DON’T SLEEP On The Minnesota Vikings O-Line

DON’T SLEEP On The Minnesota Vikings O-Line

Don’t everybody look at once. You’ll scare them all away. But I think the Vikings might have an O line. Welcome to the Locked On Vikings podcast. You are Locked On Vikings, your daily Minnesota Vikings podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hello. Hello everybody and welcome to the Locked On Vikings podcast where we’re always trying to learn something new. It’s part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And thank you so much for making Lockdown Vikings your first listen of the day every single day. I appreciate my hashtag everydayers so very much. Today on the show, we’re going to do a lot of Trench Talk. This Trench Talk episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Um, at patreon.com/loopbrun NFL, which you can go join for less than $4 a month, plug, plug, plug. I did a video about Christian Daras versus Trey Hendrickson. It was something I kind of intended to do from the get-go. And then when I watched the tape, I found that matchup to be a lot more interesting than I think Hendrickson is getting credit for. Darasaw was phenomenal all day. uh as the superstar he is, like his return was huge and like impactful, right? Of course it was. But I kept getting distracted when I was trying to do it because there were these like crazy plays from Michael Jurgens or Donovan Jackson. Donovan Jackson putting guys on the ground. Michael Jurgens too sometimes. um double team with Jurgens and Fries, bringing a guy like TJ Sllayton, perfectly good defensive tackle, sledding him five yards down the field, getting dominant double teams. It it felt like I was watching the Vikings on defense from week two again, but we were on the right side of it this time. Um so I want to talk about those three guys in particular, Darasaw, Donovan Jackson, and Michael Jurgens. And let’s begin with Darasaw in his return. Um, I probably don’t have to describe to you the effect that good pass protection has on a quarterback and how the Vikings, who according to True Media, the Vikings allowed a 35% pressure rate in week three. That is a pretty good rate by all accounts. Um, compare that to the Atlanta game where they gave up, I’m going off the dome here. I think it was like 55%. It was tied for the fifth worst game that had happened so far. Uh unless Monday Night Football had a worse one, but I doubt it. Fifth worst game that had happened so far for True Media. Um that difference is massive and the impact on the offense probably I don’t need to describe it to you. You probably can understand how much better it is when you actually have a little bit of time to hold the ball and let routes develop. Especially when Kevin Oonnell is making things go making making routes develop deep and everybody’s putting a bunch of wiggle on the top of it and you got all these uh smaller route runners that go outside their path and back in and that takes a little longer. But the Bengals tried to attack this and there were a lot of Bengals game plan things that I thought were reasonable ideas going in that just straight didn’t work or that they just kind of didn’t execute on. Um kind of in the defense of the Bengals who I’m sure that’s not what any Bengals fan wants to hear from me right now. But um I like I watched that tape going, “Okay, yeah, no, this isn’t the worst team I’ve ever seen.” They just kind of lost everything they tried. And one of the things they tried was putting Trey Hendrickson up against the left tackle. It was not clear whether or not Darasaw was going to play. Um maybe it was clear in the building and there was just gamesmanship to it or whatever, but for whatever reason, the Bengals game planned to have Trey Hendrickson rush a left tackle all day long. I you’d have to ask Jake Liscow or James Rupine who who do locked down Bengals and maybe I will if Hendrickson is always just on that side if he’s just a defensive right side edge and they they just always have him go from that side but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that they were like yeah man we thought that was going to be like Walter Rouse so we put Trey Hendrickson over there in our game plan and when it turns out Darrison’s going to play Darasol’s going to play you’re not going to hide Trey Hendrickson and change your game plan to do that you’re going to go okay well it’s a good player go be a stud you’re a stud, right? Um and and so what it that meant was that you got Trey Hendrickson versus Christian Darasaw all day long. All day long. And what a cool matchup that was. Darasaw got the better of her Hendrickson, but not every play. And it was never easy. That’s such a cool like I love watching football that’s like that when it’s just two really good players just emptying the clip on each other and doing the best they can. There is a rep where um Hendrickson goes for a two-hand swipe. Just try to get to two hands, get my hands out of get your hands out off of me, right? And then usually you you you will follow that up with like a rip or or like a dip and rip or some other way to like kind of actually finish the rep and get past the guy, right? and Darasaw gets his hands um countered and so he has to reset them so quickly that he’s able to like re-engage the the rep. Not only is he able to get his hands back on Trey Hendrickson, which is hard enough when you get your hands swiped by that guy, but he’s able to get them to to get a pretty strong punch, slow down all the momentum, completely dominant win. And if you look at it from Hendrickson’s perspective, he goes for the two-hand swipe, gets that countered, then when with a hand on his shoulder like this, he does what what what they teach you to do, which is to take the guy’s wrist and lift it up. Essentially, lift him up above your head, right? Um that’s just going to be where a man’s arm is the weakest is resisting getting lifted getting lifted up, right? Um, so then Darasaw has to re-engage his hand again. I’m on the same rep, by the way. This is all the same rep. This all happened in in in a the blink of an eye. So he has to re-engage a second time and then gets another good punch and slows down the momentum more and by then the ball is out. I believe this one, if you want to watch it, um, it’s it’s in the Patreon video, patreon.com/loopbrun NFL. It’s already up. Uh, but if you want to go watch it, just that play for yourself. It was the big long one to Justin Jefferson where he broke all those tackles. Um, and WZ is, you know, clean as a whistle back there in the pocket. You can read a book back there. That is the cool stuff that happens in this matchup. But the the the real crux of the matchup has to do with the way that Darasaw has always played and the way that Hendrickson showed up trying to um trying to counter that. And and this is why I’m like not sure about my original idea, which was well maybe they had Hendrickson over there because they thought it was going to be a backup, but Hendrickson was prepared to play Christian Darasaw and he’s played Christian Darasaw before. Um but so Darasaw’s kind of claim to fame is jump sets. And what that means is that he gets out of his stance and he actually will take like a skip instead of your classic kind of pitterpatter, you know, machine gun feet, like really quick feet is what you want. Instead of doing that, Darasaw will take a a longer, lopier skip and like jump into you. These jump sets are usually reserved for quick game. Any any lineman will do it on like slants or something just really really quick like smoke, right? Or or a bubble screen. Um because it’s incredibly aggressive. You’re jumping right at the guy. You’re taking the fight to them. But if you get countered, you kind of have no recourse and you’ve given up all of your space and and like any cushion you possibly have. So, it’s very dangerous thing to do. Well, if the ball’s going to be out after one step, you can take that risk all you want. Even if you lose, it’s it’s going to at least slow the thing down where the the ball’s going to get out. But on a regular drop back, that’s a really risky way to live. And Darasaw lives that way all the time. And he’s unbelievably good at winning that and using that aggression to his advantage that he gets a ton of wins that way. And it’s so worth it when he gets beat inside every once in a while. Um it’s not like Cam Robinson who got beat inside, you know, four or five times a game. This will happen like once every other game. It’s fine. Um and and it leads to just these demoralizing wins. So Darasaw does that and on the very first rep of the game, Darasaw is it’s actually zone, but he plays it that way a little bit. And on the very very first rep of the game, Trey Hendrickson tries to cut inside of the B gap and he gets in, but unfortunately it’s a zone toss and he’s totally taking himself out of the play. Uh and and then Jordan Mason goes for a pretty big run in the you remember that I think that was the first play of the game. Um so a great start, right? Later he’ll actually get a pressure on Carson Wentz. It turns into the one where Wentz um kind of threw like a back shoulder fade or like a back foot Jordan Loveesque fade to uh Adam Thelen and in Jordan Loveesque fashion it fell incomplete. That pressure was caused by that exact same thing. and Darasaw jump sets to the outside. Hendrickson cuts to the inside and Hendrickson totally gets the win. Um Donovan Jackson actually kind of saves the play by pulling off of the double that he was on and getting just enough of Trey Hendrickson to give Carson Wentz a lane that that he could scramble and try to make a play. Um but that like that’s the kind of the the price you pay for basically what happens the rest of the game which is a total stonewalling. Um, and what’s cool is the way that that the Vikings punish that hard inside play, that really like aggressive, let’s counter Mr. Jump set over here is schematic. Did you notice that a lot of the runs to the left were to the outside, bounced to the edge? That is precisely what the Vikings want. They say, “Yeah, cut inside all you want. We’re tossing this thing.” So, you have to play that contain and you have to meet Darasol on his own terms and it’s kind of a no-win situation for that edge. Think about what that means run gamewise. That means that the best thing the Vikings can do is run directly at your best player. If you’re going to put your best player over Darasaw, the best thing that they can do is say, “Hey, that your superstar, we’re going to run directly at him and that is where the most success is for us.” Isn’t that fun? And if you do find a way or if that player’s having a crazy unbelievable day, you move things over to the other side where Brian O’Neal is plays it much more straight up and you run a more normal zone run game. Of course, you’re going to run some mix of them. But if they love running to the left like that behind Darasaw, part of that is because a a a zone outside zone or mid zone or even just a toss play is a great counter to exactly the the only kryptonite to your stud left tackle. defensive ends either have to play themselves out of the play or they have to meet Christian Darasaw on his terms and beat him at somebody at something that he’s good at instead of taking the easy weakness. That’s really fun and exciting. You know what else is fun is exciting? When the rookie plays well because Donovan Jackson had an awesome game. Michael Jurgens had an awesome game. I want to talk a little bit about the interior next on Locked on Vikings. This episode of Locked on Vikings is brought to you by Mazda. Mazda crafts cars for those who do more than simply move. From footwork to breath work, athletes sweat, all of the little details, like what we’re going to be talking about all day today. Mazda brings the same intention to how we craft every model. You can feel that Japanese craftsmanship in every detail. From the metallic accents to available Napa leather upholstery, and with all-wheel drive standard in every crossover SUV, you can drive with confidence through almost any season. NFL football is all about the details. One little step two inches too far, two seconds too late, two milliseconds too late, can mean the difference between a successful play and an unsuccessful one. This season for the Vikings has been a pretty good example of that. And Mazda understands how important the details are. They sweat every detail because when you make every move count, impossible becomes irrelevant. Mazda, move and be moved. Moving along with this Locked On Vikings podcast. Let’s move on to the interior. And I’m I’m almost afraid to say it because this is absolutely the kind of thing that if I say it, it jinxes things. But the Vikings might have something with with Michael Jurgens. That something might be going on here that that bodess well for the future. Um I’ve had mixed opinions of Jurgens on this show. I I spent basically all of last year thinking, uh oh, this guy might not be like he might not make the team in 25 because his his rookie preseason was really really really rough. All kinds of mental mistakes. He he mis tagged runs. I think there were snap issues. There were definitely snap issues this camp. Um Michael Jurgens had a really really rough start to his career as a lot of interior guys do in their rookie year. It’s, you know, you have to be really forgiving of that and I probably wasn’t forgiving enough because the year two jump has been drastic. Um, he looked great in the preseason. He looked great in limited action with Ryan Kelly going out last week and he came in this week as the starter and I thought he had a really, really nice game. That doesn’t mean it was perfect. There were problems and I’m working on the Patreon video right now that’s going to be nice and nuanced and balanced, but let me focus more on the good stuff because I think it translates better. Um, the good stuff was when he’s just trying to like scoop somebody or when he’s just part of a combo block, he looked really comfortable and he played really fast. Um, the game did not look like it was too fast for him. And in his rookie year, in in the preseason action that he caught, the game absolutely looked too fast for him. things have slowed down a lot. Common story for interior offensive lineman in year two, by the way. So, this isn’t this shouldn’t be, I think, as surprising to me as it was. Um, I I think I just kind of it took too much. I I saw a guy struggle his rookie year and kind of cemented that way too much. But the the the thing that I was like concerned about coming off the preseason, and I also had a Patreon video about his preseason, by the way, if you want to go watch that and like compare and contrast. Um, was like a lot he had a good preseason. A lot of it was against twos and threes though. It was the preseason. The one time he faced a first team was against the Patriots when they played all their ones in the in the preseason. Remember that? And he got a bunch of K T K T K T K T K T K T K T K T K T K Tyrese Tonga. Hey, we know Tonga can play a little bit, but he he seemed to really struggle with just the power element against Tonga. Tonga really seemed to be able to move Jurgens around, bull rush him. He was wasn’t able to move him in the run. Um, and so that was the concern. And boy howdy, do we have some absolutely nutso plays against Sllayton, against BJ Hill, who is also a pretty good DTackle. Like I think for as much flack as the Bengals defense has gotten, at least up front, they got some players that are at least respectable. Like these are these are NFL starters, right? It’s not Dexter Lawrence and Jeffrey Simmons by any stretch of the imagination or statistically it’s no Jaylen Redmond. Uh, which is a very fun stat. I think by like pressure rate and win rate stats and stuff, Jaylen Redmond and Jeffrey Simmons have been like statistically similar. Sure, man. We’ll go with that. We love it. Um, like by like efficiency stats because Redmond’s not on the field every play, but um I digress. It’s the these guys aren’t the superstars of the league, but they’re no slouch. This is definitely these are not players that I would describe as like, oh, you just beat that guy. It’s no big deal. These are good players. And to see Jurgens pick up specifically BJ Hill in a double team with Donovan Jackson and just or no, this was a double team with Fry. There was another uh double team with Jackson against TJ Sllayton. Um and just put the guy away was so awesome to see. Um he moves really well in space. He did a great job climbing to the second level. He did a great job again like kind of getting like across the face of uh like from backside to playside if he had to do a reach block or if it was not so much a re reach block but like on these toss plays that were trying to take advantage of the Trey Hendrickson thing. Um that often means that the center has to get across a playside one tech. So that means that I’m somewhere and there’s another guy to the play side of me. I have to get across him. I have to beat him to the spot and I’ve got and he’s got a head start on me and Jurgens was able to win a lot of those. That’s really really really awesome. Um it was on these toss plays where it wasn’t like this wasn’t like what Bradberry used to do where he he could do it in a step. He could get there and get across the guy on inside zone and it let you totally warp blocking angles and do all this really cool Dvin Cook stuff back in the day. Um this wasn’t quite that. This was like toss plays where everybody’s just running and eventually Jurgens could after 10 steps make up the difference. Not quite nearly as impressive, but still those are good reps. Those are This is a good play. Um, Jurgens impressed me. What didn’t impress me was the organization of the line generally still very messed up. And this might go to having a quarterback that’s been there for 20 days, right? We forget that about Carson Wentz. Like, he’s the veteran and he’s the stable. He’s he didn’t do camp, right? Like there’s still going to be some mental mistakes and there certainly were on tape. I’m not getting into it this today though that you can listen to yesterday. I talked about it for like most of the show, the Carson Wentz J.J. McCarthy thing. But point being, there was still some disorganization. There were a lot of false starts. Some of those false starts like, okay, so there’s a false start on Darasaw. And I thought the broadcast made a pretty good point that we often forget about, which is if you’re sitting at the line for a long time and motions are taking forever, those linemen are in a stance and not able to move. If you get into a proper three-point stance and start counting the seconds, you will quickly realize how difficult that is. And and remember, most likely, I don’t know who all of you are, but most likely those guys are a lot bigger than you. Uh, and they have to hold all that weight up. That was what I I think the broadcast blamed the Darasaw one on. Um, but there was a play, it was a false start on everybody but the center kind of thing where the ball didn’t get snapped. It was going to be another zone toss. You could tell the way the rest of the line worked. the whole line went and even bowled Jurgens over out of his stance. Well, that’s on you for not understanding your own snap count and and that’s a problem. That’s that shouldn’t be happening year two. So, we got to figure that out. But if you look at the situation here, if we may zoom out a little bit more, the situation at center is one that seems pretty set up for a team that expects the young guy to take over. we’re going to develop him, you know, for a couple years with somebody else as the starter, two, maybe three, depends on what you need. And then eventually he takes over and they’re basically hoping to like John Sullivan this um the Ryan Kelly contract, he’s under contract through 2026, so they have two years of Ryan Kelly if they want. But if they’re really happy with Jurgens, they can save I think like half of Ryan Kelly’s contract by cutting him in the offseason. More if they want to do June 1st shenanigans or trade him or whatever. Like there’s even more ways to um I I think there’s guaranteed salary that they can trade away. I don’t know. I don’t have it in front of me. But either way, it’s it’s a very um in doable thing for a team that’s maybe going to want to save a little cap space next year and maybe has a guy waiting in the wings that they feel good about. I think this game from Jurgens, even though it’s like look, it’s a backup. It’s not going to be a thing for a while. I think it’s really worth paying attention to this game from Jurgens because if I’m right about it, if and I I’m going pretty deep on O line play here, I very well could be wrong. But if I’m right about it, um that suddenly clarifies the picture of next off season quite a bit. And it’s something that in like February and March when we’re having cap conversations, we’re going to be like, “And remember that time, that week three game Michael Jurgens played that it was really good.” That probably is going to like matter. I think he really needed to to kill it this game and he did. Um, for whatever it’s worth, Ryan Kelly should be back for the Steelers game according to Kevin Oonnell. I also want to talk briefly about Donovan Jackson who I I thought was good at a lot of the same things. He was part of some of the doubles that I praised so much. He did a good job of getting to the play side of guys, did a good job of getting up to the second level. I thought Donovan Jackson had a really nice game um with a with a bum wrist, mind you. Gave up like a couple of pressures and and like took some L’s on stunts. That’s the the the stunt thing. He had that problem in Atlanta, too. I think he needs to be a little better about stunts. He’s just overcommitting quite a bit. It’s a young O line thing. Um but now he’s getting his wrist surgery, so that’s going to be the thing now uh for a couple of weeks here. But like to to zoom it all out, like boy, we’re pretty happy with this line, right? Like I think Will Fry was the worst player on the line and he wasn’t like bad like this rules. We love to see this kind of thing. Um having Darasaw back of course makes everybody on that line’s job a little bit easier because he can be the focal point of things in a way that you were never going to ask Justin school too. But the last thing I’m going to say Blake Brandle plays the fourth quarter this game plays pretty well. Also plays at guard. The Vikings had a tackle in Blake Brle moved him to guard. Played him there for a for a year. It was not the best. Um, he lost that job to a first round pick that they spent to replace him and now he’s moving back to tackle doing okay. Why don’t we just keep this guy at tackle? He could have played instead of just in school and maybe things go a little different in those first couple weeks. I think the Vikings have sort of overcooked themselves a little bit with uh I mean they’ve been doing this for years and years and years overcooking the uh the O line motion from tackle to guard to right to left. Uh, and I think this is yet another case where just keeping a guy at the position you have and just letting him do his thing would have been better than all this overthought nonsense you had to try to ek like a little extra value and quote unquote get the best five guys out there. How about get five good guys at all the positions so that you don’t have to play guys out of position all the time? A gripe I’ve had for a long time since we were debating Matt Castle and Christian Ponder. So, I won’t belabor it. There’s a bunch of other little film uh takeaways that I wanted to mention. That’ll be next on Lockdown Vikings. This episode of Lockdown Vikings is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure that you are ready for every kickoff with a can’t miss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. That’s a $5 bet you could put on say the Bills money line against the Saints in Buffalo. The Bills are favored by 16.5 in that one. But you don’t need to take those points. You just take the the minus $1,800 money line. But with this deal, you can put five bucks on it and if it wins, you get $300. That’s 60 to1 odds. So, how about 60 to1 odds on a minus $1,800 money line. Go figure out if you can find it. maybe Lions Browns if you want to uh take a a different one if for whatever reason you don’t trust the Bills. Whatever you want to find, you can find it on FanDuel. If you’re ready to play, download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanuel.com to get started. Makes every game more exciting whether you have a fandom stake in it or not. And it’s quick, easy, and the best way to add a little bit more energy to a Sunday, especially because the next two Sundays, the Vikings are going to be done with their game before the early window games uh are even through their first quarter. Once again, that is fanduel.com to place your first $5 bet. Moving along with the Lockdown Vikings podcast. It’s some odds and ends of film. I don’t really have a place to put these, but I do want to talk about them. The first one is T.J. Hawinson. Um, I’ve been I’ I’m hearing tell that there’s been some discourse about Hawinson because of a route that went viral as a choice route he ran uh against Atlanta. It looked kind of slow and clunky. It was slow and clunky. It was a pretty bad route. Um, and essentially everybody looking at that and being like, “Oh no, he’s washed. Vikings wasted their money or whatever.” Which is I’m gonna rant real quick. I think it’s really annoying that anytime we see like a film takeaway, the first instinct, like anytime I put something like this player did well, or this player did poorly, the first instinct is always to compare it to the transaction that acquired that player rather than just looking at a play and saying, “Yep, that’s a good one. Okay, what’s next?” and just kind of notching it and logging it and move moving on to ask the question, was it worth the draft pick? Was it worth the money? You need a plurality of a lot of data. Singular data points won’t do it. But anytime you see anything, anytime someone sees a bad route from TJ Hawinson, it’s not oof, that was a bad one. Okay, well, what do you do next? No, it’s that was a bad one and the money was bad and the trade was bad. Whoa. Like, why’ we why’d we go so big picture all of a sudden all the time? But that seems to be the only the transactional lens is kind of the only way that like we as a community can agree on a take. You can never say that a player is here or there or in this, you know, good at this, bad at this, whatever. You can never have those discussions. It always has to be um they should be benched, they should be fired, they shouldn’t have been traded for, they’re making too much money. It always has to be something about transaction and cost. And and I get really annoyed with that because TJ Hawinson comes back and runs beautiful choice routes, scores a touchdown on one crickets, silence. Nobody else is going, “Oh, okay. I guess that Atlanta play didn’t matter.” A bunch of people are just going to see that Atlanta play. That’s the only time they’re ever going to think about TJ Hawinson this year and they’re going to think he’s Washington bad. But like he just he did the exact route, the same exact thing. Scored a touchdown on it and it was beautiful. Beat a safety that’s way faster than him and scored. Um but but I don’t actually that the the TJ Hawinson point wasn’t even about that. Um once again you see success in the run game. Anytime you go find 87 on a good run play, you will find whatever he is doing was critical. Really, really, really important to the play. They have run, the Vikings have run strong sides so much more since they traded for him. Um this is the key difference. This is a question that I get sometimes and I’ve answered it a lot so I don’t usually get to it in the mailbags, but people will ask what exactly is it that TJ Hawinson changed so much to be worth a second round pick and a whole bunch of money. And the answer to that question or second round value once you put it all into the trade charts cuz like five picks changed hands. Um the the answer is the Vikings went from a zone weak team to a zone strong team. Doesn’t sound like it’s much, but if you know what that means, you go, “Oh, that’s like a massive change.” The Vikings going from a were a zone weak team in 2022 before they got T.J. Hawinson, and they were still mostly a zone weak team for the rest of that year. They didn’t like change it on the fly. Um, but when they came into 2023, they became a zone strong team. Zone week can be really cool because if you put a bunch of tight ends on one side, the defense is going to put a bunch of players on that side, and then you run the other way. It can be a lot simpler, but that also means that it’s super super critical. You kind of have two guys that need to be perfect. If one of them screws up, there’s no chance for the play to ever ever ever work out. If you move to zone strong, you kind of do get the chance for somebody to not have the best block. I mean, they can’t get dusted for penetration ever, right? And and you have more risks of that happening, more points of failure for that. But like, if they don’t quite get the push they need, it’s okay. The running back can pick a different gap because there’s four guys over there all blocking. He can pick his favorite. There’s more options. So, the Vikings are a zone strong team now. um and have been since the 2023 since T.J. Hawinson’s first year. And what that means is these toss play everything you’re super happy about with Jordan Mason, you have to give some of the credit to TJ Hawinson and then of course to the O line. But but Hawinson and Oliver lining those two guys up on the strong side and then running that way, especially when there’s Darasaw there is freaking lethal, man. That is such a weapon. It’s just not the kind of thing that Hawinson’s going to get a ton of praise for. But I don’t know, man. I every time I like hone in on him, that dude’s just really good at playing tight end, he does everything and he does everything well. It’s such an important loadbearing pillar of the offense is the way that I’ve always described Hawinson and it is no less true this year. A couple other things I want to mention. I’ve only talked offense today, so I’ll I’ll give a little time real quick to the defense. Um, I want to point out that Isaiah Rogers, for all of the fanfare over his great few plays that were super awesome and big EPA and every stat loves it, the down to down was really nice, too. Just the regular coverage. And and I I’ll even point out one that you remember the the pass breakup that happened between the two defensive touchdowns over T. Higgins was a cover zero look um or an allup presentation. That was the way that Flores said it in the X’s and no segment he did with Pete Bersich over at Vikings.com. Um but which is a better word I think than a cover zero look because that’s a coverage, not a front. I’ve named a front after a coverage and it’s always bothered me a little bit. So I’m going to start calling it that. Um but in the allup presentation, you have no safety help. You have no inside help. You have no outside help. You are probably going to be in straight up leverage. You’re probably going to be in off coverage and you’re going to be in man-to-man. That is a really difficult assignment when it’s T. Higgins across from you running a fade. That is like the thing T. Higgins does is run fade contested catch rainbows in the end zone. That is like his bread and butter. And so, so to get that for Rogers, who is not a huge corner at all, to get that pass breakup was just awesome in a tough circumstance. Um, but like you know I I talk so much about how you shouldn’t define a game by the highlights. You should define it by the down to down, the boring plays, right? The the the routine. How did he do in that? And the answer is like also really good. It was just an awesome game for Isaiah Rogers. I really hope he can he can keep it up if we get a few more games at that level. I mean, you’re not going to get that many turnovers, right? One of them was a tip drill, one of them was a scoop and score. Like there’s luck involved in that stuff, right? The ball bounced right to him after he punched it out. We don’t expect that to continue. We don’t need that to continue. But if this level of play on the back end continues for him, it’s so big. I mean, how much of my concern going into this offseason? How much did I talk about how worried I was about the corners? Well, if you go from Byron Murphy and the Pussycat Dolls to Byron Murphy and Isaiah Rogers locked down outside corners. Oh, baby, the whole outlook changes. Then you’re suddenly totally cooking. And Isaiah Rogers is under contract for a couple years now. And and it’s suddenly you’re like, “Oh, wow. They like built something here. They got a dude. The season, as the season wears on, he will be assigned more difficult tasks and we’ll see how he does with those. But it’s really encouraging that some of his best plays happened in tough moments. The pick six too, he did a great job of playing in the flat with cover. It it was cover it was eventually got to cover two. That pick six has gotten a lot of attention because of all the pre- snap rotation that happened before. Um, but once it backs off into cover two, you just have Isaiah Rogers in the flat and he basically has to midpoint between the a deep route and a short route. He does a great job of doing that, making it a difficult decision for Jake Browning. He comes off the whole thing entirely and tries to target someone else. Uh, and he’s like on the run and it gets tipped and then Isaiah Rogers is kind of in the right place at the right time. It just so happens to be that that right place was the perfect place for him to be anyways. Like very rewarded for being in the right place. Sometimes tip drills can reward you for being in the wrong place, right? Like if you’re a safety playing too soft and then it’s an overthrow and it’s right in your lap and you’re like, “Oh my god, I did so great.” But really, like you’re going to give up a catch on that more often than not. This was not the case. It was Isaiah Rogers was in a great place and then luck so had it that that’s where the ball ended up and then he could just go be fast and make a play. Really, really awesome stuff. Um, I didn’t get to the Dallas Turner stuff I wanted to say, but long story short, he’s a little bit stronger. And the Bengals, again, game plan-wise, thought that they were going to be able to take advantage of him by putting tight ends on him all day and doing the same strong side stuff the Vikings were trying to do with T.J. Hawinson. They were hoping they could get blocks like that on their side by saying 15’s kind of skinny. Tight end, go get him. And Dallas Turner just punished the absolute heck out of it. Did just absolute nightmare of tight end blocking for the Cincinnati Bengals. And uh Dallas Turner is the villain on a lot of that. So um for more on that you can go to patreon.com/loop NFL. Detailed detailed Dallas Turner breakdown. A detailed Michael Jurgens breakdown is coming up soon. Maybe even another thing. Whatever it is, I will see you all for a crossover with Christopher Carter. He does locked on Steelers. He’s already in Dublin. So we’re going to cross over with him in Dublin before I uh get on a plane and follow him over there. I will see you all for all that. And as always, skull.

The Minnesota Vikings have an O-Line for the first time in over a decade. They took a good Bengals D-line – including Trey Hendrickson – for a ride on Sunday. We’ll discuss Christian Darrisaw, Donovan Jackson and even Michael Jurgens, who had lovely days.

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