Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Colts reporter Zach Hicks says Indy's defense should cure what ails the Vikings

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

Matthew Coller gets together with Zach Hicks of Sports illustrated and the Locked On Colts podcast to talk about how the Colts got so bad, whether they offer any threats to the Vikings and what their future looks like. 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 as I jam as many podcasts as I can in before a Saturday football game because I have a lot of people that I like to have on the show and one of them because somehow the Vikings and Indianapolis Colts have crossed paths a handful of times in recent years is one of my favorite guys to follow on Twitter. Zach Hicks, Sports Illustrated and the Lockdown Podcast covering the Colts. What is up, Zach? How are you? I'm doing pretty good. I mean, I'm a, you know, a little bit on the downside now that I realized this was talking about Colts. I thought, again, this was talking about draft or something, or maybe just one of my insight on the Vikings

for whatever reason, but no, I forgot the Colts actually play a team this week, unfortunately. So a little, a little bit, you know, poor mood because I talked about the Colts, but besides that, I'm doing pretty good. Can't complain too much. I mean, well, first, it's been fun to follow your progress. I think the first time we talked, you were at, like, your kitchen table. And you had, like, standard def from 1980 videos quality. So, no, it's been good to see you progress in your career following this team. But, boy, did they smack you in the face this year.

I mean, it's just like the last couple of seasons, they were going out and getting Phillip Rivers, going out and getting Carson Wentz, and you missed the playoffs on the final day of the season. But, overall, it was a good football team. And, you know, you could make an argument like, well, coach, lots of talent. I mean, how much of this is just Matt Ryan didn't work and how much of it was like a house of cards kind of coming apart?

Yeah, you know, the wheels fell off all at once. I mean, yes, part of it was Matt Ryan just did not work. But another part of it was, look, they paid this offensive line so much money. But they paid it so much money only at three spots. The other two spots, they went very, very bare bones. You know, Matt Pryor starting the left tackle, where, yes, off of last season, he was fine in reserve. But to kind of just throw him out there,

give him the starting job at the very beginning of camp, and then to see what happened when the season started, oh my gosh, what a disaster. And then you got Danny Pinter at right guard who again in some spot snaps the last couple years he's been fine at center but he was not ready to be a right guard and again given that starting spot at the very beginning of the offseason so you have two extreme weak links on this offensive line and then three players around them that are dealing with injuries dealing with regression dealing with having to build a cohesive unit with these two major liabilities and not only did you have your quarterback fall apart you had this entire offensive line fall apart which led to the entire offense falling apart and you know we can say so

many things about frank reich and the job he did last couple of years, but he's not a bad coach. You know, given, yes, he got fired. He was probably going to get fired at the end of the year if it didn't happen midseason. Probably deserved it just because it was time for change. But he was not the issue. You know, the offensive line fell apart. The quarterback was just not what they expected. And as a result, you know, this Colts team's not an awful team but when you don't have

an offense in the modern nfl what are you you know you're a four eight and one team now in week 13 going into you know week 15 now so uh yeah those two major parts offensive line and then the quarterback not being what they expected it just led to straight disaster this season i mean there certainly is the question of like should they have seen it coming when it comes to Matt Ryan? Because I mean, he played against the Vikings a couple of times and the ball wasn't moving too fast through the air and the off season articles and look, you know, we're all wrong about football. If we weren't all wrong about football all the time, then what fun would it ever be? Right. If everything went the same way you thought and the Denver Broncos were just a good team with Russell Wilson, everything else,

what would we talk about? Uh, but at the same time, there were a lot of off season articles of like, dude, Matt Ryan. I mean, it's coming. It's going to be so good. Like, wait, shouldn't we have a little bit of skepticism here based on the way he's played in recent years? I mean, there just seemed to be nothing left. But what is it that in your mind has made it so horrific? Because last year, what, it was a 7-10 Falcons team, didn't have a whole lot of weapons there, kind of like pretty meh. And, you know, he wins seven games. All right, you give him a little bit of a better team, a little bit of a better coach.

Maybe you can win 9 or 10 and get into the playoffs. But this has just been super sad. I mean, this is, this has been like watching Peyton Manning in 2015 without all the other things that were on that team. Yeah. We've noticed with quarterbacks now for the last, you know, however years that we've watched football guys like us, where when they hit that cliff, it's gone, you know, like they, they they fall off Peyton Manning is a great example Ben Roethlisberger there in Pittsburgh as well was a great example I mean neither of those guys could throw past 10 yards and then if you go look at that Dallas game a couple weeks ago with Matt Ryan you're like oh there it is there's the Peyton Manning there's the

Ben Roethlisberger at the end of the career but honestly I think where a lot of those articles kind of went wrong and and a lot of my articles went wrong too, because I thought this would be a good mixture is we were banking too much on that Phillip river season in 2020, because it was getting back to the Phillip river season, the Phillip river season where this, you know, older quarterback who was, you know, you know, a future hall of famer, potential hall of famer, really, really good quarterback came to Indy,

just picked up the system like that came in through with great anticipation accuracy sure the arm strength wasn't there but he was just slinging it and it was just good I mean they took the number two seed Buffalo Bills to the wire they were 11 and 5 team like this was a good football team and then they tried the Carson Wentz thing and and you could see you know volatility at quarterback is just a dangerous thing it's scary when you when you don't at quarterback is just a dangerous thing it's scary when you when you don't know what you're getting each week it makes you kind of long for consistency when you're like looking at a guy like matt ryan where sure the peaks won't be as good as

carson wentz but the lows won't be as bad as carson wentz and to some degree that was correct but there have been no highs whatsoever with matt ryan outside of uh that jacksonville jaguars game where he threw a game winning touchdown pass in the last like 20 seconds. Like he's had some good moments, but again, he's just an older quarterback that again, we were banking too much on that Phillip river season on a guy coming in from day one, picking up the system, elevating every single thing around them and succeeding despite having no arm strength left Matt Ryan, like most older quarterbacks,

just wasn't able to do that. So I think that's where we kind of all went wrong with our analysis, where Phillip Rivers, man, he's just one of a kind, I guess. I don't know. Well, I also think that the offensive line was good that year, and I'd have to go check what the numbers said about that. But that was my perception, is that the offensive line giving Phillip Rivers time to throw was a big difference maker also i mean he's just like philip rivers was so gutsy though like he would just throw into coverage whatever else i think that he had at least enough anticipation to do that when matt ryan was at his best the dude had a rocket and he could fire it into tight windows and stuff it seems like at this

point he just doesn't even want to try it. Like every pass goes like four yards through the air and gets, you know, tackled almost instantly because who's playing and maybe the Vikings will, but who's playing off coverage versus this team. Like who's saying, oh yeah, we're really worried about him going downfield where with rivers, no matter how much was left, you knew he was going to push it downfield at some point one time or the other. So that's, you know, I think maybe an interesting difference, but really it just seems like supporting cast is not as good as it was a couple of years ago. Jonathan Taylor is a great player, but there's only so much running backs can do themselves to dictate that part of the offense.

And then here you are just falling apart. But now from our perspective, this matchup does have some juice. I know for you, you're like Christmas shopping. But I mean, because the Vikings defense has been so bad, it is the 32nd yardage defense versus the 32nd DVOA offense. I don't know if they're 32nd in yards, but I just had that stat on the tip of my tongue. Is there any possibility that the Indianapolis Colts have anything that could threaten the Vikings defense? Probably not. I don't know. Like maybe I don't. We've seen it twice this year.

We've seen twice where this offense looked like a real NFL offense and we kept getting fooled with that being like oh finally they're turning the corner finally this offensive line is figuring it out finally Matt Ryan is figuring it out it was against Jacksonville Jaguars you know back in what week seven week eight whatever that was again I think they exploded for 34 points game winning touchdown last second was outstanding. And then the first game with Jeff Saturday, head coach against the Las Vegas Raiders. And I think some key elements of both those games were they were playing against bottom-tier defenses.

The Jaguars' defense was a train wreck at that point. And the Raiders' defense, I mean, for whatever you want to say about the Vikings' defense, the Raiders' defense, you can probably say all the same things, except for these last two weeks, they've actually kind of figured it out. But before that, they were the worst defense the Raiders defense you can probably say all the same things except for these last like two weeks they've actually kind of figured it out but before that they were the worst defense in the NFL uh and and the Colts were able to have their way with them just because a terrible defense so I can't go as far as saying the Colts offense won't do anything this weekend just because like you said this Vikings defense is a train wreck right now and you know they're

playing off coverages against the teams that can't throw deep. I mean, look, the Colts, they have some receivers that can beat press coverage. They can win press coverage, but they don't have an offense that can actually get the ball to these guys after they beat press coverage. You know, if Matt Ryan's throw the ball down the field, it's going 20, 30 yards. Like it's not it's not like you're going to be hitting Alec Pierce in stride for a 60-yard touchdown so uh yeah I feel like the game plan against this Colts offense right now especially with how predictable it's been these past couple weeks with Parks Frazier as offensive play caller uh I don't see how any defense allows many points against them but again Vikings defense is struggling lately so

I can't go all the way there because something I've noticed a lot in the NFL and my times covered is somehow bad offenses typically can beat bad defenses because when a defense is bad, it's bad. Like it's real bad. Yeah. And that's really the Vikings goal is to be just slightly less than real, real bad. And one of the weirdest things I think maybe I've ever seen in covering football is when you look at the Vikings, like accumulation of PFF grades, or even I saw this from Ben Brown of PFF, like they have internal wins above replacement stats that they share with teams and stuff. And the Vikings defense isn't really that bad in terms of how the individuals have played, except for their weak

links are so unbelievably weak that teams can always find a way and one thing that I've noticed too is that yards after catch have been there against the Vikings I mean if you even throw a 10-yard pass over the middle and a guy catches it it's possible he can run for a 40-yard gain just because they're not a great tackling team either. Like they don't rush the passer. Great. They don't cover. Great. They don't tackle. Great. Like this is the makings of a 32nd ranked defense. It's just that like having watched enough Matt Ryan to be very sad about what Matt Ryan looks like this year. I just don't see it. Like you're, you know, they're, they're not playing against the Dallas defense and this could be like old takes exposed almost instantly with a Saturday game. We don't see it like you're you know they're they're not playing against the Dallas defense and this could be like old takes exposed almost instantly uh with a Saturday game we don't even get some

run-up time for people to forget what we said but like I just I just feel like it's such a get right game for the Vikings but I did want to ask is there spunk is there spunk with the Jeff Saturday Colts and uh you know look he's he's had a whole extra week to put in all of his high school plays from the last time look we had some spunk against the Raiders man they came out the offensive line looked below average which was awesome we were loving it Jonathan Taylor broke off a 60-yard touchdown they beat a terrible Raiders team we were like oh my gosh here we go finally we can beat terrible teams. And then they took the Eagles to the wire.

Like this is a darn good, bad team right here. Like they're taking good teams to the wire. And then they got, you know, they didn't get blown out, but they lost pretty handedly to the Steelers on Monday Night Football. Everyone saw that. And then they were taking the Cowboys to the fourth quarter, only down two points. Here we go. The Colts was just there to have some spunk. And then what? bit of energy uh but i lost all of my energy in that fourth quarter against the cowboys because i mean again i've been covering the the nfl for a

long time i've watched a lot of football outside of maybe uh the washington versus philadelphia eagles uh monday night massacre with michael vick years ago or or the new orleans saints versus the 2011 indianapolis colts where they could have put up 90 if they wanted i have not seen just a more embarrassing feat of football than that fourth quarter against dallas i mean it literally looked like me playing college football 13 against like fcs northwest or whatever you know where where you're just uh jumping off sides and they don't call it and you're getting sack fumbles and pick sixes and, and you can put your fourth string running back out there and running touchdowns. I mean, it was just embarrassing. And these are NFL players. So I don't know how, I mean, again,

I know you had the bye week and you can kind of breathe a little bit after the bye week and come out with a little bit more energy, but like, that's so embarrassing. I have no clue how you bounce back from that and still have energy, especially in a lost season where this week they're officially eliminated from playoff contention if they lose. Even if they win, they could be officially eliminated. So it's like, I don't know. I don't know how much energy they're going to come out with, but I do think with Jeff Saturday, you know, the O-line has gotten a little bit better. They started games a little faster than they were under Frank Reich, but outside of that, I can't say there's too much spunk or energy with this team right now. Yeah, and it's hard to convince me that Jeff Saturday is better in any way than Frank Reich, somebody that had so much experience.

And I just have a ton of respect for I thought like I actually thought good, like good. He could go coach some better team because this is a mess and it's probably not getting better all that soon. But if there is one thing that the Vikings could be a little concerned about, it is the Indianapolis Colts defense and it's not a horror show and like what a compliment to give, but no, truly, I mean, Stefan Gilmore can still play and the defensive line has dudes who could get after the quarterback. And there's only one way in God's green earth or turf to stop Justin Jefferson. And that's sacking Kirk cousins. If you sack them seven times like Dallas did, well, he can't really throw to Justin Jefferson. The Vikings are going to get Christian Derrissaw back. That is absolutely huge for this matchup to slow down Yanni Kangakwe,

which you will on 53 of 54 snaps. But that one, he will make some noise. I'm so glad that you could be someone who – because, oh, my gosh, man man I've never seen a worse 11 11 sack season I mean I have to like I'm not even looking at the stats right now but it has to be like seven or eight of these sacks are on unblocked snaps but I think he is the best pass rusher in the history of football when he's unblocked I don't know how he gets there I don't know how he does it how like it's just like there's one snap a game where he's unblocked, and he's getting a sack on that play.

It can be a run play, and he's still getting a sack on that unblocked play. It is the most unproductive 11-sack season ever, but he's got the 11 sacks, so I guess he's something to worry about. It's so funny. I mean, watching him on tape when he was a brief Viking was just like, what is this? And then against the Colts was, I think it was his first real game starting for the Vikings after they traded for him. And he's playing horrendously.

And then he just, I think it was an unblocked sack. He just comes out of nowhere and absolutely murders. It must have been Philip Rivers. Like what? You know, and then we're like, oh yeah, you got a strip sack and everything else. And it looks good in the box score. And then Andre Patterson, the defensive line coach would repeatedly remind us that pressures are more

important than sacks in the way that he evaluated. Cause I think he was just, you know, taking little jabs at Yanni Gagakwe, but maybe, I mean, maybe not, I don't know.

That's what it certainly felt like, but you do have to be afraid though of that. Quiddy pay is a high draft pick to Forrest Buckner to me, is one of the best players in the entire league. And DeForest Buckner is the guy that I actually would be very scared of as the Vikings. The interior of this offensive line is just bad. They have the right guard who has allowed more pressures than anyone in the NFL, and actually by kind of a lot. And Garrett Bradbury is coming back from an injury. Ezra Cleveland has been like a home run hitter who hits 10 in a month and then doesn't hit

any the next month. It's crazy how up and down his numbers are from week to week. I think I think they should be a little bit concerned about this defense because it's in a way it's a little Jets like where, you know, that they had some troubles in moving the football against the jets. Yeah. And before we talk about this Colts defensive line, this Colts defense, because I actually think this Colts defense despite them kind of regressing a little bit these last three weeks, just because, you know,

when you have to carry an entire and all the entire offense on your back all year, eventually you're going to, your legs are going to go out from under you. But before we talk about this, you said your right guard is allowing so many pressures and struggling. Why did y'all take Chris Reid from us if you're not even going to play him? Like, Chris Reid could have solved so many issues. The Colts could be already in the Super Bowl right now if we had Chris Reid. That's all we needed.

And you guys took him from us just to not play him. Like, this is upsetting. Not even active. I had no idea. The only thing I could come up with is that in training camp, he was legitimately competing for right guard and even a little bit low key center. He was like taking snaps there and they were saying, well, you know, there might be competition because Bradbury had a pretty rough camp.

And then he got this elbow injury. And I just like, we've basically haven't seen him since. And I wonder if that elbow injury is lingered and has just been, we've basically haven't seen him since. And I wonder if that elbow injury is lingered and has just been like something he hasn't really recovered from, but maybe if he had to play in a pinch, but you know, I think that when we talk about like undoing of teams, there are things that are preventable and things that aren't like, how could you know that your defensive scheme wouldn't fit anybody for this defense? Like, I don't know, like you, you brought in your scheme and you know, maybe it would have worked better. I don't know. Like I can justify hiring a Fangio

guy to bring in that scheme. It hasn't worked, but I could say, okay, I don't think they were crazy for doing it. I think drafting a fourth round, second guard, you know, guard in the second round is not a great idea. And then you have to start them because you started, you know, because you drafted them in the second and you spent money on like nickel corner and linebacker and these other things that haven't really helped you at all and ignored the guard position for the 69th year in a row. And like, maybe it's, you know, that was something you could have seen coming for sure that this would be a

problem. And so if Indianapolis gets three strip sacks and beats the vikings somehow like you can look at that and be like well look you know that was one that we could have seen coming but the chris reed thing has been a complete mystery and there's been so many other things going on that i don't know that anyone's even really asked like hey what's up with the third string guard like i don't know right but But that one is surprising because everyone who covered the Colts, reporters, fans, they all sent to us like, oh, yeah, you. Yeah, for sure. Like, oh, good player. You guys got a nice guard there. And it just like never came to pass. He was legit last year, man. He stepped in when Glowinski got hurt and then he played so well that Glowinski, Mark Glowinski, who was a guy who had started for three straight years,

they were rotating snaps. Or there was even games where Chris Reed was starting the whole game. And then Quentin Nelson missed time late in the season. They put in Chris Reed there. And the offense didn't miss a beat. Like, he was really good. So, yeah, I'm a huge Chris Reed fan. I did, like, an hour-long film interview with him, too,

before the season started. Just a really smart fun guy and you know the elbow injury thing can make sense but going now to this colts defense line you know where you wanted me to go with this conversation before i had to jump in with chris reed stuff there is yes yannick and gawk was probably the weak link on this defensive line right now uh because you didn't even mention grover stewart is probably the best if not like a top three uh run stuffing defensive tackle in the NFL this year. It's probably like him and DJ reader are the top two. Like he is that good. I think

he's got the most tackles for a loss among all defensive tackles in the NFL this year. He's just been phenomenal. If you're not double teaming him, which again, if you double team him to Forrest Buckner, like you said, it's just going to kill you in the run game. Yes. Grover Stewart doesn't provide much in the passing department, in the pass rush department, but you can't run on the Colts because of a guy like Grover Stewart. And then, yes, DeForest Buckner, great pass rusher, great run defender. And then Quiddie Paye this year, when he's played, man, I'm not saying he's looking like a savior off the edge or anything like that, or like a superstar, but if he had played all year this year we'd

probably looking at him having like eight nine ten sacks right now which is really really solid because he's having some high quality sacks anytime they stunt him he's just explosive and disruptive so I think Gus Bradley with this defense is going to throw some things at Kirk Cousins to you know get him a little scared there in their pocket now again I do think this defense is regressing I think they are losing their legs a little bit and we saw that a little scared there in their pocket. Now, again, I do think this defense is regressing. I think they are losing their legs a little bit. And we saw that a little bit at the end of the Cowboys game where they were able to run the ball at will because guys like Grover Stewart, guys like DeForest Buckner,

these are 30 year old players that are just worn out from the season playing 60, 70, 80% of the snaps in the year where they've had to carry this offense. So I don't know what version of the Colts defense we're going to be getting in this game, but this is a good unit. They have a lot of good players. They held the Chiefs and the Eagles to under 20 points this season.

And they gave their team the chance to win in both of those games. So this is not a cakewalk of a defense with the Colts. The Colts offense is a cakewalk. Their defense is pretty good. Folks, my wife had a great idea this week in the holiday spirit. We went and got some cases of liquid death and donated them to a local food pantry. Though I have to say we did get some strange looks because it's called

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this year-to-year defense like you mentioned the age of some of these players, like Stefan Gilmore is not going to be this for you for another three years while you completely rebuild. And I think when you look at teams in the league and I don't want to get too far away from like the matchup or whatever, because that's what most people care about teams in the league that have the toughest path back to being somebody. Indianapolis isn't number one, but they're not, not number one either. I mean, it's like, and you know, you would say like,

well, you know, you just draft a quarterback and I'm sure that you're going to do some little tiny bit of draft scouting when it comes to the quarterback. But I do have a question for you about the draft. So I won't leave you without that, but it just feels like this whack-a-mole game where like you built up this good defense and you're hoping the

offense can rank 15th in the league and get in the playoffs and make things interesting and the offense goes to hell and then you're looking around and you're firing people and maybe years of drafting non-premium positions has kind of come back to haunt you a little bit like things like that I mean I know that's debatable uh between the draft twitter and the analytics twitter but i tend to think that like having the best linebacker in the league is like okay well congratulations you know like i mean i apologize the vikings for this like right up and around guard okay well great i mean you know if he's if he's quentin nelson it might be worth it but otherwise probably not so i i don't know. I feel like they are just in a, in a spot where you say, what is the path to this team being good anytime soon?

Yeah, no, I think, you know, I've made this joke a lot ever since you and I talked a couple of years ago during the Phillip river season is look, the culture of the AFC Vikings. They just have had a different quarterback every year and they've had their quarterback fall off compared to, you know, you guys have just had Kirk, the Cousins every single year it's the same thing every year with Kirk Cousins and that's the beauty of him it's just he's going to be Kirk Cousins every single season uh but yeah with with the Colts you know I think the thing that hurt them the most the thing that just killed the Frank Reich and Chris Ballard era was how good Phillip Rivers was because they thought

this team was closer than what they really were they thought that they were you know when they had that Phillip Rivers season they're like oh my gosh look this this immobile pocket passer on his last legs came in here and he got us to 11 and 5 taking the two seeds to the to the wire like this is a good football team if we can just get this innovative like creative pastor like a Carson Wentz in here he could take us to new levels and then when Carson Wentz failed they were reeling and they had to do something to try to save their jobs and that was in the form of Matt Ryan they never had that chance to go for a young quarterback and and you know by all reports and stuff you know Chris Ballard and his scouting staff did like Justin

Fields and if they didn't make that Carson Wentz trade they could have been in position to trade And, you know, by all reports and stuff, you know, Chris Ballard and his scouting staff did like Justin Fields. And if they didn't make that Carson Lynch trade, they could have been in a position to trade up for him. And look what that is looking like right now. Again, I'm not saying Justin Fields is a savior, this elite quarterback, but I would kill for the Colts offense to be scoring 30 points a game the last like 10 weeks or whatever. So yeah, you know, they kind of missed their opportunity post Andrew Luck to go young and kind of do like a mini rebuild because Phillip Rivers was so good. Phillip Rivers kind of, you know, I actually had this conversation a lot with people and I say this a couple of times on podcasts is look, Andrew Luck retirement hurt, hurt everything. It threw off every single bit of timeline. It threw off every bit of expectation. But Phillip Rivers being good is what killed everything. You know, that was the step on the throat. That was the final nail in the coffin.

You know, every kind of metaphor and, you know, illusion that you can make there, that was it. It was Phillip Rivers being pretty good because they were just pressing since then. And they just needed that time to kind of blow it all up. And I think being 4-8-1 in the season where you sign Stephon Gilmore, sign or traded for Yannick Ngakwe, sign Matt Ryan, or I guess they traded for Matt Ryan too.

A lot of trades. But in an offseason where you did all that, trying to push all the chips in it, and you just suck. Like you're just terrible. This is finally the time where you can blow it up post Andrew Luck. It took them a long time, but they're finally here with a top, you know, five, six, seven pick. And hopefully you guys can help us get to that top five pick after this week.

You know, I have a name for this. I call this the natural tank. When nobody actually wanted to tank and God forced you to tank. They just said, no, no, no, no. You do not go get a washed matt ryan on my watch football god struck you with lightning and said it's the natural tank you are forced to rebuild because at some point unless you have my homes at your quarterback every team will have to have that dip at some point and you know this really strikes me that when the vikings decided not to

and i don't want to say tank because they have Justin Jefferson, you can't tank with Justin Jefferson, but not reset, not, not move on from older players, not do some of the resetting. It's like they brought back, you know, Harrison Smith at this huge contract and like you're 32nd in yards. And Harrison Smith's one of the players I respect most that I've ever covered, but you're 32nd in yards. Like there's, that's not worth what you paid him, especially the way they play him.

So there was a lot of argument about like, do you, you know, do you do this? Do you like hit the reset button a little bit? And I fully believe Ryan polls wanted to do that with the Vikings. And there was a world where the Vikings are the Colts right now. Like there was not quite to the level of being last in offense, but like, but there was a world where, where the bets just don't work. And instead of winning nine games from it by one score, you lose half of those. And all of a sudden you're looking around going now, what, like, where do we even go in the future? And that's why here there's desperation. And maybe, maybe you felt this last year, maybe you didn't, or like maybe maybe in hindsight you could see it this year there's desperation because looking in the future it's like there's going to be some really difficult things they have to deal with and just because you're you doesn't mean you automatically get to you know have it work out like it did this year so there's like this feeling even going into this

game like you better bludgeon the heck out of the colts because otherwise we're all going to look around and go like, what is this? Is this just like an average team in a, you know, a 10 and three teams clothing or what's going on here if they don't take care of business. So this weirdly has like a lot of, you know, it's been amplified a little bit over this week, the way that they lost to the lions. Y'all better take care of business. Look, I'm pulling for you guys this week.

Now don't get me wrong. A win is always great for content. It's great for stories and stuff like that. But anytime the Colts win in these last four games, it makes a chance of Jeff Saturday coming back as head coach more likely and more plausible for Jim Irsay. So I'm hoping for 30-point losses in each of these last four games, especially against Houston in week 18 or whatever it is. But, yeah, no, I mean, the Vikings are this close

to being the Colts. Because you look at the Colts this year, if you flip all their one score games, right? You know what their record is this season? Four, eight, and one. The same. So when they get in the one score games, you know, these one score games

that the Vikings are winning pretty much all of them, they're a coin flip team, you know, like most NFL teams. But it's just those four non one score games you know these one score games that the vikings are winning pretty much all of them they're a coin flip team you know like most nfl teams but it's just those four non-one score games they've just been bludgeoned by teams that they've played against but that's just the difference between being a great team and a terrible team it's just that coin flip of those one score games and that's why we see with vegas projections and a lot of people who bet on win loss records for the next year they'll see a team like the Vikings this season and see, oh man, nine of their 10 wins or whatever it is you guys finished with,

or one score wins. Odds are they're going to regress down to average or below average next season. So I'm going to bet the under on their win total. So yeah, the Vikings are going to be at a major impasse this off season because Justin Jefferson, you can't really tank.

He's too good. He's going to get 2,000 yards a season. He's that good. But what do you do? Not just Justin Jefferson. You have other guys. Christian Derusaw, very, very good left tackle. Dalvin Cook, a good running back that you're paying already.

On defense, they have some players that are playing well outside of the whole scheme and stuff like that. So, I mean, it's like the Colts where, you know, you look at the Colts and you're like, oh yeah, we should tank. We have the best linebacker in football, a really, like a hall of fame left guard, you know, one of the top paid right tackles. They have Michael Pittman Jr., a thousand yard receiver, Jonathan Taylor, a potential offensive player of the year, running back. How do you tank? How do you tank? But maybe you guys should go with a natural tank crowd.

You guys want Matt Ryan after the season. We could send your guys away. I think that looking at Matt Ryan, there's definitely got to be a concern about Cousins wins 13 games, they give an extension, and then you're talking about getting into the same age where Ryan fell off and all the, all these things in the future is why mostly this year I've been like, we're not talking about the future because there is no future. Like there, I mean, it's just, it's gotta be today. But the last question I do have for you is about the draft because there, so my wife is a college football broadcaster. And so she did a bunch of games this year

and her first game of the year was doing Anthony Richardson. And in that game, he beat Utah and played extremely well. And I was like, I'm interested. Like, this is very exciting. So I watched throughout the year and she did a different team every week. So I kind of got a little sampling of every everybody, but that was the one that sort of stuck with me that performance and i watched a bunch of them this year and there were some times where i was like throw the ball please there but there were other times where i was like dude this guy's got some toughness he's he's nails and that team stinks florida is awful they have no they have no talent no talent at all i mean i think in their last game he incompleted like 11 passes in a row

and like six of them were dropped it was just absurd so i would love to hear your opinion on anthony richardson folks you have just days left before christmas so make sure you're going to sodastick.com to get all of your minnesota sports goods. That's hats, t-shirts, hoodies, sodastick.com. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the promo code purpleinsider there for your last minute holiday shopping. He's my QB1. And I'm going to be sitting with that because I've looked at each of these

guys, you know, I've had, I've had weeks to study the draft. Okay. A little bit close, but out of, you know, the second they fired Frank Reich, I was all draft mode. You know, that was it for me. I knew Jeff Saturday wasn't going to turn this thing around. And I have been doing all this research lately on mobile quarterbacks versus pocket passers versus dual threats. Even Dual threats is kind of hit or miss. You'll either get a Sam Darnold or you'll get a Joe Burrow or a Justin Herbert, which is awesome.

Like that's what you want right there. That's your go-to. But when you look at mobile quarterbacks lately, it's kind of all hits outside of Kellen Mond with you guys. You guys are kind of the only ones blowing that up there. Third round. Yeah, third round, third round. But if you look at the early guys, I mean, look,

Justin Fields is looking like a hit right now he's playing really well jalen hurts lamar jackson i would kind of lump josh allen into this because he was such a effective runner uh coming out you look at all these guys at kyler murray another one these guys are hitting at such a high level because if you look at the modern NFL a Russian quarterback a creative quarterback a quarterback that can kill teams with scrambling and kill teams on with their legs sets such a higher floor for your offense because you're guaranteed yards you know or or like a Ben Solek from the ringer wrote a phenomenal article on this you guys can read I linked it like four times in my big article from this past week and stuff too um is a biggest thing with creative quarterbacks is sack negation if you are getting sacked on a

drive i think you're like four times more likely to end without points on that drive if you have a quarterback like again like a josh allen jalen hertz lamar jackson they can take something that's going to be an eight nine ten yard loss and turn that into a 20-yard gain and what's, what are the odds that you turn a 20 yard gain on a drive into a touchdown? I mean, odds are pretty good there compared to the, you know, an eight, nine, 10 yard loss on the sack. So, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm all in on mobile quarterbacks. I think they're safer than pocket guys. And I said something crazy on the podcast this week.

We're like, look, I know Anthony Richardson is far away as a passer. Like there are a lot of the mechanically he needs to be fixed a little bit. Um, but I don't think he's broken. I think that there are some good things to work with there. The potential is high. And because you have that rushing floor, I think a quarterback like him is safer than a CJ Stroud, especially for Indy.

Because with Indy, your offensive line's not good. Your receivers are not these great separators. Like they're fine, but they're not great. A guy like CJ Stroud needs everything to be perfect spacing is going to be just pain in the butt because he's a pocket passer that does not react well to pressure you guys are seeing that with kirk cousins we say we saw that with matt ryan where yes they can make some plays from the pocket but when you have a guy like an anthony richardson the second they break that pocket

the second that you have the threat of them scrambling, it just destroys the defense. It destroys this Fangio too high safety look that everyone loves. And it opens things up. It's all about spacing nowadays. And a quarterback like Anthony Richardson, man, if you can get him from, what is he, a 54% passer in college? If you can get a kid who was starting his first year in the SEC,

throwing 54% of his completions to a terrible offense, if you can get that to like 61, 62, 63 in the NFL, along with his ability to maybe rush for 700, 800 yards a season, this is a really, really good quarterback. And this is how you compete with Pat Mahomes. You're not competing with Pat Mahomes with CJ Stroud. You're not competing with Pat Mahomes with Kirk Cousins or Matt Ryan. You know, I'm sorry. Like you might beat them in the regular season, but on a year to year basis,

you're not competing with that type of player with that archetype, but you might have a chance if you can space defenses out with these mobile quarterbacks. So yeah, Anthony Richardson, I just, again, I know there's risk, but the potential is so, so high. And that's why he's my QB one going into this class. And in recent years, I've gotten around to kind of this way of looking at quarterbacks is you look at, of course, like the upside of the arm strength and the size and whatever. I'm going to assume that if they're a first round prospect, they have what's required to be a star. But the character and the makeup of the guy is really interesting to me.

And I feel like that's had more correlation to success in my own, just like, who do I think is going to succeed? Then it has been like, well, this guy, you know, there was like questions. Does Joe Burrow throw it hard enough? Does Deshaun Watson, like, does he throw it hard enough? And when we talk character, i only mean football character for i don't need anything else i was like man where are you going with that you gotta chill a little bit there but it was does deshaun watson throw it hard enough but what but he had the leadership

the character the mobility lots of things that went along with it and with anthony richardson i thought he was put in so many bad spots this year. They played Georgia and they played them well. They played Tennessee and they played them well. And the rest of the team was so out, man, their defense was horrible. Their offensive line had one good guy and the rest of them stunk. They had no receivers. It was just like no tight ends, no real legitimate running game.

It was basically Anthony Richardson do everything and they weren't horrendous and and you saw a lot you saw a lot of moments where he could have had like meltdowns on that team but receivers would drop balls get get everybody back in try it again like he he didn't have some of those like body language signs you sort of look for that are a little concerning or whatever even Caleb Williams whoever is everyone's next to my homes and so forth. That's the only thing I have against him is I don't really love the body language sometimes. And I, I know it's, it's a hot take, but I didn't know. No, I get it. I didn't like the right bleep Utah on your fingers or whatever. It's like, you know, I, I liked the way that I'm not saying he's a bad prospect. I'm saying like, he's going to need a year to act like a pro a little more we cover pros here so it's like how do the pros act

do they do they write bleep the colts on your fingers like probably not right like probably not because you have some respect for your opponent but i thought that everything with him the way the way that he carried himself checked every box for me and then you add the arm strength that he has. Footwork can be changed. Josh Allen does show this, like Jalen Hurts does show this Matt Mahomes. Oh, the footwork, the footwork, you can show work. You cannot change the fact that the guy has character and that he has toughness and that he has speed and that he has power. I mean, so anyway, I don't mean to spend so much time on this quarterback prospect, although the Vikings should like at least have some eyeballs on a guy or two. But, you know, anyway, so it's I just like that's the one prospect I kind of kept an eye on.

And I'm just very, very intrigued by it. Yeah. Yeah. And the last thing I'll say is I know we're running a little long talking non Vikings and Colts here is that's the hardest part to evaluate. You know, the character, because we are sitting I'm sitting at home in my little office here in Virginia. How am I going to know the character of Anthony Richardson down in Florida? Like I could talk to him for an interview for 10 minutes and be like, walk away being like, yeah, he carried himself well.

And then he walks off and does something stupid. And I don't, because I don't know the character of a man. I don't. So it's hard to anticipate that. Now there are some guys like Jalen Hurts where like anyone who's ever even seen that guy knows that that's the highest character you can get. Like, that's the peak right there of all character, you know. He's like a Mary Sue for the football world.

He just is too perfect and stuff like that. But, yeah, no, I love what you said about the character and stuff like that because I remember watching Josh Allen years ago in 2018. And I'm not going to come on here and say, Josh Allen, I knew was going to be this. I knew he was a top five pick and he was going to be a superstar, but I had a first round grade on Josh Allen. I liked Josh Allen a lot. And I remember one of my first all 22 college films I ever had was him versus Hawaii. I had like traded stuff for it on the black market. You know how it goes to get that all 22. And I was watching that Hawaii game and they're a bad team. Wyoming's terrible.

Like they were horrible with him. And I kept seeing him hit these, these deep like 30 yard, like corner routes and stuff like that in stride, hitting these, these guys who are probably doing what I'm doing now, right in the hands and they're dropping it, you know,

or they're making, they're messing plays up. And then I come back and see the next drive and he's doing the same thing he's still hitting that route he's still hitting it out there or he's hurtling some defender and running for 20 yards and i was sitting there watching like you know what kind of resilience you have to have to be on this bad of a team and you're just throwing some done now given he was throwing some at their feet too and like he was not a perfect prospect but he was just throwing some dimes here and there that were, you know, your stat sheet was saying, Oh, for one afterwards and stuff.

And I do think that is a valuable part of the process with a guy like Anthony Richardson too, is that Florida state game. What he had like 13 straight incompletions or whatever that you said, but you watched that he's throwing some dimes in there. You know, he threw some hole shots. He threw some, some just really, really good plays. There was one that he broke the pocket and threw it to a tight end in the end zone who dropped it, falling on his back and stuff.

How do you even get back up after that? Like, I don't know how you even get back to that, but he kept coming back and he kept them. I'm not saying they were competing in that game, but, you know, they were still moving the ball. They were still getting down the field. So, yeah, I do think that's a big process when you're talking about quarterbacks like this it's just how do they continually respond to everything being a mess around them and i think richardson was very josh allen in that in that

sense there yeah yeah and i think that josh allen that was probably the thing that i didn't look into enough was like the character because i thought look at those stats like it's right yeah is this guy going to be dan mcguire or paxton lynch or something depending on your era of bust quarterback and uh instead uh in 2018 i i know i we i was meaning to ask one quick question and then wrap this up 10 years ago but like i see you i see some glimmer in your eye finally finally i have life again i have like dead zach has been here for 28 minutes and then finally we have this conversation but uh i know i mean i think that a lot of times we roll our eyes at some of the reports but some of them have some truth to them like maybe with

josh rosen i don't know like even kyler murray it was kind of like zach wilson yeah yeah right right like like why wasn't he the captain and then you go like oh who cares like i don't know it's byu he should be the captain jim mcmahon was the captain uh so uh but with yeah it's it's just uh in oh i was gonna say in 2018 when the vikings played the bills i was chatting with somebody i know because i'm initially from buffalo who works for the bills and he was like you know i know people are talking about this controversial pick, but you should see the way the other players have reacted to him. Like you should see the way he's just leading everybody. And I was like, okay, this is interesting. And then all of a sudden you

saw it like, that's, what's led him to be where he is, is that, that makeup and mentality. So that's why I like Richardson. We both could be complete fools here because quarterbacks, but that's what I, that's kind of what, what I like. So it's a, it's an interesting discussion for you. The Vikings just need to win this game. Please.

The conclusion of this whole show, you know, talking draft, talking Colts, talking Vikings, please win Vikings. Just, just lay the,

lay the beat down. Please. For both of our sanities, please, let's continue this. You know, the Vikings winning this game. Zach Hicks, you are the best, man. I really, really enjoy your work. And even if you are a Vikings fan, you should follow Zach on Twitter because your draft stuff is tremendous.

So maybe like a preemptive follow. It is, I don't have it in front of me, at Zach Hicks. Is there an underscore? Are you one of those people? Just two, just two hicks to me and zach hicks one have talked about this a little bit and you know he's he's not going to give it to me so i'm going to be at zach hicks too i think for the foreseeable future okay and you're an h person yes yes okay zach hicks all right beautiful uh great stuff man really fun conversation and we will talk again soon in draft season definitely definitely