Episode 616: General Kirk-iness

0:00What good to know is code the number one podcast for your Minnesota Vikings. I am your host producer. My name is James Pagaschenig. Thank you guys so much for listening. We're going to get the other end of the team can it's string we have our analyst and co host. You know him from numerous blogs and podcasts around the internet most notably from wide left dot football and today's jam baroo. Yeah. He is Mr. useful human. Arif Hassan Arif. I had to watch the game on mute after good. And right around the time that L Michaels is starting to do PR work for for Dishon Watson and going we all know what he was accused of like I just I couldn't in a game of Aaron

1:03Rogers versus Dishon Watson the mute button one. Yeah. No, that makes sense because you don't want the Aaron Rogers glazing that is bad that feels bad. And then you have the Dishon Watson rehabilitation project which oh boy that so it started and I missed a good chunk of this. So it was mostly. Reminding the people were talking about and seeing some comments on it but it started with the interview with the shot Watson. The kind of dance around the allegations put forth by believe 27 women that he's actually are engaged in sexual miscontact because of ranges from sexual harassment to stuff that's more damning than sexual harassment. And they just kind of dance around that and they were like yeah that's been kind of rough huh. And he's like yeah but you know I'm going to be good at football so we'll be fine.

2:05And then they basically said that on the broadcast like yeah if you could vote it up third down which in a sense and if if you if Kirk or C. You can't frame to this like a criticism it would make sense like in a sense that is like kind of true right like Ben Rothisberger did kind of get away with it right. But like he was just like yeah man just win games you're good you're fine. If you do that was a bad broadcast. That was uncomfortable. Yeah when when Aaron Rogers has the moral high ground on you. Yeah. That's this is one that really tested my like my personal annoyance with a person is making me visibly react to them more than my recognition abstractly and objectively that this person is evil right like I I see the shot Watson on the screen I'm revolved I see Aaron Rogers on the screen I start dry heaving and it's like well they should

3:06be those reactions should be the other way around it significantly more severe for Watson. But it's just like man if you're like a bad hang and always on my TV I am going to react you more says maybe something about the human condition or just about me but man Aaron Rogers absolutely has the high on equifically not even close has the high ground. That's that's disgusting and with that discussed welcome to this episode of North code hope you guys are all doing well apologies for missing Mondays recording I was a zombie after the wedding this last weekend thank you guys so much for those who have said nice words and one of you found my registry and sent me a whole bunch of baddish stuff I'm not complaining I just thought it was funny so thank you for that really appreciate it but we have a little we have some news it turns out to go over while we were gone the Vikings traded Jay

4:07Jim McCarthy and the Vikings beat the box so one of these is more ugly than the other I would frame them both as a success yeah yeah well we'll talk about that we also have a preview of the dolphins game as well we won't go super in depth on the box game it's old news now but and then we also have the mail bag but before we start again thank you guys so much for listening to Norse code if you enjoy the show and would like to help us out financially a couple of different ways you can do that patreon.com slash Norse code for $3.50 a month to get access to bonus episodes and the discord we have a couple people to thank here Amos Powellson thank you so much Keesh Brandell I want to hope that's correct Nick and Andrew again thank you guys for signing up over on patreon we really do appreciate it you can also go to paypal.com.com on a me slash Norse code for a one-time donation or you can go to Norse code dot threadless.com for any number of wonderful pieces of Norse code merchandise including your helig stuff if you

5:12are going to helig and want to just you know get more of that helig experience check out the hats and the shirts and whatnot it is they are still absolutely glorious I do need to pick one of those up at some point if for no other reason than to immortalize this horrible thing I have created the punters league is amazing yeah oh my gosh I mean I'm one and two and I'm still enjoying myself it's so good it's so dumb it's very dumb it's it's I love ESPN trying to quantify their beliefs as to how many points of hunter is going to get it's just like and they're so off dude it's amazing they're like yeah I think I don't know 200 points maybe it doesn't want to go over to 50 meanwhile you'll get a kicker with 800 yeah of course amazing all right let's get into the

6:15episode itself and the first thing we should talk about is Jay Jay McCarthy being traded to the giants for a fifth round pick the rumor had been going strong all off season that McCarthy could potentially be traded the giants were definitely a target they're a potential landing spot you could say to me this does still feel a bit like when Carson Wentz got picked up from the Colts over to the commanders at a time when it was pretty clear that he was going to get cut they still ended up like offering him something for it it feels a bit like that to me but yeah well I mean the Vikings weren't gonna cut McCarthy they made that pretty clear and I think earlier in the off season they wanted a better price for him didn't get it so they were able to trade him away for a fifth actually this caused a bunch of annoyance so I was supposed to be on the road by the time

7:20this happened I wasn't there was still I was in a coffee shop at Grand Forks I think it's uh was it called like bully something like that oh bully brua yeah actually awesome the outlets everywhere really good vibe they were playing a bunch of music actually okay side note I know we're already off track but I walk in it's a bunch of old people and like ah is this not for me it's at internet cafe on the outside which is a weird thing to say because like we don't use that phrase in the United States that often look the 2000s hit us in 2015 yeah so I walk in it's a bunch of old people like that's in the middle of the day okay maybe that makes sense whatever I walk up and as expected it's a zoomer maybe a gen alpha barista which is fine right uh she's wonderful she answers a couple of questions I have about you know the drinks on offer I order a drink um and then they start playing music engineered just for me it was like a bunch of millennial like when I was in high school in college music I said who is this there's still like whoever is running the music here clearly

8:23is like the manager that I just haven't seen yet that is like my age what is going on yeah so wonderful experience so I'm in this coffee shop I'm finishing up my piece about James Winston for the Guardian it's like my first piece for the Guardian I'm really excited about it uh and I just the news that they just traded for JJ McCarthy like what uh so the editor who accepted my pitch for this james piece was like uh what do we do about this and I was like I I don't think you'll say it's JJ McCarthy there's no way he starts so I ended up having to do like another hour of like checking and research and contacting people the giants uh who who cover the giants not with the giant organization um till like get a good read unlike if he's expected to start anytime soon and and no he's not harba has made very clear that james winces it starts so I could go ahead with my piece but it was like a very annoying thing that had occurred right as I had basically written all

9:24but like four or five sentences of my piece on Winston so that was annoying but that that piece went out everyone hated it it was a success so um I was like this close to like to text him being like so I'm assuming that you're you're out of your hotel you if you need a place to write something about the JJ McCarthy why don't you just come over for a bit I got to day off no I I found a great coffee shop so we were good but uh by who's like I'm not writing about the JJ McCarthy I'm not writing about the Vikings this week at all I've got so much on my plate because of the defector because of this uh there's another podcast I was on that probably releasing the same time this one releases um we're very busy week for me in in all the best ways uh except for some reason I was in grand forks the whole weekend which did interrupt my productivity I I I apologize but here we are yeah the one time I'm actually responsible for something yeah yeah one time he's

10:26legitimately is blaming me no uh so the trade competition for the Vikings the tweets I saw when I retweeted it the tweets in my replies were basically like oh my god I can't believe we got so much which is like a fifth round pick it's not that much or we couldn't get more and it's just it's like interesting right that people had pretty strong reactions in both directions which would maybe suggest it was the right compensation I would argue given how poorly McCarthy played and given that there have been reports like in like it Alec Lewis and Kevin C. Fert articles about how difficult McCarthy was to work with like basically locker room stuff right given all of that I am surprised they got as much as a fifth round pick to me that was a little high in which case good job no lentisley uh it does kind of bring up the awkward like hey so you're doing this right

11:28after Kyler was like out for a game in three quarters like interesting timing that uh because the backup is not like a famously healthy backup right uh so curious but like you know hey if you're it was the gym sorghi quote right we don't we don't practice after right um but uh but like yeah sure Max pros and res in you're probably giving it and it doesn't even matter it seems like you'd win games by getting a hundred offensive yards so sure uh but yeah I think that that was the right move for the Vikings I think it probably is the right move for J. Jim McCarthy um you know kind of the classic uh cliche basically at this point like just needs a new environment but I think there's a lot head didn't kind of built up in terms of um kind of the mental drain of being attached to what's gone on in Minnesota so having a new place is probably a good place to be so uh good for everybody if McCarthy succeeds from here it's always gonna look

12:30but I think you could very effectively make the argument that uh if McCarthy had stayed here wouldn't succeed if he leaves he would succeed so there's no way to win um so I think this was a good trade I don't think you'll get a lot for fifth run pick you're not gonna get a chuck them in every single year not gonna get a Stefan digs every single year um or it's in England dockins by the way another fifth run pick that's doing well um but you got a shot and uh I think that you're more likely to get more done with the fifth run pick than you are with J. Jim McCarthy yeah this is uh this is a good thing for everyone uh except Kevin O'Connell who sounded like he got out voted oh uh I mean he sounded pretty upset for sure um I don't know that that he like lost a battle here I think that he was probably on board but it just was painful for him he sounded pretty like emotionally attached to this so yeah I uh I think that he's

13:34emotions were pretty real not that I think he's really good at like faking emotions he's good at faking not having them so the fact that it was a pretty clearly emotional presser for him um I think tells us a lot I would I would say that he probably signed on and realized it was the best move but it does hurt and I assume I I'm gonna say I'm gonna try to be generous here I'm gonna say like 90% of it is just his relationship with J. Jim McCarthy I'm gonna guess maybe 10% is probably like yeah but I'm the quarterback I could have fixed them you know there is an acceptance of failure in that especially with like the way that it's been played up that your whole thing is rehab in quarterbacks or or developing quarterbacks or developing people for offenses and here is a glaring example of something that just didn't end up working out yeah I think so and I think that very often we we criticize GM's like we've criticized Spillman for this before by we I mean like as a Vikings fan base um I'm sure you and I have done it but again I famously don't

14:39remember what is in podcasts um but we we criticized GM's and specifically have criticized Spillman for not letting go of players who are clearly failures that they've they've kind of been attached to like they either ones that drafted them or signed them or something like that especially drafted and uh obviously you know you know you're crazy is not here no lentisi made the decision but I think we like we know that Kevin O'Connell played an enormous role in selecting J.J. McCarthy and in fact back when we were optimistic again I mean that like broadly as a fan base when the fan base when the beat when the Vikings were optimistic about J.J. McCarthy we saw like these PR pieces that suggested we should buy into McCarthy because Kevin O'Connell had bought in and was a critical key decision maker right because like the quote I believe it was ESPN I could have been the athletic but the quote was Kevin O'Connell is known in the building as the QB killer right and he's eliminating all

15:40of these quarterbacks that don't meet his incredibly high standards he's only gonna let the Vikings draft the best possible quarterback and he always kills these discussions and he didn't kill the discussion for J.J. McCarthy they didn't want Bo next he didn't have upside which I would argue is true but it does look bad in retrospect um and they wanted uh J.J. McCarthy they knew that they could mold and so like you can't have it both ways you can't put out all of this PR about how we should buy into J.J. McCarthy because of how important Kevin O'Connell was to the decision and then not blame him for getting J.J. McCarthy into the building right I think that they they very much you know took advantage of the fact that they had a fall guy in the chose Kevin O'Connell over Quessio dofumetsa which I guess I'd make that choice too but it did kind of suck for him that he got blamed for a decision that I don't think he made made a bunch of other bad decisions maybe enough to get fired so it's not that big of a deal but like yeah that's

16:46that's pretty big that one of the key decision makers in the building was probably involved in the decision to let go of him which is a good thing um but yeah we uh I think Vikings fans will be watching that career play out Vikings fans watched Teddy's career play out which obviously it wasn't like a huge he didn't start a bunch of games or anything like that uh they briefly kept track of crocuses after he left right which again wasn't that big it did fizzle out they briefly kept track of case Keenam with the Broncos um and again with the Bears hell yeah let's go home but it was that was fun to both fun and annoying to watch yeah it didn't be the precisely yeah um but yeah it's and and then Sam Donald they very much they it was very clear how much of last season's reaction was kind of colored by Sam Donald's success I saw it in the comments of my pieces I saw it in tweets like we're seeing Sam Donald do this one the Viking do this and I think that's kind of fine I think it's okay to be like hey he was just on the Vikings and now he's succeeding I'm mad yeah

17:51okay that makes sense um and I think probably Viking fans will be doing the same with J. Jim McCarthy it uh it's gonna be a little weird um especially as somebody who's just a fixture on the sidelines and I don't know when he was uh when he was basically put in as as the third stringer I for my for my sake anyway it just it seemed like this was inevitable hmm uh like the trade it was just whether or not some team was gonna be desperate enough crazy enough to think that the the nine experience could work over there um yeah so uh J. Jim McCarthy no longer in the locker room he is now in New York giant let's get over to uh discuss a discussion on the the bucks game uh offenses just god awful and every time Kyler Murray drops back and throws

18:53specifically right the moment that he throws I am uncomfortable like that is that is a sock on a wet floor type of uncomfortable every time you let's go with a ball Jesus visceral reaction to what you just said um yeah no I again as we were watching the game like as the throw was a correct I I remember being like oh no don't do that and like they could be a guy open and not all three of us so context uh it was dusty a reef end to myself watching the game uh on Sunday and we're just like winsing every time Kyler throws the ball like the camera head and pan over to the receiver that like the ball it and it was just like that looks bad I don't like how that feels and then it wasn't in completion it was like all right uh so yeah that wasn't that wasn't wonderful didn't love how that game broke down um we've got a piece of right why I left from Lecron that breaks down kind of the coaching element of it how the Vikings kind of kept on

19:58getting um rock paper scissors essentially is the is the thesis of the piece about how uh bowls would always call kind of the right defense for the play that the Vikings had called and so there was probably less open than I think a lot of people assumed based off of the game which is like fair I think a lot of people assume that because the buck in your secondary is not that good and the Vikings receiving core even without uh Justin Jefferson is probably pretty good that we'd see a lot of open receivers and I think that's a reasonable assumption but from a play calling perspective it does look like the Vikings were just like behind a lot I would I recommend that people read that article um for that context but that doesn't excuse Kyler Murray for being inaccurate on the throws that he made right uh and then it was pretty bad looking um and even some of the most exciting throws like right the touchdown to Jordan Addison I don't want to nitpick it it was a touchdown it was a completion um it was unlikely that another defender was can be able to get to it but you know it was under thrown and then there was another deep Alda Jordan Addison that was under thrown and another deep Alda Jordan Addison that was over

21:02thrown and that one was a miss I believe the under throws like the 31 yonder if I want to say correctly but the even the ones that were completions looked like hard and difficult and weren't that good uh we got a couple of like pretty decent throws in there but there was nothing in there that made us think like yeah this is this is the this is the season right yeah and and if this continues if we continue to see like these sub 200 yard performances which I know total yards isn't like you know the the best way to measure these things but the feeling after enough games it is the feeling is there right um it the it is just going to feel like man the Vikings are wasting are really outstanding defense again it's gonna be 26 to get right um and I can't I can't see you another like yet correct I agree the Vikings are wasting another outstanding defensive performance and that kind of sucks I mean there's three no like it feels weird to be here

22:03and if you just want to take the wins and and be happy with them more power to you absolutely that's kind of what this podcast does so it's kind of what my writing does I want to see where they're going to go going forward and whether or not that three and oh is going to translate into like real like playoff performance and really feels like that's not going to happen no this this feels like the one of the least confident three and oh's ever received yeah it's like oh yeah we're we're three and oh um um uh easily couldn't could have gone the other way like it turns out green Bayes awful um so write that down uh then like we uh we had a chance to to lose it against the bears we had a chance to lose it against the box and we damn near broke Baker may feels thumb off like yeah it's like the second game where uh the opposing quarterback got injured and again it's not

23:03like the Vikings or you know 2009 Sainting it or anything like that like Caleb Williams got hurt on and on contact play the thumb was you know it means a thumb you're not aiming for the thumb it hit a player on the helmet I believe um but like Jesus they are hitting hard it's like kind of like the Texans defense right man they're they're hitting the F out of these core backs it looks off uh just quick here uh Justin Jefferson ankle injury goes out early stays out uh tries to tries to come in a couple of times and just he's just not there ends up getting uh getting additional tests and uh still hasn't practiced yet yeah yeah uh I don't think the it's that important that he practices like obviously it's preferable if he does uh but if he doesn't practice all week and the Vikings don't list him as out or even doubtful if the list him is questionable um right we're still doing hi the injury designations have changed I don't know but if they still

24:07list him as like somebody who could potentially play and he plays without having practiced uh I'm fine it's fine he's fine uh it's better if he practices obviously it's better if he's healthy the entire week obviously uh but I'm not that concerned a long term uh and a short term if he has to play with our practicing it's probably okay yeah there are a few people that you know what just just take a few days just relax don't worry about your leg just just let it heal we'll see you out there on Sunday Justin Jefferson uh meanwhile the defense uh proceeded to harass and make things incredibly difficult for an impotent uh can you say that after this game or I forget how the set how their second game looked this year but an impotent box offense yeah I mean the bucks have um I mean inconsistent this may be a good way to put it but uh the bucks put up 27 I guess the

25:09bangles which are uh pretty good defense um I don't think that there were a ton of defensive scores I'm gonna check real quick um let's say we have a 56 yard field goal drive we've got Jesus so much scoring this game 75 yard touchdown drive 30 uh 38 yard field goal drive a five yard touchdown drive which okay I'm not even a drive just that that is a defensive score and a 51 yard so you know pretty decent offensive performance against a pretty good defense um which I believe like outpaced them in like success rate and stuff like that so there's like stuff there uh the Browns game obviously didn't go very well for them um uh uh they made the offense I think more impotent than it has been you know in the other two games which is characteristic of a defense that we think is good so good that kind of matches our expectations there I mean 16 points man that is rough uh yeah the Vikings blitzed early high rate again I believe it was

26:12above 70 percent uh they got a bunch of pressure their time to pressure is not as good as it has been last year um they didn't force a quick time to throw but it's because they've been up against and we've got a piece um kind of detailing that a little bit coming up at wide left from Matt Freeze um but a lot of that's just because they're up against scramblers and so like Caleb Williams is extending but like time to pressure still reasonably fast and on and a non-scramble plays they they're one of the fastest defenses in terms of forcing quarterbacks to do stuff so um all around great defense performance uh interesting discussions surrounding uh Dallas Turner and his defensive performances thus far huge asset to the team I sympathized with pff I think more than um a lot of people are willing to on the grades that they gave him I would say probably I would put him above a 60 in some of these games uh where they put him below a 60 but I wouldn't put him in the 80s or 90s or anything like that uh by pf grade at least um but he's been a huge asset because of what he

27:16could do uh Edger van Goggle has been playing well he played well in this game Calvin and he played pretty well in this game just kind of cool to see him you know make an impact play cashman Eric Wilson continue to be pretty outstanding um yeah I don't know a great defense performance all around definitely uh another game where it's like man the scheme is is doing real good uh I do want to shout out that on the back end uh Isaiah Rogers continue to have a great game so I don't want to be just like yeah it was all the front seven and yeah the second there didn't matter Isaiah Rogers had a really good game so yeah uh a really good bucks skill unit you know even without Mike Evans uh they've still got um really solid second year player and the Mickey Abuka who was in the running for offensive player the year on the first half of the season last year uh you know we know about godwin um and k dotten is okay so uh I was a little bit surprised to see Ted Hirst have that one big play but he didn't have it again after that that was pretty early in the game so not a huge issue um great defense performance and I suppose we

28:18have to talk about special teams for a moment because that was a hell of a touchdown we actually have a punt return touchdown for the first time and forever yeah uh absolute redemption for bat Daniels who I was like I was like hey there's a really good chance to get fired you know last year right and people like you know hey what do you mean like the world record is looking really great the punting unit is pretty good uh and it's like well he does a control and he controls you know like kickoff coverage and kickoff returns and the Vikings were one of the most penalized units last year and it felt like that was going to happen again because in the preseason there were so many special teams penalties and the first game in the first half of the first game I should say it looked like the special teams problems were going to return again but we've seen some great returns Miles Price already has uh gotten on the board like like you mentioned in this game um outstanding outstanding what 86 yard return uh DJ Dallas great acquisition uh both in outstanding

29:19tackle on special teams and also a key block on the touchdown return uh yeah the special teams are good so finally we can enjoy Matt Daniels' pressers again because they're very enjoyable but when the special teams aren't doing well it's kind of annoying but now you're gonna go right about that finally well let's get to the preview that Arif uh in had earlier today this is an interview that was conducted with Kevin Fielder of the no name podcast covering the of the dolphins and we'll be back on the other side with the mail back right here with Kevin Fielder who from my understanding is on a podcast called the no name pod reference to the no name defense from the dolphins also he did just get back from crying in his car how you doing Kevin uh better than I was about 20 minutes ago what are I get by car yeah so break your leg again is that what happened uh so I had never I did I and the ever or I had never I saturday and I had the results today

30:20and like the conversation with the doctor and the doctor goes yeah so there's a chance it never fully healed sorry this is from like years ago right this is from almost five years ago at this point okay the one with the concrete spacers they put into your body yes okay so that's still there don't worry they found that on the MRI good I was worried yeah I was worried too for whatever reason I guess uh and he goes he goes yeah so there's a chance it never fully healed and I go what are you talking about because for for anyone who doesn't know the context uh I broke my leg when Travis Hunter flipped from Florida state to Jackson state uh to be clear you broke your leg because you were walking on the sidewalk yes not because he flipped although we could indirectly blame him because I was talking I was listening to the fire Mike doorbell space that happened immediately afterwards and so I now use I use Travis Hunter's career as a gauge for how long it's been since I broke my leg

31:24oh that makes sense yeah yeah so I'm like man he's in his second here in the NFL and we still don't know if it's fully healed Travis Hunter has been to two different colleges at this point he has graduated he's played two different positions at two different colleges has graduated he's working on that second contract yeah he's going to get his second contract you're going to be like I think the leg might be healed now maybe maybe judging by the early results of this one maybe not and this was like a compound right it like the bone fully through the skin yes this was uh to make this Viking related this was the little scene injury effectively oh yeah there you go thank you unfortunately mine did not happen in London so I don't get the cool story of it happening in London right um I get the control you're the angel as a medical bet too right like that yeah I also

32:25have not an NFL player so I don't get the the you know millions of dollars and have all my surgeries covered yeah I and NFL team and the NFL uh so unfortunately it's basically the same injury except I get all the front of the responsibility and just to know you're not being paid for your parents today I just want to let you know we will not be defraining any of those costs all right let's talk about the Miami offense oh geez oh geez Rick might be a worse conversation than talking probably breaking my leg if we're being honest haha probably okay let's let's get started okay so the Vikings have I believe the best defense by success rate in the NFL if not they're probably top three they hit the number one defense and success rate last week they love to blitz by the way we try not to swear on this podcast as some of the guests don't remember that but they blitz the f out of uh out of a

33:28f-pose in quarterbacks and I don't see a reason then Malik Willis should be any different do you yes actually I do because this is going to sound absolutely shocking Malik Willis is kind to go to get the blitz okay so this is this is really important every quarterback the Vikings have played so far has been good against the blitz except when the Vikings blitz like that is so he is good against the blitz what he's playing you know normal maybe mentally saying defensive coordinators okay but this is not an area where the sneak advantage when it's like let's say a traditional like rookie quarterback okay so he's good against the blitz when you say he's good against the blitz do you mean he plays like an above average quarterback against the blitz or he is better against the blitz than not against the blitz because those are two completely different statements I would say he is like average to maybe slightly above average okay he's buying the blitz that is to say that when he's not playing the blitz and he's forced to like play quarterback

34:32it's not very good just gonna be honest sure we'll talk about that in a second we'll talk about the 20% of snaps where he won't be blitzed you know second but uh how exactly what mechanism by which has he succeeded against the blitz does he identify hot really quickly is it because he's a pretty good athlete does he like to throw deep against the blitz and that's often pretty open over the past three weeks like what is it about his performance against the blitz does he have actually like good pocket awareness it's just everything else that sucks like what is it no he's actually just really fast and so he can make plays out to that structure uh and so to like that degree like you can probably just contain him with you know the freaking nature athletes that the Minnesota Vikings have at defensive end we're talking about Dallas Turner when I say that yeah I was almost exclusively just that was honest yes Dallas Noah's in that race and the other guys has good athletes if we're big honest um it's like it's really weird because Baleek Willis is

35:33like really good when he doesn't have to think Baleek Willis is really good what he could just go out there and like okay so I know that that sentence sounds really bad but actually most quarterbacks are really the point of being a high level quarterback is being good when you don't have to think so I just want to be clear that sentence itself is not actually damning yes that that said to itself is pretty normal uh but last week he was like a plus point one for on EPA per dropback against the blitz which okay now this is like Steve's bagnolla blitzing which is still like unique exotic blitzes yeah he's very good at designing a defense that blitzes a fair amount but this is not bride floor is well probably blitz 95% of the time because this is his revenge games do you think that's gonna play well do you think we can actually get to a hundred percent I can't say no because he has done this before there was a game no way

36:34was it the Minnesota Vikings defensive or the Miami Dolphin said coach he was the Thurson football game against the Baltimore Ravens where he I think ended up blitzing I don't remember the exact number above 90% of the time it was just like every time Lamar Jackson lined up it was just cover zero and it was not cover zero to like disguise it was just cover zero two blitz every cycle play and the broadcasters during the broadcast I remember this vividly we're just like hey why don't they just like throw a screen quick dot because the Vikings and they're like infinite wisdom or the Ravens excuse me and their infinite wisdom we're just like hey what if we like throw deep on every play and it's like yeah that's not how you like fit solve cover zero please don't do that and he was just like I don't know man Roshad Bayman down there somewhere and it's like that's probably not the solution so can we rule out that Brian Flores does this again because he's extramar at Stephen Ross I know also it may just be their best chance to win because

37:41Austin Jackson does still play football for this team and there's been very few players who have had worse starts to the year and that includes Sam Roush who has been covered on Twitter yeah Bill in part because of your tweet where you highlighted him on the I guess I technically have to call the play a field goal block right field protection yeah yeah on his field goal protection rep where Minnesota Viking is here Rogers just speed past him and he doesn't seem to be aware that the ball has been snapped yes and so just real quick I have come to the conclusion that hey bad everyone's wrong for that play it's not just say a Roush because like Kairos Santos I also don't think knew that the ball was coming which is probably a bad thing that your kicker doesn't know that the ball is snapped but regardless Austin Jackson's not had a great time and the solution is

38:44probably just to keep blitzing so that poor Austin Jackson has to make decisions because poor Austin Jackson has had an awful time against backs cross B Nick Bosa and whoever the chiefs that rushers are okay so it's kind of like then the Packers game right because the Packers so the the Vikings Packers game was a Jacob Monk was pretty clueless when it came to picking up the blitz Chris Brooks actually very good at picking up the blitz just got steamrolled a bunch before we're dolphin Chris Brooks okay that's important for this yeah yeah but sure I mean whatever man we're making connections it's fine um so it's it's it'll be like that or it's like maybe they target a particular offensive lineman when blitzing or it's just the nature of of how poor the offensive line is it picking up blitzes because of Austin Jackson specifically that they'll do it a lot by the way this whole time I've been vamping to find out the blitz rate in that Thursday night football game um so I believe the 95% was through three quarters they

39:48did lay off oh no the prime floors felt bad the fourth quarter yeah it was 72% by the end of the game oh yeah yeah um so this also happened I think actually against the bears I think they blitzed out like a 92% rate against Caleb Williams then Tyson Baygent went in and I don't think they blitzed once okay I think this is enough guys right yeah we're gonna keep doing this right uh yeah so it's the nature of the the dolphins protections that seems to be a reason that you think so like how is Caden Proctor how is Jonah Svayanea am I pronouncing that correct about as good as I can pronounce it but also I can't spell so actually you're asked me to pronounce it is uh and okay so the depth chart of the looking at list sim is Patrick Paul but he's poo Paul right or is that the linebacker? Okay the linebacker I believe yes okay yeah all right so Patrick Paul, Caden Proctor, Jonah Svayanea I know Aaron Brewer's good but like those other three how are they against the

40:52reflect be clear it's not Aaron it's Aaron Brewer he's a run yeah Aaron for whatever reason we're very close to a Aaron terror terror really close um yeah the left side line in particular Patrick Paul Caden Proctor he's actually really good against the pass and against the blitz like they the first game against the Raiders they had some issues I'm gonna chalk that up to you had a rookies starting at left guard and the offensive line got I think like seven snaps total in an actual football game during the preseason so pretty hard to pick up blitz's instants when you know you only have like seven to communicate anything during the preseason uh it looked a lot better against the 49ers it looked really good against the chiefs I thought Caden Proctor had his best game of his very short NFL career against the chiefs uh Aaron Brewer yeah Aaron Brewer is really good at football yeah he might be the best center in the NFL right now maybe and if he's not number one he's like top three so like it's really picking at straws in terms of like what we're gonna call him

41:55in terms of like best center or not uh Jonah Savanayah Jonah will call him Jonah chance is that correct you definitely not we'll call him Jonah because I can spell Jonah um sometimes um Jonah is okay he I have not noticed a lot of bad plays which is a positive given last year struggles where he was arguably the worst offensive lineman in football uh so he's no longer the worst offensive eleven football that goes to whoever the green baybackers are going to start along that offensive line on any given week I believe it's three new veterans yeah hey that will surely go well um um but Austin Jackson whether they line him up one-on-one and just like go tell him to go make a block against someone or whether it splits his like just in general he's had a really tough time and some of that has been like hey your first two games you have to go play Max Rosby and then Nick Bosa poor guy that is tough guy yeah uh but he also didn't have a lot of a he didn't have a

42:57better day against the chiefs he just didn't who and was was a George Carloftus who's up against I think it was Carloftus which all right man I mean he's not bad but he's not like good yeah but he's not Max Crosby you're right yeah like the the gauge of like NFL structure is clearly like bad or Max Crosby uh he's not Max Crosby um but Austin Jackson he's just like slower than normal which wasn't he a super athlete coming out wasn't that like his deal yeah I I think he's just like he's trying to ramp back into to game speed and again the punishment of having no preseason because everyone was hurt during the preseason uh Jeff Hathley in the third week was like yeah man I really wanted to play the starters more but I couldn't because we had no one healthy which oh he's a very bad thing to say uh not gonna inside a lot of confidence that a football team yeah

43:59likely why they made I think eight wafers claims after roster cutouts um but yeah it's not been a good start for Austin Jackson and I do imagine that like Brian Flores probably has that circled and it's just like hey we're just gonna pick on that guy until they before something whether it's a change at right tackle whether it's a tie danda running back into help him you know not die uh it is probably going to be the game plan because you're not gonna have a lot of success against the left side that line in terms of Patrick Fallen Kay and Proctor who have looked really good together as a as a parent Aaron Brewer as the center who is really good at football okay um let's talk a little bit about the receivers so besides Caleb Douglas what are we looking at so the most important thing is Caleb Douglas is still a question mark to play this week he has missed last week with an ankle injury he has not practiced yet uh as of recording this Thursday

45:00at 321 pm eastern time so it's very possible he does not play yeah I guess he's listed as doubtful so all right yeah almost certainly not going to play okay uh in that case if that's the oh buddy the place will operate in the dolphins wide receivers are third-round rookie Chris Bell who is finally beginning to ramp up to game jay limited yesterday after missing yeah he's still recovering from a torn ACL so you know they probably don't want him to play 45 snaps but also he's kind of got to play 45 snaps um he's really good though so it's fine like he was actually really good in his first game against the Kansas City Chiefs or his first like real game against the Kansas Chiefs finished to think like 55 yards receiving had a really nice catch and run on an in breaking route like the things that we saw about Chris Bell in college where people thought he might have been in that you know a first-round pick had he not gotten hurt we did see the flashes of it in his first actual NFL game in terms of extended snaps uh next to him it's going to be

46:04Mulee Washington who is everyone's favorite gadget guy uh because he was also playing running back against the chiefs because the dolphins had two active running backs and one of them got hurt on the first drive with the game so you know Bellic Washington has kind of also got to be important at his job and also play running back uh he will not be playing running back against the Minnesota Vikings extended because now the plan is they're going to have three running backs active uh I'm glad to so Ollie Gordon and who Ollie Gordon Jalen Wright who is healthy and going to play this week he did not play last week okay and likely Jarquus Hunter who uh was traded in the Tutu Atwell trade which was certainly a trade that happened in the off season oh this right that did happen yeah that was funny yeah um so he'll likely be called up as a practice squad elevation uh will likely be signed to the 53 man roster uh so Mulee Washington will be a guy who just gets a lot of screens

47:07you know drag routes uh touch passes on like designed touch paths routes it's not like a real receivers no he's not okay at all um and then it's going to be Ryan Miller who I promise who is a real football player um I know I say that and you're gonna go Ryan Miller's out of real football player yeah he's a real football player um uh Arlead says he was at Furman um so real football player has three years of NFL experience technically he was signed and undrafted free agency by Tampa Bay they did a bunch of practice squad stuff uh and then the giants claimed them from waivers uh in December of 2025 which because they list a month and year just looks like Christmas 12 25 Merry Christmas Merry Christmas you've been claimed by the New York Giants uh they waived him eight months later and Miami picked him up off a waiver is one of the eight waiver claims I assume

48:08uh I think he was actually claimed before that oh what's exciting they've been doing a lot of waiver claims because this roster is bad um yeah so he's going to play a lot as an outside receiver uh the bad thing about Ryan Miller is when you google Ryan Miller you actually get the old Buffalo Sabers goal tender so probably not a good sign uh he yeah he's got a pretty fast glove right so that's that's pretty good for catching yeah I'm sure Ryan Miller the 18 year former NHL goal tender who was one of the best goal tenders in the NHL when he was playing will be good at football for the Miami dolphins on Sunday yeah at least I hope so uh because Ryan Miller is going to have to play a lot uh he had three catches for 15 yards against the chiefs so oh hey that's targets and catches and technically yards he did have a 77 yard touchdown against the 49ers hey look at eight the winters it was 35 to seven and the game was over but don't worry about it it was the 49ers

49:14that's the best team in the league yeah he scored against the best team in the league his backups but that's again pointless to this conversation uh the other running or the other wide receiver will be Kevin Coleman who wears the number 21 uh to honor his dead brother so the bad number good vibes uh he's another slot receiver who has to play outside receiver because again the Miami dolphins don't have a lot of options that wide receiver how tall is Kevin Coleman uh like five ten that's not too bad for a slot playing on the outside um okay so that's the receiving situation uh can they get open against a fairly expansive zone we're not asking is the ball going to come out on time not important to this part of the conversation can they get open against like there's four players in some coverage I feel pretty confident that Chris Belkian I feel pretty confident that Chris but we'll have a good game on Sunday um I think Kevin Coleman can if when he plays uh Malik Washington Ryan Miller I don't know maybe depends um I feel

50:20better about Greg Dolchich the tight end doing that uh who I think will be very important for the Miami dolphins on Sunday because they just don't have a lot of receiving options and so Greg Dolchich has to do a lot of the stuff that you typically want a receiver to do which is like a lot of screens they ran a few tight end screens uh because they don't have a receiver who can do them often uh so I feel more confident that Greg Dolchich can find soft spots in the zone than Malik Washington and Ryan Miller can consistently which is probably not a good sign they've got uh some some draft Twitter favorite zip tight end they got Justin Jolie and say do Trey Orey who would be an international pathway player if you were on a practice squad right yes uh don't know why he's not on the practice squad because he's on a place oh that's a rough recommendation well I just think that like if you're going to use a 53-meter roster spot on a tight end who's effectively like your third tight end um maybe he should like be able to play you don't think he

51:25can play I it was not a very good preseason for him you could tell he's pretty raw as a player he's a good athlete but like in terms of like actually blank tight end it's pretty raw uh they have him playing a lot of the special team stuff which uh the special teams has not been very good for the Miami Dolphins so I'm not going to specifically blame say do Trey Orey for that uh much like I did with Sam Rauschen the Chicago I'm not going to do that today but just like I don't know I feel like it's better off if he's using the IPP spot on the practice squad and you go get a veteran because the issue with this team is they're the youngest team in football by far and like I don't know just kind of feel like they need one or two more vets on both sides of the ball who can like do some stuff and I feel like a tight end three is probably where you would want that especially when your fullback is a converted linebacker uh in college so oh it just like really feel like they probably need a third tight end who's like ready to play consistently which I as much as I

52:28love say do Trey Orey the football player and the potential is just not that right now and so you're kind of like handcuffed in terms of like what your tight end depth is because right now it's just Will Kess Merrick Greg Dolchitch and like four snaps of say do Trey Orey. Yeah so what you tell me about Will Kess Merrick? Yeah that guy can block his behind off uh one of the best blocking tight ends honestly in football like that is what he does better than anyone else and like when he's on the field they're going to run a lot of you know inside zone wide zone to his side the field they're going to ask him to be a point of attacker on that side of the field. The passing game stuff is just not there consistently yet and so he is the tight end to by nature. The dolphins want to run a lot of 12 personnel so he will be on the field a lot he will be used as an insert blocker you know as a as a split zone blocker as kind of just every kind of blocker you can imagine because he's so good at blocking that's why he was drafted that's his going to be his job uh you

53:28know at least early on his career while he develops as a passer but don't expect like a 55 yard touchdown from Will Kess Merrick on Sunday. I say that knowing that if that happens this will be clipped and I will absolutely doubt yeah um okay so the dolphins run uh primarily 11 and 21 personnel which means that the fullback does matter is like 21 percent of snaps. He's in 21 personnel seems something like that um so my question is with are they going to keep doing that without Devon A. Chain um okay so I'm gonna combine this with another observation which is that the dolphins I believe are the are last place in conversions on third and short I believe they're at 0% and also pass the least out of third and medium so they like to run the ball and they don't seem to be great at short yardage and now they don't have the running back will we see a lot of 21 personnel is it the fullbacks fault um what he is the plan here I don't think they have a plan

54:32with honda Von H and because Devon H and does a lot of the stuff that like no other running back in the league does that sounds like jimmyer Gibbs and the other top like five running backs and football uh he plays slot receiver he plays outside receiver he plays true running back right like they're going to have him do a lot of stuff uh now you can no longer do those things because as much as I like jalen right the football player jalen right is not Devon H and Oli Gordon is absolutely not Devon H and um no disrespect to Oli Gordon who is a physical monster who is not afraid to run you over in space like I compared him to cams godabo but like the meme of cams godabo where everyone's like all all all all cams godabo wants to do is run you over all Oli Gordon wants to do is put his helmet in your chest and put you on the ground and this guy does the guy who in his second to last year of college football was outstanding yes he's really good at football when he can like

55:34have an open hole so I have theorized that the solution is going to be a lot more gap scheme stuff that we have not seen from the mimeod alphans a lot in the regular season but we saw a little bit of it in the preseason uh particularly I think we'll see a lot more power we'll see a lot more counter we'll see a lot more of a system that does not require Oli Gordon to read a whole and just tell Oli Gordon to go run through the hole and go hit someone just because Oli Gordon wants to hit someone yeah yeah like you know they'll just pick them up and move them to a spot which might work um the 11 personnel I think is a byproduct of them being behind in a lot of games and not being able to you know play 12 personnel you're not going to have two tight ends on the field when you're down 21 points uh I'm not a football genius that does not sound like a good idea but I think that in theory they want to live in 21 12 personnel they just can't really do it because they're trailing in a lot of games they need to have receivers on the field but I would not shock me if in this game in particular we do see a lot more of DJ Herman the full back

56:39we see a lot more Ville Casimir we see a lot more of them using them as point of attack blockers to just try and get something going on the ground because it was pretty ugly on the ground when Devon H. N. got hurt Oli Gordon had a few nice runs and then there were other runs where he was stuffed five years behind the line of scrimmage because he cannot re-block consistently so I think you have to change something up and I think the easiest solution is to go to some of that power gaff scheme stuff that we saw in the preseason that had some success and just try and get K. N. Brockter into space and go let K. N. Proctor hit some dope and up a hole for Oli Gordon who also hits something so we have effectively built the bash pros uh but it's the left guard and the running back so does that is not quite the Jackson Dord cams catapult? No, um also they're both healthy right now so it can't be the yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but um yeah I think you're gonna have to change

57:39this game you're gonna have to because right now I don't know if you can ask anyone on the roster to do the Devon H and stuff and expect it to work well. So given all of that do you think the dolphins will score points this weekend on offense? I know I have sounded so negative this entire 30 minutes that we've recorded about the Miami Dolphin so far and the answer is not going to be no it's going to be yes because I have said this before the Miami Dolphins are too stupid to know any better. They are so young that like no mistake faces them like they'll get called for a holding penalty and every one of the sidelines will be spied like. I mean I miss being 18 dude. The entire team is filled with 18 year olds who don't know any better. Like truly don't know any better. They were like they had like an awful first half in terms of like offensive success

58:42against the chiefs and they were down like I think it was three points or seven points whatever it was and they were walking back to the locker room pumping up the crowd as if they were winning. That's amazing and I was like. That's five dude. And I turned to my dad we were watching the game together and I go oh my god they're too stupid to know any better. So like it would not shock me if despite having no divine a chance but despite having no Caleb Douglas despite being shorthanded non-offense and just frankly not as talented as on offense as 31 other NFL teams. Yeah by the way they ranked 31st in points per drive just to kind of substantiate that. Who's 30 second? The last year's MVP candidate Drake May's Patriots. Hey that's all I needed. I'll leave it here with something. I'll leave it here with something. For no one who knows I have like Drake Bay's biggest hater right now. For no reason other than he plays for the Patriots. That's nothing

59:43against Drake Bay. Yeah man at least it's an ethos right. Yeah like it's just pettiness like hey man he's ruined my life. Con Brady has ruined my life. Josh Allen has ruined my life. Any struggles by any of them. To be clear I personally find that to be wonderful and I need more people to continue ruining your life. Most of all you. You seem to be much exiled by that. The sidewalk ruins my life for each time. The log list of people rooted my life right now. It evolved two quarterbacks it by division. One of them who sucks. But anyways enough about Drake Bay. Yeah like they're not very good on offense. But they might score some points on Sunday just because they don't know any better. And I think we're going to see Bobby Slowwick get a lot more creative in terms of like what he does with this offense. Just because he has to now. He does not get the Devon H and will save us. You know Uno card. There's the Uno reverse card now. Like you gotta go

1:00:45try and draw a draw to and hope to God it works because man you don't have any other options. I think we're going to draw for dude. We're struggling. All right. I thought you. Other side of the ball. The Miami dolphins. Okay. So I was just citing like points per drive and on offense. You know the Patriots are actually quite a distance away at 30 second place from 31st place. It is the same distance the Miami dolphins are at 30 second from 31st place defensively. So they rank 31st and offensive points per drive and 30 second in defensive points per drive, which this should come as maybe no shock to anyone who is remotely numerate. But that is the worst in the league. I like a country mile. That is real real bad. When you when you do opponent adjustments, it looks slightly better, but a slightly better 30 seconds, right? It's still at a start. It's not as embarrassing. Still embarrassing not as

1:01:47embarrassing. 3.31 points of ad per drive for context. The Vikings are number one in 1.1 points of ad per drive. Truly a clash of titans here. Now the dolphins have offensively the worst, I believe red zone percentage up there and defensively also the worst red zone percentage. So it seems like we're kind of marrying kind of two kindred souls here on this team. Why is the defense so bad? Question mark. Because they're so young. Okay. Come on, man. I know. That's like also the first answer of this. It's the answer for every problem on this team. Sands the special teams, which is just bad. Look, the issue is that chop Robinson has not figured it out in year three. It's year three. We're still hoping that he becomes the good pass fresher that he was almost like promised. Yeah, chop Robinson is still while Luke Braun is still forbidden to break down draft. It's rough. Sure. This is why like let's be clear. Every time chop Robinson does anything bad,

1:02:51I tag him in his own discord. Just to let him know. I'm like, hey, chop Robinson still sucks. I just want you to know that. Sorry, that's the discord where they want to have sex with the cartoon rabbit, right? That's the. Yeah, very normal stuff that I promise in that discord. I promise you were all normal and well adjusted. We're not. It's axiola. The defensive line in general has not been good enough. It sort of figured it out in the second half against the chiefs. They looked better. It was still not good enough. He said, your chop Robinson has shown up for some reason, positive or negative. For some reason in the last two weeks, he had like a big, important, impactful play. Am I remembering this correctly? He did something. So he showed up in the second week of the year because he was hurt again with a concussion. Oh, so now he's wearing a guardian cap. All right. Tell us who you all you need to know about how his career has gone so far, frankly. And then in week three, he had the roughing the pastor call, which like not to be the most biased

1:03:57fan of all time was a bull crap call. This is, was this would have been a safety otherwise? It would have gotten them off the field. Okay. Yeah. And he put out his hand. I'm trying to remember, he put out his hands. He did not lay his body weight down, but then the the ref and out analyst was like, well, he has to twist his body. Yeah. So they called it body weight, but like, he did all the stuff that you're supposed to do in terms of like getting his hands off of him, like not driving him into the ground, right? Just like doing all those things. And they were so like, yeah, but you got to like now twist. You have to like, just like, just like the dumbest stuff ever, obviously. But like, the fact of the matter is the defensive lines issues have created a lot of the issues on the back, Seth in terms of the linebackers, in terms of the corners and the safety's because they need to be able to win consistently upfront or they're just not going to be able to do a lot of the stuff that they want to do in the back end. And we've seen this through

1:05:00three weeks of the year where they got put in the Kyle Shanahan blender, they got put in the Travis Kelsey blender, they got put in the Kirk Cousins blender, which sounds so much worse than the first two, frankly. Yeah, but that was, but that was the first game, Brock, that was just healthy, right? No, Brock, Brock, Brock actually did not play that game. They got put in the Aston Gen T Michael mayor blender, but we're going to call the Kirk Cousins blender because he killed him with kindness. But just we're running the gosh dang ball down your front. Yeah. And you're going to get up and he's going to shake your head. Good job, kid. Yeah. Just like there's some stuff that's now becoming an issue in terms of like over the middle passing game stuff off play action because the linebackers have to bite to stop the run because if they don't, every running back is going to run freely against the Miami Dolphins. You could put you back there a reef and you might run for a hundred yards against the Miami

1:06:02Dolphins if they don't survive past the second snap. Yeah. Well, I know I won't. So I'm not saying myself, like, frankly, how about I are now? So I'm on the public list permanently. Fisately unable to perform parentheses life. They ask me every off season if I'm ready. Like, no, no. I think I'm too injured for desk work. Yeah. But like now, like teams are killing them with over the middle play action stuff because their linebackers are so aggressive to stop the run that teams do this. And so they're just running play action. And like Jacob Rodriguez, who has been really good this year, Jordan Brooks, who is one of the best linebackers in football, are just out of position. And it's like, it's pretty easy to connect with George Giddle, Travis Kelsey, TJ Hockinson, Brock Bauer's Michael Bayer, whoever the Titans are, when there's no one around them.

1:07:04That's not ideal. I don't think. No, it's not. Just confirming. Yeah, the source is tell me not good. And so when those issues present, it's like, there's just not much that dolphins can do because they want to stop the run. They don't just want them to run for five yards of carry every time. But in order to do so, they have to take resources from other spots of the field. And so yesterday, I compared it to like, you know how they say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to stop the run if you're the Miami dolphins. Because all 11 players have to reach dude, man. I can't believe I've hired you to write. That was terrible. I know we're all shocked by this. But you let me compare kickoff rules to a fricking kitchen range, dude. Way better than whatever you just say. But it does also like, unironically take a village because the safeties have to bite. The nickel corner has to bite. The boundary corners have to bite. The linebackers have to bite.

1:08:09Everyone has to bite to stop the run. They've been really good at stopping the run. But now there's openings behind them. And it's like, ah, if it's not the actions of my own consequences or consequences. God, Jesus. Can't even do that phrase. It's terrible. All right. Some specific players, you already talked about Zach C. Lawrence-Jap Robinson. I believe the other Ed Rochers, Josh Uche, Michigan man, Josh Uche, if I remember correctly. Zeke Biggers, Georgia Tech, loved him at the Shrine Bowl. And I think that's it. I don't think he's been good. He's been okay. He's been okay. He's been a good rotational defensive lineman. Who does he rotate with? Jordan Phillips? Yes. Yeah. But not, but for anyone wondering, not that Jordan Phillips. Not that Jordan Phillips. 2025 draft picture. Phillips. Sure. Who also has like one of the coolest celebrations when he gets a big taco for a loss or sack because he just rubs his belly? Nice. Love it.

1:09:10Dude's rock. Yeah, Jordan Phillips has not, it's been inconsistent. I expected a little bit more at a Jordan Phillips this year. Zeke Biggers, he's like a good runstopper and good interior pass rusher. That's it. Those are the two jobs. What are you talking about? Well, they've been asking him to like do stunts and twists and then like try and sack Brock Purdy in the open field. It's like, hey, man, that's probably not going to work. There's not like a ton of defensive tackles. Like, I mean, Brock Purdy, I do have to give him some flour sometimes. He's a reasonable athlete. There's not a ton of defensive tackles that can tackle him in the open field. What do we talk about? What I'm hearing is deceptively athletic, just to get all the tropes out now. Of course. Yeah. You know, because we will mention other tropes when we talk about the safety core of Michael Taffin, Zayn Anderson. But hey, like, Zeke Biggers is just okay.

1:10:11He should in theory be your fourth defensive lineman, but he's now your third defensive lineman because Kenneth Ryan has heard. Should be close to returning, not for this game, unfortunately. The other issue is they have no edge depth right now because they're two back-up edge rusher are Malik Herring and Andre Jones Jr. Yeah, I don't know who those guys are. Yeah, Malik Herring is okay. And Andre Jones Jr. is a special teamer who they picked up off the Bill's practice squad last week. Oh. All right. They have also cut Cleveland Farrell who was their third edge. Oh, right. What a career that guy has had. But we'll not be their third edge anymore because he's no longer on the practice squad, which he was on the practice squad. So yeah, I mean, their defensive lineman is just not very talented and it shows on Sundays. Okay. The linebacker group, you're very enthusiastic about Jacob Rodriguez. You won't stop talking about his range. Jordan Brooks very good. He's learned how to cover, which makes him kind of deadly now.

1:11:14Willie Gay Jr. Right? That's he's there, right? Unfortunately. Okay. But like, okay, you know what? Okay, I'll be honest with Jacob Rodriguez. I'm not seeing as much as you're seeing. So I said this to someone else, it's not Fred Warner insane, right? Like, I know I am incredibly excited because I don't have a lot to be excited about as a dolphins fan. Besides like him, a couple of the other rookies and Jermias Smith staring me down the barrel. But it's the things that he does that opens up stuff for Jordan Brooks in theory. He's just consistent. There are not a lot of bad place from him, which the Miami dolphins historically have had linebackers who are like very hit or miss. They had Tyrell Batson, who is known for being hit or miss and inconsistent. And he'll either freelance and make the coolest blow of all time or he'll freelance and get gash for a PR drone by Rico Dowdell.

1:12:17I don't have PTSD. What are you talking about? Or like they'll have Kiko Lanzo, which do I need to say anything more? They have historically not had a linebacker who just does his job consistently as a my client backer. And that's what Jacob Rodriguez does. There have been some flash plays. The interception, I- That was pretty cool. The end. I constitute as a flash play. There were some really nice tackles against Kenneth Walker, which seems to be the hardest thing for anyone in the NFL to do right now. But yeah, like it's not the most insane linebacker tape of all time. We're not going to be showing this in the Hall of Fame one day. But I will take anything that is not just inconsistent linebacker play right now because I don't have that much else to be excited about. All right. So we can talk about the secretary. Then we can talk about the matchup in a little bit more details we got. Judeo Brants, right? Chris Johnson, the rookie. Jason Marshall, not the hockey player.

1:13:20And then you said, Zane Anderson, a Michael Taffy, or the starting restorers at safety? It's going to be either Zane Anderson or Dante Trader. We don't know because I feel like Jeff Haffley just kind of decides five minutes before kick off who starts at safety. Oh good. Because Dante Trader is a box safety who like can't really cover consistently. And Zane Anderson is a special teamer from BYU. So the options are just not that good. Special teamer from BYU. So lunch pale guy. All right. Cool. Also, yes, in case you're wondering, both their safeties are white. Just feel like that's important. Yeah. There's going to be milk checks all over the place. Got it. Yeah, exciting whites is back. Just not as exciting as the replay can ship Cooper to Shade. I mean, talk about some exciting whites. Jesus. Michael Taff has been okay. The coverage stuff is still inconsistent. He's been responsible for some coverage busts in terms of just miscommunication,

1:14:23which shout out Tony Pauline for the funniest article of all time, where they said they should play nor man coverage because that's what you want with the Miami Dolphin secondary. Oh, no. Oh, but no. Yeah, but why wouldn't you watch Jason Marshall covering Justin Jefferson one on one? That feels like that could only work out well for the Miami Dolphins. Yeah, I don't see it downside. Oh, sorry. I'm getting a call on the other line. I'm going to say that's just a Jefferson's fourth touchdown of the first quarter. We're all shocked that this happened. Yeah, look, this is a bad secondary. Jason Marshall has had a really bad time so far. Poor guy has been going through it. In week two against the 49ers, he allowed a perfect passer rating. Oh, which, yeah, the good news is it can't get any worse than that. Okay. Okay, but other than that, not good. Drew Drew Brents was praised by Jeff Hathley this week for playing his most physical

1:15:27game against the Kansas City Jeeps, which is good, I guess. Not sure that's very encouraging for a player who's supposed to be covering other players, but whatever. Chris Johnson. Yeah, kind of cool. Yeah, cool. First playing with San Diego Stadders. I'm like that. Yeah, San Diego State. He can tackle, which that's nice is good for a Dickel corner. We like that. He also had a really bad time against the lost Vegas Raiders to the point where I think I was in the group chat, say, why did we draft him? Which I say that a lot on. Yeah, no matter how you press it a lot. Yeah, like this is just a normal occurrence on Sunday for me. Yeah, like this is just a pretty bad secondary in general. Unfortunately for name purposes only Storm Duck will not be playing on Sunday. That's rough. Neither will Kyle Lewis, who is the coolest player of all time only because he is short, and we don't know what he is yet. So, okay, stylistically, the Miami Dolphins Blitz at a league average rate,

1:16:28they run defensive line stunts the least in the NFL. Their pressure percentage is third worst in the NFL, and their pressure to sack ratio is zero because they've not sacked the quarterback. Hey, is that good? Well, depends. That's how to ask it. Let me take a look at this time to pressure. Time to pressure. Middle. So when they do get pressure, it's average. They just don't do that. They don't do it a lot. Man coverage, well below average. What are we looking at? You said cover cover three's average, cover four's below average, cover six is pretty high, cover two is pretty high. So they like putting both safeties up top. Yeah, a lot of this is like, the dolphins want to lose by death of a thousand paper cuts. Yeah, if we watch this, it will lose, it'll be painful and slow. Don't you worry. You are going to have to drive down the field against the dolphins.

1:17:31There will not be a lot of plays behind the Miami Dolphins secondary because they're all playing 10 yards back. But that's I think partly stylistic. That's partly again, personnel related. They're just not very talented. But they've done a good job of limiting deep explosive plays down the field. A lot of it has come off of back tackling. A lot of it has come off of not being able to close down space consistently, which is another problem. Let's be clear. But you just are going to get a very Jeff Hathley defense in this. When I say Jeff Hathley defense, I mean, Jeff Hathley defense without my comparisons. Unfortunately, my comparisons is not on the Miami Dolphins. Jeff Hathley defense parentheses to Raghathori. Jeff Hathley defense, but it's all the bad parts of it right now because they just don't have a lot of talent. They did some cool stuff with Jordan Brooks as a blitzer on Sunday against the Chiefs. Again, I think that's because they had to because they were not getting pressure any other way.

1:18:32Again, really bad at getting pressure. There's going to have to be something that changes here. And I think it's going to have to be there going to have to start blitzing. Because I know that Jeff Hathley does not want to blitz. I know that Jeff Hathley does not trust his secondary consistently. Nor do I blame him. The reality of it is you're not going to win a single football game this year if you cannot get pressure on a single quarterback you play. And right now they're just not getting pressure. And it's really difficult to win football games like this. That's partly by design. I think that dolphins don't want to win a lot of football games. They really want Jermias Smith. Nor do I blame them for that. But you still want to put out a product that can potentially win a game or two. And right now they just have not put out a product that can win a game or two. Because they're not getting pressure on the quarterback. The hope is shop province and starts to figure it out now that he's healthy. And wearing a Guardian cap. Right, of course.

1:19:33So success rate on individual plays allowed. Third worst run success rate league average. They're doing something there. They can stop the run. They can stop them because they have to put all 11 players to do so. Yeah, I believe they're number one in TFL rate. Nevertheless, they're third worst in success rate. And also sixth worst in explosive percentage allowed. So despite a low depth of target allowed, they are still allowing explosives, which speaks to your argument about mistackles, about after the catch type stuff, about biting on play action and stuff like that. Okay, so Wayne, if you are advising Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson's a maybe, right, or whatever it is, I think he's a maybe. I kind of remember Jordan Addison's a go. Aaron Jones is technically healthy. I guess. I don't know if Aaron Jones is ever healthy.

1:20:34Sure. Aaron Jones, I think wakes up like I wake up. It's just like, I don't know what it is yet, but it's not the cards. But I wouldn't make the direct comparison to you and Aaron Jones, but I get you're getting it. You're telling me he's more healthy than me? You sure about that? I would say he is more injured than you and also healthier than you, if that makes sense. Do we want to compare MRI results? But we technically have Aaron Jones for the game. We have, you know, the Montcliffe, whatever, right? We've got DJ Hawkinson. How are you advising Kevin O'Connell to attack the Miami Dolphin's defense? You've got to attack more of the middle of the field. And the way you do that is by play action. And it's play action. It's getting whether it's Justin Jefferson, whether it's Joanne Jennings, whether it's DJ Hawkinson, whoever it is over the middle of the field. That's where the biggest weaknesses for the Miami Dolphins right now, because they're committing so much to stop the run.

1:21:37The play action rollouts is just not going to work as consistently against them. The routes into the flat probably won't work as consistently. Some of like you can kind of attack them to the sideline. Past 5, 10 yards. But even that has been fixed because they're now actually putting flat defenders into places, because they kind of have to. But the way you stop them is you have to force Jacob Rodriguez and Jordan Brooks into conflict. And the way you do that is by play action, forcing them to bite on the running game. And that's like the easiest way to win this game if you're the Minnesota Vikings. Okay. Let me re-calibrate your advice for one moment. The Vikings do have Kyler Murray. So when you say throw over the middle. So I'm now hearing that might not be the best idea. It might not be. It could work. Who's to say? Well, Rief, the question is who's taller.

1:22:38You were him. I believe technically, mathematically, it is him. But spiritually, I think we both know the answers, mate. What are the chances either of you are allowed to ride a ride at Disney World? I haven't had any difficulty at Disney World. I'm going to say that. I think Kyler, because his body proportions make him look like a toddler, constantly faces questions and he has to prove it, right? So wait, they have not asked you to go up to the little, like, scale thick and like, not once. No, it works. That's bull crap. That's bull crap, but you're lying to me. I'm telling you, from an aura perspective, I'm of average height. You're fine. You are also shorter than my girlfriend, though. So just feel like that should be mentioned on this podcast. I canonically on this podcast, I'm seven feet tall, actually. Right. Sorry. So you're actually not shorter than my girlfriend. Right. You are actually Victor Webbingamahite. That's weird. Yeah, and like Victor Webbingamah, neither of us does gambling ads.

1:23:41Hey, you don't have a Calche sponsorship like Luke Braun does. Yeah, Luke Braun and lots of Vikings after dark, they have Calche. I don't. Yeah, you're not responsible. I have nothing to do with whatever he gets up to during ad breaks. I just leave totally exonerated. You totally sorry. Yeah, to look like I know that they have Kyler Murray, and I know that he's short, and I know that he can't see over the offensive line. And so, but you're not going to get a lot of the deep shots that like you maybe want in terms of like Jordan Addison is not going to probably run free 60 arts on the field. Justin Jefferson might have he plays. He's just that good. I think Justin Jefferson could do it on no ankles and still probably run down the field. I don't know how that would work in actuality. Part of the bottom of the vision that are explained it, but I'm confident it would work. If I could put money on Calche, that it would work.

1:24:42I would put money on Calche, that it would work. No, we can't know. Stop it. We're not doing Calche bad. No, Calche really bad. Do not use Calche. But I just like, you can attack the holes in terms of like hole shots. Those kind of are open sometimes. You have to attack Jason Marshall Jr. He's the weak link of this. You have got to force Jason Marshall Jr. to cover people. Because when Jason Marshall Jr. is covering people, it's not very good for the Miami Dolphins. It's very good for the other team. So however you do that is going to vary, but it's going to have to be attacking Jason Marshall or attacking the middle of the field. Because the easiest way to attack the dolphins is just to find the weak links because their weak links are not just weak links. Their weak links are like, man, they probably shouldn't be football players sometimes. Um, which, buddy, I don't think this is for you. We clink. Yeah.

1:25:42Like, hey, have you considered starting a lockdown podcast? Every time you get cut by the Miami Dolphins, they hedge you a microphone and they're like, hey, buddy, it's time. If you can't cut an ear, man, it's time. Yeah, Jason Marshall has not had a very good time. You have to pick on him or you have to attack the middle of the field. Because those are like the weakest links for the Miami Dolphins. Drew Duprentz has been fine in coverage. And Michael Tav has like, okay, range. Um, Zayn Anderson does not. Zayn Anderson would let, or the coach would let Zayn Anderson date his daughter, though, which is good news for his hands. Oh, good. Good. Good. I'm just gonna do that. I'm gonna get the last drop out of the way because I feel like we have to. Um, yeah, like you just have to attack Jason Marshall or you have to attack the middle field. That's the easiest way to win this game or just run the ball really well, which I guess can't count out as a possibility.

1:26:43Sure. Uh, let's talk about special teams. What is wrong? Well, the first thing that's wrong is they don't trust Riley Patterson to kick the field goals. Demick said she did. He did lose a pretty bad kicking competition in a so. So Riley Patterson also won the kicking battle in Miami because Zayn God's all it's got hurt. Um, oh, so we won it by default. Which is good news for him. But Zayn Gonzalez, the greatest kicking prospect of all time. That one. Yeah. There was a play where like the Dolphins had fourth and I believe like four. Yeah. And it would have been a 58 yard field goal right before half time. Like do I like I get it. 58 yards is still long in the NFL, right? Like a lot of kickers can hit that. A lot of league average kickers are not hitting that consistently. Sure. The Dolphins punted.

1:27:43Oh, man. Because they so clearly do not trust Riley Patterson whatsoever. They were going for it on like fourth and sevenths. Because like the other option is Riley Patterson has to kick a 50 yard field goal, which is Russian roulette with your points. And there is no good news there because every bullet is in the chamber. Um, he's not hitting us and go one. Important for my all punter league. I do a Bradley pinion. Um, really good when he catches the ball. Yo, I mean, it's, I mean, that's what the punting league is about, dude. But I should, I should expect to see some pretty big points for my guy, right? Yeah, absolutely. Just like I'm going to expect to see a lot of points from the Tennessee Titans again. Yeah, by the way, I think this is not, uh, I don't think people know that you're in the league and I believe you're crushing it.

1:28:44No, I have lost the last, I think I lost last. It's in here that you're two and one. Come on. Oh, I did lose last week because I played at the Falcons punter, which Jake Bailey is a good idea in theory. It's not a good idea when the offense looks competent in Atlanta. That was wrong. Yeah, not related to this podcast whatsoever. Um, but Bradley pinion is going to get a lot of work. He had one really funny error against these efforts. Just go 49ers where he just dropped the ball. Um, to the point where they asked Chris taper the dolphin special teams coordinator about it afterwards. And for anyone who doesn't know, Chris taper has been an NFL special teams coordinator for a long time. Since a reef was born, which in case you know anything, a reef is really old. A happy birthday. I'm okay. Chris taper has been in the league for a long time and they asked Chris taper about it and he went, yeah, I've never seen that before. No, boy, we are inventing new things that Chris taper have now has now finally seen in the NFL.

1:29:52Um, also their long snapper is still hurt. Oh, no, but he's playing through it. He's a trooper. All right. But there was a moment in the first game of the season where he got hurt, I think on the first fuel goal attempt or pun of the game. Uh, and they cut to the sideline and Jacob Rodriguez is attempting to long. Oh, because they do not have another long staffer actively. They know what is keeping two long staffers active. Uh, but I was sitting there going, okay, so Jacob Rodriguez, there's a chance that he has the coolest NFL debut of all time because he wears the green dot. He starts and he also has the long staff. That would be a really fun like a green dot long snapper is holding this actually. He did not have the long snap because Tucker adding ten is a trooper. Talked it out. Yeah. They have since added a practice squad long snapper who has been on the practice squad for four weeks now because he is still not fully healthy.

1:30:52The biggest issue with the special teams though is kick return. They just are unable to tackle people. They're unable to attack. Uh, the teams have had a very long kick returns against the Miami Dolphins, the Raiders had one that I think was like a 60 yard return. The 49ers I also want to say had one. It has just not been a very good day at the office for anyone on kickoff coverage. So I'm looking it up. So opponent field position following kickoffs. Second worst in the NFL behind the Tennessee Titans. So that's great company to keep ahead of the Los Angeles Charters, which what a miracle that is. Once again, I am leaving here with something and it is Mike McDaniel's downfall. I'm leaving here with a lot of stuff that does not matter to the Miami Dolphins whatsoever. And second worst opponent drive start in general. So that includes punting as well. Okay, that's not good.

1:31:54Not wonderful. Yeah, opponent kick return average is number one. Yeah, but it seems like the Miami Dolphins do kick a little bit deeper into the field position. Is number two. So there's solution to like how do we stop long kickoffs is like, man, we just got to kick it out the back of the XO to kick the ball at the 35. That's a lot better of an idea. Oh no, that you can't. Oh, white baby, you can't be saying that. There it happened in the early in the year. And I was in a group chat with a couple of other Dolphins fans and they go, all go, sounds miserable. Oh god, really miserable sometimes. They all go, hey, why did Riley Patterson or Bradley pinion, I think it's Bradley pinion, kick it out the back of the end zone. And I go, and I go there and I'm like, oh my god, they don't trust anyone to tackle. This is like, they don't trust a single soul to tackle on kickoffs.

1:32:54That they're just like, the best solution is just avoid it at all. Like we'll line up, you'll kick it 100 yards out the back of the end zone. And we'll trust our defense at the 35 because that's a lot better of a solution sometimes. And frankly, they're probably right because they're second to their kickoff and their special teams has been awful. And it's like, you can be a bad football team. You can be bad on one side of the ball. You cannot be bad at all three. Yeah, when I look at margin, so including so looking at Miami Dolphins field position, fall of in kickoffs and then their opponents field position, third worst in the NFL. But hey, beat by McDaniel. Second worst, the Rams are first. So that actually does follow the Rams reputation. I also looked at field goal plus minus pro attempt. Third worst is Riley Patterson. Um, buddy, this is yeah.

1:33:56Chris taper is not having a good time as special teams coordinate right now because you should, you should retire not because he's bad at his job, but because this has to cost pain. This is pain and suffering. I watch it every Sunday and I don't get paid to watch it. The good news is they can kind of return kicks. So they're well, they're something good about special teams and it's that Malik Washington and Jalen Rider kind of good at returning kicks. Oh yeah, here it is. Uh, eighth best in kickoff, a kick return average and in actual kickoff field and middle of the field in kickoff field position. So really it's just the coverage that's the problem. Um, okay. So the Vikings opened, I believe as 11 and a half point favorites, they're currently based off of my data 10 and a half point favorites. So something changed. Um, I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it was. It's, I'm sure it's not related to a certain wide receiver or anything. I'm sure

1:35:00he is. Probably did. Definitely not. Um, but what do you, uh, I always am worried about trap games, having been victimized by a Viking team that lost one of the biggest upsets in regular season history against Josh Allen. Uh, I'm always worried. Hey, it's crazy. He's rooted both of our lives. How is that possible? He's ruined my life once. I believe he is persistently ruining your life. He's like a con. He's like the biggest paid in my life and that includes my leg. Um, which is saying something. Anyway, are you taking the dolphins plus 10 with 10 and a half points? Yes. Yeah. Uh, just because like, uh, there was enough for me to leave Sunday's game against the cheap's going, okay, this is not awful. This is bad, but it's not awful. Okay. That makes sense.

1:36:03Trying to get the right direction. I will say Steve Spagnolo did not previously head coach the dolphins and get angry at the owner. Yes. Uh, but also he is suing the entire NFL. So, uh, he's got a secret hate reserve. Deniz Hard for one team. Yes. Um, what did the Pittsburgh Steelers do to deserve this? His previous employer, right? Oh, of course. Yeah. That's that one. You're right. You got it. That's you picked up what else but that. Yeah. Like, I, I am a big believer in revenge games. Do truly exist in sports. And I think it also extends to pissed off defensive coordinators who are going to try and do everything in their power to make this the funniest football game of all time. Uh, looking at you, Brian Flores, uh, please, but it's 100% of the time I kind of want to see that funny dude. There'd be so funny. I feel like even if it doesn't work, I just want to see it. Right. Yeah. Right. Like, if it doesn't work, that sucks. But also, wow, that's really funny that

1:37:06you committed to that and just did it on every play. Yeah. Especially because like by play 53, you know, it's not working. And you're like dial it up again. It's like a 10 point game. Malik Willis has like 150 yards and one touchdown. And they're just like, yeah, but it's not, it's working. It's working. It's like, everyone is just like, it's so clear. It's not working. But he just wants to try one more time. This is the time it works. Um, I just feel pretty confident in saying the Miami dolphins are heading in the right direction to the point that they can be competitive with the Minnesota Vikings. Not that they'll win this football game. I'm not insane. Um, well, I am, but not insane and sense that I'm going to pick the Miami dolphins to win a football game in a week for the year. Uh, if this was November, I think I would pick them to win this game. But it's not November. So I don't think they're going to win this game because the dolphins are very clearly still trying to like figure out how to play football sometimes, which is not a good sign when you have to play against Brian Florez as defense or Matt Daniels as specialties, which is the set

1:38:08is again, I never thought I'd say. Um, but they've been kind of good on specialties. Uh, I just like, I don't think there's enough for them to win this game. I think there's enough to make this a one score game or a single digit loss, which would I take that as a positive? Yes, because I have been victimized by really bad performances as a tank ball team. Right. If anyone really wants to see what pain is, look up the 2019 Miami dolphins first three games of the year. I'm glad that that happened to you. Yeah, I was in the stands while Lamar Jackson scored 54 points on us. Um, right. That was the first Brian Florez game, right? Yeah. Uh, did not go well for the Miami dolphins and Josh Rosen, who their quarterback was at that time? Yeah. Or Ryan Fitzpatrick. Someone was their quarterback. I think to, I think I think Brian, Brian Florez did actually like Fitzpatrick. Of all the quarterbacks he's had. I think you liked that one. And his, the quarterback, he did not like kind of proven to be right. So, hey, good for you,

1:39:10Brian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally exonerated. Start the beeps again. Yeah. Like, I just feel confident in saying that the Miami dolphins can be competitive. They can make enough big plays. They can stay in this game. I don't think they're going to win this game. Uh, I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that the Miami dolphins are a bad football team this year. But I think they're like the version of bad. That's kind of fun where you're like, I don't turn off the game every Sunday. I kind of watch through and selfishly believe that they can win a game and like make the playoffs. And then I realized that they're just not going to make the playoffs this year. Yeah. There might be dolphins bad. Kind of fun. That's certain values of fun. All right. Uh, where can people find you if for whatever reason they

1:40:12are compelled to want to seek out more of your content for some reason? Wow. Why would you want to do that? Uh, no, but we got to plug guests. That's the deal. Yeah. You could follow me on Twitter at the Kevin Fielder. Uh, I freelance for Draft on Draft. I freelance for a reef sometimes. Uh, and I mod a podcast that we talked about earlier, the no name podcast, which is the name of the podcast. And it is of course named after the no name defense. So those are the best places you could find me. Uh, if you really feel so inclined, which why would you? Right. Sorry. I just wanted to leave that awkward pause in there. I'm going to tell James to keep that in. Uh, thanks for coming on. I hope I never talked to you again. I can't wait to talk to you later today. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Peace out. See you. Our first question is from Adam West who asks, has there ever been so much discussion about a third string quarterback being traded mid season in NFL history? No time for mail-back questions. The show must spend every

1:41:13a few minutes speculating why McCarthy didn't work out and never once suggest he just wasn't good enough. There has been more discussion about third string quarterbacks about one that's been traded mid season. I cannot recall. I can't tell you that. But I mean, like Shadour Sanders was the third string quarterback last year. I want to say right behind Dylan Gabriel in nasty man. Um, I mean, when the T-bow discussion, right. Yeah. T-bow is a really good example of that. Yeah. Um, who just got became the subject of a new story. Thank you, Pawlatory. Yeah. Always good when Pawlatory is looking into you. Yeah. Dude, like, I think, um, we had a mail-back question about this a couple of weeks ago, right? Where someone's like, would you rather be the subject of Pawlatory podcast or, and Isaac Chotler interview? And I'm like, Oh, Jesus, I'm taking the bullet. Um, yeah, dude, that's it. I see my name pop up in Pawlatory's podcast. I'm like, ah, it's over. Um, yeah.

1:42:17We've seen more discussion for third string quarterbacks before. And I would say it wasn't as big for Joe Webb when he was the third stringer as it was for Jay-Jama McCarthy. But like, I'm always going to return to Joe Webb when it comes to quarterback discussions because I loved that so much. Yeah. For one that was traded is, is huge, right? Like, I know Giants fans were like big on Tommy DeVito. I know that for a while, Bears fans were big on, on Baygent back when he was the third stringer or not the second stringer. Um, and it happens, right? At Kyle Slaughter's a funny one because he's the fourth stringer. Um, but for one that's traded, that has to be, that has to be some of the most discussion we've ever seen. He's the first round pick, but I think it makes sense. I'm not saying like, people were out of their minds for wanting to talk about it. But like, geez. Yeah. Uh, Damien Barrett asks, how many weeks until we need to trade for an emergency quarterback? Who will it be and what will it cost us? Uh, very funny. One, two, technically,

1:43:17I wouldn't use the term emergency quarterback because in football, it's almost always used to refer to a position player who is going to be, it, can we, do we not say Shanghai'd anymore? That feels like it should be a politically incorrect term, but I've never seen anyone jastized for using the word Shanghai to be impressed ganged. I, boy, you are, uh, I, I think it's appropriate to say that you're a bit more on the wokes side of, uh, of, of language that I am. So well, yeah, but like, okay, I, I've never heard anyone, I also haven't heard anyone alone. It just feels like something that where you'd be like, Hey man, you can't say that. I'll tell you what, I'll put the episode title as it. No, no, no, no, no, no, we can keep the discussion in the, we don't have to edit out the discredit. It cannot be the title. Oh, title. Episode 620. Can we say Shanghai'd?

1:44:20And it pressed ganged into service. Uh, when a position player is pressed ganged into service, as a quarterback, candlelending style. Um, and I remember, I, yeah, every so often I would check in, who's the Vikings were just a quarterback. And I remember Adam Thielin was for a little bit, Cardinal Patterson was for a little bit. Funnily enough, Jerk McKinnon, I don't believe was ever the emergency quarterback, despite technically having played quarterback in college. I'm like, Thielin Patterson. Uh, these things happen, right? I believe, um, was it Gerald Hodges might have been one way back. Uh, but it's not, it's usually what it means, but trading for like, I know what you mean, Damien, I think like, like, like a Joshua Dobbs mid-season trader, whatever, right? Um, that's an interesting one. So trade is, is tough, right? I think that one is, is going to be kind of the, the limiter on that one. I'm going to take a look at the quick, like the depth charts of all teams, um, because the giants got rid of Jake Hainer, right? So you can't trade for him. He wouldn't count. And also like, come on. Um, I could see maybe Cooper Rush,

1:45:26maybe funny. He knows the offense right? He was here for a hot second. You could trade for him from the Falcons. Um, I, man, it's just like, it's a third strainer. Like it never happens, except it happened specifically with the Vikings, I guess, this time. Uh, it's a Brady Cook, Baron Morton. No, no, tail and green. The browns are not going to get rid of tail and green. Uh, hey, we'll Howard. That would be funny. Um, see, Gus Bus, probably not Garrett and us, Meyer, Sam Ellinger, Edna Connell, DJ, you don't go away, you don't go away. Tanner McKee, the perpetual trade candidate, Tanner McKee, you could trade for him. Or Minnesota guy, Ethan Calak, Mathis. Um, he's, uh, with the Washington commanders right now. I feel like they want to keep on to their third string quarterback. Yeah, that might be important. Yeah, so I'm going to go with Cooper Rush or Trey Lance. No, uh, is Trey Lance on, I think he's on a practice squad. Now hold on. Let me take a look. Lance, comma, no, he's the second strainer for the chargers. Jesus.

1:46:31Um, well, the chargers net famously don't have issues. Yeah, they don't have to worry about it. Okay. Uh, okay, Jalen Milro, uh, Cooper Rush. I'm going to, I'm going to pass on Will Howard. Uh, very brave of me to pass on Will Howard and Tanner McKee. Those are the three mid season emergency trade quarterbacks. I mean, Brock Purdy isn't going to get heard. So yeah, they'd never happened to you, right? Uh, I was reading something online, but it was, I forget if I mentioned this to you on Sunday or not, I was reading something online where someone had posited a conspiracy theory that as more people are injured by the substation, uh, Brock Purdy's power grows. It would explain as I are like turns into just that like that cartoonish, uh, you roll out the scroll and it just keeps going. Like, it keeps going. Like, it keeps going. Like his power increases. I just like, I just like the idea is it goes. Sounds like you're feeding

1:47:3549ers to Brock Purdy. We just keep signing new water. This is, I mean, this is basically, uh, the, the NFL equivalent of, uh, of feed me see more from little shop of whores. Yes. Everybody's going down with injuries and Brock Purdy has never been better. I mentioned in the jamborew that the 49ers are the most injured NFL team in modern history and, and typically, uh, when I make a statement like that on, on wide left, I, I see if I can do some research to figure out if that's the case. Uh, but jamborew doesn't care. I could just say that, which is great. Um, but someone in the replies and the comments was like, well, you know, the panthers, they gotta be up there, right? This is just panthers and sick buddy. You're so, you're so, you're, you're clearly a panther fan. You're so focused on the team that you're watching, which is fine. That's wonderful. But it's not, like the panthers are very injured this week. Like I, I don't want to get it, like, like, Jill and cogrist injured, Xavier Legett is injured, Damian Lewis is injured. Like it's,

1:48:35it's bad, right? Uh, they've got a couple of people on IR. They got an ex-Gyreton IR, they got Brady Christians on IR, they got JC Horn on IR, that's huge. They just put Jonathan Brooks on IR. They got Trevor. I think we have to pronounce his name HN. They, they like, discussed it in a pressur. He's on IR. Like it's not good. Uh, Taylor Moton is on like non-football injury. Eke McQuantoo same thing. It's not good. But the 49ers ran out of space. We're learning things. We're learning things about the IR based on what's happening to that team. Yeah. Yeah. And they had, and they've got like reasons to put more, a bit of the tech with, with both so they couldn't. And then they got another couple of injuries in that game. Like, wah, so yeah, we're hitting injury high two. Never seen before for it. On the feet of team. That isn't just on the feet. The Vikings are on the feet and everyone's like, I guess technically, like you have to count it. And the 49ers are like, yeah, we've got the best point to front you in the league. Why? Yeah, it's, it's beautiful. Also, it's very possible.

1:49:40The Brock Pernie is a witch. Yeah. And we just have to accept that. Next question is from nine-foot tall Justin Jefferson who asks, not to complain about this amazing defense. But the Vikings know they're allowed to sack the quarterback on the first try. Seems like we're still seeing plenty of reps. Recorderbacks are getting out of sacks, despite leading the league of them. And Bernard got, I want more sacks. Okay. So I like that you recognize that this is kind of a spoiled question to ask. But I just want to put out there that the Vikings were getting so much pressure. That if you only count the number of times quarterbacks are getting out of sacks, you'll be like, oh my god, quarterbacks are getting out of sacks all the time. And you do recognize, right? The Vikings are like leading the league in sacks. So that's important that you recognize that. But I just want to say, their pressure to sack rate is the second best in the NFL right now. They're just getting so much pressure that if you and a lot of these sacks are occurring on the second and third attempt. And I know that you that you specified that. But like,

1:50:42it's fine. It's fine. I promise it's fine. This is one of the things I want to point out about the PFF grade though, because this is showing up Sam Monson on the Check the Might podcast was talking about the PFF, he no longer works at PFF, but he's familiar with the grading system. He worked for a number of years and he graded for the majority of his time there. And he mentioned that Dallas Turner managed to put together a play that he would say is one of the only plays you'd ever see a pressure and a negative grade. And the comments like, when Wildford they hated this. And I'll explain what he means and why the comments are wrong. But because Dallas Turner was unblocked on this pressure, because negative only refers to what we would expect out of an average NFL player, we would expect an average NFL player, we're not blocked to get a pressure there. So he doesn't get any grading points essentially for the pressure. The pressure is a neutral state. But he whiffs so badly on Caleb Williams and has

1:51:45an awful turning radius. Now, mind you, there's explanations for this, right? In addition to Caleb Williams being a really quick and agile athlete, it was way, it was very rainy, right? Like I understand, but like PFF is is not accounting for like weather and maybe you can make that a criticism. I think it's appropriate to create it this way. And so missing Caleb Williams and letting him break outside of you in generated deep throw is a negative the greater play. Now, somewhere in the comments was like, I can't believe you said that. What do you mean? Do you think that it like he would have gotten a better grade if he didn't get pressure? No, that's not what he said. He would have gotten a worse grade if he didn't have pressure because pressure was the expectation. That said, it's fine. It's fine. The time to sack is not that long. The Vikings were getting sacks and they're getting them kind of quickly, but we are noticing some moments where they're not getting them as quickly. It's fine. You're fine. So be fine. Alex asks,

1:52:45do you want Jennings and TJ Hawkinson release sock? I don't even know if I need the second part of the question, but haven't seen them open at all. And the bucks don't exactly have an elite secondary. I did own sock. They're fine. In fact, TJ Hawkinson is playing better than I thought he would. I haven't been doing as much all 22 film analysis this year as it had last year, which was not as much as the year before. And I want to get back and do it, make sure that that I'm pretty consistent about making sure I see what I see. But when I do look at the all 22, like, yeah, they're getting open. A lot of it, as Luke pointed out in the most recent piece, is wrong play, wrong defense. And so you don't want to knock them too badly. But yeah, they're getting open. The play designs are to isolate Justin Jefferson, which makes sense most of the time, but it doesn't work if he's getting hurt in the game and leaves, right? So

1:53:46they're playing well. I think both of them will see their yardage bounce back if not that concern about them. Next question is going to be from Ricardo, who asks, given his past experience, having to carry an entire organization, a charitable word to describe the Cardinals, who are doing well this year, oddly. Is there any chance these first three weeks we're in elaborate trust exercise to try and heal Kyler's past Arizona related traumas? To take back the night, if you will. Take, look, if you get hurt, it's okay, we can still win. Look, if you can't play, it's okay, we can still win. Look, if you don't play your best, it's okay. We can still win. Are there any other tactics the team could try, it could take, to try to heal the emotional damage of the abusive acts? Wonderful question. I think that they're doing it. I think that I think that by winning without Kyler, but putting a lot of trust in Kyler to be important in

1:54:51big moments, they're saying, hey, we value you, but you don't have to overwork yourself for us. You can even go home and play a video game or two. We're not in your contract, you can just do it. It's fine. Yeah, I think the healing from an abusive act situation that just takes, it's primarily time and care. There's not like a quick fix. You can't just snap your fingers and say the right thing and suddenly someone's trauma is healed. You just have to be there for them, support them and let them know that the way to the world is not on their shoulders. It's on Brian Flores' shoulders and that's fine. Yeah, these are strong shoulders. He can handle the situation. Rural asks, in a battle of short Oklahoma quarterbacks, the penalty yards won. The trade deadline is one day after the Buffalo Monday nighter. Give me the Kirk Cousins trade compensation if the Raiders are a French playoff team. Wait, wait, hold on. If the Raiders are a

1:55:52French playoff team, they're not going to trade Kirk Cousins away, right? So I don't know what this means. You would have to trade four Kirk Cousins if they were no longer, but if they're not a playoff team anymore, then he's probably not playing well enough that you'd want to trade for him. I'm confused. How do we parse this question? I feel like in this particular instance, the Vikings are begin to struggle and the Raiders are reminded once again that they are the Raiders and they start to struggle and he is no longer the starting quarterback. So you could trade four Cousins because they no longer have the use for a bridge quarterback. The Vikings, of course, need a starting quality quarterback. One who knows the offense, love that phrase. Okay. And this organization loves bringing back quarterbacks who used to play for them. Yeah. And K-makers. And especially K-makers.

1:56:55Okay. This would be tough because if he starts struggling and they start for an Indomendoza, he's probably not fetching a second round pick. So probably the third and then the fifth you got in the McCarty trade because it'd be funny. Maybe a third this year, a fourth next year, and a fifth this year is my guess at that. In a world where Fernando Mendoza is the starter and Kirk Cousins has looked like he struggled. Like that's critical. If he's looked like he's good, but they think Fernando Mendoza is better than you have to pay a second. I do enjoy the stories coming out about Kirk Cousins and his newfound love of In and Out. Yeah. Like if it wasn't specifically Kirk and I didn't have experience covering this guy, I would think that that was like engagement bait both to like, endure yourself to the local audience, but also to like build like the general kirkiness of your brand, right? Like it builds both the local connection and like as a reminder,

1:57:59I'm Kirk Cousins, right? Like I think, I think, but I think he's just telling the truth. He's like, I love it. I love double, double animal style, man. Like, yeah, have you heard of this place in and out the end? The end is actually the letter and it's very clever. I'm struggling not to eat toilet waste today. Let's go to Malcolm who asks for a reef's oconnel more like Obrother corner. What is the wind loss rate for teams that use pooch punts and what is the most effective down and distance slash field position for a pooch punts? Absolutely not. I'm not going to do research to look up pooch punts. There's I don't even know how I would configure that in stat head. I just like I might as well ask, oh, do we think do we think well in doubt, summa brain? That's the term you're using. No, well, it used to be golf, summa brain. No, because Luke's fantasy team in hell. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And he's using an

1:59:07AI to run the team. And he's called it, we can say it. Let's, you know what? He's calling it a version of a well in doubt, summa brain. Yeah, let's it's giving Luke credit. And I know that you hate that. So we could ask Luke's AI about pooch punts. But like, database look up, this would be pretty tough. I would say probably the most effective down and distance slash field position is third down. That's always when you want to pooch pun. Third and long, obviously, otherwise you try to convert third down and punt on fourth if you don't make it. And it's a situation where you're well up. And so it's really just a field position game. And you want them to drain the clock. And so I would say probably on your own 40, it depends on how good your quarterback is at pumping. Because you could do it at the 50. Eat no longer makes sense. Like at their 40, right? Because of how good NFL kickers are. Well, right. Could kick that and he could extend the lead. So pooch punts are probably dying in part

2:00:10because like, hey, what the hell is that? But like B because kickers can kick from anywhere now. So like, why wouldn't you just do that instead? So that's it probably your own 40 is probably like the best. But I'm not going to look it up. Adam Brian asks, do we know about anything about big citrus a quarterback? Could he handle the situation? As an emergency quarterback, that would be very amusing. And so therefore, I'm for it. Yes. Let's let's campaign for this. I would enjoy that. Tank me four or reefs three in no corner. Who do you think Flores Hires is Viking's OC next year? With probably not, well, no Drew Petting's in OC now, right? So he's the OC for the lines. That's an interesting question. I probably have to figure out who the offensive coordinator coordinator candidates are. But whoever is underneath Grant Yudinski at Jacksonville, right?

2:01:10Because Grant's doing a great job. Grant Liam are doing a great job of coaching Trevor Lawrence to have this outstanding season. So we get a figure out we got it. We can't bring them back, right? Because it's a lateral move. So you got to find his protege and be like, yeah, we're taking we're taking the protege of our protege back. We could do that. It's not West Phillips. I could tell you that. No, it's absolutely not nor would it be a Kubiak. Right. Well, I mean, Clint doing pretty all right. So Nate asks, which Jonathan Vilma moment was worst? It was worse calling Alex and Zaloni a quote, not good. Great. Great linebacker. That was so hard. Not knowing the difference between a cut block and a chop block. I like when we had led her down, I introduced the portion where we talked about the linebackers, but I mean, like so is Alex and Zaloni, like the worst linebacker in the NFL. And ledger was like, I think so. And in fairness, and Zaloni had like a pretty decent game, right? So well, like we're to come into that with that.

2:02:14But they had like a whole setup, right? They had this like AI animation. I'm pretty confident that was AI of Andrew van Ginkgo versus Alex and Zaloni and like, Andrew van Ginkgo had an axe. Now, Xan Zaloni had a sword because one was a Viking, one was a Buckenier, and they were doing this really awkward and bad looking sword fight. Do you remember this? It was bad. Yes, I do. And we both looked up or disturbed. Yeah, it was just like, we don't got to do this. But they did it. And I have no control over what Fox puts on their broadcasts. Otherwise, I think a lot of things would be different. But that was so bad. Ville, why not only the difference between a couple of lock and a chop block was very annoying. I'll say that. So for people who want to know kind of the difference here. So a couple of lock is when the defender is not engaged with anyone. And so the blocker is the primary person that the defender has to get through or past in order to get out of this block. And you cut them usually at the thigh pads, usually the aiming point. Yeah, that's the cup lock.

2:03:16A chop block is when you are not that defender. A defender is engaged, usually already in a traditional block with a blocker. And you then cut them on the, that's a chop block. And it was weird that these were interchangeable, that they identified the wrong block as a chop, it was weird. But I think the Anzaloni thing was like worse because I think the chop block stuff is like understandable ish even though like he was a football player so he should know. The Anzaloni thing is just like that's misinformation, that's a campaign against reality. You cannot do this. I just thought it was weird that it took you guys so long to figure out who was the commentator. Like the moment I hear his voice like, oh yeah, Jonathan Filmez on I'm so bad at commentator voices and names. I'm always looking if it's not Greg Olson or Tom Brady or L Michaels like one of the most distinct voices ever. Right? You can start, you know, Joe Bach and Troy Ekman. I have no idea who it is. So I'm always looking it up.

2:04:22Francis Ford Copium asks for a Reeves multiple definition corner. What is more likely? The fifth round back turning into someone more productive than McCarthy or being a more productive person after drinking a fifth of your choice of alcohol or rather would you rather take the fifth, drink a fifth or plead the fifth. Jesus. Well, you know I'm always pleading the fifth. That's always. Yeah. That's a right that we have and we should exercise as often as possible. So in order, plead the fifth, take the fifth round pick and then drink a fifth. I'm not a huge drinker. In fact, famously, I've never been drunk. So it is a hell of a claim. You weren't as far as I could tell. You weren't drunk this last weekend. So I had like three beers the entire reception. I was definitely not drunk. No. There were far more drunk people around you,

2:05:24which is a I had an absolute blast. And I was mostly sober too. So yeah, that's the point. The security guard for the building showed me dusty and this other guy named Eric around. That was kind of cool. I had no idea why he did that. He's bored. He had a picture of someone he wasn't allowed to get to like allowed to be in the building. And so he had a purpose. But otherwise nobody there was going to be starting to think stupid. Dusty was having fun. His hat was floating around the reception. It was great. That was fun. I did like that. Dusty gave by the way and out standing best man speech. He used the space. He did. He's blocking. That was crazy. I've never I've done a lot of I've done a lot of weddings. I've never seen a best man stand up from the head table, go out onto the dance floor and then just use the entire space to give his head

2:06:29talk. He was like working the room. What speech event that Dusty do in high school was he was not all of them. Yeah, he was a very interpretive version of that. That was not a public address event speech. No. That mine this weekend will be slightly different for the wedding that I'm going to be the best man. And let's oddly enough, let's go to James who asks, any chance we trade for anyone on offense like running back given defense and special teams are looking good. I mean, can makers is there so you don't got to trade. But I would say the best candidate for a trade is probably Tyler L. Gyer who signed with the Cardinals. I believe he thought he was going to be the starter, which is fair. That is a fair thing for him to have thought. And then they drafted Jeremiah love and he got pushed back and he's only had 24 carries this year and like 17 of them were in the first game after I believe love got like an ankle or something like that. I don't

2:07:31remember. But like the backup is bad night. It's not like a bad room without him. So he's is a very good running back. He was a starting quality running back when he was with the felcans when they drafted a starter out of him in B. John Robinson. And it's like, yeah, you got you got beat out by like I forget what B. John was like a seventh overall pick or something like that. And like the fourth overall pick like I get it. But he's good. He's genuinely good. He can pass protect. He can run between the tackles. He's not you know a burner or anything like that. But he's consistent enough. And so that would be my trade target if I were searching around for running back. Other than that, no, I don't think like I don't think the first of all no one really trades away. A fact of offensive lineman, nor would you be able to trade someone in. I think that's a very difficult thing to do. If they could if they could green Bay would be in a much different situation. Right. Exactly. They just sound like three veterans off the street. They're firing them out of a cannon too. They were talking. Yeah. They're just going to start starting people. Yeah, they're

2:08:33starting one right away. Nuts. I don't think there's a tight end that you could trade for. I think they're fine at wide receiver. So it would be a running back. Or you could always sign Ben the new job street playing a quarterback. You're fine. The man is and you know if we had to cut him, he's he's used to the airport beer. He's good. It's right. Good. The adult night risers. All right. Yeah. Barely, but all out. Pitches this. This is a response to a question we had last week about trying to name the defense. He said, this is my pitch for the defensive name. Now initially purple haze would be a dope name. It's got purple and name. Hazel is something not clear and hard to read like our defense. And Jimmy Hendrix is cool. But now after the Baker injury and the Caleb injury last week, we should be named Cruzin for a bruising. The Vikings are famous for their cruises both historically and more moderately. You mean like the Viking cruise line. The company that runs the cruises. Well, yeah. And you know, running through the

2:09:36Okra patch. And we just crush whoever's in our way and beat them to a pulp. Bruce could also reference my forehead being smacked endlessly from my hand as I watch this terrible offense week after week. Purple haze is okay. It is a confusing defense. So it kind of works. I think it works better for like an amoeba style defense like the one that the that Rex Ryan used to run. And I think Bruce cruising for a bruising is a phrase more than a name. You'd probably want to name it like the Bruce cruise. Which feels like a very 80 style name if I'm being honest. I think we're headed in some good directions with this. I don't think this is the best version of a potential name for the defense. I'm open to some more. I want to hear some more. But thank this is a good opener. This is a good good start. Let's let's go over to the the other side of the mail bag here. We're going to go off the rails. Starting with you know, we're going to start with

2:10:40this one. Boo earns. Ask how was the wedding? Congratulations by the way. It was fantastic. It was a very for two people who don't take themselves very seriously. That was the sort of wedding you throw. It was it was so chill. So low key. Very fast ceremony. Thank you. By the way. By the way, fast but still had a lot of time to have fun. Right? I don't know what you call them. I'm calling them the flower man. That guy ruled. I have no idea who he is. That guy ruled. That was a surprise to me. I actually had no idea that was happening. Yeah. Oh, did you know if anyone is going to be walking out in the aisle because you store in paper hearts by the way? We're not flowers. But did you know that that was going to happen that somebody was going to throw something? I knew that she had like cut out a bunch of paper hearts. But I didn't know anything about. I didn't know anything about the person doing it. So incredible. So after the groom's

2:11:41been and made of honor, one of them was her brother. Right? So like it wasn't that's not really the but and after you had walked up, he just like show he's not dressed like the rest of the wedding party. And he like he's got a penny pack. Yeah. Well, we don't see it right away. That's the thing. He like he unholsters his shades puts them on. He's got a patterned vest, by the way. It looked great. A very subtle patterned like it only works off of the shine. And then he turns his fan and reveals the fan back from beneath his suit jacket, unzips it and starts throwing the paper heart. He was amazing. What a five that dude wants. Anyway, so like there are these moments. You made fun of like let's make this legal. It was great. I loved it. Great wedding vows, by the way. Really cool. So and the opera singer. Oh my god. Angel was incredible. I was losing my mind because

2:12:43I'd never heard him sing before you mentioned. I think it really briefly. It slipped my mind that he had sang before because it was like part of this larger story about how you met him. And it very little to do it actually singing. And so like I was when he got up part with the wedding, I was like, what are you doing, man? That's kind of rude. But it was part of the. Oh, hey, he's supposed to be singing. Yeah. And it was, it was beautiful. Also, I didn't even mention this day. I was going to mention it to you. So many little audio engineer momentary. You were always like adjusting the mind. No one else was like cognizant of where the mic needed to be during ceremony. And you were always like, this should be here. It was so funny. It was so funny. Twisting the mic between myself, the officiant and the way you're changing the high. It was pretty subtle, but it was also like, it's I'll never be in a situation again where somebody else is running sound. And I have complete control over like how loud people are. Top like pointing the mic at people's mouth. It was so it was it was so funny. Yeah, for two people who who don't take

2:13:48themselves super seriously, that that was the that was the sort of ceremony that was sort of reception you get. So that was that was entertaining as hell. The the crew for for the Friday and the Saturday was that was that was great. That was about as good as we could have hoped for. Also, why does a reef have so much disdain for Bloomington? And what can they do to make it up to them? Are we at statute territory? No chance. We're going to construct the statue of me. Um, no, I weird situation involving my relationship with Bloomington is that I believe I'm the only person from my friend group in high school that actually has found the memories of high school. Everyone else hated it. They couldn't wait to get out. And I don't know. Bloomington is is is such a suburb derogatory in every way. There are some really good suburbs out there. Like I

2:14:53don't want to like knock the concept of suburbs eat entirety, but they trend towards some pretty bad, uh, you know, neighborhood patterns, right? Nobody has any sidewalks can't walk anywhere. It's very really dependent. Um, it actually kind of decreases the concept of neighborhood as as an identity. You don't necessarily have to become friends with your neighbors. Um, it's a strip mall city uh, I don't know. It's it's it's it's very dead to me. I think, um, there's not much to do there. It kind of it kind of builds itself off of the mall of America, which is nowhere near like West Bloomington, right? Which is where I lived. Um, I don't know, man. It kind of sucks. I don't know how else to put it. It kind of sucks. It's very funny to me because I, I, you know, I lived in Bloomington for, um, geez, how long? Uh, like seven, seven, eight months, maybe maybe it's closer to seven months. I had a reasonable time, but I, I do see the the whole

2:15:55like, the, the sprawl is weird. It's, it's, it's an odd layout, but this was, I suppose I probably lived there more recently than you have. Uh, so that's kind of funny. I lived next to a pond that would like, open out flood, uh, and like we would have frogs in our backyard, which is not something you normally get in Bloomington. So I don't think I drew, got the true Bloomington experience. Uh, Nolan Kailer asks for a Reese football corner. What do you think is Frank Reik's favorite wet, uh, Wagner opera? Jesus Christ. Amazing. Incredible. I don't have an, I don't have an answer by the way. I just think the construction of the question is extremely funny. Uh, Nolan also had, uh, had texted earlier that, he was reminiscing tonight about, uh, or just reliving the, the last time that we had a, there's like a Monday night game when the browns and the Steelers played each other. And we were

2:17:01doing, we were like recording as the game was going on because it was out of hand. And that was the game that like, the helmet, what was the helmet weapon game? Oh my god. Yeah. Oh my god. So a lot of people's favorite moment on Norse code is when that happened. And we were just going, oh my god. What the hell is going on here? This is ridiculous. Uh, fantastic. A reef's mid-life crisis asks question for a reef's other podcast corner. Why is your new 60-minute drill episode late? Can you really claim to be back and then immediately miss the next weekly episode? We did not miss it. It's been recorded. We had to record a little later, uh, because I'm, so I'm for seeing scheduling issues. We've got a more nailed down, uh, schedule for the next couple of weeks so we can avoid that. But it's not, we didn't miss it. It is late, had some scheduling problems. For once, it had nothing to do with me or the fact that James forced me to be in Grand Forks. Before you would never have let me live it down if I didn't go to your wedding. I

2:18:06that's not important. I feel like the better, the fact that we had an opportunity for all three of us to be in the same place in the same time and post as much discord stuff as we did this. That was fun. That was fun. I hope you enjoy your, I hope you enjoy your, your, your puzzle that you received. Oh, yeah, it's still my luggage. But appropriately, inked is maybe the best way to put it puzzle. Right? Like it didn't feel as whitewash, let's say. Yeah, surprisingly, your, your, your skin tone, uh, slightly more accurate, slightly more, yeah, I wouldn't say it's 100%, but I think 100% is, is maybe too high of a goal to aim for. But yeah, more accurate than some of the pictures that we got from other listeners would, bought the puzzle, which again, kind of crazy. What are you doing buying our merch? You weirdo. Yes. Uh, also Norse code is available on threadless.

2:19:07Of course, code dot threadless dot com. Uh, D's asks, are you, if I recently joined a draft league for regulation, MC and got the first pick in a 16 team league, I went, oh, Jesus Christ, I went with mega salaments. Who would you have taken in that spot? Now, you interested in playing in one in the future. It's a lot of fun. Draft leagues said, okay, so for people who don't know, this is obviously Pokemon, I'm not going to explain every individual Pokemon or anything like that. But there are multiple ways to, you know, manage how you're going to play Pokemon the way I primarily do it is through the champions app, which, uh, you get to select any of the six Pokemon that near box. I have basically every Pokemon except for flowette, which I would have to play like Legends EA to get. It's like one of the only ones that's exclusive to a different game. Um, in only because it's like meta relevant, but whatever, I don't have mega flowette. That's fine. Uh, there's 160 others, right? That are, they're legal. A draft league is basically what it sounds like. You draft a, a Pokemon very often,

2:20:14the mega version of a Pokemon and the non mega are different so you could draft salaments and mega salaments, not, not and or, right? And then someone else could get the other. Um, and, uh, and, that's really relevant because, uh, in the universe of what we'd call meta relevant Pokemon or Pokemon that people actually put on their teams in like official type competitions, like the global challenge that happened this weekend or, uh, last weekend's regionals, uh, which I believe were Frankfurt, I want to say. Um, the, the universe of relevant Pokemon is about, I want to say 25, maybe 30, whereas in draft league, you're probably drafting something like 10 Pokemon that every week, you've got your kind of assigned matchup that you'll play a best of three against. You will bring six to that best of three matchup out of your 10 based off of what you know, their 10 to be. And then just like any other, uh, official format, um, you'll play four of the six and in your best

2:21:18of three, you could be any of those, uh, four or any of those six that you could choose for your four in those three games. Um, but this creates the same problem that really deep fantasy football leaks have, right? Which is you just run out of players. Uh, here it's interesting because every Pokemon is distinct and unique. And so they play differently. And so even though some Pokemon are just like not as good, the fact that you'll be required to play them changes the environment that you're in. So Pokemon that are really good in the official environment might not be as good in the draft environment because you're more likely to see, I don't know, like a weather condition that you wouldn't have seen before or a terrain that you wouldn't have seen before or you have to play a different type of play style, right? And so it doesn't match one to one, the regulation MC official versus regulation MC draft draft sounds effing exhausting to me. I'm never going to play it while there's a football season on. Uh, and I'm probably just never going to play. I'm going to watch draft lead content maybe. Um, so my, who I would pick is probably different than what is optimal.

2:22:23I think mega elements is a really good pick. I probably would have picked Rillaboom, uh, because that is the most meta relevant Pokemon in the official one right now. Um, knowing that I could get saliments or mega saliments, both of them are good. Um, and knowing that there's a bunch of mega that are available and you can only bring, you can only activate one mega. And so there's a limited number of mega's that are going to be drafted to a 10 team league. And it's usually like three mega's, um, and I'd probably wait it because there's especially because there's a lot of dragons. Um, I don't feel there's just not that many good grass types and I feel like, uh, you want somebody like a Rillaboom because there's not that many legal grass types right now. The way you're, uh, if you're out in Rillaboom, you basically have to pivot the Venusaur and that's kind of it. Um, it's, it's, it may be like, um, uh, who does the triple axle crap? I'm forgetting names now. But like, you'd have to be weird with like, flourgeous or something if you wanted grass coverage. Um, uh, Queen, Queenly majesty is her whatever. Um, God, just blanking. But anyway,

2:23:30she's not that many, maybe scovalen, not that many relevant, um, where there's a lot of dragon types, right? And so I probably wouldn't have done that. But I think it makes sense, especially because this is 16 team leaked at crazy 16. Um, and so like, it's not like you would have been, been able to get them on the bounce back and a bunch of megas would have gone by then. So I get it, but I probably would have gotten Rillaboom, uh, I'm probably not going to play draft. Despite all of that, despite all of the, uh, information you have on it, no, you know, well, because it's like, I would have to, in addition to like feeling like I might know a lot, which I have it, all of my information is speculative, right? It's, it's because you have to spend time to prepare for your opponent every week. Like it's having the general knowledge of like, this is probably what's good and what's not good. Have anything specific knowledge of like, oh my god, they've got, um, Dadene, how would, how are they going to use this awful Pokemon? I have to prepare for that or Jesus Christ, they got Santa Kanda, which is not meta relevant. But like,

2:24:34if you've got a sand team and Santa Kanda, it's like one of the most annoying Pokemon, and you just have to prepare for like a really stupid strategy. And it's just, it's a lot. And it's like, you don't know which six they're going to bring. And so you have to prepare for all variations of six within those 10, like four different strategies as opposed to two. And then once you actually play the game, you'll see that they brought six. You have to prepare for two different strategies. Maybe it's so much. I would rather just load up the app and play on the ladder, which is what I do. jogger asks, please match NFL head coaches to their secret video game obsessions and let us know how many you have encountered in Pokemon champions. I can't imagine I've encountered a NFL coach in Pokemon champions, man. If we just do NFC North. Yeah. I like the idea of the one that the Flour is obsessed with is GTA six because he's waiting for November. He's waiting for Toyota

2:25:36Thoms. Yeah, that's a good one. I like that. Plus, a Flour is in a piss boy. And it just feels like what the piss boys would be into, right? Again, if people don't know, that's like what everybody in that Washington team called themselves. It's like Sean McVay was on that. Yeah. Anyway, I think I hope like a group chat where they talk. I would say Dan Campbell is despite it not being kind of like theme relevant. Like you think, oh, the Vikings had coach, but no, I think Dan Campbell Skyrim. I think that makes sense to me, right? Um, absolutely takes an arrow to the knee. I can see that. Yeah. Exactly. I think that Kevin O'Connell is really into real-time strategy games. I don't know what isn't good. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's a really good point. I don't know what real-time strategy game is at the top of the play chart right now. I can only think like he's probably into Starcraft 2. The last real-time strategy game I was ever really invested in watching.

2:26:40And then, Penn Johnson. I could see him do a turn-based RPG. I could see him do... I don't know if he's a legal legends guy. I don't think he's a, I think they're called MOBA. I don't think he's a MOBA guy. I could see Baldur's Gate 3. I feel like I'm missing. Maybe, oh, actually, no, no, no, no, no. Force of Horizon. We just, we already mentioned it. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. A defensive player that your turner asks, with Flora as possibly changing the way defenses look for years to come by completely causing chaos for any offense to see faces, my question for you is, did a ref make a clap on the dance floor at your wedding? Oh my god. By the way, you all tricked me onto the dance floor. I did not appreciate that. I look, I had very little to do with that mess. That was not. I didn't like that. No, but no one did.

2:27:42Photographer was like, hey, everybody in the dance floor, so we can all take a photo and then they started doing giving instructions and then the instructions turned into dancing. And I was like, you know what? No. I'm done. They're like, nope. I did not sign up for this. I will sit in the corner. I will sweat and I will curse and I will drink a beer. And that's when the security guy gave me a little tour of this very historic building. I love that building so much. It's so cool. If it didn't, like, I would consider being a Mason in order to spend more time in that building. Also, just because I wanted to mention it, because we were doing it at the Masonic Center. And because Dusty and I are huge fans of the Stone Cutter episode of The Simpsons, my groomsman gift to him and that I also had a pair for myself were this, we had Stone Cutter cufflinks, like with the Stone Cutter logo on them. And Dusty absolutely loved that.

2:28:45Yeah, it was incredible. And as soon as you showed me the couple, like you didn't even tell me, like you just showed me the cufflinks. And that was like, who keeps the metric system down? That was so good. Don from Ohio. Oh, hey, it's Don from Ohio. Hey, guys, long time less than our first time color. No part of that is, well, he's a lot of time listener. He's not a first time color. He doesn't listen. What two beats reaction to their injury reminded you of a reef after he crashed and burned on the asphalt trying to play cornerback. Baker may field or Caleb Williams. Boy, Baker made the noise. Baker made a loud, like, shrieking noise. That was a lot. That felt, that felt like I shouldn't have heard that. Yeah.

2:29:46Shout out to the parabolic Mike point. Yeah, my god. I think it would be Caleb Williams. I think the the rolling a little bit there. I think that was a Caleb Williams though. I wouldn't be able to answer because I don't know what Don is referring to. Never. Quet also questioned for James. Can we compare life insurance policies to see which one of us gets killed first by our wives? Well, what do we think? You know, actually, I have a meeting with my HR generalist here next week to go over to go over changes, which is funny because we're about to do open enrollment anyway, but we have to find out how bad my insurance is going to tank next year. Thanks, University of Minnesota. I really appreciate that. Coinsurance is a crime. Sorry. No, that's a good that's a good take. Coinsurance is a crime. And we should jail whoever came up with that. And to over practice is it yes, I understand the insurance industry is very large. That would lead to a lot of jail time for a lot of people. I'm coming with it.

2:30:47In two years, a number of the unions that have their agreements with the University of Minnesota are all up for their contracts. All at once. All at once. Oh boy, I'm rubbing my hands. Two years from now, this is going to be a real fun fall. If I am still employed and still in the oh boy, oh boy, I'll put a pin in that for now. Mad Max Brosmer asks for James's ball and chain corner given that the pod is ending this year. And just as this is the year that James is getting married, it's reasonable to assume it's because his wife doesn't want him hanging around with a reef anymore. What is it in detail that she can't stand about him that resulted in her making the ultimatum that the pod must also end. Does it go question, James? She created you with a hug on Friday, man. That's she. Yeah, she's very good at acting. Lovely person. No, I agree. She is a lovely loving person

2:31:52who is far better than I am. Well, we get a green on that. That's for sure. Yeah. So no, this says nothing to do with her supposed hatred of a reef. We have been in the same place multiple times. There is no like weirdness that I'm aware of. She does have some Minnesota, North Dakota, past progressive tendencies, but they tend to be towards people who deserve it. A reef in this case would not. Yeah. I also, so I haven't detected any passive aggressiveness from her towards me anyway. I also just don't. I've been around people from not the Midwest long enough now that I don't even know if I'd respond to it. Like I just like I wouldn't pick up on it necessarily because like grind for the Dakota is very upper Midwest and the passive aggressiveness there is just a different level than when you live in like Minneapolis. Yeah. Just just a little bit. Finally,

2:32:59from Skimble Shanks, who got the game balls after James's wedding and a reef do his impression of a Kevin O'Connor locker room speech handing them out? Okay, why would I be the one handing out the game balls? It would either be James or Dusty, right? Yeah. Well, let's see if I can do this. I'm not promising that this is going to work or like make a ton of sense, but I am going to try. And I'm going to see if I can do it in his speech style and the way that he like in like his is his diction here. So you know, what we talked about last week, when we talked about this week, what we were expecting on Sunday, I knew we were ready to step up. We got each other's back and it matters. Everything matters. The way we work, the way we persevere through these big moments in our lives, I'm proud of you. This is good. I'm proud of all of you. With this feeling right here, all right, it's a dicting man. There's nothing we can't do.

2:34:00But what I love the most is that when the chips were down, when the adversity hit, when we stood strong, we did not let each other down. We got that W give it up to yourselves. Give it up for yourselves. Game balls here, game balls here, Dusty Tran, get over here. Consistently on offense all weekend, sticking in moving. In visible hand helping move this whole thing forward on the groom's side came up clutch in the speech. This guy's a star. And the cowboy hat was a hit despite my repeated objections. Wait, did you actually object? I kept saying that I, Jenna was like we have to bring the hat because he had posted the thing on social media and Dusty's like, I'll absolutely bring it. And then it just kept popping up on the reception and I just thought it was funny. It was great. Dylan wore it really well, by the way. That was the problem. He's like, Dusty was like, no one else can take this thing home except Dylan.

2:35:05And I cannot allow this. I'm not ready to be a grandparent yet. This hat has magical powers like we can't. Next ball I've got is for older brother and kids. Come up here. Come on. When we needed a heavy hitter, when there was an opportunity for disaster, you were right there picking up the slack, finding ways to make plays on both Friday night for the groom's dinner. And on Sunday, speaking of which all of you special teamers out there, you're all getting a game ball today for your absolute dominance on the dance floor. You guys set the tone and you brought the energy. All right, librarian. Bring us all in. Bring us all in. Oh man. That's all I got. That was really good. That's all I could write down. I absolutely stole a few of those lines, but I feel like it's perfect. It fit in perfectly. That was outstanding. That's for people to bring why I didn't get a game ball by the way. I did nothing for nobody.

2:36:10You hung out on Friday night out here and it was awesome. That was great. It was like everybody in the wedding party plus a reef. I was very confused, but I was happy to be there. Oh, by the way, I'm going to be completely honest. I did think that when I saw the food catered for the rehearsal dinner, right? I thought it was going to be bad and it was outstanding. It looked like it was going to be bad and it was so good. It was so good. No, that was fantastic. Monster barbecue and Grand Force North Dakota was the caterers. They provided a hell of a lot of ribs. Yeah. Hell of a lot of ribs. Incredible pulled pork. Shout out at genuinely good barbecue sauces, which I did not expect from any institution at Grand Force of being honest. There was even a little bit of kick, which again, you know. Yep. No, I again, I understand. I completely understand the food situation in town has gotten weird. It's not bad. All right.

2:37:13You can get you can get Bidia here and it's great. That's incredible. Is an Indian place here that is far better than it has any right to be? Was there an Indian place when I was growing up throughout? I don't think so. There was absolutely not. Yeah. I'm just trying to, that did not happen. No, no, that that that I'm pretty sure they had to change like a statue on the books in order to allow something other than a dominoes to appear on the far south end town. Like even adding ketchup to French fries was frowned upon like it was the like it was footloose or something. So anyway, that is going to be it for this episode of Norse code. We hope you all have enjoyed it. We will be back next week hopefully to discuss when in a trap game against the dolphins. So Arif, you have a ton of stuff to to plug right now, including a

2:38:17a bit of an explanation on the two surprises we previewed last episode. Yeah. So I mentioned both of them, but to be very clear about what they were, the first surprise was the Guardian piece. I've been a huge admirer of the Guardian forever. It was one of my, you know, when you're in speech, this is not a debate story. It's a speech story. One of the really critical things, in extent, right now, speaking the event that I primarily, I say primarily, almost exclusively did is you have to cite sources in your speech and you have to come up with your speech 30 minutes before you give it. And so you don't have a lot of time to organize all of that. So it's really important to find high quality sources that effectively make the arguments or identify issues that are unique and sound credible to whatever judge that you have in the Guardian. To me, was a gold standard of that. And I think that the Guardian does better journalism than a lot of legacy outlets do. The New York Times has failed us a lot pretty recently. I think people on a bunch of sides of whatever spectrum we're calling the political spectrum now can agree on that.

2:39:21Some of them, I obviously think for incorrect reasons, but it doesn't matter. The Washington Post has failed us in a bunch of ways. I think the Guardian is a really phenomenal journalism. And they remain free, which is crazy to me. And so they reached out to me, which is crazy. I love that. And they were like, hey, we like your work. If you wanted to pitch us on a piece. And so we worked back, we worked back and forth. And so the piece that I wrote, the piece that was published, I believe, Wednesday morning, was a piece that was about our willingness to accept a alleged bad behavior from people that are being promoted as affable charismatic, funny media personalities. It's a piece about James Winston. So that piece went live. I was surprised at the amount of positive feedback I got on it, which is great. I was expecting a lot more negative feedback. But it had a really great reception. And then the next day, so that's today as we're recording, a piece published at the defector. So Drew McGarry often has people sub in to write his jamber

2:40:24room. I think it's like twice a season, something like that. And they asked me to do it. Drew didn't even know. They asked me to do it. And I put a lot of thought into it. I wanted to kind of capture the spirit of it. And it feels like that was really well received. But it previews the week. And it talks about like some random thing. I tried to keep capture like, hey, Drew talks about a random thing that's on his mind. I did that. Drew ranks the games by throw gasms. I did that. We talk about a movie. We talk about he's a music. We talk about our recipe. I put a recipe out there. People responded really well to that recipe, by the way. So yeah, there's that of the defector. And then before the week he been ended, Dave Damishak reached out to me. For the check show and the love it hard, that work. And so I did. I've got 15 minutes on that podcast there. So that it's been a crazy week. It's one reason why I haven't produced my own piece over at Y Leftoff football. So if you're wondering why, that's why I had a lot of things to write. But don't worry, we do have stuff covering the game that just happened and covering the

2:41:26team at large. So Luke Braun just published a piece. It's about rock paper scissors. That, unfortunately, this time was my idea. Talking about play calling and Kevin O'Connell. And then we've got a piece that I'm currently editing that should be live by the time most of you were hearing this about Dallas Turner and the high pressure rate and kind of not just the low PFF, right? We don't have to make PFF the the low casserole over conversations. But a bunch of film people, but I didn't thorn John Ledger had been talking about how he, his level of play is not meeting the numbers that he's been attributed to. And so, and so, Matt Freese wanted to break it down with a lot more nuance and detail about what Dallas Turner is doing well. And, and it's a really extensive lengthy piece on that. So we've got a lot of pieces over at Y Leftoff for you to consume. I've had a huge week. And again, because of James, I couldn't be nearly as productive because I did drive all weekend. And it's his fault. It is not that long of a drive. It's a five hour drive.

2:42:28Okay, it feels like it's 20 because of that one hour between Grand Forks and Farmer. It does feel like it's longer than it is. That is true. But it's still like 10 hours of my work day. Like that's a lot. Bitch, bitch, bitch. And with that, that will be the end of this episode of Norse Code. Hope you guys have enjoyed it. Please check back on us next week. And probably going to be alive. It's, it's very possible. All things out. And for refining as James, thank you guys so much for listening in. Please remember that all things are possible through the power of signing Ben D'Aniucci for a game. And we'll see you next week. Norse Code is the largest and only division of Norse Code LLC. You can find Norse Code on the daily Norseman, SB Nation's Vikings blog at dailynorseman.com. You can also find it on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and wherever Find Podcasts are aggregated. Our Vikings blogger extraordinaire and generally useful human is Revason of... And he can be found on Twitter at Revason. NFL.

2:43:35I'm your producer and host and my name is James Vagashnik. You can find me at these shows official Twitter feed at Norse Code DN or at my personal account at Big Mono. If you'd like to donate a few bucks to the show, you can do so in a couple of different ways. You can go to patreon.com, slash Norse Code and donate there. For $3.50 a month, you get bonus material and more. You can also go to PayPal.amie slash Norse Code for a one-time donation or you can go to Norsecode.threadlist.com and pick up some Norse Code merch. Any questions or comments that cannot fit in a tweet can be sent to Norsecode Podcasts at gmail.com. On behalf of the Norse Code staff, we thank you so much for listening.