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Making Monsters: Chicago Bears vs Minesota Vikings Preview · 2nd City Gridiron

0:09
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, welcome back to another episode of Making Monsters.
0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Taylor Doll, you know, Lester.
0:14
[SPEAKER_03]: He's joining me today to talk some bears Vikings.
0:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I have Tyler Fornes that covers the Vikings coming up after this.
0:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And so a lot of good stuff to chat Lester.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Bears are six and three.
0:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not sure how many people would have had that record at this point, and especially starting 0 and 2 after that mark.
0:32
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's start with that just overall feelings of how you feel about this team right now, especially offensively, because I think that's the biggest storyline.
0:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just think they're in a really good place.
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we know it would take a little time for Ben Johnson and to get his system in place.
0:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, but, you know, they're still working through the offense, right?
0:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But,
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: the cultures there, right?
0:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we see it every time they show those locker room clips, we see how they play on the field.
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a very, it's a very aggressive, run game now with what they did when they switched after the buy.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: They're starting to see their identity.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The culture this team is starting to form now.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, I mean, that's almost as important as the scheme come over right with the new offense is getting things right, because look, the ever-foods era was so bad.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, like, like, like, like, like,
1:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't think of one positive that came out of an entire era.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess, except you don't get the number one overall pick for Caleb, but that was just such a mess.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, everyone knew that was in me bad.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They knew keeping them one more year would be terrible, and last year was such a wash.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So seeing how quickly they've taken the Ben Johnson, I think it's been fantastic.
1:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and even that, I think that going back to that number one pick that goddess Caleb, you're even thinking, lovey Smith, the Texans more and more.
1:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
1:45
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad you're very pleased for that.
1:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about that, not run game a little bit, because it really has, I mean, not in day from the beginning, let's say, first four or five weeks compared to what we've seen.
1:57
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think the biggest factor in that is offensive line?
2:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Just, you know, Manonga using him more.
2:03
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think really has led to this run game getting going?
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think he has kind of made more of a commitment to lead one and I think to kind of like realize, you know, some of the stuff they're doing with Swift wasn't the best fit for him.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: We have seen some more outside zones, stuff with Swift, which is what, you know, we kind of figured we see more.
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned my non guy, they're more comfort with him now.
2:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, I mean, he had a huge game a couple of weeks ago when Swift was out.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, and of course, the online, it takes time.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you pretty much had all new guys.
2:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these five guys never played with each other.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they had training camp and and preseason.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But it takes time to gel and I think it just took these guys a little while to cut it used to each other getting used to how how the guy next you're going to play how you're going to how it feels on a combo block before when it's time to go to the second level, you know, you can't just jump into an online and know how that how that works, you got to get used to it and that takes time and you know, I think the buy I know a lot of fans thought I'm in the buy so early at sucks, but.
3:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a perfect time to get gave the franchise time to kind of reevaluate whether it were as a team, go back and do some self-scouting, and it realized what they had to do, and then look, man, this run game has been really, really fun to watch these last few weeks.
3:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's funny.
3:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I was one of those people that hated the week five body and the beginning and then it came and I was like, okay, I think we kind of need this and honestly, I may be bummed if we were hitting the buy right now.
3:27
[SPEAKER_03]: The with the way things feel like they're flowing in the momentum going and you feel like you're talking about the energy and the culture that you feel changing.
3:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I might be kind of upset if we're like, dang, we have to take a break right now, like this is the point where we have to do that granted, you may want to get some.
3:42
[SPEAKER_03]: healthy got you know some guys healthy and give them a week right now but I don't know if this one week is it is factoring that and one thing I've noticed last year is the injury reports every single week when we get them on Wednesday are a mile long yeah feels like that may be a Ben Johnson thing um not pushing guys and not risking further injury not letting anything like that happen and giving them that Wednesday to rest and then we see it kind of clear up as the
4:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad you made that.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I had the same thought.
4:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you kind of watched what they've done.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen early in the year there wasn't a lot, but you know, now we're, you know, the years halfway through, there's a lot of bumps and bruises, a lot of guys that kind of get dinged up in the game.
4:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this has just been Johnson being smart.
4:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I know some guys are listed as, you know, no dissipation because of rest, like a veteran rest day, like Grated Jarrett and Joe Tuney, but other guys,
4:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they're kind of getting the same thing.
4:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not sure DJ Moore, I'm not sure that shoulders as bad as it's to keep them out, Roman Dune Zays listed on there.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think they're kind of realizing, okay, these guys got it, I dinged up.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just shut them down for at least one day.
4:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I think today they'll all be around, and Thursday they'll all be limited, and then by the time Friday comes, full, good to go, and then let's go out there and kick Minnesota's button.
4:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I say give Joe Tuney whatever rest day he wants us to.
5:01
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, let's talk about some of the offensive pieces we've talked about the weapons and how many they are and how different each week has looked fantasy owners hate the bears because you never know week to week who's going to have the ball and what that's going to look like.
5:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But the one thing I think most people agree on at this point in time, Lester is more Luther burdened, Lester Kias.
5:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you on that train also?
5:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's just a point of...
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: They trusted as a kid, so I could use a veteran he came in and he's been in the lead for a while.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Luther burden missed a bunch of time and camp at the injury.
5:36
[SPEAKER_00]: He had a really slow start to his season.
5:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think it was a trust factor.
5:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they didn't think he had the offense quite as grass.
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you look at a snap counts, right?
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Each week Luther burdened his counts going up a little bit.
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, he had that that hiccup there, what he missed the game.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But other than that, his snap counts going up.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when you look at just pure explosiveness, pure talent from that receiving car, he may be the most explosive athlete there.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the Jimorro, what do you bring to the table?
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But Luther Birdman, he has another gear sometimes, so I think they want him to be a bigger part of this offense.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a matter of when they trust giving him more of those reps. And I think it's coming up pretty close here.
6:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he there was one of the plays this last week where when he caught the ball and then just the extra yardage he gets he's just pushing lineman extra you know three four extra yards and that's something we talk about DJ more is good with those yeah care to that was one of the conversations we had when the first got DJ more is the year before they were one of the worst when it comes to those yards after catch and then with DJ more that's what he brought immediately I think with a burden
6:41
[SPEAKER_03]: adds even more to that and I think we've only even saw like the tip of the iceberg of what Luther burden could be in the softens too.
6:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, they kind of, I forget who shared it, but they showed those yards per route run, those charts and Luther burdens among the league leaders.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I mean, when he gets the ball in his hands, he's making something happen.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's, uh, I can't wait to see more of him and I see can't wait to see how Ben Johnson incorporates more touched Raman the offense.
7:06
[SPEAKER_03]: what do the bears do against a brine floor is defense because it felt like if you would have asked me how many times that Caleb Williams got sacked week one against Minnesota, I would have said five or six times going back and looking it was only twice.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: It felt like a lot more because of what brine floor is can create in other situations of just getting Caleb Williams uncomfortable.
7:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's going to be the conversation, but it's funny because you talk about other quarterbacks and that uncomfortable is like let's get him out of the pocket and make them start doing things.
7:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Brian Flores, I feel like, is going to do the opposite.
7:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to say, let's keep Caleb Williams in the pocket and make him play in structure and complete some of those throws and beat us that way.
7:42
[SPEAKER_03]: So it'll be interesting to see that.
7:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But what do you think that the bears can do offensively to kind of counter what a Flores defense can do?
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think even last year, Caleb was pretty good verse the blitz.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I know against the floor is last year, he had pretty good numbers week one.
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He was pretty good against the blitz.
7:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think they're going to come after him, but I think they're going to come after him.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to come after him quite as bitch, much as as you would think they would.
8:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I know they're going to do a lot of blitzing, but I think they're going to want to contain him.
8:10
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to want to keep him in the pocket.
8:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because we've seen the last few weeks when he gets outside those pockets that that who do anything kicks in, you think you got him and he's out and, you know, the bears have been dropping some of those.
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they all have been hidden, but the fact that he's able to kind of get out there and kind of make plays that stresses a defense a lot.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So you may see more of a of a of a of a containment rush where they want to keep in the pocket.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to make them step up and try and throw over those big defensive tackles.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that may be part of what we see here, but
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm okay with that because I think it was pretty good in the pocket, too.
8:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a matter of, you know, I think that we're watching something we had not seen this cargo in, you know, forever, we're watching a young ascending quarterback actually get better each week, you know, we see the flashes.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we kind of saw it with Justin, we kind of saw it with Mitch, but you know, really does feel different this time because, you know, he came in with it with a much higher pedigree and and we're seeing these the growth with him and he's got Ben Johnson.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, to me, that that pairing is just so critical to this franchise going forward.
9:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think there's a couple of things that automatically make you feel like this is different.
9:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And the big one I think is those explosive plays.
9:24
[SPEAKER_03]: The bears have the most explosive big plays in the NFL.
9:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's just something we haven't seen in a while.
9:30
[SPEAKER_03]: The explosive plays you had with Justin Fields were Justin Fields kind of just running around until he broke loose and would get 20 yards in the touchdown and like that's that.
9:38
[SPEAKER_03]: But you're getting the explosive way plays in so many ways.
9:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, sometimes it is Caleb using his legs, but sometimes it's Caleb, you know,
9:45
[SPEAKER_03]: whatever the case hitting whoever deep down the field.
9:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it's someone breaking a tackle like Colston did against that with the win at the end of the fourth quarter a few weeks ago.
9:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I do think that the explicit activity, however you say that word, is, um,
9:59
[SPEAKER_03]: different things and I think that's what's a positive positive part of this.
10:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I also saw the stat too when it comes to yards, I think I want to say it was like yards per game or whatever, and the bears have been 25th or worse for the pat since 2017 and this year they're third and it's just, it's wild to see some of those things so it doesn't feel fake to me.
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: The schedule coming up Lester gets tougher and that's where you can really prove yourself and the bears can really prove themselves because obviously the Vikings Alliance Packers twice you've got the Eagles, you've got the Niners.
10:31
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a tough schedule coming up that you can really kind of quiet some people who have been critical of maybe it's just they're doing this against an easy schedule.
10:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Top 10 offense.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, at this point in the season, I mean, you know, this is what you want to see and like said we're set it's getting better each week and and yeah, it's going to be tough.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a tough defense tough got you coming up, but, you know, a lot of times you'll see these things happening.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's all being done with smoking mirrors.
10:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's not sustainable, but.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a run game right everything Ben Johnson wants to do his built on being able to run the ball.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: He can run the ball.
11:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that helps him do a lot of stuff.
11:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to go off that.
11:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, last year Caleb wasn't the best at his deep ball.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're still not seeing a ton of deep shots, but we are going to push the ball way down field.
11:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the explosive he's getting isn't like with with the Patriots and Drake may.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just chucking up bombs, right?
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And those guys are going to make really big Clayton Brown field.
11:24
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not really what the bears are doing.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But the bears are using like the, the, the deep middle.
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they're pushing the ball down field.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: They're really stressing the seams of a defense.
11:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're getting their explosives that way, which is, which is fine because it helps that the run game and then it helps the enemy, enemy, a passing game.
11:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, each week kind of seeing this offense level up and you know, eventually they'll start catching these these passes and and you've been more explosives going on here.
11:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, especially if they can do it for four quarters, right now we're pretty much seeing that kind of scripted first 15 look really good and then the fourth quarter look good and we get a gap of okay can we figure something out offensively so if they really get those things rolling I think it's good and Caleb somebody asked him the question yesterday I believe as yesterday and the presser where they said like why you know you have these last five minutes of games that are incredible and you're doing all of these good things why can you have you not been able to put that together for a full game
12:20
[SPEAKER_03]: and Caleb pretty much said, as the game goes on, you get more comfortable with what the defenses are doing, you see different looks, you see different disguises, you start to understand.
12:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that's he's pretty much saying, like, be a little patient because you're figure, like, the more he has these reps, the quicker he's going to be able to kind of figure some of those things out, especially with this new offense, and I know where
12:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, 10 and week 10, but I still think it's a very intricate offense that there's a lot of moving pieces and everybody's still figuring some things out, but let's flip to the defensive side of the ball that's been oddly enough the problem.
12:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that would have been my answer a preseason.
12:58
[SPEAKER_03]: But you still no still no Jalan Johnson still no Kyler we got a little bit of hope that these guys can return this season We don't know when or if or how healthy what that looks like but the secondary It's been a struggle without them, and it's very obvious But you do add to your J. Gardner Johnson and immediately you see some impact from him in ways More so getting to the quarterback and using him the blitz and do some of those things.
13:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We've seen multiple sacks from him in two games
13:24
[SPEAKER_03]: which has been really fun.
13:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Montes wet seems like he's kind of on the up and what he's been able to do.
13:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Austin Booker has brought a little bit of a spark.
13:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Still probably not the past rush we'd hoped for, but lester, do you feel like we can get a little bit something in the second, a a little bit more in the second half from this group?
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you mentioned the key thing is the injuries, I mean, you know, TJ Edwards, you know, he doesn't really put up these, these, you know, or eye popping numbers as far as, you know, what he does out there, but he's a smart player.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He runs the middle of that defense, you know, him moving to the mic, really helped with what they want to do here.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Kyla Gordon, when he returns to be interesting kind of what happens here, because he's obviously been your Nickelback, but he's a guy in the Johnson's on the team now who that's where he plays.
14:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He also plays some safety for you, but you're not going to put him at safety.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So do you put Kyla Gordon on the outside?
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he has done that in the past.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: He even did that a little bit this year in the past, early this season, so that's something that he can do.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's probably your best bet.
14:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're kind of happy to see what they do.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: They could just play about your time and just just go with it, just just, you know, put those db's out there because they're just, you know, those are your more talented defensive players.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Call the Gordon deserves me on the field some out some ways.
14:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So get them out there.
14:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine Austin Booker he had the sack obviously his first game in last week.
14:38
[SPEAKER_00]: He had no sacks, but I think he had like four or five pressures.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think he had four quarter back hits.
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So he is impacting the game in other ways.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, he may not be the prototypical bit of Alan, you know, tough set the edge, you know, thanks man here.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But he looks bigger than he did as a rookie.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he's kind of growing in his body.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He was so young when he was drafted, right?
14:58
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a red shirt sophomore.
15:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think he came in the league at
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So he'll only get better and he had worked on his past rush moves quite a bit.
15:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, his preseason was phenomenal, right?
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just, you know, the speed it was, you know, he had the long arm, but he was working moves off a long arm.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He saw the spin.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know,
15:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I, again, bookers, one of those young players in the scene that you just want to watch when he plays, because he's just, he's a flooring right, he's all over the place, he's hustles, he's active all over the field, and then sweat.
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, five and a half sacks is up to now.
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: He looks like the player, the bear's paid, which what you need to have happen here.
15:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
15:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You need something inside.
15:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Dexter's been playing pretty good, but, you know, Grated Gears kind of been,
15:40
[SPEAKER_03]: underwhelming.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Underwhelming.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to say to Lisa, I'm sort of thinking of a nice play.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We're the same here.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, not the best signing so far, but, you know, maybe as the season goes on, as the defense all starts to come together, and we'll see the best out of him to finish up the here.
15:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you see the music last week that we saw a little bit more out of Chris Williams?
15:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you see them maybe mixing him in a little bit more than we had previously?
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I noticed Chris Williams, you know, he's a defensive tackle by trade, but I noticed that last week he was playing off the edge a little bit.
16:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think with all the injuries they had there, of course, they'll go on an injury reserve, maybe they as realize, you know, they also lost the rookie Schmarturner, who was playing defensive band.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe they as need to play some bodies there and look, Williams has got, again, we talk about the Dennis Allen prototype.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He likes his bigger defensive ends.
16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that certainly fits the bill with Chris Williams.
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, I mean, if he can give you some reps out there to give booker and sweat up low and you're not losing too much, I think that's a good problem to have.
16:38
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, Lester, final one.
16:39
[SPEAKER_03]: How do the bears win this game this weekend against the Vikings?
16:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it comes down to the quarterback play.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Caleb obviously is going to do Caleb stuff.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like the last few weeks has been a phenomenal.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got to be smart with the ball, which he has been.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I think JJ McCarthy, his best stretch of football was that we couldn't get against the bears.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the second half, he kind of led them back.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Since then, obviously he had the injury.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been kind of, kind of mad.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, nearly just, you know, he's been okay.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: He's had some moments, but that's what you expect out of a young quarterback.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I know a lot of Bear's fans wanted to, you know, dunk on what he has going on over there.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, this is this first year playing.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He missed all of that year as a young quarterback.
17:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he's a very talented prospect, but, you know, you got to contain him.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: He's very good with his feet.
17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in a run the ball, look to get out there.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to be kind of, I think, similar with the Vikings who do the Caleb,
17:33
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, making B2 with a Zarm, kind of, I don't want to see a lot of blitzing this week.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I think if they may be more, more better off, just kind of drop them seven, because that's a really good receiving core.
17:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And just, you've got to hope Booker comes through, we hope Sweat comes through, hope great at Jared kind of has a throwback game and does something on the inside.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, keep JJ in the pocket and I think if they can do that, I think they can win this game.
17:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see how Dennis Allen handles this because week one there was no Jordan Addison obviously so you were able to limit a Justin Jefferson I think you only had like 44 yards and I believe Aaron Jones had 44 yards or they were very similar.
18:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So when you talk about those were the leading past catchers in that game, but now you do have Jordan Addison back Naylor has really come out he has his career game.
18:20
[SPEAKER_03]: last week and obviously when you talk about tight ends, that's a whole other conversation.
18:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So they do have a lot of people, a lot of guys that the bears have to worry about being able to catch the ball, but to your point, if JJ McCarthy can't get them the ball or isn't getting them the ball accurately, that I think is the kind of recipe for our win.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the only thing that I think of Vikings, if they're able to really establish the run, which they have a couple of good tailbacks there, I mean, in the bears of obviously struttle in that area.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they just really run the ball and just play bully ball against the bears' front, that's that's gonna be a problem, but if they can contain the run a little bit and keep JJ in the pocket and kind of make and beat to I think they got a good chance here.
18:58
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, Lester, well, I appreciate you taking a little break out of your work day to chat with me.
19:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully, we're talking about another win next week.
19:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's keep it roll on seven and three bare sounds really fun.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I like it.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
19:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll chat later.
19:12
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, we're going to continue on this bears versus Vikings matchup number two of this season, obviously kicking off the season against the Vikings and now down the road, we're looking at two teams, a very competitive division Tyler.
19:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I think both of us felt it could be that when we talked week one of, you know, the potential of how the NFC North could look and it's, it's a battle, everybody is in it and so that's something that I think is part of the conversation.
19:36
[SPEAKER_03]: But thanks again for hopping on.
19:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like I've had you on a million times and it's
19:41
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I appreciate it.
19:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always good joining you Taylor and you're right.
19:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This division is weird and I don't mean that in a bad way.
19:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's incredibly competitive and it's also very stupid.
19:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited to kind of dive into the why.
19:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think so too and when you look at it because you go and you're like, okay, well, you know, the Vikings beat the bears right away and then you see the packers beat the lions but then the lions dominate the bears and then you're trying to figure out what's going on and then you go on and you're watching the the packers lose to the Browns and the Panthers and you're like, what?
20:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly as happening in this football season and so there's a lot to analyze with that.
20:16
[SPEAKER_03]: But let's start with I think one of the bigger talking points right now for Minnesota is going to be JJ McCarthy.
20:21
[SPEAKER_03]: He ended up he wound up on the injury report this week with the hand injury.
20:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I've seen some tweets of the play of where it looks like that hand injury happened, but talk a little bit about that and then aside from that healthy JJ McCarthy what you've seen that you like what you think needs to improve still.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Jason McCarthy's wild and he's in this unfair place where everybody just thinks he's about to enter game 27, it's will be his fifth start.
20:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's essentially a rookie that got to sit and and learn a lot of the little things nuanced mechanically and learn like how to game plan, how to study that kind of thing, but you still have to apply it on the field and we're seeing that it's just a little bit of a transition for him.
21:07
[SPEAKER_02]: When he's got all of his bearings together and he gets his feet underneath him.
21:11
[SPEAKER_02]: He's really, really good.
21:13
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is you get that about two to three drives a game and the rest of them are very sporadic and wild.
21:18
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like a kid back in high school that would drink three monsters.
21:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you first start hanging out with that kid, he's pretty calm.
21:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But then by the end of that third monster, he's just bouncing off the walls and he's just going bonkers.
21:30
[SPEAKER_02]: That's JJ McCarthy right now.
21:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He gets himself too amped up and he needs to calm down.
21:36
[SPEAKER_02]: He needs that chill pill because when he does have the chill pill, you can see everything in between the ears is working really well.
21:44
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going through his progressions.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He's finding the right guy.
21:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He's making the right decisions.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But mechanically, it is not caught up to him.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not going to change throughout the course of the year.
21:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes it slightly better.
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But we have to remember, he didn't have an entire off season to work on the mechanical stuff
22:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember when Tim Teebo came out of the draft because I'm a big four to get her fan.
22:04
[SPEAKER_02]: They talked about how he was trying to shorten his arm motion and they kept drilling on ESPN.
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes about 10,000 reps to make it muscle memory.
22:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where we're at with JJ McCarthy right now.
22:14
[SPEAKER_02]: He needs those 10,000 reps.
22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: He hasn't gotten them yet.
22:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not to say he won't get it.
22:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's going to figure it out.
22:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we see him throw on the move and he's just sailing just in Jefferson,
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: a lot of national people are missing the forest for the trees because that look covering nationally is very difficult.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to be in tune with 32 teams.
22:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
22:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's hard to do.
22:40
[SPEAKER_02]: For Cidrally, when you watch how he has to operate this offense, he's changing place to the line of scrimmage.
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He's flipping places, calling protections.
22:48
[SPEAKER_02]: He's doing a lot of the little things.
22:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the first two games, they were slow.
22:53
[SPEAKER_02]: The last two games that JJ McCarthy started, they were up at the line of scrimmage with like 15 to 20 seconds left.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: They were calling things out.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: They were adjusting.
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of the little nuances that Kevin McConnell has.
23:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a difficult offense to operate because you have to have some things with timing and precision like when to snap the ball on at a certain point in motion.
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That ruined a third down that they had against the Ravens because they snapped it too late.
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So those little things he's he's solely getting there, but in between the years he's got it now he just has to apply everything else with that and sink it together and that's been the most difficult challenge and I I'm very confident that's why you're not seeing a consistent product on Sundays.
23:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me ask you, because you obviously, you cover the draft two, so you're close with a lot of these prospects when they're coming into the NFL or a, you know, follow along and are very aware of who they are and what they are on the field.
23:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Did JJ McCarthy have that getting to antsy thing in at Michigan also.
23:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't I don't think he did.
23:54
[SPEAKER_02]: When when when you look at what he was at Michigan.
23:57
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't play seven fourth quarters out of the 15 games in his final year college.
24:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Why Michigan killed everybody.
24:03
[SPEAKER_02]: He did.
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You didn't have to play.
24:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But the big issue I had with him is almost everything you had was a small sample size.
24:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And those small sample size creates extra variables.
24:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they're all going to turn bad, but when you have a variable, it creates a more difficulty equation to solve.
24:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And with McCarthy, he just had very few high leverage situations.
24:28
[SPEAKER_02]: He was really good on those high leverage downs, like third and intermediate.
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He was great.
24:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you look at the whole package, it's a smaller consistency when it comes to the data set.
24:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had concerns about that because it's like, okay,
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: If you, let's say he just half of it goes right half of it goes wrong.
24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it going to be the catastrophic half?
24:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I had concerns about I had a second on great on him, but I had no problem taking him high because it's a super high upside back.
24:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And it that hits.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter where you take a quarterback if you hit on that guy, you're a genius.
25:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really that simple in the NFL.
25:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So if the Vikings can get those things out of him, I think it'll be great.
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he gets himself too ramped up just because he's like, I'm playing in the NFL.
25:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do great.
25:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it coming up there?
25:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
25:17
[SPEAKER_02]: He has all this pressure on him.
25:19
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been known to meditate in front of the goal post before games.
25:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you need to do more of that.
25:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he needs to meditate at half time.
25:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't.
25:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
25:26
[SPEAKER_02]: But he needs to find a way to calm down.
25:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's talk about some of the other weapons obviously when you talk about the receiving game week one Jordan Addison was not playing so the bears pretty much just kind of felt like they had to take care of Justin Jefferson and figure it out from there so Justin Jefferson had 44 yards in that game Aaron Jones had 44 yards in that game and that was the two
25:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Receiving leaders, I'm guessing this is going to look a lot different, but how, how has that receiving room been?
25:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're talking about some of those things with JJ McCarthy, but in general some of that, the, the synchness that needs to happen between the receivers or the past catchers in general and JJ.
26:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you could tell that there was some frustration from Justin Jefferson on Sunday.
26:07
[SPEAKER_02]: He was targeting a 12 times he caught four passes and some of that was the referees.
26:12
[SPEAKER_02]: He thought that there was should have been a couple of passing inference calls that did not come his way and there was some inaccuracies just in general from Jason McCarthy because he still trying to figure some of that stuff out.
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Addison also had 11 targets and he had three catches.
26:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It was not a banner day from McCarthy as far as trying to throw the ball accurately.
26:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we do have is we, you have two bona fide number ones.
26:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Jordan Addison is in that divontus myth here.
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Where if they were on a team where they could be the number one, they would be in number one.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But nobody's going to see them as that because of who they play with with Addison was Jefferson and then Smith would they be around.
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you think about it in those terms,
26:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really difficult challenge, and we go back to the soldier field game last year, the bears did everything to, they sold out to stop Justin Jefferson, and it weren't, probably, two paths for 27 yards, but Jordan Addison caught passes for like 160, TJ Hawkins sitting there and Jones bolted over 100 yards from skirmish.
27:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't work the way they wanted, but they just said, hey, beat us with everybody else in the Vikings ended up doing so.
27:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
27:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do that with this group, and it's stronger than it was last year, because now we have the emergence of 226 from Pick Jalen Nailer, who has really come into his own last week, he had a career day.
27:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Five catches a hundred front 24 yards on a touchdown, including two critical four bounds at the end of that game to give the Vikings a chance to potentially make the game tying drive.
27:34
[SPEAKER_02]: He had that foredown catch for JJ McCarty did kind of like the Caleb Williams thing where he's he ducked and scrambled out of the pocket and threw a dart down the field and he caught a beautiful one on the backline in the end zone.
27:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He's becoming a very good football player and somebody's going to get a really nice receiver in free agency.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It probably won't be a Minnesota.
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But you have TJ Hawkins and who now that the tackles are pretty much healthy.
27:57
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not chipping as much Which means he's actually going to be running routes and now you're going to start to see some of that effectiveness Aaron Jones is getting healthier Which I got if he could ever just not get
28:09
[SPEAKER_02]: He's, these are the best running back to Vikings, have by far Jordan Mason's goal, but Aaron Jones provides a different level of explosiveness that this team just needs.
28:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you can have all those things kind of working in synergy, you can take some of the ease off of JJ McCarthy.
28:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kevin O'Conan needs to start calling some easier concepts, but it's also on McCarthy.
28:28
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got to read things faster.
28:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He's reading it well, but it needs to tick up a quarter of a second.
28:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That quarter of a second,
28:35
[SPEAKER_02]: can make all the difference when it comes to having a 15 to 20 year completion earning in completion.
28:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, we've talked about that a lot in Chicago.
28:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I obviously cover the jacks, too, when we're having the same conversations about Trevor Lawrence here, just the speed of processing and how that's affecting a lot of the things going on.
28:53
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of drops and the drops, I think, sometimes, yeah, if it's hitting the receiver in the hand, you want to blame the receiver, but sometimes I do think it's a timing thing.
29:02
[SPEAKER_03]: That second earlier you get them on the run and then move rather than having to slow down or come up for the ball and those things factor into everything.
29:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Especially in offices like I think Kevin O'Connell run and now Ben Johnson run and some of these more intricate often says it's really important What the timing of everything where the steps are on where you are on the hash where the balls coming out all of those things when you talk about the line you said the tackles are getting healthy that has been a thing for Minnesota this year is the offensive line injuries and how that's affected things so chat a little bit about that and where where they are in that health progress and where they are in general when you feel like when they're healthy.
29:37
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a nonzero chance that they finally get to play their starting five that they wanted to come into the year with Ryan Kelly has missed the last five games with a concussion.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's two concussions or if it's any long-gated one where you still pass the protocol because that is a possibility where you can pass the protocol and it's still not 100% and it's a lot easier to re-aggrave it because at injuries are just weird.
30:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But Kelly just had his practice window activated on Wednesday.
30:04
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a new helmet which is designed to distribute impact more and prevent concussions, Christian Derisaw.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: If you had a couple of concussions into 2022 switch, that helmet has had no issue since, and he apparently is also going to be wearing a Guardian cap.
30:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So if he does return on Sunday, look, Blake Brandt has been fine.
30:25
[SPEAKER_02]: He is one of the best success stories of the Minnesota Vikings over the past five years.
30:29
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the sixth round left tackle pick out of Eris, sorry, Oregon State.
30:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And he just did not have the juice to be able to kick out on the outside and stop a lot of these speed rushers.
30:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But you put him inside and he's a very solid player and now we can play all five positions at a high level.
30:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He is the most versatile backup offensive linemen in the league in my opinion.
30:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's probably isn't a long-term starter.
30:52
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a guy you can trust in like a four or five game stretch.
30:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And he had never played center in college or the NFL until this year.
30:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And he played relatively well, only like one or two rough snaps.
31:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So if he ends up playing, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
31:07
[SPEAKER_02]: But if Ryan Kelly plays, that could elevate this team to a different level because of how he's able to control things that the line of scrimmers take that ease off of McCarthy.
31:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And he and Will fries the right guard have played together for quite a bit, and that'll give fries a little bit more of a, I know I can trust the guy to my left no matter what because I've had that experience with them in that intern could help his game, but they allowed 16 pressures against the Ravens on Sunday on 48 dropbacks, but when you looked at,
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: How long it took those pressures to come like down in the Jackson lot five, but their their average time repression is like 3.14 seconds.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's they're not getting really, really, really fast pressure a lot at the time.
31:52
[SPEAKER_02]: They're getting pressure because Kevin McConnell loves to attack the intermediate level.
31:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So the field.
31:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So when it comes to the bears, that's probably what you're going to want to do.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I did some simulated pressures and you're going to want to just stay relentless.
32:04
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can do that, you can get to McCarthy.
32:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they haven't had the the best year, obviously, in the past rush.
32:10
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think that Dennis Allen in the last several weeks has found ways to try and manufacture stuff.
32:16
[SPEAKER_03]: CJ Gardner Johnson adding him to the roster, because Kyler Gordon's been her has helped he has three and a half sacks and his two games that he's been in the year.
32:24
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's something that they're able to kind of work with your bond dexter started to get a little bit more pressure.
32:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So some of those guys Montess way honestly has has played well the last five six games, but there's nobody across that's the problem you're hoping that Austin Booker who
32:37
[SPEAKER_03]: is a young guy, you know, year two, but hasn't played a ton, and he's been injured just coming back.
32:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You're hoping that some of those guys can start to get some stuff going, but it hasn't been easy for them.
32:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It's had to, they've had to figure some stuff out to be able to get to the quarterback.
32:50
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll be interesting to see what that looks like.
32:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's switch to the other side for the Vikings, the defensive side of the ball, because last, the week one.
32:59
[SPEAKER_03]: If you would have asked me how many times Caleb Williams was sacked in that game, I would have said, oh, probably like five or six, it was only two, but it felt like a lot more, and I think that's what Brian Flores can do.
33:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Even on the days when maybe he's not, the players aren't exactly getting home, he's able to create so many other issues for the quarterback with pressures and other things that he does.
33:20
[SPEAKER_03]: We know the Blitz number, someone was talking about it yesterday, he hasn't blitzed as heavy as he had in the past.
33:26
[SPEAKER_03]: But then this last game, I think he blitzed like 70 something for cent.
33:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So he's starting to kind of be like, all right, let's send him if we have to send him and we'll see what that looks like.
33:34
[SPEAKER_03]: But chat a little bit about that defensive front.
33:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I know both Bernard and Van Ginkl on the injury report this week.
33:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So what do those look like and expectations for this weekend?
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll start with the injury report.
33:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Van Ginkl is probably going to play.
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been dealing with a neck injury.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: If you remember again, I think he's skyed up and got a PBU on Caleb Williams, but he got undercut and he landed kind of funny.
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: That hit until the Lions game, when he returned, he didn't play all, he only played eight snaps in between the Lions game and that bearer's game.
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Because he just felt felt kind of funny.
34:08
[SPEAKER_02]: He got a concussion and then he reagrobated kind of a
34:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a rough deal and you saw the impact that he had when he was out.
34:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Banking equals one of the better ad pressures in football.
34:20
[SPEAKER_02]: You just don't necessarily think about it in that way because he's such a versatile weapon.
34:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But what it allows the Vikings to do is especially with Dallas turners that their ad pressure, they do a ton of simulated pressures and they like to just mess with you.
34:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Grinard is going to be the one to watch so he heard his shoulder.
34:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought he tore his pack because when he you do about to get to Lamar Jackson and it looked like he landed flat on his chest and I thought his arm kind of pulled a little bit.
34:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Nope, just a minor shoulder injury, and he may play on Sunday.
34:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, thank God, he's the best defensive player we have, but one of the tough parts about pressure, and I talk about this with Brian Flores all the time, you can't just look at blitz rates because to him, sending five is just bog standard.
35:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to send five.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And against the fairs, what they did was they had the two adressors and they lined one of them up outside the slot receiver and then you have three defensive tackles.
35:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they're doing a lot.
35:14
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just sending five guys, man us up, stop us, we dare you.
35:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of teams can't.
35:20
[SPEAKER_02]: But the one thing that the bears have that other teams don't kill Williams's escape ability is absurd.
35:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Vikings have trouble right now.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: wrapping up and finishing.
35:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Jonathan Grinard has like 20 theoretical sacks.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he only has three or four because he gets his arms on guys and they're just strong enough to wiggle.
35:41
[SPEAKER_02]: The Marjacks and got out of one.
35:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Justin Herbert got out of two.
35:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Jalen and Hertz got out of a couple.
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just absurd how many almost sacks he has this here.
35:50
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been incredible, but the numbers don't look like it.
35:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's going to be a big thing, Ken, the Vikings wrap up Caleb Williams.
35:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I think with the emergence of Eric Wilson as that second line backer, they're going to do a lot of things to kind of deceive him and use that deception to with some of those simulator pressures I mentioned.
36:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Wilson will line up at edge, he'll drop, he'll blitz the A gap, and you have Blake Cashman, who's a duet all player, and he's
36:16
[SPEAKER_02]: are you the most important player on this defense because of what he brings to the table?
36:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to do a lot of fun stuff and can the bear's offensive line, which is much improved outside of left tackle, been really impressed with Darnell, right?
36:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not a Darnell right fan, but he has he has really shown me something this year and just absolutely taking guys and eating them for breakfast just just nasty self I love it.
36:42
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, spin in
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I love me a good pancake.
36:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the little things with this, how this pressure package looks.
36:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And the one guy to watch out for is number 61, Jalen Redmond, might be one of the best stories in football played in the NFL in spring of 24.
37:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Was signed at June 18th of 24 by the Vikings almost like an afterthought.
37:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And he had the best training camp in 24, made the roster, earned a starting job by December.
37:15
[SPEAKER_02]: he's just he's a monster.
37:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to draft it mainly because he had like a hole.
37:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it was a heart murmur or irregular heartbeat.
37:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It was something along those lines coming out of Oklahoma, but he's a legit dude.
37:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're going to see a lot of five man for on three defensive tackles and then you're just going to send all five.
37:32
[SPEAKER_02]: But with those two linebackers and the ability to have Turner and Vankakele and Grr2, they may send five and send nobody outside of a four-high alignment.
37:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And they just may send everybody straight up and be like, block us buddy.
37:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of teams struggle to do that because they just fill all those gaps and they just bully ball you on the interior.
37:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's going to be, I think, one of the bigger tests for the line Ben Johnson said last week that the giants were one of the more difficult defensive fronts that the bears would face this year just because obviously some of that Brian Burns and a Tibito and some of the Dexter Lawrence, those guys that they have up front and the line handled them pretty well.
38:10
[SPEAKER_03]: This last week, I don't think he'll about stacked until the fourth quarter, and that was kind of that sack was on him.
38:15
[SPEAKER_03]: But so it will be fascinating to see because week one, this line was not playing well.
38:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It also looks a little bit different because week one, it was still Braxton Jones on the as at the left tackle, since then they have been a debt who's still the weakest link.
38:27
[SPEAKER_03]: He has some really good moments and some really outish moments.
38:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like he's going to get get tested, but yeah, to your point, Joe, Tony is a
38:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic.
38:37
[SPEAKER_03]: He's one of my favorite offensive linemen I've ever watched in Chicago.
38:39
[SPEAKER_03]: The things that he does and is able to, I guess, even help around him, Drew Dalman's really stepped up.
38:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Jonah Jackson's played really good.
38:48
[SPEAKER_03]: The probably last four or five games, and then to your point, Donnell Wright.
38:51
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just super physical, but he's also really athletic too.
38:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And Ben Johnson talks about that a lot of his, the physicality side of it, but also being able to do so many different things with him.
39:00
[SPEAKER_03]: He had a quote last week of, with the ball in his hands or not.
39:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like,
39:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
39:06
[SPEAKER_03]: He has some tricks up his sleeve at some point with Darnell Wright.
39:09
[SPEAKER_03]: We just haven't seen him yet.
39:11
[SPEAKER_03]: So we will see if he starts to pull out any crazy stuff to try and match what Brian Flores does on the defensive side in the ball.
39:18
[SPEAKER_03]: A couple more before I let you go, the Kevin O'Connell's the conversation.
39:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I love Kevin O'Connell.
39:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I still think KFC is one of the better best coaches, head coaches in the NFL.
39:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I've seen a lot of Viking spans on Twitter.
39:31
[SPEAKER_03]: starting to put the, okay, judging his end game decision making or play calling and getting a little frustrated with KFC, do you feel that at all?
39:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be honest, I've actually spoken out against all of that.
39:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually think Kevin will kind of kind of cause a flawless play collar.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think we and we just did it last night.
39:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I had Luke Braun on and we do an all 22 type show.
40:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's so many little things we play calling that people just don't understand.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And what Kevin O'Connell does, and I bet Ben Johnson does this to an extent too, is he calls to place, he calls to play, and then says can, and then he calls another play.
40:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then each play set has an indicator.
40:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, if you see,
40:19
[SPEAKER_02]: the middle of the field open, you see cover two, hey, we're going to we're going to can to this play and we're going to attack it with Mills in and then a post over the top because we want to be able to exploit that.
40:28
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what is happening a lot with a lot of these run plays.
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Justin Jefferson, there's a guy 15 yards off him, just throw them a bubble screen.
40:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a can.
40:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So even though it was called a run play, it doesn't get executed as one because the whole play calling thing is a chess match.
40:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They're giving you a certain look like on that
40:49
[SPEAKER_02]: you had single coverage and Jefferson had him beat if he doesn't trip and he has the inside track.
40:55
[SPEAKER_02]: That's an easy touchdown in theory.
40:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to take that opportunity when you can get it.
41:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not as simple as, oh, you just need to run the ball.
41:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like there's a stat flowing around with JJ McCarthy, I'm third and three years short.
41:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, the third and three or less, excuse me, he is he is not completed a single pass out of 14 attempts.
41:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so why hasn't he completed a single pass?
41:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's been a couple where he's just had to throw it away.
41:21
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been a couple of drops and there's just been some unlucky bounces and some of it just is, hey, you're a rookie quarterback and you're getting things too slow.
41:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
41:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not as simple as Kevin O'Connell just seems to run the ball more, which I do think he does, but when you get to the line of scrimmage, you're changing things because of what the defense is showing you.
41:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think that there's a true understanding of that element to it yet, and that's what we're trying to kind of educate people on because look, so a lot of the bad play calls people talk about, it's just that they're not executing.
41:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not that they can't
41:58
[SPEAKER_02]: you don't call a play thinking that it's going to fail.
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You call play knowing that you can trust your men to succeed with it.
42:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's been part of the problem.
42:07
[SPEAKER_02]: There was one against your bears in week one where it was just a third and two and earlier in the game they called Mesh, they wanted man, they got his own.
42:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So they came back.
42:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was the next drive of the drive after
42:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And they called the little zone beater where they had Jalen Taylor clear out and Adam Theland just kind of go up five yards and stop right in the whole of the zone and he drops it.
42:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't blame the play caller, J. J. McCarthy on that.
42:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Adam Theland is a veteran receiver.
42:33
[SPEAKER_02]: He needs to catch the damn football.
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a really layered conversation that a lot of people aren't willing to have.
42:39
[SPEAKER_02]: They just like run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, run the ball.
42:42
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it is not that simple.
42:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to do things based on what the defense is telling you.
42:49
[SPEAKER_02]: is sometimes you just got to throw it and even like last week there was a 48-pack drop-ax and 13 design runs.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Well game in neutral game script situations are 25 drop-ax and 11 design runs.
43:03
[SPEAKER_02]: where that doesn't feel so bad.
43:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that understanding in that context is something that I'm really trying to, I don't want to say edgy cake because I don't think like the fan base is stupid.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just incredibly passionate.
43:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes even myself included, we overlook some things that we shouldn't when we have these conversations and that's what I'm trying to reach out.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Cause I agree with you.
43:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank Kevin McConnell's one of the best playcalls in the league.
43:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though he gets a little stubborn, he wants to continue to attack attack on the field,
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, it works.
43:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:35
[SPEAKER_03]: He worked the same darn on.
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he, as a head coach, he is 38 and 22.
43:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you really going to tell him that he, I'm sorry.
43:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He's 38 and 22 is a head coach.
43:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's something's working.
43:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, let him do his thing.
43:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's funny because on Twitter right now I'm seeing the Vikings fans with K.O.C.
43:55
[SPEAKER_03]: and I'm seeing the Packers fans with La Flore and I'm like, do it, fire them, try to try to try to Let's get rid of him.
44:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, I would be so happy.
44:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh no, me too.
44:08
[SPEAKER_03]: So final one, Tyler, before I let you go, the let's talk reverse real quick, the thoughts from the Vikings mindset of how to how you beat the bears.
44:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And you mentioned earlier about, you know, maybe some of the struggles with Caleb William.
44:21
[SPEAKER_03]: him moving and being able to kind of play Houdini at times and that there's that that has been a thing.
44:27
[SPEAKER_03]: There's been a lot of things that he's gotten a better at this year.
44:30
[SPEAKER_03]: That pressure to Sacramento has gotten a ton better from last year.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: His accuracy deep down the field has gotten a ton better from last year.
44:36
[SPEAKER_03]: His not holding the ball and taking that sex has gotten a lot better than last year.
44:40
[SPEAKER_03]: There's still some accuracy issues that bears want to see continue to get better.
44:43
[SPEAKER_03]: But him and Ben Johnson have this relationship that really feels like it's growing into something that could be really fun.
44:49
[SPEAKER_03]: But what is the defensive side of the ball, though, you can, there's a lot of things you can take advantage of, no jail in Johnson still, no Kyler Gordon still, TJ Edwards has been banged up.
44:57
[SPEAKER_03]: The past rush just really isn't, there's not much of there of it at all.
45:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So what is the talking points around in Minnesota right now about this game?
45:05
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a Cape Cable Williams in the pocket.
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to make him beat us from the pocket.
45:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Do not allow him to move around, create out of structure and be Superman.
45:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the one thing that a lot of people don't get with quarterback play is, you still have to win from the pocket.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: When you can do the superman stuff, it can be a game flipper.
45:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You can all of a sudden take it and, oh, like I still remember it in the playoffs, Patrick Mahomes on like a fourth and 14 through that scrambled around for like eight seconds and through it across his body like 50 yards of tire he can.
45:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That play is still ingrained in my mind.
45:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do that stuff, but you still have to win in basic structure and you still have to win by being in the pocket.
45:45
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can prevent Caleb Williams from moving and running around and forcing to stay stationary, I think it's your best chance to win, because it's the place where he's the least comfortable.
45:55
[SPEAKER_02]: He is more comfortable being Houdini and moving and throwing the ball on the run and trying to create and playing backyard football.
46:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's nothing wrong with that.
46:04
[SPEAKER_02]: That, that is an elevator, but you don't want to rely on it.
46:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So force him to stay in the pocket and force him to beat you from there.
46:12
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can do that, I think this Vikings defense can get enough pressure up the middle and they can contain on the edges.
46:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It would look, that in itself is a difficult enough challenge.
46:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They did not do a great job against dealing her.
46:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Justin Herbert cooked their goose.
46:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can do that, it's a complete game changer for you, but they did do a phenomenal job against the Marjax and they stayed incredibly disciplined.
46:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody had to run over it.
46:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, the Demar did have one over eight yards.
46:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the longest run was 12 from Derek Henry.
46:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And he only got 75 yards on 20 carries.
46:44
[SPEAKER_02]: This team can force you to do things that you aren't the most comfortable.
46:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you can force Caleb Williams to only stay in the pocket, I think that's your best shot.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I still, I did not think that Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams would be a good match.
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still, I'm less convinced now, but I'm still a little, how good of a match can this be?
47:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think my what my thought process there is shift to because I think he's done a much better job of maximizing what Caleb Williams is is a player than I thought he could because of what he wanted to do and how successful he was in Detroit because he was so successful at that in structure timing stuff not not things that Caleb Williams was known for have done a really good job of melding the two together and all the credit to Ben Johnson.
47:36
[SPEAKER_02]: you haven't beaten a good team yet.
47:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
47:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's beat a good team and then okay, now we're cooking with some guests.
47:42
[SPEAKER_02]: The Vikings may be four and five, but if they're still good full ball team, they're inconsistent, but I think they're a good full ball team.
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you can do some of those things, if you can beat a Brian for his defense without having to go to your default of Superman mode, I will come away very impressed and tip my cap defensively.
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is potential
48:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't trust the corner backs on the outside.
48:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But then again, I had no respect for them in week one either in the first three quarters are not very good.
48:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So McCarthy just needs to play within himself, play smart football.
48:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you could do that, you can really.
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: do some damage against this bears secondary.
48:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I trust the offensive line to be able to hold up, especially on Grady Jarrett was on the injury report on Wednesday.
48:27
[SPEAKER_02]: If he doesn't play, that is going to be another boom for this Vikings offense.
48:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So attack the corners.
48:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They did a lot of switch release stuff against the Ravens that resulted in that 62 yardage of Jalen Taylor at the beginning of the game.
48:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But the flip side.
48:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They fix the switch releases almost immediately and it didn't work the rest of the way.
48:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So how is Kevin O'Connell and his offensive coordinator West Phillips going to utilize some of that stuff with this, I'm not going to call them in any experience corner back group, but they're void of talent compared to what we expect from the bears.
49:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So how are they going to attack it?
49:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I think those are the two big things that I want to see from this Vikings team.
49:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think going back to the schedule.
49:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I think bears the conversation has been the same.
49:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You have a stretch coming up that you can really prove yourself as being, okay, yes, we are a 6 and 3 team.
49:18
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a reason that maybe you started Oh and 2, but this is a completely different team.
49:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like especially offensively than those first two weeks.
49:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Defensively no, they're defensive, it's been rough.
49:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that's even more credit to what Caleb and Ben has done because they haven't had much defensive help.
49:33
[SPEAKER_03]: at all and it's pretty much you quit.
49:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Caleb's had to go down and score.
49:36
[SPEAKER_03]: This is his fourth obviously game one and drive in the fourth quarter because he's had to because the defense hasn't been able to help out much but I do think you have the stretch now coming up with obviously you've got the Vikings and lions and then you have the Packers twice, you've got the Eagles, you've got the Niners, so it's a rough stretch coming up for the bears but I do think that if you beat, you know, let's say you beat the Vikings,
49:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully, I don't know if you could be the Lions, but let's say you make that happen and split with the Packers, then the conversation flips very quickly of what this team is or can be.
50:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I think there's a lot of things that could go wrong for the Bears this weekend because they have, there's been moments of luck.
50:13
[SPEAKER_03]: There's also been moments on the other side where I felt like, maybe the Vikings game week one, they learn doesn't slip and you don't get call for a PI on that play, you potentially win.
50:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And so,
50:23
[SPEAKER_03]: there's that if some butts in every single game of how things can look and so we'll see what this weekend looks like I know it'll be an interesting one and we will chat later too Tyler as I join you later tonight so we'll talk more affairs Vikings later but I appreciate you hopin' all of me.
50:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
50:38
[SPEAKER_02]: If you guys want to check that out, Vikings first in school, the YouTube channel podcast, the Taylor will be with me.
50:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, I think you post us on Saturdays.
50:45
[SPEAKER_03]: So it'll be relevant though.
50:49
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll be talking bears biking so they can listen before the game.
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
50:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
50:53
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
50:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you so much and I'll chat with you later.
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Taylor.
50:56
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
50:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye.