Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Backup QB options, Kirk Cousins's supporting cast and what we want to read in Mike Zimmer's book

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom talk about the more-or-less final roster and what the Vikings should do with the backup quarterback situation. Is there any argument for Cam Newton or should the Vikings just roll with Sean Mannion? Plus we look at Kirk Cousins's supporting cast without Irv Smith Jr. and ask whether it's going to be good enough to get them into the top 10 and what could go right. And Mike Zimmer said that someday he's going to write a book about all the crazy things that have happened to his teams and we discuss which chapters we'd read first. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So Sam, we've got a lot going on in Vikings land over the last couple of days. I had a chance to talk with ESPN's Courtney Cronin for our initial reaction episode. And at the time that we were initially reacting, we were not 100% sure what was going on with Everson Griffin and numerous other elements to the Minnesota Vikings roster. But we can now say Everson Griffin is back. And I won't go through the whole process of why that had to happen, but we'll just say Everson Griffin is on the roster. So we're good there. Jalen Holmes is waived. They let go Britton Colquitt, the punter, and now they're bringing him back is what the report is because they continue to finagle and mess with this roster to get the

right guys on IR, the right guys on the roster. And I think we are very close to this thing being set. Chris Herndon is here that the Vikings traded for to the New York Jets. So let me take a deep breath and let you react to where we're at now that I think we are very close to the Vikings 53-man roster? Yeah, the three-week IR is so convenient for teams that it's going to revolutionize the way these rosters get set going forward. So get used to this. Unless the league gets rid of the three-week IR, every year might be like this, just because there's incentive to do it. But I think a lot of people who made 53-man projections were panicking, like us. Oh, man, we were way off. And now that the dust is settling a little bit, I think

things are coming into focus more the way we thought, like Griffin being on the roster Jalen Holmes being off the roster probably um the three specialists will all be intact with DePaula and Colquitt and Joseph who by the way was the sole survivor for a period of time today he was the only specialist on the team there used to be six of them like I wanted to see a survivor style documentary on like how he outwitted and outplayed and outlasted the rest of them. Um, but it's like the oldest practice squad I've ever seen. They somehow got all of their veterans through like, you know, Dakota Dozier accepted a practice squad spot, Amir Abdullah, Perry Nickerson. So they're very experienced on the practice squad, which is kind of rare because the league has relaxed those rules. And yeah,

I think probably in the next 48 hours, we'll kind of understand where things are going to be at. I still expect a quarterback, Matthew, and I think you do too. And maybe it's a former Viking. Maybe it's Sean Mannion who eventually comes in here and someone else will have to go. But the Vikings have finagled it enough to where they've kind of they've refilled the tight end room. Right. They've got Herndon. They brought in Ellison off waivers. They have, I think, solidified that defensive line with Griffin coming back. So things are coming together right now. They are. And so I was going to ask you, like, what questions do we have left to answer on the Vikings roster? I think that you named probably the biggest one, which is who will they have as their

backup quarterback? Because as much as Kellen Mond in the third preseason game had some moments and finally showed a little bit of competent quarterback play, I don't believe that they're anywhere close to trusting him as the backup quarterback. And Mike Zimmer was asked about that today and gave a very wishy-washy answer that did not exactly sound like, we believe in Kellen Mond as our number two quarterback. And with Sean Mannion being released, Tom Pelissero from NFL Network brought up the idea that they could possibly bring back Sean Mannion, which we all appreciate Sean Mannion as a veteran journeyman quarterback who knows the offense extremely well

and who, if asked to step in for a game or something, would not fall all over himself, we assume, like what we saw from Jake Browning. And Jake Browning is not on this roster right now. I suppose they could have four quarterbacks if they wanted to bring him back and use one of those practice squad spots if he were to agree to that and still also bring in a veteran backup quarterback. and celebrity and all that sort of stuff. And tell me, would you rather have Sean Mannion or Cam Newton as your backup quarterback? Now, I don't know that Cam Newton would agree to be a backup quarterback anywhere.

He might just wait and see if a quarterback gets hurt and the team gets desperate. But I wonder about bringing back someone like Sean Mannion who cannot save a season for you. Maybe he could play two games or three games but he's not even of a Case Keenum level where that was a guy with previous success to some extent in starting and Sean Mannion has basically never gotten a chance to start outside of a week 17 game do you think that they should try to do better than someone like Sean Mannion

especially since when you look at their salary cap space, they've got space to spend a couple of million dollars on somebody that could fill that role. Yeah. And I don't think the Brian O'Neill extension is going to break them. Like, I think that'll introduce a couple million dollars this year, but they should have money remaining. And if, if you can say about your backup quarterback, oh yeah, he's been to a Super Bowl. I mean, that's a pretty good thing to have on your resume. Now, it was a while ago, but pre-COVID Cam, last year with the Patriots was awesome. I mean, New England was on fire for Cam Newton,

and then he got COVID, and everything kind of hit the fan in New England. There was very little talent around him. And I've got plenty of concerns like his arm strength and accuracy has been declining for years now, injury prone, all of that. But, you know, if you really want to take this thing seriously, and again, with the unvaccinated quarterback, there's a risk of him missing time. Who would you rather have? You know, someone who's played at the highest level before in his career or someone who's, you know, really never played at all, you know, in Jake Browning or even Sean Mannion's case, who started two meaningless games in his career.

Yeah, that's a pretty low bar. Now, is Newton going to fulfill the responsibilities that the Vikings typically like in their backup quarterback, which is support Kirk, help him game plan, help him prepare, stay late after practice, things like that. I don't know if that's what you expect from someone like Cam Newton when they come in, but on the right deal, that would certainly make sense to me if they think it's not going to be a locker room problem. Well, I just thought of it as being a vintage type of Minnesota Vikings thing to do. When you think about this team's history with backup quarterbacks and how they once brought in Randall Cunningham just because he was better than any other backup quarterback, even though he was thought to be washed, he comes in behind Brad Johnson in 1998, steps into the limelight,

takes him to the NFC championship and nearly the Super Bowl when Brad Johnson gets hurt. And the vaccination status unfortunately has to be a part of that equation. So if you're making the case for bringing in someone like Cam Newton, that would be a major sticking point since Kirk Cousins appears that he's not going to change his mind with that. So if you had him and Kellen Mond and Cam Newton all unvaccinated, that could be a problem where you end up with a wide receiver starting a quarterback. That is not what you want. Of course, although you could in this situation, try to separate the quarterbacks, which they talked about before and not have them in the same room that could cause a close contact,

which is actually what caused Kirk Cousins to miss practice time. It wasn't that he tested positive. It was that he was close contact with Kellen Mond. And unfortunately, this is a storyline and it will clearly continue to be as we've seen more players test positive. Tyron Matthew today, the Tennessee Titans had an issue with Ryan Tannehill and a couple of other players and coaches.

Sorry, folks, this is not going to disappear as a storyline. But if you were talking about who could save your bacon if something went wrong, it's not Sean Mannion. And this comes from, you know, I have great respect for Sean Mannion. I've interviewed him a number of times. He's a highly intelligent player, one of the smarter guys that you'll run into, but can he play five, six, seven games if you needed to and have him save a season? No. And when you look at what Cam Newton was dealing with last year, that Patriots team was half of a roster. And so he would come here with a running game and with a couple of wide receivers who are really good. Like, I think there's an argument for trying to do slightly better

than Trevor Simeon or Sean Mannion if you've got the money and you're in a circumstance where everybody has got their job on the line. They trade a fourth round pick for Chris Herndon, who has not been good since his rookie year. And that to me says, uh-oh, we've really got to fill this spot. They sign a bunch of people to one-year

contracts including Everson Griffin which all says uh-oh we've got to fill all these spots and have a good defense like why wouldn't it be uh-oh we need a backup quarterback with the situation that we're in and the potential at any given time for someone to be out because of COVID yeah I think they are in that situation I mean I would be pretty stunned if they didn't bring in somebody. And that's bolstered by the fact that Browning is ostensibly not on the practice squad yet, despite reports. And maybe that's just some bookkeeping stuff that's holding that up. But I think 100% that somebody gets brought in, is this team willing to bet that the third preseason game or the second half of the third preseason game

is enough to base an opinion that Kellen Mond is ready to be a backup quarterback? I don't think so. I mean, I don't think you can look at the first preseason game, the second preseason game, and believe in your heart that he can win you football games against real defenses and actual

starters, not a chance. Even in the third preseason game, he turned the ball over twice before he kind of got it together. So I would say 90%, there's a move coming. It just might not be the flashy quarterback, Cam Newton. I mean, I'd also say 90%, it won't be him. It'll probably be the boring journeyman. And I know, and I guess I'm not sure who's been signed in the last couple hours, like back to their teams, but you know, Nate Sudfeld or, or Nick Mullins, you know, who started a number of games for San Francisco in that similar system would also make sense. So Nick Mullins is exactly the argument that I would make for calling Cam Newton. Nick Mullins has filled in two basically full seasons or half seasons for Jimmy Garoppolo. What happened for both? They just lost and lost and lost. I mean, if you wanted to

say, hey, if Kirk goes down or if Kirk ends up out because of COVID or something, then tank and you're in a better spot. But you didn't act like you were tanking in any way. And when it comes to a backup quarterback helping Kirk Cousins, this is a team that just brought back Everson Griffin, who tweeted things about Kirk Cousins. And then when asked if he was going to apologize, said, I'll get around to it. So, I mean, they didn't care about Kirk's feelings when they brought in Everson Griffin. Why would they care if they brought in another veteran quarterback

who has previous experience? This is a thing that used to happen all the time with say like Bernie Kosar at one point was the backup quarterback for Dan Marino, but it seems to not happen anymore that you bring in an older guy who's passed his prime to be your backup quarterback. And Cunningham was another great example of that. And they won a playoff game in 1997 with Randall Cunningham. I think that was another incidence of Brad Johnson going down. Like this is a thing that used to go on all the time where veteran quarterbacks who were good at one point would just sort of bounce around. But Cam is such a bizarre case because I saw that Doug Kide from PFF, who was on our show maybe two weeks ago,

he was reporting that teams are sort of afraid to bring in Cam as a backup because he's like a celebrity. And I guess I get that. And I don't know, like someone continued to bring in Tim Tebow for this very reason. And I think that they've made lots of moves that throw caution to the wind. And but with this one, they're going to try to pull out the four iron and hit it straight down the middle. I guess I just I don't understand why this position would be treated differently if there's someone out there who could be a vast upgrade. And even the fact that you could bring in Cam Newton at the goal line. Do we think he's just going to be like some big problem? I don't know. I guess that that just

ran through my mind today. And I'm sorry that I've spent the first like 15 minutes on this. I just, this is a position that seems this year it will be, or could potentially be important to this team. And they are going to, by not calling Cam Newton, forego an opportunity at someone who is far better, still in his state, far better than Nick Mullens. Yeah, I like your one yard line idea. Like for all the Gopher fans, kind of a Seth Green, bring him in on third and short. I love it. But you have to consider too, who the quarterback is currently for the Vikings. And the Vikings probably know that maybe he's not in the most resolute mental state right now.

He seemed a bit fragile to me this preseason. And not exactly handling the adversity of the injuries, the vaccination questions, maybe feeling the hot seat a little bit with this contract. I haven't felt like he's really handled that with a lot of aplomb. So bringing in Cam Newton to that room could push him even further kind of over the edge. I'm not saying that Kirk is going to fail this year. It just hasn't been all hunky-dory. It hasn't been all positive with him. So I think that that's a consideration too. And nobody's more celebrity adverse or drama adverse than this Vikings administration.

I mean, I don't think they would typically bring in a backup who they think at all might rock the boat, even if they wouldn't. You know, they tend to, if they're going to bring in someone notable, even if they wouldn't, you know, they tend to, if they're going to bring in someone notable, it's going to be one of their own guys. It's going to be an Everson Griffin. That's the only kind of player they would bring in that has any kind of baggage. And, and Newton's not one of their guys. So I, again, I'm 90% it doesn't happen. And I don't, that's kind of an archaic way to look at it too. Like, I mean,

there's so many personalities in the locker room that, yeah, you're going to have some that are a little more, you know, famous than others, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't make bold decisions. And this team seems, you know, to be kind of putting all of their chips into the table this year anyway. So why not go out and just get talent at any cost? Well, and they've thrown caution to the wind in so many ways. And also, you're right that sometimes they try to be drama averse. And yet the drama comes to them, like with Stefan Diggs, or this is the team that kept bringing back Adrian Peterson after the thing with his kid. I mean, they've sort of brought a lot of it on themselves.

But then with this, they don't want to have that. And I guess it just doesn't quite add up to me, but there seems to be a thing with Cam where it's like, if you're going to bring him in, he's got to be your starting quarterback and that person will have to pop in, you know, or that team will have to pop in Cam Newton all of a sudden. So that's a possibility for somewhere with a bad quarterback situation. But I don't know. It just seems like to not really gel with the other moves they've made to have someone like Nick Sudfeld or Nate Sudfeld, any type of Sudfeld. So let me ask you this question though. So I'll move on from this subject. Now that Chris Herndon is here and Irv Smith is not for presumably the full season, though many people have reminded me that his timeline could result in him coming back for the Superbowl. So, you know, could happen, Matthew. Yeah. I don't rule anything out.

I can't say it's impossible. So that is true. And, and I'll include that in the commentary, but now that Irv Smith will not be a part of this all season, where would you rank Kirk cousins, supporting cast in the NFL of all the quarterbacks of all the supporting cast? You don't have to give me like 17th or something, but let's just say, is it top tier still? Because I think you could have said it was top tier. Do you think it's like middle? Do you think it's bottom? Like whereabouts do you think his now supporting cast is without Irv Smith Jr.?

Yeah, I think it's in the middle. And that's an easy answer. But we were talking about this today. There's about five factors, right? There's a pass catching weapons, there's running game, there's pass blocking and there's a defensive support. So let's call it. So I guess that's four, that's four factors. I think his pass catching obviously takes a hit. He still has two elite wide receivers, huge question market, at wide receiver three and now I'd say huge question mark at tight end period right um and even though Chris Herndon yes his rookie season

was better than any Irv Smith season so far I don't think that means that Chris Herndon is better than Irv Smith in fact the fact that he was available is, you know, pretty bad look considering that I think he went into camp as the alleged number one and played his way out of it. Really struggled last year. So all of that's negative around Chris Herndon. Still, fresh surroundings, you know, was in a bad situation in New York, might sort revive things so he might be all right but I've got questions um I've got questions about like four of the five offensive linemen right Dalvin Cook's probably the strongest weapon um and the defense I think could be good but I'm not gonna ordain them yet so I think they're kind of in the middle you know like I think there are teams out there with a lot more that's established from a protection standpoint, from a defensive standpoint, from a pass catching standpoint.

And I've got a lot of questions about this team. So I don't think having two elite wide receivers makes you an elite offense. We've seen that in the past with Diggs and Thielen, right? It doesn't guarantee anything. 2018, Thielen has one of the best starts in NFL history. Diggs is balling out as well, and the team still floundered and missed the playoffs. So that kind of stuff can happen. Same with Jefferson and Thielen last year. That team won seven games, and those two combined for 2,300 yards. So I think the supporting cast is right there in the middle. If the defense gets really good, then that aspect of it helps, I think all the others, but I'm not, I'm, I can't put them in the upper tier right now, just because of that

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Just trying to do a quick buzz through of which NFC teams would clearly have better supporting cast than the Vikings now without Irv Smith, Dallas Cowboys for sure, because they have three wide receivers. And at least if their line is healthy, they've got a chance to be better. The New York Giants, probably their line hurts them a lot. But Saquon Barkley, Kenny Galladay, that might be sort of even like we think their offensive

line is rough, but like this offensive line is starting a career swing tackle at left tackle in week one. Philadelphia, definitely not. Washington, I think, does now have a better supporting cast for Ryan Fitzpatrick. Now that they have Curtis Samuel, they have a very good offensive line. I don't know how well they run the ball. I don't know how much that matters. Arizona's got DeAndre Hopkins. They've got a couple other weapons. That's probably even.

I'm not going to go through every team. I promise. The Rams are better though. San Francisco is better. Seattle's got a case for being about even or better. Like my point is that all of the sudden this has a domino effect to the point where you could have made the case that Cousins has this great supporting cast again. And here he comes with Irv Smith taking that step forward. It adds a different element than Kyle Rudolph ever did. And now you look at it as much more of a mid pack in the NFC. So the follow-up question here is what has to go right for now Kirk Cousins to have a good supporting cast this year? Because what could go wrong is very easy.

Like Justin Jefferson falls on that shoulder wrong again, and you are just toward the bottom of the NFC in terms of supporting cast overall if he has an injury, and the same goes for Adam Thielen. So we know that. That goes without saying. How do they get to, at the end of the year, we say, wow, Kirk actually had a great supporting cast this year. Yeah. I think number one, Dalvin cook has to play 16 games, 17 games, but 16 would be good. But 16 would be great. Yeah. You can, maybe they'll sit them in week 17. I think that needs to happen

um because you want that running game strong obviously around kirk it's a huge part of what this team does even though you know passing is uh gonna trump running every time they need to get i think about a thousand yards in aggregate from their top two tight ends um for example the last four games last year with rudolph andklin, they were on a 1400 yard pace in aggregate. If they had done that for a full season, that's incredible for the tight end position. I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for a thousand yards from Herndon and Conklin and whoever else, Ellefson, D, Dylan Davidson off the practice squad. Any of the, the guys whose names end with O N I guess.

And that, that you need to get some tight end production, especially in the red zone, right? Like I thought that losing Kyle Rudolph was going to be a problem in the red zone because cousins hasn't necessarily had a lot of chemistry, you know, with his other tight ends in that area. And, and Herb Smith, I think was going to be pretty good. So now you've got, you've, you've got that question too. Who's going to catch passes inside the 20? I guess Thielen was kind of the main guy last year. And teams are going to know that. So you're going to have to look to

your wide receivers a lot more. I'm not convinced that I need a lot of like production from the wide receiver three. That's just not how this team rolls. Just like be consistent. If that means 30 yards a game, let it be 30 yards a game. They're probably going to be on the field 20 to 30 snaps. But the big one collars the protection, right? I mean, you need to have an above average season from somebody that you don't expect to have an above average season from. that you don't expect to have an above average

season from so that's Udo or Hill they can't both be disasters or the line's going to be a disaster so one of them needs to overachieve Garrett Bradbury needs to be league average as a pass protector Ezra Cleveland needs to be league average as a just a guard in general we don't really know what he can do yet and Brian O'Neill needs to be himself. Okay. So I'm asking for like two or three of the question marks on the offensive line to overachieve and sort of raise the water level of that group, which is still the most precarious on the roster. That's exactly where I was going to go is what needs to go right other than health health goes without saying is that only Udo and Ezra Cleveland two former tackles have to pass block really really well

and what happened to last year with the interior offensive line was they got thrown off quite a bit by blitzes and stunts and twists and things like that where it seemed like Dakota Dozier and Garrett Bradbury and who was it Ezra Cleveland toward the end of the year but true Samia Pat Alphonse whoever was there had except for Brett Jones who was fine had problems week after week after week in the big situations and a stat that I ran across that really blew my mind is over the last three years, the Vikings are 24th in third down percentage. And I think that says a lot because that's when the other team can just go crazy. I mean, you know, the defensive coordinators are drawing up the X's and O's like psychopaths every single week. Here's what we're going to do with

this crazy blitz. And you can only use it on third and eighth. And that's where it feels like the Vikings have really struggled over these last three years is sustaining drives. And that's why they're scoring percentage, like the times they score versus the amount of drives was I think 18th in the league last year and has not ever really been that high with Kirk Cousins because they hit on explosive plays and score, but drive to drive, they seem to have problems there. So if only Udo and Ezra Cleveland can figure this out at the right and left guard positions and pass block above average, especially in key spots, I think he actually has a chance to have a decent overall supporting cast, even without a star

tight end. Because when you think about it, I mean, Tyler Conklin could probably do what Kyle Rudolph did aside from being six, seven or six, six, and jumping up and bouncing the ball to himself. Like he did a couple of times in 2019, going over the middle, finding a little space, catching a pass and running six yards after like these things can happen with tyler conklin we thought that irv smith was going to be special and he's got a chance to be someday so there it does take it down a notch from there but this doesn't feel so much different from say 2019 where they're going to have basically the two wide receivers and someone gets hurt in the middle of the year and there's another option like they can work around this i think another part of it though

and this is what i have no idea how to project tell me if you've been figuring out some formula to project this clint kubiak do we still after preseason training camp have any sense for what clint kubiak is going to do as the offensive coordinator of this team? No. And for those listening, not watching, I'm shaking my head during that whole question. I've got no idea. I don't think he was dealt a very good hand with two quarterbacks that he had to like handhold in, in three of those games. Right. I mean, the only, the only time where I think Clint Kubiak got to do thing, realistic things that he would do in the regular season early in the second game, early in the third game. And those were not very successful. We saw one decent

drive that ended in a field goal. Um, and again, that was still without a number of his weapons. So we really haven't gotten any indication of what he does with a full deck. It concerns me a little bit that he's still kind of messing with where he's calling plays from. I mean, he starts down on the field, then he goes up top and he's had what one game, maybe two games in the booth calling plays. And you can see way more up there. I get why you would do it. But I would just like those basic things to be figured out. I mean, this is such an important season.

And they're entrusting one of the most important roles to somebody who is so new at it. And it's hard to get in Clint Kubiak's head. He's not quite as comfortable in press conferences as his dad, not as forthright. We're not really going to get, I think, a lot of his inner workings, like what's going on up there. So, I mean, he might be brilliant. He just doesn't really, you know, sell the program very well to us. I think probably within the walls of TCO Performance Center, he's probably got much better command. Everybody says that he's really good in the meeting room. So I believe that.

But I haven't seen it, and I don't know what goes on. So it's hard for me to fully believe in what's happening. Yeah, he didn't take media training from Gary because Gary was fantastic. Well, you know, that's a great question, Sam. I used to play with a guy named Terrell Davis. He's a pretty good running back, you know, and I, you know, my roommate, John Elway, he knew how to make a play. Gary was great.

So with Clint though, you're right that with John D. Filippo, we had a feel for him very early on. And there are certain coaches that really want you to know that they want the world to know the answers to the questions. And John DeFilippo was one of them where you would ask him. So what happened there? And he would give you an explanation. And personally, I and I'm I do have skin in the game here. But like, I don't think that that's a bad thing, that fans better understand what's going on and have answers.

But there are other coaches, and George Edwards was like this, that it was like, I am not telling you guys anything. Sorry, you can ask all day long, but I'm just not giving you the answers. And I respect it. That's Clint Kubiak. He doesn't want to really give the answers to the questions. So we're going to have to find out with what actually happens. And that means that the range of outcomes is very wide here because I could see Clint Kubiak looking at their offense last year and saying, you know, dad, you really forgot to motion anybody and your offense is amazing. And it's changed the NFL. It truly has. I mean, you see it in so many different places, but other teams are motioning and other teams are, you know, taking these things that were staples of John Elway and Terrell Davis, and

they're changing them to look similarly or to, you know, add different elements to them that maybe Gary Kubiak didn't have. And I think we saw some of that with Kevin Stefanski in 2019. There's that part. There's the other part where the guy's just in over his head and doesn't know how to be an offensive coordinator. I mean, that's possible because he's going from quarterback coach to offensive coordinator, and we don't know which direction that's going to go. And I agree with you that it certainly threw up a flare or shot up a flare in my mind when Mike Zimmer came out and said, I put Clint Kubiak up there. And it was like, oh, OK, I guess he wasn't trying that out himself. You could have played it off as if, oh, yeah, he's trying everything, you know, to figure out what he likes best.

But Mike Zimmer saying the receivers were talking to him too much and he's got to be up there. That was a surprising thing that took me aback and makes me really feel like I just don't know where Clint Kubiak stands in the range of all offensive coordinators. Like, is he going to be a Todd Downing that just didn't work out in Oakland? Or is he going to be your new McVay who comes here and adds a bunch of innovation and makes your offense decidedly better? I can't tell from what we've seen so far. Yeah, I mean, everybody's got to have a first time, right, to do this.

And everyone kind of goes through the same thing. But like with DeFilippo, he was so frontal with everything that was going on to the point where Zimmer was telling him to run the ball more and more or less he said nope like we're gonna keep doing it this way and he got fired for it so he put himself out there Zimmer pushed back and there were fireworks Kubiak's not gonna put himself out there I think he's gonna be a yes man so I think Zimmer's going to be generally happy with the philosophy. But, you know, when push comes to shove and you've got a big third down and you've got to call something creative, that's where you separate yourself.

Right. And that comes back to what you talked about. Third downs. How creative are they going to be? What wrinkles are there to this offense? Now, it could be that they've withheld all of that because I've seen nothing to suggest that there's much different going on. If anything, they've gone back to Norv with more 13 personnel. I saw a decent amount of that in training camp. I haven't seen anything that's creative or suggests that they're going to go four wide receivers more

because Kubiak does have some experience in those kind of offenses. that's you know creative or suggest that they're going to go four wide receivers more because Kubiak does have some experience in those kind of offenses so if there if there's trickery if there's more motion I don't know if I've witnessed it I think it's going to be at least until he finds his footing and his confidence as a play caller it is going to be a lot of what we saw from Gary and what Clint is comfortable and familiar with. And that might not be complex. So it's going to, you know, he's relying on the talent. He's going to rely on the talent to execute more simple concepts, I think,

and get in the end zone and work the way down the field. And hopefully the protection holds up for Kirk. Like that's, I think, what Clint Kubiak is banking on this year. Okay. Give me your snap. First number that comes into your head here. Where do you think the offense finishes in points scored this year? 11th last year, right? Correct. Yeah. Shaking head. If you're listening to the audio. 11th last year, right? Correct. Yeah, shaking head if you're listening to the audio. 11th last year.

I think they are 10th. I think they go up. You think it's going to be better. Okay. I think they go up one spot. Last year was pretty pitiful at times, right? They started so horribly. Even though they did put up some points in a couple of

those games though so i shouldn't completely disregard that yeah i i think i think it's about the same to be honest with you i mean they the the number the raw numbers were fine i just like watching the games i felt like there was a lot of meat left on the bone yeah i just don't know if there is going to be um enough assertiveness from this offense to kind of, you know, chew off the rest. I think they're going to wind up kind of meandering back there, upper half of the league. Do they fall behind in some games and have to come back? I'm, I mean, I'm calling them a top 10 offense, so I'm not dissing them by any means. I just don't see a market improvement i'm gonna go 16th i think that they are dead in the center if irv smith was here i would have said

10th or 8th but without irv smith i think that that matters uh it's not going to destroy them to the point that they can't offense but from what we've seen leading up to the beginning of the season i have a tough time saying, no, no, you're going to be well above average, or you're going to be up toward the top of the league. I think that if the offensive line plays extremely well, then they can be in the top 10, but then we've still got the dynamic of like,

is Kirk Cousins going to push it? Is he going to take some risks? Is he going to, I saw that ben baldwin of the athletic had a thing about you know when you need a big play made by your quarterback kirk cousins is not that guy um that he was toward the bottom of the league and i forget what exactly the parameters were maybe it was like in a third down and eight or something like that and that's or final four minutes of a half. I think final

four minutes of halves expected points added per play. Right. And he was just not that guy. And that's never been who he is. So, you know, the guys like Pat Mahomes and Russell Wilson are at the top and Kirk cousins is just not the aggressive quarterback. That's going to push your offense over the top. And now that a thing has gone wrong, that's usually the way we lay it out. Things need to go right for him to have an elite offense. Okay. So I want to know it just real, real quick question. Then I have something fun for you. You have been,

you've stuck on 11 and six for the entire off season. They were making moves and I was saying, Sam pick one loss. What do you think? And you said 11 and six, 11 and six for the entire off season, they were making moves. And I was saying, Sam, pick one loss. What do you think? And you said 11 and six, 11 and six. And then some things would go wrong and a tackle would get hurt and not have his groin heel and so forth. And you'd say 11 and six, I'm staying with it. Irv is hurt. The roster is set. We've seen all the drama with everything else surrounding Kirk and Mike Zimmer and so forth. Are you staying 11 and six? Yeah, I'm no coward. I'm not going to back down when the masses are jumping off.

I think I will, you know, as people are leaving my island, my 11 and six island, there's a lot of room on here. Was there a lot of people at 11 and six island? I don't know. I don't know. The fans on Twitter, maybe I, you know, I more room on here. Was there a lot of people on 11-6 Island? I don't know. I don't know. The fans on Twitter, maybe. You know, I'm pretty comfortable here. So I'm going to hang out and, you know, chill and just see what happens. Because I have too easily in the past been swayed by negativity in the preseason,

particularly 2017, where I was especially down on the team. And I'm not going to do that this year. So against all logic, I'm going to stick with it. See, that's interesting. I remember coming out of 2017 feeling like this team could be pretty good. I didn't think they were going to be 13 and three. I thought they were going to probably be 10 and six, I think is what I picked them or maybe 11 and five. But I do remember coming off 2016, there was some like, can they do really anything with Sam Bradford here? Bradford had never really won before. So that made some sense. I picked 10 and seven, the first day of the schedule, I baked in calamity. Like I assumed, I didn't know it would be like this. I didn't exactly

that day pick indictments for first round corners, groin injuries for left tackles, Everson Griffin coming back. Like there was, uh, you know, a lot of things that we can't foresee, which is why we do this. Cause you never know what's around the corner with the Vikings. But I just always thought, well, there could be some things. It probably will be some things that go sideways as they do for every team. So I'm still going to pack that into a 10 and seven pick. And I'm not going to change that either. I know that I've gotten messages from quite a few fans who have said, I'm feeling like six and 11. Now I think this is going really sideways. And that's, that's, that's too far for me because I think that they've gone through

the things that would normally cause you as a talented team to be closer to 500, closer to a 10 and seven fringe playoff type of record. And if nothing had gone wrong, I would have jumped up probably to 11 or 12 wins. Maybe if they had had this great preseason, there saw looked phenomenal. Irv Smith wasn't hurt. But I didn't think you just cruised through this and survived. Okay, here's the fun question for us to wrap up on. And I really like this question.

So we were talking to Mike Zimmer today, and I think it was Jim Suhan of the Star Tribune said, like, Mike, do you ever get used to how crazy things are around here? Just taking hit after hit because that's the way it's been in this preseason. And Mike's has been eight years of that. And in some ways it's been even longer because he was there in Atlanta for Bobby Petrino quitting on that team. And that was the same year that Michael Vick was arrested for the dogfighting. So it's just like you think you've seen calamity. Like no, nobody has seen it like Mike Zimmer. And Mike Zimmer said that he's going to put it all in the book. And he said,

quote, there's so much you guys don't know. Now, first of all, I would say, I'm just going to whisper. We know more than you think we know, Mike. That's one thing, but put that aside. What chapter of the book that Mike Zimmer writes someday are you flipping to first? Let's say, let's say he has a fine couple of seasons, retires happily, and he's watching Chicago PD in his hot tub or whatever at the ranch that he wants described to us. And he's typing out his life story and it's published and you get it in your hands and it's got all the chapters listed which one are you going right to with mike zimmer's book some that he's someday going to write he's not writing it now just to be clear

all right on the count of three let's both say it okay i think we're gonna say the count of three, let's both say it. Okay. I think we're going to say the same thing. Three, two, one. Norv. Norv. Yep. Yeah, that's it. On a delay. I tried once. I tried once. You did. You asked him, you said, well, you tell us about Norv. And Mike said, no.

And you said at the combine. And Mike said, no. But then he said he would write it in the book. So it's going to be in the book. What happened with Norv? Yeah. Hey, you're an author. Maybe you will be his writer. He's got a fondness for you. He might connect with you about that. You've said that several times. And I don't know that Mike has a fondness for any of us, but I'll try though. Trust me. I'll try to get Mike to let me co-author the book because anytime a coach

writes a book, he needs a writer to help him write an actual book. Nor would be the first chapter that I would clearly go to. I think Parcells would take up like 60% of the book, but I have always been sort of fascinated or, or maybe just wished that you could be a fly on the wall of when Bill Parcells and Mike are on the phone together talking football. Like, can you imagine, right? Like the level of footballiness of just having Parcells on speed dial and calling him and talking about everything that you're going through all the time. So I would love to read his thoughts on Parcells, which I'm sure would be a huge part of the book. The other part,

he even name dropped Adrian Peterson. And now we do know about some of the stuff there, Mike, but his experience with Adrian Peterson going through the thing with his kid and everything else. And then 2016 and how wild that was. I think 2016 more than 17, 18, 19 by far. 2016 is the season I would be really interested in because they started 5-0. Teddy gets hurt. They go sideways. I think I would really love to know more about what happened there behind the scenes with Zimmer and his team in 2016.

Yeah, because Zimmer thought that team was going to the Super Bowl, right? I mean, there's like a locker room video after some of their early wins of him saying, this team is special, man. Like, we're going to go places. They're 5-0, and it's hard not to, you know, believe him at that point. And then the wheels fell off. I think Zimmer described it the following year as like the sinking of the Titanic because like all of his linemen got hurt um the kicker melted down which would be another interesting thing to read about sort of like his experience with special teamers in in uh from 2015 on um and then yeah 2000 I mean Alex Boone was a big personality on that team, obviously. There was just a lot that hit.

And the eye thing. Oh, I forgot about the eye thing. In November or December of that year, yeah, the eye, which obviously has kind of followed him around for every year since because he still can't really see perfectly out of it. So, yeah, that's probably zimmer's 2010 which was i think the that's probably the gold standard for craziest viking season ever but i think 2016 gets up there into the top five yeah when a head coach has to miss a game uh and someone hangs from a truss inside the stadium and uh you know the plane goes off of the, like all sorts of things happen that season.

It was almost every single week that it was something crazy. And I've sort of gotten that vibe so far this year that we're going to have something crazy happen every single week. But I'll tell you the other one, because, of course, Norv has to be number one. There's so much mystery of what happened with Norv. And I hope it's a good story when he eventually puts it in there. But I hope it's not just like we argued and he quit. I want it to be much more dramatic than that. But I'll give you the one. After 2017, they have three quarterbacks who are free agents, Teddy, Sam, and Case Keenum. I want to read Mike Zimmer's thoughts

on what happened behind the scenes there deciding on Kirk Cousins. Because Everson Griffin tweeting that Zimmer never wanted Kirk. I remember Zimmer's face when that happened. I remember the terror in his voice when he was talking to us at the combine about how if I signed the wrong quarterback, I'm getting fired. And he said, if we sign a free,

an expensive free agent that could mess up our cap and ruin our roster, he knew it. He knew that this was a possibility. And I just wonder when they came out and said, this was, we were all on the same page here. If he dug his heels in for Teddy, or if he whatever wanted to go a different direction, wanted to trade for Alex Smith, there were so many options that year. It's like, I don't even need to know about Zimmer and Kirk's relationship behind the scenes

these last couple of years, because I'm not sure it's really even been behind the scenes. I think it's been pretty much right out front how they feel about each other. But in making that decision that took this franchise in a different direction, a pivot point in the franchise's history, truly, I want to read about that. Yeah, 100%, because that's an unprecedented situation in NFL circles to have three starting caliber quarterbacks all being free agents at once. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy situation.

I'm more interested on sort of his thoughts on Kirk or not Kirk, because I think you look at Bradford and you realize that the knee just can't handle it. Like it just wouldn't make sense to stick with him. Keenum drove Zimmer nuts with his risk-taking. I think Zimmer would be okay moving on from him and not overpaying for an anomaly, which is what paying for Keenum would have been at that point. And with Teddy, it kind of the same vein as Bradford,

you know, with not knowing that Teddy would go on to be a, you know, semi-successful starter elsewhere at the time. I think you probably, if you're Zimmer, you understand why you can't sign him either. Now, if you get him for a cheap one-year deal, maybe you go that route, but I just want to hear about Zim waffling between Kirk or like make a first round draft pick or, you know, what his hangups were about Kirk at the time, because like the things that Zimmer said he liked about Kirk were true. He's durable. Okay. I'm surrounded by, you know, arthritic need quarterbacks. This is good. Like he's dirt. He's not going to get hurt. I want this. He kind of has the pocket presence, right? Or allegedly, he's able to stand in and make throws.

OK, like that. Zimmer wanted all those things. I just don't think he probably fully knew what he was getting. And there's always a hope that when you surround a quarterback with a great defense, which the Vikings were coming off of having, there's probably a belief that that would raise a quarterback with a great defense which the Vikings were coming off of having um there's probably a belief that that would raise the play of the quarterback too so I could see Zimmer talking himself into Kirk um and talking himself out of the other three for fairly obvious reasons yeah I one thing that I wonder if they had any idea how to project was Kirk Cousins' personality

and how much that clashes with Mike Zimmer. Clearly, that personality worked with Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, where he emerged as a starter and led some very good offenses in Washington. It did not with Jay Gruden. It clashed more with Jay Gruden, and it's clashed here with Mike Zimmer. But it seemed to work okay with Kevin Stefanski. So I don't really know if they knew how is he going to work with Zimmer because Teddy is the ultimate Zimmer quarterback. And you know who the rich man's version of Teddy Bridgewater is. The guy was available. It's Alex Smith that year. Alex Smith is the rich man's Teddy. Like he's more talented

as a number one overall pick, but he is very conservative in not pushing it down the field all that often, but never turns the ball over and wins. And anytime you hear them talk about Teddy, I know Carolina didn't play well last year, but they talk about him as a winner. And if you're going to look for a guy who didn't put up the greatest numbers, but won a ton of football games, Alex Smith, I think after his first couple of years were pretty rough with bad teams. I think he went something like 81 and 36 or something. Like, I mean, it was nuts how often the guy was in the playoffs and it just didn't work out for him. And he probably does not take the team to a Super Bowl. But I wonder what that conversation was, because to me, he was the perfect Mike Zimmer quarterback to be a really good leader.

We saw that with the way that he worked with Patrick Mahomes and a guy who's not going to turn the football over. You could play good defense. And I think in 2018 and 19, Alex Smith would have just been a much better fit for a team that was playing defense and running the football than what Kirk brought them. So that that one, that chapter, I would absolutely read 100 times out of 100.

So before we wrap up, Sam, is there anything else on your mind as it pertains to the last couple of days or where we are headed in this universe? On to Cincinnati, on to Cincinnati, finally, finally finally some football we get it next week it has been quite the build so i appreciate uh everybody who's dropped in to listen if you enjoyed this and you're not a regular listener to the podcast check it out purple insider purple insider.substack.com and thanks as always to bring me the news for hosting us on this live stream. And we'll catch you all next time. I think we're going to do this Tuesday during the regular season. Everything's been sort of thrown off a little bit, but we'll do it then. So thanks Sam for your time and we'll catch you all later.

Thanks everyone.