00:08Valenian Rico, T.J. Lang is in.
00:10Mark in for Mike here on 97.1.
00:13Man.
00:13And T.J., I got a critical question for you.
00:15I got one for you, too.
00:17You thought that you were not going to get it because Mike's not here.
00:19I got a critical question.
00:21I got it.
00:21Yes, Rico.
00:22I got something here.
00:23I peed myself on the sideline before.
00:25Just get it out of the way.
00:26No, no.
00:27It was raining.
00:28Mark.
00:28Paul Serra's new here.
00:30He's, like, confused back there.
00:31You're the guest.
00:32If you want to ask your question first, you can.
00:33Oh, thank you.
00:34Thank you very much.
00:34Well, okay.
00:35The 1985 Bears allowed 12.4 points per game.
00:40The 2026 Vikings are allowing 12.3 points per game.
00:45They're allowing fewer points in a game than the Bears are.
00:50And they're doing it by blitzing upwards of 75% of their plays.
00:55No one else is blitzing even 50% of the time.
00:59Now, I could make a case that Brian Flores should be an MVP candidate when you consider
01:04the fact that they're second in yards allowed, first in points allowed.
01:09When he took over, they were 29th and 28th.
01:13And that is their calling card.
01:15But, TJ, what makes them so confounding to play against?
01:20Did you say MVP candidate?
01:22Seriously.
01:23Like, coordinator of the year.
01:23What's the biggest reason?
01:25I don't think coaches can be the MVPs, right?
01:26You're right.
01:26But, like, in terms of actual most valuable?
01:29That would be it a few times.
01:31That'd be a first.
01:34They're just well-coached, man.
01:35And these guys, a lot of them have been playing together for a long time.
01:38You look at their front seven, even in the back end, Byron Murphy.
01:42I think even Harrison Smith back, who was supposed to retire in the offseason,
01:46he ends up coming back at some point, I think, during training camp, right?
01:49He's 86 years old, by the way.
01:51Because it's chemistry, it's understanding what the play is designed to do,
01:56where's the weakness going to be, where's my help going to be,
02:00how can I leverage the other team into making them make the play that we want them to make.
02:05And I think when you watch, because if you go down Minnesota's depth chart on defense,
02:11you're not looking at a team like the preseason Rams, where it's like Miles Garrett, Aaron Donald,
02:18all these guys that are all pro, pro-bowl type guys,
02:22Minnesota doesn't really have any of those type of guys, but they play well together.
02:25And that, to me, lets me know that they're just a well-coached team.
02:29And Brian Flores has found ways to play that cat-and-mouse game against opposing offensive coordinators,
02:36where, hey, we're going to show you eight-man pressure, eight-man pressure,
02:39and then you go make the adjustments on the sideline for an eight-man pressure,
02:43and he drops eight guys in coverage and only brings three guys.
02:46And now, all of a sudden, you get some of those takeaways, because you're confusing the quarterback.
02:49I think he's just, the timing that he's able to call the plays with, I think, is what's ultra-confusing.
02:56Now, I go back to when I said in the first segment that Dan Campbell and Drew Petsing
03:00are going to have to find unique ways to pick up the pressure.
03:03There's one play that stood out to me, and I think this was two years back.
03:06It wasn't last year, because Ben Johnson was still here.
03:09Lions were playing at Minnesota.
03:11Minnesota was, Brian Flores was still bringing a lot of that pressure.
03:16There was a play where he motioned, I think it was Tim Patrick, all the way from the outside,
03:21kind of looked like he was going to cross the formation.
03:24He ends up stopping and picking up the safety on the back end, and it threw off Minnesota's defense.
03:30Two guys were like, receivers aren't supposed to block in pass protection.
03:35And they hit Amon Ross St. Brown for like a 30 or 40-yard just go route right over the
03:42middle of the field.
03:43And that confused Brian Flores.
03:45And for the rest of the game, you could tell, oh man, they burned us on it.
03:49Do we have to get out of it?
03:50Do we have to go more safe coverage?
03:52Do we have to get out of our defense?
03:54One play like that per game can really throw coordinators off.
03:58If you think you're going to the game, and this is what we're going to do, and this is going
04:01to be our bread and butter,
04:02and you get burned on it one time, it's like, okay, now we have to make the adjustments.
04:06That's the type of pressure that you have to put on a Brian Flores defense.
04:10You know that they're going to get theirs.
04:12I can promise you right now, there's probably going to be at least three plays on Sunday
04:18where Minnesota is going to have an unblocked defender, and he's going to be screaming in the backfield.
04:24But if you're the Lions, if you can make them pay on one of those with a big chunk gain,
04:29and you can get one-on-one coverage, or you can find a seam over the middle field,
04:32and you can make them pay, that is going to make Brian Flores probably rethink how he wants to call
04:38the game.
04:39Because that's the big thing.
04:40Hey, we can get beat on a third down, we just can't let up the big ones.
04:45If you hit them for a big one or two, that's really going to get Minnesota out of their game
04:49plan.
04:50TJ Lang joining us here.
04:51TJ, Petsing, is he more valuable?
04:55Because look, last year, I think we all saw they missed Ben Johnson, the play calling.
05:00It just wasn't the way it was.
05:03Like Ben, no, no, right.
05:04I'm not saying that to you.
05:06But Petsing, more valuable offensively or defensively because he was Kyler Murray's OC,
05:16so he could go to the defense and say, here's everything this man can't do.
05:21Here's everything that had me up at night.
05:23This is why I'm bald right now, because of this man.
05:26Here's what you need to do.
05:28Is he more valuable for the offense or for the defense for this game?
05:31Still offensively.
05:33I mean, he's going to have to have a good game plan in the run game.
05:36And like we just mentioned, the protection.
05:38But certainly, there's a ton of value when you know a guy that you've coached for, what
05:44was it, three years, I think, in Arizona.
05:46You know his strengths.
05:47You know his weaknesses.
05:48Hey, if he gets pressure off the left side, that's really where he gets in trouble because
05:53maybe sometimes he tries to do some of those turnbacks and now all of a sudden he's 20 yards
05:57behind the line of scrimmage.
05:58So let's maybe load up the backside a little bit more.
06:00Certainly, there's things that can be valuable.
06:03Now, it's clearly a different scheme that Minnesota runs rather than what Drew Petsing ran.
06:10I'm sure he knew how to protect his quarterback and, like I said, put him in good positions.
06:15But there's still the player, the individual, where you say, man, if you can get him in this
06:19situation, you could show this and then move out of it and show cover three but move back
06:26to, you know, a cover one or cover four.
06:29Like, he had a lot of issues with that.
06:31And when I was coaching him, certainly there's value to that.
06:35And I would tell you, even when I came to Detroit, you know, I would tell guys all the time.
06:41They would ask me, you know, hey, what's Aaron Rodgers?
06:44I mean, the guy didn't have a ton of weaknesses at that point.
06:46But, you know, I told him, hey, if you rush the guy over the left tackle, the defensive
06:51end, and make an inside move, and you tell the guy over the right tackle just to run 15
06:55yards up the field, you're kind of taking yourself out of the play.
06:59But Aaron's going to scramble to his left because I blocked for him for eight years.
07:02I know that's what he's going to do.
07:03I think we had two sacks that game that we played against him.
07:06And I'm sitting there, like, kind of fist bumping the defensive coaches, like, yeah,
07:10this is just like little, like, and plays like that, even if it's one or two plays,
07:14can make a difference in these games.
07:16We see how tight they are.
07:17So, there's certainly going to be value.
07:18And I think Drew Petsing, did he kind of undersell it a little bit when he spoke about that this
07:23week?
07:23And he was like, well, you know, I mean, Minnesota's a different team and different coaches.
07:28But, no, I guarantee he's been sitting down with Shep all week just talking about some
07:32of the tendencies that you might see and some of the weaknesses that could give you
07:36maybe that one play that turns out to be a difference maker.
07:39I'm going to give you a question, and I'm going to let you think about it for a little
07:42bit so you don't have to give me the answer right away.
07:45I see strength versus strength.
07:47I think this team, this game boils down to weakness versus weakness.
07:51You know, the 29th offense versus the 32nd defense.
07:56That's where the game is going to be decided.
07:58Because I do think that the offense and the defense, the offense of the Lions and the defense
08:03of Minnesota are going to kind of cancel each other out.
08:06It's what happens when that other 22 is out on the field.
08:11Am I wrong for thinking that?
08:13Or is this, no, it's just going to be strength versus strength, and that's what's going to
08:18determine the game.
08:18Because I think it's the other way around.
08:21The Minnesota offense, if they can score anything, I know their defense is like, look, we'll shut
08:28you down to about 14 points, and that's about it.
08:31But can the offense score 50?
08:34That's the big question.
08:35I kind of get the feel it's going to be a 24 to 20 type game.
08:42That's a win for the Lions.
08:43Even when you say that the Lions defense is still dead last, that kind of tells you how
08:47bad the first four weeks were.
08:49Because the last two games, they've been, I'm not going to say top 10, but average.
08:55I mean, you keep Green Bay to 17 points, keep Arizona to, I think it was the same, right?
09:00Yeah.
09:0017 points?
09:01But whatever.
09:02They scored a garbage.
09:0320, you're right.
09:04Yeah.
09:04But you know what I mean?
09:06Like, they've been playing better in the last couple games.
09:08So that's why I think, I don't expect Kyler Murray in this offense to come in.
09:12Their run game has not been great with Aaron Jones.
09:16And the Lions rush defense has been very good.
09:19Their secondary, look, there's still guys at times that are, oh, man, how do you let
09:24them wide open on a fourth down?
09:25I think it was Tucker Craft in the Green Bay game.
09:28It's fourth down.
09:29It's like, you can't just let this guy run a seam route uncovered.
09:33They still have some issues in the middle of that defense.
09:35But I don't see Minnesota coming in here and putting up 30 points.
09:39Like, I don't think, right.
09:41But so that's why I kind of agree with the second half, where I think it's going to be
09:44the Lions defense has improved.
09:46Now you have to prove that you can sustain it.
09:48You've shown it for two games.
09:50Four of the games was, blah, like pretty ugly.
09:56But the offense, I think, knowing Dan Campbell, he's always going to put the onus on the
10:04offense.
10:05He just always is.
10:06When you have the talent that they have at every single position group, the offensive
10:09line is getting better.
10:12You've got to put it on your offense.
10:13And if that takes 21 points, if it takes 28 points, if it takes 34 points, Dan Campbell's,
10:20that's what he expects you to do.
10:22I kind of get the feel, though, it's going to be a 24 to, like I said, 24 to 20,
10:28kind
10:28of one of those middle scoring games.
10:30I expect it to look like the Green Bay game.
10:32I don't see a shootout.
10:32So, yeah, that's a great comparison.
10:37I kind of see the same things.
10:39And who can make the least mistakes?
10:40Who can take care of the football?
10:41Who can be good in situational football?
10:43The line on this game is fascinating.
10:46It screams that Vegas doesn't respect Minnesota yet.
10:49So which team is actually better?
10:50Valenian Rico, Mark, in for Mike.
10:52TJ Lang as well, 97-1.
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