Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will the Vikings win 13 games? Should they sign Daniel Jones?

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about the possibility of the Vikings signing Daniel Jones and then Manny Hill picks the rest of the schedule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider Magic Callout. Here and later on in the evening, in about a half an hour, Manny Hill will join to pick the rest of the Vikings schedule as we do every Monday. And I think that Manny did a couple of the weeks, depending on how confident he was in this Vikings team, pick them to get to 9-2. And here we are, the Minnesota Vikings are 9-2. And I'll be very fascinated to find out what he thinks the rest of the way because this has been a little bit of an inkblot test of the last four games for the Minnesota Vikings. You can look at them a lot of different ways. Or maybe it's one of those pictures that look like two people standing back to

back, or it looks like a vase or whatever, right? There's been a lot of that throughout these last four games. For example, when you look at the Jaguars game, do you look at it and say they had the ball for 42 minutes and gained 400 yards. All they needed to do is just not throw interceptions, which doesn't happen each week did you look at the game yesterday as in they outplayed the Chicago Bears in every facet of

the game and then allowed a ridiculous kick return which almost never happens usually they kick it out of the back of the end zone and then gave up an onside kick another thing that almost never happens when you look at the statistical chances what's what's even the chances of one of those things happening much less both of those things happening which did to the Vikings yesterday and they still found a way to come out with the win so you could look at it like there's some pretty random stuff that's happened to keep other teams in the game against the Vikings over these last four weeks. And nonetheless, they came away with four wins, a nine and two record and a shot at a

special season. As we go down the stretch into the final six games, you could also look at it. Like they have had opportunities to blow these teams out the way that Detroit has been doing, the way that Philadelphia has been doing, and they didn't finish the job in multiple occasions. Now, they should have had a two-score win against Chicago. They should have had easily a two-score win against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and yet they were not able to pull that off. Does that give you less confidence that they're actually a good team that will be able to beat these better teams? Not amazing down the stretch outside of Green Bay and Detroit, which are very, very strong.

But the next few weeks, they're playing playoff contenders over and over again in the month of December. So the schedule going forward is not very easy. Do you look at it as, Hey, this is going to get worse, not better because you barely got by those teams over the last four weeks. So I'm interested in how you guys look at that in the big picture of this team. I tend to lean toward the former, which is that it's very hard to win four games in a row that average teams lose at least one of those, if not two of those, uh, when some things go wrong. And that's, it's an, it's a testament to how strong the Vikings

are that they outplayed those teams in a lot of the quarters. Like how many quarters did they play over the last four weeks? 17 quarters because of an overtime. How many did they win? How many did they have more yards, better time possession, higher success rate, where you're getting a chunk of yards on each play? How many of those games did Sam Darnold play well? Well, certainly not in Jacksonville, but the last two he played extremely well. And I would also say Indianapolis outside of one or two bad decisions, he played a really good game there. So over the last four games, we have this sample against no playoff contending teams. I don't think you're going to see even the

Chicago Bears make a run for it with the schedule that they have. They're probably fading. They're probably talking a lot about draft position there. So the combined win percentages at the end of the year of the Vikings last four opponents is probably going to be something like 25%. And the total margin of victory at the end of the day with those four games is not as high as it should have been. So you can look at it and say, well, it should have been higher with the way that they played the performances that they got, the way Justin Jefferson played against Indianapolis, the

way that Jordan Addison and TJ Hawkinson played yesterday. The way that Sam Darnold bounced back from that bad game to put together one of his best ever career performances against Chicago. And now there's been multiple opportunities for Sam Darnold to have that regression, have that collapse. And he just hasn't had that happen and has continued to bounce back whenever anything went wrong and has strung weeks together on multiple occasions now. And even I thought against Detroit and against the Rams, he played well enough to win if

they had just been a little better on the defensive side or maybe got a face masking. We'll never know against Los Angeles, but these victories, the final score says they did not blow these guys out and that they are capable of making big mistakes to keep teams in the game. And it has been kind of a staple of Kevin O'Connell's time here that his teams have a lot of explosive plays and a lot of big 70 yard catches like he had yesterday with Jordan Addison and then also giving up big mistakes as well one of the highest turnover teams since Kevin O'Connell took over one of the highest sack teams since he took over and even on the special team side it was great and it was terrible.

It was both. It was blocking a kick, recovering a botch kick by the Bears, and then giving up that return where they allowed the Bears, I was just looking back at this, to get a double team on Ty Chandler, push him out of the way, and then get Nick Muse turned, run up through a big gap. And if not for Dallas Turner, they would have easily scored a touchdown on that play. But Dallas Turner was able to chase

down the returner from behind. And then I don't think that they have a good enough defense to just completely shut teams down. Maybe there is some concern about some of the bigger moments. They came up with some big stops against San Francisco, against the New York Jets, even big stops against Green Bay, but allowed Green Bay to come back in that game and didn't just wipe them off the board. So I think that the offensive side is going to have to be what it was yesterday, which is fairly consistent, running, passing the ball, explosive, and sometimes just not throwing the

ball to Justin Jefferson because it's not safe to do so. And Sam Darnold, I'm sure at the end of the day, was looking at Justin Jefferson's stat line and going, boy, I'd love to get the football to him a little bit more often. But it was one of the main reasons why Sam Darnold didn't make any mistakes is that he went where the play took him. And that was away from Justin Jefferson. And I just got done watching the game back on the coach's tape. And my takeaway from Justin Jefferson in that game is that I don't know if I've ever seen a better to catch for 27 yard football game played by someone. There were so many times where the bears have three sets of eyeballs looking at him. And there's so many key plays in the game, including Addison 69 yard catch where there's

three people staring at Justin Jefferson and he runs behind a linebacker. Darnold makes an incredible throw by the way, his anticipation on that throw. We've talked about it a little bit of, well, you know, he doesn't throw with as much anticipation. Sometimes he has to see it come open, but on this one, he threw Jordan Addison open with a big time throw down the field, but that throw only happens because everyone is going toward Justin Jefferson. He breaks behind the linebacker in front of the safety. No one can make the play. It's a huge gain down the sideline.

Two touchdown passes by Jordan Addison are a direct, or I'm sorry, Jalen Naylor had the other one. Two touchdown passes by Sam Darnold are a result directly of the bears focusing all of their attention on justin jefferson uh you're right uh mad rad that he was tackled in the end zone on one of them i saw i i don't know who tweeted that out andrew kramer i think tweeted that out and that was another thing too is that he got a couple of interference calls there could have been five more uh which was another assessment of mine coming out of this game but when you look at those two red zone plays you see they run on one of them a crossing route for jefferson and addison and

addison goes in front of the linebacker and the linebacker thinks about going with addison then realizes that jefferson is there and stops like I better stay with Jefferson bang touchdown to Addison great job processing by Sam Darnold and looking for the right read the Jalen Naylor touchdown is the same sort of idea two receivers on one side Jefferson goes into the end zone you see the corner corner back up like, uh-oh, he's going to throw it to Jefferson. Naylor underneath, touchdown. Jefferson was a good run blocker in this game. Gave a lot to the run blocking.

The long catch by TJ Hawkinson that helped them go up by 11 points, they put Hawkinson behind Jefferson. Jefferson is going up the field vertical. The two defenders kind of get a little discombobulated. Hockinson breaks out to his right. Bang, he's wide open for a huge play. And then in overtime, it's the same sort of idea with Jefferson running across the field.

Here's all these defenders' eyes on him. Hockinson breaks open. You're going to take that all day it's not something that i i'm sure i'm sure that jefferson was frustrated yesterday when i was in the locker room i saw him at his locker and he looked frustrated he didn't look like i'm sure he was not happy that they allowed him to come back and it took extra work he didn't look like a guy that was super thrilled with his day that he just spent three hours getting the crap kicked out of him to get two catches.

But at the same time, when he goes back and looks at the film, I think, you know, what they're, what they're going to say in that film room, which is you're the reason you're the reason that these other two first round draft pick elite talents were able to go off because so much was on Jefferson. And eventually what's going to have to happen is these opposing teams will have to give more attention to Addison and Hockinson. And that's when you go back to Jefferson. And we've seen this game play out over the last number of years, over and over back and forth with teams start putting everything into him. Quarterback takes advantage of it to other people. You know, this Adam Thielen had

a big moments this way. Addison last year did. So then it goes back like, Oh, well now Addison is dominating. So now we have to pay attention to him. Hocketson, we've got to give a little more underneath. And then Jefferson is open on those dig routes. This is why Sam Darnold's having a great year. As long as he makes good choices with the football is that people are going to be open. And another thing I would say is yesterday when we were in the press box, looking a little bit like hostages whispering, I don't know if any of you are hip hop fans, but remember when C murder did an album in prison. That's what I felt like yesterday doing that post game where Dane and I are going, yeah, you know, we thought that darn all that a pretty good game. So I'm, I'm sure

those of you who watched or listened to that, like, sorry, we had to talk quietly for where we were. Uh, but, uh, coming uh coming out uh i forget now what my point was but coming coming out of that game uh and doing the initial podcast it was hard to maybe even fully recognize just how much that was the case that they were putting that but you hear that all the time well they're putting all this attention into Jefferson, but just how much they did. You can't really tell until you get back, you pull open the tape, you actually look at how they were playing defense and what that meant. And the fact that Sam Darnold made good decision after good decision, if they have their full bevy of weapons, it's going to be really difficult for any defense to stop. And the Vikings offense

might have to carry them at times, but they can do it with those weapons if they're open like they were. Another thing that I noticed was Kevin O'Connell went into his Kevin Stefanski bag in this game and pulled out him some CJ Hamm. CJ Hamm played a bunch of run snaps in this game and was really good. He was very, very good in this game. You haven't seen CJ Hamm look like this since probably 2020 or 2021 because Kevin O'Connell has never really known how to use the fullback in the offense, but he did yesterday.

They lined up in I-form. They had C.J. Hamm plowing forward. There's a couple of really excellent blocks, one where Aaron Jones patiently follows him. He hits the edge rusher, goes around the edge for probably nine yards. There's a couple more up the middle where C.J. Hamm is the lead blocker, and then later where Hamm goes one way, defenders follow him. And then Aaron Jones goes the other way. This is the type of thing they probably have to do to succeed in the running game is to get CJ Ham more involved because they're not going to get an interior offensive line push. The whole offensive line survived yesterday. There wasn't any catastrophic

performances. Reisner didn't have a great PFF grade, but once again, I thought he was fine. He gave up a few pressures, but there are always these slow pressures where it's Darnold holding onto the ball too long, and they're not the same. Think about it from a defensive perspective. If the only type of pressure a defender gets is when the quarterback hangs onto the ball forever, this was kind of a DJ Wanham thing when he was here. All right, that's fine, but that's not someone that you can rely on getting after the quarterback. You're not giving as much credit to that. And that's the type of pressures Dalton Reisner gives up, it's, it's a push. It's a push he's hanging on.

And eventually Darnold holds onto it a little too long and it gets there and he has to scramble out or something like that. But it's not these bad beats, these instant losses. And just because of that, it's been an improvement. Garrett Bradbury had a great game in this one. He's been solid. I know that he gets criticized by people all the time, but I think we've reached the point where he's just a fine NFL center and he's developed to that point. But that was another takeaway too. And Trent Shurfield also brings a lot of grit to this team.

He's a fun player if you like to go back and watch the coach's film to pay attention to. So questions, comments, thoughts. There's a few things for me. I know you guys want to talk about Daniel Jones, so I guess I should get to that as well. Manny Hill will join in a few minutes, and we'll talk all about the final record and trying to project that.

But my thought on Daniel Jones is, number one, what Nick Mullins did yesterday was really fantastic. He came in the game. And this is another Justin Jefferson play, by the way. Justin Jefferson is drawing two or three defenders. And that's how Aaron Jones comes underneath. Nick Mullins finds him.

He gets a first down. Nick Mullins is as experienced in Kevin O'Connell's system as anyone you are ever going to find on this earth. He could join the coaching staff. That's how well he understands this thing. I don't really know what the purpose of Daniel Jones joining the Vikings is. He may, but is he better? Because there isn't a whole lot to suggest that he's better. Now, I guess you could say that Saquon Barkley looked like an average running back with the New York giants. And then, uh, looks like a mega star with another team. That's actually well run. And maybe that would be the case with Daniel Jones. If they were going to do it,

maybe a reason to do it would be to say to Daniel Jones, you could be our backup next year. But I would prefer Nick Mullins remain on the football team when J.J. McCarthy, if and when J.J. McCarthy is the starting quarterback for next year because Nick Mullins can be such a good mentor to him and he can play the game. He could come in, he can throw the football down the field. He's going to make some mistakes. He's going to know where to go with the ball and he could keep them competitive

in games as he did last year against good teams. Nick Mullins statistically is easily a better quarterback in his career. It's not the same circumstance. He was with San Francisco and then with Justin Jefferson, but still in his career, he is a better quarterback, quarterback rating yards per attempt, whatever metric you like. The only thing that Daniel Jones does better is that he runs and he's had all these injuries. I'm not sure that he's even the impact runner that he was a couple of years ago when he beat the Vikings in a playoff game. That would be the

only real reason is if he, if that's why they want him is that he beat the Vikings in a playoff game, but that player seems far in the rear view mirror now. And I think I'd rather just have Nick Mullins as the backup. If they do it, I'm not, I mean, what am I going to say? Like what a terrible mistake bringing in a guy, whatever. I, right. I mean, if they think he could be a longer term backup for JJ McCarthy for next year, then okay. But I think I almost think if I'm Daniel Jones, I might rather try to find a

place that I could play a few more games, put a little bit better things on tape and try to get a better job for next year. But maybe he looks at it like, okay, that's fine. Bring him in. Some of you are saying that you get a comp, you guys are obsessed with comp picks. I know, I know you love comp picks more than anything in your lives. I don't care about them all that much. Uh, because if you sign players, then you lose those comp picks. You think you had, and you know, you guys know the whole rant about comp picks, but I just, I liked where the room stands right now. I think it's got a good vibe right now. And Nick Mullins is a good mentor.'s not gonna it's not gonna get a lot of attention that nick mullins is your backup but you also have to try to convince me that somehow

it's an upgrade and someone who doesn't know the system at all who's been absolutely horrific for two straight years how is that better than someone who knows the system really well and put them in position to win games last year and could come off the bench. Are you sitting Daniel Jones? Is he playing QB two without knowing how to play for your team? I just don't know. I mean, the only reason you might do it is if you think that in some world, if Sam Darnold got hurt, that Daniel Jones gives you a better chance to start over multiple weeks than Nick Mullins, which might be the case. But then again, Daniel Jones has to learn the entire offense. Are we going to do a Josh Dobbs thing with Daniel Jones? If Sam Darnold gets hurt? I don't know.

I think I'd rather just have Nick Mullins try to play an average nine yards of pass and throw four touchdowns and four picks and hope. I think I'd rather do that, but maybe some of you guys like it. Maybe you don't. I don't know. Maybe you can let me know if you're into that idea. So let me get to some of your questions here. That's funny because Zinkad said they're doing so well. Manny is going to have to change one of the losses back into a win and have them at 16 and one. That's the fun Zinkad said they're doing so well. Manny is going to have to change one of the losses back into a win and have him at 16-1. That's the fun part about doing it with Manny. He gets really excited about wins, and then we've gone way up and down

with the win-loss totals all year. They lose two games in a row. I think he might have sunk them to 10 wins, and then they win the next week, and he's got the back at 12. That's why it's fun because everybody rides the roller coaster in the same way that Manny does. BAS dry dock says no Daniel Jones allowed. That is A-L-L-O-W-E-D allowed.

Yeah. I mean, I just don't really see the purpose. Like what is the, what's the upgrade? What's the improvement when Nick Mullins also makes big mistakes like Daniel Jones does, but Nick Mullins also throughout his career rips off big plays. And yesterday is just such a good example. He comes in the game. He is super ready. There's, there's something to this. Nick Mullins is the most bought into being a backup quarterback person I've ever met in my entire life. He was after the game. I talked to him. I don't know if anybody else did, but I think I was the only person to talk to Mullins.

He was so jacked for Sam Darnold. Like he talked to me about his play and he said, you know, they, the coaches did a good job. I'm just doing my job. I'm all, I'm always ready. That kind of thing. But I said, Hey, what did you think of Sam Darnold? And he was like, dude, Sam Darnold, people aren't giving him enough respect. He's been like, he got so jacked for that. He's fully bought into the job. This guy made the league by being a practice squad player. He told me one time he filled in at safety for the scout team

because they were down with injuries and things like that when he was in San Francisco. He said that he tried to draw up the nicest plays when he was in San Francisco for everybody to make it so they could read it the best so he could stand out in any way possible. He has maximized to the extreme, his abilities by doing everything and anything he possibly can to contribute to the team. That's what you want for your backup. And he also knows exactly where to throw the ball on every play. He could call the offense in his

sleep. And TJ Hawkinson was telling me that he on Saturday goes through the entire game script, playbook, all that stuff as if he's starting the game. Nick Mullins does. That to me outweighs some physical talent difference for someone that you're going to bring in who does not want to be a backup. Just because Daniel Jones is taller. I'm not sure he actually throws the ball better than nick mullins but he is taller and he does run better so there is that but i just i don't really see the purpose uh mal kill says uh so we have two amazing kickers what could go wrong well when will reichert is good to go he'll come back sure. He'll be the kicker when he comes back. And Parker Romo, I imagine, based on some of the kicking around the league, Parker Romo will have a job or maybe they could put him on the practice squad just in case that Reichert

has any other type of injury down the stretch. But I mean, you know, if you win a Superbowl, Parker Romo for his contribution, the middle of the season, we'll get a ring and we will all remember the game winning kick from Parker Romo, who has truly done a great job. How many kickers can you pull in off of the street that are kicking game winners and scoring every point in the Jaguars game? He's had a lot of work. Sometimes it felt like Will Riker's not even being used this year over the first five weeks and then Parker Romo comes in he's got to kick field

goals all the time and big game winners but of course Will Reichardt is their franchise kicker that they plan on having for a long time maybe maybe they can keep Parker Romo around if nobody decides to sign him just in case but i guess we'll see uh let's see uh forgot how to say you told me just the other night um mustin sir i'm trying uh how much of the kirk era was his contract or spielman's constant mistakes in the draft on defense only started really watching a few years ago would be nice to know what was really the case. It's kind of a little bit of everything. Number one, Kirk Cousins was not a good enough quarterback to make up for differences in the defense. So if he didn't have the top defense,

he wasn't going to create like you saw the quarterbacks doing yesterday, Caleb Williams, Sam Darnold over the last couple of weeks. If the defense won the down, they just won the down. It wasn't like he could create extra first downs. I haven't looked at it this year. Maybe someone can tell me how many more rushing first downs Sam Darnold has than Kirk had, but it's a big deal to be able to scramble. So there was always that there was a ceiling on Kirk Cousins physically that needed to be made up elsewhere. They never had a great offensive line, but they could never spend money on it. And it wasn't just that they paid Kirk. It was that they paid everybody else too.

They paid Anthony Barr. They paid Kyle Rudolph. They did not make shrewd decisions. So it wasn't just the drafting. It was also that they decided to keep the wrong players at times or players who were past their prime. And this is one thing that Kweisi Adafomensa will never get enough credit for. It's not just that he signed this player, which by the way, best signing in the NFL in this off season, number two, best number three,

best. They might all belong to Kweisi Adafo Mensah. Sam Darnold's the best signing of the off season. Hands down. It's not close. A top 10 quarterback is a free agent. That is the best signing in a long time. Probably in the NFL, you're paying him $10 million. He's been a top 10 quarterback. And then Jonathan Grenard, my gracious him yesterday, Van Ginkle, Cashman, all of them belong in the top list. So that doesn't happen. If Kweisi Daufelmenta doesn't get rid of the right players and not just Kirk, Thielen, Cook, he's not dealing with all this dead cap because those guys went past their prime and then or how about daniel hunter realizing there's someone out there jonathan grenard who is a better

fit for brian flores hunter is a wonderful player an all-time great viking but this guy is actually a better fit and now he's playing the best football of his career. So that was one thing. I thought that their loyalty to the guys who were there from the 2015 to the 2017, overpaying. Anthony Barr was a big deal for the Vikings defense, but you can't pay him that. It's going to hamstring you for what you need to do. You can't overpay a Michael Pierce, who they signed and barely got any games out of, or even a Delvin Tomlinson,

who's a nice player, but Jonathan Bullard is doing a lot of the same stuff. And that's just not true decision-making. And then, yes, if you fail on all the defensive draft picks, that's exactly what's going to happen there. Sean says, question about Daniel Jones and how it works with him being signed by a team after the trade deadline. Can he play in the playoffs or just the regular season?

I'm pretty sure he could play in playoffs. I've, I don't know. He's just released. He's just a free agent. So is there a rule about the, in the NHL for that? If they can't play in the playoffs, I've definitely never heard of anything like that uh in the nfl he's just a free agent he can sign with whoever he wants to as soon as he uh passes waivers all right it is time we'll get back to your question shortly but it is time to bring in emmanuel hill the picker of games well manny i think you had him at nine and two several of the times you picked the schedule how are you feeling i think you're going to need to turn on your microphone that would be a good idea gave him the big setup at least his head didn't freeze there you go there

you go okay all you go. Okay. All right, Manny. You want me to do it again? Manny, you've picked the schedule many times. Several of them were 9-2. What do you think? I feel it pretty good. It got a little dicey at the end there. Oh, by the way, I see you just took a swig of dr pepper so i have to uh

what do you got there cheers to you my friend all right yeah there we go all right someday someday they're gonna contact this show and sponsor it let's make it happen diet dr p okay it's good it's good stuff i enjoy it um Yeah, I got a little dicey there at the end yesterday, but I think credit to Sam Darnold and the Vikings offense. First of all, credit to the defense for getting the ball back to them in overtime, but also for Sam Darnold to get the ball, move them down into field goal range to win it in overtime after probably the team as a whole probably

felt a little bit shell-shocked after you blow an 11 point lead in 22 seconds or whatever the hell it was uh but for them to kind of respond that way in overtime and come away with the win is still pretty impressive so i'm i'm feeling good about them um and now it's really going to get fun because the competition is going to rack up a little bit and this team's going to be challenged and it's going to be fascinating to see how things play out well why don't we not screw around here and we will just get into it into uh picking the remainder of the schedule so the maybe i can get you want some music for this why not some music for this let's get some uh

let's get some music behind this yeah we haven't been doing it the reason i didn't do it is because we used to have a lot of schedule i thought well we're gonna be playing music for like 47 minutes okay oh well it's back at home do they have a stadium they have not been at U.S. Bank Stadium in what feels like for absolutely freaking ever. The last time was what? Was it the Colts game? And before that, it had been a while as well. Then it was, must be the Texans. Oh, my gosh.

They have not been at this stadium. It was the Lions. Lions, right. A couple weeks before that, yeah. But, yeah, this is basically, I mean, the Colts game was November 3rd. This coming game is December 1st. So, basically, it just went a whole month without a home game. So, that's.

Well, let's hope that no protesters were hiding out in there, ready to propel themselves from the ceiling over the last month. They had a lot of time to plot. Anyway, Vikings and Cardinals at U.S. Bank Stadium, noon o'clock. It'll be Dick Stockton and Matt Millen on the call. No, I'm just kidding. But every old game I watch is Dick Stockton on the call. Do you think they win? I was about to say, are they really going to be going?

I would have laughed hysterically. Because Dick Stockton, one of my favorites, he's like 80 years old. I think he's retired now. But anyway, do the Vikings win this game? I'm going to say no. And I know the reason, I know the Cardinals looked awful against Seattle yesterday. They looked really, really bad. So you have to kind of wonder how they're feeling going into this game. But I think what I'm going to factor into this is that

the Vikings are coming off three straight road games. And obviously they weren't like completely outside of the state of Minnesota for the entire three weeks. They came back home, had practices every week and all of that stuff. But that's a lot of traveling over the three-week period of just going to, you know, flying to Jacksonville, then flying to Nashville, then flying to Chicago. They can kind of take a toll on you a little bit. And with this past game yesterday going into overtime, too,

having to play a little extra football, I'm going to give the Cardinals this win. I think it'll be close because the Vikings will be at home. But I think, I still think the Cardinals are at least a respectable team. They didn't look great yesterday. I can kind of see this being a game where Arizona wins. And also the Kyler Murray factor about this, you know,

we can talk about this later this week, maybe, you know, watching Caleb Williams use his mobility and use that to his advantage kind of makes me wonder if like a more seasoned guy like kyler murray is going to be able to take advantage of that a little bit more and uh and put some points on the board so i'll give the cardinals a win and a close one for this one caleb williams looks exactly like kyler murray except for a little taller his acceleration he probably doesn't run as fast of a 40 if he were to do it.

But as far as his acceleration, his arm strength, and then he's a little bit bigger, there is definitely a comp there. This is one that, because they're at home, I feel like I want to pick the Vikings. I don't think Kyler Murray played very well against the Vikings in, it must have been 2022 that they played at us bank stadium, but it has all the things aligning. As you mentioned, go to overtime, play in the NFC North. It's a really tough matchup. It's a long and physical game that you play on the road. Then you have to come back and play a team that is really ticked off. They were bad.

You know their coaching staff is going to be all laser set to trying to win that division, which is their only path probably into the playoffs. They need a win in Minnesota desperately. And it's just very difficult to win five games in a row if you play with your food with Arizona, a little more likely to beat you than tennessee or jacksonville or even the chicago bears who just can't stop getting field goals

blocked at the same time how good is arizona really how good is arizona's defense really how good is i mean they have one weapon who's great and they have another tight end who's pretty good tight ends haven't really killed the Vikings this year. The Vikings are the better team than Arizona, but it has that feel. So they drop to 9-3, and then Kirk Cousins arrives December 8th at U.S. Bank Stadium. The revenge game of all revenges, although I don't know if you get revenge against someone who paid you like 200

million to win one playoff game but we'll talk about it then do the vikings beat the atlanta falcons yes they do um i think that there's going to be a lot of hoopla surrounding this game obviously with kirk cousins coming back to min Minnesota for the quasi-revenge game. I think that, you know, Brian Flores is going to have something cooked up for Kirk Cousins because, you know, Kirk is going to be, we just got through talking about Kayla Williams, Kyler Murray, very mobile quarterbacks that can make plays with their legs and do things like that and extend plays and make things challenging. Kirk Cousins, for all of his qualities as a passer, is not that.

That is one thing you are not going to have to worry about is Kirk Cousins running around, extending plays, and beating you outside the pocket, throwing crazy passes down the field and completing them to his running back, like Kayla Williams did yesterday with DeAndre Swift. So I think because of that, the pressure that the, that the Vikings are going to be able to get is going to make it a pretty long day for Kirk.

And I think the Vikings pull away with a victory. By the way, people have been annoyed at me for praising Jared Goff for years. His team is amazing. He's doing great, whatever. Okay. They're going to be just as annoyed with me talking about Caleb Williams,

I think, because once they fire the coach and get somebody with a clue, it will be a problem. It will not be unstoppable as it wasn't yesterday. And he's going to have his flaws, but this is going to make for a lot of entertaining football contests in the future, as it has with the lines with golf,

as it did for many years with Aaron Rogers for a minute there with Jay Cutler. I don't think he's a perfect prospect as he was painted as, but not just the throw down the sideline, which is essentially across his body. I had no idea how you generate any velocity or touch on that football, but the escapability the creativity and just the velo when he let it rip those balls almost always get knocked down

by vikings players or picked off by vikings players and they went whizzing right through fingertips and that was amazing to watch so his development if they don't entirely botch it but he almost might he might be too good to completely throw it away, kind of like Kyler was. He's too talented to just throw that guy away. So that'll make for some really exciting matchups every time the Vikings play against the Bears in the future. But all right, so you've got the win against Atlanta.

My only concern there is the weapons they have. Their defense is horrid and you could see kevin o'connell just throttling an atlanta falcons defense especially at home so that makes them a 10 and 3 football team playing the bears at home december 16th a matchup that i suddenly really want to watch again i didn't know what I was getting into there yesterday. And that was one of the more fun games that I've covered just as far as a dash of madness, a lot of great performances,

entertaining plays, superstar plays left and right. And then we get to do it again, December 16th under the bright lights. Do the Vikings win that game? I'm going to say yes. I think the Bears, looking at their schedule, let's see. They've got, oh, shoot, the Bears.

Okay, so the Bears play Detroit Thanksgiving this week, and then they're at San Francisco. Okay, so this will be interesting because this Monday night game, Vikings-Bears on December 16th, this will be the third of three straight road games for the Bears. So that's going to maybe be a factor in this as well. Maybe they're going to be a little bit worn down. Although, you know, it's going to be a Monday night game,

so they'll kind of have that extra, sort of that extra day after playing the 49ers the week before. So that's two of the most physical teams in the league. I mean, the 49ers are struggling, especially without Brock Purdy, but they are still going to beat you up. So on the road to the Lions, on the road to San Francisco, they may be in quit mode by the time they arrive on Monday Night Football. I guess we'll see.

But I would agree. U.S. Bank Stadium is going to be harder on Caleb Williams than it was yesterday, which was not a Vikings fan takeover. It's the first road game I've been on, I think, this year. Well, you know, Green Bay is always mixed because it's such an easy drive. That's always like 60, 40 Packers fans. But it was Bears. That was a Bears crowd for sure sure and he had the advantage there will not have that advantage at u.s bank stadium young quarterbacks

first times at u.s bank stadium i'm not sure i could i mean how many wins do they have quarterbacks their first or second year who come here not many not many over the years even when the defense was bad uh so that puts the vikings at 11 and 3 heading out to seattle to play an afternoon contest with the never say die seahawks yeah the seahawks are kind of that weird team just like arizona who they beat yesterday where you're just like are they good are they bad? Like sometimes they look really good and you're like, okay, yeah, that's a formidable team. And then they'll turn around and like lay an egg. I think that win at home against the Cardinals yesterday was,

I think they had like lost like four home games in a row or something like that. They had like a losing streak at that stadium, which is usually a very challenging place to play. I'll chalk this up as a win for seattle though again i've been i've been kind of consistent with this that it still can be a challenging place to play and i do think the vikings are gonna lose a couple of more games this season and this could be one that i can see them losing just because it's a road game west coast tough still a tough crowd. Mediocre can't really figure out how good they are type of team.

And that's why it could be kind of a wild card. So I'll call this a loss for now. This is exactly Seattle is exactly why I say about this Vikings team. If you can win five in a row and four in a row and the two losses are by 12 points. You're good. You just are. You could tell me that the opponents and so forth, and now the Houston win and the San Francisco win, they don't look quite as good as they did at the moments that they happened

because those teams have proved to be a little more mediocre than they were, or at least what we thought they were going to be. And these last four teams won't be in the playoffs. And I get it, but there are so many, any given Sunday teams in the league where Seattle can look great or Seattle can look terrible or Arizona can look great or terrible or Atlanta, great or terrible.

Those are your 500 teams. Whereas the Vikings, even when they have not played as well, they found a way to win. They've had no meltdown games, but this one going out to Seattle could be a tough one on a short week, no less after playing on Monday Night Football. Then home, December 29th, Green Bay Packers. This game, I'm going to say it all the way leading up

to it probably a million times. The way Vikings fans process this season, no matter how many wins they end up with, will rest on December 29th against the Green Bay Packers. Also, a seeding in the playoffs could rest on it. Oh, wait, Manny, come back. Stop screwing around. I'm here. I don't know why that happened. But I think that it'll probably be a little overstated the seating because if the vikings are

the five or six i don't i don't i have to look at it closer but i don't know what difference that really makes if they're the five or the six maybe it'll even get them a better matchup if they're the six as opposed to the five seat but if it's for playoff seeding and you want to finish with a better record than the packers if that's what this comes down to that will determine if vikings fans say it was a great season we went two for two against the packers we're good because all these other teams you can make these excuses man you could say well you know arizona's not that good ah you know atlanta's defense pretty bad green's a good team with a great coach who has played really hard against the Vikings forever.

So do they win this game that everything emotionally will come down to? It's probably going to be a, right now it's slated for a noon kickoff on Fox. It might end up being a 7- noon kickoff on fox it might end up being a 720 kickoff on nbc that night uh just depending on what the records for both of these teams is going to be which i imagine both will still be very good and uh yeah i i i actually really like this game for the vikings because they're going to be at home i think some of these guys are going to remember what Jordan Love did to them at US Bank Stadium last year. And I think part of that might come into play as well. And, you know, the Vikings have been

a pretty strong home team this year. I mean, even the one home loss that they have against Detroit, they played very well in against, you know, what's likely the best team in football right now. And just a couple plays here, a couple plays there, they might have ended up winning that game. The Vikings are a very good home team.

I think everybody's going to be jacked up and stoked for this game. I think they're going to show up ready to play and they're going to come away with a win. Okay. Maybe Gus Farat will pull his shirt off and blow blow the gala horn it's time let's just bring in all the quarterbacks who have had one season like sam darnold they're just one after another and here's jeff george and here's gus ferrat i don't know if case keenum's in the league

case keenum uh maybe if they all blow the gala, it will end differently for Sam Darnold. So that puts the Vikings at a 12 and four season going to Detroit to end the year. This is always the impossible one to pick because we don't know the circumstances and whether it will matter. I would imagine if you beat Green Bay, it probably won't matter, but that depends on if Detroit has stumbled and then the division is still in play. I kind of think it won't be if the Vikings are 12-4

because I don't think Detroit is getting to four losses with where they are now. Either way, is it a 12-win or a 13-win season? I'm going to stick with 12 wins. I think that we've been talking about this for a while, for a few weeks now. Dan Campbell is not really – it's highly likely he's not going to rest his guys, even if he has the number one seed locked up, because he's going to get that bye week anyway.

If they're locked into number one, which they likely will be, they're going to have that extra week to kind of rest guys anyway. And they're going to be the only team in the conference that's able to do that. He's going to play his guys because I think he wants to set the tone for the playoffs and say, we're the number one seed.

We're going pedal to the metal all the way. It's just who we are. It's what you're going to have to deal with. And they're going to play all their guys. And game being in forward field, the Lions come away with a win so the vikings will finish at 12 and 5 oh so my headline to the podcast will the vikings win 13 games your answer is no that they are going to win 12 but if they go just think about this i've been doing this math for everybody all year long especially so you don't have to or Courtney, who really struggled with that last week.

Three and three gets you a 12-win season. If we go back to 1998, which, you know, I was in the airport today, and I see a guy who has a shirt that says, never forget 1998, and it's like a football going wide left. Move on. Move on. Anyway, I know. You'll never move on people will get upset i'm just saying you don't have to wear shirts with it like this is a fun season why why do you gotta bring everybody down the minute you see that like i don't know anyway

but if we go back to then that 15 win season how many times have they reached 12 it has been just 09 17 22 is there another one that's it right that's it 12 seasons i mean what more could you have asked for this That's doubling your win total from preseason expectations. And even you and I, we picked the schedule before the season and we ended up at nine, both of us separately picking the schedule still ended up with nine wins for this team. It would blow away their expectations. And I don't think that the schedule has played out much differently than we expected as far as the teams that they played. Because sometimes you go, oh, wow. Yeah. You know, they're going to play this team or that team. And then

their quarterback gets hurt. Maybe Anthony Richardson would have been different. I still think they beat Anthony Richardson too, but they've played the quarterbacks that we expected them to play. The expectations for Houston and San Francisco were higher than they are now, but I don't think that there's been a lot different personnel wise. Some years you just get a bunch of backup quarterbacks. 22 was one of those years. They played Andy Dalton with the saints. They played Mike White. They played Taylor Heineke.

These are all just backup quarterbacks. That has not been the case. They've played a guy drafted number one overall. Will Leavish sure showed a lot of talent in the last couple of weeks, probably three straight weeks, where he has looked like a serious NFL quarterback. And the games that they lost are the guys who have gone to the Super Bowl, and they played Stroud, and they played Purdy. And so it hasn't been some sort of cooked up schedule.

It hasn't been on the back of a bunch of game losing fumbles by the opponents. They have won all these games, but in every single win, they've outplayed their opponents. And that to me says that you are deserving of that label as one of the best teams since 1998 100 percent um are also not relying on amir smith marset to or that have the football snatched away from him or something like that and came against chicago bears um oh did i say that out loud anyway um not only that but also justin fields ran for a touchdown and amir smith marset held for no reason. He blew it twice for them in that game.

Yeah, that was, I mean, just thinking about that 22 team, that was a 13-win team, but this team is so much better. I mean, just with the defense and, you know, really, like you said, outplaying all of their opponents, you know, save for the two games that they lost um it's it's a total different thing and and even like in the case of 98 i mean there were so many like just higher expectations like by the time that team was 10 and 1 you know after they had really just started blowing everybody out there was a feeling that that team was just absolutely unstoppable you know what i mean and it was fun but like this team is

fun in a different kind of way because they're not exactly like blowing everybody out but they're also out playing a lot of the teams that they're that they're playing so they're kind of doing what they should do and i think with the way the defense has played too I think it gives you um some hope that you know hey just get into the playoffs finish the regular season as strong as you can get into the playoffs you might get a favorable matchup and you just kind of see what happens it's you know especially in a season like this when we weren't really expecting this. I think that's what makes this really a lot of fun. So that's also going to be my thought if they win 12. If they do not win 12, it will not feel very good by the end.

If they get to only 11, that means that they have gone 2-4 the rest of the way. And you know that the F word, fraud fraud will be used to describe the Vikings. If they only go two and four, I think they're better than these teams and they don't have to travel. They shouldn't go two and four, but if they do, it will take the shine completely off of this season. And we will be going into the playoffs saying,

look, if you couldn't go three and three against these teams who were all good, but not as good as the Lions, assuming, you know, I don't know, one of those losses might be to the Lions. But when you're talking about Arizona and Atlanta, these are teams that you should at least split with, if not even better, if not get to a four and two record,

the best of the way or the rest of the way. So it will matter to me quite a bit how this looks and how many wins you come away with. Also, Sam Darnold is playing his best football of his career. Hands down. No question. It's not close. He's playing some of the best football in the entire NFL for the whole season, but especially the last two weeks, there might be an argument has been the best the last two weeks quarterback in

the entire league. And that's got to keep going. It can't just Peter out into December. It has to remain strong because I don't think that their defense is just going to win these games on its own. The other teams have weapons. They have quarterbacks. You're not going to just win 34-7, as we've seen from some of these games.

They will have to score 30 points at times, which they've been shown to do. And let's start getting to some of these comments. And I think Sean is right here to say that TJ Hawkinson is back up to speed. They didn't have him for that five game win streak. They didn't have him for the loss against Detroit and against the Rams, but this does raise a point health down the stretch. What's it going to be like for pace? What's it going to be like for Robinson?

Are they going to be able to play at, at close to full strength enough, or are they one blake cashman injury i mean jonathan grenard the season's over one right i mean even andrew van ginkle would be extremely tough to lose or stefan gilmer they lose a corner and you're playing fabian morrow a caleb evans is gone it's a little thin ice and they've been very healthy that's the one luck element of this year they've been very healthy. That's the one luck element of this year. They've been very healthy outside of Derrissaw.

That's got to sustain, or we're not going to go into the playoffs with much confidence. 100%. I mean, you said they lose Jonathan Grenard. They lose either one of those edge rushers. It's going to be a huge, huge, huge problem. I mean, we saw how this defense kind of struggled a little bit when Blake Cashman was out of the lineup.

And some people say, oh, it's just a linebacker, you know, but that's your green dot linebacker. That's the guy that is telling everybody where to be and telling everybody what to do on defense. And, you know, when you don't have that guy that knows how to do that at a high level you're just going to have problems and we saw that against detroit we saw that against the la rams um so it's going to be you know ever so important for all of those guys all of those number one guys

on defense to stay as healthy as as possible even a guy like harrison phillips they need him to kind of be sort of that anchor of the interior defensive lineman although you know Jonathan Ballard was pretty um Jonathan Buller was pretty good yesterday had some moments um but again like you lose you lose one of these guys it can have kind of a domino effect because then it impacts what everybody else on the field is able to do you lose Stefanmore, that puts a lot more pressure on Byron Murphy and Shaq Griffin. They have to be even better than they've been.

So they're going to need everybody to stay as healthy as possible. And to your point about Sam Darnold too, let's give him a ton of credit not just for playing well yesterday and these last two games but the ability to bounce back from the jacksonville game where everybody was as soon as the jacksonville game all the national people all the national pundits who were kind of crapping on sam darnold were like yep see see that's the sam darnold we know that's the sam darnold we're used to seeing and we haven't seen that we haven't seen the bad sam darnold we know. That's the Sam Darnold we're used to seeing. And we haven't seen that. We haven't seen the bad Sam Darnold since then.

So credit to him for bouncing back and not letting that Jacksonville game kind of linger and kind of become a trend since then. And if he continues to play this well, the Vikings are going to have a shot here. It's going to be really fascinating to see how everybody kind of just finishes the season, stay healthy, and if he continues to play at that level, this is going to be fun. You cannot understate how much Hawkinson coming back means to projecting Darnold going forward. That's a wide receiver, too. He's just really big.

But he's getting explosive downfield plays. They run him receiver routes. The other team just doesn't know what to do with it because they'll have another tight end out there. They'll have CJ Ham out there. And it's kind of clever when you have Hockinson out there and CJ Ham. Hockinson is wide receiver two or three. And Ham is really more like your tight end because he's in there blocking and maybe leaking out they don't ever really throw it to him except for when it bounced off his face yesterday he never saw that coming uh but with hockinson he runs downfield routes as much as any tight end that i've ever seen it's like shannon sharp going downfield as much as they use him that way that's

a different dynamic than just getting a check down tight end where you can throw it underneath. This is a guy who is a downfield weapon and had multiple big explosive plays yesterday. That's enormous. Jordan Addis to be healthy and now confident. I think that one-handed catch in the end zone against Indianapolis kind of flipped the light on. And how about this first step, Manny? And this is why we try to evaluate things in the middle

of the season, but we need bigger sample sizes. And I remember saying that KJ Osborne that one year we were going, where's KJ Osborne? What's the deal? And then he had several huge games. And by the end of the year, he's got the same statistics. Jordan Addison averages more yards per game this year than he did last year. Now after yesterday's game, cause that's how it works when you're a wide receiver two or three, sometimes it's huge. Sometimes it's not as much in terms of your production, but as far as the consistency for Darnold, it just keeps going. He was good with San Francisco in very small usage. He was good with Carolina in 2022.

Now he has continued to be good. This is someone with the talent. We're not talking about Case Keenum. We're talking about a 6'3", 230-pound dude who can rip crazy passes and run for first downs. And that's why it feels like it can continue because this is more of who he really was supposed to be when he was drafted. It's just coming to fruition now. Don and Bethany says, I don't know if both of you say that or just one of you,

very impressed with the team. Even their losses have been respectable losses years past. You would have expected the Vikings to lose to the Jags or Titans. I totally agree with that every year. That's why I had it on the table for you the whole year. I said, look, you got to pick the meltdown game. You have to pick the letdown. It was probably Jacksonville, and they found a way to win it. Yeah, and that's why I say this team is better than the 2022 team

because when that team lost games in 2022, they got their asses kicked. Like, it was bad. And remember, the second half, or not second half of the season, but after that Buffalo game. So they win this crazy game in Buffalo, improve to 8-1, and everybody's like, oh, the Vikings are serious. They are legit Super Bowl contenders. This team is for real.

And then what do they do? They follow up. They come back home and they lose 40 to 3 to a good team in the Dallas Cowboys. And then it's like, OK, that what was that? You know, and then they go into Green Bay against a mediocre Packers team. That's just, you know, Aaron Rodgers is salty and mad at the team right now and all of this stuff. And they get their asses kicked again. And it's like, OK, like this is not this is this this team probably are.

You know, these guys probably are frauds. Like, let's just be real. And, you know, we found out in the playoffs against the Giants, they were you know and this is but this is different though this feels different they haven't had a dallas cowboys or at lambeau field in 2022 type of game yet this year even in the two games that they lost they had chances to win those games you know the the lions they had the ball at the end with a chance. Two-point conversion maybe would have made that game a tie game. They go into overtime maybe.

Even against the Rams, you know, the defense got carved up a little bit by Matthew Stafford and those receivers. But, again, play here, play there. If Jalen Naylor doesn't drop the ball at the five-yard line, that maybe changes things for that game. And then maybe they win that game and they're 10 and 1 right now instead of 9 and 2 so this this team is I think

is really good we can nitpick a few things here and there but I think overall this is a quality football team that has a chance to maybe go on a little bit of a run here if they can stay healthy and if things can go their way Naylor did a good job scoring the touchdown yesterday but also still mixed in a drop that would have been a first down and I'm just I'm kind of for playing Trent Shurfield more if they're going to use that player just have a guy out there who can he actually Trent Shurfield had some nasty blocks in this game uh the huge run from Aaron Jones off the left side Trent Shurfield, had some nasty blocks in this game. The huge run from Aaron Jones off the left side, Trent Shurfield goes out and closes out a defensive back. He just blows right through.

But I'm a little concerned about the fact that Naylor keeps dropping the football. I mean, a touchdown last week. Then they went right back to him to try to rebuild the confidence. He dropped it again last week. And then this week, I know it's a low throw but it's there nfl wide receivers make that catch the other two guys on the team certainly do who are the top two wide receivers it's one you got to make a little bit of a collapsing pocket it's not going to be a perfect throw but there's a little concern about the the drops he's there uh brett says the only

picks manny can be held accountable for the picks of the next game on the schedule. He's on record saying that the Cardinals are going to win. Oh, no, there's no accountability whatsoever on this show, just in general. But when it comes to picking things, none of us will ever claim that we're good at picking stuff. That's what makes it fun. I don't think anyone on earth is good at picking stuff. There's, there's like several gambling syndicates that made up of really smart gamblers that make money off of picking games, I think,

but it ain't us. If I was good at picking games, I wouldn't do this show. I would just pick games and make lots of money, but it's more, it's more of a vibe check, Manny. It's more of a,

do we feel like they're going to win this game? Do we feel like something could go wrong here? Well, how many games are they going to win toward the end of the season? It's not a Manny is calling his shot. They're good. You can see that on TV. If you want, the reason you're watching us on YouTube is to get more reasoned human talk. By the way, speaking of vibe check check we have not discussed this on the show i've been a little worried about discussing it because of the comment section but

philadelphia eagles are pretty damn good i mean i'm a little concerned about that when we talk about vibe check uh maybe they'll peak too early that team looks like a juggernaut and i don't know if there's a route for how the vikings could possibly face them but i did say to my wife last night i called her after the game and i was like what if they end up in philly for the nfc championship game again yeah um yeah that team and especially like that with Saquon playing at that level. I mean, you talk about free agent signings. I mean, we talk about, everybody talks about not paying running backs, and I'm in that camp, too, of you just don't give running backs

big money contracts, but there are certain ones. We're kind of seeing this in Baltimore withtimore with derrick henry as well and minnesota with aaron jones yep and with the vikings and aaron jones there are certain guys who are really really good running backs and san francisco with christian mccaffrey a couple years ago as well where that guy's really good that guy is beast. That guy is a guy that you pay because he's going to help your football team. And the only question mark about Saquon Barkley has always just been his health. When he's on the field, he is excellent. And we all know that he's an all pro pro, you know, all pro caliber running back.

It's just always been health with him. And, you know, the irony in Daniel Jones being released by the Giants the other day too. And maybe we can get to that a little bit later. But yeah, the irony in Daniel Jones being released, even though he was kind of the guy that the Giants decided to pay and didn't want to pay the superstar running back. But let's think about this when it comes to the paying running backs thing. First, this was a weird year.

I mean, with Joe Mixon and Aaron Jones and Saquon Barkley, Mixon may have been a trade, but I mean, every, all these guys being available who are great talents and Derek Henry's an all time, great talent. So Saquon is like, we're seeing this year. He's having an Adrian Peterson season. When you actually take the real dollar amount of paying these guys the real dollar amount what is it like what marcus davenport gets

i mean take it and apply it to other positions what does it cost for a wide receiver christian kirk who's just a guy to me is making more than saquon Barkley or Aaron Jones, or at some point the market moves so far away from running backs that you go, we have to do this. Right. And I remember talking about Saquon and the Vikings and saying, well, if it's only going to cost them 12 million, I mean, you might as well do it. And with Aaron Jones, that's what it is too. This guy has annihilated the Vikings a million times. He's got to have enough left in the tank. If he plays 12 games and he's good, then, well, that's worth 8 million bucks.

Where you would get, what kind of left tackle do you get for 8 million bucks? David Questenberry? I mean, you just get nothing on the market for that same exact price or very mediocre type of players a lot of the times and it made it worth it for some of these teams but putting him behind that line in that system with that quarterback and running quarterbacks make running backs better it's pretty dangerous and their defense is playing well they lost brandon graham but their defense is playing well they seem to have kind

of recovered from their coach being a disaster early in the season you know they are a dangerous team they're a dangerous team if we were ranking nfc teams you agree with this if we were ranking nfc teams there is now a separation between number one is obvious Detroit. I think number two is obvious Philadelphia. And I think number three is obvious the Vikings and probably number four is obvious with the green Bay Packers. The rest, I'm not sure. Washington is kind of drifting.

Their loss yesterday was rough. That NFC West, who knows what the heck is going to happen out there. The NFC West, who knows what the heck is going to happen out there. The NFC South, I'm still thinking about a scenario where Tampa Bay comes and wins that division because they've got two games against the Panthers coming up and they don't play the Vikings like Atlanta does. But again, like that's not scary. So there's a, I think there's a very clear one, two, three, four in the NFC. Yeah, I agree. And that, you know, the way the the playoff seating kind of sorts out to is going to be fascinating to watch because it might come down to just like matchups. You know, if if, you know, if the Eagles end up with like the number two seed, they're going to be locked in and they're going to play a seven.

Who is that seven seed going to be? And then it's, then it becomes kind of interchangeable with like, okay, who's that number three seed going to be? Is it going to be the winner of the NFC South or the NFC West? You know, it's kind of, it's kind of neck and neck there.

And then like, if you're the Vikings, like, will it really matter if you get the five seed or the six seed? You know, because if you don't win your division, you're going to be on the road wild card weekend um even if you're the vikings and you win 12 or 13 games um so that's that's going to be fascinating that we might see the number five and

number six seeds in the nfc just advance onto the playoffs because they're going to get favorable matchups against kind of the the two weaker of of the division winners in the West and in the South. I mean, if you're the Vikings, do you want Atlanta to win that division and go there or Tampa Bay to win and go there? I, I'm not sure. i think it might be i think you might still want it to be tampa bay but i'm a little bit concerned because they have todd bowles and he is good at his job

and i think i would rather face and they did a great job against the vikings offense when they played them to start last year and they have vita vea who you probably can't run against atlanta's got a hundred types of crap on their defense they just stink they just are a horrible horrible defense i would rather kevin o'connell play a horrible defense than play against tampa bay i would personally rather travel to tampa bay in the middle of the winter but I think you you want to be in and Philadelphia went down to Tampa Bay and lost last year in the playoffs yeah yeah I mean see and see I like the the idea of going up against a really bad defense because that will open things up for Sam Darnold to just have a terrific game. And it's in Atlanta.

It'd be in a controlled, weather-controlled. You know, you don't have to worry about the elements. You're on turf. So, you know, all the speed that you have should work to your advantage. I kind of, it's kind of weird because that team was probably better. Well, no, I think for sure that team was better. But it's kind of like you remember the year i think it was the year the packers won the super bowl when they went into atlanta and the

divisional round and just smoked them like it i could kind of see something like that with atlanta struggles on defense whether it's the vikings or or whoever or if it's the packers having to go into atlanta and them just getting absolutely drilled because they can't stop anybody and you're playing on you know you if you have Jordan Love playing on a track with those receivers who are fast if it's Sam Darnold in this offense with Justin Jefferson and uh you know and the weapons that the Vikings have Jordan Addison Hawkinson on a track in a controlled environment you're going to have a matchup advantage almost everywhere. That,

that seems like a better recipe for success in the first round. If you can get that sort of a matchup against Atlanta. I wouldn't want the Vikings to play San Francisco or the Rams. If they're still able to pull it out, Seattle, I'm a little more comfortable with going to Seattle. It just doesn't have the same cachet that it used to. Still, I don't think you love that. I think you'd rather go to Atlanta or Tampa Bay than Seattle, probably. And then Arizona, I think you're totally fine with going to Arizona if that ends up being the case. So I guess the way things play out elsewhere is going to dictate this,

how the Vikings are seeded up because there's just these wild swings every single week in the standings when it comes to the West. Everything that happens reshuffles the entire standings, and I still wouldn't, even though Tampa Bay lost twice to Atlanta, I would not count that out. Tampa Bay is playing very good football right now. And Atlanta has a guy who's coming off an Achilles injury that could potentially not play as well the rest of the way. Well, I guess we'll see.

Skull Vikings says, I sure hope that Flores has some surprises to help the secondary during the playoffs. Well, or the rest of the season as well. It's going to be the biggest concern I have for the entire team, just period, is can the secondary hang on for dear life? And yesterday, they were in the right positions, and Caleb Williams threw fastballs by them or did crazy stuff. Still, Stafford ate them up. Goff ate them up. When you get to the playoffs, you're probably playing a pretty good quarterback. They have not done a great job against really good wide receivers. They've done

a better job against teams that were confused at US Bank, like Houston or teams with lesser wide receivers. There's no real easy solution for this other than you have to hope for the big plays. You have to hope for interceptions, sacks, big game changing plays because you won't have us bank stadium on your side. And you're going to have to hope that the offense can do what it did yesterday, which is offense. We made a mistake. Can you please clean up our mess? And then they did. Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to have to be the playmakers on this defense. And we're talking about Jonathan Grenard applying pressure. Andrew Van Ginkle just being a guy that is just disruptive all over the place.

That that throw yesterday or kayla williams threw to the white to the right side and van ginkle sort of leaped and like it just i don't even know if he actually got a finger on it or not but just he was right there and it's just like oh andrew if like your arm was like two inches longer like you would have deflected that ball but it's like that they're going to get into situations where like that sort of play andrew van ginkle is just going to need to be able to make that play because if he doesn't you know that play ends up being what it was yesterday is that it just ends up being a big play a big time throw from caleb williams you know that, the playmakers on this defense

are going to have to be able to just be that. They're going to have to be disruptive. They're going to have to make things happen. Van Ginkle is going to have to be just a monster. You know, Byron Murphy is going to have to, you know, Byron Murphy deserves a lot of credit for being in the right place at the right time for some of these interceptions that he's been able to get.

It's going to have to be stuff like that's going to have to happen. Pressure is going to have to get onto these quarterbacks to force them into some of these mistakes because if we're going to rely on this secondary, and this is Stephon Gilmore and Shaq Griffin, if we're going to rely on those guys to just cover receivers, they're not going to be able to do that. I mean, Gilmore has been all right this year. I shudder at the thought if they had not signed him, this would have been really, really bad. So we give him credit for that. But you know, it's just going to be hard for a 34 year old corner who has been very good for his whole career to just lock people down that's just not really who he is anymore and so he's been all right hasn't been a disaster he's

hung in there but they're going to need some of the other guys especially in that front seven to be able to be disruptive make things happen to kind of for a lack of a better way of describing it kind of protecting this secondary a little bit uh mike says topical is there any chance of finding some corner help via waiver or other means before the end of the season uh no there's really not no there's not but they have fabian morrow which i'm sure doesn't make you feel way better than you just felt can you imagine the hopefulness of being like is there someone there's no one but fabian morrow's played the league a long time and has not been a scrub he's been an average replacement level corner which is not a

disaster but he can't be an upgrade he could fill in if you need him to. Byron Murphy is really important to this thing. He's had a good season. He has shown, I think, more comfort in this system. He's made game-changing plays. He's somebody that I think they'll want to extend. It also seems like Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores really like him, and you need players who can catch the football. And the idea would be for the future,

not that I'm getting too deep into that, but is that you get Makai Blackman back, maybe re-sign Byron Murphy. We'll see what happens shuffling around the safeties. You know, when Josh Metellus gets on an island with someone, it's not really what you want. Harrison Smith is playing a lot of deep stuff. This year is not quite making the same impact

that he has in the past. He's still a great player, but I'm sure yesterday he would have loved to have picked that ball off that went through his hands, but he's, he's still a huge part of the deception of the defense, but the game changing blitzes, the game changing interceptions have not been there in the same way that we've seen in the past. Someone has to step up and make plays. When you get chances, as you mentioned from Van Ginkle, you get a chance, the ball's right there. You're going to have to catch it or even buying them yesterday. The ball is there. You got to catch it. That's what this defense needs. It needs game-changing plays, turnovers, interceptions, sacks, strips,

in order to deal with the fact that the other team will be able to move the ball and complete passes against you. Yeah, and I was just thinking when we were talking about the secondary too, this is where losing Makai Blackman back in training camp. And again, he was young, had some flaws as a rookie last year, but like this is where like somebody like him who's going into year two and maybe has developed a little bit more just as kind of a rotational corner that can come in and give some of the older guys in front of him

a little bit of a break. This is where having somebody like him would have been really, really helpful. And it's kind of a shame. I hate to kind of look back on that, but that it, it kind of shows like how tough of a loss, you know, losing him for the season actually was because he could probably, he would probably really help the secondary right now. Oh, he certainly would.

And he was someone that you could play a little more, I think, man coverage, but that's a bit overstated. He cover a lot of ground is maybe the biggest thing. And that's something that Stephon Gilmore can't do quite as well as he used to. They're always going to have people in the secondary, one guy shorthanded because they're blitzing so much, which adds additional pressure to them. They will look worse at times, but then they will look better at times when there's pressure on the quarterback. It's one of those things where you're rolling the dice every time. And there were a few plays in the game against Chicago,

where you roll the dice and Andrew Van Ginkle is this close to just ripping the dude down in the backfield. And instead he gets away, creates an explosive and that's, that's going to happen. They have to make up for it with, uh, game-changing type of interceptions and sacks. Another Mike says, is this not the funnest season in the last decade? I feel like we're playing with house money and who knows how it winds up. It is. I don't know how to compare it yet to 2017. 2017 was so wild and so unexpected.

I was way more shocked at that than I am at this because I knew all the defensive players they brought in and all of us said about Darnold, we all said this during the off season. Couldn't it be one of those Jeff George? We all saw it coming. In no universe did I see Case Keenum come. And then also in no universe did I see a Minneapolis Miracle come.

And that just stands out as its own thing as far as when you talk about the last decade. Every other season, though, yeah. I mean, this kind of blows it away. 2022 was fun. It was entertaining. fun it was entertaining it certainly was entertaining i mean if you like crazy endings to games and heart racing and gripping the edge of your couch and leaning forward in the press box what's gonna happen here uh there was a lot of

that but there was just this black cloud over the whole time of i don't think it's real is this what you really want should you have tagged to like that with that discussion was there. I remember after, after the season, here's the difference between this 2022 after the season, the day after it ended and Kirk checked down on fourth and eight, I said to Brian Murphy, was it worth it?

And Murph goes, no, it wasn't. It just wasn't. Yeah. And they still end up with Jordan addison and a good draft pick and they got their quarterback and all that stuff it all's well that ends well but at the time did it feel like it was worth it to win those 13 games in a bunch of ridiculous ways and we both

kind of agreed not really if they win 13 games and get eliminated in the first round and we say is it worth it? Oh, absolutely. It was worth it because you proved a lot of things this year. You do have a coach who can reach a quarterback. You do have an infrastructure that will raise the level of a quarterback's play. You do have a general manager who can go into free agency and work with his

coaches and build something that is really excellent without hitting on some key draft picks and also whose shrewd decisions years ago paid dividends with the money that he was allowed to use. You've proven a lot of things already just being at nine wins here today. So even if it's a disappointment in the playoffs, you could still look at this season as, well, this moved the ball forward as opposed to 2022 which was the dead end and then it was well i guess we competitive thing rebuild now that it won't it won't feel that way this year yeah i mean i think after 2022 ended you know

there were so many debates about the fourth and a check down with kirk and then it was like do they run this back again? Like, do they bring Kirk back or should they trade him? Or like, what should they do with that? I think, you know, you win 13 games this year. And if you get bounced in the first round, I think you look back and you say, okay, this season was fun. It was great to see Sam Darnold sort of revitalize his career.

And then, you know, that you have, you know, you have the young quarterback in place so that if you feel like you want to say, all right, Sam, thanks for the memories. This was a fun season. Best of luck. You've helped yourself out now. You can go on the open market

and somebody's going to pay you a nice contract. Good luck to you. Thank you for this 2024 season. Let's move on to JJ McCarthy. Now the end of 2022, it wasn't, it wasn't that kind of feeling because people were still kind of debating over it should have been, should have been Kirk. Should they just let him go, you know, move on from him and draft a guy in 2023. Um, this, I think you have a much, regardless of how this season ends to your point, you have a much clearer path on where this team is headed.

And it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world if you decide to bring Sam Darnold back for another season. I still tend to think they're going to move on to McCarthy after the season unless they go to the Super Bowl with Sam or something like that. Then it might change things a little bit but there's so much more of a clearer path on the the 2025 offseason people are still going to be optimistic because they will have come off this really exciting fun season where they make the playoffs and win double digit games and then it's like and they got more cap space to work with as well let's let's and let Kwesi cook again in the 2025 offseason. So this is, I think the overall vibes again, like you were talking about, is going to be much higher

really regardless of how the season finishes. Now, again, like you mentioned, if they kind of trail off here at the end, if they end up like 11-6 now, then it will kind of leave a little bit of a sour taste of like, ah, the two and four finish. And all right, we still like the future, but let's, let's, let's do a little bit better next year. Kevin O'Connell, you know what I mean? Let's finish the season. Cause that will have been really three, the first three seasons of Kevin O'Connell where the last handful of games weren't great

you know what i mean 2022 the last handful of games after that buffalo game were not great last year they dealt with some injuries and everything but the last four or five six games of the season after the josh dobbs sort of miracle sort of stretch of a couple of games that season didn't end well. They ended with a four-game losing streak. And if you have kind of a struggle down the stretch this season, even you get into the playoffs, I think people are going to be wondering like,

all right, well, what's going on here? We still like this head coach, but, you know, this finishing the season not great is kind of becoming a trend, and we got to find a way to kind of get that going in the right direction. I agree. The way that this ends will determine the overall reflection on the future because 11 is still great, but the order of operations does matter. And if they can't beat middling teams, then those four wins in a row against preseason teams will not look as impressive. So they have to at least go 500 the rest of the way. But if they get to 12, as you were projecting tonight, then yeah, that, I mean, that's a heck of a season

for moving things forward for the entire organization. And you extend both guys for a long time and you go all right you you be andy reed and the guy who's their gm whose name i absolutely know but can't think of uh veach brett veach they're like be you be that be the you know the mike tomlin and that's you know so forth where the leadership is in place for a long time. And you let these clown organizations, fire coaches and GMs every three years. And you're our guys going forward. That's what you'll know. If you get to 12 wins, uh, that you're in a good spot and they can do it and they've proven themselves. Uh, that's, that's pretty big. That's, that changes the vibe significantly from, okay, they won 13 games and checked down on fourth and eight and lost to the Giants.

Now what? How do you dig yourself out of this? It felt a long way away. It did not feel two years away, and that speaks to a lot of things for O'Connell and Kweisi Dafflementa. Real quick, this question involves a little funny little funny story regarding a sponsor of ours zoomer kev says how viable is the bear strategy to focus on stopping justin jefferson opposed to stopping the vikings offense so here's me playing around on underdog fantasy a great

sponsor of this here program and the easiest place to play fantasy sports by the way the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry so i'm playing the pickums and i'm going all right higher on darnold okay higher on aaron jones i think he can run the ball uh let's go higher on i had one of the oh roma dunzay three and a half i'll go higher on that you know what jefferson's gonna go off higher on jefferson and i only missed on one of them and i won 80 cents instead of like 150 bucks because the bears only covered one wide receiver in this football game. And it was the guy that I needed to go off in order for underdog to work,

but that's what makes it fun. And since I didn't put a whole lot down, well, the 80 cents was still a good bonus for me. You could sign up with the code purple, by the way, to claim your special pick and first time deposit offer up to a thousand dollars.

The bonus cash must be 18 or older. Terms apply. Concern with your play. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org. Always appreciate them. They have made for a lot of close calls for me this year. What do you think? Last question for you for the evening, Manny, and I'll hang around for another half hour

and answer questions. What do you think? Do you think that opposing teams will continue this strategy of just doubling tripling boxing in justin jefferson and allowing addison and hawkinson to beat them i tend to think so for now um until what we saw yesterday from the other guys becomes like a consistent trend i think you know if if what happened yesterday t.j hawkinson jordan addison both sort of going off on the pair secondary um if that you know if that's something that's going to continue then yeah i mean because then you're

setting things up for those defenses are going to start paying more attention to those guys as well. And probably the only way you're going to pay more attention to those guys is if you kind of take a little bit off of Justin Jefferson. But like, for example, we'll see what happens, you know, this Sunday. If if it's a situation where the Cardinals play the same kind of coverage on Justin Jefferson and Hawkinson and Addison aren't as much of a factor as they were yesterday, then teams are going to continue to play that kind of coverage because it's like, well, those guys beating us, you know, it's not likely those guys are going to beat us, you know, if we play this kind of coverage. So I think it's going to be really important for the Vikings to be able to take advantage of some of the opportunities that they're going to have for Addison, for Hawkinson, you know, for Aaron, a guy like Aaron Jones in

the passing game, maybe a little bit as well. Some of the other receivers talked about Trent Shurfield, Jalen Naylor can just catch a ball and hang on to it. Seems like a tall order these days. But, you know, if that becomes a thing where those guys also start to be more productive, then I think we're going to see things kind of change a little bit. It's kind of like, you know, if you're playing the Lakers, the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, and you start double-teaming Shaq, yeah, you're going to double-team Shaq right out of the gate. But if he starts kicking it out to Robert Ori and big-shot Bob is drilling threes from the corner and stuff like that, you're going to have to defend against that because three points is more than two,

and then you're going to have to maybe single coverage on Shaq and just hope and pray. So it's the same kind of thing where the other guys for the Vikings, these other weapons need to kind of continue to step up, take some pressure off of Justin Jefferson, which he was kind of, he's kind of doing it for them, taking the pressure off of them.

They can kind of return the favor. Then I think things can really open up for, for Justin Jefferson and this entire offense. Yeah. I don't think you could just keep doing this and have, because the other two guys are first round picks. This is why how many years manny was i just saying just draft another receiver just draft another receiver

just draft just get another get another player get another skill player because once you got a certain number they can't guard them all and yesterday was quintessential they can't guard them all at the same time jefferson does need. I mean, he is the best player, and they're getting creative. They're trying. And there were several opportunities where somebody else catches a ball that could have gone to Jefferson, but it worked. And you kind of see Jefferson on tape being disappointed. God, that was my one chance today to be one-on-one,

but he still came through uh in the biggest moment thank you for your time and picking the schedule manny and on thursday your favorite arizona cardinals ever which should be quite an interesting list just uh do not pick a certain wide receiver that may have caught a ball in 2003 in the back of the end zone for the cardinals i'll stay away from that guy okay that quarterback though definitely one of my favorite players uh ever who threw that pass but we'll uh coaching with these days yeah i know i know he needs he needs to get some more credit uh but we'll see you on thursday night manny thanks for your time you got it always love it

football football every monday night Manny picks the schedule. And I'm a little sad that we're running out of football games for him to actually pick.