Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can we convince PFF's Sam Monson that the Vikings will get back into the race?

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

The Minnesota Vikings didn't trade anyone, so does that mean they believe they can get back in the playoff race? Well, the upcoming schedule gives them a chance so Matthew Coller attempted to convince Sam Monson that they had a shot at it. Plus they talk about the path back to relevance and how they can determine if the coach and GM are the right people going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Matthew Collar here, along with Sam Monson from Purple Ball Focus. What is up, Sam? Hey, how's it going? I'm doing good. Here's how it's going. Chase Daniels is going to start for the Detroit Lions and some guy from Oregon State is going to start for Jacksonville. And I have no idea who the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys is. I think he was an AAF player. And those teams are on the Vikings' upcoming schedule, Sam.

How about that? AAF superstar Garrett Gilbert. You put some respect on that man's name. Him or Cooper Rush. Although I don't know if Andy Dalton will be back by the time the Vikings play the Cowboys, but I'm not sure that's a whole lot scarier than Cooper Rush or whoever you just said. So here's what I want to do. I want to have fun with this because we have spent a lot of time on this podcast

talking about how the Vikings should take a match, pour gasoline all over their roster, light it on fire, burn it to the ground, lose every game, draft a quarterback, and on and on and on and on. But what we have not acknowledged is any chance for them to get back in the race. So let me just ask you if Chase Daniels starts this week, which it looks like he's going to with Matthew Stafford on the COVID list, and I just laid out that future schedule here. Is there any part of you, despite what the statistics may say about this team that would buy into an argument that the Vikings could get back in this no not unless they find a

way of getting traded into the NFC East I think that's probably their only path to the playoffs like you're right they can win some games and they're gonna have by the looks it, they're going to have the ball bounce their way in terms of luck and injuries and a few guys that aren't going to be available when they play. But ultimately, they're still going to be chasing the Packers and the Bears, who are way ahead of them, and in Green Bay's case, have a quarterback that's going to win them a lot of games. And in Chicago's case, have everything except the quarterback that's going to win them a lot of games. So it's tough case, have everything except the quarterback that's going to win them a lot of games.

So it's tough to find a way that even with a beneficial run of results, they're going to be able to overhaul those two teams and get into the playoff picture. And this is the problem is that I'm sure the Vikings are saying to themselves, hey, we're better than our record. We lost two games by one point. I've never bought into that because you blew leads in both of those games. And that's what bad teams generally do. And also, you can't at the end of the year be like,

remember those one-point games? I think those should actually get us into the playoffs. It doesn't work that way. But there are some interesting things the way it's falling in the NFC that could play into them getting to a point where they're in the in the hunt graphic and one of them is that Jimmy Garoppolo is out and so is every other player for the San Francisco 49ers uh Carolina is not all that good and I think that they're going to continue to struggle the Vikings also play them head-to-head like looking at the teams that are going to be in that same desperate run

towards the playoffs they might be better than some of these teams. The Rams might just be awful, too, by the way. Like, if you're looking at other teams that could potentially fall off, Detroit has not been what we kind of thought, hey, maybe Detroit, they could be good. Nope, they still are Detroit. So I guess I'm not seriously saying, hey, they're a playoff team. Everybody watch out, world. But when you look around the NFC, it's not the craziest thing I've ever heard that they could get back into this.

I think that's a great way of describing it, actually, that the Vikings are definitely capable of getting in the hunt graphic. That's where they can – that's their ceiling is what they can chase. They can chase being somewhere on that in the hunt graphic over the last couple of weeks of the season. But at no point, I think are they actually going to be in the playoff picture? Like clearly they're not going to win the division. And I think there's a very slim chance that they're in the wildcard picture, even with the expanded wildcard situation that we're dealing with this year, because there's just too many good teams

that are ahead of them that they would have to, like, they would require not just everything breaking their way, which looks, you know, conceivable that it might happen, but they also need a couple of collapses happening elsewhere by, you know, one or two of these other teams that aren't just in the hunt, but are actually sitting in wildcard spots. Right. So you're unconvinced. I'm also unconvinced.

But I thought we could toy around with it a little and see if we could talk ourselves into it. The problem is the Vikings lost to Chase Daniel one year ago. And I mean, it's not inconceivable when they have already lost the game to a winless team in Atlanta that they would also lose to other teams that are not good and I was thinking about I don't know if you're did you ever watch Seinfeld you're a Seinfeld person like do you like Seinfeld references okay you're a Seinfeld person all right well I'll just say it anyway for Seinfeld fans that there's an episode where uh George won't

date a bald woman and Elaine says but you're bald like the same thing with the Vikings like hey we can get back in the playoff race we're playing bad teams but you're bad and uh I think that one win against Green Bay doesn't change that but let me ask you what you thought of that win it looking at the PFF grades my eyes started to like do things I I saw green for the offensive line I think maybe I I don't, I had a problem or something. What in the world happened with the Vikings beating the Green Bay Packers, not only just winning, but the way that they did? Yeah, it was interesting. I think they actually had a really good offensive game plan. The Packers are one of these teams, you know, we talked about for

a long time that base defense isn't base defense anymore. Like nickel was the new base defense. Pretty much everybody in the NFL plays nickel way more often than they play base. But there's also a few teams who play dime, you know, six defensive backs more than they play nickel or more than they play base. And that's actually really their base defense. And the Packers are kind of one of those teams. They run dime defense more than pretty much anybody else.

So they're not used to being in heavier defensive packages. So the Vikings went all the way heavy on offense and said, all right, not only is our best chance of winning this to try and just grind the clock and, you know, play ball control and rely on Dalvin Cook, but it also puts you in this weird spot of playing the defensive personnel package that you're least familiar with, which probably isn't a bad thing. You know, just making you stay all day in the defensive personnel package that you play the least is almost certainly a good thing if you're on the offensive side of the ball. So I think they did that. And that's exactly what happened like they found they not just played well they were blocking well up front but they also found a few blown assignments and a few missed you know bad

plays in terms of gap integrity on that Packers defense and if you give Dalvin Cook a sniff of that he's one of the best if not the best running backs in the NFL and that guy's just going to scamper off for massive yardage and put up some points. Okay, when we circle back to the point about can they get back in the race, they play bad defenses coming up, and I think maybe they found a little something there against Green Bay. There's another case to say, hey, it's just a kitchen sink game where they had two weeks to prepare, and they threw everything they could at the Packers,

and it worked, and you still only won by six. But there is a point here, I think, about the Vikings offense that it was horrendous in large part to Kirk Cousins throwing it to the other team constantly. And I just don't think that that's something that will continue. I think his interception percentage going into last week, he's throwing a pick on like 6% of his passes. Normally for his career, that's about 2%. And if you're trying to make that case, I think you say this offense,

if they even get decent play at the guard position, which Ezra Cleveland gave more than that this week, if that sustains at all, that the offense can actually be good. It's can they carry them when the defense is a complete disaster? Yeah, I mean, I think the offense is the side of the football for Minnesota that has a good argument to be better than their record. You know, this idea of we are better than we've shown so far. I think you can make that case for the offense.

You know, the first couple of weeks, they basically weren't playing Justin Jefferson, and that left them with, you know, Adam Thielen as essentially the only viable receiving weapon out there. Suddenly you play Justin Jefferson, it's a completely different offense immediately. Then you get Kirk Cousins doing that thing of throwing the ball straight to defenders and burying them in a hole. to be significantly better than that. And I don't see a reason it shouldn't be for most of this season. Their problem is, I think, on the defensive side of the ball, where the problems are more fundamental than that. And, you know, there's still nobody there, really, that can rush the passer. They have this group of young defensive backs, and while they may get better, it's not going to happen over the course of the season.

I mean, even Mike Zimmer was talking about them today saying, you know, they're in kindergarten right now and we need to get them on the master's, you know, the master's program. Like kindergarten to master's degree is a hell of a jump in the space of one season. Like I, you know, I, I've done that. That's, that's my educational span. That took me whatever, 10, 15 years to do that. So like, this is not, 15 years to do that. So, like, this is not a short jump for these guys.

They are going to be getting lit up all season long. And as long as that's the case, like, you're going to need to put up a ton of points in offense just to win these shootouts. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. For all of you hunters out there, Soda Stick has some very cool hunting gear available that you need to check out, including their Mick Golden Light Hunting Club hats that our pal Jeremiah Searles has been wearing lately on his excursions. All their apparel is screen-printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. We're going to also hook you up with free shipping on your next order. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping.

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I was hoping you could take a peek into it because we've been messing around here on the podcast with the, you know, ghosts of I did trade deadlines future, the ghost of Thanksgiving future, Christmas, whatever you want to do. And looking forward with this Vikings team, I just wonder what you see in terms of their path, because clearly they're not going to trade everybody here. The deadline is over and they're not going to trade everybody here. The deadline is over and they're not going to go to the bottom. And with this schedule, they're definitely not winning three games for the entire 2020 season. So what does it mean to them if they beat Jake Luton and they beat,

you know, Andy Dalton, if he comes here, lose the games they're supposed to lose and end up at six and 10 or seven, nine, like what does that mean for them in terms of their outlook going forward? If he comes here, lose the games they're supposed to lose and end up at six and ten or seven, nine. Like, what does that mean for them in terms of their outlook going forward? It's sort of classic Minnesota Vikings, which is even when they're bad, they're never bad enough to fix it. They're never bad enough to get the spot at the top of the draft that gives you a shot at a Trevor Lawrence or whoever that year's Trevor Lawrence is

and you know change the entire franchise in terms of the big keystone in the middle they're only ever bad enough to get you know a fringe top 10 pick and sort of usually end up in the spot after the the true studs have been taken and you have to sort of pick who's the next best guy in the tier. But that's what they're shooting for. They're going to be somewhere, you know, depending on how the rest of the NFL pans out, they're probably going to pick the outside or the bottom reaches of the top 10 somewhere. So, you know, 7, 8, 9, 10, somewhere in that range. And it's going to get you a good player,

but it's probably not going to get you a transformational talent that's going to come in and fix everything next year so you've got work to do you know this team is is a story of an eroded roster that was as good as anything in the nfl in 2017 and since then it's been steadily getting worse and worse and you know they're they're in a fortunate position in one way that they're so young right now that if those guys do progress and do get better and do get on that master's track next year you know you may be in business but it's it's going to take some time for all that to come together and then you obviously have the existential Kirk Cousins question hovering over all of it. I wonder what you think about the head coach and general manager being in charge

of having to try to retool this quickly, as I think that they're going to try to do in a very difficult cap circumstance. I don't think that anybody in America thought that the salary cap would be ever going down in the NFL from year to year. And that's what they're going to have to deal with here after handing out a lot of money. And I don't think that players who want extensions like Brian O'Neill are going to say, oh, well, cap's going down. So, you know, yeah, I'll give you a discount. That's fine. So they're still going to be in a pretty tough spot.

But I've wondered about with Zimmer and Spielman, like they've proven that they can build a winning team and win with a very good roster and get to an NFC championship and be consistently competitive. But I wonder about with their fit with Kirk Cousins, if that's the guy that they want to go forward in the way that they want to play offense, if those two things gel together. I've wondered if you want Mike Zimmer on a team that's starting a rookie quarterback and is having to really commit to a rebuild. And I've wondered if you want the general manager who's kind of made a lot of reactionary moves over these last few

years to get them into this position. And most recently, the Yannick Ngakwe trade that really, you know, got them in trouble and lost them a really important pick in the second round. And now that's now going to be at the bottom of the third. So I guess I wonder how you feel about where they came from compared to where they might have to go to get this team back. Yeah, it's tough because I think Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman are both good at what they do.

I think they're both among the better head coach and general managers in the NFL, but I think each of them has at least the one significant flaw that prevents them from being amongst the very, very elite guys at their respective positions. So, you know, Rick Spielman for whatever is he's good at just seems to have this blind spot for offensive linemen. The guy has just been completely unable to unearth offensive line talent, whether it's in the draft, whether it's in free agency.

And that's been the Achilles heel of this Vikings team probably for his entire tenure. And they haven't been able to fix it. And they've tried. They've swung at the draft. They've swung in free agency. And the best they've managed, you know, they've swung at the draft, they swung in free agency, and the best they've managed is an okay, which is all right if you have five of those guys, but when you need to replace three or four of them, you need to be able to hit on some guys that are okay or better. good but he is one of these hyper conservative old school coaches and when they draw up these charts of you know in a neutral situation of first and ten how much are you passing versus how much are you running the vikings are always buried to the root of that table which means

they're putting kirk cousins in tough situations later on in the drive on third down and those kinds of things so it's tough because you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say, all right, these guys are flawed, so we need to get rid of them and move in a different direction because you can do a hell of a lot worse than either of them. On the other hand, the flaws that they have right now, they've been a cap on how good this team can be, and they will be going forward.

It's just a case of whether they can be good enough at everything else to offset the negatives and to overcome the bad. And I don't know what the answer to that is yet, to be honest. So tell me the path. That's what I want to know your opinion on, is the path to being really great again. I don't mean like 2021 they go 9- seven and they make the last playoff spot and they get a playoff win or something that's that's not really what you're aiming for you're aiming to

be a great team and you obviously study the entire league you know as we're kind of with the horse blinders on here with the Vikings teams that it's worked for like what is the route to getting there and I'll tell you just one thought that I keep having is how it's the future of the quarterback position in the NFC right now is really weird and kind of up in the air. And I wonder, I mean, if you get one of those quarterbacks in the draft who ends up changing your franchise, but you could be head and shoulders above everybody else. Cause it seems like everyone is a Jared Goff and everyone is a Carson Wentz outside of two dudes that are in their 40s and maybe in their last season. So I wonder if there is a path there for them, but it has to involve getting a quarterback who is a little bit above the rest of these Jimmy Garoppolo's and Kirk Cousins' honestly.

Yeah, I mean, I think that is the path. It involves finding a transformational quarterback, and that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, getting to the number one overall pick and drafting Trevor Lawrence, though that's probably the easiest way of doing it, is just securing the shot at that guy. But, you know, it involves being aggressive most of the time or lucky i mean that's the other way right it's just stumbling into a russell wilson in the third round like

either get lucky as hell and find yourself a guy like that in the mid rounds or be aggressive and go after a quarterback that you believe in that can be that guy and you know it doesn't mean that you need to start in day one and you have to dump Kirk Cousins right away you can have both those guys coexist on a roster but you can't just go into a season saying well we have Kirk Cousins so we're not in the quarterback market you know we already know what Kirk Cousins is and he shouldn't be preventing you from taking a guy like Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields or whoever right if you have the capacity to get one of those guys in addition to Kirk Cousins, you should be going after it because that's how you take the single biggest leap that you can take as a franchise.

And the alternative is you say, no, no, Kirk Cousins is the guy, and we need to assemble this championship caliber, flawless roster around him. And that's fine, but that now puts your margin for error as virtually nothing you now need to hit on everything you're going for you need to find five viable offensive linemen you need to make sure that at least three of the young cornerbacks that you have on this roster are better than average you need to maintain the guys you have that are good the eric kendricks the harrison smith the anthony harris to maintain the guys you have that are good, the Eric Hendricks,

the Harrison Smith, the Anthony Harris's of the world. You need to find some defensive linemen that can rush the path. Like there's so many things that this team would need to do. If you are convinced that Kirk Cousins is the best you can do a quarterback. Alternatively, you can chip away at all those other things and take a shot at a quarterback and that could have the same effect as doing all of those other things at the same time. In recent drafts, too, they have not found their Stephon Diggs in the fifth,

and they have not found their Daniil Hunter in the third. And nobody does in one term. That's the thing about that is we go through cycles of saying Team X is amazing at this drafting stuff, but nobody is. Like every now and again, the team has a really good draft, and you say, well, they're great, or they have a run. But sooner or later, everybody is not good at drafting. It's a fluctuating thing.

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That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. And if you're going, I mean, I think they took the right route, which was draft a lot of people and hope that it works. But there's also some of the things that they going I mean I think they took the right route which was draft a lot of people and hope that it works but there's also some of the things that they've done that I think did not play the percentages in their way like drafting a backup running back in the third round and so they're always talking about well we got to Neil Hunter in the third well the value on a backup running back even if he's great which I think Alexander Madison's good. It's not very much. And we're seeing it. We're seeing it right now. The path for them being great also goes through their division,

which I think in the future is in a really wonky spot. I mean, Stafford did not do the thing that he did last year, this year. And Kenny Galladay's injury is part of that. And then you havegers who is kind of taking his last shot here and to no help of his own team that won't even trade for another receiver to help him and you have Chicago that it just remains Chicago no if it's Craig Erickson or Steve Walsh at quarterback or Eric Kramer it doesn't matter like they just always are perpetually in this sort of wheel going around and around at that position.

I wonder what your crystal ball says about these three franchises, because I think all of these teams are kind of looking at each other like, we're stuck. Are you stuck? Yeah, we're kind of stuck. What about you? Yeah, we're kind of stuck too. I mean, the only team I think that would concern Minnesota long-term would be Green Bay only on the basis that this Aaron Rodgers revenge tour could actually last a long time. You know, we're looking at Tom Brady's of the world and even Drew Brees, even though his end seems to be coming sooner.

These guys are not necessarily going quietly into the night once they approach 40, like they still have juice. And Aaron Rodgers has all the physical tools he needs right now there's no sign of his arm diminishing of his athleticism disappearing of you know him becoming a bad player now the decision might get made for him and the packers might do a sort of brett farve to him and essentially determine that now is the time that they move on from him but like if he goes back to being consistently one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and plays at that level it's going to be very hard for them to move on and him playing at

that level makes them a contender every single year so you know they would be the team I think that have the potential to do that Chicago is a mess until they find a quarterback, and the way they've approached it might cost everybody there their jobs, even though they actually have a pretty good roster. Detroit, we were talking on our podcast on Monday, Matthew Stafford might be a coach killer. He's one of those quarterbacks that threatens it every now and again, but just isn't able to sustain it for any period of time. And those are the kind of quarterbacks that threatens it every now and again but just isn't able to sustain it

for any period of time and those are the kind of quarterbacks that get guys fired because you need a quarterback to sustain it for a period of time for you to get those double digit wins and keep your job long term so yeah i think at least two of the teams are not massive uh concerns for the medium to long term and the green bay are the only one that is sort of more of an unknown. The Stafford thing has always sort of confounded me a little. I think that him and Kirk Cousins, for different reasons, are the Spider-Man meme where they're just sort of looking at each other like, you're kind of like me, I'm kind of like you. And they have different talent sets, but they have the same sort of issue that their fundamental flaws get in the way.

And then, you know, Cousins has had better circumstances than Matt Stafford, of course, better coaches, better situations, not necessarily better receivers recently, but, you know, Cousins has had great defenses for a couple years and still couldn't get past being a sixth seed, and Stafford is kind of a lot of the same way. And if they don't have a good defense or they do have receivers hurt, then all of a sudden they just roll off a bunch of losses.

And that's been the case forever. And yet people talk about him like he's an elite quarterback. And this is where I know you and I have talked about this before. I look at the win loss and go, I mean, eventually it tells the story. If you've played in the NFL for like 14 years and you haven't won anything as a quarterback, that's probably a little bit on you, if not a lot on you. the story if you've played in the NFL for like 14 years and you haven't won anything as a quarterback that's probably a little bit on you if not a lot on you and also you know it's easy to dismiss all those other things or it's easy to blame all those other things for the reason he's not playing

at the level we think he should play at but then he goes in these runs where he overcomes all that and like if you can do it for half a season why can't you all that. And like, if you can do it for half a season, why can't you do it for a season? And if you can do it for a season, why can't you do it for two or three seasons? Like at some point he's shown the ability to overcome all of those things and just can't do it long-term. And if you can't do it long-term, if the pattern is the same,

regardless of the situation around him, it feels like you're the one common denominator. I have two more things for you. and both of them i think are fun uh one is i get tweets all the time about this offseason the vikings why the vikings should trade kirk cousins to the 49ers for jimmy garoppolo and i think it's a little preposterous uh very, very unlikely, but fun to talk about. So Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins, like would you do that trade if you were the Vikings straight up? No, I don't know that Jimmy Garoppolo is any better than Kirk Cousins, and he appears to be significantly less durable than Kirk Cousins. So, yeah, I wouldn't be too interested in that even before this season but certainly not now

I mean you know we were again on our podcast we were talking about like are the 49ers actually better off running with a guy like Nick Mullins who costs like 78 dollars than you are paying Jimmy Garoppolo 25 million to be better but how much better like Kyle Shanahan is an absolute magician and he's got that guy playing reasonably well. Like, that's – I'm not encouraged if I'm Minnesota bringing that guy in. Yeah, I feel the same way about the durability point. I've heard that the best ability is availability. I don't know if you've ever run across that one.

Okay, last thing. I tweeted yesterday that Jake Reed is the most underrated Viking, and I got no pushback. No one. Okay, last thing. I tweeted yesterday that Jake Reed is the most underrated Viking, and I got no pushback. No one. One person made a joke about Chester Taylor. Everyone agreed. Across the board, the most underrated Viking, and of course not by fans, but on the bigger scale, is Jake Reed. Do you agree, as a Vikings observer, that Jake Reed is the, at least of your lifetime watching football, most underrated Viking? I could certainly buy that. I wouldn't have any problem with somebody that made that case, certainly. The most criminally underrated Viking during my recent memory was Muelde Moore. You know, they went on that run of running backs and just, you know,

picking these guys in the mid rounds and then eventually ended up with Adrian Peterson after a while. But they had this run of guys, all of whom seem to have some talent and none of whom were ever given like the opportunity to nail down a starting job. Muelde Moore legitimately looked like if the situation around him was better, he could have been a very good NFL caliber running back and just never got, you know, had set some absurd record. I think during his rookie season in terms of like, you know,

yardage over like a three-game stretch and then was like parked on the bench, never given another opportunity, and that was all she wrote. He was just a punt return guy from then on in. The 90s Vikings running backs are pretty great. I mean, depending on what you consider David Palmer to be, your Amplees of the world, your Mo Williams, who I've interviewed a couple times, is a super cool guy, loves talking about those days.

So before AP, they had a number of great running backs. And, of course, Robert Smith was fantastic. So did you have a follow-up on that? Well, I also wonder how much at this point people forget about a guy like Anthony Carter. You know, Chris Carter comes afterwards, Randy Moss. Like he got the wide receiver bar got moved so high after him that it almost feels like people forget that, you know, Anthony Carter was a hell of a receiver back in the day as well.

Yeah, no, that's a great point. I did a haul of very good Vikings over the offseason, and Anthony Carter was like at the very top. He doesn't quite have a Hall of Fame case, but he's like borderline considering the era. Sam Monson, your podcast with Steve Palazzolo. Everyone, if you're not already subscribed to that, then you should be. And go back and find your interview with Joe Thomas.

It was fantastic. And you also, I understand, interviewed Steve Smith as well recently. So look forward to that episode. Yeah, interviewed him today. It will be going out tomorrow, which will be Thursday. Fantastic. Now there's a guy, Hall of, which will be Thursday, it goes out. Fantastic. Now there's a guy, Hall of Fame.

Should be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I could buy that. Steve Smith is awesome to watch. All right. Well, I appreciate your time, as always. Great to catch up with you, and we will talk to you all again on another episode of Purple Insider. Thank you.