enjoyed covering uh tyler conklin really nice guy and a good player. I'm going to read you just some more names. And then after I read you those names, I want you to tell me which one of these is your favorite, your favorite crossover Viking slash New York jet, Scotty Graham,

Percy Harvin, of course, Percy Harvin, the very brief Delvin Cook run. Tony Richardson. We have also Jermaine Wiggins. Sheldon Richardson, one of my favorite players to cover. Really, really unique guy.

Tom Compton gets thrown in here. And I'll throw this one out there because it's funny. Vlad Dukas. They would ask teddy bridgewater about his leadership and he would say well this is everybody's team it's my team it's vlad dukas's team uh like why did you pick vlad for this he did it multiple times and so that's why i remember vlad dukas what is your favorite oh and brooks bollinger who i know yeah there's so I'll go the least my least favorite Stav and Cook um by far didn't work out no um yeah I yeah tough um no I'm not sure he particularly tried uh at any point last year um

I will say my two favorite in terms of personality Tony Richardson and Tyler Conklin both like elite guys if you're you're do what we do like they're as good as it gets in terms of personality tony richardson and tyler conklin both like elite guys if you're you're do what we do like they're as good as it gets in terms of like giving you real answers and giving you you know giving you a lot of stuff brooks bollinger i'm gonna go with is a wild card that you just threw in there strictly because any jets fan knows like in the the list of ridiculous quarterbacks that have like played more games than they should have for them he he's he's a sneaky one and and i guess one other name you mentioned you know there obviously the the percy harvin thing is was always weird just that you know i don't know i don't know

what really happened with percy i think you know some of the concussions and different things obviously in the body but like what a talented player man what a special a special, special talent. I'm not sure the Jets fans really ever got to see full, you know, full Percy Harvin, but it was a extremely fun player in his day. I don't know if anyone actually got to see full Percy Harvin. I mean, but the highlight reel is as great. He was like a better, this is crazy to say, but I think it's true. I think he was a better Tyree kill. I think he was as explosive as dynamic and even more versatile than tyree kill is which is crazy to say but it's absolutely true there was a youtuber who put together every touchdown he ever scored and 90 of them just blow your mind with percy harvin but both sides never really got to see

that one fully realized also nobody's talking about how this is a Chaz Surratt revenge game. Yeah. We're not talking enough about that. No one's talking about it. Former quarterback drafted. Third rounder, right? Yep. Yeah.

So anyway, well, this should be an interesting game. Who do you think wins? I got the Jets 24-20. I think they kind of have to win this game. For Minnesota, this is a house money. I don't think anyone's looking at them crazy if they lose. Non-conference game to the Jets, this is

one of those, like, got to get a win going into Buffalo coming into their building next week. Maybe it is. We cover our team's bias. Hard to pick against the way the Vikings have been playing, so I'd I know in that direction. Uh, but turn on the jets.

You do a tremendous job there. You're great. Follow on Twitter. So thanks so much for your time. I'm so glad we could get back together. D three forever. And, we will,

we'll talk again soon, man. Thanks so much for having me, man.