Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will you believe in Sam Darnold if Vikings beat the 49ers?

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Matthew Coller and Manny Hill talk about a scenario where Sam Darnold beats the 49ers.. would everyone jump on board? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and here we are just days away from the Vikings facing off in their home opener with the San Francisco 49ers. So we've got an injury report that's got some good news and some bad news and a conversation that I want to have about what this game means for the Minnesota Vikings and for Sam Darnold. Manny Hill will join around 730. He's also got his list of his favorite San Francisco 49ers ever. We do that every week with Manny Hill, where he goes back into history, talks about his favorite players. So feel free for nominations, but I am open to any of your questions and comments here to start the show. And Manny, when he joins, we'll also answer your questions and thoughts as well. So jump in the comment section. What is on your mind now as we approach a big early season game for the Vikings? And I think we all know if they win will mean a lot to where their

schedule is at. However, I forgot to email Manny the link. So give me one second so I can I can't do two things at once here so I can email Manny the link. Otherwise, we won't see Manny at any point here. OK. All right. Now we're good to go. So let me begin with just the, the injury report, which is the most important thing here. And Jeremiah jumping in with the question, did Van Ginkle practice? Yes, he did in a limited fashion, but when we saw him out there and we're only out there during the season for about 15 to 20 minutes, we walk up, we see their warmups, and then we go back inside. They don't open it to reporters for the entire practice when they're

game planning for obvious reasons. But when we did get a chance to see him in the warmups, looked like he was moving around just fine and limited means that he didn't take every single rep that he could have possibly taken. This came up with Kyle Pitts last week where Kyle Pitts missed a few reps. And then, of course, people freaked out. And he said, OK, guys, all right. I mean, look, I just missed a few reps. It's going to be OK. But the fantasy football world naturally was freaking out about him.

I think with Van Ginkle, the foot injury that he has is one where you're going to be dealing with it off and on forever. I think that it's actually similar to something Nafisa Collier for the Minnesota Lynx has dealt with in her career. And she missed a few games earlier this season. This thing can flare up and he had surgery on it in the off season. I'm assuming that it's the same foot injury, but Andrew Van Ginkle was doing lots of media after practice. I talked with him, Dane Mizutani, a couple of TV stations. So he was out and about and around, and I don't have any concerns about Andrew Van Ginkle playing on Sunday

against the San Francisco 49ers, which is enormous for the Vikings because you need all hands on deck against that offense. The other thing is too, that Andrew Van Ginkle was the best defensive player on the Vikings in week one, not just with his interception, but he was all over the field. He was their highest graded PFF player. He had pressures. He had run stops. He had hustle plays. He was everywhere, and I expect that he'll be the same player, but just took the day off on Wednesday to try to get back to full strength before the game on Sunday. So that is really helpful for the Vikings' defense.

That is the good news. The bad news, unfortunately, for the Vikings is that Jordan Addison did not practice for a second straight day, which to me plummets his chances to play. I felt like similarly to Van Ginkle that if Addison had practiced even on a limited basis, that maybe the door would open and we'll see about Friday. But if you haven't practiced Wednesday or Thursday, those are the days that they install what they're going to use on Sunday there's not too many times we see a player miss Wednesday and Thursday and then end up practicing on Friday so Jordan Addison

I'm not saying this is official or anything but I think it becomes pretty unlikely that he's going to be in the lineup I wouldn't be surprised if he's out for a couple of weeks here. Maybe they get him back in Green Bay. I don't know. Just those ankle injuries can be really difficult to come back from quickly. Usually it takes a few weeks to be able to heal up. Harrison Smith was on the injury report with a did not practice today due to a hip injury. This is one with no inside information or anything, but just based on Harrison Smith and his practice habits over the last couple of years, he has often taken a practice in the middle of the week off for whatever nagging injury, just maybe just say old. That one is not something to be too concerned about unless he doesn't practice on Friday and is ruled out. Then of course it is.

But this is something that tends to happen with Harrison Smith is they will keep him out of a practice. This is not a guy who needs to practice. He can just go out there and play on Sunday. He knows the defense inside and out. And I would be very surprised if that one has any implications. Garrett Bradbury limited for these two days. Now, Garrett Bradbury, he got banged up in the game, and I spotted it when it happened

because it was kind of beneath me where the press box was, and I saw him get up and kind of limp off, and it's listed as a knee injury, not what you're really looking for against a defensive line like this, though San Francisco's pressures have mostly come from the outside but they still have beasts that can rush on the inside as well and if Garrett

Bradbury isn't at 100 there really isn't a great answer Dan Feeney is the backup if Bradbury is banged up but normally he's going to play through pretty much just about anything. You want him closer to 100%. I think that that played into why he played as poorly as he did in week one. I know that there are some people who will just never forgive Garrett Bradbury period for existing, but over the last two years, outside of when he's played elite defensive tackles, which is kind of most of the league, Garrett Bradbury is an average to above average center. And I think the above average part is in the leadership and the way he gets the offense set up, the way he communicates with the quarterback, the way he communicates being

the head of the snake of the offensive line. He's a pretty good run blocker. He can be okay in pass protection as long as he's not facing Dexter Lawrence, the drop off from Bradbury to Feeney based on his history would be pretty, pretty serious. So I think that there's a lot of people who never got over the early impression of Garrett Bradbury. And then last week playing through an injury throughout that game and playing against Dexter Lawrence resulted in a pretty miserable PFF grade and performance for Bradbury. But when he's at a hundred percent, not that much concern, but he's also not the type of player who can be less than a hundred percent. If you recall, Pat Elfline a few years ago was a promising player and then had an injury and there wasn't enough size to make up for.

He was undersized to make up for being banged up and trying to work through that. And I feel a little bit of the same way with Bradbury. So that's one to watch. It doesn't look like based on his status, he was only limited that there's any chance he doesn't play. It's just that it could be a factor in the game. Now, another one that showed up today that is concerning is Brian O'Neill in a limited fashion with an elbow injury, but he's going to face Nick Bosa. And anytime you're going to face Nick Bosa, it's not what you want to see is someone like that showing up on a limited

basis in practice. Again, he'll play not any doubt that he he'll or not he's i'm certain he's going to it's just who he's playing against you want that guy closer to 100 and not being limited in practice and as you mentioned andrew van ginkle back uh and a limited basis i do expect him to be fine if we hadn't seen him in the locker room after i might have raised a little bit of concern but the fact that he spent i don't know today. I mean, you have a game like that. A lot of people are going to talk to you, but he spent today probably 20 minutes with different reporters coming and going, talking to him.

And I was guilty there as well. I've got a feature story coming on Van Ginkle later on this week. So also when you're working on a feature story and you spent 20 minutes talking to the guy's high school coach, as I did yesterday, you really want that guy to play on Sunday. So keep an eye out for that, uh, over, uh, I'll tweet it out and, uh, purple insider.com. And then, uh, Jalen Naylor practicing in full, uh, Jalen Naylor looks like he's going to be the guy, and this will be such a big factor of how they make up for, uh, the, the fact that Jordan Edison probably isn't going to play. And what they need is somebody to be a hero. They need Brandon Powell, Jordan Addison.

And I think Brandon Powell is a pretty decent receiver, or he's become one over the last couple of years. They used them a little bit in LA. The Vikings did. It's not a difference maker like Jordan Addison, but he can run routes. He can make plays, but they need someone to be a threat to go down the field. That's Jalen Naylor. So good news that he's a full participant.

They are still listing Christian McCaffrey as limited, even though it doesn't seem like there's almost any chance that he's going to play after missing last week. So San Francisco, very suspicious with their injury reports, but they've got Hufanga, their really great safety. He was limited. Juwan Jennings banged up. Aaron Banks banged up. So some good players on their injury report, but McCaffrey is obviously the one that we're watching closest. Although after what Jordan Mason did, maybe it doesn't matter. So there's kind of the injury report for today. What else is on your guys' mind? Throw it out there. Questions, comments, thoughts. And when Manny pops in in about 20 minutes, we'll have a

really good discussion about Sam Darnold and what this means for the Vikings if they can win this game against the 49ers. So give me a sec to scroll up. Tristan says, I hate titles like this. The title is, will you believe in Sam Darnold if he beats the 49ers? So you hate the title. Sorry. Sam Darnold will not beat or lose to the 49ers. The Vikings will. Oh, thank you. Thank you for informing me of that, Tristan. I am well aware. However, here's where I would maybe lean the other way. Do we think that the Vikings can beat the San Francisco 49ers without a really good performance from Sam Darnold? Do you think that? Because I don't think that. I mean, they they would have beat the giants without a good performance from Sam

Darnold. And it turned out that it was good, but it is, it is going to have to be Sam Darnold playing really well. I think you and I both are aware that two football teams are playing each other, but that's not really the point. I think you're kind of missing the point. So you can nitpick on something, But the point being about the title and will you believe in Sam Darnold is if this team gets to two and oh, that means that Sam Darnold will have played well enough for them to win two games. And if they do it against the team that is this good, what does that mean for your thought that they can keep doing this week after week and that they can be a really good team with Sam

Darnold as their quarterback. Of course, it connects to the team's success. If Sam Darnold goes four for 18 with three picks and the Vikings recover eight fumbles and they beat the San Francisco 49ers, hey, I'll come back and apologize to you but more likely than not if they win that means their quarterback had to play really well did it not and if Darnold plays well enough for them to win against a team like this then it probably means that the belief in Sam Darnold will go up immensely where this season had the air go out of it when JJ McCarthy got hurt. But I think it will feel so much more of an injection of belief that Sam Darnold can be that Jeff George can be that case Keenum and lead them. And no, it wasn't case Keenum that won all those games. It was also the number one

defense in the league. It's never anybody. It's never just Brock Purdy. It's never Patrick Bonds. I mean, that's obvious that it's not it, but those quarterbacks have to be good. Case Keenum had to be good to get them to the NFC championship game to win 13 games. It's pretty darn rare that you can win a lot in the NFL if your quarterback isn't, isn't that good. So the idea is if they can beat the 49ers, will you believe that Darnold can be consistently good enough and that this place here has offered him something that he's never had before, which is belief from his coach, which is details for the offense, receivers who can get open, a running game, blocking from the tackles, all those things that we talked about. And it was

always in a theoretical world. But if he beats the 49ers, it those things that we talked about. And it was always in a theoretical world. But if he beats the 49ers, it no longer becomes in a theoretical world. I don't think that it left theory by beating the Giants, even though he played well and he looked great. And every breakdown from Colt McCoy, JTO Sullivan, Dan Orlovsky, every former quarterback who has ever taken a practice squad snap was doing a film breakdown about how good Sam Darnold was. And I agree, but it was against a team that was bad that they were ahead on the entire game. A lot of quarterbacks can be good under those circumstances, but can you play well against one of the best teams in the NFL and give your team a

chance to win and get that job done. If you can, then I think it's going to change with the expectations and the feeling about Sam Darnold. That is the point. It's not my belief that a single quarterback is the one who beats an entire NFL team. That is not what I think. After how many, how many years have I been covering the league? No, I don't think that. Let's see.

Russ says, don't be nervous. You need to have low expectations and enjoy some home cooking. Well, I think this is a year, Russ, that a lot of people went into with low expectations. And I've talked about this before. I talked about it a little bit with Kyle Madsen, who covers the 49ers the other day, how this season being low expectations of people going into it. Potentially, if you beat the 49ers could make it a lot more fun all of a sudden, even by week two. And that doesn't mean they're going to go and win the Superbowl, but it's the best place to be when you're surprised when you think, I don't know, I think this team is just okay. Maybe they can have a lot of things go right. And if they beat

San Francisco, then all of a sudden you're talking about, well, actually now my expectations change and this could be a fun season and it could be quite a bit different. Um, that's a good place to be, But I think that you're right that a lot of people should reasonably still not have the highest expectations of this team based on the history of their quarterback and the schedule that they're going to face, though it looks a little easier if Jordan Love isn't at 100%. I don't think if we were doing an expectation meter, if we po pulled all fans and said, how many wins do you think they should have this year? And most fans would have come up with somewhere

between six and 10, 10 being very enthusiastic. I don't think anyone thought they could lose less than six, but I'm sorry, win less than six, but maybe that shifts a little bit to where instead of those six people, now it's between eight and 10, or now it's between seven and 11 is the range that you would have gotten more people. Uh, and I know it's an early season game. It doesn't mean everything. Of course it doesn't. We do that to every NFL game because it's the only information that we have, but it, this one carries a lot of weight about how they play. On the other side of that, because you have low expectations, if they don't win, I think we'll go, okay, on to the next one. They need to get one out of two against the Texans,

but the winning side of this carries a lot of weight to how you feel about where the expectations in the bar should be set. Mark says, do you think speedy being more of a take the top off type of receiver could be enough to take advantage of jets being doubled and tripled? I'll never get used to him being called jets. I know he likes that Jefferson, but I just, I don't know. Some of these nicknames are just okay. I mean, jets, I don't know. It's okay. But I think that yes, that he does have the ability to do that because he can go down the field and he's very good at ball tracking and he's good at route running. And we've seen these little flashes of it when he's gotten opportunities. We've seen a lot of flashes of it during training camp. Now he's healthy and ready to go in this game that guys like Naylor, guys like Brandon Powell, the opportunity is going to be there because of Justin Jefferson.

The other thing is too, though, you can't, as Kevin O'Connell, I think O'Connell does a tremendous job of this. It might be his best asset that Kevin O'Connell never goes into a week and says, well, they're going to double team Jefferson. So I'm going to work to other people. He says, instead, they're going to double team Jefferson. So let me find ways to beat those double teams with Jefferson. That's what he's done in the past. And the other part of it too, is all summer, they've been urging Sam Darnold, look, throw throw it anyway and he did it last week there was a safety on his way over to justin jefferson on that 44 yard pass and they just threw it anyway

they i mean sam darnold just threw it anyway and that's the type of thing that i know that kevin o'connell has really been pushing hard for uh for, for Sam Darnold is that Jefferson is open, even when he's not open and they are going to have to have him have a big game. I think it's hard to beat San Francisco. If your best player is taken out of it, but, but as to your point, Naylor should have opportunities and so should other guys. And it's Darnold's job to weigh who he wants to push the ball to when they're wide open and how often he wants to take shots with Justin Jefferson. And that's not always the easiest balance.

I thought in certain times, Kirk Cousins was really excellent at that, taking what the defense gave him in other places and other times getting it to Jefferson and taking some risks. He got better at it as he went along with Jefferson, I thought. Oh gosh, says I still have an expectation of seven and 10. So if he plays great, awesome. If he plays bad, that's okay too. He could absolutely ball out this year and that still wouldn't sway me for next year. JJ is the guy. Oh, I agree, I think we can live in both of those worlds where we're talking about week to week, Sam Darnold and finding out about Sam Darnold and what he can be for this team

could potentially be a very fun storyline to follow. And if you think of everything through the lens of a Netflix series, think of it as a character who, you know, has only a one year cameo on a season. And it's going to be other characters that you're going back to main characters down the road. But this character has a one year cameo and you're going to follow his arc. That's what it is for Sam Darnold. You're following the Sam Darnold arc here this season and seeing where it goes is why we watch football is sometimes guys who you didn't believe in at all, all of a sudden show up and do something.

I was talking to a player today about how he once upon a time got cut and now has become a significant player for the Vikings, Josh Metellus. And that's such a cool arc for a guy who wasn't sure what was going to happen with his career and was barely hanging on. And then he ends up having now a huge role in the defense. The same thing goes for if Sam Darnold is able to do this. And this is a big moment for Sam Darnold to potentially do this. Uh, that's, that's how I look

at it as it's part, this is part of his arc. It's, it's a big step as a part of that arc. Uh, Jake says, uh, watch some of the film breakdown of Darnold versus the giants. Dude can play KO could scheme it up underdog versus 49ers, but looking forward to it. That was my big takeaway as well from a lot of the things that I watched of course JTO Sullivan is going to be one of them but Colt McCoy was doing a breakdown too and what everyone has come up with is Kevin O'Connell could sure get some dudes open and that how's that carry over against San Francisco it did last year is it going to carry over again where we're going to find out but i've been always always very

impressed with that as a major part of kevin o'connell's skill set and maybe the thing that makes him most valuable is just his ability to get receivers open all right it's manny hill time manny welcome to the show how are you it's already been uh hot out of the gate here with the vikings fans we're chatting with about Sam Darnold. So, well, first of all, how are you? Then I'll throw a question at you. What's going on, man? You good?

Oh, yeah, I'm good. I'm just excited for I've got, you know, the Bills and Dolphins on kind of like half my screen. I just bought this brand new monitor from Best Buy a couple of days ago, and it's like this wide 32, 34 inch screen. So I've got like everything up on like one screen. So I've got the Bills and Dolphins on like one third of the screen over here to my left. So yeah, I'm excited, man.

It's football season. Really looking forward to Sunday's game. This is going to be a big test, a nice early test for this Vikings team. And I'm excited to see it. Shout out to your internet provider, which has improved significantly since last year. You know, we're just trying to get better at 1% each and every podcast, Manny, and you're doing good there to have a game streaming and the podcast is great. So let me ask you the question that we've been

talking about, which is the title. If you look up, uh, will you believe in Sam Darnold if he beats the 49ers? And I left it open for interpretation of what do you mean by believe in Sam Darnold? If the Vikings beat the 49ers, uh, how would you feel about his prospects going forward? I would feel really good about it. I mean mean because this is a really good early test this is a team that was in the super bowl a year ago this is a team that has been to um several nfc championship games and uh and another super bowl uh since kyle shanahan took over as head coach so this is a a really good early test this is a team that's favored maybe to go to the Super Bowl again coming out of the NFC.

So if Sam Darnold can perform well on Sunday and beat the 49ers, find a way to win, I'd be a big-time believer. I'm already kind of leaning towards believing in him because I was really impressed with what i saw from him on sunday albeit against a bad giants team but if he can put together a really good performance on sunday against this opponent i'm i'm 100 on board well that's the thing manny is when it comes to the small samples of the nfl it is very difficult to figure out is something real or not.

It is, is there a, are we being tricked by small sample? Is there something that went right in one particular game, one particular scheme that just landed in a guy's way and he worked out for that week, but then the rest of the time he didn't. And I present you with our opinions last year about Joshua Dobbs after two games. And Joshua Dobbs' history was not all that great, and yet the way that he fit in with Kevin O'Connell and his offense was really good, and he had some exciting plays, and he scrambled, and we all snarked about, hey, it's not too bad to have a little scramble in there eh and then of course we all got punched in the face by reality of uh josh

dobbs now sam darnold's a number three overall draft pick it's a little bit different uh he's also not trying to be a spaceman so that i think that also adds a little bit of his main focus is just football it could help him a bit there and he had all summer to learn the offense so he was not exposed in a short period of time but i think what you're looking for from sam darnold is sustainable things it isn't just hey does he play well enough to beat the 49ers of course it would take a very good performance if he could but is it the things that worked against the giants playing in rhythm, executing the things that he's asked to do from Kevin O'Connell and occasionally doing

something special? Does that continue? Because if they win the game, he did win a game where he went five for 15 with a two quarterback rating and he won, which doesn't usually happen. Uh, but, uh, he did. Usually that only happens if the bears are playing at soldier field against the Vikings, but if he wins that way, okay, fine. But then the trust won't change. But if he does the same stuff against the 49ers that he was able to do against the giants who have an okay defense, it's not just a bunch of bumps. Then I would say, yeah, I think it might be time to start talking about getting excited about Sam Darnold. And, you know, this is another topic that we're just talking about before you popped on. Maybe you heard a little bit of it. Manny is just about the JJ

McCarthy thing looms into the future. And I think we all know where this train is headed. It's headed toward JJ McCarthy land. But I think watching the Sam Darnold arc play out is a very unique opportunity you get in football. I mean, imagine like in Cleveland last year, you watched the Joe Flacco thing and yeah, it came to an end and it always does. But the, the case Keenum, these are the ones you never forget when they work. And I think this could be one of those. Remember when case destroyed the bucks the Tampa Bay Bucks and you went wait is this a thing they weren't a great team who did he beat that was a good team that I don't know there was there was at least someone that was good at some point during that

season where we started to say maybe it's the Lions Thanksgiving the Lions were a good team that year yeah well if you beat the Lions Thanksgiving, maybe this thing is really happening. Usually it takes a lot longer. But in this instance, I think we would start saying that right away just because of how good San Francisco is. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, going back to the point you made about Sam Darnold being a number three overall pick and, you know, we see the physical tools like there was a reason why he

was taken as high as he was you know yeah of course things didn't work out in new york um things didn't work out in carolina those were bad coaching situations but the physical talent that sam darnold has it's there and we saw some of that stuff this past sunday against the giants so to me it just kind of feels like, all right, if he performs well against a quality opponent like San Francisco is, we know he has the physical tools. We know that Kevin O'Connell, I think, has shown in his first two seasons, at least that he's a competent head coach and a really good offensive mind and, you know, is, you and is instilling a modern philosophy

with offense in today's NFL, I think if you couple all those things together and if Sam Darnold can perform well against a really good opponent, I think it's because of the physical tools that he has that it's like you know that there's something there. It just has to be now is he ever really going to live up i was texting a friend of mine this the other day is sam darnold ever going to live up to being the number three overall pick probably not it's probably unlikely at this point but we know the physical tools are there so we know that he's capable of at least

performing well and if he's in the right situation he can put together a run where it's you know hey maybe this is a three or four year run probably not here but if he plays well this year gets a a solid contract kind of like what baker mayfield got with tampa bay and has like a nice two three four year run with a team and he goes to the playoffs a couple of times. I think that's very much possible with him. Well, and for me, it's when do we start having that conversation is a thing because I don't think it's now. I don't think it's after one win against the New York Giants. It's not the first time Sam Darnold's ever played well in his life. You go back. It isn't difficult to find Sam Darnold highlight games or when he was really good. He's won games in the league. He's had that before

that Giants game. It's not the first time, although I did discover that he is only completed over 70% of his passes six times in his career is five and one during those times. So if he's, you know, if he's doing that playing point guard well uh then he can win a lot of football games so we're not there yet this would be a big turning point in getting there there will be a point where it's rational to decide whether this worked or not and maybe that's past the bye week uh maybe that's middle of the season maybe that's late in the season uh i'm not sure we're not there yet but this would be a big swing in my mind toward we might be headed there if he's able to beat a team of this caliber. This is not the Atlanta Falcons last year

that Josh Dobbs be. It's not the New Orleans Saints last year where Derek Carr is getting hurt in the middle of the game and they seem pretty clueless. This is a premier team in the NFL over the last five years. Michael says, do we think Tristan Jackson gets some action action? Tristan Jackson this week? Uh, I, I don't, I, I, I'm not sure, but he may be elevated. Yes. Uh, and I think they would maybe bring up lucky Jackson, but where lucky Jackson versus Tristan Jackson, really any kind of Jackson Manny, uh, they have a lot of Joneses and Jackson's on this team. Uh, just Sean Jones, the return of just Sean Jones to the practice squad. I told you all these now the fourth will

practice squad receiver. Um, but anyway, I think lucky Jackson plays a little more of special teams. So maybe you'd see him more. I really think it's going to be sure field, uh, Naylor and Powell who are the main guys, um guys that end up being a part of this. If Jordan Edison is not playing, which I don't think that he is a man juice. Nice to see you. Says, what do you think of Nick Bosa saying they're playing a better team this week? Who did he say is playing a better team? The Vikings are playing a better team.

If he said that, well, where's the captain obvious meme for that? Yes, the Vikings are playing a much better team. Now, if he said it about the where's the captain obvious meme for that yes uh the vikings are playing a much better team now if he said it about the vikings that is quite a compliment but also i don't i don't think the jets are good man i i think yeah i think the jets missed their window don't you yeah i do too remember that was kind of the one of the things we were looking forward to uh you know this season it's just like how this is going to play out for the jets and you know aaron rogers just kind of looked ordinary on on monday night and you know they there's all this weird stuff in that in the offseason again oh oh look aaron

rogers has a weird offseason there's controversy surrounding aaron rogers in the off season who who knew that happens um yeah and and you kind of wonder if like if there's going to be enough patience for Robert Sala you know to turn this thing around I could really see how things could get sour there pretty early if they don't start winning some games and that that's that's a team that could be in a lot of trouble well and this is the thing about everything coming up Vikings in week one. The Vikings had a blowout win. Jordan Love got hurt. The Jets looked bad.

Christian McCaffrey may not play, which I know they could still run the ball, but the guy is borderline MVP of the league. And even half, this is down the road, but half the Rams roster got hurt. And I don't know when Puka Nakua is going to end up coming back to play. There were very few teams that are on the immediate schedule for the Vikings that looked great. And Caleb Williams is going to need a lot of development. If that version of Caleb Williams plays against Brian Flores, he will not win because Brian

Flores is going to mess with him all day. So a lot of things through week one, which is kind of, we should do Thursday night vibe check. The Thursday night vibe check is couldn't be better for the way everything played out for the Vikings and looks going forward here. Ken says, I think if we win 10, I'll be all in by the playoffs. So do you mean 10 games or,

or do you mean if you win? Cause commas are a trouble with the comment section. Sometimes. Do you mean if you win because commas are a trouble with the comment section sometimes do you mean if you win this game you'll think that you're going to win 10 or it's going to take 10 wins to have you excited about this team because i think manny and you know this very well that there are sections of fans based on what era you started watching the vikings which is changes how you feel about them. So if you are on the older side as a Viking fan, I don't know how old you are, Ken,

but if you're on the I watched Fran Tarkenton side, they need to prove it to you to get to the playoffs, where I think that people who are joining on with Randy Moss are much more willing to just go vibes and just be like, hey, this was a fun season that we didn't expect coming. And the bigger picture looks better down the road and I'll ride the roller coaster and see what happens. Then like our teams never won a championship. And I've been watching since whatever year, and they've got to get into the playoffs and when I would just suggest that don't wait till they have 10 wins

to start enjoying this football team. There's a lot of great players. It could be a fun ride. And I think that has to kind of start within the next few weeks. If they don't win one in the next couple of weeks, then all the vibe check is going to be pretty rough going forward after that. But I do think there's a generational gap in how you view something like this yeah totally um you know i just know from i mean i'm 40 years old and my viking viewership started when i was about 9 10 years old when warren moon came to the vikings in 1994 and i remember you know there was a lot of excitement about that because Warren Moon had been this great quarterback with the Houston Oilers for a decade and played the CFL and he was great. And, you know, he was he was an older guy. He was in his late 30s. But like there were a lot of people that were excited. It's like, oh, oh, Warren Moon, the guy from the guy from the Oilers.

Like this guy's this guy's one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. So there was a lot of excitement surrounding that. You think about, you know, 1998 when Randy Moss comes in, you know, Brad Johnson gets hurt in week two, and Randall Cunningham, again, another guy that had been a really good quarterback with the Eagles for a number of years, comes in. It's like, oh, Randall Cunningham's playing really well.

So it's like, I think because of the quarterback, because there's been kind of this revolving door of quarterbacks who were really good once upon a time come in and they play really well or you get like the the case keenum type of guy that just pops up out of nowhere you expect nothing from um and turns around and has a really good season and sam darnold kind of feels like maybe it could be something like that you know i'm not saying that this team is going to go 13 and you know i guess 13 and 4 and have the number one defense in the league although this defense is really good um but i i can kind of see how you know sam darnold having putting together a good season this team being

competitive maybe sneaking into the playoffs and and playing a competitive playoff game can just be a lot of fun because I don't think anybody suit. I mean, if you were going into this season expecting like Super Bowl with this team, I mean, you're just let's be real. You're just delusional. Like, let's just keep it a buck. So to me, it's like I'm just still fascinated to see how Sam Darnold continues to like perform the rest of this season, because I think there's an opportunity and a chance that it could be that he could play really well and it could be a lot of fun to watch. There's also this from the generation that's gone through it, and I have the utmost respect for the struggling franchise who can't win the Superbowl. Remember where I grew up. Okay. So I'm very familiar with this, but

there's times to play the card of, I've been watching this team since whatever year, and they always break my heart and I'm going to be perpetually angry at them until they actually win something. There are times for that. And that time was last year, last year, when, why did you keep bringing back the same quarterback who can't win for you at the highest price? That was a time to be perpetually frustrated when you know that around the corner is the right way to play. And look, when we talk about team building, you look at San Francisco with Brock Purdy and his contract. I don't know he's making this year. Last year was 800,000. I can't imagine it's much more than that this year and all the talent that they've been able to

acquire. And you look at the Vikings and you go, Van Ginkle's a guy, Grenard's a guy, Cashman's a guy, Gilmore's a guy. Wait a minute. That seems like a lot of money that they were able to spend. And they're not going to have a Dak Prescott contract that takes away all those players when McCarthy comes in and they were able to extend Harrison Phillips, who's a nice glue piece to this defense. And they can spend more on that. And so when you know that the way that it's worked for Philly, the way that it's worked for the 49ers is the way that your franchise is doing it with this rookie quarterback around the corner. I think that allows so much more of a, why don't you just see what happens with Sam Darnold and open the door to the possibility that this could be a fun story arc for his career and watching him go on. And he could become one of the more likable Viking quarterbacks. If he's able to play well throughout this season and get them

into the playoff race, that's just where you have to live this year because we don't have the answer on JJ McCarthy in the future. Uh, just yet, uh, Marley says, uh, depends on whether you'll believe in Sam Darnold. Uh, if he beats the 49ers, if his stats are like two 80 and three touchdowns, then yes, I'll become a believer. But if they, uh, if, even if they lose, okay. If he's 180 ish in a touchdown with two turnovers, uh, he is who I assumed he is. And my expectations will stay at six and 11 or seven and 10. So box score stats, not a, not a fan of those Manny for obvious

reasons regarding the last six seasons. Yep. Uh, winning football as a quarterback and box score stats are a funny beast, aren't they? Because of course, if Aaron Rogers wins the MVP and throws for 40 touchdowns and six picks and has 112 quarterback rating and wins 13 games, then, well, yeah, the box score matches up with what actually happened. But when you look at last week with Sam Darnold, he had an interception that had nothing to do with him, had a sack that kind of had nothing to do with him, and otherwise played very efficient football and low volume football that I am perfectly comfortable with. And I don't need 300 yards and three touchdowns necessarily. Aaron Jones scored the touchdown. I don't care who scored the touchdown. I, it doesn't, it doesn't matter

to me. I don't care if they didn't throw in the second half because they were winning and he didn't put up as many yards because he, I don't even mind if he didn't push it down the field all that often in that game and rather played mostly safe football and hit one shot down the field. And that's where the box score says, we went through this with Teddy, with the people who obsessed over the touchdown totals when Adrian Peterson scored all the touchdowns. It's does your quarterback play winning football is a different story. Oftentimes from does your quarterback put up a bunch of stats. And to me, it has to be more of let's, let's use common sense as we evaluate this and not just, Hey, well, if he, if he throws, if he turns the ball over twice,

then forget them. And they're winning six games. Well, I don't, I don't think we can be that rigid. I think we have to use a little bit of the, he do the things that kevin o'connell wants him to do as the quarterback of this team and execute those because if he did then even if he doesn't put up huge stats you could still play winning football well and you know to your point about just with the stats like okay because the the commenter said okay well if he throws for 280 and three touchdowns i'll be a believer even if they lose okay well, if he throws for 280 and three touchdowns, I'll be a believer even if they lose. Okay, well, what if he threw for 380 and three touchdowns because they were down by 21 points in the fourth quarter

and they ended up losing the game? I mean, how many times did we see that in six years with Kirk Cousins where you're a lot of garbage time stats, and then you look at the Vikings and they lost 34-28. But hey, look, Kirk threw for 313 yards and two touchdowns and no interceptions. Okay, well, they were down by three scores in the fourth. That's why you have those. And he was trying to throw them back into the game.

So to me, it's like Teddy Bridgewater went 11 and 5 in 2015 and he threw 14 touchdown passes it's you know he wasn't teddy wasn't throwing for 300 yards every week he wasn't throwing for 4500 yards in that season but he was playing really good smart efficient football he wasn't turning i think he only threw nine picks that year he did not turn the ball over a lot you know they they kind of rode that defense and adrian peterson leading the league and rushing and and teddy was really was just really good and had good command of that offense that's what you're kind of looking for and with sam darnold to, I'm not really looking at a specific statistic that will show me that he plays well on Sunday. You're looking at the little things.

It's, you know, is he moving the ball down the field enough to get them in position to score touchdowns? And they get inside the five-yard line, they hand it off to Aaron Jones, and they score a touchdown. Or Ty Chandler, and they get in the end zone. Is he generating points? Quarterbacks don't necessarily have to throw touchdown passes and throw for a lot of yards to generate points. Is he sustaining drives? It's, it's, you know, you get a third and eight type of situation. Is the offense converting that third and eight, or are they going three and out, which we saw quite a bit, many, many times during a recent six-year stretch.

We saw a lot of three and outs during the Kirk Cousins era. So I think it's just, it's one of those things where you just have to watch and you kind of get, you watch enough of the game, then you can kind of really get a feel of what you're actually seeing from the quarterback. Well, and what did Case Keenum throw for? 3,600 yards or something? It was not the biggest statistical season. And I just want to clarify, this applies to Sam Darnold for this year and not all quarterbacks

ever, because of course the great quarterbacks are going to put up big numbers. And if JJ McCarthy is a superstar, you're going to want him to put up numbers. But the funny stat from the Teddy Bridgewater year that I always used to laugh about was that despite Teddy throwing 14 touchdowns, they scored in a higher percentage of their drives than Kirk Cousins did in 2018 because they were settling for field goals because Mike was not going to play aggressive. So Blair Walsh kicked a ton of field goals that year. They played at an incredibly slow pace, which basketball fans understand pace, but it also applies to the NFL too.

And the Vikings, you know, what did Jefferson have? Like five catches last week. They played at a very slow pace in this game. They ran the ball a lot. They did, you know, they had some long drives and they ran the clock out toward the end, but they didn't have 75 plays at the end of that game.

They had more like 50 something at the end of the game or whatever it was. It was 24 passes and it was not a lot of plays for the Vikings. That's kind of how they played that year because they had a good defense back in 2017 with case or 2015. It's the way Mike Tomlin has won a lot of games by not getting good quarterback play there are ways like Harvard offense in basketball there's ways to shrink the game a little bit that give you a better opportunity to win when you don't have one of the great quarterbacks and so I think the idea here is that if Sam Darnold plays like that

he plays like 2015 Teddy he plays like 2017 Case Keenum, where you only need him to do so much and then hit a couple of throws to win a game. That's great for this season. It's not how we're going to evaluate JJ McCarthy necessarily in the future. You're going to want him to be the centerpiece of your team. You're going to want a complete offense. You're going to want more playmaking less. Hey, let's, let's cut out the edges of this and see if you could sort of stay in your lane. But I think that is the plan for Sam Darnold to win. And if he could do it against a team like this, then yes, you can do it on a weekly basis. I think what you're concerned about is that he decides at some point that he's

got to do more than that. And then, uh, that's when, I mean, even with case that and then uh that's when i mean even with case keenum that's when you get wild throws that turn into an interception against philly or uh the throw even against new orleans in the minneapolis miracle where like case what are we doing here uh throwing an interception and allowing new orleans to come back in the game that's what you don't want because case and sam darnold they do have that hero trigger as somebody called it. And you don't want too much of that clicking. Uh, Janet says, I think Jones and Chandler playing well, running games, screens, et cetera, to move the ball against 49ers defense, uh, have plus time of possession would be very beneficial.

Totally agree. Uh, the difficult part is they have Fred Warner, the best linebacker in the entire NFL. And this is going to be a huge challenge for how good this offensive line is at run blocking because they plowed some people, but also Aaron Jones broke a lot of tackles against the New York giants. And, uh, are you going to do that against the 49ers? That's they don't miss too many tackles. So this will test big time, how good they are in the screen game someday, somedayny here's here's just just my wishes if aladdin's genie showed up and said yeah i mean i'll grant you wishes but only about the vikings i'd be like that's weird so i my but it can't be a super bowl because i don't have those types of powers so very

weak genie and pathetic and strange but i'll i'll play along anyway i would say look genie give me a defensive tackle who can get after the quarterback and give Kevin O'Connell a screen game. And then you will have the world Minnesota Vikings. We've never seen it from him with the screen game and they've got the running backs to do it now better than Madison. I agree with you, Janet. I'd like to see that. That was a long and stupid way to make that point wasn't it uh mike says uh what's your take on the jets defense last week they were rated quite high but san francisco made them look terrible how does that bode for us i've observed uh purdy have great ball security oh they certainly do that uh what was your opinion about how the jets defense got steamrolled it's a little bit

concerning i think we do have to kind of keep things in perspective that the 49ers are really really good this is a team that again is a championship caliber team they were you know literally you know uh stopping patrick mahomes on what was that fourth and two fourth and one that the run he had in overtime in the super bowl like if they stop patrick mahomes there like they win the super bowl they're super they're the defending champions so i think there's that part of it that you know i think we have to to keep in mind but you have a defensive-minded head coach and the idea of the new York Jets was going to be you drop in Aaron Rodgers. Everything else, the rest of the roster is a finished product.

You just drop in Aaron Rodgers, and he's the last piece, and you're supposed to be contending for a championship. That was the expectation last year. Things changed when Rodgers got hurt last year, But again, he's coming back from this injury. The thought is that, well, Aaron Rodgers is just going to be, this is why the Jets were so interesting, because it felt like in the offseason, there was kind of this assumption that, well, Aaron Rodgers is just going to come back

and he's going to be fine coming off this major injury and the Jets are going to be contenders. It's going to be them and Miami for the AFC East. And I just, you know, you have to wonder if Rodgers is going to be able to do enough because it might be possible. Collar, we see windows close on defenses all the time, where it's a two, maybe a three-year stretch where a defense is really, really good. And then you have to start making some changes. There's a little bit of roster turnover.

Guys get older. Guys want to get paid. I mean, they've made the trade for Redick, and he has not shown up because they have not worked out a deal for him. So there's that part of it lingering too. So I'm really concerned about the New York jets right now. Really, really concerned, not just with the defense, but just the whole operation really seems like it's in disarray. And they've lost some guys and they've drafted some guys that

aren't that good, uh, with the jets. No, you're totally right about, Hey, jets in disarray. When, what, what that team, uh, never, but to your your point and i we saw it happen right in front of our very eyes manny is that defenses everyone just always assumes whatever they were last year is what they're going to be the next year we all assume the 2017 defense will just be elite in 2018 and then they lose everson griffin for a little while some other guys get banged up uh xavier rhodes was playing injured for most of the season. And you're just a different team than you were. And they were still good, but they weren't the same.

And that would have happened to the Jets. I'll allow for another potential explanation, though, because I think that might be the right one. The 49ers might have just kicked their ass. I mean, the 49ers do this to people. And I think that the reverence that we talk about with the 49ers is a hundred percent deserved. I mean, this is just a behemoth of a football team. The Vikings have had competitive games against them in recent years. The one that Kenny Wong Wu had the kick return for touchdown. That was a fairly close game.

And then last year they get the win, which looked like it was going to turn their season in a new direction. And so I don't think, okay, well, they're coming in here and they're unbeatable. It's not the 1994 San Francisco 49ers, but they could do that to just about anybody where their line is so good. And they are taught so well by Kyle Shanahan, who I just think is the best coach in the entire league. They coach that running game so well that they put in guys. If you understand it and you run physically, you're going to succeed. And then what do you do from there? They have so many playmakers. It is, it is a brilliantly built football team with a quarterback who can execute it. And the jets may have just got 49ered that could also be a part of it

mike also asks uh what's your take on jets not the other jets but justin jefferson jets uh encouraging sam darnold to trust him even when he's covered he's open uh when one of our main concerns is throwing turnover worthy balls do we encourage that i think there are different rules with justin jefferson you agree manny yes Throw him the ball. Throw him the ball. That's all. Just throw him the ball. It's okay. It's a strong ball. That throw that he made for 44 yards was into technically double coverage. So you throw the ball. You had a safety coming over. He did it anyway. It's all good. He is just different. What you want, my thing is you want him to do all the point guard stuff, to move the ball to everyone else and then hit Jefferson with big plays.

That's, that's how I look at it. Uh, Jason says, I feel like the defense has a lot more depth to rotate in than they've had in a long time. Uh, Flores rotated in a lot of people, but whether they were actually good last year, I'm not sure. I think so too, Manny. I think there's more players that they can use, especially outside linebacker and defensive tackle. 100%. And that's the thing that I love the most about this defense is that, you know, and even at safety too, like you have enough depth there where Harrison Smith, who's still a good player, but he's obviously an aging guy who has been in the league for a long time,

he doesn't have to play as many snaps maybe as he has in recent years. So you're going to keep him very fresh as well. And, you know, you mentioned with the edge rushers, you have enough depth there where you're not really, you know you mentioned with the with the edge rushers you have enough depth there where you're not really you know burning out one or two guys over the course of the season you're going to be able to you know keep a solid rotation going keep everybody fresh keep everybody as healthy as possible and again we talked about you know dallas turner not having a lot of pressure to just go out and be you know lawrence tay Taylor type of, you know, come on, Dallas. All right. We know you're a rookie and you're 21 years old and we traded up all these picks to get you.

Give us 15 and a half sacks as a rookie. Doesn't have to do that because there's enough there at that position, enough depth there to where he can just kind of come out and just do a little bit here and there. And there's not that intense amount of pressure. And that's why there's no matchup that they're going to have this year where I'm going to say, man, this defense is just overpowered. They have no chance or whatever. And the same thing goes for this one. I'm not going to say they have no chance

because they have a lot more depth than they had last year and came out of it healthy. They didn't lose anybody so far as we know i mean harrison smith didn't practice today but i think he'll be okay and van ginkle practicing is a good sign as well uh drew says i'm taking plus six vikings to win outright 24 21 how do you how you feel about that manny is that a good pick i i can see it i that's probably not my pick god you know i i do kind of think the niners you know spoiler alert i do kind of think the niners are going to win this game but if the vikings won this game by a score like that 24 21 it's kind of how they beat the niners last year was so i think

was it was last year 24 17 23 17 something like that 20 why do i have 26 in my brain is that can't be right was it 26 something like it was a stupid score but maybe i'm wrong i know that san francisco scored 17 yeah yeah yeah so i mean i could i could see that happening and you know the vikings i think have because it's going to be a u.s bank stadium i think the vikings will kind of have that slight edge working in their favor. I don't think they're going to win the game, but if they were to win by like a 24-21 type of score, I can see that. I can totally buy that happening. Mark says, is there any world where Sam would stay as a backup to JJ to push the emergency button besides him being so horrible that nobody else wanted him. Uh, no, I think Sam Darnold is going to either be a backup somewhere else or a starter somewhere else, but I don't think he's

going to be sticking around here. I mean, if he was, I just don't see that. I mean, if he wins seven games and nobody else gives him a chance, but is he really going to stick here? Uh, wouldn't you rather go compete somewhere where, you know, you've got a chance to maybe win the job. That's what I would want to do. If I was Sam Darnold, uh, Carolina is not a name that you can really bring up because he was already there, but think about next year when they, and I'm already there with this, when they draft a quarterback at the top of the draft, they're going to go looking for a veteran who can compete with a young guy. There will be teams next year who draft Carson Beck, Shadur Sanders, the LSU dude. There's going to be four or five quarterbacks the first round, probably every year, because everyone knows the

value of hitting on one. And you're always going to need that guy to pair with them. The only question is if Sam Darnold were to play really well and get the Vikings into the playoffs, somebody else might say, oh, actually come start for us. We want to win some games, come be our starter. But aside from that, I don't, I just don't see any type of situation where that could happen. I'm also not that concerned that this, where I want to be for a while here, because I know how miserable it gets to have to be in the other place. I want to be in this week for a while. I want to be in this week, this matchup. What's the, what are they going to do? How are they going to approach this game? This is an exciting game. That's what, that's where I want to be. I don't really want to

be into the mode of, well, what does it mean for the draft? What does it mean? Because we have so long to get there. What does it mean for next year's free agency? What does it mean for Sam Darnold's future? I don't know. Uh, that's not that I won't answer those questions. Of course I will, but it's just, oh man, like let's, let's not, let's not get into what this means as far as, uh, the longterm stuff. So, um, anyway, Manny, you have a list of favorite 49ers and i do want to get to that momentarily but folks we have sponsors for this show and uh i mean you guys are on point with the questions the fantasy questions that you ask and with reminding me to do the ad reads this is loyal viewership so i appreciate that so allow me to remind you that us.S. Cellular, notice the way that we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner,

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the easiest place to play fantasy sports. Also the fastest growing fantasy app in the industry. You got to check out the pickums. We're doing this a lot on the show. I really enjoy it. So easy to play. Just go on to underdog fantasy, go to where it says, pick them pick between two and eight stats. If you hit five for five, you get 20 times your money. It is awesome. And all through September, every single day, there's a new new deal a new special offer on underdog fantasy sign up with the code purple that helps the show just a good reminder if you've never checked it out before go in there use the code purple helps the show you get a special pick

and first time deposit offer up to a thousand dollars in bonus cash must be 18 or older terms apply concerned with your play call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit ncpgambling.org and allow us to do this, Manny. I've got the pick-ems for Vikings 49ers. I'm going to start with this one. Higher or lower, and remember, higher or lower, for Underdog Fantasy, 229.5 yards for Mr sam darnold higher or lower 229.5 is the higher or lower passing yard number i'll say lower i think i feel like it's gonna have to be higher to win the game

but i don't know if they're gonna win the game or if he gets behind that's always one of the tricks of these things is I think what you're talking about, if it goes lower is actually a very good situation for the Vikings, because that means he hasn't had to do too much. How about this one higher or lower Aaron Jones, 49.5 rushing yards. I mean,

I think if I'm going to go that Sam Donald's going to go lower with his passing yards total, I'd, I would assume that's because the running game is going pretty well. So I'll say higher for Aaron Jones. I will agree with you completely that he has to go higher than that, or this is not much of a ball game. Let me give you one more Justin Jefferson, higher or lower 6.5 receptions and 80.5 yards. I will say if he does that, that's a good. Yeah, I'll say I'll say higher because I think there's I think Sam Donald is going to look to get him because it's a big game against a really good opponent. You want to get the ball into the hands of your best players as much as possible. I don't think Donald's going to force it to him, but I think there's going to be a

deliberate plan by Kevin O'Connell and this, and this offensive staff to get Justin Jefferson, the boss. I'll say more for, uh, for both. Okay. One of the funny things that a underdog does is they give you lots of different options with odds. So you can make 4.5 times your money. If you hit on this one, which of these guys would you pick for a touchdown? If I'm giving you odds, Trent Shurfield, Johnny Munt,

or Jalen Naylor or Josh Oliver. So whoever you pick, you get like five times your money, but which one of those guys would you pick for a touchdown? It's a great question. It is. It's a phenomenal question. I'll go Johnny Munt. Johnny Munt makes a lot of sense. I think he's going to get the ball. I think he's going to get the ball quite a bit. Yeah. Okay. Let me answer. Let's answer a couple more questions. Then we'll finish with your favorite 49ers and also your prediction. Mike has lots of great

questions this evening. Appreciate you, Mike. What do you guys think about Purdy? I like him a lot. And he's just the game manager. He's smart with the ball, does make some off-schedule plays. It could throw the ball downfield when necessary too. This is something that I think about a lot, Manny, because I must be the only person who doesn't give a bleep about quarterback rankings. I only think about does that offense in this situation today have a chance to be great this season because this isn't a fantasy where we just take all quarterbacks and we put them into some arena and they all do a punt pass and kick and we decide who the most skilled one is and you could say well if you put justin herbert on the 49ers he's better i don't know i guess let me know when they do. And then we'll talk about that. But if that doesn't happen,

I can only look at Brock Purdy. If a quarterback plays at an MVP level and takes his team to the Superbowl, uh, I think he's pretty good. And I think that with the Brock Purdy discourse, there's something that is missing here, which is execution of an offense, anticipation, throwing, and balls are very important. And that's what this dude has. He's got guts. He's got toughness. He's got anticipation with this throwing, and he sees the field so well and, and, and understands everything of where to go with the ball and as we know from tom brady as we know from joe montana history is filled with great quarterbacks who are not the most physically skilled and so i fully buy into brock purdy

as an elite quarterback because that's what their production is and you go oh well he succeeds in screen game what do you want him to issue an apology you want to write your sorry letter what i don't know why i mean this i really think this manny the 1994 49ers i think if they played today there would have been a lot of people who said steve young he's got rice he's got ricky waters or was it garrison hurst ricky waters right yep he's got ricky waters he's got he's got john taylor the bill walsh offense gary kubiak was his quarterback coach he's got he's just got so many good easy things i think that would be a lot of the discourse now and i would say i don't care i what i care about is how good this guy plays now we can have a

different discussion when it comes to paying him for a contract extension which they'll do but i just gets exhausted with this so we got to argue about well if he played for a different team he doesn't and he won't anytime soon so i just think this guy's one of the most dangerous quarterbacks in the entire nfl to go against because his offense is unbelievable you remember when i um i guess it was two years ago right when when brock purdy kind of took over and started playing he was playing really well remember i texted you about like it's like this dude there's just something about this dude like i know he wasn't drafted high but i watched this guy play at iowa state and this guy played a lot of college football at Iowa State. He was a four-year starter with the Cyclones, and they won some games.

And you go back and you look at his college numbers, his college numbers are really good. And especially his senior year, he was absolutely excellent um i i just think that sometimes these guys you know they don't all have to be you know six foot five 230 pounds with a with a rocket arm yeah that helps but you know look at sam darnold i mean sam darnold is is has the size he's got the arm strength and we're having you know discussion about, is he going to sustain this? Is he going to win enough games? Is he going to play well enough for the Vikings to compete for a playoff spot? And here's Brock Purdy, who's just in a perfect situation in San Francisco

with a great coach, a loaded roster. He just fits in really well. He's got it in between the ears where he's just got these leadership quality these intangibles everything that you want in a quarterback and again like you said when it comes down to paying them yeah maybe then maybe then that's going to be an interesting thing to kind of watch play out because when they do pay them are they going to be able to keep the rest of that roster together but right now it's like dude they they've been in the nfc championship twice with this guy they got to the super bowl last year they were within a play or two of winning the super bowl with him and he actually

played pretty well in that super bowl as well so like at some point you just have to give the guys flowers and just appreciate what we're seeing right now and the 49ers are going to cross that paying him and keeping the rest of the roster together bridge when they get there but right now it's like let's just take in what we're seeing right now because we're not going to see it a lot with guys that get guys that are drafted you know they were the last pick in their draft you don't see this stuff happen a lot so when you do see it it's like let's just embrace it enjoy it appreciate it for what it's been and then we'll worry about you know the 49ers right now they're not worried about next

year they're worried about this year they're trying to get back to the super bowl and win it this year don't worry about next year when when when the time comes. Right. I think, and that's really the only question with Brock Purdy that you might ask is just how sustainable is this? And you would have asked that when he came in and played really well in that tiny sample, which I thought was completely fair to have him compete for the job. And remember that story that they were, they wanted Brady and they had convinced Brock Purdy sit behind Brady for a

year to be awesome. Just let him cook. And then he's the one that takes him to the super bowl. that they were, they wanted Brady and they had convinced Brock Purdy sit behind Brady for a year to be awesome, let him cook. And then he's the one that takes him to the super bowl. The sample is growing. The sample is absolutely enormous of him playing this way. Uh, I don't know if it will sustain forever. We never do. Um, and circumstances always affect quarterbacks. Matthew Stafford would attest to that a big time, but in the right here, right now, he's one of the best quarterbacks in the league based on the way he executes and plays his offense. And that's what really matters in the discussion. I think that ranking quarterbacks is lazy, easy click content that anybody could do. And it's just kind of something that everybody likes to do because it's fun and starts

arguments. But I don't know that it actually tells us anything about the real player, their circumstances, what chance they have to win all those things. And I think it's unfair to a lot of guys because usually the guys that get ranked high are just, well, this, this guy was drafted high and a draft analyst loved him and he played. Okay. So he gets a higher ranking at no draft analyst liked Brock Purdy. So they just continue to say he's not any good anyway. Let's not go on forever about that, but that's, it's just one of the most frustrating things we've been through it with Jared Goff forever. I think Dak Prescott gets some of this as well. He's a choker. People love calling people a choker,

you know, that kind of thing. Just like, dude, the guy's running the number one offense. If your quarterback, if the Vikings quarterback runs the number one offense, then I'm going to say he's good. I promise you I will. Conrad says, do you think Ed Ingram will be able to hold up against the 49ers? By the way, just real quick, Vikings fans want to get to this football game so they can quit hear me ranting about Brock Purdy. I'm just being consistent because I can guarantee you that if the Vikings quarterback is operating a top three offense in the league, I'm not going to tell you he's not any good. And I'm not going to give two bleeps what any quarterback ranker says. Okay.

So anyway, side, total side. Do I think Ed Ingram will be able to hold up? Not really. No, no, not really. It, it,

it might, it might be ugly again on Sunday. It might be worse. And Dexel Lawrence is really good, but now you're talking on Hargrave. Yeah. Javon Hargrave is really good. Collins is really good.

Like, yeah, it, it, it might be ugly again okay so i had this plan manny and i haven't been able to execute it yet which is to get us to create some nfl style music for us at some point and i i'm going to try to do this at some point but for now when you do your favorite of all time you get the generic built-in music into the streaming program.

Cause that's the best I got, but that means it's time for you to run through your favorite San Francisco 49ers. Very tough, very tough of all time. Feel free in the comment section to play along at home here. Your favorite 49ers ever the the crazy thing is all all five of my top five guys none of them are from like this era of 49ers football and this

has been a great era of 49ers football with Kittle and IU can Debo and McCaffrey and all this stuff and I like all those guys guys. They're all fantastic. And Brock Purdy, we just talked about him. My number five guy. You'll appreciate this too. Merton Hanks. Oh yeah.

My guy, my guy, Merton Hanks with the neck celebration really for a couple of years. Stretch. There was one of the better safeties in the NFL too, was Roy was a really good player player he was a hard hitter um a part of a really good defense in the mid 90s um yeah he had the the neck the neck celebration he always had kind of a weird shaped helmet too uh but yeah Merton Hanks uh my number five favorite 49er of all time one of the best absolutely one of the

best uh defensive players that and what I love about those that era was that free agency hadn't gone totally crazy yet guys stayed with teams they developed with teams and Merton Hanks was a guy who stayed with them a long time and just kept getting better and they just stacked out that was on that 94 49ers team and i think sometimes we forget about him being on that 94 team because he had such a great career and greatest cornerback of all time is prime time deon sanders and i have argued many times that Deion Sanders' 1994 season with the 49ers was the best of his career. He had six interceptions. He had three pick sixes that year against the Saints, Falcons, and Chargers.

He was the defensive player of the year. He was outstanding. And he kind of brought an edge. It was a defense that was already good, but he kind of brought an edge it was a defense that was already good but he kind of brought an edge to that defense too that i think allowed them to get over the hump of the cowboys in the nfc championship game and then winning the super bowl against the chargers yeah i mean with dion i guess the only question is do you consider him a 49er like does he get credit for that but the fact that he won the super bowl with them and was excellent that entire season it was a huge part of their super bowl i think you're allowed to do that uh maybe it depends on the era certain people might Super Bowl with them and was excellent that entire season. It was a huge part of their Super Bowl. I

think you're allowed to do that. Maybe it depends on the era. Certain people might think of him as a falcon. Mostly you could also think of him as a cowboy when he was playing wide receiver and corner for what was it? Maybe 98 season. He was playing 97 season where he played a lot of wide receiver and made a bunch of catches when they had some injuries, but one of the goats, not one of the goat coaches so far, but certainly one of the goat players. Okay. And by the way,

I, we can always tell cause Oh gosh, says who the heck is Burton Hanks. Yeah. You're going to have to go watch. Could always tell what era you're in. If Manny starts going off on his favorite players, you're like,

wait a minute. I never heard of that guy. Go back to the nineties. I guarantee you'll find him there 94 49ers look them up um okay number three is uh Joe Montana I think for you know for a long time was considered the greatest quarterback of all time just always cool calm and collected under pressure. Was just outstanding in four Super Bowl performances. And just one of the goats, man. And I started the other day, I actually started watching his documentary that I think is on Peacock right now. I think it's like a five or six part thing on just like his life growing up and his career and everything.

I got about halfway through the first episode. I'm going to finish that this weekend too. But yeah, Joe Montana, number three. I mean, what can I say about halfway through the first episode. I'm going to finish that this weekend too. But yeah, Joe Montana, number three. I mean, what can I say about Joe Montana? I mean, the best story, I know you've heard it because you've consumed all NFL film stuff, but I don't know if anybody else has. The best story about Joe Montana was before he had the game-winning drive

against Cincinnati, which is the quintessential Joe Montana moment of his career. He is in the huddle, and it's to win the Superbowl and everybody knows it. And he says, did you guys see John Candy sitting right over there? Isn't that awesome? John Candy, like who is a big actor at the time, if you're again, not old and the other players just talk about it as like, okay, this guy's ready to go win the Superbowl. I mean, he's, he's cool enough in there to be talking about seeing actors over in the stands. Like we're all, we're all good here. He's got it. And then for him to go win is just such an awesome NFL film story.

So of course, Joe Montana has to be on your list. Number two is another goat is the goat, Jerry Rice, greatest wide receiver ever. the thing about jerry rice is you know he had the physical tools he had the size he had the speed but it was all of the fundamental things that he did so well catching the ball with his hands running just amazing he ran every route imaginable and just came up with big plays and big catches. You talked about the Cincinnati

Super Bowl where he was the MVP of that game. Didn't score a touchdown, but I think he had like 11 catches in that game and every catch was huge. Jerry Rice just and a guy that was great, still a great wide receiver into like 39, 40 years old with the Raiders.

He was still like one of the best wide receivers in football. It's just, uh, just an amazing player, just an iconic player. Uh, so Jerry Rice, number two on my favorite night is of all time. I just watched the other day. Oh, two Raiders and jets where Tim Brown went over a thousand catches in his career. And he and Jerry Rice are just out there crushing fools with route running. It was unbelievable. They were so old and yet rich Gannon's just delivering passes one after the next to those guys. Uh, Jerry Rice is the Wayne Gretzky of football in the way that his numbers are so far ahead of everyone else still, even as it's become more of a passing league than it ever has been in history. And yet he just has, I mean, the next best guy would need to play five

or six or seven more years to even come close to him. Uh, Larry Fitzgerald played forever. He's not even close to Jerry Rice. His conditioning is route. He invented route running really in the modern way that it's done. Just unbelievable talent. And you know what? All of his quarterbacks, they should have said, sorry, I'm not that good. It's really that I have a great receiver. That's what they should have done. Absolutely. You could probably guess who my number one is, right? I'm going to guess it's a BYU left-handed quarterback. Yeah, that would be correct. Steve Young, number one.

My favorite Niner of all time. You've heard me rave over and over about the 94-49ers. I always dubbed that year the year of Steve Young. He was the MVP of the league. Won his second MVP, by the way, because he had won it in 92 as well. And just was just great. And, you know, he had been a great quarterback up to that season, but it was still he was still kind of in the shadow of Joe Montana. Montana was still in the league playing in his last season with the Chiefs. And it was just kind of that, OK, you've been great, Steve, but can you win?

You know, can you live up to the montana standard and there's that iconic clip in the super bowl super bowl 29 of the proverbial monkey getting lifted off of his back um and then his his uh locker room post-game speech where he's holding the lombardi trophy and nobody can ever ever take this away from us steve young was just uh awesome and just so much fun to watch. Was as a runner, threw one of the prettiest balls ever. Just an all-time,

my favorite Niner of all time, Steve Young. And here's the thing with a franchise like this. You did not go deep in the weeds for this list. You went Captain Obvious for this list, which of course I respect. But let's toss out some of the other great 49er names uh chris dolman was a 49er um and the rent a player that they had a lot of great

rents players show up kevin green was a 49er at one point but the harbaugh era had a lot of very very good players vernon davis fantastic for them. I have always been, and I'm sitting here, I'm going to be consistent. I've defended Brock Purdy. I defend Jared Goff. I will defend Alex Smith with the 49ers more than the Chiefs, but even with them as well, I think Alex Smith was a great quarterback for them and was so close to getting that team to a Superbowl. He's a drive away in a rainstorm against Eli Manning from getting his team to a super bowl he's a drive away in a rainstorm against eli manning from getting his team to the super bowl and sometimes he's acted like some pointless dweeb who just was no good but i i really respected the heck out of alex smith and when you go look at how much his teams won how he didn't turn the ball over but he made plays to get them to the nfc championship so he he

belongs on my list but from back in the day, you could throw Terrell Owens out there. I am a huge fan of their running backs. Garrison Hurst. I mentioned Ricky Waters was so cool. He had such a great like he had the face mask that kind of had the sides there, the bar down the sides and his pads were flopping around. I was a big fan of him. I'll give you another one. Awesome guy I loved. And you would never want to fight in an alley ken norton jr frank frank gore is a good one yes i mean they had so many roger craig good players oh roger craig a thousand a thousand um they had guys come in uh bryant young is it just went into the hall of fame unbelievable player they just had stubblefield remember really good defensive tackle yeah absolutely so they i mean this this is one you could just go on

and on and on uh with the number of great players they also had a guy on their team and when i watch old games i really love this uh that's uh um kevin gogan was this big offensive lineman. And John Madden would not let it go with this guy. Every, every run play, he'd be circling big old Kevin Gogan, look at him pushing it. I used to love that. That was so good. All right.

Tell me how you think this game plays out, Manny. Last word. I am going to pick the Niners to win this game. I do think the Vikings will be very competitive in it. I think it'll be close. And I will take the Niners to win this game 23 to 20. I mean, I think that's a good prediction. I think I might go something in the same ballpark, like 24, 17, because I don't think that this team is going to roll over and be a disaster. I don't think they're going to just be steamrolled at us bank stadium at home. Uh, and if Christian McCaffrey is not playing, it will be harder for Jordan Mason than it was last week against the jets when he just ran over

them. They're going to have to show me that they're there yet. I mean, you really would have to be snorting purple Kugel after the win over the Giants to be thinking, OK, well, this means that they're going to go and beat the 49ers in similar fashion. But San Francisco is made for a knockdown drag out. They're the premier team in the league. If they beat them, then the Vikings will get more picks from us going forward. Uh, if they could beat San Francisco,

but a really, really, really fun week to have this conversation. You know, Manny, I just, I've stopped myself a few times this week and I just want to say too, I watched, I watched back a little bit of Kirk cousins in Atlanta and I just felt, I don't think I made a lot of money to go there, but I just felt this, this is bad. This is not good. It's not good for him. And I don't want to make that everything about, Hey, they moved on. That's the ex-girlfriend or whatever. That just seems unfair. But when we're going into games like this saying we don't know what's going to happen we're going to find out this is going to be a journey throughout this season to figure out what this team can be and where they're going in the future i just had a lot of energy for this

this week manny i did not feel myself pressing to like, all right, well, they're playing whoever, and I guess Kirk will do his thing again. Now it's, I really want to see how this goes. I want to see this nice early season test case. So I'm excited about this football game. I think when you, you know, seeing what we saw out of Kirk on Sunday as well, you can't help but to think, like,

what if they had brought him back and we saw that version of Kirk against the Giants on Sunday? You know, maybe the Vikings still win because the Giants are that bad of a football team, but you're not feeling good at all. If you saw Kirk Cousins play for the Vikings the way he played last week against the falcons you're not feeling good at all about this game man i can't imagine can you imagine our

conversation right now yeah it's it's like back and that was what it looked like yeah you you you're think i would probably pick like a 30 to 13 type of performance with a san francisco win like i i just i but i think darnold you know obviously being younger you could argue about if he's a better quarterback than kirk i don't it doesn't matter it's like he's a it seems to be a good fit now you're just really intrigued and you're really interested to see how not only you know this game on sunday plays out but really this entire season with sam darnold how this really because i think again if darnold plays well i think that really says a lot about the head coach as well because it says that you've got infrastructure in here and that means that you feel even better about jj mccarthy coming back next year and stepping in to the starter role so i i just i've i have really you know lower expectations for this team than i

did at this point last year and i'm actually more excited about that because we don't know exactly how this thing is going to play out and i think it's going to be fun to watch. And it really last week just injected a lot of energy into that take because we kind of had that take going in, but if they had played terribly, I'm just like, okay, this might be bad. And I don't know, maybe I got to watch college defensive tackles for next year. Conrad asked, do we think that they should put in or that they will put in Pennix? I thought they should have started Pennix. Based on how he looked they should have started pennix how did you be playing how did

you play him how did you should not be playing man that that really blows my mind now i i was i was in the camp of well you know zach robinson and raheem you know raheem morris raheem morris should be pretty good coach or whatever. Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind? The guy can't run a play action. Why would you not give that four weeks or something until he was ready to be able to play quarterback?

Now, the fact that he cannot drop back, how do you play quarterback in the NFL this way? The running quarterbacks have enough time to hard enough time escaping the rush. The rushes are so good. The scramblers get sacked. I mean, it's dangerous. It's dangerous for Kirk to play like that. And I don't know what they're going to do.

And oh, gosh, says, do you think that they knew that Kirk couldn't run when they signed him? I would love to know what they knew, but here is my theory on that. These football teams are owned by some very wealthy gentlemen. And those wealthy gentlemen often insert themselves and make decisions that the football gentlemen might not always make. And this is my theory of Packers. My theory of Packers is they outsmart everyone by not having a crazy owner.

And if you don't have a crazy owner, you're ahead of 70% of the team. I think they're crazy owner stepped in and said, we are signing Kirk cousins, no matter what, because I want to get back to the playoffs because I'm old. And they probably were like, okay, well, we could probably win with them. And this is my theory that they got them in. They saw what he looked like. And they said, Oh F we better draft quarterback. And they probably went to the old man and said, look, look, uh, your, uh, your Achilles quarterback, um, it's not going to work. So we need to draft someone else. But I really think that they should

have played pennix in week one if if kirk was gonna look that way everyone would have understood and it was okay well all right play your but maybe they were afraid that if pennix looked good then they would have to keep playing him yeah and then you get a quarterback controversy and you also to your point about ownership too you you have to wonder like, is ownership the driving force to forcing the issue with Kirk being out there right away, even though he probably shouldn't be right now. Right. That could also be as well. It certainly could be back in the day. One of my favorite NFL stories ever, the owner of the Buffalo bills forced Wade Phillips to play Rob Johnson in a playoff game rather than Doug Flutie, even though he got him to the playoffs,

it does happen. That's the guy who owns the team and he can fire whoever he wants and hire whoever he wants. But that team right now, it's been hard Manny to not keep going back to that story because it's the most interesting story out of week one is they signed a guy for a hundred million bucks who can't drop back. What? I mean, even in, with the Vikings also, I refuse to believe anything other than that. The Vikings knew this the whole time and that they were never going to bring him back and they made a courtesy offer to him, but it was just not going to happen. So, well, and think, and think about, you know, when they drafted Pennix, the talk was, what are the Falcons doing? Right.

This was a bad decision for them because they should have drafted an edge rusher. This is a bad decision for them to draft that young guy. Now it's like, was the bad decision drafting Pennix, or was the bad decision giving Kirk Cousins a hundred million dollars guaranteed? If his legs don't start working a lot better by next week, they're not going to win anything. And they're going to have to go to Michael Pennix pretty soon. Do I, do we think that Pennix would be ready to play? Well, I mean, they said he was so far along that they didn't even play him in the preseason games. But I also

think the reason they didn't play him was they were worried if he gets banged up, he might have to play. And so I just, just from outside, not any inside information, it just feels like there's got to be a push and pull between the management, the coaches, and the owner here. And I know from listening to Thomas Dimitrov's podcast, how involved that owner is because he references it constantly. And he's the former GM. Anyway, well, this is it's been a super fun week. And as always, I just can't thank you guys enough. It's it makes it so great when we can have this group conversation about everything that we're talking about. And leading up to games is so much fun when we can do it this way. So Manny, as always, you're the best. I'll see you on Monday as we talk about what happened between the Vikings and 49ers.

And I think I'm going to be saying a lot this year. Just let it be good. Just let it be fun. And we'll see what happens. So thanks, everybody. Again, thank you so much, Manny Hill. And we will talk to you later Sunday after the game. Myself, Dane Mizutani. Keep an eye out for that after the game, about an hour and later Sunday after the game. Myself, Dane Mizutani.

Keep an eye out for that after the game, about an hour and a half after the game. So, all right. Football. You want to say football, Manny? Football. There you go. Goodbye. Thank you.