Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy breaks down Kirk Cousins' legacy in Minnesota

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about why Kirk Cousins couldn't get the Vikings over the top during his six years with the Vikings and what it said about the team's approach around him and what it means for the future. https://surfshark.deals/PURPLEINSIDER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and Brian Murphy joins the show for the first time since the end of the season. And we agreed at the end of the year, Murph, that when there was a quarterback decision, you would be back. You would be running kids to hockey practice, living that dad life. But now we need your context, your commentary. You wrote a brilliant article at purpleinsider.com. People should go and check that out. About Kirk Cousins exiting stage left to the Atlanta Falcons,

where he will be able to buy the largest house in the entire state of Georgia five times. So good for him. He got his money. That's what he was looking for is what the dollars represented. And the dollars represented that the Atlanta Falcons were really into Kirk Cousins more than the Minnesota Vikings. So give me your reaction first to Cousins leaving, the Vikings signing Sam Darnold. And then I want to dive into a little bit of reflection with you about Cousins' time in Minnesota and how we're going to think of it long-term because things have been coming fast

and furious so much over the last two days that we haven't pulled back and said, wait a minute, what just happened here? What just transpired with Kirk Cousins leaving? So your reaction to his decision and where the Vikings stand now? I mean, it really was the Atlanta Falcons and owner Arthur Blank really made it an easy decision for Cousins and an even easier decision for Koisi Adolfo Mensah and the entire Vikings regime. Because not only was it, you know, 180 million, 100 million guaranteed, which was about 10 over some of the numbers that

we had seen bandied about, but it was the four years. The Vikings were in no position to be handing a 30, soon to be 36 year old coming off an Achilles, already had a very underwhelming, productive, but underwhelming, ultimately six year reign here to give him four years. I mean, they're not going to pay a quarterback until he's 40. Now, the Falcons may not either, but that is a possibility. And it seemed like the chatter at the Combine, just even with their coaching change, there seemed to be a sense that the Falcons are one quarterback away from really making a run in the sort of decidedly weak NFC South.

And that's the beauty of free agency. Supply, demand, premium talent or premium position. You know, once Russell Wilson moved on, it was clear, you know, that the Vikings, Cousins was the number one name on the free agency board. And it seemed obvious, even when he was talking to the media after the season, as much as he wanted everyone to say that it's not about the money, it's about the value. But it's really about the money because the money is the value and the money is how you're measured in value in this cutthroat league. The fact that there was going to be at least one, if not more teams that were going to overpay, put the Vikings in a really difficult position of, are you going to roll this back even riskier with more guaranteed money that you know you need to spend elsewhere, which they've done rapidly. It wasn't surprising at all. And I

think it's beneficial for Cousins. Again, the king of leverage, you know, struck his major deal is agent Mike McCartney. I mean, kudos to them for playing the long game and playing it well. And kudos for the Vikings for not taking the bait and really falling into the trap of chasing, throwing good money after potentially bad. So I think it's win-win, ultimately an unfulfilling tenure. But now Kwesi and O'Connell basically have their opportunity to make their mark. They inherited Cousins from the previous regime, kind of stapled everything together the last couple of years, but now they get a chance to mold either Sam Darnold into the next stopgap. I don't even know if bridge is the right word, next stopgap. I don't even know if bridge is the right word, maybe stopgap.

But all eyes are going to be on that number 11 pick and whether they decide to move up and all the shenanigans that are going to take place between 1 and 11 that are going to dictate which arm the Vikings are very likely to take and how much they're willing to spend to guarantee that they get their man. I have become a little tired of the bridge quarterback phrasing and so maybe i need to use every different show a different terminology for what sam darnold is he's a guy he's a that's right he's uh he is there's a big hole in the wall you just filled it up but you you know the rest of the house it doesn't match very well brilliant this the spackle quarterback sam darnold uh is now uh you know the guy but only until maybe late april and then we'll see what happens but you know i think that there is a

question that will reverberate to our skulls for a very long time when it comes to Kirk Cousins, which is why didn't they win with Kirk Cousins? And this to me is the legacy. The legacy could be, hey, everyone thought he was a pretty nice guy. Everybody respected how hard he worked and how tough he was, especially after Netflix went behind the scenes and showed you how tough it is to be an NFL quarterback, how much dedication goes into it, that there was an appreciation for Kirk that grew under Kevin O'Connell that grew after the 2022 season. And yet you still walked away from that. And I remember saying to you after they lost to the Giants, Hey Murph, was that season

worth it? And you said, no, you lost in the first round of the playoffs. It wasn't worth it. And that is something that I think for a long time in the future, we will be looking back at and going, was it as simple as just, he couldn't get it done because he wasn't quite good enough, but how did he put up all those numbers? But how did he keep them in all those close games? How did he win 13 in a season where he had all those comebacks? Was it this? Was it that? How did he not win with a team that had so much talent through the years?

I think that is a major part of what his legacy is defined by, is someone could have such good statistics and so many tremendous performances and just not get them to where they desired to go when they signed him in 2018. I mean, the apologists have their laundry list of reasons, right? Excuses slash reasons slash reality. I mean, you can go through them all. A lack of a running game at a certain time, suspect offensive line,

porous defense, Mike Zimmer, a head coach that barely tolerated him, cycling through offensive coordinators. At a certain point, you know, he has to own his record now. He finally has an over 500 record for his career, which the 2022 season certainly did a lot to, to increase that. But I look at one and two and one and two is your playoff record. And you know, yes, he did drive them down the field in overtime to hit, you know, Kyle Rudolph in new Orleans. And that was a fantastic signature aha kind of moment. But I think you wrote about this too. And, you know, six, seven days later,

you know, 170 yards against arguably a great defense, but that's what you follow up with. And, you know, to have the Giants here, a decidedly inferior opponent who happened to catch lightning a few times, just like the Vikings in that 2022 season. But if you allow Daniel Jones to come into U.S. Bank Stadium and cut through the skull chant and all the expectations and, you know, that enduring image of Cousins checking it down on fourth down in the waning seconds, I mean, those are the things that stand out, is that he didn't deliver when he needed to deliver. Now, intangibly, there may have been other factors. I mean, the Vikings defense was really suspect in 2022. We know that. But what separates and what defines Hall of

Famers and what separates the greats in the game is rising to the occasion when it matters most, getting it done in the postseason, getting it done, getting to a Super Bowl, getting it done in a Super Bowl, getting it done in the final two minutes of a playoff game, getting it done when you need a victory for home field advantage. He had many of those moments throughout that 2022 season. I mean, the Colts comeback is something he'll remember, and I think fans here should cherish for the rest of their lives. But ultimately, 10, 20 years from now, you're not

probably going to measure him by that. You're going to measure him by one and two. Now, he still has a chance to redefine that legacy in Atlanta. You could make the argument he never really had the horses in Washington. He did have the horses here, but for, fill in any blank you want, what's he going to do in Atlanta? It would be the ultimate slap in the face for him to go into Atlanta and sometime in the next two to three years come away with the Super Bowl championship, crowning that franchise, which has never won one, after leaving the one that has been starving for not only an appearance

but just the championship altogether. He's not done defining himself, but I think, you know, we're going to have to ultimately look at Cousins as only two playoff appearances in six seasons, only one playoff victory. And boy, the Vikings paid an awful lot of money for that. The way that I look at Cousins tenure is that you can break it up into three sections, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, call them the COVID years, if you will, and then 2022 and 2023. So if we go back to 2018 and 2019, that is where I look at it as

if Kirk Cousins had different circumstances then and was the quarterback that he became over the subsequent years where I think he improved, and especially when Kevin O'Connell leaned into him, then I think that that superimposed quarterback from the start of 2023 or late in 2022, if you took that guy back in time and placed him in 2018 and you placed him with an offensive coordinator who knew what he was doing and got along with the head coach and you placed him with a head coach that bought into him and said, he's our guy rather than trying to mind F him in OTAs and mini camp, which Mike Zimmer did. I remember that in, I think it was mini camp where he started throwing things defensively at Kirk cousins, where he was not

ready for it. And they had a horrible practice. Guys were yelling at each other. They were upset. And it was like, what are we doing? Zim trying to prove a point that Kirk cousins was overpaid. Like what, what, what did Like, what are you trying to accomplish when Cousins hadn't learned the offense yet and that defense had been together for several years? So, of course, you were going to destroy Cousins before even training camp. And that set the tone for the entire 2018 season.

And I think I'll remember 2018 and 19 for its drama and for its fragility where those teams just felt like they were super strong and they were super talented yet they were always teetering on total disaster if cousins didn't play well it was look at this guy who was overpaid he got too much money he's not not our real leader. Teddy Bridgewater is our real leader as you know, Mike Zimmer certainly thought throughout that time. And then Zimmer seemed to do everything he could to kind of troll cousins along the way. Even when they played Teddy Bridgewater later on for Carolina, it was, Oh man, we love Teddy. He's a playmaker. He's a great

leader. Wink, wink. Oh, there's something in my eye. Oh no, actually I'm taking shots at Kirk. Like, come on Zim. Like, is that really necessary that he could never let it go? And then he picked the wrong offensive coordinator. Had Zimmer in 2018 been able to retain Pat Shermer and they ran the same exact offense that was really built off of play action, I think that would have had a lot of success. But they brought in the quarterback coach from Philadelphia and asked Cousins to run something that he had never run before. So if there's a big, giant, steaming regret season, I think it's that 2018 year. And that

set the tone for the entire rest of time that he was here. I don't think it can be overstated how much of an indictment I think Cousins' haphazard performance really was on the previous regime of Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer. I mean, you brought up a lot and you were out there. I wasn't out there as much in those years as I had been before covering the team. But even just reading and sort of gleaning just the attitude and just, as you mentioned, it was sort of a relentless, almost big brother, little brother bullying where it got uncomfortable and it was counterproductive. Look, you may have lost a power struggle with Rick Spielman.

You may have told him, look, this is not a guy I want, not a guy I can work with. I don't believe he's a winner. Look at his 500 record. But at the end of the day, you're the head coach of an NFL team and your fate, like it or not, is going to be spot welded to that of your quarterback. As much as Zimmer was a defensive guru who wanted to play in his own sandbox and build a top-notch defense and just run the ball like it's 1985 and don't throw picks and stay out of my way, Mr. Quarterback, Mr. Multi-million dollar overpaid quarterback. That kind of toxic relationship, especially when it's played out publicly the way it did

year after year, game after game, kind of disappointment after disappointment. I mean, look, I mean, Cousins is a human being. I mean, I wouldn't want my boss undermining me behind closed doors, out in the public, and sort of not really accepting the fact that I've been hired to do this job. We're in this together. We probably can accomplish more if you're not constantly undermining me like that. So, look, it's complicated when you talk about the Zimmer and Spielman regimes. It's easy to say Cousins may have been poisoned and damaged because of that, but I think there's some truth to that, And I think I think that also permeates the locker room. It kind of fed into the fan base's notion that this is just sort of, oh, jolly gee,

aw shucks kind of guy that that really just sucked up a lot of great stats and a bad Washington team, you know, played his cards right as he has every time at the negotiating table and really just never fit in in those early years as somebody to rally around. There was the COVID. I'm not going to get vaccinated. I'm going to build plastic shields around my table in training camp that proved to be an unnecessary distraction, not about his choice, but about what it means to be the leader and the highly paid leader of an organization that the majority of which went

along and got vaccinated. I don't want to pick too many scabs there, but it all is part and parcel of the perception of Cousins, the treatment of Cousins, the production of Cousins, it should be no surprise that once Zimmer was gone and Kevin O'Connell came in, that Cousins had the best season he had in Minnesota with 13 victories and was on pace to probably have the best season of his career last year before blowing out his Achilles in late October at Lambeau. So you bring up a good point. I hadn't thought about it as much, but he really, really did not get the smooth on-ramping that he should have gotten, that he probably would have under this regime five or six years ago. Folks, have you ever heard of test driving a phone network?

I did not make this up. It is an actual thing. And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night. Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it. It's as easy as doing a little boop, boop, boop on your phone. That was me getting the app to try it out.

I know, great sound effects there. Test Drive, U.S. Cellular's award-winning network for 30 days. U.S. Cellular, built for us. Terms apply. Awards based on open signal independent data. Visit uscellular.com for details. For us, terms apply. Awards based on OpenSignal independent data. Visit uscellular.com for details.

So I want to get to 2020 and 2021 because I think it is important to break this down by these sections because so much was different from each two two year span. And we'll get to the COVID thing because it is really relevant to part of his legacy here as the Vikings quarterback. So, but in 2018, 2019, I think of it like this, the environment that Mike Zimmer created, imagine that you and the wife get woke up in the middle of the night and then the next day you're just bickering all day and you go like, why are we bickering? Oh yeah. Because we're both just in a bad mood. And why is that?

Like, why is there's this tension here because we're in a bad mood and his contract, I think, and Zimmer's disposition toward him created that bad mood from the really very beginning with Kirk cousins. Now cousins response to that was also not good enough because I remember, and I was standing right there,

in 2018 when they went out, they played the Rams. Cousins played great, but they lost it in a shootout where Jared Goff had a perfect quarterback rating, and then he gets strip-sacked at the end of the game. And a reporter asks him the most simple question. So what happened on that last play? And Kirk says, I don't know. You tell me like there was a defensiveness to him where he kind of sensed this. You guys think I got overpaid. You guys think I'm not good enough. Zimmer doesn't like

me. My teammates don't like me. And he didn't handle that the way that he would have several years later. I think, I think that the contract, the attention that it drew, the environment that was created caused a tension in cousins and a defensiveness in cousins that did not allow him to really ingratiate himself to the team. And then you see by the end of the season, when they ran into some tough times, they

fire their offensive coordinator. All they need to do is beat the Chicago bears. And he and Adam Thielen can't get on the same page and they're yelling at each other. And I just thought, you know, in, in life in general, it all comes down from the top. What you have at the top, it dictates how everybody else feels. And we have seen that from Kevin O'Connell. Like that team, even though they went 7-10 last year, there was no give up. They were close in games that they lost at the end of the season.

The players were still buying in. We didn't see a melting like we did under Mike Zimmer. And I think that Cousins could have better put some of that aside. He could have better tried to establish himself as a leader. And I think that he would have, if he could do it again, probably go back to that team in the early days. And rather than saying, well, this is kind of someone else's team, which he said out loud, by the way, this is Harrison Smith's team. It's Eric Kendrick's team. It's Everson Griffin's team.

It's like, no man, when you're the quarterback and you just got 84 million guaranteed, which at the time used to be a lot, then you are the leader. You are the franchise face. And he would talk like he wasn't. And I don't think that went over particularly well either. You had a bunch of guys who were the toughest, the most hard nose, the guys who had just come off a winning season. And it was somebody coming in saying, I'm just here to sort of work here. And that did not as a vibe go over very well. And then Murph, you know, the 2019 season, the whole training camp was tense. They come out of the gate. season, the whole training camp was tense. They come out of the gate.

They have the thing with digs happen. But I thought what you saw there was under Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak under the right system and guidance there that they put up a very good season. They outscored their opponents by whatever, a hundred points. They had the best chance in 2019. And when they went to San Francisco and he threw for 170 yards, that's when they should have known that this wasn't going to work because they overcame the drama. They came back in that season. They made the playoffs. They won that game in new Orleans, despite all the things that were going on, including rumors that Mike Zimmer could be traded to the Dallas Cowboys. And they put it all aside and Kirk played a hell of a football game.

Isn't that the day Ziggy Wolf came out with a statement on the day of the game saying, yeah, that's how intense it is. Yep. I think pro football talk had put it out there. And of course, if you have to put out the statement, then it's probably a real thing, but he goes into the Superdome, beats Drew Brees, beats the New Orleans Saints, leads the game winning drive. And you go, there it is. I mean that what a performance. And then the following week is 170 yards and they are down by like 17 points in the fourth. And he's checking down to CJ hammer or whatever. And you just go, I don't know how this is ever going to work. And I think

Murph, if it had been cut off there, if they had just said, you know what, that's it. Like, let's just draft a quarterback next year. And let's just put an end to this experiment, move on from Zimmer, move on from cousins, revamp the roster. We went all in. It didn't work. I think we'd be talking about a very different history after that, but it was that playoff game that caused them to think that they were close when they weren't because of where it was going to go cap wise in the future. And it was there that they should have just parted ways and said, we tried, but they didn't. And it took four more years to figure out that that wasn't ever going to come back.

The team that they had and the quality of team from 2019. I don't know any what you're saying rings true. And in retrospect is perfect pragmatism. I don't know any owner GM front office that makes that decision and admits that kind of a mistake in that moment. They're going to attempt to fix it. They're going to attempt to make do with what they have because of the financial commitment, the political commitment, the, it would have been a wholesale regime change. Now, if they do lose that game in new Orleans, maybe the plug is pulled on the regime. Not certain about the quarterback,

but certainly on the regime. Again, if the Wilfs are putting out a statement the morning of a playoff game to tamp down rumors that their head coach is on the move, that probably means there was a kernel of truth to that. So the fact that he ends up countering that, Cousins ends up countering that narrative and countering that potential franchise-shifting moment with arguably, well, his only playoff victory and one of his big clutch moments, his only clutch moments really in a postseason game. It is ironic because it didn't serve him any good a week later, and it hasn't served him any good four years later.

And I think, too, it's – you's, it's, I, you know, there was a lot of image scrubbing with the network Netflix series. You know, the Kirko chains, the, the sort of softening of Kirk, the, the, the, the humbling and a little bit more of the connecting with the fan base was so late in the game. I don't know. And a lot of it proved calculated.

We know it was calculated in a lot of ways to lead up to this moment, building up his profile, building up his bona fides, showing the rest of the NFL that he is a pretty good guy. He's productive, but he's a good guy. He's a guy you want in your locker room. I don't know where that PR campaign was or should have been in 2018, 2019. Maybe he just wasn't comfortable in his own skin doing that yet. It's kind of a shame that, you know, as soon as he went down with his injury, you know, there was a lot of skeptics remorse, I think, and some not skeptics remorse, but there were a lot of

people by October that saw what he was doing on the field, knew about his durability, watched the Netflix series, understood what he did to stay on the field during that 13 win season in 2022. It really did humanize him. Now, I don't look at Kirk Cousins as this metamorphosis of a human being. I mean, let's face it, he's a negotiating shark who's played his leverage to the hilt. You could say he's a bit of a wolf in sheep's clothing when it comes to his persona. But it's just ironic that just as he was probably winning over the most fans that he probably will ever get here is the moment he leaves. The moment he gets hurt and the moment now he leaves.

Look, it was very tribal, everybody's opinions on Cousins. You were in one camp or the other, and those camps varied in size depending on performance or anything that came out of his mouth at various times. But his popularity in this market had peaked, and as soon as it peaked, he's gone. Now, the lessons he may have learned in terms of leadership and how he presents himself to a team, accepting the responsibility and the role that his contract and his status as a starting quarterback, who's not just starting games for Washington,

but who was brought into a market to elevate that team into a Super Bowl champion first here and now Atlanta, he may be able to handle that a lot better. But you're right. He certainly wasn't prepared in 2018, 2019 for the resistance he got at the top, the sort of indifference of the fan base. And I think really, I don't think he was prepared to be the alpha male when the money and the role said you are the alpha male. Folks, if you don't know what a VPN is, you might actually need one and not even realize it. If you already know the positives, you also might not be using the right product.

In either case, you want to check out Surfshark. VPNs keep your information safe and anyone who tries to track what you're doing online will not be able to do so if you are using Surfshark. IP addresses, what you're searching, what games you're playing, or what shows you're streaming will belong to you and you only. Plus, if you use a VPN, you can virtually travel the world from the comfort of your own home and Surfshark gives you over 100 countries to choose from. Once you change your virtual location,

you'll be able to bypass censorship and restrictions, find your favorites on Netflix, Hulu, Disney, and other streaming services, and even access new libraries to watch even more content. Can't see a YouTube video because of your location? Use Surfshark VPN. Can't access that one website to buy limited edition sneakers? Use Surfshark VPN.

Try Surfshark today totally risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals slash purple insider. Enter the promo code purple insider for three extra months for free. You heard me right. Three extra months for free. That is surfshark.deals slash purple insider. Oh, that's right. And then in 2020, he signs another very expensive extension. They lose a ton of talent. And that was where the roster conversation began because in 2018 and 2019, they had the rosters to win. They just didn't do it. If you know, Patrick Mahomes had the 2019 Vikings, he cruises to a Super Bowl. They were a really, really good roster that year. Okay, there's a hole at left

guard, but I mean, come on. The rest of the group, they were healthy on defense. The receivers were phenomenal. They had everything they needed. Even Irv Smith had his moments in 2019. They were a deep team. It's the last year that they actually blew teams out. They were very good. And Kevin Stefanski is now a two-time coach of the year. That was your offensive coordinator. That's when they had everything. But Stefanski gets the head coaching job. Gary Kubiak, I think, was still really good as an offensive coordinator. Their numbers were good, but he was still on the older side. And I think that maybe the NFL had seen some of Gary's stuff so often that they were prepared for it. But more than anything, it was just that the roster was not going to be good enough to prop up

a quarterback. That's just okay. And so they would get into these close games and Kirk would put up really good statistics and they would lose because their defense wasn't good enough because they were trying to play Jeff Gladney and Cam Dantzler and Holton Hill maybe and all these kind of random young players on defense to take the spots of great players from before and it just didn't work in 2020. They weren't a good enough football team. And that's where I will say it was not Kirk's fault at that point. It was the front office's fault for extending him and putting him on a team that they couldn't win with. And then they set up the contract to be at its most expensive in 2021, where in an ideal

world, they would have had one dip year and then come back on the other side. But they were so restricted in 2021. As soon as they had a couple of injuries, once again, we went right back to, yeah, you're just an in the hunt team at best. And as far as the COVID thing goes, two things that are really important in 2020, if he was going to establish himself as a leader that was impossible it was impossible for anybody to lead in 2020 where you couldn't even be close to your teammates at any point uh that was just an impossible year for the entire league and then 2021 and we don't have to get into who's right who's wrong whatever. But when it comes to that Zimmer-Kirk Cousins

tense relationship that was always teetering on explosion, all of Zimmer's frustration came out with that Cousins decision. And then the public explanation and the press conference and all those things. And when 98% of the league was doing it, and then one guy says, no, I'm not. And Zimmer knew we're probably going to be on the cusp of a playoffs. And if we miss that one game from our quarterback, because well, he may have been frustrated by Kirk. He also understood he was way better than Sean Mannion or Kellen Mond, and they were going to miss the playoffs. And then Mike Zimmer's worst nightmare came to fruition where he had to miss that game in green Bay. And that's where that night in green Bay,

it totally ended because Zimmer just went nuclear on Kellen Mond for no reason whatsoever. And that was where the circus had to end between those two. So you can talk about his choice or whatever else. That's something that you can discuss at home with your family. But when it comes to its relevance to his time here, it's a big deal because that season they were a good team and they did bounce back to some extent and they had a chance, but they lost like every close game that year to start the season. And there was this just

palpable tension between those two. And that was where Spielman and Zimmer's relationship drifted apart. And it just, it truly became a zoo out there at TCO performance center. And that was the tipping point where he came out and said, Jake Browning, smart. He's vaccinated. He came out and talked about how mad he was that Kirk missed that practice. And it just set a tone for the rest of the time there that was never going to recover. And then I think once that was gone, once the COVID conversation was gone, once the tension was gone from Zimmer, Kevin O'Connell got to play the good cop. He got to come in and say, Kirk, I love you.

Let's like, you're my guy. I came here for you, buddy. And one, I remember this, Murph, you probably heard me say it. Lean into the Kirk. I said it many times. Just throw the ball. Just lean into Kirk. And I think what Kevin O'Connell proved was leaning into his weirdness as a guy, leading into the kind of dad vibe,

leaning into him as a unique type of leader, and also just telling the whole team, this is our guy, okay? Follow him. Do what he says. Kevin O'Connell would bring him up in front of the team and make him speak to the team. Do you remember when Linval Joseph once forced him to do a breakdown of the huddle in Chicago because Everson Griffin wasn't there? You had to be forced to do it in 2018. But in 2022, O'Connell said, hey, come on in, be this guy, lead this team. And I thought in that case, over the last two years, he proved that he could do it, which just shows you the importance of the relationship between the head coach and the quarterback, I think. Oh, it's imperative. And then when we, you know, when, when Zimmer was

fired, we, we come to find out he hadn't talked to Spielman in months, which is just, that's dereliction of duty on both of their parts. They both deserve to get fired. If you're not speaking to your head coach as the season, you know, they were both, you know, Spielman was managing for his job. Zimmer was coaching for his job, and they couldn't see eye to eye. And you saw all the comments both on the record, off the record, from a lot of people on that team, a lot of leaders on that team, a lot of defensive leaders.

You know, Eric Hendricks comes out and says it was a fear-based organization. That toxicity, it can't help but infect every player and impact, respect, leadership roles. I mean, just think about anybody out there that you, you know, most of us work for somebody. We either work for a company, a corporation, a facility, and you work for a human being who is directly above you. And that person also works for a human being directly above them. If there is no communication or a lack thereof, or there's animosity or disrespect or just downright, you know, hatred, there's nothing that's going to work. You cannot function as any kind of organization if you're not cohesive. So I think, you know, with O'Connell, you know, you're the reason I came here. Yeah, I'm sure that's what he had to say. He came there because

he wanted an NFL head coaching job. He inherited a quarterback that he could do some things with and mold. But I think O'Connell's role in the last two seasons with Cousins, as much as it was unleashing him maybe offensively, it was probably psychological as well. You got somebody who's a little bit closer to his peer age. He played the position. He knows what it's like to fail. He knows what it's like to sort of feel the pocket collapsing around you and sort of that sense of being the man in the huddle.

He could relate to that. He could also relate to the fact that Kirk had been bullied. He had been beaten down. And as much as, you know, he may not have always believed that, and again, I'm getting deep into the psychological weeds here, but O'Connell knew that in order for him to succeed as a young, unproven head coach, he needed to maximize his quarterback. And as you said, they schemed it up, they turned him loose, and I think he, if anything, he allowed Cousins to play freer because he wasn't afraid of failure.

And that's a huge thing, even for elite athletes in their mid-30s, to always feel like you're being judged or it could all fall apart or you lose it all on one throw, one poor throw. Look, there are consequences to this job. It's a cutthroat business. We get it. But it's also nice to know that your boss, your immediate supervisor, is there for you and is going to allow you to fail so you can get better and come back the

next time and learn from your mistakes. I mean, Zimmer just barely tolerated Cousins and could barely tolerate anything the offense was doing that didn't either control the ball, control the clock, or make life easier for his defense. O'Connell came in with a little more of a holistic approach, and I think he deserves credit for that because, look, he was able to coax 13 wins plus, what, four more this season under Cousins? I mean, I think, what was he, 17? You know the record, 17-8 or something like that under O'Connell.

I mean, there's no reason to believe that the Vikings wouldn't have, they were on pace. They'd started out slow, obviously, oh, and three, one and four, but they had managed to get back to 500.

Cousins was as confident and productive as he's ever been. What would he have done in those bigger games in November and December? We'll never know. But I think it was obvious. The Vikings seem to be on track for nine or 10 wins. I don't know what that would have set them up for because they were set up for more success with 13 victories in a home game against the Giants in 2022. But again, just like everything with the Vikings, what might have been? I mean, there's so many what-ifs.

How could this have played out? It was not going to end in confetti in Vegas. We know that. I don't know what kind of future Cousins would have had had he finished the season here. The numbers might have just been impossible to make work regardless. But I do think O'Connell gets a lot of credit for inheriting a quarterback who is psychologically beat down and transforming him and unleashing him

to at least what we've seen as his full potential. And I think Cousins embraced the role and that freedom allowed him to be a little bit more lean in. You talk about lean into the Kirk, how about lean into the dork? I mean, that's kind of the image he embraced. You know, I'm just, you know, a cheesy white dude from rural Western Minnesota or Michigan. I don't know what to do with all this money and fame and this whole like alpha male thing. So I'm just going to let people throw chains on me and dance around, you know, the old man at the wedding kind of thing. And that endeared himself to people. And I think people were thirsting for that kind of an opportunity to

embrace some, but you want to, in a town, feel like you're one-on-one with your, lockstep with your starting quarterback. As I was saying, it's just kind of ironic that as that seemed to be hitting on all cylinders, that's when his Achilles popped and we'll never see him in purple again. So it's so interesting and there's so many layers to it and there's so many relationships and circumstances, salary caps and decisions and draft picks. If the cornerback draft picks turn out, if the next Daniil draft picks turn into the next Daniil,

are we talking something different? If there's a left guard anywhere on god's green earth who could have blocked for kirk is it a little bit different but you know what ultimately at the end of the day i will think of this murph is that all that stuff we just talked about great quarterbacks overcoming they make sure people they are not made they make right that's what great quarterbacks do and he was never good enough he was never good enough. He was never great enough. And that was just always the reality in Washington. And it was here and it probably will be in Atlanta too, is you're just not good enough to overcome a coach that doesn't love you. You're

not good enough to overcome a left guard who can't block for you. You're not good enough to overcome a fourth and eight play where Dexter Lawrence breaks through the line. So you check it down because you can't run away and you don't have a strong enough arm to throw off balance deep down the field to Justin Jefferson. The physical tools at some point became relevant every single season that when Josh Allen needs to win a game, when CJ Stroud needs to win a game, when Patrick Mahomes needs to win a game or John Elway or Dan Marino or Jim Kelly or Joe Montana, or whatever number of great quarterbacks you look at, there's always a playmaking or physical element to those great

quarterbacks that Kirk Cousins simply did not have. And so the Vikings at the end of the day, put all of their eggs and all of their dollars in the basket of someone who didn't have the skills to take them to a championship and was too expensive to make up for those weaknesses. And I, and that's how I'll remember it is that they just kept doubling down and doubling down on someone who was not simply just not good enough. And this is, you know what it's like? It's like having Donovan Mitchell as your best player in the NBA. Donovan Mitchell's

wonderful. He's not LeBron James. He's just not, he's not Kevin Durant. He's not Steph Curry. You had Donovan Mitchell. You didn't have Steph Curry. And so you had someone who needed to be made, not someone who will make. And you ultimately end up with a lot of seasons that just came up short, which I want you to leave me with this now, Murph, because I know Dan Marino didn't win a Super Bowl, folks. Was Dan Marino good? He was in a – my gosh. Why do we do this?

Dan Marino is like the greatest quarterback ever when he retired. Okay. So anyway, I got to do these history lessons for people. It's like, it's like I should hold a Superbowl and he only lost to Joe Montana, the greatest quarterback of his generation. I know.

And the AFC championship in 1994 and was a seven time all pro and is in the hall of fame and is just one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. But anyway, the whole point just being that Dan marino had the arm he had the size he had the gift that kirk cousins never had right and a lot of it is simply physical and but also some of it is emotional it is it was he is was he as cool as joe montana was he is as confident as, was he as cool as Joe Montana? Was he as confident as him? Was he as gutsy? Was it like, no. The answer is obviously just no.

Was he willing to take risks in the way that Matthew Stafford even did or have the arm talent? No, he's just missing key elements that all the great quarterbacks ever have. That is the point. So anyway, again, someday I'll do a live stream where we just do education on football history and we go through the quarterbacks and so forth, but that's not tonight. The Vikings are now Murph faced with a huge decision at quarterback. Sam Darnold is clearly not the future answer. He is the spackle quarterback. Love that. But also the doors have been swung open and the fresh air has hit Vikings fans in the face of possibility.

And I guess I'd love your opinion on what they have to do next to make this work in ways that it did not over the last six years. Well, clearly they have to draft their franchise quarterback, which is no easy task. We know how that is as much of a crapshoot as anything in pro sports is drafting a guy that you can rely on for 10 or 15 years in the pocket. That just doesn't happen often now. And they're sitting at 11. What they can't allow is other teams to outmaneuver them on draft night. What they can't do is if they have their sights set on one of the half dozen blue chip prospects that everybody's been talking about, if somebody swoops in and undercuts them, are they going to be desperate and just grab the next name? Do they have a trade contingency that might be in place?

Either that night for a pick to cut in front of the line on somebody or to circle back and make sure that they're not standing there with their pants down at number 11. So this is where Kwasi is going to earn his money. He's already made the decision that was the practical overdue decision, righting sort of the wrong that the previous regime had committed. Well, now you've got to make your bones because this decision you're going to make on April 25th, and the maneuverings you're going to make or anticipate or defend against or outmaneuver are going to, it's going to be what defines his legacy. And he's got some explaining to do for his pretty thin drafts and, you know, trading down and, you know, draft day has not been Quasey's strongest suit. I think maybe roster management, he's been able to plug some holes with some cast-offs and some players that may have been overlooked.

But now you've got your gold brick in your hand. What are you going to do with it? So I'm going to be curious, as those quarterback names tick off, and as those teams that we think are eyeing those quarterbacks start making moves and getting aggressive, how is he going to respond in real time? That's really going to be, frankly, I'm usually not all that excited about draft night. I'm going to be really intrigued to see how they maneuver or how they protect their flank, because I'm sure they'd rather be inside 10 than outside 10 right now. And sitting at 11, I mean, I think Atlanta's still sitting at

eight, right? I mean, they could double dip on the Vikings if they really wanted to be shrewd about it. So, you know, what are the Bears going to do? There's so much that's going to happen between picks one and 11, so much that's going to happen in real time on that Thursday night. And they're going to have to read and react, and they're going to have to have a plan B, C, and D. That's not just a, well, you know, we saved face. I mean, you ideally want to be drafting somebody that could start in 2024. If they can't, that's fine. You have Sam Darnold to kind of bring them along and maybe fight and scratch for eight or nine wins. But if you end up with a guy that was not on your second or third pick, then that's where I think the front office is going to get judged harshly.

So I'd love to see how they're going to manage all the intrigue that's going to play out before they even get to pick. Look at you loving the draft. Now look at you, a cynical old reporter, man. Now is pumped about the draft. It's all about the games.

Don't nobody wins the off season. No. Murph, your article is wonderful at purple insider.com. Go there, check it out, subscribe to the newsletter, get my articles every day, and really appreciate you doing this, man. I'm going to hang around on the live stream, answer a handful of questions.

This is my fourth podcast today, so probably not going to go for the next two hours, but I'll answer some questions now. Thanks for coming on, man, and stopping by and breaking down the legacy. And the next time we talk on a podcast, it's going to be entirely about the Vikings future and what happens. And I think you're going to go to the draft. I am a bunch of buddies decided that are all out of town are going to all fly in back to our hometown of Detroit and go to this party in Detroit

because suddenly Detroit seems to be the epicenter of the NFL world. So yeah, I'm going to be part of that whole dog and pony show. But also, I'm going to be really intrigued to hear what the Vikings do. And, boy, if they were to take J.J. McCarthy, and I'm not saying they should or will, Detroit's going to erupt. So it should be a pretty cool scene down there I'll try to chronicle that as well. Definitely. So, well, if we don't talk before then, then we'll definitely talk After that so thanks again Murph

Everyone go check out his article And we'll talk again soon man appreciate you stopping by All right thanks everyone