- 6 hours ago
Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase are joined by Matthew Coller, Vikings reporter with Purple Insider to take a look at the Bills and Vikings Monday Night Football game. The guys start off by discussing why many in Minnesotta are not feeling good about the team despite the strong 6-1 record. Then the guys discuss the issues for the offense, examining both QB Kyler Murray and HC Kevin O’Connell’s role in the struggles. They also discuss what has made the Vikings defense so dominant this season.
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00:00We're going to talk Vikings with Matthew Collar of Purple Insider, author of
00:06Football's a Numbers Game, covers the Vikings at Purple Insider, and former
00:10morning show producer extraordinaire, alumni of WGR. He's on the Western
00:14Hotline. Mr. Collar, good morning. Oh, what's going on? How are you? Matthew, you
00:20and I talked yesterday on your show, and you painted a picture for me. I've been
00:24kind of teasing this, that in Minnesota, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. The
00:29clip we played right there as well. They're 6-1, and people are upset, it
00:34seems. No, they are 1-6. That's the way it feels. You know, because you were
00:41saying on my show that for the Bills, this is like another football game, and
00:45people are excited to watch a Monday night football game, but if you lose the
00:49game, the expectations are the same. I mean, I'm sure people will be angry
00:54because it's a football game, but it's like January is when the season starts
00:57for the Buffalo Bills. This game is so enormous for the Minnesota Vikings in
01:03terms of the urgency, the tension in the building, how it feels, because if you
01:09lose this game and it goes really badly, it is going to feel like the wheels are
01:14coming completely off. And I know that seems strange when you're 6-1, but when
01:19you're 6-1 and you have basically the worst offense in the entire NFL, throwing the
01:24ball and running the ball, it doesn't really feel like 6-1 is going to turn
01:29into 13-4 or turn into, you know, holding the Lombardi trophy at the end of the
01:35year. And, you know, Vikings fans have been through this a bunch of times. You go
01:39back to 2024, during the entire season, everyone's debating, are you really for
01:44real with Sam Darnold? When's he going to turn into a pumpkin? And then, you know, he
01:48did. And in 2022, they were a 13-win team, and you remember they beat the Bills, and
01:53everyone said, oh, they're serious Super Bowl contenders now. And the next week, they
01:57got blown out, and they end up losing to Daniel Jones and the New York Giants in
02:00the first round. So, you know, there's the guy who did the Peanuts cartoon of
02:06Charlie Brown, you know, having the football pulled out. He's from Minnesota. So, like,
02:11this has happened many times that there has been these seasons where you get a hot
02:15stretch, and everybody feels like, oh, it's going great, but there's always kind of an
02:19asterisk, and the offense playing this poorly, you're not going to find a team that had a
02:23lot of success. I mean, even the Denver Broncos for 2015, where Peyton Manning was throwing
02:28an interception every pass, I was looking that up yesterday. They were still top 20 in yards
02:33offensively. I mean, you just can't win with 260 yards per game. So, if they don't get turned
02:39around, they also play the Packers next, the 49ers next. Like, collapse feels like it's right
02:45around the corner. So, this is really a huge game for them to show that that's not what's
02:50going to happen this season. Packers, Niners, even then Falcons, Panthers, Patriots. So,
02:56who knows? You know, Matthew, is the phrase quarterback whisperer, you're not allowed to
03:02say that anymore out there? I mean, Kevin O'Connell got a lot of credit for being that,
03:05and now, is it over? Did I tell you on the show yesterday how many games it's been since
03:11they had 400 yards? Did I tell you that? Of total offense? Total offense? Total offense,
03:16400 yards. Okay. Ooh. Got a guess? Is it more than a full year? I'm sure it is. 26. 26
03:26games
03:26since they've gone for 400 yards. I mean, for a lot of teams in the league, that's close to what
03:31your average is. Oh, we had a really decent game. We got to 400 yards, and the Vikings haven't been
03:36there since week 17 of 2024. So, I don't think that after Sam Darnold goes elsewhere and wins
03:44the Super Bowl, J.J. McCarthy doesn't work out, and Kyler Murray is playing the worst football of his
03:50life, that Kevin O'Connell is being called the whisperer of anything. And, you know, I mean,
03:54the real concern is this, that with O'Connell's offense, that it is a poor fit for Murray, but not
04:02only that, but also, like, have defenses figured it out? Have they found answers for it? And is it
04:08too complex for what defenses are doing these days? I mean, you see it from Flores, but what? Flores
04:14isn't the only one in the universe that's mugging the A-gaps and that is changing the coverages post-snap.
04:21And I think a lot of us have wondered, like, can the quarterback, with the amount of pressure that's
04:26coming quickly, with the amount of blitzes that teams are sending, and then also with the amount of
04:31changing coverages, like, can quarterbacks get to the stuff that he wants them to get to? Because
04:36on tape, always, if you freeze it, you're like, well, Kyler should have just thrown it to Justin
04:42Jefferson there. But then I was watching Kurt Warner break this down on YouTube, and Kurt's basically
04:47like, do you understand how hard that is? Like, that would have been hard for Kurt Warner, the best
04:52quarterback frickin' ever. And, like, Kyler Murray is not the best quarterback frickin' ever.
04:57So it felt like, for a couple of games sample, this is a weird thing, where they had guys missing,
05:03that they simplified stuff because they were missing Jefferson or missing Jordan Addison,
05:07and Kyler played really well. And then they got their full group of receivers back, and it was
05:12almost like, all right, full offense back in, and Murray has really struggled with it. So I think that
05:17there's fingers being pointed just about everywhere. Not only that, but if they could have run the ball
05:22decently against the Lions, they would have won. And they overhauled their entire run scheme,
05:27and it's gotten, like, vastly worse with basically the same players. So, yeah, there's a lot of people
05:32looking at Kevin O'Connell going, dude, would you even have a job if it wasn't for Brian Flores? I
05:37mean,
05:37I think that he's a great culture coach, and he has been a great offensive coach, but the sample size
05:43just keeps growing and growing and growing for him and his offense and his quarterbacks,
05:49like, looking paralyzed out there. And, you know, the big issue that I've had forever with O'Connell's
05:55offense is, if you look up since he came into the league, they're top five in the number of sacks
05:59allowed. Kyler Murray has never been a quarterback that gets sacked a lot, and now he's at the top of
06:04the league. Sam Darnold's got sacked 47 times under O'Connell and 27 times under Clint Kubiak. So I do
06:11think there's a lot of, hey, is this working anymore, and can you make the adjustments that are
06:16needed because Kyler should be able to play better than this? Is there a fear too, Matt, that, like,
06:22with all this O'Connell stuff, that he's standing next to Flores, who is getting so much credit
06:27everywhere, deservedly so, for what that defense is doing, that, I don't know, if I'm a Vikings fan,
06:32I feel like I would be worried I'm about to lose Flores to another team, and I'm going to still
06:36run
06:36with O'Connell. What's that going to look like? Yeah, you know, that conversation is really muddied by
06:42the fact that Flores is suing the league, and, you know, the more that, the more, the law, or the
06:47longer that goes, the more that stuff is going to come out probably, and already a little bit has
06:52trickled out that doesn't make some teams look very good. So, like, I don't, I don't know that
06:57the owners who, you know, were willing to blackball a quarterback not that long ago are going to say,
07:02hey, you're the face of our franchise again for Brian Flores. But, you know, the conversation is
07:08really, if this doesn't turn around and you have a collapse, like, you might be talking about sliding
07:13Brian Flores over to the head coaching position, because you've just gone so long since your
07:20offense has looked competent, and truly, if Flores was not the cream of the crop and had not built this
07:26behemoth defense over the last two years, I mean, if you even had an average defense, this team would
07:31have, like, four wins since Sam Darnold left, because that's about as many times as they've played
07:37competently on offense. So, yeah, I mean, there is so much pressure, and Justin Jefferson not talking
07:43to the media is very unusual. I wrote about it. You know, Alec Lewis wrote about it. It's like,
07:47that's, that is one of those signs of the apocalypse type of things, and it's kind of like when the
07:54tsunami is coming, and, you know, in the movie, and they show one of the scientists going, like,
07:59sir, look at this. Like, that's, that's where we're at right now.
08:03Are we at the, are we at the water is water receding, retreating, so that means you've got
08:07to get away? Yeah. The, the, the birds, you know, they disappear. It goes quiet. Like,
08:14that's where it really feels like that right now, and there, the thing is, there are answers,
08:20and you can see them, you know, on paper that there are answers. Kyler is the most accurate
08:24underneath quarterback in the NFL. He has scrambled well. They should be able to run the ball better
08:30than they have, but they've got to find them, and they're playing a team that PFF ranks as the 31st
08:36worst team in coverage, so it really does have to be this week.
08:41Matthew, with regard to Brian Flores' defense, he's the toast of the league with how much he's blitzing.
08:47Are we going to see that again against Josh Allen? I mean, Allen has had success against the Brian
08:51Flores' defense in Miami several times, but of course, like, not the same personnel. What about this
08:57defense and the way they've been calling it is, is made it what it is? Yeah, I mean, it's really
09:03their, their base idea is we're going to send five people, and so, of course, at least five people,
09:09and maybe more, but, so, of course, like, all the data for those is built around sending more than
09:14four, being a blitz, but it's really much more complicated than that, because if you just used
09:19engage eight on Madden and just sent everybody every single play, like, obviously, it wouldn't work.
09:24It's really about everything is deception and creating certain matchups, so Dallas Turner,
09:30for example, is number one in the NFL for one-on-one matchups, and he's their best pass rusher,
09:35so the way that they do it is they put everybody at the line of scrimmage, and they're going to
09:40rush
09:40five, but you don't know which five out of seven players at the line of scrimmage, so you end up
09:46with teams trying to use extra tight ends, teams trying to use their running backs, and what happens
09:52is, especially up the middle, they'll have both linebackers start to blitz, and then one of them
09:57will drop back into coverage, so they'll both take a step forward, and one will drop back into
10:01coverage, but you don't know which one, and you don't know where he's headed in coverage, so a lot
10:05of teams, of course, have their hot routes and their ideas for how they're going to deal with the
10:09pressure, and a lot of that is, like, quick passes, right? But they know where your quick passes are
10:14going to go, so Andrew Van Ginkle will line up super wide, and he's picked off a number of these
10:19bubble screens, you know, he did it a couple times in 2024, he's been very close a couple
10:24of times, so then teams are like, okay, we can't do that, because Van Ginkle's picking off these
10:28bubble screens, so we're going to go slants, well, then, you know, Blake Cashman or Eric
10:33Wilson, they get in those lanes where they're going to throw slants behind them, so they have
10:38kind of taken this idea, they even hired a former quarterback to help them with this, they've
10:42taken this idea of how would the quarterback deal with this particular pressure, where would
10:46they go with it, and then we're going to put a guy there while we send extra pressure,
10:51and it's just very, very difficult to deal with. Now, last week, the Lions put big tight
10:56ends in, and they put a couple of them in the backfield at times to try to, like, slower
11:01identify and not have their running back just get beat to heck, so there's ideas that teams
11:06have tried, but, you know, Jared Goff still threw for 175 yards against this team, so there's
11:12no way they're changing, like, they're going to continue to send these pressures, but
11:15they're so different every week, and they're so based on what the offense is doing, like,
11:20they adjust at the line of scrimmage, they communicate with each other, hey, they're
11:24in this formation, we're going to do this, we've identified this coverage on tape, we're
11:28going to go with that, so it's really like this moving amoeba thing that you can't really
11:33figure it out or scheme against it, because it'll change the next week.
11:38Finally, Matthew, before we let you go, this is going to be what feeds families for the next
11:41year. If they peter out, fall apart, you think the coach could get fired? Is that rebuild
11:48status? Is that what? I mean, there's a recent GM change, what I'm getting to is, you know,
11:54this is the tsunami, these are the events that happened before one of the league's best
11:59receivers says, I don't want to be around here for this.
12:02Yeah, 100%. I mean, this is what it looks like, and not only is this what it looks like from
12:07a,
12:07like, personal perspective of Justin Jefferson wants to, at the end of the day, have the most
12:14receiving yards, most touchdowns, most, you know, that's his goal, like, of all time. Like,
12:19no one's going to catch Jerry Rice, but, like, that's his, that's who he is chasing. He wants a
12:23Hall of Fame jacket, he wants a Super Bowl ring, like, he views himself in that upper, upper echelon
12:29of NFL players, and when you are not even on pace to get to 1,000 yards, right, and if
12:34he doesn't get
12:34there, like, that would be incredibly embarrassing for this team and for him. Like, he would be, I
12:40think, apoplectic if that happened, and his contract is really set up to, he's not affordable if the
12:48Vikings don't do an extension with him. You know how they do this, right? They kick it down the road
12:52and down the road, and then you get to the time when the guy's really expensive with his salary cap
12:56hit, and then you do an extension. That's the cheat code, right? But if the guy doesn't want
13:00to do an extension, that's how you end up with superstars getting traded. That's why we see it
13:04more than we ever used to before. So it is lining up to, if this goes sour and they totally
13:12collapse
13:12and Jefferson's numbers go to hell, I mean, he could very much go in and say, I'm done being a
13:19Minnesota Viking, you have to trade me somewhere. And I think somewhere the model's pretty good for
13:24sending a Viking superstar wide receiver to Buffalo with the best quarterback in the NFL.
13:29So, I mean, I think teams would obviously be lining up for Justin Jefferson, but it just
13:34shows you when I say that they're a six and one team that feels like one and six, like
13:38that's why this is a superstar player. And this is a market that lost Garnett, that lost Randy
13:44Moss, that lost Stephon Diggs, you know, the Minneapolis miracle guy, all because their teams couldn't
13:50get over the hump. And it feels like that's coming again. So that's what I mean. Like, this
13:55is, this is a big couple of weeks here to start getting him involved, to get in the playoffs,
13:59to be a serious contending team, because if that doesn't happen, then I don't think Justin
14:04Jefferson's going to be here. Matthew Collar, Purple Insider. Thanks, Matthew.
14:10Anytime, man. Thank you. Enjoy the game. Monday Night Football, Bills and Vikings. Feels like the
14:15Bills are about to end the Viking season, right? They're six and one. And like the inside is,
14:19it's crazy. It feels like it's ready to fall apart because of how bad the offense has been.
14:25803-0550. More trade deadline chatter. We've got shots of audio to get you next hour as well.
14:30Jeremy and Joe here on WGR.