Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brian Murphy wants the Vikings to start putting opponents away

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

The 2022 Vikings' biggest believer, Brian Murphy, isn't shying away from enjoying the ride, but he'd like the Vikings to start blasting opponents when they get a chance. The game against the Jets may have been indicative of a playoff-type atmosphere, and the Vikings must find a way to pull away when they get ahead. What can they do to improve before the season's end?  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here for a Monday Morning Murph with Brian Murphy and the Minnesota Vikings. Brian, they did it again. They did it again. They did it again. Every time. Every time. We wake up on a Monday morning and we get together in our pajamas here to talk about this team. And it seems like it is a very familiar refrain. So here's my question for you. Should we be just saying, look, I don't know.

I don't know. It keeps happening, but maybe it'll keep happening. And that's just this team or the discussion that's starting to be had beyond us. I saw it on NFL Network. I even saw Justin Jefferson saying after yesterday's game, like, I love this win, but there's a lot of things that need to be fixed and need to be better. So where should we be going with this? Should we be talking about, hey, red zone defense every week? It's a different hero.

This week, it was Cam Bynum. This week it was the interior defensive line stuffing them a couple of times at the goal line and not allowing for an easy touchdown. Or should we be pulling it back and looking at it and saying, come on guys, you're up 20 to 6. Finish somebody. Yeah, I think we should. I think, you know, you set yourself up at 10 and 2. You're raising expectations. You're also tightening scrutiny. And you're going to have to answer for this. This isn't sustainable. It's charming to a degree. It has been charming to a degree. Maybe a little bit in October, a little bit in November. We can see where the landscape is right now. It is Philadelphia, Dallas, and Minnesota in that order as far as NFC dominance right now. And the Vikings have five games remaining at a 10-2, very comfortable position against five beatable teams.

And that's not even, I mean, winnable games, games you should win. And at 15 and two, I don't even know if, if how, how confident you should feel. I mean, I, I've been saying, look, I don't want to break, break ranks here because I've been saying all along, lean into the charmed life, lean into the horseshoes. But there is a, there's a weariness to this that I think even inside the room, they know that they're building up some scar tissue by coming up with big plays in the fourth quarter. They are definitely a fourth-quarter team, but there's nothing illegal about being a third-quarter team or a second-quarter team either.

And as you said, they've had several of these opponents, you know, making their last grasp, a gasp. And it just feels like there just isn't a killer instinct there. There is a hold fast instinct. There is a circle the wagons aspect that has served them very well. But I think it's this – look, the two teams you're really going to have to contend with here now, Dallas and Philadelphia, are the two teams that have humbled you badly this season, and everything else has pretty much fallen into place.

Take out an opponent early, keep them down, and then walk away with a win instead of hand-wringing your way to a last-second victory. As entertaining as that is, it has become wearisome. As much as I feel good about this club being 10-2 and positioned well, I'm also getting a little tired of the act. It isn't as entertaining. It's not as charming anymore. And I, I just, I kind of feel like grumpy dad here. Like, yeah, okay.

You may have done these three tasks, right. But you left the rest of the house a mess and you still haven't figured this thing out yet. Do better. I, I have, I guess of a couple of different minds when it comes to this whole thing. I mean, one, I think that for Vikings fans, you don't need to enjoy it less because you're always thinking about the sustainability. Like there have been so many have come down to the final moments have actually been against good teams that they've been able to beat. And usually that's how it works in the league. Like if you watch Cincinnati and Kansas City, the premier teams in the AFC, what happened? Came down to a final drive, right?

And Patrick Mahomes gets caught by a shoestring. Joe Burrow completes a pass. And then Cincinnati gets to celebrate all day. I mean, there's a lot of games in the league where you could say against good teams, eh, well, you know, one thing sort of determined it. And yesterday, that was kind of the case. The New York Jets are a playoff caliber team. New England is not a bad team necessarily, and you got to just get, you know, one score win there and need a kick return to do so and so forth and a penalty in the, in Buffalo and all the things that went on there. But all of

those wins are against teams that are pretty credible and that's how it often goes. So there is a part of me that says that there is another part of me that says it matters sort of how that close win happens as well, where you're giving up 480 yards and that's like that would be the concern to me is that some of the things that are happening against them are things that could unravel you eventually and that's allowing any quarterback in the entire universe to throw for 350 plus yards against you I mean that's that's pretty worrisome right there I mean and even earlier this season they came into this game ranking 26th in red zone defense and then all of a sudden had this one great game in the red zone but

that that even shows you the sustainability from week to week on red zone performance is pretty noisy so there's like a lot of statistical things where you're going, Oh, I don't know. I don't know. But also they have played a lot of decent opponents. And even I would say Miami is a pretty good football team, even though they had a backup quarterback in same sort of deal. Like those teams are not just, you know,

garbage that you're allowing to hang around. It's, you know, Washington, the same thing where it's a pretty good team. That's a team that might ultimately end up in the playoffs. And that's how a lot of these games go. So maybe that element plays into it more than we gave it credit for early in the season. Even Detroit is proving to have some roar to what they do. So yeah, I guess, I mean, it's, it's the yesterday's though, I think probably was a little bit of a tipping point because of the way they came off New England. And they played offensively so well against New England and drove their success with passing the football. And then they averaged 4.9 yards a pass yesterday against the Jets. And that's where, and Kevin O'Connell said it after the game, that's where you really wanted to see the dagger.

Like, you know, your defense has flaws. That's how it and Kevin O'Connell said it after the game, that's where you really wanted to see the dagger. Like, you know your defense has flaws. That's how it's going to be. But, like, offensively, can you put somebody away and they weren't able to do it with numerous chances? Even at the end of the game, they ran three times, punted away, and gave the Jets even one more chance. Yeah, one first down there at the end, even being in the shadow of your own goalposts,

and you can rest easy and you can knee. How many times have the Vikings been in a victory formation? Maybe there's a stat we ought to look up. 10 wins, and how many times have they taken a knee to win the game? I can't think off the top of my head, but it's not many. If it's one or two, maybe. I'm willing to chalk this up as a one-off as far as Cousins' inaccuracy yesterday. He was hit hard and hit hard often. I don't think it necessarily meant pass protection was terrible. It just meant he absorbed a lot of hits to make throws. Some of them he completed, some of them he didn't. Every time he was peeling himself off the turf, he wasn't complaining.

He wasn't shaking things off. There wasn't a hold your breath moment. And he even joked afterwards about, you know, I've got my maintenance folks getting me ready like with oil changes during the week. And, you know, that's charming and that's nice, but I, I'm willing to say, look, you know, he made, he made big plays on that fourth quarter drive, including the toss to Jefferson in the end zone that turned out to be the go

ahead and winning score. But man, it would have been nice to pick up a first down here. It would have been nice to force up a first down here. It would have been nice to force the Jets to burn more clock there. It didn't really happen, and again, you're relying on your bending, bending, bending defense to come up with a huge play at the goal line again, and not just a huge play, but a turnover. That's what they've been doing all season. I don't know if that's sustainable.

We've kind of hinted around that for weeks, but it doesn't feel like it would be sustainable against Philadelphia or Dallas. And those two teams are the teams that have blatantly humbled you this year, and those are the teams you're going to have to go through if you're going to advance anywhere in late January. I'm not losing faith in this club at all. I just feel like this may be a tipping point in terms of their sustainability of living on the edge, both offensively and defensively.

This may be a game they look back on and say, this is where we lost our steam. This is where we were exposed a little bit more, even though they won. But it also feels like there's, I think there's some recognition both in the locker room and certainly with head coach Kevin O'Connell, and we can get into this a little bit more too. I think he realizes that the glitter on the glass slipper is really fading right now. And they have to find a way to come up with a definitive victory that just salvages their physical and their mental exhaustion. Because as much as you can say this is building up the scar tissue and making them stronger

for when these moments come up in the postseason, there is definitely truth to that. Are they going to be able to survive getting there? Because they're really in a situation now where they can clearly clinch the division Sunday in Detroit, and then you're really in a race for the number one seed, and the rest of their schedule is essentially doormats. And it's not asking too much for them to run the table and actually finish 15 and two as incredible as that sounds.

I hope they use this one as a learning experience because it's a feel good win, but it's also an exposure performance that I think really crystallizes a lot of the concerns that we've had throughout the year. Well, and if they do run the table, then maybe that point differential will look a little bit different since you've got a chance to beat Indy by 40 based on what happened with the game against Dallas last night. That was a two-point game in the fourth quarter, and then all of a sudden you look up and Dallas has 50 on the board. It was kind of crazy, but I mean, that's a team coached by an amateur that has, you know, a quarterback with nothing left at all. Like that's a team you should really pummel, but we've kind of gone through that throughout the season while this team's playing a backup quarterback and this team's having this problem

and maybe you should beat them. And they have, and just not in as convincing fashion as maybe we expect. But I don't think you expect every week for it to happen. You just expect for it to happen sometimes. And I know that this is the case statistically in basketball, where if a team wins a lot of close games, it always raises a little bit of a red flag, because if you're a great basketball team, you should really trounce some people sometimes.

And usually those are the teams that have those huge wins more often that end up going deeper in the playoffs. And just to kind of solidify the point, the Vikings are plus 10 right now in point differential. And I looked up all the teams that went to the conference championship since the Super Bowl era. And there's only two teams that made the Super Bowl with less than plus 10. And even last year's teams that were both four seeds were plus 88 and plus 84. Normally, you have to have some impressive victories in there. You have to pull away from some teams sometimes to be able to win four playoff games. That doesn't mean it's impossible. I mean, I looked at some recent teams, 2015 Denver, 2012

Baltimore, like those teams both did not run away from teams the same way that others did. And the Giants are famously the only team with a negative point differential. Still though, when you have to reach for outliers i mean that's that's where it's it gets kind of tough to make that argument but there is something that happened yesterday that made the vikings even a better contender which is jimmy garoppolo going out for the season with a broken foot and the way i'm thinking about this murph is like all of these things are true about the unsustainability and what the statistics tell us and everything else. But I think what it comes down to and what every week needs to be about for Vikings fans is just the matchups because that

might matter the most. If there's only two teams that really frighten you that are decidedly better that have plus hundred point differentials and that have complete teams and everything else, and that beat the heck out of you when you played one-on-one. All the rest of the teams, though, are up for winning a game just the way they did yesterday. I mean, Washington, New York, like any one of these teams that's going to be in Seattle, I think they could have games just like yesterday.

So what it's really going to come down to is who do you end up facing? Sure. And that's fine for a first round matchup. I mean, if you're going to be satisfied with hosting, you know, winning the division, hosting a playoff game for the first time since the miracle and, you know, having a little bit of buzz in town about that, as opposed to limping to the final weekend of the season to just scrape your way in as it has been the last couple of seasons okay fine but you're also in a position where this is unique uh you are 10 and 2 you are going to likely have 13 14 victories at a minimum and these are you know once in a generation not, not once-in-a-generation,

once-in-a-decade-type seasons. You need to take advantage. So it's not good enough to just get a home game and hope to get a decent matchup. You're in a position where it may take one victory against a dominant team to put yourself in the Super Bowl for the first time in 46 years? Are you going to be able to build up a body of evidence and confidence and a skill set to be

able to do that when people expect you to? It's so weird to try to really take the temperature of everybody's expectations and demands at this point. Because I think Vikings fans are smart enough to know that they are playing with so much house money and have been all season. So they're not necessarily willing to invest too much emotionally or spiritually because of past failures. But also, I don't know if this team has earned that yet. You wonder if as enjoyable and as entertaining as it's been, I don't know if they have earned your total all-in commitment. And that's fine.

You know, it may just have to come down to a week-to-week litmus test, and that's what it has been so far. And, again, I don't want to dismiss the fact that they have a lot of metal and they have a lot of steeliness to them, both cousins offensively, certainly defensively, despite giving a 480 yards and 200-plus yards to a guy named Mike White yesterday in the second half, they still made the plays when it matters. And that doesn't always happen. In fact, last year, it tells you it never does, or it doesn't happen enough because they had

so many flaws and so many leaks that it just became too difficult to plug them all at once. And that did expose them to those tough one score losses at the end. The script has flipped and there's a sense that, you know, if it comes down to the final five minutes, somebody, Cousins is going to make a throw. Jefferson is going to make a catch. You know, if it comes down to the final five minutes, somebody – Cousins is going to make a throw. Jefferson is going to make a catch. Ryan – you know, a special teamer is going to step up. And certainly the secondary, despite how soft it has been all season long,

is going to come up with a pass breakup, is going to come up with an interception. A pass rush that can vanish for hours throughout a game will come up with a key sack or a key stop at the right moment. Again, we're 12 weeks into this. If that's what their identity is, then keep rolling with it. But I just, yesterday was the first time I really felt like, you know, there's a crack there that's going to be exposed big time because as you saw what Dallas did against the Colts, I mean, everybody knew Dallas was going to win that game.

But the way that they thoroughly disposed of them, that's what the Vikings need to do here in the next five weeks. I mean, they're going to Detroit next week. The Lions always give them trouble, but that's a game you win. The Colts, again, coming in, they're a running joke. We all know that. That's a win. The Giants are exposed as a paper tiger, and then, you know,

the Bears and the Packers mailing it in. So it's in front of you to to i hate to say disprove the doubters because that's such a cliche but there's there's a lot of reason for people to be skeptical and uh as entertainingly as you're pulling these games out um it's not asking too much to just put a team away is it folks it is time once again for us to have a discussion about liquid death now here's the thing my wife has been one of those people for a really long time that has carried around a water bottle and it's metal and it's gross and she drops it on the ground all the time and so i said look why don't we try some liquid death? You're a big water drinker. Give it a shot.

And she has fallen in love with not only me, but liquid death as well. And it looks like sometimes when she's driving around that she is drinking a tall boy beer while she's driving. But it is indeed liquid death water. And one of the reasons that she likes it is that it comes in aluminum cans. The name liquid death comes from bringing death to plastic and liquid death gives 10% of their profits to end plastic bottles, which are not easily recyclable. And that's another part that my wife is enjoying about liquid death. And I am

also drinking it as well, especially the lime flavored sparkling water, which is very good. So make sure you give that a try. Go to Hy-Vee, Target, wherever you get your groceries, go to the water aisle, look for the can that looks actually like a tall boy beer. And if you want to learn more about where to find it, go to liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. No, no, it's not. And you talk about the Giants and that they're having the same type of season. And part of this is like how weird the NFC is just in general.

Like the NFC has a lot of teams that aren't great, which opens the door for having a winning record if you're a decent team without necessarily blowing people out. But the Giants have a minus seven point differential and a seven, four and one record. And the commanders have a seven, five and one record and a minus three differential. Tampa Bay is leading their division with a minus, minus three and Seattle is plus 14. I mean, that's why San Francisco losing Garoppolo so huge is they were plus 92 at eight and four. Like that is a really, really excellent football team. That's now down to its third string quarterback and give Brock Purdy a ton of credit for the way that he played. But that to me, that changes the math on it a little bit. As far as

the Vikings chances, it's like, there's really just two teams here. It's really just Philadelphia and Dallas that you say are decidedly better than you and in one game anything can happen so that's why i mean there's this like two different there's left brain right brain there's like this like well like all of these things that i usually rely on to tell me what a team is are saying that you're just okay i think waking up today they're like 11th in offense and 20th in defense as far as point score. And you're like, OK, well, that's kind of what they were last year. And yet there's the other part of it that's like, look at the landscape here. And I agree with you entirely that over the final five games, it's not necessarily about like, you know, what you did the whole season,

but how you're playing toward the middle end of the season that really can tell you what somebody's going to be in the playoffs. And we're right in that section. So I think actually a win in Detroit would be a really, really, really big win if they can get it because Detroit's playing like a playoff team. They played Buffalo close. They blew the doors the jacksonville jaguars scored 40 points in that game their offense is really rolling so i mean i actually think that this is a playoff like test in going to detroit um but i don't know like you tell me if you have solutions because we were struggling yesterday on the show when you see the same thing 12 weeks in a row or 11 weeks they blew out the packers to start the season when it's 11 weeks in a row or 11 weeks, they blew out the Packers

to start the season when it's 11 weeks in a row. And you're like, well, some of the great players make great plays in the biggest moments. And that's what you need to win in the playoffs. That is true. That's what happened to the Rams last year. All their playoff games were close and somebody made one play. So it's not impossible, but also it does feel like there's space to improve this. Like it shouldn't be happening is what I'm saying based on who they have. You shouldn't give up a 48 yard run or a 31 yard pass or whatever over and over to the Patriots in their passing game or the Jets in their passing game with the players that

they have. So I guess I want to know, like, what's the conversation internally with Ed Donatel about what is happening here to give up so many explosive plays. I I'm curious too, why, why Daniil Hunter isn't as much of a factor as, as we, as he's being paid to be is I'm not, again, into the X's and O's, but is there an aversion to creating pressure? Is there an aversion to sending the house? Is there an aversion to being that aggressive,

especially when you're dealing with backup quarterbacks and guys that may be in over their head? Is there such a, you know, the secondary is conditioned to bend to the absolute breaking point and even occasionally crack and break during a game before reforming and holding off at the end. Is it because of that that Donatel has not been aggressive in dialing up blitzes, at least the blitzes I can see to the naked eye?

Where is that? Is that a philosophy that was formed in August and is just being facilitated throughout the season because it has been good enough? Or is there a reason that these guys aren't getting into the backfield and causing as much havoc as you think they would? I mean, we know Zedaria Smith has had himself a season here, but he's also been banged up. It looks like they're limiting his snaps and trying to really, you know, exploit him in those third and long situations. I don't know about Daniil Hunter.

I mean, you tell me, where has that been? Why isn't the pass rush a weapon as opposed to just sort of a stopgap right now? And if that is exactly who their identity is, I guess you can count on Patrick Peterson and Bynum and Harrison Smith to come up with big plays because they have all season. It doesn't sound like a very confident game plan or approach, though. Yeah, I think with Hunter, he's another guy that's come through a lot in bigger moments. You know, I think that overall, when you look at his numbers, he's had a pretty good season. I think at the beginning of the year, maybe he wasn't really fitting into the system. And when teams are playing in desperation mode and he can get one on one, we saw this yesterday.

He created pressure on the final play that he can still be the monster that he's been before. But I think that like the, the whole blitz conversation is like, is that really it? Or is it just guys who are not making plays when they need to make plays on receivers because you don't have the personnel. And I really swing back and forth on that because like you got Duke Shelley running around out there and I know he made a nice play in

the end zone, but he's given up, you know, all sorts of passes into his coverage. And the same thing with Chand and Sullivan week after week after week, that attempt at a tackle yesterday where they just, you know, Garrett Wilson just ran through him. And I don't know what the solution really is. And so, and this is a solutions podcast, Brian, and we've always tried to look for the answers and so forth, but it's like, what can I do when the other team's defensive line just smacks your quarterback a bunch of times? Like they they're built around an offense that relies heavily on offensive line play. We've seen that with the Rams in years past, they're built on a defense that relies on cornerbacks playing really well. Chicago,

Denver, those Fangio defenses always have good cornerback play. And this team, aside from Patrick Peterson, does not have good cornerback play. And they're not getting healthier with Caleb Evans going out, Cam Dantzler, I'm not sure when he's coming back. But, you know, I think over these final five games, you could tell me we'll end on this, like what the biggest thing you want to see is aside from, yes, blow somebody out. But, like, what do you want to see from the coaching staff when it comes to this? Because I think they do have the talent to blow somebody out, and they were right on the cusp of doing that at 20-6 yesterday

with the ball in your hands. You were up 20 to six. It's, it's beyond that. I don't, cause I don't think it's like an attitude. You know, but I'm not really sure what the answer is for how to get that going. And if there, if there is an answer or not, and just, you have to play playoff games like this and you can, you can, I, it has happened where teams have played nothing but close playoff games and come out on top. And, you know, the Rams are certainly that team you go through. They, they beat the Cardinals last year in the first round pretty decidedly. And then after that, I mean, it was all final drives and close moments and

everything else and they made it work. So I always kind of pushed back a little against the Rams comparisons, but it's seeming more and more Ramsey as we go along here. Well, I'd be curious to see how this matchup against Detroit is described and talked about this week because, you know, when you were telling me a little bit, you know, I've been saying this game, this Detroit stretch to the end of the season sort of is all doormats. And maybe I should, you know, walk that back a little bit,

at least in Detroit's case, just because they are playing really well. They won three or four in a row. They are responding to Dan Campbell. They have been in a lot of close games this year. Maybe they are, you know, five and seven going on seven and five. But here's the reason I think it's key for the Vikings is that you look, you took care of your share yesterday of clinching a division title. You needed help from Jacksonville and didn't get it. Well, now you're going into Detroit, and Detroit feels pretty good about themselves, and they're talking

about how they have turned a corner, and yes, they are in the playoff conversation. Okay, that's all fine and dandy, but you need to go in there and basically crush their souls. That's what you have to do. It's an inferior opponent that is playing well. They're at home. But you know right now you can clinch the division. And you can clinch the division, put it in your back pocket, and concentrate the last four weeks of the season on that number one seed. You don't want to delay the inevitable.

Look, they're going to win the division. They're going to clinch a playoff spot. They're going to clinch a home playoff game, but it's not good enough for that. And, you know, you would, you'd like to get this out of the way as quickly as possible and, you know, put aside a little bit more of the question marks with the Jets that were exposed, do what you need to do. And I'd like to hear them talking about this, having a little bit of urgency, a little bit like a playoff game already. I mean, look, every fourth quarter they played has pretty much been a playoff atmosphere. That's fine. But treat this one like a playoff game too. Treat it like an elimination game. You've got an amazing cushion that very few teams do in December,

you know, multiple game lead in the division with an opportunity to wrap it up, well, then do that. You know, don't breathe any life into Detroit and drag this division clinching any farther down the road than it needs to be and turn your sights on, look, we lost to Philly, we lost to Dallas badly, but they are the goal right now. We are competing with them for home field, if not throughout, certainly within a second or third round game. So I just feel like the priorities need to be let's eliminate Detroit. Let's get our division flag. Let's set our sights upon the number one seed.

And I'd be curious to see how they respond this week and not just be just it's another challenge, it's another game. I'd like to feel some sort of urgency that this is in front of us right now. Let's take care of it. Let's put away an inferior opponent on the road and and snuff their hopes and you know treat it like an elimination game well uh our buddy ben gesling had a stat about you know times that the vikings have had a record like this this late in the season and uh i don't want to be jinxy jinxerson but every time it resulted in nfc championship but so that's where the bar is.

And that's how we're going to talk about it on the show going forward is the bar is to get back to the NFC championship game and give yourself a chance to go to the Superbowl. That's the bet that you made. That's the bar that you set. So now there's a, an opportunity to do it. Brian, great stuff. As always, we will get together after Detroit. And just real quick on the point differential note, the Vikings have plus 10, Detroit has minus nine. So like closer, closer by the point differential

than you think, just not so much the record, maybe because of Dan Campbell's late game management. So we will talk to you next Monday, Murph. Thanks for your time. Yeah, well, it should be some interesting perspective too, because I'm actually going home with my family here to my immediate family in Detroit to celebrate Christmas for the weekend. And there will be some trash talking, I'm sure, in the Murphy domestic household in Lincoln Park, Michigan on Sunday as they tee this one off. So I'm kind of looking forward to just getting what my family's reaction is

to what the Lions are doing and also experience a Lions-Vikings sort of big-time game on enemy turf. So I should have some interesting perspective on that. Vikings-Lions big-time game. It's been a while since we've said those words. Thanks for your time, Brian. All right, Sounds good. Tis the season for you to buy the best Minnesota sports themed apparel in the world for all of

your friends and family. Go to sodastick.com. They have great holiday shopping deals there and use the promo code insider. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com code INSIDER for all of your holiday shopping. Okay, let's get into some fans-only questions here for the rest of the show. We'll start off with David via email. He says, how can the Vikings use the two remaining years of Justin Jefferson's rookie contract to lower the cap hit in future years? Are there possibilities to raise the $4 million cap hit in 2023 to save money in future years?

As a Vikings fan from Germany, I didn't grow up learning a lot about the salary cap, but I like math, and the cap is one of the reasons why football became my favorite sport, even though the games are always kicked off in the middle of the night. Yeah, my understanding is that the NFL is getting pretty big in Germany. So that's very cool. And I appreciate you listening from here or from there.

And the salary cap is never-endingly fascinating. I totally agree. How teams balance it, what types of deals that they give players, how they manage all the problems that the salary cap creates. And that's why the salary cap isn't real. People are so frustrating because not only is it real, but it's also super interesting and plays into how we look at teams off seasons and timelines and all those things.

So I am right there with you with your fascination. But as far as Jefferson goes, yes, I believe you can do that. So I'm looking at Debo Samuel's contract right now and the way it's structured is that in his fourth year, and remember he signed an extension this last off season, and he's going to be somewhat comparable to Jefferson. Jefferson will naturally get more money as the league's best receiver, but Debo Samuel was an all-pro last year and deserving superstar for the 49ers so we can kind of ballpark it here the fourth year of his deal has a 6.8 million dollar cap hit this year so they must have moved money into that because

as a second round draft pick that wouldn't be 6.8 million for the fourth year of his deal and then the fifth year of him 2023 is 8.6 so the first two years essentially after they signed the extension are fairly low in fact they're really low for someone with the talent of debo samuel and then it isn't until 2024 and 2025 where you have these gigantic contract numbers where it's $28 million cap hit, $24 million cap hit. And normally what's worked in is some opportunity to change some money over and lower the cap hit there. teams, even though it is real, there are a lot of tools in their hands that they can work with to try to limit how much of an impact these big extensions end up having on their salary caps. And that's definitely one of the ways it seems like you mentioned is finding a way to have the first two years be reasonable before it goes way up and then give yourself options when it goes way up. Maybe you're talking about, you know, restructure or something like that at that point. So I think

that's how it will work with Justin Jefferson is that he'll sign it this off season and then year four for him will be more expensive than it would have been, but nowhere near as expensive as it will be at its absolute peak. And most of these deals give you kind of the first two years after you sign it. So it will technically be the fourth year of his rookie contract, but it will be the first since he signed the extension, if that makes sense, if I'm reading everything correctly. And I know that there are some people who are really, really smart about the salary cap that listen to the show. So correct me if I have this wrong, but I think that's how it ultimately is going to work out. So people have asked, like, how can you fit Jefferson and Kirk Cousins if they both want extensions?

Well, that's kind of the way is to make it fairly reasonable for Justin Jefferson in his first two years, which would be 2024, wait, 2023 and 2024, right? So those would be the first two years of an extension. If you keep those at say $10 million or less, and then it goes way, way up in 2025 and 2026, that gives you an opportunity to maybe shuffle some money around at that point. And you can work it around a quarterback contract. The thing that happened to the Vikings before, when they did a lot of that stuff with Eric Hendricks, Anthony Barr, Stefan Diggs,

all these guys that they signed to contracts from the 2015 draft class. That was so spectacular is that you can only play that game so much, like that game of cap Jenga so much before some guys are going to hit their peak of their salary cap hits. And there's not much you could do about it. Or when you're moving that money down the road, well, oh, there's that money that you move down the road and it comes up eventually. But with a contract of his size, it's really the only way in the NFL to do it. So thank you for listening from Germany. Appreciate that very much.

And that'll be something that goes at the very top of the list of things to watch for next off season as Justin Jefferson is clearly proven that he is worthy of having the biggest contract in the NFL. No question about it. This one comes from Chris via email. I am curious what your thoughts are regarding the buy-in from the Wilfs that this year's initial success might create for both Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomensa. It seems like the Wilfs have been relatively patient owners, which is why Kweisi's short-term contract and perhaps KOC, though that info didn't leak, I would assume they're the same.

Yeah. Somewhat surprised me. I'm wondering if this season will give both the coach and the GM a good deal of rope going forward if the quality of the team drops off for a couple years. Thanks in advance for your answer and for all the quality content over the years. Well, thank you so much, Chris. Really appreciate that. Very nice of you. Yeah. I think that this off season when they signed Kweisi Adafo Mensah to a short-term deal, the biggest thing there was,

this is someone who's never been a general manager before and who is unique in his background. And I think that that sort of gave them an opportunity to not lock themselves in as long and if you're them it's prudent business to take the best deal that you can get but also get your guy so i think from the wilf's perspective being able to kind of leverage the fact that he was not only new but also not the same as a lot of other traditional candidates for a general manager, maybe gave them the opportunity to lock themselves in for a little less time. But as far as what you're saying, yes, I do think that first impressions matter a lot. And I also think that when you look at, you know, a situation like Kweisi Adafo Mensah

that you're coming into, and you analyze everything that you have, all the future assets, the recent draft classes, the age of the team, the age of its star players, and so forth, that there has to be, at some point, a refreshing of this roster, and that's why we always go back to that competitive rebuild. Well, they've been extremely competitive, and they didn't really do a lot to rebuild except for trade down in the draft a couple of times. But more than anything, it sort of waved a flag in our direction.

Hey guys, we realize that at some point there are things that are going to have to be reset on this roster. Now, what changes that math is that you win 13 or 14 or 15 games i guess it's all on the table at this point if that's what you end up doing then it's pretty hard to go into next year and say you know what guys were hitting the refresh button on this on this whole thing like they're going to try to extend daniel hunter uh change zedarius smith's contract although with all the production he's had, some things are going to kick in and he's going to have a higher cap hit, at least the way

it's structured. But that deal might need to be redone in some ways, and he's going to look for more cash for sure. Patrick Peterson is not coming back on the same deal after being an elite corner by all the metrics. Patrick Peterson may not be PFF's biggest fan, but he will be this off season when he looks at those grades. And when he looks at those numbers, he's going to say, I am still one of the better players at my position in the league. And we need to do something about this contract. Um, Adam Thielen has a high cap hit. Harrison Smith has a high cap hit. It will not be easy to do a lot of the same things that they did this last off season, but it's always possible and they can always figure out some ways, but I

think there will be sacrifices eventually, but you're not moving on from Kirk Cousins, very more likely than not, not moving on from him. I suppose it is in the cards to make a future play at quarterback during the draft or something, but certainly he will be a part of this. His cap hit will be a part of this next year after the way that they've played this season and given themselves a chance to be a legitimate Superbowl contender. I have a very tough time seeing them say,

all right, now is the time to blow it all up. However, if you look at it historically, and I think this is your point, historically, after a team has a season like this, and I'll give you a good example, after they have a season like this, it's very hard to continue doing it, which it doesn't take anything away from what they've been able to do this year,

but it's the reality of the thing that doing it two years in a row, and you guys have seen this how many times, right? I mean, as Vikings fans, you guys have seen this how many times of 2009 to 2010, 2017 to 2018, like this is how it tends to go. Not a guarantee, but that is how it tends to go. The Raiders in 2016 that went 12 and four, and then the next year went 6-10, kind of popped into my mind. As a team with a Kirk-like quarterback that had everything come together, and Derek Carr got hurt at the end of that season, and they didn't go deep in the playoffs, but that was like their big shot. And then the next year they had regression.

If that happens, I think that you are right, that ownership will look at these guys and say, we've seen what they can do. We've seen that they can build a winner. We've seen that they can coach a winner. Let's give them time. And I'm certain that Kweisi Adafomensa showed the Wilfs on paper, look, here's what we're going to have to do with some of these things in the roster going forward. I'm not saying Lewis seen as a bust, but if that doesn't work out,

someone will eventually have to take the spot of Harrison Smith and be a star on defense. They clearly still have a lot of work to do on the defensive side. I don't think it's all Ed Donatell's scheme. I think that there's positions to be filled there and there's older players there. Like, you know, Jordan Hicks has played a lot of snaps for them. Probably is not a part of the future. Hard to say how much longer Eric Kendricks is around that. Yes. What you're saying is eventually they will need one of those years where they drop back or they miss the playoffs or whatever, whether that's next year, two years down the road, Kirk Cousins will not play forever, all those sorts of things. And this first impression gives them an opportunity to handle those things patiently.

I don't know that they'll be doing it after this year because they'll look at it, whether they win the Super Bowl or go out in the first round, they'll still look at it like we got to run it all back. I'm certain of that. When you win 13, 14 games, you're not saying, okay, time to hit the refresh button. No way. But if it doesn't work, like, let's say that it does go full Rams. Let's say the same thing happens. They won't fire everybody after that, if they have a downturn after this great season. So I think that you're thinking

exactly the right way. And I would agree with that. What we have seen from both of them is competence. And how many times on the show have I come on over the years? Hasn't been so much this year, but over the years for longtime listeners and said, are you seeing what Joe Judge is doing? Are you seeing what Matt Rule is doing? Like these guys have no idea what they're doing. Dave Gettleman, these general managers that are completely lost. Well, that's not what you have. And even though this off season, there was a debate over whether they should have moved on from some players. And I still think that they would be in a similar position if they had maybe not made

some of the decisions they made, that they would still be winning the North and have a chance to go deep into the playoffs had they done that. But what we saw was a signing like Zedarius Smith is very, very smart. Just from day one of them doing it, it's very smart. With Patrick Peterson, there was maybe a little bit of, are you sure you're going to take that shot again? But that has worked out in spades. And part of that was bringing him in with the younger players and so forth. So a lot of the moves, the draft class is still very questionable. Some of the draft day moves are questionable, especially if Jamison Williams ends up being good.

But aside from that, I think we saw competence. We also have seen exactly what they promised was a different culture in that building from where it was, which was about as toxic and gross as you can get at the end of the previous era. So a lot of promises have come to fruition for them to start. And that probably means that this Kwesi and Kevin O'Connell combination is going to be here for a while and get opportunities even if they do have a down year at some point. Good question. Next question comes from Elias by email. Why are the Vikings not trying to get a better cornerback, especially with all the injuries at the moment?

Or do you think that they are not doing that because they're still winning games? Or do they already have a game plan for the playoffs but don't want to show it yet um that everyone gets surprised in the playoffs by the vikings well i think that there's very few opportunities to pick up anybody at this point right um unless richard sherman's been working out and wants to come back and try to win a super bowl probably not um i mean i think there was some discussion of like, would he continue to play? But he's like broadcasting now. So I'm going to guess that the answer is no.

There are none. There aren't 64 good outside cornerbacks in the league to start with. And there certainly aren't dudes that are sitting around on their couches waiting to get a phone call from the Minnesota Vikings to come start an outside cornerback. It's just how the league is with a lack of depth at a lot of positions all across the NFL. Normally, really good teams have one player behind their starters that is pretty decent. And if we go through teams of the past, if you go back to the most recent excellent team, the Vikings had 2017, if Everson Griffin got hurt, Brian Robison was behind him. That's a great player to have as a backup. If Harrison Smith got hurt or Andrew Sudejo, you had Anthony Harris, again, very, very good player to have as a backup.

Eric Wilson was a good depth player for the Vikings in the past. We've seen some of that, even along the defensive line in run stuffing. Someone like Jonathan Bullard or Kyrus Tonga have stepped in, done a good job. Not so much pass rushers, but in the run stuffing area. Or Josh Metellus was that guy earlier this year. But at the cornerback position, they were asking Andrew Booth Jr. who had very little training camp because he got injured and very little practice because he was injured to come in and start. And then he gets hurt again. Caleb Evans has been

hurt multiple times. And that's where you get down to you're signing someone else's practice squad guy. Now where they are lucky is that it appears there's a good chance from what Kevin O'Connell said today that Cam Dantzler could be coming back next week against Detroit. They really need him. Dantzler was making progress. Every week was not perfect, and they were still getting lit up at times from other teams passing games. But it was nothing like this.

It was nothing like backup quarterbacks or Mac Jones or some of the poorest passing games in the league, all of a sudden showing up and going for 300 plus yards against you. Um, Dantzler was at least holding down the fort and had a couple of very good games along the way early in the season. That's been a really big injury for them. We knew that from the outset that there wasn't going to be much depth at the cornerback position and that they were really tiptoeing a dangerous line with that and not bringing in another veteran backup was surprising to me. I thought that they might do that. Instead, it ends up being Duke Shelley, who either makes a great play on the ball or gives up a huge gain. And those are the only two Duke-Shelley options.

But if they get Dantzler back, they're a little bit of a different unit there. As far as the scheme goes, that's just going to continue to be a question. Is it the players? Is it the scheme? I think a Caleb Evans got concussed early in the game and must have passed whatever protocol on the sideline and kept playing and maybe was a little bit off. He was their lowest or second lowest graded player for that game. Chandon Sullivan is a liability. There's not much you can do there. He's a veteran player that has played better in the past. So that does make

me wonder about scheme when someone has decent numbers in the past and then they come to a different place and it's not like it was. It does, it does raise an eyebrow for sure. Um, but you know, if you're asking a lot of these guys to take on a receiver like Garrett Wilson on a week to week basis, like they've been lit up by the good receivers in the league. And I don't see that changing. What they really have to do is just pressure the quarterback and survive. They need Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter every game to get after those quarterbacks in the biggest moments, and they need to turn the ball over and they need to survive. And that's the defense. We're used to the winning teams of the Vikings, the 2017, the 2009,

even the 1998 of just having these like complete teams and really good defenses. This, this is not that. So yeah, I don't know if there's anything that they can really do schematically. I tend to think that the answer should be yes, but a lot of times your defense is only as good as its biggest weaknesses. And over these last few weeks with backup corners in, they've been having multiple weaknesses that teams have taken advantage of. Great question. Really appreciate you listening. This one comes from Alex.

Wanted to ask a question about the Vikings offense, specifically the screen game and the bootlegs. Is there an element that typically is part of the McVay or that isn't typically part of the McVay system and what we know of in O'Connell's offenses um it's one thing to have a few plays blown up here and there but I literally cannot remember a screen pass or a bootleg that was not a horrendous disaster this year well there's been some bootlegs uh there was a throw last week against the Patriots that worked out where he hit jefferson on a rollout but you're right it's not like every single week for sure uh could kevin o'connell look to bring in an assistant or meet with a former coach to learn a bit about how to more effectively

set those plays up from the stefanski or kubiak eras i am used to that being extremely effective phase of the offense that also helps negate the weak spots in the offensive line and pass protection well you're certainly right about that um can you do that in the middle of the offense that also helps negate the weak spots in the offensive line and pass protection. Well, you're certainly right about that. Can you do that in the middle of the season? That's hard because you spend so much time game planning for the other team, watching all the tape, installing it, installing the plays, running practice. Practices are short. In the NFL, you only get a couple hours with those guys. Very, very difficult to, you know, go and learn something from somebody else and then bring it back and install it. The hay is kind of in the barn when it comes to the offense.

It looks to me like it's really just executing. And also maybe they should throw the, I don't know what you call it, like a slip screen or the screen where it's sort of in the middle of the field to the tight end. Like just throw that one in the garbage. They just don't ever, ever use that again. It does not seem like there is a lot of the traditional Kubiak style screens that are going on. Um, but it looks to me like it's the offensive line execution that just is not like it was in the past and if it isn't a huge emphasis that's probably what's going to happen i think that with todd girley they threw screens but maybe it was more swing passes to todd girley

i would have to go back and look whether it was screens or swings that they threw a lot of the play action game has always been really big for McVay, but maybe not as much those boots that you're talking about, because one of the things is with the outside zone that they love so much with the Kubiak system is it gets the entire defense moving. And the Vikings did use some of these effectively against the Patriots, but the jets started just sending rushers from the opposite side to meet Kirk Cousins on the bootleg. And there was nothing he could really do except for just check it down or throw it away. But the Patriots, they were very aggressive following the offensive line on those

runs and Cousins had some time. So it might depend on week to week, but they also don't run the same rushing system as Kubiak. And I think that marrying those bootlegs that roll out cousins with those, uh, handoffs maybe doesn't look the same or isn't quite as deceptive as it is with Gary Kubiak. I mean, you are talking with Kubiak about one of the greatest coaches of all time who ran this same sort of basic system forever and always had to work and knew exactly how to coach it uh this this is kevin o'connell in this offense finding himself and finding what works and each week it's sort of up and down where some weeks i've been very impressed and and everything has seemed to click and maybe there's just one section

of the game that doesn't work out but new eng England is a good example of that. And then this week against the Jets, it's like two drives and then a lot of ugliness the rest of the way. But the screen, I do feel like there's really no excuse to not be able to find every once in a while, with Delvin Cook as your running back, a 15-yard screen that just makes everything easy for everybody. Like, Kirk Cousins doesn't have to do anything. He just has to dink the ball to Delvin Cook, but yet those are getting blown up.

I lean toward screen success being about the offensive line. Think about how good they were as a run-blocking unit in 2019, and also that went along with being great in the screen game. Maybe the execution there this offensive line might be a little more talented than 2019 but the execution for their running and screens was so excellent that has to be where it is because i mean cook isn't doing anything differently and cousins isn't doing anything differently it can only really be design or offensive line getting out and making those blocks um that's something maybe that's worth looking a little closer at but i i don't know

how much that's going to change right now if they can figure out a way it would be a huge help to their offense because they are literally the worst screened team in the league they threw three of them yesterday and they gained like one yard so it's not great okay this one comes from at bob vikings on twitter kirk's numbers are down for the year he's historically been a guy that pads his stats when games are out of hand the vikings don't look good analytically can you or does anyone measure the analytics and clutch situations or timing or is that statistically flawed how does kirk and the vikings? Yeah, it's really interesting. I looked at this last week for an article about the expected points added in the fourth quarter,

and it's wild how good the Vikings have been. They have been a monster team in the fourth quarter, both on offense and defense, and in the rest of the quarters, they have been basically like the 23rd best team in the league. I've never really seen anything like it, to tell you the truth. And with Cousins, his numbers in those type of situations, you could go by something like expected points added in the fourth quarter. They've always been good. And even if you adjust for the score, they've always been pretty good.

And I think that's in part because well one he's got receivers who can get open against man coverage he's always had that through his entire career and that's a big deal in clutch situations is having stefan diggs justin jefferson adam thielen deshaun jackson pierre garcon like he's had some really great players uh who could get open at all times and he is extremely accurate and can deliver the ball when guys are open so he kind of plays to his strength there i also think when other teams play off and give cousins a read he's going to make it and he's going to deliver the throw on time in those spots so there was i think a lot of conversation about like is he clutch can he

lead these game-winning drives earlier in his career with the Vikings? Because there were notable opportunities where he did not come through when he had those chances to get the ball and go win the game. But the accumulation of his play over his career would show that, yeah, he can lead a game winning drive. I think that's not some huge flaw of his or anything like that. As far as the clutchness of, and I should also circle back. I don't think that his numbers this year are stat padding. I really don't. I think that he's not played as well. And I think he's

not fit as well in this offense as he has in the past. And that when he's got those spots at the end it's more of him playing ball and just getting the ball to jefferson and getting the ball to his playmakers but he's even said this year himself to us that he doesn't think he's played as well this year as he has in the past and the numbers would bear that out even under the normal circumstances. When the Vikings are leading this year, his quarterback rating is only 88.3. When they're trailing, it's actually 79.9. He has not had good numbers even when they're behind. So that's always been an area where certainly they had some bigger numbers. What I think it is, is Cousins in the past, you talk about stat padding.

I think in the past they've played some really bad defenses and absolutely blown the doors off of them. Matt Patricia is not in the division anymore, friends. This year, week after week, we've kind of said, hey, this defense has some players and maybe the next horrendous defense they'll face is Chicago. But this year they have faced some very good defenses and that's played a role in it. I mean, the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys are not just like, okay. I mean, those are the best defenses in the NFL. And it's not surprising

that they would have some troubles moving the football consistently or protecting the quarterback when you have two of the most violent defenses. there hasn't been a team that they've faced. And I'm trying to think of the schedule. Like, New Orleans got some players. They're pretty good. You know, Detroit, I think, has a pretty bad defense overall, but they played well that day. Aside from that, though, normally they're going –

but Detroit also knows Kirk Cousins well. So, again, it's not Matt Patricia. There's no tanking team here that has some horrific, horrific defense. The Bears still had their good players before trading them away. Next time they face them, they could, you know, put up 30 points easily on the Bears because that defense is a joke. But it wasn't when the Vikings faced them. They had some decent players there.

That would be, in my mind, the biggest reason is I looked at this a few years ago, how cousins performed against elite passing defenses versus poor passing defenses. And it was exactly what you think. I mean, he was just hitting 500 foot bombs against the horrible defenses and struggling against the good ones, which is probably the case for most quarterbacks but it was a little extreme on his part i think that that's more likely the explanation rather than o'connell's system doesn't work or they don't know how to run a screen or whatever like good teams blow up screens good teams penetrate good teams game plan well robert sala knows how to game plan that guy is good at his job right that's probably been the reason and that's why we talk about matchups mattering and i think

it was um josh larky who said the other day that the new york giants are the matchup the vikes want because that defense is just not that good and that's a team where if they come to us bank stadium you can light up their defense and you can win that game. And that's why it's going to matter down the stretch for how they play. So I wouldn't be surprised if they do get an easy matchup defensively, if all of a sudden it looks like the 2020 or 2019 offense that's a little more explosive. But it's a great question. I think it's really an essential question for this year is why don't the numbers look the way we expect them to look. And, uh, that could be a part of it. So thanks everybody for listening as always. Great questions. Purpleinsider.com. You can send your fan only questions by email or shoot me a DM anytime at Matthew Collar on Twitter,

and we will catch you later.