Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - YEESH: Aaron Jones to IR, Cam Akers is back (Part 3)

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Matthew Coller talks about the latest injury update from the Vikings: Aaron Jones going on IR. The Vikings sign Cam Akers back. They also add Desmond Ridder. Plus Jeremiah Sirles and Maggie Robinson join. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There you go, Jeremiah Searles with great insight into the offensive line play, into the play calling, into the lockerer mentality when you have this quarterback situation. So I answer a few more questions if you got them. Also, Maggie Robinson, we recorded a segment earlier, and we'll just call it a little bit lighter-hearted than the hardcore, what is going on, that has been. been the last couple of days. So let's see. Start with Joe here.

Says, why don't you ask KOC those questions in the press conference? So the other day after the game, it's very hard to process exactly what happened in the game as far as the play calling, the wide receivers, who's open until you kind of get a look at the tape. I thought we got a lot of explanations from Kevin O'Connell of what he thought happened after the game, how J.J. McCarthy played the blocking issues, some of his thinking when it came to that. And then for the Monday press conference, a lot of times, that is, he's looked at the tape, we've looked at the tape, then we can go back through some of the details. But in this press

conference, he came out and announced that the starting quarterback was out. So any detail that we were going to get from those parts of the game, or at least a lot of it, kind of got thrown out with all of the injury stuff and then what was next for McCarthy, what was next with Wentz and so forth. And if you watch the West Phillips press conference and just while I was playing that interview, I was gathering all the things he said. There's a lot of detail about the quick game, what they thought of J.J. McCarthy, the play that we talked about in detail there with Jeremiah Searles, where they went empty and the protection and how that's supposed to work. There's a lot of stuff there. I know that people always want us to yell at the coaches and things like that,

but we do ask these questions in a professional type of manner. We get as much as we can for answers, but sometimes we don't get answers. Like when Mark Craig asked West Phillips today about why Jordan Mason wasn't getting the ball more in some of the short yardage situations. And, you know, West didn't have an explanation there, didn't really want to give one. So, you know, we do the best that we can when it comes to that stuff. But, you know, nobody would get very far running up to O'Connell and saying, tell me about the protection. Why did you do it? How dare you? Like a lot of times we ask these questions. We get explanations. I bring them back to you and that's what we do here. But, you know, when everyone's upset, usually what happens is, you know, there's fingers

pointed at why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that to us? Why didn't you ask this? question or that question. There's fingers pointed at the play calling, the offensive line coach, the GM for every single move. Like, this is what happens. I didn't expect to be in the fans lashing out phase already in week two. And just like earlier, you guys are talking about this tweet about Ed Ingram's PFF grade and Garrett Bradbury's PFF grade, as if we've never seen those guys play before, they had good games at times before in their careers. I actually thought Ezra Cleveland was maybe a better player than the Vikings gave him credit for, but had some pretty significant weaknesses that would get taken advantage of. I think we all know that when

the quarterback is in the top five at holding onto the football and when it's a rookie or never played before center setting the protections, and it's a left tackle that can't really play in this league that Donovan Jackson is not going to be the best version of himself or probably Will Fries and Atlanta had a really good game. The first game, the interior line and everybody except for school played really well. J.J. McCarthy had four total pressures. So they're not grading very good in one game versus another game where they graded very well. I don't go back and say, you know what they actually should have done is kept Garrett Bradbury

at center and Edd Ingram McGarck, Guard, instead of signing. will fry is a much better player drafting donovan jackson the first round that just seems to me like let's look at every single thing to say everything sucks everyone should be fired every move was wrong like we don't have to do that in this situation like it's still a team with a bunch of talent who is in position to play three games here where they can win and kind of get ahead of the sticks with this schedule, get guys back, get Addison back, get Darrasaw back, get Cashman back, get Van Ginkle back, have much closer to a full roster and try to compete to win games in the NFC North.

This is a long season, my friends. You don't necessarily need to start saying everything is a lost cause by week two just because the quarterback situation got thrown into disarray and some other things have gone badly. I don't think that we need to start doing that. There's a lot of things that they've done that were really good decisions that have been right and that built a very strong team and coming out of last week. Just think about where we were last week with the discussion of the Interior D-line was great last week. And the Interior O line played extremely well together. Ryan Kelly was great. Fries was good. Donovan Jackson was great. Jordan Mason played really well,

but Aaron Jones caught the ball. Like a lot went right against Chicago and a lot of the things that they had planned out went right. And then week two, a lot of those things didn't go right. That doesn't mean every one of those like you just don't even remember what happened in week one with a lot of this stuff. I did promise to talk about Dallas Turner. I will say from watching the tape that I was not impressed by his game overall. I thought that his lack of ability to set the edge, how easy he was moved at times. The strength and the power was not there the way that it should have been on some run plays.

He made some good tackles, but he was also moved too many times. And then they didn't have a lot of chances to rush the passer. He got a couple of opportunities he made good on it in getting a sack, but they just didn't throw a whole heck of a lot of passes. But if Turner is going to eventually develop into an every down type of player, then that part of the game just has to be better. I will say also that nobody did a great job against the run.

Bejohn Robinson was fantastic. Their O-line played with connectivity. And when Brian Flores talked about it, he said a lot of guys kind of got away from their technical elements. it wasn't just him. I mean, and you look at some of those grades, Hargrave and Allen, like the worst fears kind of came to fruition. And I think that that is what strikes a lot of you so deep in, and I'm not saying that there's no panic in the Purple Insider podcast because there's plenty of problems. Okay. There's plenty of issues that could be long-term

problems. But in this Atlanta game, it seemed to be every single thing that you went into this season going. This could be a question mark. That game hit on all of them, whether it was McCarthy's inexperience, the offensive line without Derisaw and just, you know, Ryan Kelly potential injuries and what it might look like if he's not in there. The play calling and not leaning a little bit more on Mason, not simplifying things as much for J.J. McCarthy, that was a bit of a concern. Is it going to be too much for him to be able to carry that hit? And then on the defensive side when you trade away Harrison Phillips because other guys win the job behind him, are they going to be able to step up to the plate? Did you sacrifice too much in terms of the

run defense for the pass protection and the worst two graded run defenders on the Vikings are Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen. And both of them, of course, very good in rushing the passer overall. But in that game, they got pushed around, which has been their recent history. And Dallas Turner was the third worst. And Turner, I think is another guy that needs to be on the field for more of these types of plays. He rushed the passer okay. But I mean, you think about he had 14 pass rush snaps because Michael Pennick didn't have to throw the ball, hardly at all, and got rid of it. So he had a couple of good ones. But that run defense has to be a lot better if he's going to be on the field a lot.

Ivan Pace was another guy whose weaknesses have been taken advantage of by the opposition. I thought Theo Jackson actually had a great game, saving their butts a bunch of times when I looked at on tape and in the PFF grades. But not too many people were very good in terms of against the run in that game. And that was a massive worry of restructuring that defensive line. and you have to wonder how that's going to look going forward. So there were a lot of things. The only thing that was not taken much advantage of, I think,

was just the secondary was fine in that game, didn't get lit up. Wasn't a great game for Michael Pennix overall passing the football, and they did get more pressures than you would have thought. They got 15 total, and I'm curious what percentage of that. Yeah, they created pressure. I mean, 41% of dropbacks, and Pennix under pressure went two,

for seven with 17 yards when he was under pressure, got sacked twice. So the pressure was great. And this is the sacrifice that you make when you go and get Hargrave and Allen is that you are pretty much saying we're going to allow other teams to run a little bit better against us and we're going to pressure the quarterback a lot better on the interior and overall it worked. But that could get frustrating at times because that means other teams are going to be able to stay on the field. And you have to counter that with long drives on offense. You have to

counter that by forcing the other team to play from behind. I think if another team has to play from behind against the Vikings with this rush, it's going to be miserable. But if they're playing from ahead, that's what they're going to be able to do. So the game script is going to matter quite a bit when it comes to how they play going forward. But it was a worst fears realized type of game. And anything that you guys asked about in the off season, every everything that you asked about. Could this be a concern? Could that, except for maybe Will Riker and Ryan Wright, who had a great game, except for that, everything, even Miles Price dropped the punt. It seemed like it checked every one of those boxes. So, you know, it's just

that's, that was one of those games where a lot, a lot, a lot of things went the wrong way. And they lost 22 to 6. I mean, you know, it wasn't losing by 50 as it was with Chicago. That doesn't make anybody feel any better, but it was one of those games where just everything seemed to go wrong. And, you know, we're definitely checking off the, are you just looking at things and saying do them differently with like let Wes Phillips call, but then, you know, they're not going to do that. They're not going to do that.

The guy calling the plays won 14 games with Sam Darnold last year. I know it's easy to forget that with the way that things looked for one bad game. And football wouldn't be football if. You know, you didn't go crazy after every single loss. But I think we do have to find, like, the right, too hot, too cold. Like, taking play calling away from KOC, way too hot. That's just like, that's, that's too far. Like, rain it in.

It's a, it's not a fun week for the Vikings or their fans. But we don't have to go nuts with the analysis and just point our fingers at every single player and every single, like, let's find the right areas to focus on here, I think. Um, so by the way, Fanduel question the day, if you just joined or if you haven't answered that yet, Vikings are now plus 184 to make the playoffs. Nine teams have better odds on Fanduel.

Do you think that's an overreaction by them or if that is just right? Talk about too hot, too cold. Uh, J asks how many carries will Mason get on Sunday and yards? I'll be interested. The props aren't up yet on Fandual, but I'll be interested to see what that is. I saw the fantasy community going crazy today about,

uh, Jordan Mason being R.B1, and, you know, I think that, you know, when it comes to Mason and his number of carries, it should be in the 20s. And he should be pushing 100 yards. And he should be scoring a touchdown. If you're going to win, that's where it needs to be. Z-31 average point gap on the 14 wins. They had a lot of great wins, man. Don't try to pretend last season didn't happen because you're mad right now. The regular season of last year, Kevin O'Connell did a tremendous job. job. Sam Darno played great. The offense was really good. They won a lot of games in impressive

fashion. They crushed the Falcons. They were way up on the Packers in both of those games. We all watched it, right? We all watched what happened last year. We have three years on the sample size of this coach and this offense. We've seen at least two experienced quarterbacks have a lot of success with this. I just think that that's like the most, it's the most simplistic type of way to look at football is when your team doesn't win, you just say everyone sucks.

And I think we can pick it apart better. I think we can do better. We can point to some specific plays where we say, this was where I think KOC would want this one back. And maybe he asked too much on that one, but also we can't ignore that a guy is wide open. many times in this game and they just get missed and that they're playing with a left tackle who is replacement level at best when they usually have a left tackle is one of the best

players in the league and they had that left tackle for half of the year and then they got another guy who's a starter last year and work through it so we I think that's my goal always is to try to get it right of what are the things that we should be looking at and what are the things that, hey, we're just reacting because, uh, you're unhappy with where they're at right now. Um, so that's, that's always a goal of mine is to try to get that stuff right. And Dino points out Alan and Hargrave didn't have cashman behind them. Uh, and that is a good point, Dino because, well, Eric Wilson is a great player and I have huge respect for Eric Wilson. He's not Blake Cashman. Like, there's a reason why he's more of a backup type of player.

more of a special teams guy in case of emergency and then a rotation type of player. And when you look at the run defense grade, he is right behind Hargrave Alan Turner in run defense. And he's great in coverage and he's a highly intelligent player. He's calling the defense again, just huge, huge, huge respect for Eric Wilson in his career as an undrafted guy. But he's not Blake Cashman. Like that's why they paid Blake Cashman all that money. So that was absolutely a factor. There's no question, Jay, that Chicago made mistakes to help them win that game on Monday night.

I didn't say they played a perfect game Monday night. I said it's really funny how you can go from one week of analysis pointing out, hey, the interior D-line rushing the passer was a huge success. And that looked great. And the interior O-line that was rebuilt got great performances from Jackson and Kelly and fries. and then Kelly goes out and Atlanta's throwing things that the quarterback can identify and the quarterback's holding on the ball too much. And shockingly, the offensive linemen don't grade as well.

Like we can look for better explanations than just, I guess they should have kept Ingram or something like what? That, I don't even know what the, I don't even know what the conclusion is supposed to be there, other than just looking for people to fire. So now you want to fire the O line coach, I guess. I mean, you just, I don't know, just fire everybody. They're one and one.

Fire everyone. I guess that's that's where we get to right after a loss um newt the issues are the rams and lions game from last year well right i mean the recent sample size of vikings fans watching viking viking football has been three meltdowns out of four and how many quarters of good football over the last four games for their 16 quarters i'm going to say 15 bad quarters out of the last 16. And that is negated certainly what they did last year. And I'm not crowning them for what they did last year. But when you start evaluating the people who are running the team and the rosters they've built and the coaches and the success that they've had,

we have to look at that bigger sample size where if you've won 70% of your games when you're starting quarterback is in is Kevin O'Connell so far. and you've had good offenses with a lot of flaws, then I'm more apt to lean toward, I think you know what you're doing, but you just had a really bad game against the Falcons, which started with the quarterback not being able to play at any sort of NFL level

because he was in over his head in that game against a really good team and a good defense, a team that could very well win their division. Scott, this is all predictable. The free agents they signed in March were unsigned for reasons. Scott, I mean, I've noticed that every comment is kind of like this team is awful and, you know, just they're going to lose every game and stuff from you tonight, which, again, is understandable to be really angry. But the free agents that they signed in March, they signed for a lot of money. They signed Will Fries for $17 million.

They signed Hardgrave for $15 and they signed Allen for 20. They signed Jones for $10 million. They were, I get what you're saying, but there was a lot of competition for these guys. And they have careers behind them that are worthy of getting big contracts to come here and play. There's been, some of that has been very successful in terms of rushing the passer, which is what Hargrave and Allen were brought to do. They've done that over the first couple of weeks. And they've looked like star players,

they're rushing the passer. But they're going to have to find an answer for when those guys are not rushing the passer. It's going to have to be Levi Drake Rodriguez, who was just okay. It's going to have to be Jalen Redmond, who I thought had some really good moments. It's going to have to be a rotation. Guys behind them are going to have to set edges and they're going to have to make tackles and rally a little bit more. But just philosophically, if the other team has that little success passing, you create that much pressure and they have 12 points in the fourth quarter. I mean, my gosh my gosh uh they you know zed they they they had a good point differential from last year if you win every game by six points that's actually good uh that's pretty good you got

that's a good point differential it's not the best of all time it's pretty good though your average winning every game by six points what's six times 17 that's uh that's pretty good to outscore your opponents by a bunch of points i mean if you want to if you want to that's what i mean like that's why i'm going to play the Maggie interview, say goodnight, because we probably reached the point where it's just, it's just throwing stuff out there to throw stuff out there. Last year, last year meant nothing apparently. Like, I don't know. I mean, this is just, this is what happens. This is, this is a tough place we're going to have to work

our way through, I guess, onto the next game against the Cincinnati Bengals. So I'm going to bring a little bit of light to the show by bringing in the conversation with Maggie Robinson, where we discussed some things around the NFL, including Tom Brady, multiple Monday night football games and some power rankings that she has to bring you guys. And it's a fun conversation. So lighten up a little bit. And we'll be on to tomorrow. We'll get when I bring a, you know, I don't know.

What was I going to say? You know, when I throw a bucket of water on KOC and demand answers or whatever I'm being asked to do here. So, you know, we'll see what Kevin O'Connell has to say tomorrow. We're going to talk with Carson Wentz as well. And the franchise will keep existing throughout this next week and going forward. So we'll just see where it all goes. But take a deep breath, everybody.

Enjoy this fun conversation with Maggie Robinson, special contributor to Purple Insider. Answer that fan duel question of the day, the plus 184 to make the playoffs, nine teams, higher on fan duel. Is that an overreaction? And try to enjoy the rest of your night. So take care, everybody. Folks, there's no way to prepare yourself for hair loss when it happens and you either end up frustrated or in denial. But I promise you that there is help and it is simple and easy through hymns.

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All right, welcome back into the show, Maggie Robinson, the Robinson rundown here for this week, where we go through four or five different storylines around the NFL and Maggie Robinson, formerly an NFL producer and now at Syracuse, and I understand has been appearing on ACCC Network, which is very cool. You are tasked with something very important for the show tonight, Maggie,

which is you've got to light the mood. It is not a good scene over here. So take us away from all the Vikings injuries and things that we're breaking down to the rest of the NFL. So some joy and light can be let back into Purple Insider. What's going on, Maggie? Dark Monday for the team, dark Tuesday, I guess. Let's kick it off. Let's look back at Monday.

There was a double header, ABC, ESPN. Do we like that? One game started at 10 p.m. my time, which let me. tell you that's past my bed time that's tough yeah for me so i'm more of a night owl and if you give me two football games in a day i'm just going to be like football games and uh i think for the purposes of america it is a little bit tough if you're on the west coast you probably think this is great maybe you're getting home from work and a football game is starting right away and you can eat dinner in front of the tv with america's game uh if you're in central time or

God's time. It was fine. I mean, I think it ended around 11 o'clock or something last night, which is totally great with me. But on the East Coast, that's pretty tough for everybody. I guess maybe it was closer to midnight. But that's kind of my timeline anyway. I think for most people, that is pretty difficult. I like having two games on Monday night. It just feels like a continuation of Sunday, feels kind of epic, feels a little extra important. But I could see where a lot of people would be like, okay, Gito Smith, please just don't throw a game tying touchdown here so I can watch this. But I, you know, I like it to kick off the early part of the season is a little bit of a change up. Yeah, I think it's funny. People always complain about, oh, my gosh, there's not enough football.

Like, we need to put more in the offseason, whatever, I miss it so much. And then week two, we have a double header and people like, oh, I'm exhausted. Please, good God, stop. So, like, you can't win. But I will say, this is the last year of these Monday night double headers. Because did you know, with this new ESPN NFL merger acquisition that happened, this new deal that is set to be ratified, for lack of a better word, in 2026, all those doubleheader games will actually get put on the NFL network. So there will no longer be two games to bounce between on Monday nights. So if you hate more football, lucky you. This is the last year of it. You can stop complaining and tune on to NFL network later in the season for those next year.

Yeah, I think people don't like football that's hard to watch for them. I mean, later on in the evening, just in general, or, like, it is getting tougher with your Amazon Prime and then your Netflix game and everything else. And I think everybody understands the NFL is a biz and every league is going this way. I didn't love Adam Silver's answer to this question about more streaming services where he was like, there's highlights. It's not really acceptable. In this case, where it's a one-off every once in a while, there's a double header.

and if it's a game with your team and it may be you're a little frustrated of how late it's starting. But otherwise, okay, you watch the first half of the game, whatever. I mean, unless you are super dialed in to Chargers and Vegas Raiders, not that big of a deal to just have extended football on a little bit longer. But I could see how it might be a little much.

I think when they went to 17 games, people got more exhausted by the NFL every single weekend, whether you're me covering games and going different places or just sitting on the couch, by the time you get to the end of Sunday, you're like, that was a lot. And then you're like, okay, ramp back up, rally for Monday night for two more games. I get it. I get it.

I definitely felt that and I was being paid to watch football. So for those of you who are paying to consume football, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Okay, let's go to topic number two. This one's also a little controversial. Tom Brady in the coaching booth, Albert Breer, you guys probably saw the photo, tweeted. a photo of Brady sitting next to the Raiders offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators with a headset on in front of the tablet. What do we make of this?

Yeah, I think that there's a lot of media folk who have like yourself gone to college for certain things, including ethics that you take when you're going to journalism school. And it seems a little bit on the unethical side for somebody to be in a coaching booth, working directly with the coaching staff, talking with Chip Kelly, the offensive coordinator or the Raiders, a couple of times a week, and then going on a Sunday and broadcasting games for other teams, and they lightened up the rules with him meeting with coaches beforehand. So he's going into meetings with coaches, gathering information as a broadcaster, and then going and helping them call games.

And you can see where the obvious conflict of interest is. and even if he's not doing games that his team is directly in, I mean, it still might impact the way that he views the game or might be some sort of unfair advantage of gathering information. But I also think that it's just hard to make anyone care about this because A, the Raiders are the Raiders, and they certainly showed that against the Chargers. It's not a competitive team, no matter if you put,

unless you put Tom Brady in a time machine, went back 15 years, and then put him instead of Gino Smith, the quarterback. I think most people are going to be like, the Raiders, like, what do you, who cares? And I also think, too, that it is an information age in the national football league as well as the rest of society. What is Tom Brady going to find out from having a 15 minute meeting with Todd Bulls or whoever that he is going to be like, okay, Pete Carroll, I found out that they don't love their left gun like come on we got data for every single inch we can tell you how fast a slot

receiver ran down the middle of the field in the third quarter and you're thinking tom brady is sherlock freaking homes and he's going to go grab so much info like if this was 1992 and that guy was getting special insight probably but i don't see him being that helpful and i also don't think he's a coach either i think he's real smart at football but that doesn't mean he knows how to really coach it. It's probably a big nothing burger, but I think that people like to be angry at Brady because everyone wishes they either were Brady or had Brady.

And so anything to be mad at him about is like acceptable in our society. I agree with everything you just said. And to that point, it's Tom Brady. If you wanted to find out sensitive information, you don't think this man has a million ways to find that out. That's not, mind you, it's a virtual production meeting he's allowed to go to. He doesn't even get to go in the, rooms or in the team facilities. This man is sitting on Zoom talking to a coach. If he finds out

anything that's sensitive, that's on the personnel on that team. It's their fault for giving it up. It's not that hard. It's not like this is like, oh, it's so secretive. No, there's a lot of people on this phone call. A lot of people in that room. If anything, Tom Brady is more removed because he's on Zoom, so he's not getting those conversations outside the room where it's happening or the walk down the hall. Like, this feels super overblown for me. And this is not just me being like, I came from the NFL and I think they're doing the right thing. No. Like, again, people love to make drama out of nothing. And people love optics. The way things look and that photo, yeah, it didn't look great. It didn't look great. He had the headset on. He's in front of the tablet. He's sitting there

suited up. Okay, but the man's not a referee. It's not like he's throwing a game. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like, calm down guys. Like chill out. Twitter fingers, calm down. Yeah. And if Tom Brady is sitting up there, well, he is involved with that team. if he's sitting up there and he's like, oh, I see a coverage thing and that ends up helping them. Well, that is part of him working for that team. So I guess I would qualify as like it's weird. I don't want to say it's absolutely nothing. It's weird. There's no one else who has done this before. What I question is how much this is actually helping them. Are they, and part of me thought, do the coaches even want them up there? Like, they're trying to coach the game for their

game plan and everything. And I would also talk to Brady if he was around if I was a coach. and be like, oh, hey, any ideas for this or that? But I don't really want him helping too much during the actual game. So it was an odd thing. It might actually be uncomfortable for them a little bit because he sort of bought his way into their coaching booth. And you're like, well, it is the goat. But am I supposed to listen to him if I'm the coach and I'm trying to help call

whatever play? So I'm not sure how helpful it is. I was actually ready to also praise Tom Brady for his very big improvement as a broadcaster. When he first started, I would not have sent Syracuse students to go watch him call a game. I think he's gotten much better. He's pretty insightful now. And he's tried to be a little bit more analytical. I don't want to say critical because nobody really is these days in those broadcasts. But I think he's fine. None of this really bothers me. If the Raiders were, you know, 10 and 0, maybe I'd be like, what's going on there? But they remain the Raiders. It's probably

a nothing thing. I found it very interesting. that I listen to a podcast. Tom Brady has actually been preparing less for his games and doing better, which I think is something that now I'm understanding as someone learning on-air broadcasting, you can in fact over-prepare for a game for an event

and then have so much information that you almost feel like you don't know what to say because there's so much that you want to get out. And now he feels a little bit more relaxed. He knows the game. It's Tom freaking Brady. It's not like he needs to do all this homework. Like, the man could play with his eyes closed still.

So I do think he's done better. It is interesting. He's playing less. And did you hear about his quote unquote big announcement? I did not. He's on retiring. Am I dropping this news? Oh, yeah, yeah.

For flag football? Right. For flag football in Saudi Arabia. Oh, I can't wait. March, tune in, but it's not an NFL event, unsanctioned. Brady is annoying. I mean, he is, there's no doubt about it. I have more respect for him than any, I mean, almost any player in NFL history.

Like, he's the goat. He deserves that. He's won all those games. but he's like in your face a lot for a guy who retired and if you already were kind of annoyed by Brady like I'm doing this and then the media's all worked up about this other story like stop it stop it Tom Brady and I saw that too he's unretiring oh really who wrote that who wrote that press release my gosh all right let's go to some actual football shall we yes please yeah who sports put out their NFL power rankings as most sports blogs do

and I want to give you three different topics from this list that stood out to me, number one and fittingly, number big up on Green Bay going all the way. After two weeks, they're like, yep, they're going to the Super Bowl, it's done and dusted, their defense is phenomenal, this is happening. Is this overblown or is this legitimate? Based on the way they've played, they have played better football than anyone in the NFL for two weeks. The Buffalo Bill's offense has certainly been there.

their defense wasn't as much against the Baltimore Ravens, but the offense and defense for the Packers has just been an A plus, plus, plus. And the defense for them is so, so good right now. I mean, actually, probably the, the offense is an A and the defense is an A plus, plus, plus. I mean, when you face the Detroit Lions and Washington commanders, your first two weeks and destroy them, like that, that's very impressive. Now, it's a long season. and Micah Parsons has to play the whole year and there's some sort of fusing of whatever in his back.

And, you know, you could be a little concerned potentially about that. But it's a well-coached team, offense and defense. Their defensive scheme has gotten now more dynamic because Michael Parsons is there. And another thing that's really funky about the cornerback position that's so hard to evaluate is that it's so reliant on a lot of other things. It's like the way the defense plays, the scheme, the pressure, that stuff can suddenly make a weakness look fine or even good for corners. And the other thing is too, oftentimes by the time we decide someone's an elite corner, he's on the other side. And that I think was Jayaer Alexander. Like for a little bit, Jair is just the dude. But just like

running backs, they come and go. So he might, him moving on might have been better for them to get somebody younger in there. I think they are every bit as good as they're cracked up to be right now. but as we've seen from the Viking season, things can change very, very quickly, and it's usually pretty hard to pick out the Super Bowl winner after two weeks. But Green Bay deserves their flowers. Every power ranking should have them right at the top.

Off to a very hot start. I looked at a few other rankings. They were ranked number three in the ESPN poll behind the Eagles and Bills. I don't know how I feel about that. Like the Eagles were like, me like good, but like the Packers have been like stand out, like lights out these past two games.

bills okay fine eagles is the one that i was like okay no the packers could be number two in this list but they've been top three and all the lists i've seen which feels fair yeah i mean with uh the eagles i think that they had about as tough of well i mean is i don't know is dallas like the toughest matchup but they had a pretty tough matchup against dallas they find a way to win that game a little help from dallas dropsies they did not blow out the kansas city chiefs at the same time they were in control of that game it's really hard to win two Super Bowls in a row, but I think that the Eagles deserve just the credit of what they've done in the last three years, really going to a Super Bowl, even when they had a

bad season, they made the playoffs and then they go to the Super Bowl last year. And then I think with the Bills, the Ravens belong right in this conversation. Now, those two teams to me are so far out ahead of everybody else, along with maybe the Chargers, who had an impressive win. Those three teams in the AFC have just sort of said, hey, everybody, like, smell our dust at this moment, including Kansas City, who is now, I think, way behind in the power rankings, then you've got a very clear, maybe top five or six, and then somebody else is going to have to make their case. Yeah, I agree. AFC is looking absolutely stacked. Let's jump to the team that the Green Bay Packers destroyed, the commanders, very middle of the pack here, ranked number 13 in

this power ranking list. Let's chat. Because last season, obviously 12 and 5, Daniels look like their savior. Current day, Jaden Daniels, looking like he's got a near injury, really not doing well with Terry McLaurin. I think that holdout period really was mispractice time. And the completion rates have been way down compared to this time last year between the two of them. And that's just down to reps. Like that is a solvable issue that the front office is probably kicking themselves about of, man, if we had more time, this could have looked a lot better. We could have been more buttoned up. Also, TBD of Daniels plays on Sunday. Like, the wheels feel like they're falling off here a little bit. Where do you, where do you see this going? Yeah, I think that Green Bay's

defense made two franchises all of a sudden feel very uneasy about themselves. Detroit came back with 52 points against the Chicago Bears and we were all reminded, oh yeah, Detroit is actually good. Green Bay is probably just that good on defense now that Micah Parsons is there. And I think the same thing for Washington the first week. Daniels looked fine. They beat the Giants. They took care of business, got to one and oh. And then they continue to fight in that game and had opportunities. So it wasn't like they completely lost by 30 points against Green Bay. So I wouldn't overreact to the early part of the season here for Washington. But I also think that you've got a great point that if you have a number one wide receiver who's going to elevate your quarterback

that's in his second year, why are you pinching pennies? Go. And, mean you brought in this new ownership group magic johnson is somehow part of this team like you got you got to pay up for wide receivers because they're very hard to replace as the vikings have found with even jordan addison being on the shelf they're very very hard to replace those guys had great chemistry last year but there is such a thing as a sophomore slump as well the league figures out your tendencies they've got a year worth of tape and data you got a target on your back and i also felt like Washington maybe just didn't push enough chips to the middle of the table defensively because they were nowhere close with the Packers. The Packers got easy open wide receivers

throughout that entire game. They got outschemed. They got outmanned. And they kind of look like a team that's going to be good enough to hang around and maybe be in the playoffs, but not the team that should take a huge step forward with a young quarterback of that talent. The expectations were super high and also what if daniels doesn't play is it marius marriota it is yeah yeah i mean journeyman i remember him from when i was in high school in tennessee like fun fact i played soccer with his wife crazy fun fact um but i is he really leading this team if jaden daniels is out with a knee injury i don't think so i do think that he's probably a top three backup quarterback in the league sure um because he has stepped in and one as a backup before so can he win yeah

he could win a game or two. If they need them for longer than that, I think what I'd be concerned about more than Marriota having to play a little bit is just, is that going to limit Daniels for the rest of the year? Is it going to be nagging? Because it is not easy to heal on the fly, especially if they lose this week and then everybody's saying, we're panicking. We got to get Daniels back. And then he pushed it. We saw that from Jordan Love last year. He pushed it a week or two early. And it was a problem throughout the entire season for him. Yeah. I mean, that's it's a risky one. I think we'll just have to see how it plays out. Let's look to the very bottom of the week. Not very bottom. One up from the bottom at number 31, the dolphins. That's a

sinking shift as far as I'm concerned. I don't know what's happening down in Miami. I don't think Mike McDaniels is there for long. No, I agree. I think he is very much on the hot seat at this point. And this is what happens when you miss your shot. When you build up that great team and you're stacked and you've got your chance and your quarterback has his best career year. that's now two years ago for Miami. And oftentimes if you don't have Josh Allen and you don't have Lamar Jackson, you end up having to rebuild. And they didn't accept that this offseason.

And I think that was their big mistake is that they really seemed to just sort of bumble around in the middle. And we're like, well, maybe we'll just sort of get by. We've seen that with the Vikings in seasons past. And with a coach that a lot of players seem to like and has a good scheme, I think. But also maybe one of those coaches that can lose control. pretty quickly. And that might not be able to steer the ship through different adversity. And it looks like he's struggling quite a bit with that. I don't think anybody feels too sad about the Miami

Dolphins having problems, like an irrelevant franchise at this point. But I think that, you know, when you see like the NFL players and they're voting him very high as a coach, I think he's got some good ideas and good leadership tactics there. But the roster, it peaked. And when it goes down the other side of the mountain is pretty it's pretty bad yeah it feels like they were just kind of skating by and you're like well we've done it before so we can do it again it doesn't matter that everyone's older and more tired and there's no fresh energy here but like it's been done so i promise like look it doesn't work like that guys i wish it did if it did a lot of other franchises would be holding on a players really tightly but like you were saying with the packers like sometimes you

got to cut the guys that are on the bubble and it actually makes you better it lightens up your team and it brings in new energy they didn't do that tyree killed doesn't look like he wants to be there at all. Mike McDaniels is giving the worst press conferences of his life. My favorite quote, which you've all seen, to win games, you have to win the game. Yeah, it's true. Well, and you can see when a guy's panicking at that point.

You can see when it's, he knows it's going that bad. And with Tyree Kill, that was a ticking time bomb the minute they traded for him. And the second that they felt like he was no longer the Tyree Kill of his prime, they should have moved on as fast as possible. But I don't even know if anybody else in the least, league wants that. I mean, it's, it's reached sort of almost Antonio Brown level. Agreed. Drama problems. And I mean, maybe if you're a desperate team that thinks this year is your year to win, you would trade for him for a couple months. But otherwise, I don't know how many people

want Tyreek Hill in their building. Yeah, it's some baggage. We've talked about it before on the podcast. But if you can get a player who's got more upside and more potential and maybe isn't quite there yet, but he's chomping at the bit to learning it better, yeah, I'm going to take him. over the attitude and the stress and all the stuff that comes with Tyreek Hill and all of that that I don't even want to get into here. So I think what they have the bills next. That's they could get lit up. Absolutely lit up. Yes. And they probably will. And I would have had I would have had probably Kevin Stefanski getting fired over Mike McDaniel, but that could happen pretty soon if they get beat the way we think they're all going to get beat. Yeah. All right. Let's wrap this up with

my rookie of the week drum roll please it's a hometown hero cam ward if you didn't know i'm from tennessee okay did they lose the game yes 33 to 19 to the rams did cam ward have a breakout game and prove why he is the number one pick in this year's draft also yes went 19 of 33 for 175 yards had his first NFL touchdown if you haven't seen this video i want you to stop what you're doing and go look on twitter he scrambles out of the pocket find some space and then off center while he's kind of falling, chucks the ball across his shoulder to Ellick A.O. Manor in the end zone. Beautiful ball. Looks very Patrick Mahomes-esque. Very athletic. I was impressed. Wouldn't advise doing it all the time. But this year for Cam Ward is going to be, can you survive? Can you learn how to play

in the league? Can you make some fun plays and give their fans in Tennessee a reason to care and and want to come to those games in that garbage stadium that they have down there that needs to be torn down to the screws and rebuilt at some point. They're doing it right now. They're literally building. Oh, okay. Okay. I was not aware.

I hadn't kept my eye on Tennessee Titans. My parents' tax dollars are going there. They're well aware. Oh, okay. Gotcha. But, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to be keeping an eye on Cam Ward. I mean, he was talked about a lot less than a fifth round draft pick who's QB3 in Cleveland, strange, interesting. So, but I think, I think Cam's got a lot of potential. But what can happen with those

young quarterbacks is as they go along in the, in the season, when they are playing on a bad team and losing and losing is that they can kind of break them. And I think he's got a confidence to him that's going to be tough to break. And he's got armed talent to make plays left and right. So just keep fighting. Like that's, you're playing against the Rams. That defense is sick. We saw that last year in the playoffs. To even have a reasonably competitive game against them is a good sign for Cam Ward. Absolutely. And again, it's the Titans we're talking about. Like the fact that he kept them in this game and made them, it was a two score game on both sides. Like, hey, he's doing more than Will Levis did last year. We're not getting our Will Levis memes, like our weekly meal of

Will Levis eating it on the turf. So I'm a happy Camber as far as Tennessee is concerned. That is for sure. Let me get one take from you since you spent the summer following along with the Minnesota Vikings off-season story and you know we've put you on uh around the NFL duty here but um it's not going too great over here maggie it really isn't there's a lot of you know injuries at j j mccarthy down with an ankle and Aaron Jones is on i are and our pets heads are falling off i don't know if you've ever seen dumb and dumber but that's the quote from there uh i just thought about what year that movie came out and thought maybe i need to update my references uh what is your feeling on what has happened with the Vikings? Okay. What has happened with the Vikings?

Here's one thing. Let me come off the jump. We need to give J.J. McCarthy a little bit of grace. This man just had a kid three or four days ago. To anyone who's a new parent or had a kid, obviously I have not. But he's probably insanely tired, emotionally wiped and drained. Did you come back from work four days after and play and do something extremely? No. Okay. So one, let's just keep that in the back of our head. Okay, that's shelved. did he play good football though no okay like both can be true he can be exhausted have a lot going on in his personal life and also play poorly and we can call him out on that do i worry that we might have overhyped the team a little bit in the offseason that this felt like

the golden year because it on paper it looks phenomenal through the off season i was gassing them up like everybody else was injuries are unpredictable i think I think the next three to four weeks are going to be really telling. I think for me, when I look at the Vikings team, it's a look ahead. What happened in the past, happened in the past. Okay, wipe your hands of it. How do we make sure that we don't keep sliding down this slope? Like, what needs to change?

Do you have any thoughts there? No, that's exactly right. And the injury part of it, there's not much you could do about that and how they survive this part until they can get players back will really determine what's going to happen in the season. because if they lose two of the next three games, I don't see any way to recover with where they're at schedule-wise unless there's a bunch of biblical things that happen to the other teams that they're going to face.

But if they face Jalen Hertz and Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert and Jared golf and those guys are all starting and those teams are good, if they are not in a good place to withstand that part of the schedule, they're in a lot of trouble. But I think, you know, that's why they play the games. But what you said, like I don't think we were wrong at looking at this roster on paper and saying it should be good. I think what we couldn't have predicted is just how many injuries would happen right

away. And you just never know how a quarterback's going to look until he plays, clearly not the greatest for J.J. McCarthy for the start. So now we will see what happens in the Wence era. Maggie Robinson, tremendous, tremendous pick me up for this overall. Even though I asked you about the Vikings at the end, a little fun to talk about some other stuff. So every week on Tuesday. We'll get together and look around the NFL and have a good time. So thank you for your time. As always, fit me in the now very busy Maggie Robinson schedule. And we will talk to you very soon. All righty. Football. See y'all later. Football.