Minnesota Vikings 20, Houston Texans 10 | Between the Lines

Minnesota Vikings 20, Houston Texans 10 | Between the Lines

[Music] This is Between the Lines. I’m Tatum Everett. This is Ben Leieber. Ben, happy to be back for another season. Yeah. How you feeling? Great. I mean, I feel I feel great. How did you You did a great job on the on the Syri. Thank you so much. That was super fun. You guys got Justin Jefferson live for the whole third quarter. What was that like? Well, last year we did this bid and it was great. It was like every time like every two minutes that we were talking to him, there was like a big play down the field and like a big play, a big play. And so like we got a like a really fun instant reaction. That was genuine instant, you know, excitement from him. So, you know, he kind of set the tone and the bar pretty high from last year. We didn’t get a lot of big plays this time. Had a couple potential big plays, but you know, he just it’s fun to watch him just grow into this this person off the field, too. I’m sure you’ve seen that. like we all know that the future Hall of Famer that he has on the field, but he’s just so loose and just so charismatic and he’s really letting himself like, you know, his his own person kind of come out for everybody to see. So, um you know, there’s not a question that he won’t answer and he just carries that great smile on his face and he’s just entertaining. I mean, he’s all smiles at training camp despite not playing in any of the reps or any of the practices. is and that’s the one thing I’ve really noticed is that it doesn’t matter what his situation is, he is always going to be that guy who is going to be the encourager, the supporter to break down plays with you. It’s been really encouraging to see, you know, and that’s why I think Pete Bersich jokingly but I think kind of serious just asked him when he’s done playing football like, “Do you want to be a coach?” Oh, I don’t think I heard that part. What did he say? And he was like, “Well, you know, you know that the hours they put in and all this other stuff.” He’s like, he made a joke about the paychecks. And like all that being said, I think I think we all see the same thing. Like he loves being a mentor, you know, he loves being a leader. You even see it when he does some of this off the- field stuff away from um training camp or practice. Like he’s out there with the youth, you know, at all these like, you know, youth football camps and you see him on his social media like really coaching these high school kids up, these college kids, these middle school kids. Like you can see this passion inside of him that he loves taking everything that he’s learned and and giving it to the younger kids. He is the standard right now. He is the standard and he has been mentoring at least helping mentor JJ McCarthy. Yeah. In game one series, Ben edited in a field goal. What were your like overall observations about how JJ McCarthy was in this first team offense? You know, I thought he looked he looked the part. You know, I think um you know, I’m sure that there’s, you know, there’s one throw to Lucky Jackson that he’d like to have back, but I thought it was it was the right read right over the middle. It was like one of those window throws where he’s just waiting waiting for everybody to clear out and he’s going to throw to a spot and you know it was just just a little bit off. Had a little bit too much hot sauce on it. But other than that, I thought he was smooth. Um he looked calm. He looked collected. He looked like he knew exactly where to go with the football. Um I like the fact that uh he even made some plays with his feet. Yeah, that fourth down run was fourth down run was great. And then even on the big 18 yard to to Addison, you know, he had to get it out of the pocket a little bit because he felt the pressure sort of come up the up the middle. And that’s what’s what’s going to happen in a regular season game is you know, you are going to have to be a little bit off platform. You are going to have to like slide a little bit. It’s not always about breaking the pocket and running around and like, you know, waiting for scramble coverage to open up. It’s the subtle pocket movements that was kind of nice to see and just uh in short in the short drive. Let’s talk about the quarterbacks behind him because we got to see Sam Howell, Brett Ripen, and Max Brazmer. What did you think of We’ll start with Howell, maybe one sentence on each. I thought Howell looked like a vet. A looked like a vet. Okay. I I thought he was another smooth operator. I thought he made a lot of really good throws. He he showed off an arm strength that I maybe didn’t think that he had. Okay. Um but I thought he played really well. Brett Ripen, you know, same sort of thing. like he he you could tell that there was a command of the offense. I mean, all all four quarterbacks are obviously very well schooled. They know what they’re doing with the football. Um I thought he looked really good, but the thing is I thought Bromer played better. You know, I thought he was really impressive. You know, I he um he has a such a quick release on the football. Um he too was going through his progressions very smoothly. Nothing looked clunky. I never I don’t think I saw him one time double clutch, you know. he didn’t have to like shoulder shake and was like h am I unsure about this read? Am I unsure about what the defense is going to give me? It seemed like he was thinking a step ahead and and to do that as a young quarterback is really impressive and that’s exciting for obviously Minnesota Gopher fans to hear. Uh a standout player on offense that really popped for you tonight is I would say I would say um our our third running back. Yeah, Xavier I thought was fantastic. You know, he’s a he’s a former college receiver kind of hybrid player. You know, he had a lot more catches than rushes than than in college than anything else. And so to see him in the back field play the part of running back, I thought he was always making his cuts vertically. Um he stayed square, he had great footwork, um he had great vision, he caught the ball well. Um I thought he really is going to push Tai Chandler for that number three spot. That three four battle is really going to be interesting as it unfolds in the preseason. But however, there are so many other battles going on and let’s let’s take a defensive side of things. Was there a player on that side of the ball that popped for you? Gabe Murphy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I thought Gabe Murphy really popped. Um I was excited, you know, when when he joined this team last year and I know that he had the injury and it was like a long kind of a long recovery. It was kind of I was really disappointed because I I liked a lot of things that I saw out of him out of college and I’m like, man, you just look at his size and speed and everything like that. He’s gonna be perfect for this defense. We just never got a chance to see it. And so I was crossing my fingers this year that we’re going to see him flash. And he he flashed. I heard he’s been flashing in practice and he really flashed today. He had the two sacks, had another early quarterback hit. I thought he played well. I thought Chamblas as well, you know, another Chamblas out of Georgia, right? Out of Georgia. you know, kind of an undersized guy, kind of a tweener, but he can play the line, he can play up front. He played he made some plays off the ball as well. So, when we’re talking some of those reserve guys, I mean, Gabe is really going to push for getting rotational snaps uh in the game, but for Chaz, it’s like, you know, he’s looking just to make this roster and and I think for him, he really showed out today. We all know that it’s going to come down to special teams. What can you give on that? But when it comes to just playing defense and versatility, I thought I thought he looked good. four guys that are fighting for their roster spot this game. Can you take me into the mindset? I know you were teammates of several who who were just in that moment and and to see some of them have great games and the excitement you see like Miles Price at the touchdown, things like that. What is that like to watch that as your teammates are being able to enjoy that? You know, there’s always this saying that you control what you can control. And um you know, for some of these guys, you can get mentally bogged down by looking at your lot in life and say, “Well, the chances of me beating this guy out or this guy out.” And for some of these guys, you might have to beat two or three guys out to earn a roster spot. And and sometimes that can be very daunting. And you always tell yourself, “Well, I’m just going to go out there and control what I can control.” And for these guys to be making plays, it feels so good because at the end of the day, you’re gonna lay your head on the pillow and be like, I gave everything I got. Yeah. I made the plays that I was supposed to make. You know, I showed out and I shined when the lights were bright. And you know, you put all those things into action. Now, circumstances are what they make. You know, and the thing is they all know that they’re auditioning for 31 other teams. So, great point. So for these guys, I mean, I I you know, I even look, it’s been so long since I played, but I I love watching these guys play in the second half of these games, and it means so much to them because whether or not there’s a spot here on this roster, there’s hopefully a spot for them at another team. Come on, Ben. It’s not been that long. It kind of feels like that long. No, it’s funny you mentioned that though. I recently was talking to assistant general manager Brian Griggsson, and his background is in scouting. when I was talking to him about guys like adding a Jaylen Redmond last June when the 90 was finished or Levi Drake Rodriguez who you know was overlooked just because of where he went to school. He said just because they’re the 90th man on the roster that doesn’t mean they’ll be the 90th man when it’s all said and done. It’s so true. And you know, um, I think that I know a lot of teams do this, but I think, you know, obviously I’m biased because I I see it so closely, but we do a really good job with our organization, especially with Bflow on defense, of like I once you get into once you get into camp, once you put that jersey on, I don’t care where you’re drafted, if you’re undrafted, like what happened to you in college, like I want to see if you can make it on this team and be a player for me. So, I love that everybody really has a clean slate and and the proof’s in the pudding. You know, look at a guy like Ivan Pace. That’s exact. It’s like the poster child. He’s the poster child. Exactly. And so, you know, even like guys like Adam Thielen back in the day. I mean, so it’s I think this organization really does take that to heart that may the best man win regardless of how you got here. We’re going to look at just how your talent and your productivity and your per performance on the field. We can’t leave out CJ Ham though and CJ Ham. Can’t leave out CJ. There’s so many. There are so many. And hopefully many more to come. Ben, let’s do this again next Saturday at noon. How about that? Let’s do it. Sounds good. There are joint practices going on this week. So hopefully we’ll see you out there at Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center for joint practices against the Patriots and then again right here at US Bank Stadium at noon on Saturday for another preseason contest. But if you can’t make it, Ben and I are going to be on the broadcast again. It’ll be on Fox 9 KFN. So, we look forward to many more Vikings games to

Vikings Entertainment Network’s Tatum Everett was joined by Ben Leber to break down the Minnesota Vikings 20-10 win over the Houston Texans during Week 1 of the 2025 NFL Preseason.

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