Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can the Vikings do anything to fix this?

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk the morning after the Minnesota Vikings' shocking loss to the Dallas Cowboys and Cooper Rush and discuss whether ownership would OK a Cousins trade before the deadline or could you be convinced that there is room to turn the ship around? Is there a solution to the Vikings doing the same things over and over? If the Vikings don't win more in the coming weeks, what date does Murph have set where there could actually be something that happens? Last night also reminded Matthew of some Stefon Diggs takes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Alright, let's get to the show. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and it is once again time for some Monday morning Murph. And Murph, you know, in the offseason when we talked about you coming on board, writing columns, doing podcasts each week, reacting to these games, you know, I got to tell you the truth. I envisioned days like this.

I envisioned disappointing Vikings losses that only you would be able to master the English language and put together into words just how brutal the Vikings loss to Cooper Rush was. I never dreamed that they would lose to Cooper Rush or that he would play in this football game. But I think we knew there might be times like this, Brian, and I'm glad to have you here. So good morning. Well, good morning, and I hope people actually go read the thing instead of listening to us talking about it, because that is the point, right?

We're supplementing the written word today. Yeah, that was, you know, everybody dusted off their Halloween cliches because it was perfect, you know, ghastly loss and scary and, you know, masked contempt. And, you know, and I was guilty of it, too. But I what what struck me most was they the Vikings are frauds and they have been frauds. They've been frauds all season long and they've been frauds, frankly, for quite a while. I think since their victory in the wildcard game at the Superdome almost two years ago, they've been frauds. You know, they didn't want you to think that. they the whole you know all the talking points this season have been you know play a player two here they're much more talented than than our record would belie we're three and three going

on five and one no you're a fraud you're an absolute fraud and I think they they must have a sticker above the locker room as they head out onto the field, kind of like Notre Dame's, you know, play like a champion. And all 53 of these guys slap that sign, play not to lose. Because that is the slogan right now. They are playing not to lose. They are coaching scared. They are playing scared.

And they are paying the consequences right now because this is a team with no killer instinct, no sense of urgency, no sense of the moment, way too talented to be this underachieving. And there, you know, this is on the verge of completely unraveling. That it is Murph. So I was just trying to pull up last night, all the moments that the Vikings had where they could have just, here you go.

Nail in the coffin. If you want to stick with the jugular. Yeah. Step on the gas. I called you a ghoul last night when I texted you after the game, but there were many, I'm sure I can get it in the play by play, you know,

on the box score. But the one that really stands out to me is after they strip sacked Cooper rush and they got the ball back. It was like, okay, this is right this is the moment finally the crowd has started to get behind the vikings by the way probably the quietest game in that sort of stage and i think it was because there was a lot of dallas cowboy fans

there yeah every time you like it on the broadcast yep every time amari cooper caught the ball they were not booing. I've never seen the Vikings boo a random wide receiver. They were saying coop. So there were a lot of Dallas Cowboys fans there. And they actually started cheering on the final drive, trying to disrupt Kirk cousins. Cause I think a lot of Vikings fans had walked out in disgust.

So that was an interesting little development but um you know i thought okay now all right he's messed up enough times he's thrown an interception now he's fumbled now they're gonna do it and it doesn't happen and then you think all right three unnecessary roughing penalties on one drive they've given you 45 free yards since you decided and i'll i'll give the referees some credit for this look uh i won't go into a rant about this but this unnecessary roughness against quarterbacks it has become an epidemic that like the nfl does not seem to know how to solve but just touching someone to the ground leaning to sack them as they release the ball and then falling on them as

inertia works or whatever. That is not a 15 yard penalty in any universe. Okay. So anyway, but aside from that, so they give you a fumble, they give you three 15 yard penalties. This was not Murph,

a situation where Mike White's randomly got hot and played great against you. It was the other team gave you every opportunity in the world. I think that's what makes it truly one of the most horrendous losses that they have had maybe in the whole Mike Zimmer era is that it wasn't like you just got outplayed. It wasn't like they got a punt return for a touchdown or something. It was they tried to give it to you, and you refused to take it,

and they finally said okay we'll win yeah they had they won the turnover battle vikings had two turnovers um they well here's here's you know you mentioned the the gift penalties they got on that final drive that ended only with another greg joseph field goal But you got the ultimate gift at 6 o'clock at night when the Dallas Cowboys, despite, at least as I was reading on Twitter, it sounded like Zach Prescott was ready to climb Mount Everest with his pregame routine, and suddenly the brass gets together and says, no, why don't you sit down?

We're going to go with Cooper here. On the road, by the way, that's a team playing with confidence and house money. And the Vikings, maybe they just thought, well, you know what? We can just kind of mail this one in because we don't have to go up against Dak Prescott. And no, lo and behold, Cooper Rush, undrafted afterthought, comes in and throws for 325 yards and his money down the stretch when he had to be on a game-winning drive. And I was reading some quotes from Xavier Woods, who basically said, no, we weren't preparing for him at all. We were preparing for Prescott. Now, that's either egregious misreading of a potential injury situation

and unpreparedness on behalf of the Vikings, or the ultimate gamesmanship by the Cowboys to basically make it appear that Prescott was going to play all week long and moments before kickoff until he wasn't. Either way, inexcusable, undeniably underachieving. I just, this is a team, the Vikings, that just, they cannot seem to grasp when they have an opponent by the throat. And when opportunity knocks, they fail every time to deliver that knockout blow. And when you think about it, they've got victories against

Detroit, Cleveland, and Seattle. Three teams going various degrees of nowhere this season, and you've had – or Carolina, too. I'm sorry. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. I screwed it all up, didn't I? Cleveland beat them. They beat Carolina. Again, three wins against teams going nowhere. You can clean this up in post-production, can't you?

Sure can. Okay. Their inability to rise to the occasion. You know, this is the eighth year of Mike Zimmer. It's your fourth season with Kirk Cousins. I mean, if you're not rising to the occasion now, when are you going to? I mean, I, I don't see a way out of this because they're playing and coaching scared and you, you cannot succeed in this league in 2021 playing that way we wake up this morning Murph and the Vikings are 18th in scoring and 12th in points against I mean it's just the same old song and dance and so I wanted to ask you it well first I want to

ask you if you had other observations from the game that you wanted to talk about, because I've got a couple of sort of bigger questions or ways to frame the important questions with this team. It is remarkable, though, with Cooper Rush, how he didn't even play well, like at any point in this game until the very last drive. And even then he luck boxed into an unbelievable Amari Cooper catch that will go down and sort of the all time, like put that in the Nate pool bucket for the all time. Can't believe that happened. Drew Pearson pushing off. Yeah. I mean, that was an unbelievable play,

but also goes under the only in games like this do people make plays like that uh although I'll say C.D. Lamb and Amari Cooper the real deal and you know what's weird Murph they threw them the football I don't know if you're supposed to do that when you have two unstoppable wide receivers you throw them the football no matter who the quarterback is all the time it seems like a pretty universally good plan. Well, another thing, you know, if you need 12 yards to get a first down, it's not illegal to throw a 14-yard pass, is it? As Cooper Rush did a couple of times. Because I don't understand when it's second and 14 and third and nine, you're checking down to the fullback, which is, you know, this is,

it's a running joke because it is a running joke. Their inability, I mean, you know, they were one for 13 on third downs and did not convert a third down after their opening drive. I mean, that's enough to get somebody fired. Clock management. It befuddles coaches at all levels, particularly in the NFL. It's easy to sit on the couch and go, well, they should be doing this,

and how are they not doing that? Yesterday was an embarrassment and a continuation of the Vikings' inability to either take advantage of time left and timeouts in their pocket or an inability to put together. Well, I mean, look, Cousins has put together plenty of game-winning drives this season because he's been pushed to the brink. That stretch of luck finally ended last night. The way that game ended, the way the half ended, that's enough to get somebody fired. Mike Zimmer calling consecutive timeouts. Let's break that down for a minute. The Cowboys are facing, I believe it was third and 16 on that game-winning drive. Vikings call timeout, get their bearings together, then call timeout again, which is illegal, of course, and you turn that third and 16 into third and 11. That's when Zeke Elliott makes his great run, breaking nine tackles, and then sets up a first and goal.

That decision right there, you could say, cost them a game. And that is Mike Zimmer's decision. An eighth-year NFL head coach, an inability to manage the clock. Kirk Cousins, at the end of the half, running around like a chicken with his head cut off, receivers having nowhere to line up, clock running. Oh, by the way, you have a timeout. And then he says after the game, yeah, I kind of let Zim and the coaches handle that because I'm not really sure what they want to do. You know, for somebody who's earning $84 million and is supposedly a team leader, it might not be a bad idea to maybe take the initiative once in a while when you're managing the clock and not worry about what they're going to say to you in today's film review.

Clock management, I think, is, I mean, they manage the clock like grandpa on the porch, just swatting flies with no sense of urgency and no sense of time. And it's just nonsense. Yeah. And I think that what you're looking for with all these things is not a huge ask from, like you said, very experienced and highly paid people, people who have gotten contract extensions. And I don't just mean Kirk Cousins. I mean, Mike Zimmer, that this offseason or last offseason, they decided to give him a contract extension and keep doing this. They gave him a short contract extension so they wouldn't have to pay out just in case. But still, they had seen a sample size

of these things happening and decided to go forward with it. And you go back to that 2019 playoffs, Murph, that's the last time they're above 500 as a football team. I mean, it's just crazy to think about that win in New Orleans. We all have the to think about that, that win in new Orleans, we all have the sense that, you know, after that, that, you know,

this whole thing might just, you know, go sideways because they had so many pieces of the 2017 team to try to replace. And they're just not good enough at coaching and quarterbacking and offensive coordinating to say, Oh, well, we could just replace a whole roster. We could just sign a bunch of guys in free agency. We could just draft alignment. Oh, by the way, we could just move a right tackle to right guard. No, you can't like not, not with this quarterback, but not with a quarterback who needs everything to be perfect for him. Not with a

Zimmer who needs his defense to lead all of the victories because that's how he wants to manage a football game. And I have long thought that this pairing between Zimmer and Cousins is about as bad as you get for a franchise quarterback and a head coach. And then we see the shots across the bow at each other. And then you bring in an offensive coordinator who has as much experience calling plays as you and me. And, and then you say, okay,

it's a win now year with all the pressure on all of us. And this guy is going to, and Gary's son is going to be the offensive coordinator. But I do come back to though, that what happened last night, I have a really tough time saying when Adam Thielen is running across the middle of the field wide open and he checks down to CJ Hamm. I don't know there's any play you call that takes that out of Cousins. And there is no world where Clint Kubiak drew up two passes to Justin Jefferson the whole night. There's no world where that happened. So I just

have a tough time always saying it's office coordinator it's the office of coordinator well how many office of coordinators are you gonna blame right with this yeah i mean you i mean they've already zimmer already tossed norv turner and john d filippo and essentially the old man kubiak i don't know if he tossed him overboard i think maybe the old man just said i I don't want to, I'm done with this and handed over to Clint. Yeah, he's running out of scapegoats. You know, he's at times he's, you know, rolled his eyes at some of Rick Spielman's moves. He's definitely rolled his eyes at Kirk Cousins. I mean, again, I point to the poor clock management that's on a head coach and, you know, calling consecutive timeouts, which by the way, didn't they just do that in Carolina? Oh, by the way,

I mean, how did that self-scouting go? Don't call timeouts consecutively or don't call ones you don't have. Isn't that what they did? That was Sheldon Richardson, I believe a few weeks ago, right? Calling a timeout they didn't have. Correct. You know, this is what you work on in OTAs in May is, you know, the two-minute drill. And how these – if your team and your coaches are unprepared for the moment and cannot execute during the moment, then you should not be in these positions. I mean, these are egregious mistakes that leave terrible tastes in people's mouths because you look at a team that has the talent that it does.

I don't know when Cousins took over at the end of the second quarter. Was there like 35, 40 seconds left? One time out. He ends up running around and not getting it done and then taking a knee? I mean, even with one second left, just throw the damn thing down the field. You know, at least show that we care. Take a knee and slink off to the locker room under a rain of booze? I mean, it just, again, it's the playing not to lose, playing scared, playing without confidence.

You can't survive in the alpha male world of the NFL playing like that. And the Vikings for too long this season in particular. But again, we go back to January of 2020, back to that game against New Orleans. They have been, I think, 10 and 15 or 10 and 14 since then. They are a bad team. I don't know about you guys, but I've gotten very good in my life at admitting when I need some help. If you are struggling to figure out how to navigate workers' compensation

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but they've played eight games against winning teams on prime time since Kirk cousins got here, their own eight. And like you just said, you know, you start adding up the records and going back to when was the last time that we thought this football team was any good and even if you go all the way back to 2019 and think about week 16 of 2019 where ownership is in the building they're playing against the Green Bay Packers we did the thing that we just did last week about all

the hype and all the buildup and, oh gosh, this is the big game. They've got a chance to still win the NFC North. If they take down the Packers at home, how exciting is this? And then everybody shows up to the stadium and they get run out of the building by a team of the good defensive line. And then after that, we were talking about the possibility of a coaching change. We have been talking about the possibility of a coaching change here since two years ago. And it's almost remarkable to me that every time we get to that point, like we did as they were going into the Detroit game of, hey, I mean, if they lose to Detroit, that team is truly awful and they could make a change.

Oh, they get a last second win. Okay, we'll just survive another week. Oh man, if they blow this game against Carolina, they're two and four, we might see a change. They get a last second win and okay, we'll survive another week. And then because they played well in the second half against Carolina, even you got excited about the offense of the second half in Carolina. Yeah. And once again, every time you start to

climb that roller coaster of, all right, we've got to the top and you know, they're going to stay there offensively. Uh, you go right back down the other side. And so now you wake up and look at the standings and here are the teams that the Minnesota Vikings have the same amount of wins. There's a lot of three win teams in the NFC. Tell me if you're impressed. San Francisco has had their quarterback hurt at times. The Falcons, who are the Falcons. The Eagles, who I thought were tanking. Seattle, who doesn't have their quarterback.

Chicago, who's playing a rookie quarterback. And their special teams coach is a better head coach than Matt Nagy. Not exactly the company that you wanted at this point. And after last night, it's just very hard to believe in a turnaround. So let me ask you this, Murph. If Mark and Ziggy came up to you, Murph, and said, we got a call from the Texans about Kirk. They want to give us picks. They want to give us a bunch of stuff. You think we should do it or you think we should play out the rest of the year with cousins? Well, the first thing I would say is what, what kind of retainer are you going to pay me? Because if you're, if you're soliciting my unwanted advice, I'm going to get paid for it.

So we do here. Well, first of all, the Texans are not just going to be unloading picks. They're going to be unloading a potential criminal under the roster as well. So I would not want to engage with the Texans right now. OK, I picked a random team. OK, well, give me the give me the bevy of picks. And because what tomorrow's the deadline, right? Yeah. I don't think at three and four they're going to throw in the towel because they are middling enough to still be in contention. Here's where I think it's really going to pivot. We've been talking for weeks about this murderous four-game stretch,

which just started last night. You know, Dallas was immediately vulnerable because Prescott wasn't going to play. That's a lost opportunity. Baltimore was humbled a bit at home last week by Cincinnati. So you wonder, you know, and I think they're going to be coming back a little enraged about that, but, you know, maybe there's some vulnerability in Baltimore. Chargers have suddenly lost two games in a row and they looked awful against New England yesterday. So that game doesn't look as formidable as it did a couple of weeks ago. So, okay, let's say they split these

two. Now the reckoning comes November 21st at home against guess who? The boogeyman Aaron Rodgers and your border rival, the Green Bay Packers. I have a strange feeling that this may come to a head after that game. I have a feeling they're going to get smoked at home again. They're going to get owned by Rodgers and owned by their division rivals. Because look, Green Bay's surging. They've won seven straight since looking awful on opening night. I don't think there's anybody that's going to get in their way in this division now. I mean, you're looking at 13, 14 wins probably with them. If the Vikings don't show up or get schooled badly at home, that may be when the change comes.

I think they're going to hang on here for a couple of more weeks because they're mathematically in it. And as we said several times, you're going to hand the reins to Andre Patterson. It's a lost season. You still got some gates you want to get at home. You don't want U.S. Bank Stadium overrun like it was last night by more visiting fans and more bitter Vikings fans staying at home. I think they're going to ring every bit of cliche, and we're still in this out of a 3-4 mark. Let's say they split the next two. You're at what four and

four and five the reckoning comes against green bay well the reason i was bringing up cousins and the trade is because of the trade deadline and it's sort of like if you had to decide now that this is your fate is sections of football that go three and three or four and three or whatever for the rest of the way. And an eight and nine season now seems almost just like, uh, their fates, right? Because they'll win some of these games. One of the next two, they'll probably win. I could even see them beating green Bay, um, here at home because it's home and, you know, Zimmer knows Aaron Rogers well and everything else. I mean, look, they've done it before.

They've done it before where they're not as good as the Packers, and they still get one out of two. I mean, that usually ends up happening in those division games. But my point just being that if you had to call it now with the quarterback and say, look, you can go through all the stats and you can say, yeah, he's a good quarterback and so forth. But the ultimate results over 100 plus games are this. I mean, I talked to a guy who's a former NFL scout not that long ago whose team looked closely at Kirk Cousins. And you know what he said?

He said games like what happened last night. That's why our team didn't pursue him because there's just too many times where you get completely let down uh and in in bigger moments or in pivot points in your season or when the other team has a good pass rusher and that seems to be the kryptonite for kirk cousins if the other team starts to get sort of in his area, then he's just going to check it to CJ Hamm. And that's why their team decided not to pay him. And his, this person's team went on to draft a quarterback and is a good team now. So anyway, the point just being that if you were willing to look at this quarterback and say, you know what, there's really nothing else

we need to see here. This is a huge sample. It's the same stuff over and over. It's, oh, look, they play the Lions and put up a bunch of stats. And oh, look, they had to actually come through in a big game and they didn't. Over three, four years, good opponents you can't match up with. Would you call it now? Or would you want to see the rest of this thing is the question. From a pure football standpoint, I think it might. Yeah, I think you know who Cousins is. And if you can get some value for him, maybe that's something that should be considered. But there's more than just football stakes here. You've got 10 weeks left in the season.

You are essentially going to wave the white flag in front of the world if you were to do that. And you basically put Zimmer in a box as a dead coach walking. Yeah. And I think what you have is a 10-week slog to the end of the season that nobody, because draft picks can't play. Draft picks give you potential in April. I don't know what kind of product you're selling over the next 10 weeks. And I don't think as an organization, the Vikings can really afford to do that. Now you can say that, how can they afford not to do that? I get what you're saying, but it's more than just football considerations. It's optics. You're going to lose the locker room. You're going to lose the locker room. You're going to lose the fan base.

You're going to lose your coach. And I think you're going to look like the Lions from now until January if that happens. And that could be uglier. I don't know if that's a price that's worth paying from the pure analytical standpoint of it might be the right football move to make at this moment. Yeah. I just, you're right about that. And you do have to sell the gates the rest of the way. But, you know, I guess the question is the question inside of the question that I'm asking you is really, is there some way to fix this?

And that's where it feels like. No, it's baked in. Yeah. That's, I mean, is there a way to fix what happens to cousins? Is there a way to fix what happens to Zimmer in these games? Is there a way to fix the inexperience of Clint Kubiak? Probably not. Is there, but that's the thing is that when we go through and I've done this a thousand times now, you look at, you go back. I remember this was John D Filippo. This feels very 2018 ish where every time they seem to get something, it was like gone in an instant, um, where you would look at the tape and you'd be like, Oh, that week where they played pretty well, there was some good ideas here. And then the next week when the offense would do nothing, you go like, where did it all go?

Were the ideas still there and they weren't executed? Or does DeFilippo not know what he's doing? Or what is it? DeFilippo was the one guy who tried to lean into Cousins. Now they act like he's Cooper Rush. In fact, Mike McCarthy trusted Cooper rush more than Mike Zimmer trusted Kirk cousins. But is that because Mike Zimmer sees cousins playing like that and goes, Oh gosh, it's happening again. I can't trust him. I can't

put the pedal down. It's like neither person can trust each other. It's it would be like this in a relationship. She thinks you're cheating on her and you think she's cheating on you. And you keep sneaking peeks at each other's phones all the time and staring across the room at each other. Like, you know, I don't, I don't believe where, where were you? And then she said, well, where were you? And that's, that's Mike Zimmer and Kirk cousins. They've, there's never been any synergy, but there's like super duper not synergy at this point. And I guess that's my question is, do you just trade the quarterback? Do you just fire the coach?

Do you fire the OC? Or do you just let it burn? No, you have kids because that'll always fix the relationship. Yeah. That's a contract extension for both though right you're right the children have not helped it only makes it worse um yes i i i am i'm concurring with that we we know everything we need to know about kirk cousins as an nfl quarterback and as a vikings quarterback we know everything we need to know about Mike Zimmer

as a defensive coordinator and an NFL coach. It's all right there. There is really no, but there's, there isn't, to me, are they unable to improvise and adjust or are they unwilling? And I'm asking this of both of them. I don't know. Either way, the results are the same, but is it stubbornness or fear? You know, is it an inability to, as you say, mutually trust each other? Is it an unwillingness to do that? And, you know, you can almost probably sense, because we've used the score as a cliche but you know when Joseph kicks that 24-yard field goal with 250 left you almost can probably think of Zimmer like this is perfect this is the exact kind of game I want to coach 16 to 13 the game is

now in the hands of my defense against an unproven quarterback at home. This is how the Minnesota Vikings are going to win. This is how we're going to be successful because it's 1984 every day in my head. But it's not that way. And that hubris was stripped to the studs last night. And on top of that, you could almost pinpoint the fact that, yes, the Cowboys caught a break on the sideline pass that was bobbled. But, you know, hey, but Sean Breland, you know, for as arrogant as he is, you know, it's not illegal to wrap your hands around the ball, too,

and make a play. But, yes, it bounces up to Cooper. They extend the drive. Mike Zimmer called consecutive timeouts, or at least he called the second timeout, turning a third and 16 into a third and 11. Ezekiel Elliott gets what? 12 yards on that huge run, breaking tackles, setting up first and goal. You know the Cowboys were playing for a game-tying field goal.

They did not say, Cooper Rush, go win us this game. It was, don't turn it over, get the ball in the center in the field, bleed as much clock as possible, let's roll the dice in overtime. But no, a critical mistake by a head coach in his eighth year shrank the margin of error even further for the Vikings. And here we are talking about a 20 to 16 loss. Well, it also shows you that you're right. You just cannot win with defense because somebody on the offensive side is going to break a tackle or make a play eventually.

On that kind of a talented team, absolutely. Right. If you keep the other team in the game, even with Sam Darnold and Carolina, like they had a couple of decent receivers. They didn't want to catch the ball until the very last drive, but you kept them in the game long enough. And going forward, who's the team that's just going to melt in that situation who has no playmakers? Like, no, they all do. Like Hollywood Brown is coming up next. And Keenan Allen is after that, like every team has good receivers. That's like a competitive football team has good receivers has playmakers and Adam Thielen seemed very upset last night which at least somebody did uh and he was talking about we we just can't keep letting these teams

hang around and hang around and hang around and you know something else came to my mind last night is that Stefan Diggs was probably watching, right? If Stefan Diggs is the rightest Mr. Right guy who's ever been right about anything. He's the rightest writer who was ever right. Everything that he thought was right. Truth in all rumors, Matthew. There's truth in everything Stefan Diggs thought because he's a smart guy. He knew the truth about both of them, about Zimmer and about Cousins. And I know that it was never fully about Cousins with Diggs,

but he's also, since he's gone to Buffalo, said, man, it's nice to have a guy who's a playmaker. Nice as a guy who can, you know, fire it in there to me when I'm covered, can run around a lot, right? So there's been those subtle kind of comments, but he knew that if you don't trust your quarterback and if you don't play an aggressive form of football, when you have great wide receivers, you just aren't going to win consistently.

And that's why he wanted out. And now he's on a team that could win the Superbowl as him as the number one receiver who they throw to all the time. And he was maybe his brother will be covering him in that Super Bowl. It could be could be, although he might be a touch overrated because of the picks. But I mean, just. Yeah, I mean, that came to my mind is his issue with that team was if we don't throw the top receivers the football if we don't find a way to do that and if we don't have a quarterback who's going to be able to consistently make plays when things break down I'm just not ever going to win and he wanted to win and now he's with a team that wins and uh so that's why I was talking about you know is there a button to

push or is there or is it time to just call it and say, you know, make a change here? But, you know, I was here's another question, Murph, to wrap up on. If Sean Payton is coaching the Minnesota Vikings, how many wins do they have this season or overall this season? At least five. I mean, look what he did yesterday. That's what I mean. I mean, against Tom Brady and he's had a great record of success against Tampa over the years. Sean Payton's also been a head coach for 12 or 13 years. You don't survive that long without being able to improvise. Yeah. He had Drew Brees for all those years. But he's been successful with Jameis Winston. Then he loses Winston.

Who's the guy? Simeon? Who's the guy that they brought in yesterday? Trevor Simeon. Trevor Simeon, right. Thank you very much. They take down the defending Super Bowl champions. Yes, it just feels like everything has to

line up perfectly. The Vikings have to catch every break they have to have every call go their way which by the way last night they did I don't want to hear any complaining about officiating yesterday oh by the way the kicking game has been solid since Arizona what do we have we have break poor clock management, lack of confidence in your quarterback, and an inability to improvise and adjust on the fly. You're not going to win in the NFL. You're not going to survive in the NFL that way. Sam Ekstrom here, wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report.

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many have tried and all have failed i mean if even stefanski and kubiak and going back farther sean actual mcveigh uh could not coach this out of Kirk cousins. Then I don't think that anybody can, but it wasn't too much to ask for this season through seven games when all of them have been winnable, literally all of them to be better than three and four. And to make a season out of this, where you're not fighting with Philadelphia and Atlanta for position, but you're fighting with the Packers. Once again, here we are, the third straight year where the Packers seem like they're in a different world than you.

And that was not supposed to be how this went. And if they had gone to 4-3, and this is when you have a small sample size of 17 games, this is how it works. If you'd gone to four and three, no matter by any means, it would have felt like season on. All right. Now you can chase down some of these teams. Winston's out for the year. You could chase down these teams. You could get the six seed. You can be competitive. You can make, make a year out of this. And at

three and four with the Ravens chargersgers, and Packers, and no answers. It's like, I don't know, man. I mean, it's a week-to-week league, as they say, Murph, so they could beat the Ravens. But if you are capable of losing to Cooper Rush at home on Sunday night football, it's really hard to say that anything's going to be different as you play a bunch of good teams down the stretch. And that's what they want us to keep buying. You know, that's the product they're selling is that we're just, we're not that far away. Just a few things to clean up. Do you think, do you think that changes now though, after this, do you think that changes?

I would like to hear some more accountability today from Zimmer. I don't know how many players are going to talk, but as we were talking off air, I mean, the one defensive player that was made available to the media yesterday, Xavier Woods, you know, yeah, very convenient. He had a really nice game, but he's also not a captain. He's also not a leader. I mean, where's Eric Hendricks? Where's Anthony Barr? Where's Harrison Smith, who, by the way way was pretty conspicuously absent yesterday yesterday the whole season well yeah for the whole season you know where is the outrage there and here's the thing fans you know I don't want to get on my media pedestal here as a

part-timer but you sit there and say we don't need the locker room open it's all cliches nobody cares what any of these guys say after a loss anyway. Well, without an open locker room, nobody could go ask anybody what the hell is going on. How do you feel about laying an egg like that? That's where Harrison Smith, that's where Eric Hendricks, that's where Everson Griffin, that's where these guys are held accountable and give an explanation for how you played so poorly at home. Instead they get a free pass because they didn't want to voluntarily go out to face the bullets. So anyway, that's just my little speechifying there. And the NFL and the NFL is to blame for that because they hid.

I'm not blaming the team. Every other league is letting reporters in their locker rooms at this point, put on a mask and go to the NFL doesn't have to, because they are the NFL. So they don't feel like they need to, but I'm just, I'm just saying, I want to feel some more accountability. I want to feel some more anger. I want to feel some more urgency. I have not felt that I have. I felt the fact that the Vikings have been leaning too hard on, but for a couple of plays, but for this, but for that, we're a lot better than our record indicates. There's a lot of positive

things i can take out of that i feel good about this i feel good about that no strip it down to we should be embarrassed we owe ourselves and everyone else a better effort and more accountability that's what i want to hear in the next few days well and what we've begun i think is the transition from and this will really depend on what happens in Baltimore, because I think that will be full fledged. It's on fire if they don't win that game. Um, where we started to tiptoe toward last night in the press conferences was not my problem, not my fault timeouts. I don't know that guy handles those. Yeah. You know, well, I don't know that guy handles those yeah you know well i don't know they created some pressure against quarterback so what are you gonna do good job to them i mean zimmer said like they did a

good job or what is it it feels like we've always teetered on the edge of everybody pointing fingers and last night the fingers weren't pointed but they were sort of like ready to be fully. It's that guy's fault. It's that guy's fault. And this is what happens a little bit when you have a quarterback and a head coach that are at odds is, you know, they can push each other around excitedly after a win or whatever. But at the end of the day, they have been clashing for three years and they don't trust each other.

They don't believe in each other. And they're always on the ready to look at each other and say, well, this was your fault. This was your fault. Well, maybe what they ought to do instead of hanging cats to be slaughtered around the locker room was put up a bunch of mirrors. So everyone can look at it and have some stuff. Stuffed cats.

I'm sorry. Right. I'm sorry. It was fake blood too. Yeah. It's not, those were not real cats. I'm sorry. Right. I'm sorry. It was fake blood too. Yeah. It's not. Those were not real cats. I'm sorry. You're right. PETA after us on that. Right.

It wasn't a cheap ploy to motivate men, but no. Well, let me ask you right now to put your chips on the table before we wrap up. I mean, what do you think happens here? Give me the next couple of weeks. What do you think happens? I think they will split these two road games. I'm not willing to say which one they're going to win. I think, well, I mean, I think it's imperative that they win in Baltimore just to stop the bleeding again. And then, you know, but I think they have a better chance to beat the Chargers than they would the Ravens. So you can't, you can't fly. Let's just say they split these two. I think they're going to get smoked at home against Green Bay. And I think they have a better chance to beat the Chargers than they would the Ravens. So you can't you can't fly. Let's just say they split these two.

I think they're going to get smoked at home against Green Bay. And I think that's when the reckoning comes. And I was looking at this, too, because I had covered the 2010 season when Childress got fired after getting blown out at home against Green Bay. That date was also November 21st, I believe. So I don't know if there's some synergy coming along, but I think your reckoning is coming at US Bank Stadium November 21st, where they will be playing for their playoff lives,

and Zimmer's going to be coaching again for his job. I'm not willing to hazard a guess what's going to happen that day, but it should be entertaining. Well, I think that you've got to go two for three in these next couple of games. You have to finish this hard. You got to be 500. Yeah, you have to be 500. The problem is that if you had lost to Dak Prescott last night

in disappointing fashion, I think we all would have been like, all right, forgiving. Okay, all right. Well, there's one down. You got to win the next next but the next two opponents aren't as tough as dallas dallas could win the super bowl that team is good um i thought their defense was a little overrated coming in they didn't play like it last night they played great um they have a lot of very talented people so if they but they had lost to dac you would have gone

like well okay that's the best one of the best quarterbacks in the league and you hung right there you could play with anybody but now that hole you could play with anybody that's just like out the window so we'll find out in the next few weeks if they get two and two if they beat the Packers it's like I'm always looking for when is when are we gonna call it like you said or when are we gonna say okay season back on I think if you win if you you know end up with a two and two stretch out of these four games and you beat the Packers, then season back on. But now that hill is pretty steep to climb when you lost to Cooper Rush. So I'm thinking time of death may be called about 315 p.m. on Sunday, November 21st. Unless they flex it, then I'll go 650.

Unless they flex it. Murph, your article, What a Horror Show, is up at the website, purpleinsider.substack.com. You were built for this, Brian, and great stuff as always. I appreciate it. Well, now I got to take, you know, on a personal note, I got to take my bye week next weekend. I will not be chronicling the Ravens game. I'm turning 50 next Saturday. Congratulations. game. I'm turning 50 next Saturday. So congratulations. I and the wife, the wife and I are going to

Charleston, South Carolina to relax. And I might steal a glance at my phone a little bit, but I will probably be incommunicado. So we'll, we'll catch back up after the chargers game. Yep. Very nice. Professional Paul will fill in for you with the Baltimore game. So I appreciate your time as always. And we'll talk to you soon, Brian. All right. Sounds good. you