MNF Recap: Bills Triumph Over Vikings in Defensive Struggle

We're going to start with the Monday night game that happened. Right after, right before we recorded the show and Buffalo, Listen, the Vikings and Bills both coming in with really good records. Obviously the Vikings, a lot of people think it's snake oil. A lot of people don't really believe in it, but that defense is really good. And Kyler Murray had a hamstring injury. So he was inactive Carson. I'm surprised he wasn't healthy at halftime. Yeah, I'm going to ask one. They should, they, maybe they should have made him active at halftime. I think you see where this is going. But John, it was an absolute offensive disaster, not just for the Vikings, but actually for the Bills up until like the third quarter or so. It was a nasty game. But what were your thoughts on the Bills beating the Vikings 23 to 6 at Minnesota? What this shows you is Minnesota's limit. What this shows you is now they're going to fire every pistol in the chamber to figure out what's going on with this quarterback situation because they got rid of J.J. McCarthy. Now he looked like Jackson Dart. They got Kyler Murray. He out there looking like who knows what, like Call of Duty. He got Call of Duty early. That's how he out here playing. And then you put in Carson Wentz, who ain't been good since Ronald Reagan, apparently. And it's just not a good look out there for them right now. They're a quarterback. What you saw tonight literally felt like you watched the will of the defense be broken because the offense wasn't going to score. When you're on the road, it feels like the defense can rally around and kind of find their way and keep fighting. At home, when the home crowd is booing you because you can't complete a third down, you get multiple three and outs after terrible pass or interception by Carson Wentz. It really felt like the defense, the chain broke. And that's when you start to see in the second half, Buffalo really began to move the ball. But if you ever wanted to know what over the course of a game it looks like for the other side of the ball to let go, Tonight's game was a really good example because Buffalo didn't do anything different in the second half. They just kept doing what they did in the first half. And that was the result that you saw. I really think at one point, Minnesota was like, man, we're not going to score. And if we can't score, we're not going to win. And now, like I said, as we head towards the trade deadline, as we head towards the trade deadline is on November 10th. So as you guys are watching this, as you're listening to this, you're going to be seeing moves. But you look at halftime, it was 10 to 6 Bills, right? Buffalo outgained Minnesota 143 to 86. But it wasn't like the Bills were playing amazing. John, John, I remember we talked about this and I asked you. Are the Bills the team to beat in the AFC? And now they're sitting at 7-1. Obviously, they're in kind of control of their playoff destiny here. I think everyone feels like they're going to get to the playoffs, even though the Patriots got whooped by the Packers. But now they're kind of separating themselves from the rest of the group, right? And when you look at the Bills, I know we talk about the Vikings, but when you look at the Bills, there's still some things where I'm, I don't know, man, with their offense, where it's, It shouldn't be as hard of a game for them offensively as it is in some of these games early on. And then they kind of find their stride. But when they get to a playoff scenario, like, are you concerned about that? Like their struggles early on in games? Well, tonight, Dawkins was out, which they kept reminding you by showing him on the sideline. They also had a guard out as well. And again, the Vikings have done this, what they did in the first half, to every team they've played. No one has been immune to what they've been able to cook up on the defensive side of the ball. That's why tonight's win, I don't really take much out of the first half of them struggling because Brian Flores does that to everyone they play. And if you think about it, we've watched Buffalo score against everybody, whether it be Houston in week one when people still thought their defense was good and they put 30-odd points on them. And so for the Vikings to really be holding Josh Allen down for pretty much the entirety of the first half, I thought that was more impressive than I thought that it was more about Buffalo. That was about Minnesota. That wasn't about Buffalo's offense. That was more about Minnesota's defense and more Brian Flores than it was anything. And so now we get to, yeah, because, you know, I believe in the Bills. Like, they're going to be in the playoffs. They're going to be a contender. They're going to, you know, they're going to be in the mix here. When you look at the Vikings, though, I want to kind of hone in here because they have a decision to make here. Kyler Murray, we've kind of seen that. You know, I was higher on him, too. You were higher on him, too. Loved him. With Kevin O'Connell, like, hey, this might work. It just hasn't. Okay, we can kind of admit that now. The Carson Wentz experiment was an absolute disaster on Monday night. I mean, my God, some of these passes were just not even close. He was throwing it right at, but it looked like Justin Herbert. I was talking about Justin Herbert throwing it right to guys. That's what it looked like. It was just unbelievable. The vision, like I didn't even know what he was seeing out there. He was seeing ghosts as they like to say with Sam, but it was really bad. And this is a team that is still 6-2, John. It's not like they're, oh, they're 4-5 and they can blow it up. Oh, they're 6-2 and still in the mix here with the deadline coming up. And now you have to say, like, what quarterbacks are out there? Because if they add a quarterback, John, to this elite defense that Brian Flores has put out there week by week, that's a good team. It's still a good team.