Do the Vikings have to bring back McCarthy post-bye no matter what?

Do the Vikings have to bring back McCarthy post-bye no matter what?

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by FanDuel. Matthew Coller here along with Will Reaggets from Vikings on SI. And you know, Will, when we get together, I feel like we just have to play a game of talk me into. It’s been a pretty stressful first four weeks of the season for Minnesota Vikings fans, and I feel like I haven’t played any games with anybody on the show. uh all season long so far because it’s been mostly talk about uh injured players has been probably uh 85% of the conversation. So why don’t we play a game of talk me into but first uh welcome back. How we feeling? How you doing? Good. Thanks for having me. Always good to to come on with you. It’s been as you well know and everyone listening or watching knows a roller coaster of a first month of the season here but um it’s been entertaining. You can’t you can’t say it’s been boring. So, we’ve had plenty to talk about and write about and um yeah, looking forward to it. Well, why don’t we start off in a good place and then it will probably devolve into not as good places. How about this? So, right now on FanDuel, the Minnesota Vikings are plus 300 to win 10 or more games. I’m going to tell you some other teams that are around that same ballpark. Arizona, Chicago, Houston, even Dallas is in the same range as the Minnesota Vikings. Pretty clear that the betting world is not super high on what’s going on with the Vikings. Talk me into 10 plus wins for the Minnesota Vikings, even though right now plus 300 to do that on FanDuel. Yeah, I mean coming into this season I thought that the Vikings had a really good chance to win 10 plus games, maybe win 11 12 games just based on um you know a bet on the coaching staff and on the talent and on the infrastructure and on the quarterback play being good enough and right now they are two and two but I’ve seen a little bit too much I don’t know a lot of doom and gloom coming out of that Steelers game and I and I understand it the offensive line injuries are concerning. Um the run defense, there’s there’s a lot of penalties happening there. There are concerning developments that are not great. With that said, I just think it’s gone a little bit too far in a game where the Vikings could have easily won that game if they don’t get that late intentional grounding penalty or you can go to a number of plays earlier in the game that some deflected interceptions. Uh you could go all the way back to like Will Fry having an having being an ineligible man downfield on an early play that caused the Vikings to settle for a field goal. Um all kinds of things uh where they could have won that game and maybe we’d be feeling a little bit differently about the team. They just blew out the Bengals the week before, although that actually is looking less great after the Bengals performance on Monday night in Denver. But I just I I think a lot of the things that we thought coming into the season still exist. I think the defense for the most part has been really really good. You’d like to shore up the run defense a little bit more. Get Blake Hashman back, get Andrew, Andrew Vaninkle back, things like that. Um, but I mean the weapons are still really good. Jordan Addison came back, had over 100 yards in his first game. Justin Jefferson broke out for his first 100 plus of the season. Jordan Mason has looked really good. Um, I think the case has to be you beat the Browns. You absolutely have to beat the Browns to get to three and two and then what? you got to go seven and five the rest of the way to get to 10 and seven. I think that’s doable. I think that even with a difficult schedule, the Vikings have a chance to be in every game. Uh they did not look great in that Falcons game, but there are so many plays in that game, too, where they were in it for a while and they could have won it. They were right in the Steelers game at the end, even if the the score line was a bit lopsided until the fourth. Um, I think even in games against the Eagles and and the Ravens and and teams like that, they are going to be in it because of their defense, because of their skill, position, talent. And I trust Kevin Oonnell. I trust Brian Flores to find a way to win enough of these one-score games uh to get to 10 wins. So, I think I’m only mildly talked into this probably uh maybe a four and a half out of 10. Uh, not that you didn’t uh do a good job of breaking that down, but I think for me getting to 10 wins, uh, the big concern here would be the injuries along the offensive line. And I know that Brian O’Neal, it’s not a seasonl long injury with Ryan Kelly. I’m hoping that he doesn’t come back after having the the uh, two concussions. Donovan Jackson will return. So, I think your argument has to begin with a lot of the players that are out that have caused these problems are going to come back. Uh, now Andrew Van Gingle, the latest on Andrew Van Ginkle is not very good. That he’s not going to practice. So, he came out and played eight snaps, then doesn’t play the next week, and then is not going to practice or play this week against Cleveland. That doesn’t sound to me super promising for whatever injury that caused him to miss a lot of training camp, the neck injury, which is what Kevin Oonnell said is the issue here. Uh, but I guess, you know, you’re expecting normal injuries throughout a season, not expecting the amount that they’ve had so far, but it really comes down to what they can be as far as their ceiling as an offense. And I think that there’s a path to getting to 10 wins, which kind of goes this way. They get completely healthy. Everybody’s back. All of a sudden, Xavier Scott is now an interesting weapon out of the back field. So, you’ve sort of found some things amidst the injuries. Jaylen Redmond looks like a pretty legitimate player, etc. You’ve gotten a lot more experience for Dallas Turner. And then, okay, they come back and now they’re the full strength around. I think it has to be JJ McCarthy in this scenario. And then for him, it clicks in ways that it definitely didn’t over the first two weeks outside of the fourth quarter against the Chicago Bears. But it starts to come together with him where he picks up momentum. He finds the 10th overall draft pick. He clicks with Jordan Addison who he didn’t have for those first couple games. He’s protected way better than he was against the Atlanta Falcons. Kevin Oonnell, I think, is going to have to make some adjustments here with the way that he calls games with JJ McCarthy when he comes back. And then there has to be a lot of catastrophes for other teams, which there kind of has been. Uh the Packers have a ton of injuries on their offensive line and their secondary is banged up and may also just be problematic in general. Uh Lamar Jackson is hurt now. He’s expected to be back by the time they play the Vikings, but who knows where he’s at with uh his hamstring injury. The Chargers have a ton of injuries. AJ Brown seems to be melting down for the Philadelphia Eagles kind of again. Uh but, you know, are they as strong as they were last year? Definitely not so far. That’s where it could happen for me to go seven and five. The concern I would have here, Will, though, is that we’ve kind of run into this type of season a few times before where it gets, oh, they’re three and three. Now it’ll just be okay. And what happens is there’s no room for error. That I would describe the 2021 season that way. They got back to three and three and we’re like, well, okay, I guess there’s a, you know, they’re 500 team now. But then you have one bad thing happen. a ball bounces off Bashad Breland’s face and into the hands of CD Lamb and you lose a game to Cooper Rush and you kind of let it slip away and then all of a sudden you’re scrambling at the end. It feels like that, but I think it kind of comes back to Kevin Oonnell, JJ McCarthy getting the offense healthy and starting at some point to look like the offense that we expected them to be because thus far they definitely have not. Yeah, I I think it’s a good point on the injuries. you can always kind of um you know take a glass half full half empty view with those. There’s some real concerns right now with people staying healthy and and more things will pop up. But like I don’t know that there’s are are many or any guys right now that you’re like okay they’re definitely not playing after the buy against the Eagles. Like you could get Blake Cashman back for that game. You could the Venkle one is concerning but he could play in that game. You could get Aaron Jones back for that game. You could you’re probably getting Donovan Jackson back. Maybe Brian O’Neal if it’s a mild like grade one MCL situation. The other one that’s with like Van Ginkle that’s kind of up in the air is is Ryan Kelly just because of concussions. But maybe he plays in that game too. I don’t know. He should probably wear a Guardian cap or something if he’s going to come back and play. Um if those actually help. I’m not sure what the what the science is on that. But yeah, I think you could get some players back coming out of the buy. You beat the the Browns this next week. you get healthy and then like you said, you’re gonna have to find a way to kind of elevate the ceiling offensively because the defense has been good enough. The offense just needs to stop taking sacks at such an alarming rate, whoever the quarterback is, whether it’s McCarthy or Wentz. And that is a offensive line stat. It is also a quarterback stat. It’s also a coaching stat to some degree. like take take some notes from from the Aaron Rogers quick game that we saw in in Dublin on Sunday and and get the ball out quicker if sacks are going to be such an issue. So, I still think that there is entirely a path to 10 wins this season for the Vikings, maybe more. Um that that’s pushing it a little bit, but yeah, I at the same time I I am concerned. I I was I’m doing my best to talk talk you and talk myself into that path, but um when you look back at the schedule right now, the first four weeks, like what we’ve seen from those teams collectively, I don’t know if the Steelers are very good despite being three and one. I don’t know if the Bears or the Falcons are very good. The Bengals certainly are not without Joe Burrow. So, you’d really like to be three and one right now. Uh at least having just played that schedule kind of as a collective. Uh the fact that they’re two and two is not ideal, but it is also not a killer. Their season is very much alive. Um and the conversation would look a lot differently about the life of that season if they can’t find a way to win on Sunday against the Browns. But I do think that they are going to win that game. And then you come out of the buy, you make some coaching adjustments, you try to get healthy, and you see where this thing can go from there. Yeah, the path I I can buy that there’s a path. I would not say there isn’t. It just looks like Indiana Jones where you’re going to have snakes and a giant ball rolling at you and like you mentioned the players who are coming back, but we’re also assuming that no one else gets hurt this week and so you know this year so far it’s sort of been that way like oh Darasaw’s back and now Jackson’s out and now Kelly’s out and it might be the same case. It’s really hard to just have everybody stay healthy the rest of the way. And then what McCarthy can be is also very very much up in the air uh as of right now. What would you like me to talk you into, Will? Well, the first thing I’d written down was just talk me off of the ledge with this Viking season. I think we’ve kind of covered that uh basically to start. So, I think we should talk about the quarterback situation. Um because it is fascinating to me and all of the different elements that going into it. We’ve seen two JJ McCarthy starts. We’ve seen two Carson Wentz starts. McCarthy, the latest report is they’re hoping he can get into practice by the end of this week in London, which would be a big step in terms of potentially having him available. Uh coming out of the buy, I want you to talk me into McCarthy starting against the Eagles no matter what. If he is if his he if he’s healthy, if the ankle is ready to go regardless of what happened Carson Wentz does against the Browns. Yeah, I don’t think that this one should be too challenging because after losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers and seeing the way that Carson Wentz played there, which was to me the ultimate backup quarterback type of performance where there were some really good plays, there were some really bad plays and he did not get enough support to win. If you’re going to win with a backup quarterback, you cannot have three offensive linemen out. You can’t be giving up five yards a carry to Kenneth Gainwell. you can’t give up an 80 yard touchdown. You’ve got to lay everything out for them like they did in the Cincinnati game. But I think it speaks to the overall limitations in general of Carson Wentz that because we’ve seen this so many times before with Case Keenum and so forth and even Sam Darnold. It’s like, oh, anything is possible once a backup quarterback veteran comes in. I think the Vikings just win, right? Um not always the case. So, I think what you’ve seen in the last two weeks is that with Carson Wentz, he is a backup quarterback at this time in his career, probably the best backup in the league or one of them, but that’s only going to take you so far. And if you already know that putting in Carson Wentz can only take you so far, which is probably an eight and n type of season, maybe nine and eight if a lot of things go correct, then the thing that has the best outcome in its potential all outcomes, like say there’s 10 different ways that this could go at the end of the season with Carson Wentz, none of them are you winning in the playoffs. Very, very likely. With JJ McCarthy, there’s multiple outcomes where you could see it clicking in by the second half of the season. He plays really well. Your offense is what you dreamed it was going to be and he’s playing like a first round draft pick and then all of a sudden you’re fighting for playoff position with the team that you have. You’re dangerous. Like it’s a long season. And I’ll go back to, and this is a way back reference, but Matt Ryan in his second career start went 13 for 33 with three interceptions and they won 11 games that year. So rookies and young quarterbacks with no experience, it’s a journey, right? So for me, the fact that there is even one outcome that looks that way says you have to just play JJ McCarthy as soon as he’s ready and then deal with whatever comes next. And even if what comes next is very bad the rest of the way, you need that information as well. You need to know whether you have something here that you go into 2026 feeling great about or you need to know whether you have to have a quarterback competition next year. You can’t just keep playing Carson Wentz, go nine and eight, make the first round of the playoffs, lose, and then be like, I don’t know what JJ McCarthy is, and have a whole another off season of asking that question. He needs to play as many games as possible. And the fact that there’s a chance O’Neal comes back, good chance that Jackson comes back, you’re going to have at least enough of your line. And also, there’s no way, here’s one last point on this, there’s no way to just protect him from everything. It’s like parents with their kids, you got to go let them climb the monkey bars because, yeah, they could fall on their back, but if they never do anything, they’re never going to find out how this world works. So, I think you have to kind of take that approach. Now, had they beaten the Steelers 41 to10 and Wentz was amazing, I’d be like, well, I don’t know. Maybe Carson Wentz is just going to be amazing this year, but I think we saw that that’s not really truly possible. Yeah, I don’t I don’t know that I’m writing off the Wentz possibility 100%. I don’t think it’s very likely. Um, he did throw for 350 yards and I know that a lot of that is is based on they were trailing and and they had to throw the ball a ton, especially late in the game. Um, but I thought he looked pretty good for the most part. There were a few early sacks where he just held on to the ball too long and that was an issue uh against the Bengals as well. The interceptions, it’s hard to know exactly how much of that is his fault. Is he is if the balls hadn’t been tipped, are they going to be completed? Is there was he putting it in too much harm’s way with just where he was throwing it to begin with on those plays? There were definitely some negative plays, but I mean when you get Justin Jefferson as involved as he did and and Jordan Addison makes some plays and I mean even Xavier Scott is having a big game out of the back field. I I don’t know that there’s 0.0% chance of Wentz having a good season that can get you to double digit wins and have you frisky in the in the playoff mix. But again, yeah, that is probably the absolute ceiling and it’s probably unlikely. So, I think the big argument for McCarthy is is what you said. It’s just about information. You have to find out what you have. This isn’t some situation where Wentz is going to come in and and be this super highlevel veteran quarterback who can you can contend for a a title with I don’t think. Um, so if you go down this continue to go down this WZ road and you just don’t know what you have in McCarthy, I don’t know how productive of a season it will be when you’re looking back at it. Um, the issue that comes into play and you you said it well I think with the monkey bar example and you know you have to just you can’t protect JJ McCarthy from everything. Can you maybe protect him from his first start being against the Philadelphia Eagles and that nasty defensive line maybe without two or three of his starting offensive linemen? I think that that is at least a conversation of we there’s no there’s no like easy matchup to ease McCarthy back in at any point after the by-week when you look at the schedule with the Ravens and the Lions and the Chargers and all of these teams coming up. But if Brian O’Neal is out and maybe Ryan Kelly is out and maybe even Donovan Jackson’s out for that Eagles game and you’re talking about the best team in the NFL, I think through four weeks, um even though the Eagles haven’t looked perfect, I think that they um there are just enough ways for them to win and obviously they’re 4-0. Um I they I don’t think they completed a pass in the second half uh against Tampa Bay and they still won that game. Um, so like I that would be where maybe I would question the you have to start McCarthy no matter what in week seven specifically. Um, and I think that’ll be interesting. I think what Wentz does uh in week five will maybe factor into that. The health of various people will maybe factor into that including McCarthy himself. Um, but at some point whether week seven, week eight, week nine, you have to get him out there and you have to see what you have unless WZ just magically takes off over the next couple weeks. Um, you have to see what you have and and like you said, there’s more of a path to a higher a high ceiling right away this year. Um, because we saw a lot of things from JJ McCarthy in training camp, uh, like with Jordan Madison and TJ Hawinson and, um, if he can start to click and start to figure it out and get rid of the ball quickly and, um, do some good things with his legs as well, uh, like that’s where this season could really start to get interesting. Again, here’s the reason that I would commit to just benching Carson Wentz, even if he goes 20 for 24 with four touchdowns against the Browns. Probably not with their Dline, by the way. But I I’m actually expecting him to play just like he get did against the Steelers and for them to win. I think it’ll be the same exact look with a couple picks, a bunch of sacks, and the Browns score four points and that’s it. So, uh, two safeties. Uh, that’s the only points that the Browns are going to get. That’s my early prediction for this game. Um, but here’s why I would go back to McCarthy no matter what. Because let’s say that Carson Wentz has a really good game against the Browns. Well, the Browns are terrible. And then they are like, “Oh, well, wonderful. Let’s play him against the Eagles.” And then he has a really good game against the Eagles. And the Vikings pull off a win. They’ve got the health. They coming off the by-week. the Eagles maybe I don’t know there’s a sideline blow up between Jaylen Herz and AJ Brown and they just lose concentration for that game and all that stuff happens and then we are like Wentz he can win all the games now he’s he’s the savior for the season they’re good everything is fixed they got to stick with him they got to play for the playoffs and everything else but what happens with 500 quarterbacks is that they’re 500 and we saw this from Kirk how many times did which I think that you know Kirk was obviously a better quarterback than Wentz. But you kind of look, they’re both like franchise quarterbacks at some points in their career. 500 quarterbacks, guys that are just good enough to disappoint you a lot of the time. Both made a lot of money that they didn’t really justify overall in the results. There’s a lot of similarities there. In fact, that was the most quirky quarterback game when Kirk was bad uh that we saw the other day. Oh, interior pressure. Got to the guy, took a bunch of sacks, but somehow threw for 350 yards and lost by three. Uh, that sounds a lot like my life from 2018 to 2023. Anyway, the point is that quarterbacks like this can fool you. How many times were we like Kirk Tober, he’s thrown for 18 touchdowns, two picks in the last four games, and he’s going to win MVP and then it all comes crashing down because that’s who these guys are. I don’t want that result. I wouldn’t want to risk that result fooling us into thinking that that could be the guy and then oh it’s not in the second half of the season they lose to the Giants and they lose to the Cowboys and we’re all going what the heck happened. Oh and by the way JJ’s been sitting there for seven weeks watching. So the only scenario that I would be okay with WZ continuing to play is if Kevin Oonnell felt like and this results will tell us this by the way. What they do will tell us this. If Okano felt like those first two weeks were so scary for him staying healthy and he was so far behind what they needed him to be within the system that they feel like it’s not a good idea to play him right now or they will potentially ruin him that I would say okay fine I will defer to you. Yeah, the the organizations fail young quarterbacks idea. I I agree that that is the only situation where you don’t want to play JJ McCarthy. If if Kevin Oonnell thinks and I think we are in agreement that we will defer to his decision on this because he is is there and is has earned um this this title as the quarterback guy, the quarterback whisperer. if he thinks there is real risk of doing harm to JJ McCarthy’s development by playing him and and like I don’t want to say risking breaking a guy but damaging his confidence and damaging his processes and and what he how he views himself as a quarterback. That is where I could I could also understand wanting to continue with Wentz. I do think that that is it would have to be fairly extreme for that to be the case because it’s not always just it’s not just going to be sunshine and rainbows when McCarthy comes back in. There’s going to be adversity and we saw literally in his NFL debut that he is capable of overcoming that adversity. And I think everything that we’ve seen from him throughout training camp and offseason program and even since he was drafted and just heard from teammates and coaches like this guy has the mental makeup. um the the character, the the kind of intangibles and that that side of playing quarterback to not get rattled when when things don’t go his way. Uh and so I think that it would have to be fairly extreme in terms of how Okonnell has evaluated his performance, the film from the first two weeks, um concerns about the offensive lineman playing in front of him. uh for that to be the decision. I I do think I ultimately expect that McCarthy will play in week seven, but I’m not I’m not completely sure about that. I think um it’s hard to know without knowing. The big thing is just his ankle and and how ready that’ll be even after a by-week. Um but yeah, I think I would lean towards expecting him to play against the Eagles. Would you? Uh, I would right now, yes, I would think that that was going to happen. Even if Carson Wentz has a great day, he was brought here to be a backup in case McCarthy got hurt to play two or three games and win two of them. And if he does that and they go back to McCarthy, my take on Carson Wentz will be like, great work. Even though you failed against Pittsburgh, and a lot of people failed against Pittsburgh, but I that’s what you were brought here for, to to keep a season on the rails, to save it, and good for you. now go back to the starting quarterback, which is what normal teams would do if they feel great about their QB1. No one would ever answer who felt great about their starting quarterback. Well, I guess we’ll answer that question some other day. Like, that’s not how you answer that question if this wasn’t at least on the table. Uh, let me throw you the next talk me into here. Speaking of Kevin Okonnell, I’m going to read you a sentence from my film breakdown after watching all the sacks and all the other tom foolery from this game. uh on a particular third down where Carson Wentz got sacked. This is what I wrote about it. You have to respect KOC sending three receivers 15 to 20 yards downfield with no regard for the fact that he has three backup offensive linemen and a 33-year-old quarterback who got benched for Taylor Hineki the last time he started three years ago. However, uh it might be a lot to ask. Like I respect that on third and long despite having no healthy line and despite having a quarterback who lost his job to Taylor Hineki the last time he started and hasn’t started since that the aggressiveness does not change. But it’s a lot to ask. So here’s what I want to ask of you to talk me into. Talk me into Kevin O’Connell being able to look at this sample size of performance in all the sacks and the Vikings. Here’s a stat for you from an article I’m writing right now. Are fifth in sack yardage lost since Kevin Oonnell got here with all sorts of different quarterbacks having the same problem. Talk me into Kevin Oonnell resolving the issue of his quarterbacks being smacked around constantly. Yeah, I think that it’s something that has to happen. Um, I think that you you would like to think and I do think that Kevin O’Connell is a very good football coach and a very good offensive mind and a a very smart guy who studies this film closer than anybody else and sees everything that’s going on. And I would think that at some point he needs to and will realize that an adjustment has to be made in terms of giving his quarterback, whoever it is, whether it’s Carson Wentz, whether it’s JJ McCarthy, just some quicker outlets to get the ball out. Um, and I don’t think that like that Aaron Rogers performance against the Vikings defense is necessarily an eye openener in that like it’ll oh you wait, you can do quick game like we didn’t know that. Obviously, they they know that that is a possibility, but it was kind of a reminder for just the the lay person like myself that that can be really effective against certain defenses when you don’t feel good about your offensive line against the pass rush because the Vikings have a very good pass rush and they had I think PFF gave them seven pressures in the entire game. Um, and like that was with every individual player’s pressure is combined. Like they sometimes you can get multiple of those on one play. So I don’t even know if there were seven plays or seven dropbacks where Rogers was technically pressured. Um, the way that he was able to get the ball out so quickly. Sometimes it can lead to an 80 yard catch and run touchdown for your best receiver. And like we know that Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison um are really good with the ball in their hands after the catch. I just think that there has to be a a bit of an adjustment to have the quarterback when the offensive line especially is dealing with these injuries just have more outlets to to get the ball. And I’m not saying or suggesting that those outlets don’t exist because they they certainly do. And sometimes it’s a matter of um maybe they’re too far ahead in the progression and they can’t quite get to it before the pressure gets home or maybe they’re just not finding it and they should be finding it and it’s it’s on the quarterback and a lot of times I’m sure it is. Um but I do think Okonnell will recognize that and he will work around what I think are going to continue to be injury questions on the offensive line. I don’t know that there’s real concern that we may never see all five of those starters take a snap together and that’s that’s really doomey, but I think the Kelly thing specifically is is uh I don’t know scary in that regard. So, if there are going to continue to be injuries, you have to make an adjustment. And I do think that Kevin Oonnell will make an adjustment because of all of the he has all the pieces to do it. like you can get the ball to Jefferson and Addison and you can get the ball to Jaylen Naylor and Adam Thielen and T.J. Hawinson and all these guys and underneath routes and you have three running backs when Aaron Jones is back who can catch the ball out of the back field. Jordan Mason, it’s not his his greatest strength, but he can certainly do it. You mentioned earlier like I think Xavier Scott is actually kind of a a real part of this season moving forward. It’s certainly for as long as Jones is out, but maybe even you give him a few snaps when Jones is back. um because he can play wide receiver and running back uh which is kind of fun. So I think it that it will happen. I think Okconor will make the adjustments uh and I think that this team specifically even on Sunday against Cleveland um will have answers for scary pass rushes when the offensive line is a bit banged up. So here’s my thing with Okonnell and the idea of adjusting. I have mostly uh given up on that. But where he’s been really good, I think of these last two games is the opening script. Carson Wentz is getting the ball out of his hands quickly. It’s really clear that Okonnell and the Vikings can game plan anybody for an opening script if it’s executed by the quarterback and everybody around and you know they run the right depths of routes and don’t run into each other like they were doing in Chicago or drop passes or whatever else. These opening scripts have worked for Kirk. They’ve worked for Josh Dobs. They’ve worked for Sam Darnold. We know that they can be ready to start a game and the first two drives can look really, really good. And WZ was getting the ball out of his hands really quickly in the first two drives, completing passes, moving down the field. they weren’t able to finish those drives, but at times during the game, I think the thread gets lost or maybe an element of this play is a good play to call here, but there’s the common sense that might get lost. So, yes, it’s a good play on third down and 11 to be aggressive. I agree with aggressiveness. I I I’m all about going for fourth downs, all about Brian Flores blitzing, all that stuff. I’ll sacrifice some bad plays to get explosive plays. But the common sense part is just like what happened with Josh Dobs when he was in there. You’ve got Dobs ripping a 20 yard deep in route to KJ Freaking Osborne. And then when he gets picked off, it’s like Dobs, you’re benched. Like what? I mean, that guy was never going to make that throw. And the same thing with Carson Wentz, a guy who perpetually has held on to the ball too long. was once sacked 50 times in a season and you’ve got three receivers running 30 yards down the field and I mean I stopped the tape in the clip. It’s literally like 15 to 20 yards down the field with no one in front of him to even check the ball down to that. Just if you’re going to keep doing that, you’re going to keep getting the same results. And this is was my criticism from last year at times where it’s third and 16 over in London and Sam Darnold has been playing poorly and has been banged up in the game. You’re like, how about we have him throw a 20- yard pass to try and convert this and it’s picked off and it’s like, well, what did we think was going to happen there exactly? So, uh, you know, I mean, I try not to just go based on the results and say, well, you know, it’s a bad play when it didn’t work and it’s a good play when it worked. Because when you watch the tape, you’ll see, guys, they’re open. The plays work. And I think that that’s the thing he’s never been able to really uh reckon with exactly is just because the play worked to get someone as open as you thought they were going to be does not mean your quarterback can execute that play. And that’s how I felt about a lot of these sacks from Carson Wentz. And you’re like, “Well, it’s Wentz’s fault because he didn’t see the open receiver, right?” But the last time the guy played quarterback was 2022 and he just got here. So there that I think that was my issue. I think what has to happen is JJ McCarthy has to be able to do all this and if he can’t, it’s not going to work because I don’t think there’s going to be some sort of fundamental we’re changing the offense all around to fit you. It’s like you have to do the offense or this thing ain’t going to go anywhere. Yeah. I I think that there is a broader point that I could bring up that like I’ve just been a little bit maybe disappointed by the coaching I think across the board for the Vikings this year based on my expectations coming into the season which are that this is one of the best coaching staffs in the NFL. I mean, the the reigning coach of the year, and I think Brian Flores is uh one of the best defensive coaches in the NFL. And we just talked about some of the things with Okonnell where maybe there just aren’t as many adjustments as you’d like to see at times in terms of play calling scheme, various various things on that end. Defensively, like you can’t really quibble too much with the results uh through four weeks for the Vikings defense, but at times I I I question like when we’re watching Aaron Rogers kind of rip the Vikings up through quick game. Like are there adjustments that can be made to bring everybody up a little closer and take some of that stuff away when you know Aaron Rogers really isn’t attacking down the field at all? um some of the run game stuff, it’s hard to know how much of that is is scheme, how much of that is execution when you’re missing um a guy like Blake Hashman and and you’ve been missing Andrew Vaninkle for much of the the season. Um but there’s been some some stuff there. And then like on the offensive line, like I this is something that I’ve seen a lot of fans bring up and I think there may be some validity to it. like, do we have to question the job that Chris Cooper is doing with this offensive line when I know it is not ideal and nobody coaches aren’t supposed to have backups in there and and that’s just going to inevitably make things harder, but um when you when you’re still struggling to pick up these interior stunts after years and years of that, that seems like a coaching issue. um guys just not seeming prepared in some degree with with the number of penalties that the Vikings have committed in terms of pre- snap stuff on the offensive line and I mean across the board the penalties have been a massive issue for the Vikings. So I I’m not going to, you know, send any major like signals out about this or or have any extreme concern. I just think it’s something that is maybe worth mentioning in the context of of this Vikings start to the season so far. I also want to throw out there just that I want to give Pittsburgh some credit for their game plan because when I watch back on tape, I didn’t realize how many times they had a sixth offensive lineman in there, that was brilliant. I I mean just it was just brilliant because you bring in a sixth lineman and then you’re like, okay, so you have undized a little bit Jaylen Redmond, you know, Levi Drake Rodriguez is a fairly new player. You’ve got the two defensive tackles that are not excelling against the run defense and you’re playing with Eric Wilson who’s not an old school thumper Scott Studwell type. Ivan Pace who’s unders sized and there were runs where you have tackles or guards blocking safeties and corners because they actually were not afraid to run on second down. So it was second down and 10 and they would run with six offensive linemen out there and the Vikings have their personnel set up to try to rush the passer and they would get nine yards and they did a really good job there. Also, I don’t know this and I Aaron would have to tell me this, but I think that there were numerous plays that were supposed to be runs or supposed to be something totally different and Aaron just looked at DK Mechaf and said, “I’m throwing it at you.” because there were a few times there’s one play in the red zone on that first uh second drive where they go down and score a touchdown. Every person run blocks including the other wide receivers and DK just turns and catches the ball. I think that Rogers I think Rogers had some really good tells or some really good understanding of what was going to happen with how they were going to play versus certain looks and just looked over at DK and said, “I’m getting you the football right now.” Because there were way too many times where he just like snaps it and goes, “Here’s the football.” That to me is like a great adjustment by a Hall of Fame quarterback that I don’t know how many guys are going to be able to do that throughout the rest of the season. That’s not to excuse anything. I just wanted to bring that up because I saw that on tape. Uh who’s turn it? You got to ask me to talk you into something. Yeah. Okay. I’ve got a a fun one for you here. Talk me into the Vik Well, maybe it’s not so fun, but talk me into the Vikings being in danger against the Cleveland Browns this weekend without without saying the name Miles Garrett. Uh, you know, I Well, first, I mean, this is a team now, that guy that you just talked about was uh mildly involved, I would say, in the victory that they had against the Green Bay Packers. So, it is a little hard not to bring him up. Uh, I think with the Browns, there are two things that could get the Vikings. And even if Mr. Guy that you’re saying I can’t say, does not get involved. Uh, Malik Collins this year has a 90.1 PFF grade and 13 quarterback pressure. Yeah, I mean, that’s a that’s a a longtime, you know, pass rushing player. And they have a guy who I am not very familiar with, Isaiah Maguire, who’s got double digit pressures. They have a top five overall draft pick, Mason Graham, who has seven pressures this year. Shelby Harris has actually gotten after the Vikings a handful of times when they’ve played him in the past. I mean, it’s going back a little bit, but uh the Denver game from a few years ago, Shelby Harris was involved in that. They’ve got a lot of dudes and some guys blitzing from the second level. I mean, they they’ve kind of got a very stacked defense and even if you look at their coverage players, I mean, they they’ve got corners that they’ve drafted really high and they, you know, Newsome is a guy that they picked extremely high. I think that this defense is very talented. Denzel Ward is a superstar in this league. So, if you play I think their defense is uh better than Pittsburgh and on paper probably even much better. And they struggled a lot against Pittsburgh. If you get pressure, if they make plays against you, you can get a pick six. You can get because we know that Wentz will turn the ball over. This has been his thing for his entire career. Sacks and interceptions have really, if he could cut those in half, he would have been a starting quarterback this entire time, but that’s been the thing that’s consistently killed him. There’s also another gentleman who has just joined this football team that I think can be problematic, and that is Quinn Sean Judkins, who is their top draft pick at running back. And well, didn’t they draft another running back? Um, but uh Dylan Dylan Samson they drafted later. That’s right. Okay, that’s right. Yeah, he hasn’t done much for them. But Quinn Judkins so far, 4.8 yards per carry, 49 runs for 237 yards. Five runs of over 10 yards already for Quinchan Judkins. I mean, that’s a lot of success on the ground and defensive talent that we just saw the Vikings struggle to stop the run. And then a veteran quarterback figured out some quick passing and the defense caused them a lot of problems and all of a sudden, and I’ll just throw out there as well, the London factor. You just don’t know. I was watching the tape back. I’m sure you did too in uh Ireland. I mean, there’s plays where Justin Jefferson just goes and just slides right off the screen. I mean, even the Jordan Addison, you just wonder like, was the turf involved with how he was able to accelerate after catching the ball? Like, these things can be the small differences, but every time they’ve played in London, the games have been ugly. The games have been weird. There there’s strange stuff that that goes on in games like that. So, I think this one would go under the category of you never know if the other players on the Dline and the secondary can step up. They struggle to stop Judkins. Cleveland holds the ball game. We’ve seen this model work two different times for teams to beat the Vikings. Yeah. No, that’s that’s kind of what I was thinking too, like and yes, obviously uh the man Miles Garrett, I can say his name now. He he is a major problem when you have probably Justin School out there. I c definitely Justin School out there. Brian O’Neil’s not going to play in this game. Um yeah, I mean I think the Vikings should maybe take a page out of the Steelers playbook and use a sixth offensive lineman at times. um against do they have six that are healthy? Who I you might have to play like Joe Hoover for that to be the case, I guess. But um yeah, I I think that the Vikings should and probably will win this game, but it’s not something I feel super great about. Um, and you just did a good job, I think, laying out some of those reasons when you not even without even mentioning Miles Garrett. The defense, I mean, it’s PFF’s highest graded collective defense and and second place isn’t particularly close. The run defense has been really, really good. So, I don’t know how productive Jordan Mason is going to be able to be. The pass rush is really good. Um, now it is PFF’s 31st graded offense and Joe Flacco has been a mess and the offense has been terrible. But when you have Quincan Judkins who is a better player than Kenneth Gainwell, you you’d think that you are going to be able to run the ball a little bit against the Vikings and I just think that they there’s a path to Cleveland hanging around in a lowscoring kind of sloppy game on both sides and then yeah, one or two play like you get a fumble and you return it for a touchdown or or something like that and this could get scary for the Vikings. I think it’s going to come down to which offense can just not um like have a miserable day and not let the opposing defense completely wreck all of its plans. Um because I think like on paper when regardless of which offense is on the field, the the defense is going to be what you should keep your eyes on and is going to be the unit with a big advantage on a play-to-play basis. Um, so can the Vikings and Carson Wentz limit the mistakes, limit the negatives? Um, because I think they’re going to have to do that if they’re going to win this game. So, right now on FanDuel, the overunder for this game is 36 and a half, which I believe is got to be the lowest of the week, right? Yeah, the lowest. It might be the lowest of the year. It’s definitely the lowest of the week and kind of by a country mile. I mean, Houston and Baltimore with Lamar not playing is 40 and a half, which tells you a lot about where this is at. And the Vikings are only favored by three and a half points in this game, which again says a lot about how folks are feeling about what this is going to look like. I mean, if you’re gonna have a low total, then your overunder is probably not going to be expected to be that high either. So, uh, I think that this game, if it goes a certain way, starts to give Cleveland a little bit of life. And they’ve made this trip. They’ve had a miserable season so far. And I think if you let them hang around, there might be a little bit of, oh, hey, we can actually win this game. And that’s what you don’t want if you are the Vikings. So, how about this for uh one last one? I want you to talk me into a Super Bowl matchup as of right now. Like AFC, NFC team meeting up in the Super Bowl. Talk me into a matchup that you think is the most possible at this moment. Okay. So, what I think is going to happen if I had to pick right now. Yes. Yeah. what your Super Bowl pick would be, but I framed it in a talk me into that matchup right now. Gotcha. Okay. Because I feel like I could try to talk you into a variety of Super Bowl matchups based on like, oh, this would be entertaining or juicy or something. But if I’m going with what I think is going to happen right now, the easiest answer would be the Bills against the Eagles, I am not going to do that. I’m gonna say it’s the Bills against the Detroit Lions. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I think that I I watched the Lions in week one against the Packers and I think like everybody else raised some red flags of okay, maybe losing both of your coordinators was significant. Maybe this team, as we talked about all throughout the offseason, is primed for a little bit of a step back. I think their like overunder win total coming in was only like 10 or 10 and a half or something after they won 15 games last year. Maybe it was 11, but either way it was it was a step back and I think that everybody anticipated that and then since then they have just kind of completely looked like the Lions of old and granted they have not played they’ve played the Browns and the Bears and and one other team. It hasn’t been the toughest of competition. The Ravens Ravens they they killed the Ravens. You’re right. You’re right. The Ravens there a good point with who were healthy or at least relatively healthy. Um I think that this Lions team is really good. I think that the coaching stuff was maybe a little bit overblown when you are, you know, promoting internally and just kind of keeping very similar systems and and I think John Morton and Kell Shepard have both done a good job so far. And there there are questions that still have to be asked there. But man, when I when you watch their offense, I know sometimes it’s against the Bears and they’re not very good, but they put up 50 and it was like this is just a welloiled machine. I mean, they dropped 34. We we’ve spent a a good chunk of the last 10-15 minutes talking about how good the Browns defense is, and they didn’t really give the Lions any issues. I mean, Miles Garrett had like a 91 PFF grade and eight pressures, but the rest of the team, the rest of the defense couldn’t do much to to slow down Detroit. Um Jared Goff is just playing at a really high level. Um Alman Ras St. Brown, they’ve got the the wide I mean Jameson Williams looks like a big big play threat every time they’re on offense. The two running backs. I think the offensive line guys who have stepped in like you know Christian Mahogany and those guys when they lose uh Ragnau and Zeitler like those guys have been fine. I think uh and I just think that this Lions team is so good that this is like the year after what was supposed to be the year and and they lose that heartbreaker to the commanders or not heart just a shocker to the commanders in the divisional round. I could see the Lions going to the Super Bowl this year and and then I think the Bills. It’s got to happen. It’s the same argument. It’s got to happen at some point for for Josh Allen and this team. I think this is the the opportunity. They’re going they’re going to cruise to the number one seed in the AFC with the schedule that they have, especially with the Ravens being one and three and the Chiefs being two and two. I don’t see how either of those teams or anyone else is going to catch the Bills for the one seed. Um, so that would be my Super Bowl right now. And I know that Vikings fans listening to this are not big fans of of the Detroit team, but I think it from a from a football standpoint, the Lions and the Bills who have spent so much of their existence being kind of punching bags for the NFL, I think that would be a pretty sweet Super Bowl. I I think your arguments are great. uh offense of the Detroit Lions. You know, there there’s some comparisons just within the last 20 years that kind of pop into my mind for both of those teams, which is the Indianapolis Colts with Pton Manning. That’s kind of Josh Allen, like where he’s sort of the uncontested top two or three quarterback in the league. You can’t have him any anywhere except three. You could have one, two, or three, but you can’t have him four for Josh Allen. Well, that was Pton Manning, and he lost in the playoffs. And he lost in the playoffs, but ultimately he was just too good. and eventually got there and won and Prince played and it was amazing and uh the game was horrible and he got his Super Bowl. Uh and on the other side, I’m going to make comparison that um I would only do 48 minutes into this podcast, but if you start to look it up, it’s actually pretty accurate. Drew Brees and Jared Goff. The team with the number one quarterback rating since 2022 in the National Football League is the Detroit Lions with Jared Goff as their quarterback. It is a brilliant but flawed quarterback who throws the ball to the right place, has great weapons, has great coaching, but is not necessarily the most mobile and can be got in playoffs, which happened to Breeze a number of times. And if he had never won that Super Bowl, then that would have been his narrative for his whole career that just like golf like he wasn’t good enough. And with Goff, I think if he gets the right matchup in right circumstances that he can have one of those years just click for him. If he plays against the right team or his whole defense doesn’t get hurt like it did last year, etc., etc. That one of these times these guys have just played way too good of football for these teams not to break through and eventually have it happen. Uh, I’ll try another matchup. The Bills just seem so inevitable. Um, but I’ll try another matchup and one that would b maybe be a bit of a nightmare for the Minnesota Vikings uh and Vikings fans, which would be the Kansas City Chiefs. I Okay, I need actually I Well, I think the Chiefs could really do it because they have Patrick Mahomes and they were there last year when everyone said they stunk all year and the Seattle Seahawks. Oh, what if Sammy D. Have you thought of this yet? I mean, look, we’re a really long way away, but tell me that it hasn’t popped into your head as he is like PFF’s top quarterback and is playing great and I know Clint Kubak is Mr. September and then teams tend to figure him out. Who I really would make the argument for would be Kansas City and the Rams. I think the Rams are probably the strongest. I was going to say the Rams, Puka Nakua looks unbelievable. Yes. and Stafford, I don’t care how many back injuries, their defense is every bit as good as it was last year. But have have you had that thought? Have you had it come across to your mind that it’s not insane when you look at the NFC that Sam Darnold could be like winning a playoff game while the Vikings watch him? I don’t I’m Look, I’m not trying to This has been uh not the most enthusiastic uh purple Kool-Aid drinking podcast between us so far, but somebody had to have the thought after watching him play the other day against a pretty good Arizona defense. The thought hasn’t fully crossed my mind until right now that like that they could be contenders, but they’ve certainly looked good. I think that that team has like wild card or divisional round ceiling kind of written all over them. I don’t think they’re as good as the Rams. I don’t think they’re as good as the Lions. I don’t think they’re as good as the Eagles. And we we’ve kind of glossed over the Eagles here because it’s Yeah, they they would be easy to do. Like I don’t think I just said the the Lions. I don’t think I would feel great about the Lions going into the link for an NFC title game in Philly if that’s how the seating shakes out and the Eagles are the only 4-0 team in the conference right now. Um but yeah, I don’t I don’t quite see um and the Packers as well I think are better than than Seattle. Like I think there’s four or five teams kind of in that tier. I don’t know if San Francisco is going to be able to be healthy enough to get there. Um Tampa Bay and then Seattle are kind of in a similar range for me. Um, but certainly the the the Seahawks decision to move on from Gino Smith who has been horrible and uh signed Sam Darnold has aged about as well as they could have asked so far during the offseason. I’ll never understand how there are so many people who have tried to I just feel like I’ve been gaslit about Gino Smith. It’s like no no if you really watch Phil the film it’s the film bros they love Gino. Well, the the problem with a lot of and look, this isn’t anybody specific who said this, so I’m not like taking shots. This is just how I felt because I see a lot of what you guys don’t understand is how great Gino Smith really is. And I’m like, I don’t I’ve been w I mean, we’ve covered some games where he’s played the Vikings and I just don’t see it u because of the number of mistakes. I think what it is is that the great throws are freaking incredible and we saw a few of those last year. We got the whole Gino experience is the great throws are like that’s the best throw I’ve ever seen in my life and the bad throws are so costly. Uh and I don’t think he can elevate a team which we’re seeing. Sam Darnold is an interesting case though. The team with the second best point differential in the NFC right now is the Seattle Seahawks. They have a good defense. Him and Smith Njigba are on freaking point as you saw the other night with that game-winning drive. And history is kind of kind to quarterbacks who emerge as very good starters in their late 20s. There are many many examples of this throughout history. And I I’ve definitely crossed my mind of maybe not Super Bowl for Sam Darnold because I can already hear the comment section, he’s getting the play. Okay. Well, maybe. I don’t know. But I do know that historically there’s been a lot of guys who have hit their peak in their late 20s that weren’t necessarily good in their early 20s. And I don’t think it’s something that should be ruled out that Sam Darnold’s just a good quarterback. And that decision looks really great for them. So many teams this year didn’t even call Sam Darnold, which was very odd to me. U the New York Giants being one of them. So I have thought of that scenario. We are a very very long way away from it. I probably wouldn’t have them as my favorite right now. I think I would go with the Rams. Um but that depends on a lot of different things. Who would be your AFC darkh horse? And I you can’t count the Ravens even though they’re one and three because they’ll be in the mix still. I think if if Lamar is able to return within two or three weeks. Um I I wouldn’t say the Chiefs. Outside of Buffalo, KC and Baltimore, who’s your who’s the next team you like in the AFC? God, the AFC is a joke. I can you believe how bad it is? I think like the top two contenders are like Indie and the Chargers or maybe Denver. I was going I Denver crossed my mind because of their defense and I think this could be a year where when you look around let’s say they end up against Indianapolis in a playoff game. Well, they should have beat Indianapolis. They should really be three and one but they blew the missed field goal at the end of that game. Uh I’m not sure. I mean this does feel like a year where outside of Buffalo defense will dominate. I was going to throw out for Darkhorse. I mean, the Jaguars have a great defense. I’m probably not fully buying them. Maybe Houston for a dark horse. They’re one and three, but they have a plus 13 point differential. Maybe they can turn it around. This just feels It just feels like unless Josh Allen gets hurt, this AFC is decided. But maybe the Chargers is is the right thing. Maybe it’s an overreaction to one game where they lost in New York, but their O line is so beat up and Herbert Justin Kirk where he some nights looks like the best quarterback in the world and others he looks very limited. Um yeah, man. I mean I think I actually think the Have you ever said Justin Kirk before or would you come up with that right? No, it’s not not the first time. When they played uh when they played the Chargers, I probably said it 14 times that week. But is it is he not though? Is he not Justin Kirk where it’s like you’re he’s got a little more just like raw insane arm than But there there are some similarities I would say. Oh, physical talent is nowhere close. Yeah, there’s no competition. But when you look at kind of their careers, uh there’s a lot of similarities and how they’ll just fool you to thinking you’re they’re incredible and then you’re like what happened over that three four game stretch. So anyway, yeah, I would I guess I would have to pick the Chargers, but I want to throw out there Houston for just the idea that they might get some stuff figured out and then their defense is pretty amazing. But it is I think it’s wide open everywhere except for Buffalo because I’m not even fully sold on the idea that Philadelphia is just fine. I kind of don’t think that they are with the way that their offense is playing. So, lot going on in uh Roger Goodell’s National Football League. And uh you can find more Vikings coverage over there at Vikings on SI from Mr. Ragits. Will this was a a very lively version of Talk Me Into I kind of needed it. I needed a game. It’s been a little da around here. Yeah, I I enjoyed it. Um I think that they’re the vibes aren’t aren’t great. Uh they they could be better, but I I think it is far too early to panic over this Viking season. I think there’s a lot of fascinating stuff um still to happen and starts starts in London this week. So looking forward to that. Yeah, it’s a good point. They were two and two in 2019 2017. They won playoff games. Yep. Both years, but they were also three and three in 2021 when the wheels eventually came out. So, I think what we know is that we don’t know yet where this is going to go and uh it’s definitely only up from here in a lot of areas. So, thanks uh to Will uh Purple Insider presented again by FanDuel and uh we’ll catch you later, Will. Thanks for coming on, man. Football. Football. All right, we welcome into the show for her weekly segment Maggie Robinson, special contributor here to Purple Insider for the Robinson Rundown. And we actually have some news that we just got, which is where you’re going to begin. So, Maggie, welcome back. How we doing? And uh what what do we got here, Matthew? I’m doing well. Busy with school, but having a great time. And for the first time, maybe ever in my career here. Breaking news, dare I say, Joe Flacco has been benched after going one and three in the season and leading a team to no more than 17 points per game. Guess who’s up? Drum roll, please. Dylan Gabriel will be taking over as QB1 for the Browns. Well, I can’t say that it’s shocking considering the performance that Joe Flacco had last week against the Detroit Lions. I think that if you had told folks that the Cleveland Browns were benching their quarterback and a backup was going to start, you know, going into like right after the draft or something, you would have expected it to be Shadur Sanders. But Dylan Gabriel clearly better in training camp, preseason, earned the QB2 job when they’ve put Flaco on the bench a couple times in games. Gabriel has come in. So, it won’t be his first ever snap, but I do not I I mean, I don’t know if this is the right time to do this. I I I don’t feel great for Dylan Gabriel having to go against not only one of the best defenses in the NFL, one of the most confusing defenses in the NFL, and a team that should be highly, highly motivated to win this football game after what happened last week. So, at very least, Dylan Gabriel does get a running game with Quinnon Judkins now in there and performing pretty well. But their offensive line is a mess, their receivers are a mess, their franchise is a mess. This is not the easiest assignment in the world for someone to make their first start and it’s a home game that was taken away from Cleveland and moved to London. Other than that though, Dylan Gabriel, I wish you the best of luck, my friend. Just adding insult to injury, he’s actually the first quarterback ever to make his QB1 debut outside the US. So, that’s a cool stat he gets to claim, but probably not what he expected when he packed up for this trip. I would assume it. Yeah, I’m sure. And when uh you go through the list of quarterbacks for the Cleveland Browns, this is just another one. There’s a jersey that a guy made a few years ago with every name of the starting quarterbacks and it goes on and on like way past the jersey all the way to the ground. This is going to be another one to add. I will say that I kind of liked Dylan Gabriel coming out in the draft because if you go back to the way he played at Oregon, he’s got a pretty live arm. He could throw the football, but he’s not the biggest guy. He’s a decent athlete, but he’s not a better athlete than Jonathan Grenard and Dallas Turner and all the players that the Vikings have. The only thing about this game that scares you a little bit, and I just mean a little, is you don’t have any tendencies on the guy like you would have on many years of Joe Flacco playing in the NFL. And he probably won’t have to do a ton to give them a chance to win the game because they have one of the best defenses in the NFL. But Flacco was throwing the ball away, taking sacks like crazy. It was better for them to get him out. But I think this is always the sure sign that a coach is on the ropes when they’re throwing up the white flag. All right, throw in the kid and we’ll just see what happens. Uh, but this here even pushes it farther toward the Vikings of you have to win this football game because if you don’t beat Dylan Gabriel and his first ever start overseas with nothing around him, uh, then the season all of a sudden is going to feel like it’s going off the rails. That’s when you smash the panic button for sure. My one question for you, what’s something that you want to see from Dylan Gabriel that would solidify him as QB1 for you and what would leave the door open for Shadur? Well, I think uh as far as him solidifying this for the rest of the year, I mean, if he gives this defense a hard time, it’s one of the better defenses that would say a lot about him. I think if he gets rid of the ball quickly, I know that it’s a very simple thing, but these offenses are all supposed to be built on getting rid of the ball in two and a half seconds or less because after that, you can’t expect the offensive line to hold up, especially when it’s this bad. So, if he gets rid of the ball and can keep the train on the tracks at all, I mean, throw for 180 yards, a touchdown, no interceptions, don’t turn it over, don’t take too many sacks, that would be impressive given the circumstances if it wasn’t just a total meltdown. And as far as playing Shadur, I think that they would rather just the the vibe because I don’t cover that team, but just the feeling of this is I think they’d rather go back to Joe Flacco than let Shadur Sanders play. just seemed like uh after the way training camp and preseason went that they were just out on Shadur and then he makes comments last week about how he thinks he’s better than you know all these other quarterbacks in the NFL like bro you’re not even QB2 on your own team it’s another guy that was drafted in the same draft just uh a little bit clueless there from Shur Sanders I don’t think that that helped his case so I guess it would have to be probably Gabriel and Joe Flacco getting hurt for Shadur for Sanders to play. They drafted him, but it doesn’t seem like they’re huge fans of him. No. No. And the fact that they’re starting or they were starting the man with the second most picks in the league over Shar Sanders and he still had the guts to come out and say that. Read the room guy. This is not the time. You’re missing the mark. Well, and a QB3 shouldn’t be doing any interviews about himself anyway. I mean, that’s just a little backup quarterback 101 that when we talk to when Max Bromer was QB3, I mean, we’ll talk to him about making the team because he’s a local product and that kind of thing. But the only time you’re interviewing that player is if you got like a general football question or you’re asking him about the starting quarterback. Those are usually the only times that you hear from the backup. So, for him to be talking about himself, I’m sure got a lot of eye rolls in that building. But I I’ll at least say that with Dylan Gabriel, it adds some spice and intrigue to a game that I don’t know has a lot of juice overall. It has the lowest overunder for this entire NFL slate this week. So, at least there’s something interesting with someone that we’ve never seen before under center as a you know, it’s a new it’s a new element for sure. I want to move on though. I have a fun game for you. It is called legit or nah. I’m going to give you a few teams, give you their record, and you’re going to say, “Are they legit or nah?” Okay. You know, I think that this is evidence that you were paying attention during your internship because this is the exact type of game that I would come up with. So, let’s uh let’s fire it up. All right. Dallas one, two, and one, legit or not? Uh, I am going to go with Dak Prescott is legit, and they are going to be legit high entertainment all season long. I will go with not as far as a legitimate contender, a serious team for even the playoffs it looks like is going to be very hard. But this is the first time in a while where if I see Dallas on the national TV slate, which is a lot, I’m going to be like, “Okay, I want to see this because it could be 40 to 40.” Every game that they’ve played has been absolutely wild. So legitimately fun, not legitimately good. Jerry is pumping a fist in the air right now with that statement. That’s all he cares about. All right, Kansas City, two and two. Legit or nah? Well, I will go with legit for Kansas City. Uh there have been so many attempts over the last I don’t know how many years. Uh seven here or there. They have a downturn. They have a tough outing. They take have take a bad loss. They have to win games at the last minute last year. to write them off and say that Kansas City is done, but with Xavier Worthy in that lineup, they are completely different. And their performance against Baltimore was very, very impressive. And you look around the AFC, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of nah in the AFC. And I think that Buffalo is significantly better than Kansas City right now. But outside of that, they can play with pretty much anybody and they still have Patrick Mahomes. I’m going to go legit with Kansas City. Week seven, Richie Rice is coming back, too. So, they could be firing on more cylinders then. All right, next one. LA Chargers 3 and one. Legit or nah? I think legit, but a little bit in danger of going nah. Um, their passing game is taking a huge hit with their offensive line injuries. And Joe Alt is one of the best players in the league. He goes down along with Rashawn Slater missing him for the entire year. As Vikings fans know from watching these first couple weeks, when your O line goes into disarray, it’s really hard on just about everybody. So, I think the Chargers are a Super Bowl contender when they’re healthy. But if they’re not it, you saw it against the New York Giants and they can really, really struggle. And Justin Herbert, like every other quarterback in the world, when he’s under pressure from Abdul Carter on every play, it’s not so easy. So, I think that they are a legitimate contender. They need Joe Alt back. They need to be healthy up front and that ultimately last year was what got them in the playoffs. The offensive line issues could get them again, but I still think that they’re a good enough team to legitimately contend in the AFC. So, I will go legit. All right. I also go legit. My one point here, Herbert has been hit 47 times already this season. They got to figure out the pass production. They’re leaving this guy out to dry. That’s a lot of hits four weeks in. That’s crazy. Yeah, they’re right. I mean, no quarterback is going to enjoy that kind of pressure. So, they’re going to have to run the ball. They have good wide receivers. They have a good defense. Uh, but the health up front, it seems like that’s a theme throughout the entire NFL is if your O line is banged up or struggling, it’s going to be very hard to function with the way the defenses play today. Yeah. Final one here. Atlanta Falcons two and two. Legit or not? I wish there was like a like a middle sort of like can I make some other noise? Uh, I think that Atlanta, my initial read on them was that uh on a week- toeek basis, they are going to be the best and the worst depending on who knows what regression or randomness or whatever. They’re not going to be a team that every single week can show up and do what they did last week. Their quarterback relies on a lot of uh volatile things like throwing the ball downfield, throwing it into traffic, his accuracy. Michael Pennix can be a little bit up and down on the given week. So, I think they’re very volatile. I will go because of the division they play in, uh, the NFC South being not super special. They’ve got Carolina, they’ve got the Saints, the Bucks are banged up. Uh, I will say that they are legit, as in legit could make the playoffs. I don’t think I’m seeing them yet as a legit contender. You are not the only one confused by them. All the NFL writers I’ve been reading about are saying, “I don’t even know who the Falcons are to know how to grade them here.” So, they lost to Carolina and then this last week put together a phenomenal performance. They were great against the Vikings. They weren’t so great in week one. Uh truly an up and down team, but that’s kind of how nine and eight, eight n teams are throughout a given season. They’re not just, you know, losing every close game or something. It’s usually great one week and then not the next. I think that’s that’s the Atlanta Falcons. Yeah. All right. We talked about the Chargers. They just got handed their first loss of the season to none other than the New York Giants and Jackson Dart, who just saved his head coach. Another few weeks of his job, which I’m sure Brian Dable, as you could see, postgame, was over the moon, almost kissing his quarterback with how happy he was. What do you think of that debut performance from Jackson Dart? Well, I thought that it was just enough to win, but it it wasn’t spectacular in any way. It was kind of grindy and gritty and he loses Malik Neighbors halfway through the game. He got hit a bunch of times and I would be still quite concerned about that part of it is that he took a bunch of hits in the game. He ran a lot in order to win. It wasn’t like he was just dropping straight back and hitting pass after pass after pass after pass, which I give him tons of credit for the way that he found a way to win for a team that tends to not win very much, the New York Giants. But the number of hits that he took on, I think would be very concerning for a young player. He came out at one point, I think he was in the concussion tent and Russell Wilson had to come out. I mean, that’s some of those signs. That’s why with young quarterbacks, and we saw it with JJ McCarthy, it could be really difficult with the amount of violence that they have to take on. I’m a little concerned about that for him going forward. But aside from that, I mean, at least it makes the Giants watchable and interesting like a first round quarterback. Cam Scataboo is a ton of fun in the back field because before when Russell Wilson was playing, aside from that one crazy game against Dallas, I was just sad watching Russell Wilson trying to hang on to an NFL career. So now I kind of want to see what is going to be of Jackson Dart, but I wish he had Malik Neighbors to do it. That was terrible to see uh that injury to one of the best young wide receivers in the NFL. Absolutely awful there. And that honestly brings me to my next point. The turf versus grass debate. The turf monster at Metife taking more victims. Joe Alt and Malik Neighbors two in one day. ACL tear on Sunday. Let’s let’s look at the list of people who the turf monster at Metife has taken. Aaron Rogers, Wanda Robinson, Jaylen Phillips, Nick Bosa, Solomon Thomas, all injured at Metife on this turf. And it just brings up the question once again, why is the NFL not putting grass on all their fields? And there’s different studies that the NFL PA will reference and that big NFL will reference and they are not the same and they do not have the same conclusions. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s the hard part about it is trying to figure out I is this a real thing or is this just football? Because, you know, you look at the Aaron Rogers play where he gets injured and it’s the same Achilles injury that we saw from Kevin Durant or Jason Tatum or any player. You see this all the time. It happened with Austin Eckler on grass where the player tries to make kind of a sharp cut and the the leg ankle goes at a certain angle and then just the Achilles snaps and nobody really knows exactly how why or whatever. And some of that probably goes along with age for Aaron Rogers having it happen or Nick Bosa has a ton of mileage on his body. It’s really tough to figure out because I mean the Vikings have turf and you saw some players tear ACL’s for the Vikings. Delvin Cook, Mike Hughes, a first round pick for them and then over the last couple years they’ve had like a really good record of health playing at US Bank Stadium and not too many of these turf related injuries. I I don’t know any world where you’re playing on a surface where you don’t slide around or that it’s not going to have different I mean is it safer to play in Chicago where you step on the grass and your foot just slides three feet like I I don’t know if that’s if that’s better. I guess in that way I would need a legitimate scientific study to try to figure out not just the number of injuries because that seems like that could be very random but also how they were caused exactly like what happened on the play because I mean when I look at Malik Neighbors I’m like did the turf cause that like I don’t know I don’t know because ACL’s tear all the time in sports in every sport they tear in soccer they tear in basketball they tear constantly in the NFL. I I tend to think that it’s just something the players clearly prefer is to play on grass, but I don’t know if there’s an obvious connection where we could say, “All right, everyone has to get grass on their fields.” Yeah. And then I will say the one thing I remember hearing when I was inside the building was that there’s a ton of other events going on at all of these NFL stadiums and it’s not actually viable to have grass. Metife is hosting so many concerts, so many other things in addition to also being a football stadium that it’s not really feasible. And I know that the haters are going to be like, “But the FIFA World Cup is coming and they’re putting in grass.” Yes, they are. They’re also funding it and it’s FIFA. And the amount of money that they have for this World Cup, I think far surpasses what the NFL is willing to do every year after year. This is like a one in every four year event. So, it just it puts it in perspective a little bit. But I know that’s always the argument people come back with is like, “Well, the World Cup is bringing grass in.” Yes, but Well, it’s also not your lawn. It’s not the easiest thing to even get that right of the grass. I mean, because we’ve seen all sorts of different grass related the Super Bowl where everybody was sliding around with the Chiefs and Eagles in 2022. That became a circus in itself with the players not able to get proper grip, which I can’t think is better. I mean, I understand maybe falling on it is better. I but again I we’re just trying to kind of guess at this but it’s not so easy. It’s not like we’ll just grow the grass, just slide it in. It’s fine. I think there’s a lot more to it than that. Um but until there’s concrete evidence of this, it seems like something we’re just going to hear players continue to say. I think there’s something to that for the wear and tear overall. And if every stadium has turf, uh maybe it’s harder, but it’s not it’s they have really good turf these days. Yeah. I mean, they have it inside the Vikings facility and we walk on. I mean, it’s like walking on grass. So, I don’t know. I don’t I don’t think that the commissioner in the NFL is ever going to just throw up its hands and be like, “Nope, we’re good. We’re going to grow grass everywhere.” I don’t think that’s going to happen. No, not going to happen. Not going to happen. What could happen, Brian Callahan could get fired? Oops. Is that it? He’s in the hot seat. That’s not a shocker. It’s been the Brian recently. We had Brian Dable. He was on the edge till Jackson Dart came and save him, but I don’t think anyone’s saving Brian Callahan from this 0 and4 Titans team. It’s his second season, but he’s just done so poorly here. He’s already passed off play calling to his quarterback’s coach. I feel like he’s in over his head to be honest with you. That’s what it reads to me. I 100% agree. I think that if you’re going to have a young quarterback, then you have to have a coach who has some experience before. If you’re going into a situation where the team is likely to be terrible. If you’re going into a situation where it’s likely to be a good team with a young quarterback, maybe that can work out because you can have veteran players. Kind of like when Shawn McVey took over the Los Angeles Rams and Jared Goff was young, he had all sorts of veterans that they had put on that team to help him as a head coach guide through it. But when you’re a first timer and you are handed Will Levvice who couldn’t play and now Cam Ward who’s clearly very raw, you watch him. I mean, he I don’t think is one of those rhythm and timing quarterbacks. He’s an out of structure playmaker. He’s trying to go out there and whip the ball all over the place. That makes it even harder for a coach. And seeing a little bit of his press conferences, he’s just kind of he’s cracking. And even for the first week when they lost, he didn’t know the rules on a play. and then he sort of claimed he did, but it was obvious that he didn’t, otherwise he would have challenged. And then they’ve botched all the easy basic stuff. Uh, and when they were playing the Vikings last year, there was some call that went against him that he lost his mind and just completely cracked up. And I thought, I don’t know if you’re fit for this, if that’s how you’re going to handle it. And I know coaches get upset, but he just over the top and looked like he got completely flustered. I think that that’s that job’s a little much for him and they probably need to get an experienced coach. But there’s no saving the Titans. I mean, that team is so so lacking in talent. They are I mean, usually in the NFL, everybody is one or two years away, a good free agency, a good draft, and you’re almost there. I don’t know the answer. They have like three players that you’d go forward with. So, it’s it’s a tough scene. They’re in a really hard position. And I genuinely don’t know what the move is there and how you rebuild from this low. Who if they fire Brian Callahan, who do you think they’re bringing in? Is there anyone you have your eye on? Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, it’s funny because he was kind of connected in some way to the whole uh McVey scheme and everybody always trying to hire everyone that knows Shawn McVey and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t I don’t have a I don’t know who wants the job. That’s one of the issues, right, is like, yeah, there are going to be good head coaching candidates that are out there, but is anybody going to want to come there with the the stadium is falling apart and it doesn’t seem like the ownership has much of a clue? You’re also uh how many GMs deep since they I was about to say Ran Carin got the boot, right, in January. Now they have Mike Boronzi. So, also that’s a weird dynamic of like this GM who didn’t come in at the same time as the head coach and there’s friction there. It’s just a lot of baggage to want to say yes to. And I know people were looking at Carolina and saying like, “Oh, who are they going to? This feels worse than the Carolina situation in my mind.” Yeah, I think Carolina they have some things to work with, but I think the quarterback just ain’t it. I I think Bryce Young, we’ve got a big enough sample size to say now. He’s just not going to be a winning NFL quarterback. Uh, but at least they’ve got some building blocks there to to go forth into the future. If they get a quarterback, I think they’d be like a 500 team. Uh Tennessee, I don’t know who’s playing for them short of Josh Allen that’s going to win a lot of games there. And who’s going to want to take a head coaching job for a team that has so little talent and such instability at the top because they had a longtime GM, they had Mike Vrabel and they blow those guys out and like, well, hasn’t exactly gone too good since that happened. So, your poor Tennessee Titans in peril once again. It’s It’s a bummer to be a Titans fan. And I’m gonna leave you on that pessimisticness. Okay, let me thanks for having me. Let me ask you real quick. Uh, are the Vikings legit or nah? Listen, I think the Vikings kind of fall in that hazy in between where you didn’t really know what sound to give them. You’re like, that’s where the Vikings are like there’s like an inflection up there. So, like, yeah, there’s there’s potential. We love a team with potential. However, we just thought coming into this that they were going to hit the ground running. They had full Arsenals, backups ready, locked and loaded, and it just has not played out that way. And so, I think they just really need to get their act together. If they lose this game against the Browns and Dylan Gabriel, I’m sorry. That’s when I’m I’m really panicking. And as as a contributor here, I’m like, “Oh, boy. This is a rough season.” We haven’t gotten there yet and I don’t want to predict the future. So, I’m gonna wait and see on that game, but uh given how this weekend goes, that could be very telling. I totally agree. I’m making the same noise almost every show. You could see it turning around, but it’s going to have to happen. And uh this week it really has to happen against the Cleveland Browns with Dillian Gabriel starting. Maggie Robinson uh every week on Tuesday gives us a rundown of what’s going on around the NFL and I thought that can you give me like 30 seconds on who Bad Bunny is because do you know I saw he’s doing the Super Bowl and some for some reason controversial not my area but I was like congratulations to Mr. Bunny. I feel good about that for him. I don’t know him, but good. Cool. All right. So, as resident young person on this show, Bad Bunny is a Puerto Rican artist who sings in Spanish and has like hit songs. We’re talking like millions of downloads and has been really big in spreading Spanish language rap in like popular mainstream music. And you’re probably wondering, okay, why is he at the Super Bowl? And I will tell you as someone who is inside the league, the push for international is huge. And when I say huge, I mean they are trying to cover every single aspect of that. So if they can get an artist who bridges the gap with international audiences in a bunch of different countries, massive. That brings a bunch of audiences to the NFL who might not be watching it and that’s why they’re making these decisions is because this aligns with all their strategic outcomes for international strategy. And also he’s very well known. I understand he’s not the typical football demographic, but it’s part of their push to try to grow youth and Latin audiences and this is like right on the nose for that. Okay. Well, I’m I’m interested. I’ll watch it and uh that’s a long time from now. But I would also say just to everybody, this is always my message about things like this. You don’t need to be mad about stuff that you don’t need to be mad about. Like if you don’t like this music, then you don’t have to watch it. It’s totally cool. They’re going to play the second half. I promise you. I’ll watch the dude. I don’t know his stuff. Uh maybe I’ll give it a listen and see if I like it, but like if you’re if you don’t like it, it’s cool. Like just move on. It’s fine. So, uh All right. Well, thank thank you though for that information. You’re like, “Yeah, he’s like the most popular guy on earth and you don’t really know.” I’m like, “Oh, well, no big deal.” I’m I’m shockingly only in touch with the Chargers offensive line and not the pop music. So anyway, Maggie Robinson, contributor here on Purple Insider, thank you so much as always for stopping by and thank you all for listening. Thank you. Football. Football.

Will Ragatz of Bring Me The Sports/Vikings On SI joins the show to discuss the Vikings’ current QB situation and if the team has to bring back J.J. McCarthy no matter what following the bye week? Then, Maggie Robinson joins the show for the weekly Robinson Rundown!

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