Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Vikings entertaining or painful to watch?

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about Murph's son attending his first NFL game in person and the experience his boy had at the end of the game. Then Matthew and Brian talk about whether fans can possibly sit back and enjoy the ride or if the Minnesota Vikings are simply too frustrating to have fun watching. Murph is amazing that Mike Zimmer acknowledged that he thought the team was going to blow the lead and they talk about what it was like to see washed up Ben Roethlisberger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Brian Murphy. And we just got done talking with Mike Zimmer on his Zoom call after the game. And he seemed exhausted. And I woke up this morning, looked at my phone and scrolled through just to check that I actually saw what I actually saw last night with the Vikings coming within fingertips of one of the most historic meltdowns in NFL history, but getting away with it with a win, which leaves us still having playoff conversation. You Murph last night were in the stands with the boy. So I want to hear about that experience and

then we can get into all the other stuff of like, should people still be climbing to the stands with the boy. So I want to hear about that experience. And then we can get into all the other stuff of like, should people still be climbing to the top of the tower to throw themselves off after last night? 98% of the reaction. I mean, I got messages from people. I hate this bleeping team. Why do they torture me? Misery loves company.

So I watched the whole game. I mean, there was just all sorts of really funny messages. I will give people credit for this, that Vikings fans are so self-aware at this point of what's happening that they are super funny about it. And I feel like we've passed anger into just acceptance and hilarity. So that's kind of where we're at this morning, but I want to hear about your experience taking your son to that game last night, his first NFL game. Yeah, well, he's been, you know, working on me for a while. You know, he really, you know, he's a sports crazed kid who knows a heck of a lot more now than about it than I do in terms of who's winning what. And he's got

fantasy teams and blah, blah, blah. So he, you know, we've taken him to wild and wolves and twins games and gophers games, but you know, I was kind of loath to, to give the NFL any of my money just for the variety of reasons that we can get, we could get into in another podcast. But I just thought, well, you know, it's not necessarily about me. He wants to go. I've been writing about the team. You know, I went online, I looked, I found fairly inexpensive tickets about 10 days ago, even before the Detroit loss for this Pittsburgh game. I thought, well, if I'm going to take them, I want to take them to a night game against a good team, you know, good legacy franchise, kind of get absorbed the whole experience. Because when I was 12 years old, my dad took me to my first NFL game.

It was a Lions-Giants game at the old Pontiac Silverdome in November of 83, and it was a Monday night game, and it was surly, and it was loud, and it was drunk, and it was kind of like, you know, eye-opening. I mean, I'm from an Irish Catholic family, so it wasn't like I'd never heard language and drinking before or seen drinking before. But this was like different than a Tigers game. You know, this was like pretty intense. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to do that, let's just do this against Pittsburgh. So I told him I got the tickets. He was fired up talking about it for the last 10 days.

Wore his Adam Thielen jersey to school. Got bragging rights on the playground. But as I'm thinking, I'm like, man, I'm walking him into a viper pit because this town is really on edge. I had a feeling there was going to be a ton of Steelers fans there, which there were, a lot of terrible towels, a lot of angst, a lot of people ready to just, you know, run Zimmer and Spielman and Cousins and everyone else out of town.

And I thought, man, if they get behind early or there's a turnover,, you know, this could really turn ugly. And I, what am I subjecting him to? Well, it turns out I suggested him to a completely different experiences, which was the unbelievable sight of seeing the Vikings dominating Pittsburgh, being up 29, nothing Dalvin cook, who, you know, I thought was on death's doorstep running for 205 yards with one shoulder. The place was nuts. The terrible towels were practically wiping tears. And then suddenly it wasn't that way. Suddenly we have a pick by cousins,

suddenly a couple of three and outs momentum's turning. And I, you know, I've talked about it before. You can feel the dread among Vikings fans. And I looked over the lasting image I will have of Ethan, my son, as Roethlisberger's lining up with three seconds left on that last play at the goal line. He's got one hand gnawing on his fingernails and another one literally spiderwebbed over his face like, I don't know if I can watch this.

And I'm like, God, I don't want to do this to him. If they tie this game and go to overtime and inevitably lose, I don't know how I can justify not being prosecuted. The pass is broken up. The collective sigh of relief from everyone in section 338 ethan high-fiving laughing screaming you know kid you got a hell of a hell of a ride there hell of an entertaining ride now we're not getting season tickets but uh as far as first games go you'd be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining one.

Well, that's what I was thinking about is the first game you ever go to as a kid of any sport. I went to a New York Yankees game in 1999 when they were in the midst of their dynasty against the Toronto Blue Jays. And I can, you know, that was when I think I was maybe 12. I could recite the box score to you. I mean, just, you know, it really when I think I was maybe 12. I could recite the box score to you. I mean, just, you know, it really stands out, those memories that you create. And what a game to go to. I mean, for you and I and a lot of the people listening, I mean, you and I look at this and go, I mean, my gosh, guys, what a ridiculous thing to let them back in the game like that. Mike Zimmer was apoplectic about the second half,

as he should be. I mean, he went through on a Zoom call all the different technical things they did wrong. We lined up here against this and inside and out and everything else. And most fans are waking up this morning just thinking like, what is with this team? And they're never going to go anywhere if they can't even stop uh willie mays with the mets which you and i both made that reference in our articles like oh i didn't know i guess no it's okay we both were thinking the same exact thing but i guess we should update that reference to maybe like hakeem with the toronto raptors at least we can get to there uh but i mean so everybody's like upset about it right But then you think about your son watching this game and I was,

I was thinking about it as I was up in the press box, just how much fun that must've been for him and how compelling it is intense and being in the middle of that crowd that had gone from like kind of a bit of a Jubilee for the Vikings fans. Finally we get a game where we could just have fun here and whatever to, you know, the tenseness of the end of the game. And no matter if you're covering it up in the press box,

scrambling to try to get out your article without that, you know, too many errors, or if you're down there, that sort of heart racing end of an NFL game is why people form long-term lifelong bonds with this sport because of things like what you and your son did last night. So I think from, at least from that perspective, it's always something to, to keep in mind, you know, kind of why we all watch this and follow this amidst the frustration with where your franchise is at.

Yeah. I mean, it's look, the NFL and this is nothing new. I mean, this has been for 50 plus years. They are appointment television. It used to just be, you know, noon and three or one and four, wherever you lived on Sundays, but now it's, you know, it's Monday night, it's Thursday night. It's Sunday. I mean, it is, you have a captive audience. It's unscripted entertainment. And this season in particular throughout the league, but certainly here in Minnesota, I mean, you know you are going to be treated to an emotional roller coaster. And if you want to hang on all the way through, you're going to be angry. You're going to be confounded. You're going to be surprised.

You're going to be overjoyed. You're going to be disappointed. I mean, that's why we come to the trough, right? I mean, what else? What else is the point? I mean, so much of life is drudgery and scripted appearances and obligations and schedules. And this is just three hours of, man, we don't know what's going to happen. And the irony is, too, is that sometime at 29-0, Ethan even said to me, he goes, you think we should get out of here now? And I'm like, hey, I don't have to be the bitter old man to beat traffic. He's all in, too.

Yeah, practically, yeah, that would make sense if we got out of here now. We can get it uber quicker. You get a home bed. Yeah. And then Cousins threw his pick, and Pittsburgh went down and scored. I said, well, what do you think? He's like, well, let's just see what happens next. And then, you know, as of course, we're shuffling out with the rest of the overwrought drags at, you know, 1030 after, after enduring it all, wandering out into the night, trying to find an Uber. And it was just

like, God, this team, they could have made it so much easier for all of us, but you know, nobody's going to talk about 20 years from now. Hey, remember that time we got out early and got an Uber? But he'll be talking about Roethlisberger's last play. So, yeah, I guess it was all worth it. I did have a rule as a kid that I would just never leave a game. Now, this is before baseball games went 17 hours. So it was like, oh, if a game is three hours, well, that was a long one, but at least we watched the whole thing. And I broke that rule at a St. Louis Cardinals Pittsburgh Pirates game

where the Cardinals were down 18 to nothing. I thought, you know what? I think we're probably not seeing a comeback today, but you really would have thought. And this even comes from me. I grew up in Buffalo. I saw Frank Reich come back against the Houston Oilers, and I think, what, was it 93? And so there's always that thought in football of you never know. One thing happens, then all of a sudden it's a two-score game, and then you're looking around, and the other team is getting nervous. And I think that if we sort of transition into the, okay, now we've talked about how magical it was for your boy,

let's rip them for this. Because I mean, this team is not just like a team that has some holes in it and so forth, but it's also a team without any sort of mentality to put a dagger in somebody. And that's another part of it too, where it's just been such a consistent theme. No matter how much they are up by, they proved that.

It does not matter how much they're up by. They cannot finish off another team. And you can kind of swing the pendulum back and forth to like, well, the cornerbacks were the three lowest graded players by PFF. So it's definitely their fault. But then, wow, all you need is a first down or two. And there's no way that magic 2010 version of Ben Roethlisberger in the second half is going to come back.

And I think that if you had a team that had this, do I want to say swagger to it, this edginess to it, this like we can beat anybody kind of thing, which they say out loud, but they never really act like in terms of their mentality, then you wouldn't have so many games that had gone like this this year. I think it's as much to do with the mental space of the team as it is to do with the talent of the team and that's even coming from mike zimmer mike zimmer said yesterday when he was on the sideline he thought they were going to lose like even the head coach is over there going oh man he conceded that he did he admitted that he thought here we go again we're blowing this lead that's a rarity i've never heard that before i've

never heard a coach say before yeah yeah, I thought we were blown. I mean, the team has broken Mike Zimmer. Yes. It really has broken Mike Zimmer. A hundred percent. And right now he's probably thinking, I'm just playing with house money. What do I have to lose? Because I'm probably getting canned anyway. These guys are doing this to me.

It may not be worth it anyway. I mean, you need to find a new franchise to lead because I can't. I throw my hands up with these guys. I don't know what to do with them. It's like Paul Newman and Slapshot and the Hansons. I can't control them. I don't understand. But you mentioned that.

It's like, you know, yeah, it seems to me that everybody is looking around like, well, are you going to end it? Are you going to take care of it for us? Are you going to plunge the dagger? I mean, that's where a guy like, you know, again, I know Tom Brady is the gold standard or Aaron Rodgers, and we always point to the quarterback, but why isn't Kirk Cousins out there delivering the dagger? Instead, Kirk Cousins is making it a mess. And it's, why isn't the, why isn't there one interception made at the, at the key time? Now, granted, they broke up the last play, yes, in the secondary, but it's almost like everybody's looking around for somebody else to be the hero.

And they've had a history of great first halves, great first drives, and then just bleeding out at the end of the game. And, you know, it cost them in Detroit, and it looked like it was going to cost them last night. So you're still at now we're 13 games into the season and I defy anybody to say what this team is who they are what their identity is what their potential is it's it's a week-to-week breakdown it's a week-to-week teard, rebuild, and then see what it, I mean, I, it would be like rearranging the furniture in your room every week or in your house every week and buying new stuff and repainting. It's like every week we got an, we got a whole new home.

It's a whole new place and introduce a whole new group of people because nobody can, nobody can really say the minute, if I were to say to anybody out there define the minnesota vikings the minnesota vikings are blank and gene rayburn would take his stick mic and walk wander over to richard dawson and he would have no answer to do to do that that is uh the inspiration i do game show music on this show all the time and it's like the inspiration is match game um so you know what do you think what is their identity well okay so i i sort of have this but you have to get a little meta with it um because when you know that i always like to use numbers to sort of point my way of thinking on certain things so i pull up this little statistic right here called expected win loss. That takes your point differential and it gives you an idea of like what your

record should be based on your point differential. And the Vikings record should be 6.8 and 6.2. So if you round up, you can get to seven and six, they are six and seven. As much as it has been ends of games, crazy things, blown leads, comebacks, all that sort of stuff. At the end of the day, what the numbers tell you is this is what a 500 team does. The order of operations has been really wild. I mean, so it's kind of like an odds thing where if you shuffle up a team that gives up as many points as they score and you shuffle it up, you could win 41, nothing, and then lose 41, nothing. Like that's one way to do it or score the exact same amount of points as the other team every single week and have it come down to the final play or some combination therein.

And what we've had is, you know, the ladder, which is just that every game has come down to something close. But I think what you have with every 500 team in the NFL, if we go through it and we say like, all right, let's talk about the 500 teams. They have some version of this. The Denver Broncos beat the breaks off of the Dallas Cowboys and then no show against Kansas City. Well, that's a different version of this. It's the same thing. It's like they get killed or they kill somebody where this team just plays close with everybody, but it's the same kind of version. When you go through the roster, you go, well, there's a lot of blame to say, well, it's your fault, your fault, your fault. You could say that for the Eagles, for Washington, they have this weakness, this weakness, but then you also go, oh, but they have some strengths too. And then boy, do they ever, I mean, Justin Jefferson is a premier player in the entire NFL and they have

a good quarterback. Who's not perfect or, or, uh, does not have that type of killer instinct mentality. And that, you know, you could sort of go through all these things. And so the, the order of operations has made it very bizarre, but it kind of is what we expected it to be. Just, we didn't expect it to happen this way. And there's the entertainment value of it. So, aren't, you know, what did the Russell Crowe say in gladiator? Aren't you entertained, you know, in the, in the middle of the Coliseum, like, okay, what, what possibly could, you know, yes, you would like to see as a fan, you'd like to see them have a couple of laugher wins. You'd like to see them maybe with 10 victories and competing for, you know, a higher seed as opposed to this knife fight for the seventh. But I, I, you know, I look at it, it's like, I've never,

I've never, you know, I've never sat at it just like, I've never, I've never, you know, I've never sat and watched all these games like I had for years and been as mystified and surprised week after week. And there's some value to that. And if you can't appreciate that, I know, you know, the haters out there just want it to be all warm and fuzzy and 14 and three or whatever the records would be now and let's just waltz in and a bye it's like well we knew we're going into the season it wasn't going to be easy we knew it was going to be chaotic we we didn't expect it to be this chaotic or play out

in this manner but we knew they were a marginal team with a lot of question marks and some some talent some emerging talent and some established talent and a lot of question marks and some talent, some emerging talent and some established talent, and a lot of people playing for their lives and their security. So that whole mix makes for, and, you know, we haven't really talked too much about the vaccination status. It's calmed down, but they've had COVID issues to deal with too and still lingering a bit. So their quarterback is still out there on a limb. So you knew some things were going to be, boy So you, you, you, you knew some things were going to be, boy, this is going to be, you know, entertaining and fun to watch, but

that's the beauty of this, this, this league, this team, this, this moment is that, um, this is who they are. They're unknowable. So have fun with that and see what happens. I mean, I still think, I don't think we're being, I don't think this victory, because it was almost like the greatest loss they ever won. I don't know if it, you know, wipes the slate clean from Sunday in Detroit. It certainly doesn't. That's still a stain. And let's be realistic.

They've got two games against Chicago, one against LA Rams at home, and one at Lambeau Field. They still got one loss they can afford to have just to maybe slither in at 9-8. So it still seems inevitable that this isn't going to happen. I mean, they're going to Soldier Field next Monday night where they never play well. It will probably be a miserably cold night. They got a miserably cold Sunday night at Lambeau looming. The Rams are no picnic.

And, you know, the last game against Chicago at home probably will matter and probably will deliver, you know, a very dicey finish. So, you know, it doesn't bode well. But at least they're not – you know, I give them credit. They are not quitting on Zimmer. They're refusing to go quietly into the night. There's something to be said for how they are able to close ranks and charge into the headwinds without completely falling apart. They're not building a credible case, but they're keeping,

they're keeping this flame just flickering a bit case, um, but they're keeping, they're keeping this flame just flickering a bit longer. And, and, you know, at the very least, um, we can get through Christmas talking about something. I don't know about you guys, but I've gotten very good in my life at admitting when I need some help. If you are struggling to figure out how to navigate workers' compensation and disability laws, I've got a team that can lend

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they would be, or 41, sorry. They would be dead even with Philadelphia making the playoffs. If they get the absolute ideal, um, situation for this week, according to five 38, they have a little thing. That's actually really fun. If you want to go play with it, um, where you can make silver site. Yeah. You can just type in the W's and L's and then it'll change the odds. If both San Francisco and Washington win, the Vikings are still about a one in four shot and making the playoffs.

So the, there's a couple of games here that have a lot to say about what's going to happen. And I agree with you that from my perspective, like, look, I'm going to be here either way. Right. So no matter what happens, I'm going to try to find the interesting parts of it and the entertaining parts of it and the things that we can make fun of and the things that we can break down and everything else. I do think that Vikings fans are having a very tough time with the let's just have fun with this crazy season thing. If this were Mike Zimmer's first

or second year coaching the team, if it was the first year, even of Kirk Cousins, maybe it would be more like, oh, wow. You know, we're still trying to figure out, is he this? Is he that? What can he do with his team? How much of it is his fault? And all those other things that we've sort of spent the last four years dealing with. But I just get the sense that it's more frustration and exhaustion than it is.

Ha ha. What a crazy thing. Let's all have fun with it. And when I was in Buffalo, it kind of got this way where Ryan Fitzpatrick's first season as a starter there, it's kind of like that. It was like, wow, this Fitzpatrick guy's nuts. Like any, any week he can go for 400 or he could throw five picks. Who knows?

This is fun. Look at his beard. And then by the second or third year of it everyone's like okay new quarterback come on man let's let's just this it's not even fun anymore it's just ridiculous because it never changed or improved and and that's where i feel like the general attitude is i think it's a lot easier for you and i to go like come on guys just enjoy it it's crazy right but But what do we think the odds are though, that there was anything there last night that they could carry over into a hot streak?

Because I think that the, the more advanced reading of last night is if you can let that version of Ben Roethlisberger go Canton on your ass in the second half of that game, who's to say Justin Fields, you've got two good quarterbacks. I mean, one good, one all-time great coming up to play in Stafford and in Aaron Rodgers. I mean, how is Chicago not get one when you guys play with fire all the time? And I don't think that there's any button to push i don't think there's any player who needs to come in the game like oh if only whoever was playing at wherever although i you got to give it to mason cole he's been pretty good at guard i didn't think that that was going to

happen necessarily but um i there's no real zimmer's talking about how next week he's going to give him a heavy dose of technique and you're're just like, I don't know, Mike. I mean, haven't you been giving him a heavy dose of technique? I don't think. Yeah, I don't think. You don't want to grind them down and beat them down with scorn and shame after eight years. They may be tuning that out. A heavy dose of technique.

I mean, this isn't the third week of July. This isn't OTAs, you know. But what else is Zimmer going to say? That's who he is, right? That's in his DNA. One thing I, we haven't even touched upon this and I'd love to hear again, because I have not processed all the coverage and the comments from last night or even this morning from Zimmer. But when I started seeing the tweets coming out from, you know, the house organs that Dalvin Cook was leaning toward playing, I thought, that seems insane to me. I mean, a separated, dislocated shoulder, I mean, he's not going to paint the house. I mean,

he's going to get hit by 300-pound linemen many times, taken down on the hard turf many times. And next thing I know, he's got 25 carries for 205 yards. And I, okay. I mean, I don't know what they shot him up with, but I mean, I guess it's okay. I mean, is he going to wake up Monday morning and have the arm hanging off? But if this is to be believed that he can power through this

without ruining his career, well, that's a whole new wrinkle now. Suddenly the running game is very relevant again. And that's something going into these sort of grind-em-out, ugly, maybe snow games that does give another – I mean, you can analyze it more than I can, but I thought, I just figured they were just going to be a passing team and, and, you know, have a cursory running game from here on out. Cause there's no way Cook was going to be relevant for the next couple of weeks. Well, suddenly he is. And suddenly that, that changes, you know, your, your, your

diversity on offense again, which they haven't had much of the year since he's been banged up a lot. So that's the one thing that I think when you say what's new is that, well, that emerged out of nowhere. So where does that go for the next four weeks in terms of what they can dial up? But I do want to get back to Roethlisberger, too, at some point. But what do you think about what, you know, the, the cook ratio now could be? Yeah. I mean, I agree with you that if we're talking about one thing that really hasn't been there consistently all season long in the running game that that looked different last night, the way that they blocked for him looks different than the way they've been blocking all year. Probably having people who actually have played guard in their life before playing guard maybe helped in moving only Udo over to tackle,

which again, he was their lowest rated player by PFF and the only offensive lineman who had a tough night only Udo. But you know, Mason Cole adds an extra element of somebody who is more ideal for the way that they want to block. And I think that that was significant. It also was significant that Delvin Cook just had, he just had speed, speed that has not been there for him almost the entire season, the breakaway type of speed for Delvin Cook. When all of us were talking about, yeah, man, this is kind of crazy. You know, you could get hurt and everything else. We assumed they were going to tackle him.

Instead, they chose not to tackle him for the vast majority of the game. I don't know that he took one hit last night. Maybe when he caught the pass, he got popped a little bit. The only issue that you would have is getting overly excited about that is just that it usually fades when he plays injured. There are bursts of, of like he looks great but then it's getting worn down and they were not light on him last night i mean they leaned on him very heavily because it was clear kind of from the beginning that kirk cousins was just a little bit

off and this is the the kirk cousins roller coaster that everybody has dealt with for so long of like, oh, so something is really working this run game, but the quarterback is not exactly on his game. And in fact, and I don't mean to change the subject on this, but I just want to like Kirk Cousins last four PFF grades. Now, keep in mind that 60 is like not good. That's a replacement level quarterback. So a 60 out of a hundred grade is what you'd expect if Sean Mannion played. Okay. And 70 is a pretty solid performance. Anything 80 above you played well enough to win the game. Like you played really well. His last four games, 68, 57, 79 against Detroit, which a lot of it being the second half of that game. And then 62 last night. Now his overall grade is still really good,

but this has always been kind of the issue with cousins where it's like the, the first three games of the year are way over 80. He has a run of four straight games in the seventies. Very, very good games playing really well. And then a long period of time here in four games where you get these performances that are up and down shaky or disappointing or leave the door open. And whether Cook runs or not, I think what you saw

last night, I mean, unless you're getting 200 yards every game is cousins has to find another one of those hot streaks in order for them to get in the playoffs. And that's kind of, that's the story. And with Adam kind of, that's the story. And with Adam feeling out, I thought there were some times where he wasn't on the same page with receivers, maybe didn't trust receivers to make certain throws was a little bit off, which you wonder about timing. Like was a guy supposed to be a little bit more here or cut this a little

bit more that way. Mike Zimmer talked about the interception on the slant where, you know, KJ Osborne has to get a little more inside to be able to knock that ball away because it wasn't a perfect throw. And I didn't even think that either interception was really Kirk Cousins' fault. It was more the accumulation of how he played for the entire game, completing 45% of his passes against a Pittsburgh defense that wasn't pressuring him out of the building or anything else like

that. Which we thought they would. Yeah. Well, TJ walk got hurt early in the game and Alex, hi, uh, tower Smith. Hi, something. Uh, he got hurt as well in, in the game. And, um, you know, that, I think that that really, uh, that really impacted how much they could pressure him. And yet, um, it turned out to not be a big deal like the pressure so you would have expected if i told you that they didn't get after him at all you would have expected well he must have put up you know 350 yards or something and instead it was this very like shaky performance and and it seems like since the interception he threw against san francisco right into the hands of that linebacker, like something broke there.

Yeah, it does feel that way a bit. Right? So you have, I think this is a major thing going down the stretch here, is like you get Delvin back, and he's now running well, and they at least have, when Derrissaw comes back, I think he just replaces Udo, and you're probably better for having Mason Cole at right guard, so you feel a little better about thatdo and you're probably better for having Mason Cole at right guard. So you feel a little better about that and your run blocking, but then your quarterback needs to play well.

It's on the stretch. This is what you listen to this podcast for Brian is to find out that the quarterback must play well in order to get the team into the post season. But, but these, these lulls in play, I mean, that's kind of how you end up being the 6-7 team with an expected points of 7-6, right? And, you know, Cousins has had such a great touchdown to interception ratio this season. To see that slowly turning because of these untimely mistakes,

the untimely interceptions are starting to erode a little bit of that credibility. And from where I was sitting last night, I mean, mind you, Section 338, Row 17 is pretty much the top of the building. So it's definitely a higher look. I mean, he sailed a ton of passes. I could be wrong about that. No, you're right. They look like he was playing in Buffalo Monday night, way off target.

Yeah, that's going to be – and what you want out of your $30 million, $45 million cap pick quarterback is to take the ball in the third and fourth quarter and do what Jared Goff did last week. Keep the chains moving, bleed out the clock, put one more touchdown in the end zone, and then everybody's beating traffic. It didn't happen. So yes, it leaves a little bit more to be desired on the table. Roethlisberger, we were talking earlier in the week about how you know, how he's, he's been, he's been, and you got the dog in the background now. So bear with me. Who let the dog out? I was,

that is the least enthusiastic dog pun we've ever had on the, who let the dog out. It should be plural. Shouldn't it? Right. Yeah. And he's just just somebody's walking by maybe the mailman you know he's going to attack us with a knife and herb thinks he's going to protect us all but um i i rarely see um you know we make fun of the the willie mays reference which has kind of become a cliche for all broken down star players who just hang on a little bit too long you know with him you know wandering around losing balls in the sun in the 73 World Series for the Mets. But I can't remember seeing too many athletes firsthand.

I'm sure I have. But I really felt for Roethlisberger last night. I just thought, man, this is a guy, what a gamer, what a career, made a career out of nothing. I mean, this is a guy that should not be on the pedestal that he is because of his physical sort of limitations and this big hulking, you know, anchor sitting back in that pocket. And it just looked like he would never get rid of the football last night.

There were a couple of sacks where I thought, why is he still back there? The whole line is collapsing on him. He's going to get scraped off the field with a spatula. It was just kind of sad to see because you just, I mean, you know what the numbers are saying. He's terrible. He's been playing terrible. He can't, he's 38 going on 1,000.

And it looked that way for the first, you know, 30 plus minutes that this was going to be the sad end to a great career. And then somehow the Vikings, you know, make him look, you know, 28 again in that late third quarter, early fourth quarter. Does this, you know, does this mean anything in the Steelers? Does this do anything for the Steelers thinking, or does this do anything to change or alter our image of Roethlisberger that

performance yesterday and also where he's at in his career? How do you, how do you try to unpack some of that? Yeah. I mean, he was drooling all over himself at the beginning of the game. Things were getting pretty hairy. It was a rough watch. Roethlisberger has clearly held on too long. He is by far not the first to do it. Peyton Manning in 2015 won a Super Bowl. I think that was kind of Roethlisberger's last year

where they started out, I think it was 11-0, and he wasn't playing well, but he was sort of finding ways to win. And then it would almost be like if Peyton Manning 2015 had tried to play in 2016 and brought it back after winning the Super Bowl, and then it got super sad. But Manning knew when to retire. Roethlisberger, I think the way that it ended last year against the Browns in the playoffs playoffs was motivated to try to come back and run it back one more time. And it just has not worked out really for them at all. And it's been miserable.

It was sad to watch when he's throwing these shot put passes. But I guess what I enjoyed seeing it because, you know, we love greatness and watching greatness and everything else. And he is one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. Similarly to Drew Brees leading a comeback against the Vikings in the playoffs, he actually did it twice. Even though Brees in the 2019 playoffs clearly didn't have the pop that he had at even a couple of years before that, you saw something there that just certain guys will never, ever, ever go away. And that's what I was amazed by with Ben Roethlisberger, as much as it's right to say, hey, Bashad Breeland, come on, buddy. Roethlisberger was making throws.

It was like he had just done a throwback and he found this little bit. And I remember talking to George Iloca about this former Viking safety very briefly, but played in Cincinnati for a long time, George Iloca, and he played Roethlisberger a million times. And he said, and it sort of makes a lot of sense with last night. It doesn't matter how bad he looks or what you do to him, how many times you hit him, how many times you pick him off. It does not matter. He will never stop. He just keeps fighting and fighting and fighting and fighting.

And he has the thing that if you could put into Cousins, Cousins goes to the Hall of Fame, right? And you saw that last night that this guy, I was saying, take him out of the game. It's 29 to nothing. This is embarrassing. And we're talking about, I even wrote like before I deleted it, like this is just the sad end to an all-time great player. And then he comes out and almost leads one of the greatest comebacks of all time because whatever that thing is that exists inside of a human being that can find something there to keep fighting and make a big play when it's needed the most. I mean, Roethlisberger with two seconds left makes an unbelievable throw to his tight end that if that guy squeezes it and Harrison Smith doesn't make an equally great play, I mean, we are saying this is one of the greatest comebacks of all time.

And that wasn't there at all for Roethlisberger in the first half. You would not want him as your quarterback these days. He's a mess. It's over there. They should be trading for cousins in the off season if you're Pittsburgh. So all that can be true. But there was something about watching that, that I'm sure Vikings fans have no appreciation for thinking about, you know, kind of their own view of that, that just as a watcher of sport, you have to kind of go, I'll remember the time that Roethlisberger looked like the worst player of all time, and then came out and just found something in the second half and almost did something insane. So I guess that's the way I look at it a little bit more.

Well, it was fascinating, too, to watch, again, from the fan perspective, because there were a ton of Steelers fans in the building. Yeah. You know, coming into the building, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods in Roseville yesterday to buy a sled for my daughter for the inevitable snowstorm this week. And I saw Steelers fans getting out of it, looked like a rental car, buying gear, more gear. I don't know what they were buying, but they were all, this is one in the afternoon. And they had their terrible towels and their, their miners helmets and their jerseys on. And I thought, my God, they are going to invade the stadium. And they did, but they had nothing to say

or cheer about there were no towels waving there was no noise and then it was just like they were they just rose from the dead collectively over the last 20-25 minutes because I think a lot of Vikings fans had bailed as well so it became this crescendo and I'm like oh I didn't even know they were sitting over there and oh they're over there too and I'm just looking around like wow i'm gonna have to walk ethan out of a gauntlet of terrible towels even now too if they blow this game i mean he's just gonna be scarred for life um but it was you almost you almost sensed them kind of coming closing ranks around rosalindsburg or two like wow ben just deliver one more moment for us. I mean, we've had to endure three hours of the hometown fans taunting us because we're losing 29-0, and here we are on the verge of something spectacular.

Give us one more moment in the sun, not Willie Mays wandering around blind, but one more great moment to bask. So that was kind of interesting to see. I mean, what a passionate fan base. I mean, it's obvious they travel well. I'm sure there's a lot of them that even live here. But to see the black and gold, the miners helmets, the terrible towels. I mean, I thought I might have been a little just came home at 1130, wrote, went to bed, got up and did this. What were the wonks saying as far as like, what was the greatest Vikings meltdown? Did anybody look up what 29-0 had been the biggest one or Steelers comeback? Were those numbers being bandied about? Yeah, the broadcast showed that like in the

time period, I think they were down. Was it 29 nothing in the fourth quarter or was 27, 29, seven? I think they had at least one touchdown by the fourth quarter. Yeah. So, so somebody told me that the broadcast had one of those stats. Like it would have been something all time of like in the shortest period of time, greatest comeback had they found a way to win and they still would have needed to win in overtime and get a two point conversion. Yeah. The two point conversion we kind of think would have been inevitable, but I believe if the tight end hangs onto the ball, it has to be inevitable that they get the two point conversion, right? Yes. I mean, they've given up like every single key play

this year. So I think the answer would probably be yes. But I don't know what the biggest Viking meltdown is. So I arrived in 2016 and I'm not even sure what the biggest one that I've covered is in terms of points versus how much time was left or anything else like that. It's really something unusual for the Zimmer team. I mean, there were always no shows, even in their great season, there's no shows, one in Philadelphia most notably. But there were not these times where you're winning and you just go like, oh man, anything can happen here.

For the most part, it was if they got ahead, they had a pretty darn good chance to win the game and that is entirely changed this year um i can i can check and see but murph i can't remember too many of them it was kind of a staple of the zimmer team that once they got ahead they would take care of business and that just does not happen even last year last year felt like they got behind in every game and they were forced to come back all the time. But I mean, 29, nothing in the third quarter at home.

I, I, you know, again, there's maybe there was a game in 1983 that it happened or the 84 steckle year, but I just find that really, really there's, we thought there was no coming back from a loss in Detroit. I don't know if you come back from that kind of a meltdown too, but I'm fascinated that postgame Zimmer actually said he thought they were going to lose. I've never heard an NFL coach ever concede that, yeah, yeah, the wheels were coming off. You guys all saw it. I was right there with you.

I thought we were done. I'm just scrolling through here. I can't find one like that. I cannot find one like that where they were up by that much that I've covered in the last five years here where they were up by two or three scores. And then all of a sudden the other team came roaring back like that. Two scores in the second half, okay, but not 29. 29 is excessive. Do you think that if they had blown that and lost,

that Zimmer is not the coach this morning? Yes, I would think that. Because I didn't think even the loss in Detroit, as egregious as it was, and that may be the thing that does ultimately seal his fate. It was such a quick turnaround for Thursday night. They're still mathematically in it. I mean, you're going to fire your coach and set off a bomb. Three days later, you've got to play on prime time.

You're still mathematically in it. So it made sense to just let him play out the last four weeks, four or five weeks, and evaluate him and Spielman together and Cousins and all of it and really make a measured, measured decision. If you lose 20, if you blow a 29 nothing lead on national television at home, I just think from an optics standpoint, somebody has to walk the plank and he's the obvious choice. So no, I do believe that would have been a fireable offense. I mean, losing at Detroit is a fireable offense. That would have been, you know, almost like a felony murder offense. You know, I mean, McCoy would have put the death penalty on the table, right? Here's the thing, you know, the short turnaround,

every team has to deal with it. I mean, it's tough. Now they get the long break. I guess that's good. It gives everybody, you know, not anybody not with the team a chance to catch their breath and maybe just enjoy some Sunday football that doesn't involve, you know, a cardiac machine and cyanide. But I wonder, you know, it could be good, certainly physically for the team, maybe even mentally. But it also allows them to stew a few more days in their mystifying identity. And then you get

the extra day because they're playing Monday night in Chicago. I mean, this is a long break they're going to have. What do you think? Do you think it's a positive thing, or do you think it would be better if they just got back on the saddle as soon as they can? I mean, that's just another thing to overanalyze. Yeah, I don't think it's a big deal. Chicago gets an extra day to prepare to.

I mean, the Vikings get several extra days, but I don't know how much of a difference that makes. And with this team, they came out of the bye and lost to Cooper Rush. So I don't know. Anything is possible. I will just continue to quote KG when it comes to this. But I do think that you can be on the wrong end of history a time. You can't be on the wrong end of history back to back in five days. Yeah, twice in five days. No, you can't have historic defeats like that and survive. No, not in the situation we're in.

So we'll carry on. It'll be instead of Monday morning Murph, Tuesday morning Murph. We'll have to work that out because I'll be traveling back from Chicago, but we'll, we'll figure it out for next week. But I mean, I'm glad for your son that he had a really enjoyable time with his first Vikings game. And now it's going to cost you a lot more money to keep taking them back. So sorry about that. That's where his uncles and grandparents I did my duty. I'm done. I'm not, I'm not throwing more cash into the NFL. Thanks for your time and go read Murph's column at purple insider.substack.com about taking his son to the game is terrific. So thanks Brian.

All right. Thank you.