Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy rode the Vikings' magic carpet ride in D.C. and he isn't getting off

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

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Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and fresh back from Washington, D.C. And I do use the word fresh liberally. Brian Murphy, what is going on, Brian? How are you? I had spinning a little bit, but, you know, it was my birthday yesterday. And not only did I get picked up at the airport about two hours ago by my wife, also cooked a steak dinner. The kids made cards. There were

candles lit. The dog was happy to see me. I mean, it's a little bit of the American dream. I mean, I'm just kind of living the Vikings unicorn life here. Everything going your way, just like the Minnesota Vikings. So you went to D.C. and you kind of had a bit of a wild trip there, which I want to get into, but maybe we could just start first by, I want to say this, that you from day one almost have been right until the wheels come off. This thing's different. Let's go. Let's see what happens here. You have not been the Brian Murphy that people expected you to be. You have not been the brian murphy that people expected you to be you have not been the hardened skeptical journalist who used to cover crime in detroit no no you have been the whimsical murph and here you are at uh seven and one not only that but you talk about things going

vikings fans way we almost haven't talked enough about the Packers I mean the disaster does not even begin to uh to describe it and I saw a story that the National Park Service is telling people to stop licking frogs which is really bad for Aaron Rodgers so things are not going well at all in Green Bay I always wonder do Vikings fans take more joy in Minnesota victory or Green Bay defeat? When they win, I'll let you know. Oh, come on. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

I hear you. I hear you. It all matters in January. But, I mean, to have both of these things happening simultaneously is extremely rare. And I think the only reason I jumped on early, I'll be very brutally honest, I just wanted to take a little bit of a contrarian view. Like, yeah, I guess I'm expected to be cynical about this. I'm not, I'm supposed to be skeptical and all the signs point to this just can't last too many holes. You know, they're playing with fire, but look, I,

I just feel like there are so many intangibles that you can't measure. And when things like this happen, and I think because there's a psychological effect it has on the locker room and the confidence level, there's a sense of, okay, if I'm not doing my job, somebody behind me will, because that's what we've done. If the offense isn't doing anything, Harrison Smith will rise from the grave again and find a way to come up with a touchdown. We're playing, They're playing inferior opponents.

They're getting huge breaks in officiating. We can get into that a little bit after yesterday. The schedule sets up well. I mean, now it looks like Josh Allen may not even play. We've been talking about this Buffalo game like it was a march to the guillotine for weeks, like, okay, it's all going to come to a head there, no pun intended. They will be humbled, intended they will they will

find that you know they will be humbled and they will move on it'll just be fine if they don't get the doors blown off well now not only is it you know the the bills who lose to the jets lose their starting quarterback probably as if you know the the content gods just keep showering golden horseshoes. Case Keenum could get the start against the Vikings on Sunday. I mean, come on. You just can't make this up. It's a charm season, Matthew. Teddy Bridgewater and then Case Keenum with Taylor Heineke mixed in between the revenge game tour.

Kirk going to Washington in itself would have been enough for a season's worth of revenge game, although I give to Washington in itself would have been enough for a season's worth of revenge game. Although I give him credit for not playing into it. Cousins took the high road. It would have been really great. And I said this to somebody with the Vikings. I just sort of said, couldn't you just ask him to say, ha, one time just like, oh, Daniel

Snyder, look forward to you selling the team after I just beat them. Like that would have been pretty funny. But instead he danced half nude with a bunch of chains on. So there is that. Yeah. I mean, I think that when we look at the totality of this team, they have played a schedule that if you wrote it out on purpose, you couldn't have made it any easier. So there is that and that is like the numbers also and the way that they've won the games do not shine with like oh you destroyed a bunch of bad

teams and i compared this uh to 2019 they actually won eight out of ten at one point and six of the wins were by double digits against poor teams so even a years ago, they had this happen where they had a stretch of easier opponents and they kind of blew the doors off them. There was like a Giants game in there that was a get right game after the Diggs drama and all that sort of stuff. So when you see this,

and last year we went through this whole thing of like, well, they're just getting unlucky in these one score games. Well, you can't kind of have it both ways. At the same time though, the charmed life does not have to stop just because we are like aware that things have gone their way. Right. So it's like hard to to balance those things, because when I look forward, I said early on Who's going to make them not be this way? And even when you look at the other contenders in the NFC, Philadelphia clearly has a case of being stronger than them. I think Dallas does, but we'll get to see that head to head San Francisco, maybe, but they have some of the flaws and maybe, maybe a very similar team in strength and almost no one else. I mean,

it's really remarkable. I'm not buying into the Giants being better than them at this point. So even when you look at them versus the cream of the crop, and even when you factor all the other things, you look at everyone except for Philadelphia and say, all of you have some flaws. Like Dallas is trying to get Odell Beckham to come there because they only have really one receiver. So each of these teams has their flaws and and you can charm life your way all the way through a season, even if you don't have things perfect.

And in order to get there, they've had to have what might be the best special teams coach in the league, a coach who from day one said, I want you guys to believe in each other and care about each other. Those things coming together, those things matter. But there's also the other part of me that has always focused the show so much on here's what the data is telling us about this team. And the data is not making me think like, oh, wow, you're top five in this EPA

or top three in this or whatever. It's more like, okay, I think you have to improve as you go along here in order to be a team that I think can go deep in the playoffs, which is now the question. It's not, can you win the division? It's, can you go deep in the playoffs? Well, a four and a half game lead on your division opponents in week eight, I guess this is week nine technically, but after eight games, it's just unheard of. I mean, it's unheard of. I mean, they, I mean, I think they could put the practice squad out there at some point and probably win and clinch the division. I mean, it is that much in their hands. So you're right. Now it's going to become, how do they manage? Well, I keep saying how they manage expectations. I don't think the league is really paying attention to the Vikings. Every time I read about the top five takeaways of week nine or, you know, some national coverage, the Vikings are always a footnote.

It seems like there's always other teams they're looking at. I don't know if it's because nobody buys into it and that there are all of these flaws and why are we wasting time thinking about that? But then why are they talking about the Giants? I know it's because they're in New York, but like how can you ignore a team that is seven and one you can't do that for long I it's a perfect perfect mantra for them to embrace I think Zedaria Smith talked about that last week after the uh the victory at home against the Cardinals where I don't think anybody's talking about us and that's just fine we'll just keep

going along and we'll talk you know we'll talk barely about ourselves and we'll let others fill in the blanks that's a great position to be in as well because even when they were last seven and one with Favre, Favre brought in a whole level of expectations where while they went all in you know they bribed him to get here they stole him from you know their division arch rivals and he also he also had that lightning bolt to Greg Lewis in the back of the end zone early in that season to really kind of put the stamp on it that this was going to be something different. Even that, they had teams coming after them. I don't feel like anybody feels threatened by them.

And I think they're fine with that and again it you can't underestimate what coming up with big plays at big moments uh having one unit pick up the other struggle at times to do anything creative or or even you know gain anything on first downs i mean they struggled all day yesterday to be productive and they weren weren't. And yet here we are. And I don't think anybody thought going into yesterday a 2017 win wouldn't have been bad. The way this team's played, I don't think anybody was thinking blowout. And it just kind of became what it was, the usual grind. You look up, and there they are walking off with a three-point win.

Yeah, so I was just checking power rankings, and of course an autoplay video. I have been attacked by more autoplay videos while looking for things during this show. But NBC Sports, in their power rankings, has the Vikings as the third best NFC team and sixth in the entire NFL. So I think this is now after this win where it starts to gain momentum. I saw Adam Schefter was on TV with his shirt off with a bunch of chains on him, like Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins is on the Monday night broadcast. Kirk Cousins was on the Pat McAfee show. Like now it begins. Now they're starting to get that attention at seven and one. And I think that's right. I mean, I think that when you get to seven and one, what the history tells you is you have almost a one in three chance to reach the Superbowl.

I'm not kidding. Like I tweeted yesterday, I was joking around. Like, you guys want me to tell you the odds? Cause the odds are actually crazy good. Like once you get to seven and one, but that ends up being the question that we have to answer the rest of the way. And this almost brings about like, how do you handle everything if you're Kevin O'Connell? Because you don't want to play like you're so far up in the game that you do that thing that, what was it, Kansas City with Alex Smith was up like 30 points at a playoff game or whatever it was, and they let it get away.

Or the Oilers against the Buffalo Bills. And poor Frank Reich, who did not deserve to get fired today by the Indianapolis Colts. But you don't want to play like you're way ahead as you go into this bunch of games. But I even question now whether we should be talking about if this is a prove-it bunch of games, if there's no Josh Allen, and then you face Dallas, the New York Jets, New England,

not in that order. Those are games against winning teams and good defenses, and all of them are in the top 10. But I also think that we kind of have a really good sense of who this team is, and now it's how they navigate the rest of the way, how healthy they are, and what they look like when they're going into the playoffs. Like, how do we feel about them at the very end? So it's more about the totality of the second half of the season for me

than just like, oh, this is a prove- game. That's a prove it game. It's more of like, okay, if you go in with 12 wins, you hit some stumbling blocks along the way. We're not going to say after one loss or something like, oh, now you're a fraud or anything like that. But what do you look like? Who's healthy? Who's able to play? Because that injury bug has started nipping. Like Cam Dantzler is probably going to be out. Delvin Tomlinson is probably going to be out. Like there's some, some guys banged up same time. TJ Hockinson is good at football. So you got better there. Zedarius Smith, if that man's banged up, he doesn't look like it because he is crushing people. So certain players are getting better as they've gone along throughout the season.

So I think that's a really interesting balance to look at what are they as a team from the time of right now where they're seven and one to when they actually, when it's time to do something is kind of our study from week to week. Well, there's no question, no NFL team's gonna go unscathed with their starting lineup as far as injuries.

We all know what's a brutal sport. It's a degree of how long somebody's gonna be be out and whether that's going to be a nagging injury that's going to affect their play long term. I got to admit, I mean, sitting with a bunch of Vikings fans up in the second deck yesterday, watching, we were near the end zone and the red zone where Cousins did hit Jefferson on that long gain and take that brutal hit. And I remember looking back and seeing Cousins on his back, surrounded by his linemen and his trainers, and there was like kind of a pall over the section as if like, oh, no, no,

that you can't do this to us. We may not love Kirk, but he's our Kirk. You can't take him away now, not after this. And, of course, you know, Cousins' durability is pretty legendary. That's the first time I can remember him in a Vikings uniform being laid out like that intended to and missing a snap. I mean, you probably know whether it was. He may have come out at some point for something.

That was the first time I thought, ooh, this could be devastating. This could be obviously trajectory changing in a season. But what does he do? He pops back up like the bionic man. And next thing you know, he's throwing a touchdown pass. And away they go. So, again, charmed. You mentioned Hawkinson.

I mean, what do they do? I mean, I don't know enough to know whether they fleece the Lions with this trade. I do know that they made a move that made them better and they were aggressive with it with a division rival by trading draft capital and saying, you know what, we're not sure where we're at at tight end, but we also know we're not sure how long this is going to last. We're going to catch lightning at a bottle. That's a huge move for Kwesi in his first season to make at the trade deadline. And then to get him involved as much as he was, I mean, let's see where he's at in three or four weeks. I mean, how much involved can he be? Nine catches, he was more of an escape valve, but that's pretty impressive pretty impressive. I guess, I guess the lions just didn't need them. Oh yeah. Well, I think the lions didn't want to pay him in the future, which I think for this, I don't, I mean, I get a lot of questions about the future and I'm happy to

answer them for the fans only podcast and everything else with what I think. But I also think like the future is who, who knows who cares? I mean, at this point, who cares? Like you've, you've landed yourself in one of those years that the Vikings get once a decade. And you know, what usually happens the next year, not from 1987 to 88, they were good again in 88, but what usually happens is 98 to 99, where your team is still good, but not as good or nine, you know, 2009 to 2010 or 2017 to 2018. Usually the pendulum swings back the other way,

just as it swung from unlucky last year to lucky this year. When you have one of those years, you got to make it count. And that's really what the rest of the season is about for them. And getting TJ Hawkinson, I thought, was a very, very smart move. It shores up one of their biggest weaknesses. And just with the way that he runs routes, I was extremely impressed. He played 60 plays, man. That's crazy for a guy who just got here and was good during the game.

And I discovered this stat, Murph, that that is the most catches by a Vikings tight end since 2018. Kyle Rudolph in a meaningless game against the Detroit Lions was the last time that anybody had that many receptions. So that's, that's a huge addition for them. And that's what I mean of like, who are you from the start of the season where you're finding your way to the middle of the season when you have to overcome stuff normally. And then toward the end of the season, when you've gone through game after game, after game, after game, are you a better version of yourself? Are you sharper than you ever were, which they could be could be are you stronger or have you run into some injuries have you run into some adversity like that's what

the rest of the season for me is about um and i don't know which way that's going to go but i think for fans what i've tried to say is like like let's let's just pretend that there's no future let's talk about the the x's and o's of this week and what's going to happen this week. Because you just don't get this very often. It's really one of those memorable seasons already. It's funny, because I will get into both here and then in my story coming up, too. I mean, I spent a lot of time with Vikings fans. And a lot of them, more so than my trip to LA. I mean, we're talking a lot of expats that are living in DC

that are surrounded by disgruntled Commanders fans and depressed Packers fans. And to a man, to a person, actually, they all felt like they weren't sure what to make of this. And they weren't really willing to, they felt good, but they weren't willing to go out on that limb. Because we know why. I get it.

You've been burned emotionally, psychologically, either later in the regular season when things fall apart after a good start or later in the playoffs when, you know, the rubber hits the road in that NFC championship game. I guess I would say you mentioned this, and I think it makes sense. I didn't look at the year-by-year chronology, but you're right. This is once every decade, it feels like this franchise has a lightning in the bottle moment. This feels like that. Now, again, I was kind of beating that drum back in week three, week four, just to just be a little bit different and not be like, yeah, but we'll poke holes in it. And this, I'm like, hey, you know, kind of a free spirit here. I've got nothing at stake. I don't have

to go out there and analyze this. It just feels different from my couch. I'm going to keep riding that now. Again, it can all blow up, but I guess my encouragement would be lean into it. Don't avoid it. Because I also talk to a lot of Commanders fans, both in the parking lot, in the seats, and they're just – I mean, they are – actually, they were a little bit buoyant because of the news that Snyder may sell the team. It was almost as if they're like, you know,

we may not win a playoff game anytime soon. Our coach is probably going to get fired. We have no quarterback. But the big bad witch is going to go away soon, and it's going to be a breath of fresh air. And I just feel like it's like what a miserable place to be as a fan, especially in a storied franchise like Washington. You know, three-time Super Bowl champion, you know, longtime run as a solid NFC East and NFC contender,

and then to have just been driven in the ground spiritually, emotionally, not so much financially, but spiritually, emotionally, almost criminally, morally, by Dan Snyder, it's just crushed this franchise. And I mean, you know, there were thousands of empty seats there, and it was a sea of Vikings fans, especially behind the bench. I mean, it was all purple. You could feel it. I mean, the skull chant. They were making noise on third down against Heineke. I mean, I wouldn't say it was a home game,

but it was definitely neutralized. And, you know, it's like, would you rather be be that kind of always looking at your past glory and then just wondering when our franchise is going to be liberated from this evil empire or would you rather be just riding along and and not questioning you don't question too much just put your head down and enjoy the ride because it it probably will end i mean nobody's predicting lombardi lifting here or a parade but man the glide path looks pretty good so just just see what happens in january folks i want to say thank you to all of you who have given liquid death a try and sent me your tweets about it very cool of you guys to support the

sponsors that support this show i've actually gone to splitting my time between Diet Soda and Liquid Death's Sparkling Lime, but they also have Mountain Water as well. But it really says something if I've put the Diet Soda aside. And if you haven't tried Liquid Death because of its name and the fact that it looks like a tall boy beer in the water aisle, well, it got its name because they're trying to bring death to plastic. Liquid death comes in aluminum cans, which is easier to recycle because they can be recycled for profits unlike plastic. So liquid death gives 10% of its profits to help get rid of plastic. Also, the fact that it looks like a beer is just kind of funny. We still have construction workers at the house and it looks like those guys are pounding beers while using chainsaws. Maybe that freaks out the neighbors, but it's just liquid death.

Anyway, give it a try at your local stores, Hy-Vee, Target, 7-Eleven, or go to liquiddeath.com slash insider to find where you can get it. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. Yet. No one is predicting that yet, and that's what I'm saying, like wanting to see what they look like as the weeks go along, where they do have now expectations and attention and a spotlight put on them is OK. Well, going to Buffalo now is the math is way different if they don't have Josh Allen and they're also beat up. Tredavis White is not back yet. Gregory Russo is now out for a few weeks. They're missing Milano.

They're a really good linebacker. It's like, again, they just land on this team at their worst versions of themselves. But still, you're facing a team with Stephon Diggs, and we've seen Case Keenum win before. But this next section of games, I think, is interesting for analysis of how do they kind of handle this? How do they face some good defenses?

Can they find ways to work around some of their shortcomings? And when you talk about talking to your friends about what to make of this whole thing, when we look at those past teams that are the standard for recent Vikings history, the 2017 team had the number one defense in the NFL. That was unbelievable to watch on a week-to-week basis. Everson Griffin and Anthony Barr was at his best, and Xavier Rhodes is taking on every great receiver in the league and shutting them down. And then you go to 09, and it's the Favre Show. It's one of the best years of his entire illustrious career. And then even back to 1998, the emergence of one of the great players in the

history of the game and Randy Moss, they had a great defense. They had a great offensive line. So when you've seen all those, and then you compare them to this, you're like, well, the special teams is really killing it on those fun coverages, you know, which is true. And Justin Jefferson is amazing, but their offense does not rank particularly high in the passing game. And Zedaria Smith is doing his thing. Daniil Hunter has bounced back from a slow start. He's been fantastic.

They're one of the best duos in the league, but the secondary is still spotty. Now you got an injury there. They're giving up, save for, you know, a referee making a great play on, you know, the Curtis Samuel catch. They did have a good day on defense against a miserable offense. But for the most part, like they've given up a lot of yards this year. I think there's still 25th and yards allowed or something like that. So there's, I think, more reason to look at this thing and go like, is it really? Could it really be for fans? And I also

think when you watch the offensive line and you see some of the same struggles they've had in the past, and they really got killed against Washington. I mean, I see where these people are coming from because there are a lot of things to scrutinize with the team that are far away from what you would expect from a team that's seven and one. And even their expected win loss is five and three, which is based on their point differential. So that's kind of more of the team they feel like. And yet here you are and you don't have to give the wins back. So who you are the rest of the way, how you deal with those shortcomings, how you overcome the inevitable injuries that have and will happen. That's the story here. But I think that anybody who's sitting there going this is just insane and doesn't make a

lot of sense and they probably don't deserve this record I would venture a guess that the head coach of the football team also watches that film back and goes I don't know I don't know I don't know how this happened because Kevin O'Connell doesn't know any better either I mean that's the other thing I mean he has I mean talk about you know other thing. I mean, he has, I mean, talk about, you know, a glide path. I mean, welcome to the NFL. You're pretty much getting off scot-free for a while here. And I, you know, you mentioned they are soft statistically everywhere. I think what is, what has really carried them. And I don't know how sustainable this is because maybe it is because they are, they do seem to be disciplined, but they, they don't take a lot of dumb penalties, and they protect the ball.

So if you're on the margins as far as statistics go, and you're handing other opposing teams extra downs, extra yards, extra possessions, that over time is going to really put a lot of pressure on marginal units. So I don't know if that's because there's always an emphasis on protecting the ball. Is that because they've caught breaks? Is it because they're more ball hawks on defense than they are fumbly on offense? I mean, you know, Dalvin Cook had an issue for a while there where he couldn't hang on to the ball. That doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. Cousins can get a little bit flighty when he's roaming around the pocket.

I don't know how many lost fumbles he's had. It doesn't feel like many. If you're winning those battles, you know, that can cover a multitude of sins. I don't know how long that is sustainable because at a certain point, that levy will break and that will cause other problems as well. But, you know, yeah, you mentioned the officiating. I mean, in the history of the NFL, have you ever seen a back judge break up a pass play? I can't see that ever happening again.

And not just a pass play, a touchdown play. That would have been a sure interception by Cam Bynum. Instead, you know, not only could that have caused a huge meltdown, but then it was a deserved roughing the kicker call on Joseph there at the end. But you get that call you bleed the clock out and then it's a stress-free win these are things that you just it's hard to account for those because they're rare they're rare gems they're rare gifts they don't happen in one season as they have stacked up and I think the the biggest break of all would be to not face

Josh Allen and that's all timing in the schedule. You knew you were going to play Buffalo, and you didn't know when. I mean, Tua was playing like an MVP. Of course. And suddenly now he's going to miss a start right when you're playing them. I mean, they got Miami at a horrible time with their quarterback situation. You know, what's going to happen with Dallas leading up? What's going to happen with New England?

You know, you never know which New England team is going to show up, it seems like, week to week. I keep thinking that Thanksgiving night is going to be a challenge. I don't know. Maybe they'll lay down that night. That'll be their off night. Belichick won't know who to turn to. So it just feels like everything is falling into place.

And I will say that, you know, I've been talking about the soft schedule in December. It does look like the Jets are going to be a formidable opponent. Nobody would have thought that in August, but it does look that way now. Even the Giants, too. I think those look like easier home wins, perhaps, than they do today. But at any rate, yeah, lean into it, folks. Just enjoy it because it just rarely happens especially in this league it rarely happens where things break for you the way that they are and

you know unexpected success can taste a lot sweeter than expected success because there's less stress so i i don't know i i don't know if I would tell that to Vikings fans. I think that these people are very stressed by a winning situation. And that's the biggest fear is that at some point the wheels come off. And the reality of this now is that as we raise the bar for them, I've always said if you win 12 games, you got it right. Like you got it right for the last offseason of bringing Kirk back and everything because that's the bar for teams to be legitimate Super Bowl contenders is 11 is fringy, but 12, like you went 12. You're right there.

But I also think that what's going to happen now is, OK, you've had this great regular season and we're really looking way too far forward here. They have to play more games in the future than they've played already. It feels like we've played a whole season already. But you know, the, the bar gets raised to, you can't get upset in that first round of the playoffs. Like you got to go deep in the playoffs because that's what your predecessing great Vikings teams have done and not really gotten over the top. By the way, people were not happy at me sort of quipping yesterday that there were two other guys in the area who could have broken up that pass other than when the referee took out Cam Bynum.

Hey, it's true. I just, it's true. There were two other guys right there. Make a play. But, uh, I'm just, you know, half tongue in cheek on that, but it doesn't always come through. Uh, I'm still in a hotel room because there's work being done in my house. Maybe it's the different microphone I'm using.

It doesn't pick up sarcasm quite as well. I was wondering about the bland cabinets behind you. I didn't know if your podcast was in there. Yeah, nicer cabinets. The lighting in here is not great, but shout out to long-term hotels for all those who need them sometimes. It doesn't matter. We're getting stuff done. And, you know, just there's only one bathroom in the house.

And if that's under construction, you have to be somewhere else. So anyway, not the point of any of this. But I think that there's a lot to look forward to as far as interesting storylines for this team, even though it feels like they won the division yesterday. You know what I mean? Like, that is the weirdest thing. And you said, hey, this doesn't happen very often. The last time a team has been up by this much in their division

this far into the season was 2011, the San Francisco 49ers. Yeah. How crazy is that? That team went to the Super Bowl or is that the 12 team? I can't remember. 12. Yeah. Okay. But they were building toward it. How crazy is that? That team went to the Super Bowl or is that the 12 team? I can't remember. 12, yeah. Okay.

But they were building toward it. I'm just, you know, look, I'm not going to, like I said, I'm not putting any Super Bowl predictions on any of this. But if we're talking in late January about a big game coming up, I will always remind people that on Labor Day I was saying lean into it. You were the first. You were the first. So before we wrap up, Murph, do you have a good time? I had a very good time. It wasn't as marginal or on the margins as L.A. was.

It was a much larger group. It was a merging of several groups, including this organization nonprofit called Serving Our Troops. So it was a lot of restaurateurs, a lot of military X and currently enlisted, you know, a lot of movers and shakers in the St. Paul business community coming together, enjoying Lieutenant Governor, General, sorry, the General of the Minnesota National Guard hosted us on Saturday night for a seafood boil at his house on Fort McNair's base, right at the mouth of the Potomac River. It was a beautiful evening. I mean, it was in the mid-70s, even up until this afternoon when I left. We had a little drive-by on Sunday morning when we went back to the Bloody Mary Bar, also at the General's base. He likes to get after it a little bit. We had a drive-by

from Joe Biden in Marine One going up the Potomac. We ran into some other Minnesota veterans and their bus broke down. I'll fill out all these details in the column, but we ended up taking on about 10 people who were trying to get to an eight o'clock flight at National Airport last night. Their bus broke down in the parking lot. Also Minnesota veterans, part of the Vikings voyage, the team had flown them in for the game. We put them on the bus. We rode them to the airport, dropped them off. It just felt good to be around a lot of cool people that, you know, were both having fun, but also feeling like they were doing something that was a little bit better than themselves. So and then we end up, you know, having some great Mexican food at the Pink Taco. Two nights in a row at the Pink Taco down in the National Stadium District.

And let me tell you, there were more than one of spouses that saw their banking ledgers on Sunday morning and had some questions for their husbands about where they were and why they were spending money at the Pink Taco. It's a Mexican place, though. Mexican restaurant. Beautiful food. not anything untoward. A little bit of a sketchy name, but damn, the brisket tacos were to die for. There was one other thing, and I'm sorry for the switch from the pink taco to this hard pivot to make.

You brought something up that I thought of, and then it went out of my brain as we were talking but kurt cousins is actually playing very much turnover free and sack free football which is very alex smithy of him and alex smith won a lot of football games doing that like it's it's really interesting to look at how his turnovers. So you had the bad night in Philly, but aside from that, how his turnovers and sacks have gone down, his yards per attempt have gone down and his traditional stats have gone down, but so have the turnovers a little bit. And when you're already playing with house money this far up and your team is making plays around the edges. And if your defense seems to be getting stronger

as it goes along with its edge rushers and so forth, you could play that kind of football and go a long way. So that's what I was going to point out, and that was not connected to your trip. But last thing, just to say, so you're saying that you're an American hero for helping veterans after their bus broke down.

Is that what you're saying? I'm saying I was on the back of the bus when I was told we were helping other veterans when their bus broke down. No, I will not wear the hero's cape. Is that like, is that like the Brian, didn't Brian Williams claim that he was like at war or whatever? You could have made that. Yeah, he was in Iraq on a chopper that went down, I think Blackhawk down when he was actually in New York, you know, doing the weather or something. So yeah, I'm not going to go Brian Williams on this report. Could have made that story way more dramatic.

Biden's Marine One fell in the Potomac. We dove out there and pulled him out. We dove in. Yeah. Surprisingly, you got no coverage anywhere else. Very, very strange. Very strange. But those are the types of stories that you will read in Murph's article about your trip at PurpleInsider.com.

And your once-a-year trip with your friends, I absolutely adored the one from Los Angeles. I tweeted it out again if people want to go back and find that one. So good stuff, Murph, and I'm glad you had a good time. And happy birthday to you, sir. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. And we will talk again soon. Sounds good. Jump into some fans only questions.

I have a lot of them. So I am going to attempt to go in rapid fire fashion. I know that every time I say that, I end up giving much longer answers and still going into great detail. But it speaks to how good the questions are that I end up talking a lot more than I intend to. So let's dive right into it, and we'll go to Alex here. I'm going to make this real simple. Am I wrong to be absolutely terrified that the Vikings are 7-1 mainly because of how bad the NFC is

and that they're going to absolutely misread their competitive window and rebuilding timeline because they happen to be just good enough in a weirdly down NFC. Yeah, that I'm not sure because it's so hard to know how Kweisi Adafo-Mensa is going to look at this whole thing. I mean, he's a new general manager and we don't really know his tendencies other than to say that I fully believe that he thought trading down in the draft was a competitive rebuildy move to try to stack draft capital and get more players and that the charts that he uses said it was better to do that and add up the draft capital for the future as opposed to trying to get a player to win now. And that I think was,

in his mind, the competitive rebuild part of this. But now that they've traded for TJ Hawkinson, you already can kind of see that it's not going to be competitive rebuild long-term. I mean, I think that already at this point, when you're trending toward 10, 11, 12, 13 wins. I mean, 10 is the absolute worst case scenario. That means the wheels would have come off. So more like 12 wins, 13 wins is even possible. If you end up there, then it's very hard to say, let's tear it all down. Now, when you look around at all of the factors

that have gone into this, I think that your instincts are right on that in a lot of ways that, you know, when you look at their expected win loss, they should be a five and three team. When you look at their EPA per play on offense and defense, they are much closer to new Orleans than they are to some of the best teams in the league,

like Kansas city. And, and yet the NFC is that bad. And there is an opportunity here to win this season. And so they went mostly all in with TJ Hawkinson. I know he's under contract for next year, but gave away future draft capital, which I think would indicate, you know, when you go into next year, especially because a lot of these guys' contracts are not easy to move on from. Kirk Cousins has some form of no trade clause. You have Adam Thielen would be a huge dead cap hit.

Daniil Hunter would be a huge dead cap hit unless you push those down the road to June 1st, which doesn't really do you a whole lot of good. Harrison Smith probably isn't going anywhere. After the way Zedarius Smith has played, he's going to want to ask for a new contract, rip that one up, ask for a new contract, rip that one up and sign a new deal that's got more guaranteed money. So that could be something they have to deal with again as well. But if you win that many games,

it's almost impossible to then go back and say, all right, now we're moving on from a lot of key pieces. We're drafting a quarterback with the first round pick. We don't have a second round pick. That was your year too bad. Like, I mean, it's, it's very unlikely that they're going to do that. So I think that you're right now misreading it. I don't know. There's more of the realities and the pressure of the NFL. I mean, I don't think that the ownership would allow them to do that. Look at 2019 where we all saw the writing on the wall and yet ownership said, no, we're going to run it all back. We're going to bring the quarterback back. We're going to bring Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman back because they want a playoff game.

And that was enough for them. So I just cannot see any scenario where they win 12, 13 games, go to the playoffs, almost no matter what happens, and then come back and say, all right, well, that was a fun ride. Goodbye to everyone. And I also think that next year, it's just going to be harder. You even look at what Justin Fields has done the last few weeks, which I need to go back and say that after those first few games, I really thought that Justin Fields might be going down the Josh Rosen path. And he has changed that around in the last few weeks. Chicago's going to have a ton of money next offseason.

Detroit is going to have a ton of money at some point. Detroit has to become competitive, even if Green Bay falls off. And other NFC teams will probably be better than they are this year. At very least, you're not facing backup quarterbacks all the time throughout the entire rest of the schedule for next season. So the road will be harder and the players will be older. And that's why this year it's sort of like enjoy the magic carpet ride because this is it. This is your once a decade season where everything goes right.

And Vikings fans have seen it many times before and they've seen how hard it is to repeat so I would just say don't really worry about what they're going to do next offseason get excited for the next game and get interested in the next game and read about the opponent and and dive in two feet in with this season because it's it's not impossible that they could have a window here where they continue for several years to be competitive. But it's just when you look back at history, it's usually not kind to teams who have everything go right for a year and then go back to being who they are. But everything can go right into the playoffs and everything can go right with the matchups. And it's not like they are a horrendous team that's having everything go right. They're a good team.

They're more of a five and three team who's had a lot of things go right to get to seven and one. So if that's who you are, a five and three team can go beat other good teams in the playoffs. And that's why I say you just have to kind of go all in on this season and whatever happens after that happens. I mean, I'm happy to answer questions on what I think might happen in the future because of this, because it does have major ramifications. I think we've already gone past go on that, though. Like we've already gone to a place where unless the wheels come off and it is a disaster and they win only nine games or something. They just completely tanked the rest of the season, which I just cannot see happening based on their schedule. Even if they have 11 wins,

you still are in a situation where the head coach is going to say, see, we can do it. The owners are going to say, see, we can do it. Kirk is going to be back. They're going to keep riding this train. Look, our culture is better. we can do it uh i think that we've already gotten to the point where they believe it's been proven that like this group can continue to win so um yeah yeah i think that uh i think that's already gotten there i i don't and i i just don't think it's anything to be terrified about at this moment um because that means you had to have a really great season first, right? So if they were nine and eight and that was who they were, and then it was like they were on the fence, but they won a random playoff game,

that would be different than, hey, you won 12 games. You put yourself in a legitimate position to go chase a Super Bowl. That was the goal from day one. That was the bar that we set is in order for this to pay off, that's what you have to do. And it looks like that's what they're going to do. So I'm going to have a hard time saying, hey, you should have done this or should have done that. Or even, hey, you should completely throw all these guys out the window for the long term rebuild or the long term approach or even draft a quarterback

in the first round it's going to be hard to make that case if they win 12 games this year even if all of us can kind of see that you know maybe things don't go right at this rate all the time which we'll get into maybe a little bit later but like think about last year like Zedaria Smith and Daniel Hunter have been amazing Everson Griffin and Daniel Hunter think about last year, like Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter have been amazing. Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter were amazing last year until both of them were lost for the season. And then they couldn't rush the passer anymore. Like that just kind of speaks to how the NFL works, where a lot of it is, do you have your players or not? Do you have turnovers or not? Do you have backup quarterbacks or not? For a lot of teams, it's like that from a year to year basis. That was not a short answer. So I'm sorry. I'm working on this. This is a new year's resolution for next year's fans only is to tighten up my answers. This comes from Thomas.

Talk me into the Vikings beating Buffalo or Kansas City in Super Bowl. What does that look like? If you can't do so credibly then i think uh we would both be pretty skeptical um does it make me a bad fan to think that none of the stuff that they did to duct tape this roster together was worth it i'm not even particularly jaded just pragmatic um well no at this point it was worth Now, we can say that the process was questionable, but then say the results were worth it. I think that's a good place to be because if you are a smart fan, which you sound like you are, and you're really informed and you're looking into the salaries and the ages and all of the boxes that would have need to be checked in order for us to get to this point,

then you would say that's unlikely. Like it's in order for us to get to this point, then you would say that's unlikely. Like it's unlikely that Zedarius Smith is this good, but he has been. It's unlikely that, you know, anything really changes from the 500 results that they've gotten when the main characters have not changed a whole lot. It's unlikely that certain players take huge steps forward, or it's unlikely that they stay this healthy, or it's unlikely that the schedule does them this many favors. But even if those things were less than 50% chance, they all hit, which does happen. That's why people gamble. Like that's why people gamble because unlikely things, you know, it's usually unlikely that you can make money gambling, but sometimes you get on a hot run and you do and you, and you win. And that's

exactly what they've done here. When we talk about the offseason, it's all a series of bets. And so you go to the roulette table here and you bet on 21 and they've hit 21. You don't hit 21 every time you spin the wheel. It's more for fun or it's more that you know that the odds aren't great. And I think when Kweisi said competitive rebuild, he knew that a lot would have to go right in order for this team to be in the position that they are to be one of the top teams record wise in the NFL and that's why he said it because the actions more suggested that they were pushing the chips to the middle of the table that was kind of a hedge thing. Like, hey, well, you know, maybe we'll be good. And here we are. They are very good by their record. And I think good by who they are. Like,

I think sometimes I get misinterpreted when we talk about every aspect of the team and how they've won a lot of these games and discuss the shortcomings of some of these wins. Your offensive line gets beat up. Ezra Cleveland has a zero PFF grade. That's not good. That could be a problem for you at some point. And it almost was on Sunday. That doesn't mean I think they're a terrible team.

I think they're a good team. I've always thought they were a good team. Even from day one, I predicted them to win 10 games. So, I mean, this is what I thought. I just didn't think that this many things would go right. And I'm marveling at it. So I think you were reasonable to look at them and think, you know, I don't think all of this can go right. And then the results end up turning out differently. It's a lot like the Rams conversation from last year, where I remember saying, like, I don't think that the Rams can have all these

things go right. And then they did. They were seven and one. They lost three straight games to winning teams. And at that point, I was like, ah, OK, well, looks like the Rams aren't that strong. And it turned out that they were and they were strong enough to win the Super Bowl. And so what you're talking about, can they go to the Super Bowl and win? I guess we would have to compare

last year's Rams to this team because I thought they were a charmed team for last year going from a four seed having a really good set of matchups what was it Arizona and then Tampa Bay which you know Tampa Bay played the worst game of their life for half of that game. And then it ends up being San Francisco. They probably lose to Green Bay, right? But Green Bay screws up a punt. Like this is how it would happen. If you're going to get to the Super Bowl, it happens that way, but you don't have to apologize for that. If it happens that way, like no one's going to say, oh, you didn't earn it. That will never be said. They will say you went to the Super Bowl and that everything you did nailed it. even if some of the process was questionable. I think that there's a mix up there sometimes. It's all about the odds plays. And what were

the odds that Z'Darrius Smith would be one of the best players in the league this year after coming off that injury and then having Baltimore not want to sign him and other teams not want to pay him like, well, the odds probably are less than 50%. And then here we are, the guy is back to being an absolute superstar. So there's a lot of things that have been like that this year. And that's my answer is if you had a home playoff game, you've got a chance. If you're in, you've got a chance if you're in you've got a chance with 12 or 13 wins that's always been where i've stood is history says if you have 11 12 13 wins you have a legitimate chance to win so if they've done that then they've succeeded despite some of

the questions about whether they had made good bets okay let. Let's see here. This one comes from Chris C. Let's see. Fans only question. Do we have the best special teams unit in the NFL? Second best, third best. How would you measure that? And how much of our lucky bounce wins were made possible by above average special teams play? That's a good question. I think they have likely one of the top five units. I mean, there's a good way to look at this, which would be average drive start. And I have this right here updated. They are number two in the NFL in their average drive start and number two as in best opposing drive start. I think that goes a lot to Ryan Wright's and it goes a lot to their coverage units that have been very good.

And what's been interesting to see as we talk about rebuilding this team eventually and how they're kind of running until the wheels go off for this year is there actually have been a lot of players who have developed on special teams. And that's interesting to me, where you see Josh Metellus develops in the same way that, say, Anthony Harris did years ago. Brian Asamoah is already showing a lot of signs of being a good special teams player. So there is that, that they all of a sudden have kind of some dudes. And it was an interesting point made by Kevin Seifert of ESPN when he talked about how the Vikings have five, six players who are dedicated to special teams, which is a big advantage to have that. That's kind of their only job is to be a little bit of depth, but a lot of special teams. And that's luck there, too, as well, because they have been healthy and that's helped them, you know, not have to use those players to bump them up from being on special teams to starting players.

And then the special teams loses them. And then you're calling up guys from the practice squad. So that whole health thing really trickles down to the special teams and has made a big difference. And as far as the lucky bounces go, I guess I would say that special teams is a big impact thing. Like when you look at charts of how much EPA a team is expected to score if they start at their own 18 versus their own 30, for example, there's a big difference. Like someone was talking about Ray Guy and the Hall of Fame punter, Ray Guy passed away, and how there might never be another Hall of Fame punter.

And I think that there is a advantage that adds up over time if you have one of the best punters in the league. Now, if you have the fifth best to the 28th best, it's probably not that much of a difference. But if you have one of the better ones in the league and coverage units like Ryan Wright in this unit, it makes a difference. It does swing your luck because you're constantly forcing the opponent to start and travel a long distance, almost no matter what happens to you on offense. So if you go three and out after, you know, a touchback and you're punting from the 25, but you can put the other team inside their own 25 on the other side consistently and force them to go 80, 85 yards, that makes a big difference over a season.

As far as, you know, a team fumbles a punt where it bounces off of the guy, you know, I think that Matt Daniels would argue that the gunner did a really good job of getting in his feet or his vision, but that's a tough case for me to make. I mean, the punt returners in the NFL, he's got to catch the ball. So some of those things have just bounced right to them. When you have like the Arizona one that bounces right to Troy Dye, and then I think they score a touchdown right after that. That's something that you can't really control by being a good unit. Where they actually have been unlucky is the field goal kicking. It has not been that good.

Everything under 50, Greg Joseph has made, but he's missed a couple of extra points. That's why I would not say they've been the best unit is because of the field goal kicking. But everything else has been really good. And it's been a major factor. And all the hype that Matt Daniels is getting from the local media, I think we've all written, or Matt Daniels came on the show, or we've all written some Matt Daniels came on the show or we've all written some form of article focusing on him as a coach, but I think it's all very much deserved, you know, based on he puts so much work into this as opposed to the guy kind of exists. And it seems to matter a lot

to Kevin O'Connell, to Kweisi Adaf-Mensa, that they have good special teams because you see the edges, and this is a league of edges. It's small advantages that you have to eke out over a season where if the great punting and the great coverage and the great kickoffs and the smart kickoff idea to kick it into the corner, which did not work on one against Washington but usually has worked, all those things, they add up over a season. So it's been a big deal. I think it's been a big deal. I think it's been a big deal.

I wouldn't tell you that unless they were the one of the best in the league, but they are and it matters. Okay. Let's get into a couple more here. This comes from LA Vikings fan. As much as I love seeing the Packers lose, I'm starting to feel like it potentially sets them up to reload the quarterback position for another generation. As of right now, I believe they approximately have a top 10 pick in

the draft, a lot of season left, but what are your thoughts on the QBs in this draft and the Packers ability to draft one high? I think there's a lot of teams that are going to be trying to draft them high, and it really depends on what Aaron Rodgers wants to do if Rodgers is just tired of this which looks like the case then I think Rodgers will probably just retire but Rodgers is owed a lot of money for next year and he could make the case to the team get me some wide receivers and we'll be right back to the top and I don't know if that's exactly true the way that he's played he has looked you know years ago we would exactly true. The way that he's played, he has looked, you know, years ago, we would joke about him being washed, but he's looked washed. He has looked bad. It's

not all the wide receivers. I think he is as much responsible for their struggles as the receivers are that he can't elevate people the way that he used to. So if he decides to retire, they're a team that of course is in line for a quarterback. They may, though, want to try Jordan Love. And we don't know anything about Jordan Love. We've been watching Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields and these other players develop, but we have not seen anything about Jordan Love outside of one game, a little bit of preseason. They may feel confident in him that he's ready to start also they drafted him which makes me think they will want to play him and that could be good for the Vikings because if he's not good

then oh there you go they're going to pass up on a potential top pick and if they really really despise Rodgers they'll take a wide receiver in the top 10 and then give him to Jordan Love because I think what we do see on a consistent basis in the NFL is how much it matters to have an elite wide receiver. They might go that route. And also, you know, they've been kind of an arrogant front office. I mean, they said, nope, we've got the right plan. Aaron, you don't know what you're talking about. We're not going to draft receivers. We're going to take Eric Stokes. We're going to take Jordan Love. And they manipulated Rodgers kind of from the outset. Now now i don't cry any tears for him when it comes to that but he was

right about their weapons and they end up trading away davante adams just thinking well you know it's fine uh we we can uh just replace him with these draft picks because we're so brilliant we can draft a running back right so i would expect that they would not draft a quarterback at the top. I guess I wouldn't be totally shocked if they did, but I think they won't. I think they won't. I think they're going to try to turn the ball over to their guy and Jordan Love when the season is over. If Aaron Rodgers retires, it's very possible he would not. This one comes from at Dan Taylor 26. What would

Mike Zimmer have done if he saw Kirk Cousins dancing topless on a plane wearing millions of dollars of chains? You know what? There's certain things about Zimmer and Cousins that I completely accept. I don't think that Zimmer ever bought into Cousins. I think that he was always frustrated that Cousins' contract caused the defense to fall apart and they couldn't replace a lot of players and sign free agents because of his cap hit. But Mike Zimmer would have been thrilled with Kirk Cousins if they were 7-1. We always reverse engineer all the narratives based on if they won or lost with everything in football. If you start looking for it, you'll see it all the time is if they went seven and one at any point with Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins, they would have been on the same page and they would have been yucking it up. And he Mike Zimmer said last year that he long pushed Cousins to relate to

his teammates better he praised Kirk Cousins last year early in the season remember when Cousins was playing extremely well early in the season they were like three and three and he was praising Cousins I want you to lead I want you to relate to your teammates. And so I think that we go back and we look at how it ended between Cousins and Zimmer, all the vaccination stuff that made that relationship extremely awkward. Hey, I mean, they were in a locker room in New Orleans after a game-winning touchdown, and Mike Zimmer had Cousins break him down, and he yelled, you like that, right? This stuff, we've seen a lot of this stuff before and by the way last year Kirk Cousins stats were quite a bit better than this year and not only that uh but even in 2019 when they had that run where they went eight and two in a section

of the season Cousins was dominant he had 22 touchdowns three picks 118 quarterback rating over a 10 game period. And guess what we didn't hear about? Tension between Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins, right? Like it's a lot of it was caused by finger pointing between Cousins and Zimmer and Rick Spielman. And this is your fault. And you couldn't build around this guy and this guy can't elevate his teammates and he can't lead because we're not winning and so forth and all that sort of stuff. But a lot of that, a lot of it was just caused by underachieving. So I think that if they were seven and one and Mike Zimmer was the coach, then he would have been thrilled to see Kirk Cousins dancing around with his teammates.

It was really about the game about the games they didn't win that I think drove Zimmer insane. I also think this, that based on all of their numbers and how they've played this year, where they rank and so forth, what they've been in the past, I don't know that this is any different as far as a record goes with Zimmer as the coach. I think that would be maybe the most unpopular thing I could say, but look at the wins, who they've played, the one disappointing game that they've played, how the offense has performed, how the defense has performed. It's a better unit on defense talent-wise. It's been an easy schedule quarterback-wise. I don't know that it's

much different. And if they had stuck with Zimmer, they couldn't. They couldn't. And that's not to say Kevin O'Connell's not doing a good job, because I think he is. And I believe all the stuff with Kevin O'Connell, that he's brought players together and he's put veterans in charge and everything else. But having seen Zimmer in a winning environment in 2017, the locker room was just as bonded that year. I wrote a whole book about it. I mean, that's what happens when you win is that players get closer to each other.

There aren't as much tensions. Leaders rise up to the... Why do you think that everybody loved Teddy Bridgewater? I mean, I think that it's all real with Teddy, but he came in and he took them to a division title in his first year and everybody bought into him. Everyone buys in when somebody wins. in the locker room in 2017, those guys believed in cousin or in a case Keenum throughout the year because

he was winning. That's usually what it comes down to in the NFL. And then we kind of work around the rest. That's, that's not to say that O'Connell is not an improvement. He is, he's done a lot of things right. And from day one here on the show, we thought it was a good hire as opposed to Jim Harbaugh. But the idea that Zimmer would have been angry at Cousins

for going seven and one and dancing with his teammates, if that's implied in the question, totally disagree. I don't think that at all. Let's see here. Let's see. Okay, maybe one more.

Oh, I didn't write down the name. I'm sorry. I didn't grab the name for this, and I apologize to whoever asked this question. I just have the question and not your name. I'm sorry. Let's see. Talk me into the Hawkinson trade ending up being the best move made. Actually, give me all a second.

I might be able to find this one for who asked this question. Let me see here. OK, this is from Connor. Actually, got it. Talk me into the Hawkinson trade ending up being the best move made in the NFL at the end of the season. His separation ability and the fact that Kirk already seems to have confidence in him was a massive on third down against the commanders. And without him, there's no doubt that it would have been a loss. He's the piece that they needed to keep keep drives going when Delvin or JJ have off days.

Yeah, totally agree. Yep. 100 percent. Let's see. I can't think of every single move off the top of my head that was made at the trade deadline because there was kind of a lot of them but San Francisco gave up a lot for Christian McCaffrey that one could be a big deal though if McCaffrey stays healthy that's Kyle Shanahan that man knows how to use a running back but this was a gargantuan need for the Vikings they were getting nothing out of the tight end position and Hawkinson I asked Kevin O'Connell about it today. Hawkinson has a unique ability to separate. And when I looked back at that on the all 22 tape, you could really see it like this man is shifty. He is not any kind of old school, giant bruising tight end. He is really a modern tight end, which I think I wasn't sure what to

expect. Like I had looked at him at Detroit and gone back and watched some of what he had done this year in Detroit was impressed with him with the ball in his hands, but he showed some route running ability. And it's like, Oh, okay. Yes. That is going to separate from linebackers and give Kirk, not just a security blanket, but someone to push the ball to in the intermediate areas of the field. And on third down, right, when they're drawing so much attention. I think, Connor, that that is very possible that it ends up being the best move.

Yeah, I totally agree. Because when you look at the reward that they could get out of it, having a weapon who could push down the field from that position, and what they were getting before, which is almost nothing from that spot from Irv Smith and Johnny Munt. Big, big upgrade, and it should continue to get better as they go along. This was already a guy who was an established quality tight end, and I think you saw it right away. How special is it for somebody to play 60 plays?

I had no expectation of that. You guys heard me say maybe 25. This is really tough to do at that position. It's one of the toughest positions in football, and I'm sure everything wasn't perfect. But wow, I mean, I was very, very impressed by him in a lot of different ways on Sunday. I definitely think considering that they did not give up that much to get that guy. Yeah, that's pretty good. Okay, last two here. This one from McGillis1 on Twitter. It seems like year after year, the Vikings have the best team in the NFL when it comes to opening drives, only to have their offense disappear immediately after. Cousins had different OCs every year of his tenure, yet the opening drive prowess and subsequent drives remains consistent. Is this a Kirk Cousins stat? I think it probably is.

Yeah, because they can go into a game and know everything that's coming. And I don't think that off schedule Cousins is just referring to when the pocket breaks down and he's got to run or move around. It probably also refers to when the defense shows something different than he expected. And what happens a lot in a game, notice how many times in postgame you'll hear him or Kevin O'Connell talking about when they've not played that well on offense. Well, you know, they gave us a lot of different looks. It's like, well, yeah, because after that opening drive success, they probably changed up what they were doing. They made some adjustments on defense. And when they did that, or they started to get into their bag

of all the things that they prepared for the Vikings. And so the feeling out process is over. They know what you're going to do. And now you get to see their blitzes and different things like that. So once the other team starts to mix it up, then I think he's not as adaptable to, OK, I don't realize what the defense is going to be or we didn't prep this exactly. And I'm kind of having to respond on the fly. And then you get into those situations toward the end where they practice them a ton. Those situational things, those, you know, they want to be situational

masters, but the late game stuff, the gotta have it is what Kevin O'Connell calls it. They practice that a ton. So that seems to be a more comfortable area for him than the middle game. Like in the game of chess, you have the opening, the middle game, and then the end game. And it seems like in the middle game, there is a struggle as defenses change things up and give them looks that they don't expect. And that, I mean, I think there's probably something to that with Cousins. Yeah, because you're right. We blame Clint Kubiak for it.

We blame Kevin Stefanski for it. And now we can blame Kevin O'Connell. But I think you might be on to something. All right, last one. This comes from at Chris Graywin. When does the Caleb Evans get inducted into Canton? I'm impressed, though. I am impressed, though.

I mean, this is the draft for you. When they took Andrew Booth Jr., it seemed like he might compete for the starting job. And when they took a Caleb Evans, he's just a pure, total project-type player who had been, you know, raw and sort of spotted by Kweisi Adafomense as a guy who had length and some speed to him. And they thought, okay, well, this is someone we can develop over a few years. And here he is playing really well in that game and making some key plays. Now it looks like he's going to have to start and we'll see how things go from there. But his performance on special teams, I mean, I've, you know, even in training camp, like

I've been impressed with a Caleb Evans so far. And that's what, that's what you look for. That's what they didn't get in recent years. And it is mostly luck based, but you know, cause the draft is random when you get past the third, fourth round. But when you spend a draft pick in the fourth round on a player at a premium position like that, if you hit on it, say like a digs, if you hit on that fifth round pick receiver, I never disagreed with them drafting fifth round receivers. I disagreed with them only drafting fifth round receivers and not in the higher rounds but when you draft those

guys if you hit it's just massively valuable um to hit on those key positions and it's very possible that that's what's happened with the caleb evans so if i didn't get to your question i've got more on the list and i will continue to try to work my way through them uh throughout the week it should be lots to discuss and all eyes on josh allen's elbow but that does not look good and the vikings just continue their charmed life so we will be here to cover it all and we'll talk to you later