Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - 10 takes from Sunday's NFL slate and ranking a bunch of Vikings stuff

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Matthew Coller talks about a Vikings-less Sunday and what we learned from the NFL, including that maybe there's more to Justin Fields's failures than his bumbling head coach. Plus the Bengals are for real, the Panthers are terrible. What does that mean for a close Vikings loss vs. Cincinnati and win versus Carolina? Matthew is also joined by former KFAN personality and current owner of Bring Me The News Joe Nelson to rank where the Vikings stand, the biggest surprises and disappointments of the season so far, whether Kirk Cousins is in the MVP race and expectations for the upcoming schedule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Alright, let's get to the show. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And I have to start the show today with just a quick complaint. Look, it's the bye week NFL for the Vikings. All right. So it's the one time every once in a while, Thursday night football, you get this, but mostly the one time where Vikings fans and me can just relax, sit on the couch for the entire day and watch football. And these were the games that you gave us.

Come on, football. What in the world? The worst set of games anyone could have ever asked for on Sunday. Well, Vikings fans were supposed to have a stress-free Sunday. Now they did get to see the Bears get their faces kicked in. Uh, they watched a really hideous Packers win, uh, not so much entertainment value with the chiefs game against Tennessee, just not a fun day of football. And I'm sorry, Vikings fans who had your day off to just watch football and not be upset for anything for a whole day. Um, but I, I felt like I was, uh,

I was ripped off and I got a few tweets of people. Cause of course I was tweeting, complaining about this. And a few people tweeted like, why don't you have red zone? Because I've never watched TV on Sunday. I mean, I'm at the stadium, so I'm not going to have red zone. And the only good game for a while was Ravens and Bengals, but even that turned out not to be good. So even red zone wasn't, I'm sure, all that fun either going game to game. A tough day on Sunday. So maybe we'll get better Monday night football. All right, so here's how I want to start the show.

I have a long conversation with Joe Nelson from Bring Me the News, where we rank stuff and try to have some fun. And then we'll get back on our usual schedule. We'll have Monday morning Murph. Searles is going to jump in, talk some football, then back to the usual Sam. Courtney, we'll have some unique guests coming up. So it'll be a fun week as we prepare for Sunday night football and a pivot point for the Minnesota Vikings in their season against the Dallas Cowboys. But first I wanted to run through 10 thoughts that I had because you know what if I was going to be subjected to that pour of a day of football it's going to at least create some content from it. So let's but let's talk about some things because there are some things relevant to the Minnesota Vikings for this Sunday. So let me start out with Justin

Fields. Now, a lot of people, rightfully so, including we did a whole episode on it or two, even recently, are upset with Matt Nagy for his offense with the Chicago Bears. They were blown out by the Tampa Bay Bucs who look head and shoulders above everyone else in the NFC and they were blown out and Justin Fields played as bad as you can play. And I had the thought that maybe it was the right thing to play Andy Dalton. Now I, it's possible that it is Matt Nagy and he is just so bad at designing an offense that no quarterback can succeed in it. Maybe Mitch Trubisky secretly good. I don't know. He hasn't had any success from any quarterbacks that he's had there. Nick Foles struggled. It's not like Chase Daniels suddenly became a great

player. Obviously Mitch Trubisky struggled for his entire time under Matt Nagy. So maybe it's a pattern of behavior with the head coach. But from what I saw from Justin Fields, I felt like it was a Justin Fields problem. And it's been a Justin Fields problem. It is not entirely Matt Nagy and his bad offense, especially toward the end of bears and bucks. It looked like Justin Fields had just given up. He kind of on one play toward the end. Cause for some reason I was watching the end of this game sort of slid down. Like I just don't want anybody to hit me anymore. And a couple of the throws that he had that were interceptions were just, I don't know, someone else take the football. That's not me. So I can go back to the

sideline and the disposition of Justin Fields. Cause, of course, all rookies are going to struggle. That's just how it is. No matter what, all rookies have struggled as quarterbacks. Even someone like Justin Herbert, who came on the scene last year, had his moments during last season where he had some pretty tough games. Joe Burrow had some tough games. We'll get to him. So thing number one though, is I think it's not crazy to watch that yesterday and say, wait, is Justin Fields a really good prospect? And now this is a long held belief of the show that we never know until the guy actually gets out there. So the reason you just take shots at first round quarterbacks is because one might turn out to be great, but sometimes they don't. And I'm not declaring this. I am not at all saying Justin Fields bust. I'm saying that there's

some pretty serious red flags and maybe they were right that he should have stayed on the sideline for Andy Dalton. I know Dalton got hurt and that's the reason that he should have stayed on the sideline for Andy Dalton. I know, I know Dalton got hurt and that's the reason that he played, but if they went back to Andy Dalton after that performance, that probably means, or if they go back to Andy Dalton after that performance, it probably means Matt Nagy is just fired and maybe he deserves to be fired. But a lot of that game was squarely on the shoulders of the quarterback, having no idea how to handle any of the blitzes that the Tampa Bay Bucks were throwing at him. And if you're Mike Zimmer, you've got to be licking your chops, but I'm not sure.

This is the point back to the Vikings. I'm not sure we'll be seeing Justin Fields. If it keeps going like that, Justin Fields might be back on the bench and sitting out the rest of the year and having Andy Dalton play. So in a way, I almost think if you're Vikings fans, you kind of hope that it stays somewhere in the middle. And then when Justin Fields plays the Vikings, he is very much taken advantage of by Mike Zimmer and his ability to blitz. But I think there's red flags already. Not quite Josh Rosen, but he did tie Josh Rosen for, I think it was fumbles plus interceptions in a game as a rookie.

Not good. Not good. All right. Number two on the list. The Chiefs are washed, folks. What in the world happened to the Kansas City Chiefs? Here's what I think it is. Number one, no one can play the same way all the time for a really long time in football without everybody else figuring out how to stop you. And I think we saw this in Los Angeles in

part and you know, the Rams are back on track with Matt Stafford, but also they have changed their offense a lot for Matt Stafford. And they were doing sort of the same things with Jared Goff. And eventually it got figured out. I don't think this is so much of a Patrick Mahomes signed his contract and all of a sudden they're bad. I think that it's part defenses are hard to keep together and keep good, which there's another point to be made down the road for another team about this. I also think that they made bad decisions that are coming back to bite them. They have not really invested a lot in the wide receiver position. So Tyree kill and Travis Kelsey are their only two

guys. They drafted a bust first round running back, which is the worst thing you could possibly do. They trade a first round pick for a tackle. Who's not a difference maker. He's just kind of a guy. And they spent crazy money on Frank Clark. Who's just not even good. I think that these decisions combined with still trying to rely on just

hitting deep plays and Patrick Mahomes doing everything all the time, it's not a good model unless you have more playmakers and a running game. Because even though some people I think would want to abolish the running game and throw every play like I do on Madden. It's important for keeping the defense honest. If you can run for 200 yards on the other team, if they focus solely on their past, 99% of NFL teams and 99% of games are going to be forced to respect that run. They hate being run over. They hate the other team controlling the clock. That's what happened on Thursday night, which we'll touch on a little bit here. But you saw what happened to Denver.

Cleveland just handed off over and over and over again, and the game ended. They couldn't get the ball back. They only ran 49 plays. That's what Kansas City does not have that club in their bag. The only thing Kansas City has is, hey, Patrick Mahomes, go create a miracle. And there have been a lot of tipped ball interceptions and things like that where he's trying to run around, he's trying to make a play.

But I think that Andy Reid has to come up with a different strategy than just trying to hit deep. These teams seem to have figured out how to stop them. I don't know that there's a quick solution though. There is no flip a switch, all of a sudden Kansas city's good. They have a tough schedule coming up. They're not in the conversation on the other side of the coin. I thought Tennessee might fall off a little this year. Not at all. Tennessee is good.

They've been banged up. They might've even had some COVID issues and yet here they are beating Buffalo and Kansas city. That's a pretty good run for Tennessee. But I think that Kansas City is in a very difficult spot. If they don't solve some things really fast, they are, at least as of right now, not in the Super Bowl conversation. All right, let's talk about the Bengals. 41 to 17 over the Baltimore Ravens. The Cincinnati Bengals are very good and made the right choice of drafting a wide receiver.

Now here's what comes to my mind. A couple of things. Number one, Mike Zimmer was gushing about Joe Burrow gushing when the Vikings were getting set to play the Bengals and he was extremely right Joe Burrow is just brilliant he sees the field extremely well he dealt with all of the blitzes and the different looks from the Ravens almost flawlessly he's greatly improved his ability to throw down the field he's a playmaker and now he's got Jamar Chase and a lot of folks said why aren't you drafting Penny Sewell? Take the tackle. And they said, well, we'll spend a small amount of money on Riley reef. That will be fine. Let us get this generational talent in Jamar chase. And wow. Uh, is he that, so the Cincinnati bangles legitimate contenders for the first time since, uh, Carson Palmer. It's been fun to watch with Joe Burrow

because of what he went through with his knee injury last year. And when I was in Cincinnati, Uber drivers were telling me, man, Joe Burrow is going to be great. He's going to be great. And I guess those Uber drivers knew what they were talking about.

Does it change how we view the Vikings loss to Cincinnati? I say no. That was Joe. Well, first Joe Burrow was great in that game. He got a little banged up and they stopped passing. Not a great choice from Cincinnati. And they let the Vikings back in their coach made a really bad decision, but largely Cincinnati outplayed the Vikings by a lot in that game.

And it was Burrow's first game back. So I don't look at that and say, wow, the Vikings played close with this good team. I don't know that they were who they are now then. And I also think the Vikings were decidedly outplayed in that game. So I'm not ready to give a ton of credit to the Vikings for playing close with a really good Cincinnati team. Speaking of close games that the Vikings played against other teams, the Carolina Panthers did not make last week's victory by the Vikings look any sexier today. As predicted, Sam Darnold was benched for PJ Walker, who didn't make me look good as

a PJ Walker XFL enthusiast by going three for 14, but that's not the point. The Carolina Panthers, there is a group of teams in the NFL that have no idea what they're doing. And these teams are great. If you're a semi-competent team, see the Vikings are a competent team. They're not perfect. They make mistakes and we question those mistakes on this very show, but the coach knows football and the front office understands how to put together a squad. Carolina doesn't understand these things. They traded a ton for Sam Darnold, who is one of the worst draft pick quarterbacks over a pretty big sample size. I remember reading the stat that Sam Darnold had actually thrown more NFL passes than Teddy

Bridgewater by the time he left New York. So he had thrown a lot of passes and was never at any point good. And they traded a lot for him and said, you're our guy. And they've made their offensive coordinator out to seem like some brilliant dude. Uh, that has not been the case at all, but they built around defense that couldn't really even slow down the giants beat up and very bad offense. Although I do like Daniel Jones, all of a sudden, I think talk about a guy who has Tannehill vibes. But Carolina is a very, very poor franchise and probably not going anywhere and has made a tremendously bad quarterback decision that could cost them for quite a long time. But, you know, I'm not generally of the mind that whatever the team does next, then we

judge your game against them. So like Carolina's game against the giants doesn't really make a difference toward the Vikings game, but it certainly made me stop and go, uh, wow, you got to put away a team like that. If you're going to compete with the better teams. All right, let's, uh, run through some of these other ones. Overall, the NFC is middle class. This is my fifth takeaway. If you've been counting, uh, the middle class is just bad of the NFC. This is to the benefit of the Vikings. And I know that the Vikings have a difficult schedule. I've noticed that, but you look at these teams that are behind the Vikings, the Falcons, Bears, Panthers, 49ers, Seahawks football team.

I mean, the Vikings, if they can get to eight wins might end up with a playoff spot. And I'm not convinced that new Orleans is anything special either as the way this is shaping up. If Atlanta is the team that is the most dangerous from behind you, an Atlanta team that you really can't trust. And Chicago is just typical Chicago kind of bouncing all over the map. I just look at this NFC as Vikings do not have in the next five games, this car go into a ditch and you probably make the playoffs because you've got Chicago twice, even if you split, but I think you can get to if they're playing Justin Fields and he's like this. Detroit, San Francisco is not

special. I mean, the opportunity is going to be there to get a couple of wins against good teams split with Green Bay, get to nine and eight, get to eight and nine. I don't know who's going to catch you unless Atlanta gets really hot, but they only beat Miami by two. Okay. Next take Baltimore is not invincible. Number six on our 10 list of things I'm doing here. Baltimore is not invincible. They've played a lot of close games.

They needed a 66 yard field goal to beat the Detroit lions. They've had some losses. They had to have a bunch of stuff go wrong for the chiefs to get that win. They needed a bunch of stuff to go wrong for Indianapolis to get that win as great as Lamar Jackson is. And he made a pass to, he threw a pass to Hollywood Brown. That was preposterous. It was just unbelievable. And, but there are also times where they're not running the football very well with their running backs. Their running backs are beat up. They, for some reason signed Le'Veon Bell and there's nothing left there with Le'Veon Bell. I think that they have cracks in the foundation like a lot of good teams do. But

if you're looking forward a little bit to that Vikings game in Baltimore, you like what you saw today because you think this team is not perfect. And one thing that Kirk Cousins does pretty well is handles blitzes. And that's what Baltimore seems to love to do. And it's very feast or famine with their defense so i thought this shows you a little bit of baltimore has that bad loss in them that i don't think they're as terrifying as maybe we thought uh going into that game when we look at this schedule going forward all right uh washington great example they lost to green bay great example of a team that we go into the season and go, oh man, their defense is going to be unbelievable. It's not, it's not even good. And that's what, it's hard. It's hard with defenses to figure out on a year to year basis. Are you going to be good or not? Hard to say. And this is one of the reasons that relying on defense is probably not usually a good plan. Also, they have a backup quarterback, Taylor Heineke playing. And if you're watching that game as

Vikings fan, you were probably losing your skull over the number of chances that Washington left on the field for the Packers. But now the fact that the Packers are six and one makes it, I mean, you probably need a wild card spot now. I mean, the Packers would really have to fall apart. They do have a difficult schedule, but to make up this much ground on green Bay or beat them twice, which is possible, but that's hard to do as well. Green Bay does not look quite as much of a juggernaut as they were last year, but six and one versus three and three is a lot of ground for the Vikings to try to make up here. Three in the win column. And we'll see what happens,

of course, against Dallas, but like no thanks Washington, I'm sure is how Vikings felt watching that game. There was a play where Taylor Heineke essentially kneeled down on himself right before going into the end zone. He fumbled on a QB sneak. He threw interceptions in the end zone. It was not a great showing. So Washington did you absolutely zero favors. Take number eight, tanking works. Sometimes it doesn't.

Arizona and Cincinnati, two of the best teams in the NFL. They drafted number one quarterbacks. They built around like Trey Hendrickson, JJ Watt. They spent the money. They got hits on other high draft picks. DeAndre Hopkins, of course, on a great trade by Arizona. But the New York teams and Miami, when you don't hit on the quarterback or you just have no clue what you're doing. Like the New York giants.

This is the difference. So when we talk about teams that succeed from tanking, it doesn't even have to be that you're necessarily brilliant, but you have to hit on the quarterback. Hard to say if you will or not, but you have to hit on it in order for it to work. And if you don't hit on it, the next guy has to be good. And that might not be the case with the New York jets. I mean, they said Zach Wilson had a knee injury. I think they probably just benched him because he has been playing tremendously bad for the New York jets. So it's a fascinating dichotomy. It's sort of like anything else. Like

the teams that are a little bit more clever and get lucky, it works for them. The teams that aren't, it doesn't. But tanking, I think on the whole gives you a chance. I'm not saying the Vikings should do this. I'm just saying that maybe there was a time last year where they should have considered it to try to get a top draft pick and then go from there.

But anyway, that's in the past. The point is two of the best teams in the NFL were just recently really bad. And so when people talk about, ah, I can't have a bad season or two bad seasons in a row, it would be so terrible. Well, they're reaping the benefits now.

Or you could get stuck in that trench and stay there forever. So it's a tricky thing in sports. Speaking of Miami, no, the Vikings should not be thinking about Tua. I got a few tweets on that. No, no, no, no. Nope. Sorry. No. I do think that Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, Delvin Cook, Irv Smith, when he returns, KJ Osborne would be phenomenal for any quarterback. I mean, the people who want Teddy back, I bet Teddy would

be good here. I really think this group is phenomenal in terms of weapons. And now you have an offensive line that's growing. So if you're thinking way out in the future, or even the short term, if you think in the short term, what can they do this year? Like, that's the thing you're most excited about. And if you think about into the future a year or two, if they do change quarterbacks, they have the weapons and the foundation that is not really the case in Miami. They have, from my understanding, co-offensive coordinators, which is preposterous and another Belichick hero coach not working out. Not exactly a stunner for, Flores, but I don't think Tua is physically gifted enough

to be anything beyond kind of what he is, which you might be able to win with for maybe a year, kind of like the Jared Goff, Jimmy Garoppolo type of thing, but that's not worth trading for. Not worth, because he's already used a couple of years of his rookie deal. He's had injuries in both seasons. No, no, hard pass, hard pass. If they decide to trade for Deshaun Watson, uh, that's going to be a no

for me, dog. Um, quick thought on Thursday night football. I mean, Denver and Cleveland and Teddy and case. How about that? It was a, it was a hideous football game, but sort of fun for Vikings fans to see Case Keenum and Teddy Bridgewater, two of the most likable players who have been here in the last decade. And Case Keenum did all the Case Keenum things. He tried to throw the game away. He tried to win the game by break-ins of tackles.

And Teddy Bridgewater, whatever Pat Shermer had magically in 2017, he has not taken anywhere with him. But, you know, Teddy Bridgewater was probably a perfect bridge quarterback. If Denver had wanted to draft one and maybe things would look different for Justin Fields, I don't know, but they pretty much said, this is our guy. And I mean I mean you know I don't know if Teddy will ever be you know be the same as he was before the track that he was on I don't think he will I looked at that game as being much more a case of the defense thing though oh Denver's defense it'll just make everything easy and we can run and throw every once in a while well that's just it doesn't

work for anybody. All the teams that they, that we went into the season. Oh, they're going to have a great defense. Who has it worked for a year to year basis? It's just, it often depends on your schedule. Depends on your health. Depends on if your scheme has been figured out. It's hard to project.

Oh, this defense will just win us football games. But they played so cautiously with Teddy the other night that you just sort of shake your head. I don't really know what you guys are doing with him. And I also think that it probably was a fine decision for a bridge quarterback, but not for a future thing if they really thought that that's what they were going to do. So there you have it. 10 opinions. We'll have more with Brian Murphy, more with that's what they were going to do. So there you have it. 10 opinions.

We'll have more with Brian Murphy, more with Jeremiah Searles, more to say. But for now, I am going to hand it over to my conversation with Joe Nelson. Bring me the news. We decided to rank stuff for a Monday morning. So if you like ranking Vikings things, then that's what's coming up next. So lots to do, lots to do this week, lots of good stuff and a huge game. And I guess we can all appreciate the fact that even though the Panthers win was not great for the Vikings, it set us up for some kind of game this Sunday night. If they were two and four, this would be like, I don't know who cares, but now it's a major part of what you have going on. So I'm, I'm excited to talk about it all

week and preview it and so forth. And hopefully you'll come along with me. So, all right. Oh, one more quick thing. Uh, professional Paul, as you guys might know him on the podcast, intern Paul, previously Paul Howanek, he now has his own YouTube show with Purple Insider called Hot Routes, where we do five questions, just as we've done all the time on here. So if you go to YouTube, type in Purple Insider, subscribe to us there. Paul's doing his own show. He'll be asking me questions, Sam, his own guests. It's a cool thing. I wanted to get Paul more involved. So he's going to be doing his own YouTube show. I'm excited about that. So

look for that purple insider.substack.com for the written work. All right. Here's my conversation with Joe Nelson. It's pretty fun. So enjoy folks. Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore. That's because TickPick, that's T-I-C-K P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need for your go-to for all NFL tickets. TickPick got rid of those awful service fees that the other sites charge, which lets them guarantee the best price on all of their NFL tickets. Don't believe it. If you could find better prices for the same seats on another ticket site, TickPick will give you 110%

of the difference on the purchase price. So we've got lots of big games going on in downtown Minneapolis and lots of road trips for Minnesota football fans to take. So you want to go to TickPick.com slash insider to save $10 on your first order for Minnesota football tickets. Again, TickPick.com slash insider to save $10 on your first order of Minnesota football tickets. From Bring Me the News, Joe nelson what is up joe and welcome to your first time on the stream it's it's uh it's a bye week bonanza and i'm ready for it i really am thank you bye week bonanza so joe the way i want to do it for this live stream particular is by ranking stuff and i think the the place that I want to begin ranking things is

where we think the Minnesota Vikings rank in the NFL as a football team, because I think that's the broad, I think that's the broadest place that we could possibly begin. And then we will, we'll break down and rank other stuff. But where do you think that if you had to power rank the entire league after what you saw in Carolina, how close they made it, how good the offense was, where would you put them? Probably like 13 to 15, somewhere in there. I mean, if you think about the NFC, it's pretty stacked and top heavy. You have the Rams, you have the Cowboys. Obviously we know the Vikings can hang with the Cardinals based on what we saw. We'll find out if they can hang with the Cowboys on Halloween night, but the Packers are better than the Vikings at this point. You could argue that

the Saints are better than the Vikings. There's a long list of really good teams in the NFC and it's stacked and deep. I think the Vikes can hang with them, but I can't put them at that same level just yet. Yeah, I mean, the Vikings are about to find out just how good they are when they come out of the bye week with the gauntlet of teams they have to face. Right. And even though this is the most basic NFL question you could ask is where do all the teams sit at a certain point in the league? I also think that it's a really interesting question because I think that they tend to sit on this sort of fringe between the teams that we know are good and the teams that we're pretty certain are bad. You are, I think, clearly better than Carolina as an overall football team, but also couldn't close them out. And that's another part of it is the imperfections of the Vikings. Every team has them

because there are so many teams and lots of parity, but the imperfections have really shown up in these last couple of weeks of letting teams that have no business being in games come back in these games. And at the same time, you could contradict that by saying, but if you look at the offensive and defensive performances against Detroit, the defense gives up basically nothing until the Vikings fumble at their own goal line. And then against Carolina in the second half, they put together one of the best offensive performances in Vikings history in the second half of that game. And yet it's and yet you look at the final scores and it still feels like, well, wait a minute. These two things don't add up. And I agree with you that I think that it's somewhere in that what puts you in a playoff spot, but does not make you a Super Bowl contender. And I think that that's where you put them right now. Now, let me ask you another question. Where do you think if we were asked to do this in six weeks, we would say the Vikings rank? Well, honestly, as dumb as it sounds, maybe to a lot of people out there,

I'm actually fairly optimistic about their chances coming out of the bye against, what is it, they go Cowboys, Ravens, Chargers, Packers, Niners, Lions, or something like that, and it's just a murderer's row. I'm fairly confident about that just because I love their chances at home against the Cowboys. I'm tossing out the Kirk Cousins primetime Sunday night football stigma. I'm not going to worry about that until it happens again. Baltimore on the road is tough, but Baltimore's proved, I think, that they basically play up or down to their competition.

So I think the Vikings will be right in that game all night long. The Chargers, I'm not totally convinced about just yet. And then obviously the border battle with the Packers here in Minneapolis is going to be probably pretty tight. So I do think they have a decent shot to come out of that, something like 7-4, which seems absolutely bat bleep crazy. But, I mean, if they are 7-4, I'm sitting here thinking to myself, well, hey, let's see how deep they can go this year.

I really do think that that could happen. Will it happen? I don't know. The more likely thing to happen, it would probably be more like, what, 4-7 coming out of that stretch? That's the more likely thing that's going to happen and if that's the case then all of a sudden you're still a middle of the road team in the NFL probably pushing closer to the bottom 15 than you are the top 15 or 16 so I don't know but I do feel a little bit optimistic just because I don't think a team can crap down their legs so many times in a row it just can't happen so many times in a row you're going to finally close some of these games out yeah well so that's the thing that you try to look at the broader statistics and what they tell you because

any game can go one way or the other like you mentioned that game last night with the bills and titans where you know if josh allen's left foot sticks in the ground a little bit better the bills have a great chance to win that game and then we're talking about them as the super bowl favorites at this moment, but they come just a little bit short. His foot slips, the left tackle gets blown up, and then all of a sudden now it's, oh, well, you're four and two, Tennessee's four and two,

and you guys suddenly look equal. This is where the broader numbers help us. And with the Vikings, they're even a contradiction there because there are certain numbers for the Vikings, including even passing yards, which maybe we wouldn't have expected where they're at the top of the league scoring. They're more in the middle scoring percentage, like the percentage of drives in which they score is very underwhelming. It's actually below average in the NFL in the amount of drives in which they score. And yet, you know, Kirk Cousins quarterback rating his pro football focus. Great. Like they're all really good. And then you look at the defensive

side and try to project what's going to happen going forward. But that's really hard to do because against Joe Burrow, he did pretty well against the Vikings in the first half of that game, especially to get Cincinnati ahead. Kyler Murray, another very good quarterback, maybe the MVP of the league right now. He put up 400 yards against the Vikings in that game. And then when they play the worst quarterbacks, an injured Baker Mayfield, who was missing open receivers, Jared Goff, and then Sam Darnold, the defense ends up looking like the 2000 Ravens

at times in those games. And then, you know, it doesn't come up with some clutch plays. But I don't think that those last couple of games really project well to figuring out how are they going to do against Dak Prescott who's putting up 400 yards passing a game and the Dallas Cowboys offensive line that is just still terrific and has bounced back and has been healthy this year and they're getting layout Collins back and the Baltimore Ravens and a running quarterback like that. That's similar to Kyler Murray, but even more dynamic in terms of his running ability. I don't know that we really have a sense for what the defense is. I think that we

know what the offense can be. And I think we know the things that hold the offense back at times, but the defense, Joe, that's where I'm, I need to see a lot more to know, are they actually what they've done the last three weeks or was that more just schedule and quarterback related? I think we know what their peak performance is. It's the second half of the Seattle game. I mean, you got to remember from that game, that was week three, I think it was, and week two, I can't remember, week two or three or four. And Russell Wilson and D.K. Metcalf were absolutely shredding the Vikings in the first half, and we were thinking, oh, God, here we go again. It's going to be this kind of season.

It's going to be Mike Zimmer's looking at, if he still has a job next year, another cornerback in the first round because this is a nightmare. Guys are getting shredded up and down the field, and you can't stop anybody. But in the second half, something clicked. Something happened, and they shut down Russell Wilson. D.K. Metcalf, Tyler Lockett was a non-factor. The running game had no impact on the Vikings defense and the offense was explosive. You can argue that was Kirk's best game as a pro. I mean, 30 for 30A with 300 something yards and three touchdowns. You can argue that. If you play like that rest of the year, you are a competitor, you're a contender,

but they haven't proved capable of doing that more than a quarter or two at a time. And that's, that's kind of their MO at this point. You're a rollercoaster ride all season long. And until they can straighten some things out and play consistently, it's, you never know what you're going to get. That's why, again, I won't be shocked if Dak doesn't go for 404 touchdowns on Sunday night football on Halloween. I won't be shocked if he does, because you just don't know what you're going to get.

And we don't know yet how big of an influence Patrick Peterson, with him out with a hamstring injury now, was for that secondary. Because it felt like he was kind of manned up against guys all game long and holding his own for the most part as an aging former All-Pro. Now without him you've got Cameron Dantzler stepping in or Harrison Hand or whoever it might be and Bashaw Breeland is now the top dog out there and I that's a frightening scenario potentially unfolding week after week after week because this does not sound like a quick fix for Patrick Peterson he was on a podcast I think it was uh yesterday and he was saying, oh, man, I've never had one like this before. And it doesn't sound like a guy who's going to be back in a month, much less maybe before the end of the season.

Right. In the best case scenario, he comes back off of IR, I believe, after the Ravens game, because I think this week counts and then the next two weeks. I didn't know if the bye week counted or not. I think it does. Yeah, I think it does. And then, so you're talking about a guy who is in his thirties though. And he, while he hasn't had significant injuries, a hamstring is something that can hang around. And that is a big concern because their coverage over these last few weeks has been much, much better than it was. As you mentioned, that sort of started to click in the second half of the Seattle game. The other thing that started to click was the offense kept the defense off the field. And that's something that I think maybe is sort of underrated when you sort of talk about offenses and defenses.

We like push them to each side. Okay. You're on this side of the room. You're on that side. But I think that they're connected if you can control the ball and if you can force other teams to play from behind, it often, I think will they're connected if you can control the ball and if you can force other teams to play from behind. It often, I think, will really help your defense because you can pass rush much more, be much more aggressive and things like that. And they have not really had any games where they've been able to pull away and just put their opponent away except for the Seattle game.

So we've seen how the offense can make a difference there if they can stay on the field. But when they're going up against great quarterbacks, I'm not super confident that all of a sudden Bashad Breeland is going to find it or Cam Dantzler is going to become a Pro Bowl level corner once he gets this opportunity. I think there's a reason why he doesn't have this opportunity because he really didn't play well in the preseason training camp. And then he goes in the game last week and gets beat in the biggest situation as the Panthers are trying to come back. So I don't think there's a ton of confidence there. And with teams that have things you really believe in and things you really don't believe in 500 teams. And I think if the Vikings come out of this stretch of six games, their next six,

and they end up at six and six, then they've got a chance to be in the playoffs and they'll probably be ranked like 16th by the, you know, by the power ranking people, 14th, 16th. If they can do better than that, then they can get into the top 10. And that's, what's so wild about this season, Joe, is that at one point it looks it looks like gosh are they gonna have to trade everybody at the deadline right and they're a couple of drives away from being at that point from rick spielman getting questions about you know potentially having to trade everybody away and jobs being lost and things like that and now they're in a spot if you go any better than 500 in the next six games if you go four and two all of a sudden

it looks like, wow, this team could really be a contender. Well, and you know, I think a lot of Vikings fans believe they, they are a contender because I mean, it's, it's really easy to look at this team and say they should be five and one or, or hell six and all. I mean, you really can look at them and say that week one, you should have beaten the Bengals week two, you really can look at them and say that. Week one, you should have beaten the Bengals. Week two, you should have beaten Arizona. Week three, you beat Seattle. Week four, I mean, I go back to this Cleveland game, and I think I might be alone on an island in this, but I really do believe the officials screwed the Vikings big time in that game.

I mean, you can't go back and say you know what's going to happen, first and goal from the one-yard line with no time left. But if that pass interference is called on Adam Thielen in the end zone, you have that opportunity to score and tie the game. It's one yard with the best running back in the NFL, I might say, or two of the best red zone threats in the NFL in Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. You could definitely say that.

And the Vikings defense actually did play pretty well that game. I mean, Cleveland didn't have a touchdown if it weren't for a phantom defensive holding call on Eric Hendricks in the end zone. So, yeah, the what-if scenarios have this team 5-1 or 6-0 in a lot of Vikings fans' minds right now. Kirk's playing great. That's why I do feel kind of optimistic that they can get through this gauntlet and play pretty well and have six or seven wins and I'm probably nuts I'm I'm I probably am but I I won't be shocked I have seen your pre-game predictions and so I'm not surprised that you are a you're a hope for the best type of person uh with a realistic shade

only outside of those predictions that are usually like 54 to three or something like that. All right. Here's what I want is we'll stay on the schedule and then we'll get to kind of the roster and how people have performed so far this year and do some more rankings, but let's do this. Let's rank of the next five games. We've mentioned them many times how hard they are. Dallas, Baltimore, Los Angeles Chargers, Green Bay. And I'll throw San Francisco in there too because Garoppolo might be back or Trey Lance might be cooking at that point

because he's got the talent. He's got Kyle Shanahan. So of those six games, I want you to give me either your three hardest or just rank them all in order. But six might be too many for your brain to handle. Oh, you're right. My three all in order, but six might be too many for your brain to handle. Oh, you're right. My three hardest in order, they go at Baltimore, at Los Angeles,

at home against Green Bay. I just think anytime you have to play Aaron Rodgers and they're rolling, it's extremely difficult. And that's even at home. Mike Zimmer's had success against A-Rodge and company, but I don't know. That's just scary. If you don't have Patrick Peterson, Devontae Adams is going to eat. He's going to eat a lot.

And I just hate that scenario. So back to your question, I go at Baltimore is the toughest. On the road against Lamar is going to be hard. I think going west to Los Angeles is going to be difficult as well. Justin Herbert's a monster. I mean, people talk about him, but it's like, holy cow, this guy's a top-ten quarterback, and they've got a lot of weapons and Austin Eckler gets no love and he's so good. And Joey Bosa and that entire defense, they can shut people down.

Look what they did against Kansas city earlier this year. So I know it's, it hasn't been Patrick Mahomes is, you know, shiny moment this year so far, but they look really good in that game too. And then obviously the green bay game like i mentioned dallas is going to be tough but i just i just really like the vikings out of a buy at home um you know raucous atmosphere we don't know how healthy dac is yeah there's a lot there's a lot of stuff that we have to wait and monitor to really see how scary the cowboys are in 13 14 days whatever it is well this is the interesting thing about where they stand is that you can talk yourself into either way.

Like you can talk yourself into, well, they can play with all these teams or there's no way they can play with all these teams. I mean, in one way, it's look at what the offense is capable of at its best. And so if it's at its best for out of these next five games, three of them or four of them, then you can compete with any of these teams. But at the same time, you have decisions that hold back the offense. And I wrote about that at the website, just about putting the gas pedal down and how the Vikings tend to run at disadvantageous times.

It's not really even just about their yards per attempt, but how they just don't make great choices of when to run, when to kick field goals, when to punt, when to go for two, these things are not consistent. And so to pick my three toughest games, I think I'm right there with you because even though Dallas and Dak Prescott, who also has the week off this week, so should be at least healthier or healthy-ish in that game uh the i would have the concern about the secondary of the vikings versus their receivers i think that's a big worry and also dallas's defensive line is playing well so i would put them probably third um but i'm gonna go with baltimore and los angeles at the top um baltimore i know is playing a lot of close games and some of them even close against det, but they are a really well-coached team. And I think they make the smarter decisions and

they have a quarterback who can do it all himself. So if you outplay Lamar, he can still beat you if you beat them in every other area. And plus, if every game's coming down to a game-winning kick, I'll take Justin Tucker. And so I think that one is really hard. Going to Los Angeles is just hard in general. Um, as long as the whole building is in purple, I think, but I agree with your point about their, their defense, I think is a, is a big deal in their defensive line. And then I'll pick Dallas here because of their receivers. And I won't go green Bay because I think that actually Mike Zimmer has matched up well against Aarongers. And I watched them. And last year at times, I was wowed by Green Bay. Like, man, their offense is just shredding people.

This year, they're getting through games that they should win, some with some luck mixed in against Cincinnati, for example. I guess both kickers were melting down either way. But they're not running people out of the building. And I think that's one that the vikings should be able to win so let me let me get back to our ranking stuff i want you to rank for me joe the three players who have exceeded expectations for you and the three players who have not let's i mean we'll just start with the ones that have and then we'll talk about

the ones that have not so the three three v three Vikings players who have exceeded first guy that pops up for me uh and this you'll you'll know more about it this is just me on the eye test okay DJ Wanham I feel like he's created a lot of havoc in the last few weeks I know he was kind of absent the first handful of games or not even handful games first few games but I feel like he's he's put a lot of pressure on the quarterbacks. This is literally just off the top of the head. What have I seen lately? And I feel like Wanham has done a little bit of damage lately.

And now you're probably going to throw some snap count at me like, oh, he's only played 13 snaps in the last two weeks or something like that. Well, here's what I'd say. Here's what I'd say about Wanham is that he's in a better role now, that the role of a starter for him is probably not the fit where he should be. Everson Griffin being the starter is I think much better for want him to just fit in in those certain situations where he can succeed. I would say that. So he has looked better in those spots than as a start. Yeah. KJ Osborne is obviously

somebody who's outperformed everybody and their expectations, except for Sam Ekstrom, who's been on this bandwagon since like June 1st. I don't know when he got on that bandwagon, but last year he looked like a lost cause. And now all of a sudden he looks really good. And a lot of people are saying the best third wide receiver the Vikings have had since hell, Jake Reed. I mean, I don't know if I go that far, but he has looked really good. And the most impressive part about him isn't just the stats and the numbers in a game-winning touchdown. It's the catches he's made in big situations, whether it be third downs or fourth downs. Kirk Cousins doesn't have these game-tying or game-winning drive opportunities, if not for a bunch of really sure-handed plays by K.J. Osborne this season.

So he deserves a ton of credit. And lastly, Craig Joseph. You know, he's been up or down. He had that 49-yarder he left short. He had the 37-yarder he missed. He also had the 49-yarder this last week that he missed that could have given the Vikings a nice cushion there or even a win. But overall, the guy is drilling a lot of field goals and

scoring points for a team that has struggled to finish drives. So I've been pretty pleased with Greg Joseph. I want to hear yours. The Vikings actually lead the NFL in field goal attempts. And so Greg Joseph has made 76%. I think if you did the math on expectation of 50 plus, he is by far exceeded that expectation that he's made so many 50 plus kicks because even Rick Spielman mentioned it when we talked to him today about how he missed all of them in the preseason from 50 plus, and then has come out and made those. I think thatph being somewhat up and down is where i expected him to be that if you put uh all of your games on the leg of a kicker who is not named justin tucker or matt prater you're kind of going to get what you get you some of them are going to go in some of them aren't and

um you know the ones that miss people will say oh bad luck miss kick and the ones that he makes from 50 plus like well that's how we drew it up yeah and you gotta remember he's he's the mental strain of being a kicker in minnesota is significant and that's true whether whether he wants to admit it or not um he says he just goes out there and does his job like a robot right but and he's he's done that which is really impressive i don't know many guys that have come here dan bailey was the most accurate kicker in nfl history comes here and all hell breaks loose. And he's like, oh my God, get the shackles off me. I'm gone. You know, this is tough. This is a tough place to kick. There's a lot of pressure. People are, I don't know if there's a, there's a city or state in the, in the entire

country that talks about kickers as much as we do here in Minnesota. Maybe your home, home city of Buffalo back in the nineties, but but my god there is a ton of pressure on kicker so the fact that he could miss a 37 yard chip shot in week two and not have his whole season go running down his leg is a miracle so i guess yeah for that no that's a good point that you know bouncing back from it is not the expectation here the expectation is you miss one and this whole thing is going to go off the rails. Let's see. We're going to be buried. The guy who followed Scott Norwood, by the way,

Steve Christie is one of the best kickers in NFL history. So they didn't have that problem outside of one guy and one kick and Norwood was actually good for his day, but Hey, just like the Vikings did in 98, the bills in that super bowl, they kind of pulled up and played for the field goal. And instead of being a little more aggressive, just saying that Mike would learn, Mike Zimmer would learn from all of this history. So many lessons to be had. Yet when there's 40 seconds left in a timeout and you're at your 25 in the first half, you just want to sit on it every single week.

And then the same situation unfolds at the end of the game. And you're like, oh, my God, I have no other option Kirk do what you do and Kirk has done good job with KJ Osborne and everybody else and they go down and score points it's like I get so mad watching the Vikings because every other good team in the NFL does not just let time leak off the clock they take advantage of it and they go for the kill. There's not much of a killer instinct on this team, the coaching staff, the players. I'm sure the players would love it if they had the ability to have more of a killer instinct, but they're being held back. That's just the reality of it. Yeah. You know what I think that you see is if you remember

the game between Baltimore and Indianapolis, where Indianapolis did the same thing. They sort of checked up and said, okay, let's kick that field goal. And then Rodrigo Blankenship missed it. I think it shows trust in the quarterback and where it is. And Mike Zimmer has just over the last few years, not shown a ton of trust in Kirk Cousins. And maybe these last few weeks will make that different. I don't know that it will, or if it's just,

this is how Mike Zimmer is going to manage a football game at all times, but he cousins over these last few games and these opportunities that he's gotten to lead game winning drives, I think has shown Zimmer, like we can do this. We can take the ball and go in 40 seconds and get it in a good field goal position, or even potentially score a touchdown depending on how many timeouts they have because of the receivers that they have. And so on my list

of the players who have overachieved expectations, KJ Osborne is of course, number one. Although, as you mentioned, I mean, this is why Sam and I go stand out there on the Hill and watch OTAs and mini camp and training camp. And we, we get sunburns and everything standing on the sidelines there is so we get a feel for who's rising and falling during the off season, because usually it correlates. And in this case, KJ Osborne was there right from the very beginning of the off season, something was different. And he's shown this huge elevation from year one to year two. So he is still at the top because I didn't expect him, even after a good offseason, to come in and just explode like he has in these big situations. Everson Griffin is number two. Now, I never doubted Everson Griffin as if he couldn't play anymore because I thought, considering that he played for the Cowboys and Lions last year, he actually was okay for them.

So I expected, okay, I didn't expect great. And I think he's been great so far this season. One of the highest pass rush wins, win rates in the NFL by pro football focus. And he's taken that starting job back and he is looked like the old Everson Griffin. That is far above expectations. I look better than the old Everson Griffin at times. I mean, part of it is probably because he's, he was playing in just those pass rush situations. Um, but you know, now that he's starting, I think he's still playing

extremely well. And that's a huge boon for them because, um, that, that position should have had no confidence in that going into the season, even with Everson coming back on short notice. So there's two. And I think, I think Kirk Cousins has to be the third one that last year, they started off one in five and he's had slow starts to his career year after year. He has never put up a pro football focus grade as high as it is right now. He's almost at a 90 grade. He's never been close to that i think his career high was 84 before and leading the game winning drives as he has and coming through in the clutch situations i think you expect on given four opportunities to do so i

think that's right right like four four or five chances maybe there were two in one game for game time he's had seven in six games oh that yeah i guess that's right that there have been multiple ones of these they just haven't finished them right so out of all those opportunities for him to come through almost every time that i would not have written down and i think a lot of people would not have written down. If that one is too obvious for you, then I guess Xavier Woods would be a guy I'd go for because I didn't know what to expect out of Xavier Woods. And I think he's been a terrific partner so far for Harrison Smith. I think it's a great take because we don't notice him as fans really, right? If you don't notice a guy in the secondary, it means he's

doing his job. Right. And that's always been that role is like get you know make a couple of plays he got a pick against arizona he forced the fumble against carolina make a couple plays be in the right spots and you're going to do okay next to harrison smith now give me your three guys that uh have disappointed you so far this season three guys that have disappointed me so far this season. Well, Garrett Bradbury disappoints me almost every single week. He's like the new Ryan Cook in my book. And old school Vikings fans from the early 2000s know exactly what I'm talking about. But Bradbury, granted, I will admit the offensive line since the first two weeks and then the Cleveland game has looked pretty good for four games you know or three games

half the half the season but the one common denominator I keep seeing is Garrett Bradbury getting his lunch shoved in his face and he's back in Kirk Cousins lap and that's really bad news for this this offense Kirk's been really good and Bradbury has been better I don't have the grades on it or anything like that but I mean for a first round pick with the wrestler cred and all this good stuff athletic agile he might just not be big enough that just might be the reality of the situation so that one right off the bat you have to give me a second here to think of somebody who is disappointing me well I can jump in with, uh, I'll go Bradbury too on my list. So I'll agree with you there. Sheldon Richardson is another one that if we're making a consensus list, I think

that we both agree on that, that when they signed Sheldon Richardson and we gave it an A plus signing, you know, on our show, we thought Sheldon Richardson is going to come in, solidify this pass rush and rotate in and make a big difference. Just no show so far has not made really any difference at all. The pressure numbers back that up. So it's not just looking at pure sacks and even the usage. Like last week, they decided to use Armond Watts a really good amount. And Armond Watts actually did quite well against Carolina. But you would have expected as soon as Michael Pierce got hurt,

okay, they're going to go right to Tomlinson and Sheldon Richardson. And the fact that that hasn't been the case, I think really sort of tells you where they feel Sheldon Richardson is. And he's been a disappointment. In fact, if you're going to look to trade anyone away from the team, I don't know that they will at the trade deadline, but Sheldon Richardson might be a guy that I would say, yeah, if somebody else wants him because he's just not really contributing here. I think that's perfectly said. And I think the third one, I'm going to go

with a three-way tie on the third one, but it goes to the obvious position of cornerback, right? Everybody's going to say Bashab Breeland, and I'm sorry for putting your Johnson in my mouth here but that's just the case okay you haven't been very good up until last week and that's his tweet I didn't actually mean that and then Cameron Dantzler just because I mean come on this is a guy who was a high draft pick last year and he looked pretty good at times and now all of a sudden you're you're you're you're not even playing for the most part, and you're complaining about it, and you probably had to have a sit-down with Grandpa Mike, you know, and he had to talk to you and get you back in the mix. Now you're going to have your opportunity to redeem yourself.

But then here's the guy that nobody talks about anymore because he's not even on the team right now, Jeff Gladney. There's your first- round pick who absolutely screwed up big time, allegedly, and now he's under criminal investigation in Texas and facing criminal charges. So he's not even on the team. When you lose a first round cornerback who are supposed to be better after year one, and you're that big Antoine Winfield type player who can come up and play the run and everything, you're putting your team in a big hole and now Patrick Peterson's hurting we're starting to see all of the issues that could could arise just just from that that whole thing in the offseason so I'm going three-way tie with those

three cornerbacks you know it also might be depending on how much you want to factor injuries too for like Anthony Barr that you, Anthony Barr was coming back from that injury is supposed to make a big difference on the defense. And he has been fine over the last two weeks and he's a better football player than Nick vigil. I think that's very clear. But to have a knee issue that nagged him through the entire off season and then have to come back. And he talked about how not that he was out of shape necessarily, but being in shape to play an entire football game is really tough.

And he felt like his body was going to explode because he hadn't played for so long. I mean, for his contract to be what it is and his value to the defense and how much he was supposed to make a difference, that has not been the case through six games. Now that can change, but I think I would put him on the list just because of that. And, you know, the thing about when we talk about good breaks and bad breaks, I think it's actually a good break for the Vikings that it takes some time to think about who's been disappointing because often you look at it and say like, oh, well, you know, okay, this guy got hurt and we had high expectations for him and this guy disappeared and didn't show up. But a lot of

their signings have actually worked out. And you mentioned they've been quite healthy throughout the beginning of this season and I think that if they stay that way then they do have a chance to do the things that you were talking about optimistically earlier but if they don't then it could be problematic I wonder what you feel about just the other offensive linemen I don don't want to put disappointing on like Ole Udo playing guard for the first time. Ezra Cleveland has not been a difference maker at left guard. He's been better than Dakota Dozier was last year. I don't know if that's disappointing or somewhat expected. But I think the offensive line as a whole, though, we could take as a whole and actually

put them in our other list of exceeded expectations outside of one game against Cleveland. Yeah, I mean, I was scared out of my mind for Kirk Cousins the first couple of weeks and then the Cleveland game. But yeah, I mean, I really do agree that they have protected him pretty well. And the run blocking has been good. I mean, it just it's been pretty good, right? So Brian O'Neill, I mean, you had that great column about him the other day where he's just doesn't give up anything. He doesn't allow Kirk to get hit. Derrissa on the other side, we had promising 52 snaps from him, I think it was, and his

first start, he looked pretty good. We don't know yet. The jury's out on him. If Rashad Hill's in there all season long, I'm scared. I really am. And I don't scared I really am and I don't trust this team to I don't trust Kirk to continue doing what he's doing if Rashad Hill's just starting left tackle all season long but then yeah I mean all you do I mean that's that's a that's a late round draft pick who's ended up looking pretty good and he's earned a starting

job what bothers me the most though when you talk about the starting offensive line is that outside of Brian O'Neill Rick Spielman and the scouts on this team, whoever are evaluating and making these picks, it's not working. Bradbury's not that good. Ezra Cleveland doesn't look like he's going to be a game changer on the offensive line, right? Doesn't look like he's just going to maul people week in and week out. And then you have the Pat Elfline experiment another Ohio State player back a few years ago and and Rick was just obsessed with him because he worked with concrete during the um during the summers right like you got the wrestler and Brad Barry you got the concrete guy and Pat

Elfline these are big tough guys right they're going to be able to get their noses dirty and and bully it up in the trenches no they can't can't. It hasn't worked out that way at all. So I think that's a massive indictment on the drafting process. It's for some reason, Spielman has always struggled with quarterbacks and offensive linemen. And it's a pattern that has to absolutely stop. And, you know, against Detroit too, if we're sort of nitpicking through, they really got dominated on the run game and were not able to get the run going, despite the fact that Detroit was playing so much more not to give up big passing plays. And so they've shown flaws. It hasn't been a dominant offensive line or a top 10 offensive line. It's been an offensive line that you still are going to go into each week against some of these better defensive lines going.

Are you going to be able to hold up? And another part of it has been, they've used more quick game this year, a lot more quick game than they have before. Yeah. And I think they had to start doing that for the first two weeks. It was obvious that Kirk was going to get killed back there. He didn't have three, four seconds. He had to go one, two back out. And that's why, you know know on the play actions he's throwing ball farther down the field on average but if it's not a play action pass he's getting rid of the

ball quickly and that's why his yards per attempt are you know rather low in terms of uh you know ranking among the other top quarterbacks in the nfl but he's he's done well with what he's what he's had right and i think that that has also helped lower those pressure numbers so if their goal is to lower the pressure numbers, that's got to be baked in because in terms of the grades, they have not been graded individually, particularly well outside of O'Neill Christian Darasaw can change this though.

I think in terms of how long they can wait to throw the football, the past protection overall, and what he showed in past protection against Carolina it, that speaks to the fact that he's just far more physically gifted than Rashad Hill and has the potential to change that. But we'll see how he performs against very good edge rushers that are coming up the rest of the way. OK, last one for you.

I want you to have a sneaky one. OK, oh, all right. All right, go ahead. You want me to go first? OK, I just want to know where you would rank Kirk Cousins by how he's playing so far this year. Among all NFL quarterbacks. Among all NFL quarterbacks. I mean,

I have a reference list here that I really agree with and I can read that off to you and tell me if you think it's right, because I think a lot of people would think about this and be like, oh my God, Kirk Cousins, he's an MVP candidate so far, the way he's played, right? No, I don't think so. I think he's come through for them in some really big moments, but there have also been long stretches where they have not been able to produce much. And you can certainly put that on Clint Kubiak, you could put it on Zimmer, but ultimately at the end of the day, he's the guy who has routinely had long stretches of

quietness before hot stretches. And that's for games in seasons and within games like against Carolina, where, I mean, at one point he throws the ball backwards out of bounds for seven yard loss and, and then comes out and, you know, make some great throws the rest of the way. But this is kind of who Kirk Cousins has been. I would put a maybe like eighth or so. And I think that, you know, you watch every Vikings game, every, everyone who watches this watches every Vikings game and not necessarily every game of other quarterbacks, but the quarterback play in the league at the very top this year has been

preposterous, right? Just, I mean, Dak Prescott, Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert until last week, Lamar Jackson had one of the greatest football games ever played in NFL history against the Indianapolis Colts. I think that there's probably maybe eight to 10 quarterbacks who have been better overall, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been really good if you're in the top third then you've been good but i think that if we if we expand our view a little bit and look at some of the freakish performance even josh allen um you know the way he's played and and using his legs too which you have to factor now you can't just look at

quarterback rating i mean you've got to look at also uh the running part that kirk cousins doesn't have and what are you talking about these guys in yards on the fourth quarter overtime drive you're right that was that was a big mistake by brian burns trying to cause a strip sack instead of just sacking him i thought i thought kirk was dead right there i i thought so too but where would you have because i i would go like uh probably maybe eighth. Yeah, no, I think you absolutely just crushed that answer. Because I love this guy. He's a close personal friend of mine. But Peter King, formerly of Sports Illustrated and Football Morning in America. Here's his list this week based on how they're playing right now, not just overall.

Right now, one, Kyler Murray. Two, Josh Allen. Three, Dak. Lamar Jackson, four. Brady, five, Roger, six, Herbert, seven, Mahomes, eight, Matthew Stafford, who's absolutely crushing it with Cooper Cup and Robert Woods in L.A. at nine. He's got Kirk, 10, followed by Derek Carr and Joe Burrow. I'm watching Kirk this year, and I'm really loving this late-game killer mentality he's had. And, yeah, he's had some help with KGI, has borne in some others in these situations, some penalties, all that. But that's what everybody gets, right?

But Kirk, to me, has played MVP caliber. If the Vikings were 5-1 right now and they'd won some of these games, he's definitely in the MVP conversation. You can't argue that. Now, that MVP conversation doesn't get any smaller. All the guys I just mentioned on Peter King's list, they're still in that conversation as well and maybe even ahead of him. But holy cow, I was thinking like, oh, he's playing like a top five, six quarterback.

And then I read Peter King's list and I'm thinking, my God, QB playing in this league is freaking sick right now. That makes me very worried about the future because and kellen mond is the backup and that's that's a nightmare everybody knows that's not gonna work everybody knows kellen mond's not gonna work kellen mond knows that kellen mond's not gonna work sean manion is the backup that even more proof which tell which tells you kellen mond isn't going to work you know you, you go through Brady still playing like Brady. Rodgers outside of one week has played very well.

Joe Burrow belongs there. Maybe Derek Carr after this distraction is going to be there as well. So a lot of quarterbacks have played exceptionally, exceptionally well. And that's my point about how, yeah, you watch Kirk and then maybe catch one game of these other quarterbacks, a sampling over a season of just a couple of games. And I'm not sure you totally realize how great someone like Kyler Murray or Dak Prescott has been this year. And I think they've probably been a little bit better. And then they add different elements to their game that he maybe necessarily doesn't. But I mean, yeah, I think in that conversation for sure,

but you also, as an offense, you have to rank higher than 12th in points to have an MVP quarterback. I mean, that's usually reserved for best scoring teams in the league. And ultimately that rests on his shoulders. And the same thing with the percentage of drives where you score, if you graded quarterbacks that way as like how often their offense scores, you'd probably get a really accurate list. And the Vikings are not super high on that. So finishing drives, I mean, some of it, again, is coaching. But, you know, there's also these long stretches with cousins.

So, you know, I think that that's nitpicking, but probably wouldn't put them any higher than maybe eight. So, OK okay here's the last one i just want you to tell me the second half of the season this does not have to be vikings related i'm going to call it second half of the season because it's our bye um what what are you most excited about just give me three things in the nfl that you just can't wait to see three things in the nfl i really i really want to see how good the Buffalo Bills actually are. I mean, one of the most fun tandems in the league is Josh Allen to Stephon Diggs.

We all love Stephon Diggs here in Minnesota. I mean, we just do. It's the Minneapolis miracle. And he's still got that same swagger. And they're fun to watch. They really are a fun team to watch. Obviously, how the Vikings come out of this gauntlet is something I'm excited about. I really am excited because if they do go 3-1 in that gauntlet or 2-2 even,

and you're 5-5 or you're 6-3 or 7-4, that might even happen. No, you can't go 7-4 in four games. You'd be 6-4. Math is hard live. I know. It is hard. It's hard anyway. I know. It is hard. It's hard anyway. I was in fourth grade math help, and I never recovered.

I am excited about that. And then lastly, I would say how real deal the Cardinals are. They're the only undefeated team in the NFL. Vikings almost beat them. We got a good look at that. But, I mean, they went to Tennessee and absolutely slaughtered a team that I thought was going to be really good this year. And I still think Tennessee is going to be really good down the stretch, especially when it gets late in the season. And yeah, I would say Kyler Murray and just how good and big of a season he has.

And one bonus fourth, if the Cowboys are legit, that makes the NFL so much more fun. Because come playoff time, I know a lot of people hate America's team, but that makes the NFL so much more fun because come playoff time. I know a lot of people hate America's team, but that makes the NFL so much more fun. Just like the Yankees in the world series or in the ALCS makes baseball so much more fun. In my opinion, I was going to say people are going to totally despise you for that tape. I've been hated for my whole life. It's okay. It's been so long since Dallas has been really legitimate.

Like there were times here and there with Tony Romo where they were the highly competitive, but in terms of being a legitimate Superbowl contender, maybe one or two years over the last, what 30. So 25, I mean, it's been a while.

It's been a while. I'm going to say for me, the number one storyline in the NFL for me that I am excited about and interested in is the rookie quarterbacks and where they go from here. Trey Lance. And if we get to see him play against the Vikings, you know, Justin Fields, where he's at when he plays the Vikings is really interesting to me. Is he emerging as a great quarterback or is he sputtering and struggling by the time? Because so far it's been a mixed bag for him and we don't know which way that's going to go. Zach Wilson, does he show anything this year or does he go into year two and just, it feels like a total disaster. Can Trevorvor lawrence get that jaguars team going despite its clueless coach oh my god that's one thing i'm excited about is urban meyer being fired

that's happening yes that yeah the the coaching disaster and who's next for that um are at the at the top two i'll also go kansas city i'm just super compelled by a flawed team that still has the king quarterback. And I don't care if Mahomes has some tipped interceptions or make some bad throws. He made a really horrible one this week. He's still king. He's still the best quarterback in the world. And if he can drag this team that has struggled so much defensively and with turnovers all the way to the AFC championship or something, it'll really truly tell you of his greatness. I think that's at the top for me. And with the Vikings, I mean,

I think that they won't be talked about as one of the most interesting teams in the NFL by almost anybody. But I think that they are in this next stretch because there's so much on the line. There's a cousin's extension. There's a future for a GM and a coach. And it really rests

on these last these next five games i think and um there are very few teams like that whose futures rest on just like how you play against dallas baltimore la green bay those four games there are a lot of situations where that does unfold it's just usually not against that quality of opponent back to back, back to back. Right. And so it's like Mike Zimmer's got to go to bed at night feeling like he's laying on a grenade.

I mean, right. It's bad. That's rough. I mean, cause if you don't come out of that stretch, well, I mean that,

that, that leash could get pulled at any time. It really could. Exactly. So Joe Nelson, bring me the news. You host us here on purple insider each week, and I can't thank you enough for doing that. And if you're listening to the podcast version, we do this every Tuesday.

We just jump on live with the Bring Me the News feeds on Facebook and on YouTube. So find us there. Bring Me the News has great sports coverage, which includes my weekly column as well, whenever I decide to turn it into. Oh, that's perfect we're gonna we're gonna enhance the wolves coverage too this year that's right our buddy dane moore yes that's awesome and he's as good as they get and he's doing it on his own just like you do which is about as admirable as it gets but anyway this one's going nuts on me and um this little child i have here and uh i just wanted you to know that this has been the greatest honor in my

life. Thank you. Okay. I hope not. But okay, Joe, take care to you and your child and thank you to everybody who took the time to watch and listen and we'll catch you next time.