Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Cornerback stats and a 1993 edition of Random Old Games

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about some of the crazy bad stats that Vikings corners of the past had and whether the current crop of corners can improve on them and then talks about a Vikings-Lions game from 1993 that has reflections of 2023 with SumerSports' Eric Eager. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and in just a couple of minutes, Eric Eager from Sumer Sports is going to join us. He selected his old game to talk about for our Random Old Games series. And it's a pretty fun conversation. We'll get to that momentarily.

But I want to start the show with our More Than Meets the Eye Stats focus presented by Oakley. Let's talk about cornerbacks because there's a lot of questions in our fans-only podcasts and our YouTube streams about the Vikings secondary, particularly who's going to win these cornerback jobs and what it's going to look like. And the thing with statistical production for corners is it's very hard to project and it also can be really hard to analyze because there's a lot of context so trying to guess what Byron Murphy Jr. and the youth movement of corners are going to do is really difficult but here's one thing we can say I looked into some numbers for

our more than meets the eye stats focus and I, you're never going to believe this, the last few years for Vikings corners have been really, really rough. So outside of Patrick Peterson, when he was great last season, and Duke Shelley, who had his moments and had some big plays on the ball in limited duty, the other two corners, Chandon Sullivan and Cam Dantzler, they combined to be targeted 141 times, and there was 111 completions according to PFF. That's almost 80% when targeting either one of those corners. Opposing quarterbacks also gained 8.7 yards per attempt when throwing at either one of those guys.

To put that in context, Patrick Mahomes averaged 8.1 yards per attempt. So when throwing toward Shannon Sullivan or Cam Dantzler, opposing quarterbacks were better in at least that metric than Patrick Mahomes. Not great, but this has been a trend for the last three seasons. The year before in 2021, when opposing quarterbacks targeted either Mackenzie Alexander or Bashad Breeland, they had 117 quarterback rating against Alexander and 111 at Breeland. How good is that? Aaron Rodgers quarterback rating in his MVP 2021 was 111. Both of these guys were as good or better, or I should say worse, when they were targeted.

So opposing quarterbacks had that much success, MVP level success when targeting those two guys. And in 2020, just as bad with three corners who were targeted at least 30 times, they had ratings over 120 back in 2020. So this is no surprise to any of you who have watched the games, but that's got to be bound to go the other way, right? Nowhere to go but up. Byron Murphy Jr. could help this a lot. He did give up 105 quarterback rating into his coverage last year, but the difference is that the previous season in 2021, he was playing four times as many slot snaps. And that's what Kevin O'Connell said he's going to do is largely play in the slot and there in 2021 the opposing quarterback rating against him was only

87.8 so much much better might actually be one of the better slot corners in the league if he reproduces that as for the other guys that's where it gets a little bit tricky. We can't really take anything away from a Caleb Evans being targeted 22 times last year or Andrew Booth Jr. being targeted 15 times. As far as Makai Blackman goes, he graded over a 90 in coverage out of 100 by PFF at USC last year, but it's hard to say if that will translate right away. Not impossible though, though, rookies generally struggle. There were 10 rookies last year who graded by PFF above 65. So at least a shade above average to of course sauce Gardner was immediately elite, but somewhere in that range of being above average. So there were

10 guys who did that last year. And if Blackman wins the job, maybe he's got a chance to at least be in the ballpark of average, which would be a huge, huge boost. And we did try earlier, if you guys listen back with Haley English, our intern, who is now working with the Detroit Lions in their front office, by the way, and she studied corners and their PFF grades and coverage. And what she found was if you graded well, it didn't guarantee you would be a good player. But if you graded poorly, it almost always did guarantee you wouldn't make it in the NFL. So at least Blackman has that going for him. Of course, statistical analysis with corners, very difficult scheme, pass rush, big deal. And Brian Flores' aggressive nature could help them or hurt them.

It could either help them by meaning opposing quarterbacks are going to have to get rid of the ball quickly, or it could hurt them because they're not going to have as much help and coverage, and there could be open holes that quarterbacks take advantage of. So we'll have to wait and see how training camp goes to get a feel for who's going to be playing and what we can say about that after it happens then you know it'll take still a long sample size to really know

because even last year is a small sample size one season for a cornerback I mean there were times last year where people were making the argument about Cam Dantzler if you remember after he had a very good game in London and and then that didn't ultimately come to fruition. So this one's going to take some patience to figure out who can play, who can't play, but the Vikings do have the potential to be better than their last three years because that bar is extremely low. So we'll keep an eye on that for sure. That is our More Than Meets meets the eye stats focus presented by Oakley. Now, Eric eager of Sumer sports to talk about an old game that was on his mind.

Joining me to continue our series on random old games in which we literally pick out random old games and talk about them because it's the summertime is Eric eager Sumer Sports, the Sumer Sports Show of which has become a tremendous must-listen podcast. But there is a lot of 90s football discussed, I would say, on the Sumer Sports Show, but I don't know if it's as in-depth as we're going to go. But I asked you, Eric, I said, hey, go ahead, pick your own game, and then we'll talk about it.

And I had expected to only talk about wins on the show. But maybe in classic eager-like fashion, you did pick a game in which the Vikings blew a lead. October, what is this, 31st, 1993 is where you decided to go. Explain to me the selection of this game as we are going to dive deep into some 1993 Vikings here. Well, I think firstly, it's a game that I had never, I didn't watch live because, you know, I, you know, 1993, I would have been seven years old. I didn't really start watching football live

until I was like eight or nine. I had always been fascinated by the early 90s Vikings before I had started watching them because Dennis Green was such an interesting guy. He transformed that team from kind of a defense first team. This 93 team was first in the NFL. It's the last time I believe that they've ever led the league in yards per game allowed and he transformed that team into an offense first team later with Moss and Carter and Dante and all that and so I was always so interested in like how that team got by and the other part was and that that game just got put on YouTube like a month ago.

So that was like another part. The other part is where we are in the history of the NFL because 1993, believe it or not, is the last time the Detroit Lions have won a division. 1992 was the last time before this year that they were favored to win their division going into the season. So this was the last time that the lions would go on to host a playoff game was this year and if you look at the 1993 standings the vikings were nine and seven they had beaten detroit 13 to nothing in the like two or three weeks later in fort uh in silverdome, and Detroit finished 10-6.

They won the final week of the season against the Packers, and they won the NFC Central. The Vikings finished 9-7. If this game is flipped, the Vikings would have won the division, and that would have been three straight division-winning seasons for Dennis Green coming out of the gate. So that game had a lot of stuff there. And then there was also just all the interesting stuff about Anthony Carter

reemerging, how good Chris Carter had finally been. Prior to this game, Chris Carter had never had a 1,000-yard season in the NFL. This was his first one. You had Robert Smith getting kind of his first game as the feature running back for the Vikings. The shoulder pad aesthetic was amazing. The fact he was wearing number 20 was also really funny. So there was just a lot of interesting things about this.

But to me, the number one one was Detroit won the division. And that was the last time it ever happened. And they did it in large part because they were able to come back from 14 down in the fourth quarter to beat the Vikings. Yeah, one thing that sticks out to me right away when watching this game back, and it is on YouTube if you want to go back and take a look, is what the NFL looked like in 1993. And it just seems to me that there was a shifting. And this goes for a lot of things from the early 90s to the mid 90s changed a lot the sound of music changed a lot from the early 90s to the mid and late 90s and just even how football was broadcast the broadcast is pretty rough pretty like antiquated the way that the

metrodome looks it's absolutely in standard def there's no hd going on in this game it's on tnt which i don't think there's a lot of people that would even remember that football was on tnt uh at the time and it's just like watching something that came out of if you what what is it called when you bury a bunch of items and then someone yeah it's like a time capsule yeah yes yes this is something out of a time capsule if you watch a game like three years later in 1996 it looks very close to what you see today from nfl broadcasts without much change with this there's like one or two camera views it's very scratchy it's kind of all the linebackers have like the biggest shoulder pads you've ever seen robert smith has the the jersey with like the non-cuffed sleeves so he's got like sam bradford

sleeves going like yeah i mean it is really like a blast from the past and like it is a a very epic look into what the world used to be like which is kind of fun and and again like it's the last time the lions won that division which is kind of fun. And again, like it's the last time the Lions won that division, which is kind of insane to me. Yeah. And so this game also features something that would happen quite often in the 1990s and even into the 80s with the Vikings franchise. That has not been the case in recent years, which is multiple quarterbacks playing in a single game, Jim McMahon and Sean Salisbury. And Sean Salisbury has a phenomenal game.

And this, I don't know if this is the best game of Sean Salisbury's career, but it probably is the best game of his career. He plays excellent in this game. And you mentioned, it's funny that the Vikings did have some, some really good defensive players, but Rodney Pete is the opposing quarterback and pretty much lights them up

outside of a couple of fluky interceptions. One where he's falling down. And then another one where it's a tipped ball. There's another thing that stands out to me too. Anytime I watch these early nineties games, which was the hilarity of turnovers, we have gotten used to the fact that like, it's very hard to get interceptions.

It's pretty rare that guys fumble. I mean, you might have a game where there's two turnovers in a game, and you're like, oh, those turnovers really changed the game. And the early nine is like four turnovers. It wasn't that crazy to have. There's also a butt fumble in this game that also speaks to where the NFL was because this would have been like an all-time low light where Barry Word runs directly into the

rear end of his offensive lineman the ball pops out and that's it actually kind of opens the door for Robert Smith playing because Barry Word was a veteran and after that fumble I think they didn't really want to play him a whole lot anymore and Robert Smith ends up getting a touchdown on the next drive but I'm just I guess most fascinated by sort of the state of early nineties Vikings, where I don't know that finding the franchise quarterback was as talked about as it is now where it's just absolutely everything. But I think that this type of season is maybe proof that it should have been. And the fact that the Vikings in this organization in general can never really truly pin down

that quarterback spot. And it's like, Oh yeah. Reminder. At one point they're playing Jim McMahon at his advanced age and Sean Salisbury. Yeah. It's so funny because there are some parallels too, with, you know, this is year two of the Dennis green regime, you know, the, it's funny, but like you're one of the dentist screen regime they got rid of herschel walker even though he could still play he went to philadelphia rush for a thousand yards um was an instrumental part of a playoff team there another 11 and 5 team and they got rid of

herschel who was kind of the whole this roster sucks because of this player type player. And I'm not going to talk about Kirk. I think Kirk has obviously had a better Vikings career than Herschel did, but a very similar sort of we're putting all of our eggs in this basket and it doesn't work, you know, didn't work. Year one under Green, they went 11-5. The schedule was easier. Injuries weren't that bad free agency didn't bite them and then you look and this vikings team year two of the regime they traded

gary zimmerman to the broncos in the in the preseason gary zimmerman's a hall of fame left tackle for a wide receiver named vance johnson who they cut after training camp so it's like they just gave up you know gary z Zimmerman for like a first-round pick and then players that didn't make the team. They had three new offensive linemen. Terry Allen tore his ACL in training camp. And so they're out there trading a fifth-round pick for Barry Word to go with Roger Craig and then Robert Smith.

It was weird back then if the number one 1,200-yard running back got an ACL now, they would gladly play the rookie. But back then, Robert Smith was just getting no carries because they didn't think he was ready. Anthony Carter was kind of aging out, much like Adam Thielen. They would give Jake Reed reps every once in a while, and he certainly wasn't ready. Chris Carter was emerging.

Steve Jordan was – he retired after 1993. He did come back in 94 when they had injuries, but he retired after 93. So it's very similar to kind of what they're dealing with now too, which is they squeezed every last bit of juice out of the orange in 92. They try to run it back, but they can't't and they have to go in you know very much down a few players the the metamorphosis and the defense came in the following year when they traded chris dolman and they let anthony parker and audrey mcmillan and carl lee all go but it was it was it's very similar to where it is now. And then the quarterback position, they were in on Joe Montana for a little bit,

couldn't get him, go with Jim McMahon. Everybody thought Jim McMahon was the piece that was going to keep them because they were so down on Rich Gannon, which is funny because he ended up becoming an MVP in the league. And the funniest part was McMahon was the winner that year. They were 8-3 in games where he played, but up until Salisbury got in the lineup, they never scored over 20 points in a game.

And so Salisbury is weirdly going in there, kind of lighting the place up a little bit and then losing because this started a string of forced losses in five games, all of them that Salisbury played. And all of them that Salisbury played pretty well, and it ultimately didn't, you know, for reasons, I think like when you look at him versus McMahon, McMahon just managed the game better. He was not as good of a passer at this point in his career. Folks, I know you have heard me talk a ton about my Oakley sunglasses this summer, but the more I wear them, the more I like them. I went on a little summer vacation and spent a ton of time outside in the sun.

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but the best quality as well. Head on over to Oakley.com for more information today. Oakley, express your style and build a look that's made for you yeah it's funny about jim mcmahon and just his entire career because there's not a single season where you'd ever be impressed by his stat line and yet he won in chicago he won something like 20 games in a row or whatever and And the defense was always given all the credit, Walter Payton, all the credit. And yet when you go back and watch those games and there's one famous comeback he had against the Vikings where he came off the bench and he was

injured and then he comes back against them. And the game manager knows how to win thing is kind of real in the NFL. And I wonder about when it sort of stopped being real because it's definitely not really a thing now. I mean, I don't think that even I, I think it was kind of going up until recent years where even with Teddy Bridgewater in 2015. And I think that if you were looking for a comp for Teddy Bridgewater, historically, Jim McMahon is probably a good one because he didn't put up big numbers, didn't put up a lot of touchdowns, managed the game, didn't turn the ball over very often, kept the defense in it and found a lot of ways to win. But I think that if you took the 2015

Vikings team and drop them into 2022, that they're struggling a lot more. And, you know, I think the idea was that Bridgewater was getting better and they were going to develop, and he never really got to play, actually never got to play with the Diggs-Thielen combination that we saw. They were on the team, but not the elite Diggs-Thielen or Justin Jefferson. So maybe his numbers would have gone up. I think his arm strength was improving. But who he was in 2015, kind of a relic.

Maybe we saw a little Kenny Pickett last year find a ways to win with the defense, even though he didn't put up big numbers. But at this time, you could do that. And Jim McMahon did a lot of that. But he gets – did he get – I forget now because I just watched the game a couple days ago in the first half. Did he get injured in this game or taken out of this game? He got hurt like in drive

number two bad shoulder he made a nice throw to anthony carter early um but yeah it was pretty much and it was one of those the funny thing about mcmahon i don't think it's funny but like it's he got hurt so much that he just like knew like he was like yeah my shoulder's out this is four weeks type of thing like you know and and yeah i mean it's funny that you talk about like the game management managing it because you know mcmahon threw like pick sixes in this season he threw one against the raiders he threw one against the 49ers um and those are mostly when they were out of the game when the vikings were like in games he did so many things that were like trust your defense type plays

where he would dump it off or he'd take a sack or something where he just like would not put his defense in a bad position. And to your point, like that kind of quarterback could win back when defenses could win. Now defenses can't win, you know, by and large. And so it's just like not plus EV to not push the ball downfield and stuff like that. But, like, when you watch Salisbury, he would, like,

throw interceptions in bad times. He'd take sacks in bad times. There was, like, these little field position things where he would struggle, and it would cause more variance in the game. And, like, you know, you go on after this game for the Vikings. They go, and I believe they played San Diego the following week, lost. Salisbury throws a big pick in that game, even though he's very productive. They go to Denver.

They have a 17-point deficit. He comebacks and wins. I think he throws for like 400 yards that game. It was very impressive. But even to get them down, he threw interceptions and fumbled and stuff. And then, you know, after that, he just struggled to win football games, even though he was very – Anthony Carter had 300-yard games in Salisbury starting. So it was, like, very productive, but just in a weird way,

and maybe a lot of it's noise. But some of it was just, like, Denny very much thought he could win with McMahon. And he did. I mean, the only loss after McMahon came back was to Dallas, who was a Super Bowl winner. They lost that game at the Metrodome. They played games where they were kind of like close and tight, and McMahon delivered, and he delivered against Green Bay,

which is a playoff team, against Kansas City, which won the AFC West. Like he was very much – and Detroit, they won a 13-0 game now. The only touchdown in that game was a pick six. So it was like not really McMahon doing anything, but at least not screwing it up. Like it was very much a weird season where this was not a good football team, pick six so it's like not really mcmahon doing anything but at least not screwing it up like it was very much a weird season where this was not a good football team they somehow eked their way into the playoffs because they had the number one defense and you know jim mcmahon averaging 5.9

yards per pass attempt somehow was nine eight eight and three or something when he played yeah and maybe i'm giving a little too much credit to these days versus back in the day because the Super Bowl was, I believe this year, Dallas and Buffalo, two of the best offenses of all time with Troy Aikman and Jim Kelly, and that was usually the case in the NFL even going back to the 90s. But maybe there was just a little more opportunity to have a game manager play defense, particularly because teams love to kick field goals, short field goals.

They love to run the ball. They love to play conservative and that kind of thing. But this this game, really, there's a few things that stand out from it to me. One of them is this is a rare game where Barry Sanders does not annihilate the Minnesota Vikings, which I think maybe speaks to their defensive talent, even though they allow 30 points and they allow the lead to be squandered away in this game. But, you know, when you're watching these two running backs, and, you know, I think of the peak running back era in the NFL as being early 2000s, late 90s. So coming off Terrell Davis, a lot of offenses wanting to kind of follow along with that. And then those classic, you know, Larry Johnson's pop up for a couple of years.

You're Priest Holmes. You're this. This guy is sort of the flavor of the, you know, Chris Johnson a little bit later than that. But but I think that the early 90s with Barry Sanders being so dominant Emmett Smith Thurman Thomas you kind of had this big three of superstar running backs and Robert Smith comes along a little bit later when he's healthy and gets a chance to really play but this game was sort of in a way demonstrating the importance still of running backs back then and this is a discussion that we're having all the time now I see everybody's writing about it of running backs and then and this is a discussion that we're having all the time now i

see everybody's writing about it of running backs and writing columns of like should running backs be paid more and why aren't they paid and all these things and you were talking about like developing robert smith and we're just seeing the very early development there is no development for running backs you draft them and it's like you're in buddy it's actually weird that alexander madison has had four years as a backup to kind of quote develop that normally you're like well yeah i mean we draft you delvin cook is in week one you're playing and that is normally the case but not so much then so i thought that the the running back element of this game. And just that era really stuck out to me how different it was. Yeah, for sure.

Like this idea that you, well, it's so weird, right? Like it's this idea that you would have Terry Allen. Now this is the second time that the Vikings had a 1200 yard back and they, they drafted a rookie running back in the first round. I mean, Chester Taylor into Adrian Peterson, Terry Allen into Robert Smith. The funny thing about Robert Smith, and he actually said this on a USFL broadcast of the day, he knew the gravity of the situation because from 1989 to 1992,

there were no number one picks because of the Mike and Mary Weather trade and then the Herschel Walker trade. So he knew that like he was the first one in a long time. And they go with running back, even though they had a guy on the roster who was in theory like a very good one. And Alan and Alan went to go play for Washington. It was fantastic after that. And they had Roger Craig in the stable. And then they still go and trade a fifth for Barry Word. It's such a weird time. I don't think we'd ever think of these things now at all, which is cool. And one of the reasons why these games, these podcasts about these games is so fun

because it gives you a look into the soul of the NFL at a time when it was way different. Yeah. And I like that. I just try to connect a lot of different things to what's going on now. And one of those things also, there's always these great like remember that guy. And I mean, one of the things there's also there's like two versions of that. There's remember that guy because he's hilariously random and you totally forgot he existed. But then there's like, remember how good that guy was. And in this game, Rodney Peete to Herman Moore for a 93-yard touchdown. Remember how great Herman Moore was?

There's, and Herman Moore only had a short run of real greatness, just a couple of seasons. And their offense was really elite. And this is where their offense had not yet really transitioned into that three wide receivers, where it was Johnny Morton, Brett Perriman, and Herman Moore. And then opposing defenses would still be running three linebackers out there, just getting crushed by Scott Mitchell, of all people. But they were kind of running like a run-and-shoot, open type of offense at that point. Although there is one point in this broadcast where they declare

the run-and-shoot is dead. They're like, there's no more run-and-shoot. They're playing big tight ends now these days. And, you know, again, these transitions where we see offenses and trends changing all the time. But is it crazy to say that Pete Kerman Moore kind of reminds me of Justin Jefferson? Now, he was taller and slower, six foot four and not as fast. But the ability to track the football and make plays on the ball, no matter what the circumstance, they threw out a bunch of inaccurate quarterbacks during his time.

And that is not something Jefferson has. Jefferson has a very accurate quarterback but over the years he had four straight thousand yard seasons once he kind of hit the scene and was just one of the premier players in the entire nfl and you could just throw him the ball at any time anywhere and he would find a way to catch it well the wayne fonts lions i mean there's so many things to talk about herman moore here right because the one which is funny was the fall from grace for todd scott where todd scott in 92 made the pro bowl at five interceptions i think three of them were against cincy one of them he had the pick six that basically ended mike dick's career in chicago

and 93 he already had become this kind of like box safety, poor man's Landon Collins. And on Herman Moore's 93-yard touchdown, him and Carl Lee, Carl Lee a perennial pro bowler, like got cover two and cover three mixed up. If you look at the all 22 that they showed. And Herman Moore is just streaking down the sideline. And, yeah, I mean, Herman did it. This 93 Lions team, they had already gone Rodney Peet and then Andre Ware, showed and Herman Moore is just streaking down the sideline and yeah I mean Herman did it this 93

Lions team they had already gone Rodney Peete and then Andre Ware which by the way Andre Ware got cut after 93 joins the Vikings got beat out by Sean Salisbury again uh for the third stringer job behind Moon and and Brad Johnson and you had Herman Moore in 90, 95 Chris Carter had just come off a year where he had 122 catches. Herman Moore had the Saturday game against the bucks and they, and they were, they started the season three and six. They won seven straight games. They made the playoffs in 95 kept Wayne Fonsa's job.

Again, the cardiac cats. That was Wayne Fonsa style was to start like two and eight every year and They made the playoffs in 95, kept Wayne Fons' job again, the cardiac cats. That was Wayne Fons' style, was to start like two and eight every year and then make the playoffs. But they were up so much that Scott Mitchell was just standing up and throwing hitches to Herman Moore to get him 123 catches. And the following day, Chris Carter and the Vikings played the Bengals. They needed, and I remember this like it was yesterday, they needed to beat the Bengals in Riverfront. They needed the Bears to lose to Philly, who was already clinched. So that was a tough one. And they needed Atlanta to lose to San Francisco.

And they went 0 for 3. They blew a 21-point lead to the Bengals on the road that day. Classic Vikings. The Falcons with Bobby Hebert, one of my friends, as you mentioned, come back and beat the Niners. The Niners needed that game for the one seed. And Chris Carter doesn't get his 123 catches. So Herman Moore actually for a while had the record for most catches in a season.

It was broken by Marvin Harrison. But he, very good receiver. And the funny part was in 95, he and Brett Perriman both I think set the record for duos and receptions yards and touchdowns in a season by wideouts so they the Lions were kind of on that like leading edge of like how the heck did these offenses get good in the 90s and then you know because of Scott Mitchell they weren't able to stay good but they had a moment there Scott Mitchell's 95 year uh was one of the better years of that decade. So I do want to talk about just the transitioning from an older team to what the Vikings would become a little bit later in the mid-90s

and then setting up for eventually Randy Moss, because I think that that is relevant to where they are right now. But I wanted to ask, like, just what else about this actual football game stood out to you? Just to take it through, the Vikings get up 27-13. Salisbury's playing great. Robert Smith's running all over the place. And then the 93-yard touchdown happens in the fourth quarter to cut it within seven. Jason Hansen, one of the best kickers. I mean, Fouad Raveys versus Jason Hansen, quite the battle.

All-time kicker, Matt. Yes, all-time kicker. And then they give up a touchdown at the very end of the game for the Lions to win 30-27. But what other parts of the actual football game, beyond the things that we can tie to today, did you like? Well, it's so funny because the Vikings thoroughly got screwed in this game. Like, Barry Word did not fumble in the flat, right?

Like, he caught the ball like things like laying and they they have no replay so willie no replay yeah yeah willie clay picks the ball up runs it in so in theory it should have been 27 7 or 27 6 or whatever it was that didn't count they the broadcast which by way, you had the contrast of, like, the TNT got Sunday Night Football until, like, halfway through the year, and then they got basketball, and then they had ESPN. Pat Hayden, whoever the heck was with him in that booth, compared to Mike Patrick, Paul McGuire, Joe Theismann, no comparison.

And I love the Fruit of the Loom app, too. Don't get me wrong. But the ESPN Sunday Night Football, Thursday Night Football package is so much better than TNT's, which is probably why they ended up getting Monday Night Football in the end. But then, so Robert Smith scores. They're all like making a fit over the fact that Robert Smith doesn't score, even though I think it was like first or second down.

So it would have probably been a touchdown anyway. And then Anthony Parker, the poor nickelback for the Vikings, gets called on fourth down for pass interference, which just simply is not pass interference. And so the Vikings win the game, win the division ultimately, if that's not called, and it's called. So it's funny because I wanted to watch this game because it was the last time Detroit won the division.

But they won the division on some Mickey Mouse nonsense that happened in this game in a couple different ways and so you even think about how luck is just such a weird thing the Lions probably have lost the division in like completely unlucky ways since from 94 on and their last division title was gift wrap for them so maybe like be careful what you wish for. But, you know, if you get one now, you might never get one for another 30 years, which has been the case with the Lions. Yeah, I was thinking about this for like the Lions and the Jets have had these similar trajectories of just things going wrong all the time and keeping them out of ever being really a contender, except for those couple of years with Mark Sanchez and how there's so many teams, because this is what you hear about

like moving on from Kirk and things like that is people will be nervous. Like, well, what if we move on from him and we pick the wrong guy? And what if we become the Jets? And with 32 teams, you can use that all of their histories or 31 other teams to make any point you want to make. Any point you want to make about any team, because you could go to the Buffalo Bills who missed the playoffs for like 20 straight years and then go, well, you know, they found their franchise quarterback. But usually a lot of things have to kind of go right for you. But I was thinking about that with the Lions here and how much talent they had in the 90s and sort of through the years, if you built a Lions all-star team and put it up against other teams, you would probably build a very good team with the number of players that they've had and just have just been so bad. But you go back to then and they had been a fairly consistently competitive team. You mentioned it mentioned instant replay. I thought about that a lot during this game because I have just despised in all sports, the, the increased instant replay. It is one of the

things that drives me completely insane. I, well, I go to WNBA games and I sit there and they're reviewing whether somebody smacked somebody else in the mouth on purpose or by accident. And like, well, this should be a flagrant. Should it not be a flagrant? And you know, the DJ is doing his best to just play the heck out of every song he's got. But you're sitting there for like eight minutes, figuring out if somebody hit somebody in the, in the face, like I don't need this. And the NFL though, I have to admit, it needed it pretty badly like this. And, and I mean, pass interference still remains a problem.

But every year we have columns written. We have outrage over refereeing. Oh, the refereeing is so bad, and we're still getting these things wrong and everything else, which is true. But it is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. I mean, the refs in this game and in many games you used to watch, they were way overmatched, probably under-trained, and just were kind of guessing.

I think that they've become much better at their jobs. But I have to admit that instant replay needs to be a part of the NFL because it is impossible to tell if Robert Smith broke the plane or if Barry Word actually fumbled. I thought at the end of the game, I don't know, you could say they got screwed. I thought they got kind of some breaks one way or the other. But, yeah, the fumble is a huge play in this game, giving up for a touchdown. The one thing that was always interesting about the Vikings back then

when they had John Tierlink as the defensive line coach and, like, Tony Dungy, they were tolerant of a great deal of offsides penalties by their defensive line. Like Chris Dolman. I don't know if Chris Dolman's PFF grade would have been that great. Cause he would have got all these minus 0.5 for jumping off sides all the time, but they jumped off sides a lot. And I don't know, like they beat the heck out of Rodney Pete. So like, maybe it was worth it, you know, to an extent.

But yeah, it was it was the Wild West out there. And maybe that contributed to some, you know, some calls that like made little sense to me at the time. Because, yeah, it was it was it was a crazy game from that perspective. Like the officiating was not a one. That's for sure. And you also mentioned and before we get to the kind of connection to where the teams are today, but this was kind of Chris Carter's breakout season, not his breakout game necessarily,

but his breakout season as a Viking, where he goes from being kind of a good receiver who was known for catching too many touchdowns in Philadelphia to like pure greatness. And then it, it explodes from there with Warren moon throwing the balls 57 times in every game. But what I am always so impressed by with Chris Carter, number one is for the time, his target to reception ratio is always ridiculous for the time where quarterbacks are completing 50% of passes, you know, 55% of passes regularly. And he is catching 60, 70% of the passes his way pretty routinely. And in this game, it's like nine for 11 targets. He's just open all the time. Like

there's because Randy Moss was so great. It does overshadow. There's no way around it. The excellence of Chris Carter. And I feel like in this game, you could really see or start to see where this was headed with Chris Carter being the centerpiece and not Anthony Carter anymore taking over. And it's not that he has big plays. He has eight catches for like 88 yards or something like that and a 20-yard touchdown. But there's just the, they're starting to look his way. He's getting open. He's making catches all over the place. And I feel like this was a turning point for him of him emerging as a superstar wide receiver. And I guess, you know, you can sort of tie that into where they were in the team build, because when you look at 94, 95, 96, they start to really transition that roster. And I don't know if there's lessons from 93 to where they went eventually in 1998 to build one of the best teams of all time just a couple of years later.

But it is something that is not new in the NFL when we talk about these timelines. I think that our vision has been really sharpened by the amount of coverage to these things, the amount of sort of inside the front office that we're always doing, former GMs who are talking all the time and at least the ones that make sense. And, you know, I just think that like this sort of shows you that timelines were still a very important thing to these teams, even going back to the 90s and maybe even if there wasn't as much thoughtful, like intentional focus on it as there is now with Kweisi Adafo-Mentz.

Right. I think, I mean, one thing that I really enjoyed about Dennis Green was he saw the forest for the trees in a very, like he was not a great play caller. He didn't call the plays. I mean, this was, it funny because they they go on this discussion of the show about how bad the vikings offense was and they really only had one drive a touchdown drive that was more than like what 60 yards i think that this play was they had not scored more than 19 in a game all year and the game and they had like four defensive touchdowns to get them to those numbers um the previous week against the Bears, they scored 19-7. It was on an Audrey McMillan touchdown on an interception.

But beyond that, it was just like not – they had defensive scores in games, and that was how they got some of their points. And Denny had to fire Jack Burns after week two, go with Brian Billick, and Brian Billick. And Brian Billick was kind of seeing his way there. Carter had emerged, and it was like a string of Chris Carter being the team's leading receiver with Wade Wilson, Rich Gannon, Sean Salisbury, Jim McMahon, Brad Johnson, Warren Moon. Like all of it, it was Jeff George.

Denny had this very interesting worldview that the quarterback was just one of 11 players. But he also had, I think, a very understated worldview, which was offense is what wins. So they start out 92, 93. 94, they gave up like less than 1,000 yards rushing in 94, something like that. It was 2006, 2007-esque in 94. But because they had lost Audrey McMillan, Carl Lee, Vincy Glenn, and they were starting guys like Corey Fuller, Dwayne Washington,

Orlando Thomas, they were decimated via the pass. They kept getting decimated because they traded Chris Dolman to the Falcons the next year. They let Henry Thomas go, interestingly, to the Lions. That defense, by the time it got to 98, the only guy left was John Randall. That was the only player that they built the thing around, and they just kept putting resources in the offense. Everett Lindsey started this game at left tackle.

He was the first Viking in club history to start opening day as a rookie offensive lineman. In 93, this team was 30 years into their existence and never had that happen. By the time you get to, you know, 98, it's Todd Stussy, Brandon McDaniel, Jeff Christie, David Dixon, Corey Stringer, first round picks, guys they've invested in. And like,

I think this was like kind of the whole, like, well, we can't win with defense and we're going to need something. And they, they sort of pulled it, you know, they got Warren moon around the next year. Warren was older. But they just, they, they built around him. It's like nine new starters on offense the following year, because I think like they look at this and like, well, we're a defense that is not giving up anything and we can't beat Detroit at

home. So let's, let's start, let's start reevaluating ourselves. But, you know, I think the similarity if we're tying them together is you could see on offense, the pieces that they had, including, you know, Jake Reed that you mentioned, Quadri Ismail as well, who turned out to be a very good wide receiver for them. Not always the surest hands, but certainly the best speed. But a significant player in their offense

for the Warren Moon years. And they essentially had, and Robert Smith being a young player as well, they had this setup that they could drop Warren Moon into. And this is something that we've discussed about. We're always talking about, all right, well, the next year after Kirk, they're going to draft a quarterback and like, that's the answer. And there's also this other universe of going the Warren Moon route or the Kirk Cussens route,

actually once upon a time of somebody else coming available and then them being dropped in. But it did pop into my mind. I know it's not about this random old game, but this is what's great about random old games is that they start discussions about eras and everything else. How do we view Warren Moon as a Viking versus Kirk Cousins as a Viking? The very good question. I mean, Warren had a Hall of fame career prior to joining the vikings he had some success after we don't know what kind of success kurt's gonna have after warren was older

when he got to the vikings and kirk is now 37 i think when he started um with the vikings and ultimately got to like 39 or 40 when he left um the second half of 95 moon was better than anything kirk's ever done but the inconsistency that moon had in 94 early part of 95 and then 96 he was dreadful before he lost his job to brad johnson got hurt so i mean moon moon was productive he showed the vikings i think what was capable if you had a great quarterback, but they sputtered a lot in the red zone, a lot of drop passes. Kadri was one of them, a lot of drop passes, and a running game that they just simply never trusted. I know Terry Allen had 1,000 yards in 94, but it was kind of like a very weak sauce version of that. Robert Smith never stayed healthy when Moon was on the team for very long.

So I think Moon is probably, what, top eight Vikings quarterback of all time. But I don't think you can put his Vikings career in the conversation with Cousins. I mean, even Keenum's highs were much better than Moon's highs, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, Moon, one of the best quarterbacks to ever play. But once he got to the Vikings, I think you have to view it as a disappointment. He started one playoff game. They lost to the Bears at home, Steve Walsh.

It was certainly, you know, they got as many home playoff games as Kirk has. So it's kind of weird. But I think Kirk played better than Moon has, you know, kind of on balance. Yeah. So the thing about Moon is that they really asked him to be the entire team. And that's what for Cousins has sort of fluctuated

from year to year with his time here, where Warren Moon, like he was setting all of these records passing. If you go through and watch any of those 94 games, that's always the discussions. Warren Moon's putting up these insane numbers, and those numbers now would look pretty normal if you're throwing for the amount of yards that Warren Moon was.

Back then, it was not normal to have a guy who was throwing 40 to 50 times in pretty regular fashion because that was their offense. And the defense, as you mentioned, had been turned over. And so it kind of had to be that way. I think it is one of the interesting elements of Kirk Cousins' career that he shows up and they want him to be the centerpiece of the offense in 2018. And then they're like, no, no, no, actually don't be the centerpiece of the offense in 19 and 20.

And then in 21, he kind of has to be because the running game wasn't as good as it had been the year before. But they're still kind of centering it around Delvin. Mike Zimmer is still very upset every time they're not running. And then last year, Kevin O'Connell comes in and says, no, you have to be our quarterback and throw all the time and everything else.

And the results overall were 13 wins. So you can't take away from that. The results offensively, I thought were pretty mixed. When you have a team that did have high point totals, some of that point total is coming back from 30 something points against Indianapolis, which is totally unnecessary. And their scoring percentages like weren't that good.

Lots of inconsistency. I think last year actually kind of reminded me of a war and moon season where they were throwing and throwing and throwing and it was all about the wide receivers and it was all about passing game and some weeks and some quarters and this is what i always take away from watching moon some quarters you're like how did this team not win the super bowl with warren moon they were so good and then other quarters they just couldn't get anything going and it's almost a little bit like shooting three-pointers in basketball when you're hot you're unstoppable and when you're not if you don't have steph curry at the quarterback position making the

three-pointers consistently if you have kind of a it's moon and kirk are both like this during their careers where they have the and moon of course of course, is a Hall of Famer. So it's a different level, but they have this, like when they're great, they're great. And when they're down, they're down. And with Kirk, you could tell that really from the very outset of games. But I, you know, I don't know. I guess it's an interesting comparison to me because there's multiple seasons where there's so many Vikings quarterbacks that don't even have multiple seasons like Jim McMahon, who's playing in this game, and Sean Salisbury never had multiple seasons as an actual start. Yeah, for sure.

And like Rich Gannon only had kind of that one year in 92 where he started opening day. Brad Johnson kind of had 97, but even then he, you know, faded. You know, he got hurt with the neck, and then, you know, Randall had the one full year. But, yeah, I mean, we don't have that many seasons contiguous of Viking quarterbacks. Wade Wilson kind of, but he was always sharing the job with Tommy Kramer at the end. Kramer had his years, which I think, which is why, like, I think if you talk about Vikings quarterbacks,

it starts the conversation with Tarkington. Then you're picking among Dante, who I think had a much better career than Cousins. Then Cousins is probably third, and then Tommy Kramer, because he had those moments. Joe Capp, you had some guys who started, but the conversation doesn't go very far because not that many guys

have played for that team for all that long and there's a lot and they had a lot of success and this is a you know we think about dennis green you know made the playoffs basically every year as as the vikings head coach a different quarterback almost every year too and and it's it's so funny that like they were able to generate that success in moving from a defense first team to an offense first team. They never until Dante and, you know, got the quarterback being in that long-term position. And even then, like that was only one, two years of Dennis Green's era.

It was 2000, 2001, because the wheels fell off of the defense so quickly that Denny had to get fired after 2001. It's a strange franchise, and I think that this is an example of the strange. They're contending for a division title with Jim McManick, quarterback, and Sean Salisbury relieving him. That's really funny, and that's what it's requiring for Detroit to be back to being favorites again in this division,

which is transients, quarterbacks in green Bay, Chicago, Minnesota. Yeah. It really does show you when you watch a game and it looks like this on the broadcast. Like, yeah, that's the last lions team. That is on this broadcast that you can barely see really. And the Metro is just, you know, they're running by there's the cutouts for the game is probably blacked out.

Right. Yeah. No, it probably was those old blackout games. So, it's just, you know, they're running by. There's the cutouts for the base. The game was probably blacked out. Right, yeah. No, it probably was. Those old blackout games. So, anyway, I just – this is why we do this because there's a lot of fun discussions that stem off of these old games. So, was there anything else that you had wanted to point out from Vikings and Lions 1993? No, I think – I mean, it's just so much fun going back and watching

and looking at the context of how things were put together back then and how they're put together now. And the differences are drastic, and it's fun to go back and look at them. Yeah, no, it certainly is. So we'll continue our series throughout these weeks until we get to training camp, and then, of course, we'll get back into all the hardcore training camp battles. And,

you know, we'll continue to do that as well. If people have fans only questions, feel free to go to purple insider.com and spend, send those. And of course, if you are not listening to the Sumer sports show, well,

we're sitting here messing around. And yesterday I was making fun of a pro football talk headlines and things like that. Screwing around, talking about old games. You guys are going into like really fascinating front office, making fun of pro football talk headlines and things like that. Screwing around, talking about old games. You guys are going into like really fascinating front office kind of high level discussions. And I'm learning a lot from every show.

So Sumer sports show, make sure you go check it out. And we will be back together talking maybe a little WNBA somewhere and all sorts of all sorts of Vikings talk in the near future. Yeah, the WNBA blessed us with Mercury Aces while we're recording this. The best team in the league versus a team that's tanking. So God bless them. Yeah, well, there's a lot of that this year.

So anyway, well, thanks, Eric, for your time. And thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. We'll do it again soon.