Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Darnold advances, Vikings search for new OL coach

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

From the road, Matthew Coller reacts to Sam Darnold and the Seahawks running over the 49ers, the Bills' heartbreaking loss and the Broncos winning but losing their QB. Plus, the Vikings are moving on from offensive line coach Chris Kuper. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul, Matthew Collar here. I am on the road and didn't necessarily plan to do an entire podcast today, but I got to tell you that so much happened on Saturday that we needed a reaction. The Vikings are going to be looking for a new offensive line coach. Kevin Stefansky's back in the league. But we have to begin with Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks are headed to the NFC championship. after an absolute beatdown of the San Francisco 49ers. They went into the game as seven point favorites. They come out with a 41 to 6 victory in a game that was pretty much over before it even started.

In the final days leading up to the game, it came out that Darnold had an oblique injury and it was unclear even what his status was going to be. He was questionable for the game. And then it turned out that Sam Darnold basically didn't even have to play in this football game. He was perfectly fine. And early on, he was rolling to his left, turn, flung a touchdown pass into the back of the end zone and sort of proved that he was in good enough shape to be playing in this football game. But Seattle was so much more dominant from top to bottom, special teams. They get a return for a touchdown to start off. And then their defense

collapsed the San Francisco 49ers who were totally banged up. Christian McCaffrey gets hurt fairly early. in the game. They were without wide receivers. They were without George Kittle. And ultimately, it was just too much. And Seattle's defense is about as nasty as it gets from top to bottom. Their D-line, off the edges, interior, Nicky Minware, the physical nature of their secondary. This is a complete and fantastic Seattle Seahawks team that Sam Darnold has now led to the NFC championship. And of course, there's going to be. a lot of you let Sam Darnold go, Minnesota Vikings. And yeah, okay, I may be leading that charge just because of some of the discussions that we had last March. But I think that the proper opinion

from Minnesota Vikings fans regarding Sam Darnold is good for you, Sam Darnold. He left the Vikings. He went to Seattle after winning 14 games, acting as a great leader of the Vikings organization. the locker room bought into him. He was a good teammate. And even throughout training camp when he was working with JJ McCarthy, Sam Darnold came to work every day, did his thing. He was asked a million times about narratives about him and proving people wrong and all that stuff.

And he never took the bait on any of that. And after 16 weeks or 16 games, the team was picking him up on their shoulders after beating the Green Bay Packers before everything fell apart in the final two weeks for Sam Darnold. But as far as how he handled himself as the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, there was nothing short of something that fans should have been cheering for the entire time and should appreciate that when he left, there was never a negative word,

never said he was trying to prove the Vikings wrong. And even when he had an opportunity playing against the Vikings, his team beats the Vikings this year, never with the I told you so, never thanks for letting me go, none of that. always just class from Sam Darnold, which is what you would expect. So Vikings fans for me should look at it as he gave you everything he could in 2004 and got you a very fun 14 win season and then moved on to greener pastures and had the same type of success except for a couple of things.

Number one, his team got home field advantage in the playoffs. Number two, they played a much lesser opponent than last year's Los Angeles. Rams. And here's really the point when it comes to the organization and when it comes to that whole Sam Darnold seeing ghost choker in the playoffs and in the big games type of narrative is it turns out, especially in the playoffs, it's not just quarterback versus the entire other team. And also he was matching up with a pretty darn good quarterback last year in Matthew Stafford, who also did a lot in that game. But it's not one against 53. And two, too often we act like that in the playoffs,

that whatever happens in the playoffs is the absolute truth about a player. And we act like it's tennis or something where it's just one v. One. And we'll get to that Bill's game. And I mean, look, you know, Josh Allen versus Bonix, you put these guys on the marquee because that's entertainment and because quarterbacks are the stars. But when it comes to actually in the playoffs, and I know Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes,

we're talking about the best of the absolute best. and that's probably one of the main reasons we've turned it into like Michael Jordan or LeBron, how many rings and all that sort of reasoning that we do. But this right here is an example of how often it takes some good breaks and a complete team. You know, it's always been my joke on the show that in order to win the Super Bowl, it's a crazy model that I've invented. You have to be great at offense and defense and now special teams as well. usually the teams that win are the best on both sides of the football and the most complete.

And then usually the teams that reach the Super Bowl, they get some good breaks. And the Vikings having to go to Detroit in week 18 after winning 14 but needing 15, that's a pretty bad break to have to need 15 wins in order to win your division. This year, the Carolina Panthers won theirs with eight. I mean, usually that's not what happens, right? And then going on the road, that was tough for them and going to play a team that was their worst possible matchup. Well, in Seattle's case, they win that week 18 game because their defense overwhelmed the 49ers who were overachieving, as opposed to the Vikings playing a 15-win Detroit Lions team.

And then instead of having to go on the road and play the Rams, they got to stay home and play a team that had gone across the country and lost more players. And it was a pretty easy victory to be the quarterback today. In fact, I thought even Seattle threw too much at times. Like, why even risk Sam Darnold and his oblique? But that's the point is that when you judge players on one or two playoff games, you have to keep in mind that a lot goes into winning a playoff game that has nothing to do with the actual talent of the quarterback. And last year, the Vikings offensive line was not good enough for Sam Darnold.

and their defense couldn't completely shut down Matthew Stafford, and they had bad unlucky circumstances like losing Christian Darrasaw, who was really the linchpin to the offense, and they take a 14-win team, and Darnold does not perform in the last couple of games. But now is he more clutch? Well, not really. They had to score 13 points in week 18,

and I mean, he mostly just handed off and watched his kick returner run for a touchdown. And so you can see how when these narratives get built about clutch in the playoffs and this guy's a winner or not a winner in the postseason based on that, not the bigger sample of what someone has been that you can end up with pretty faulty conclusions like, well, Sam can't show up when his team needs him the most. Well, I mean, he played fine today, but his team really didn't need him. So I guess we'll just keep pushing that narrative back to next week, despite the fact that Donald has. has now won what, is it 28 or 29 of his last 36 games or 37 games, something like that. I think what's clear is that if you have a strong enough complete team and your roster is

filled out top to bottom and that means hitting on everything, Nickymanwara, Gray Zabel, those guys are playing like superstars. How about their signings that they've made? Also Kenneth Walker, another draft pick. How about the signings though? Demarcus Lawrence is one that comes to mind, who has been phenomenal for the Seattle Seahawks. Oh, they also drafted Jackson Smith Najigba. So putting together this complete top to bottom, probably the strongest roster in the entire NFL, turns out that that really helps you in the playoffs. And it's not just all about what your quarterback has done. And I think that that should be part of the opinion. The other thing is, too, that I was told you couldn't build around Sam Darnold.

yet the Seattle Seahawks signed him to a contract and built around him. Now, I know that that's different than what the Vikings situation would have been, but it's also kind of the point where if the only way you feel like you can build a complete roster is by sending out a 14-win, 4,300-yard, 35 touchdown quarterback, well, something's a little bit wrong there with the way you've built your roster. But I truly believe, actually, that the Vikings with Sam Darnold, looking at the way they still perform to get to nine and eight with some of the worst quarterback play in the NFL.

I believe they finished 30th and team quarterback rating probably tells you that they could have been in this discussion even if they had not signed a couple defensive tackles, even if they had not signed Will Fries to the expensive deal or Aaron Jones to the expensive deal that they made really just highlights how colossal of a mistake it was for the Minnesota of Vikings to move on from Sam Darnold. And yes, he did not have to do a lot in this game, but that's also kind of the point is if you build a strong enough team, then you can have games where your quarterback doesn't have to do absolutely everything in order to get you a key victory.

And oftentimes, the matchup matters, the timing matters, the circumstances around a playoff game make a big difference. And this run for them now to the NFC championship kind of reminds me of when Jalen Hertz went to his first Super Bowl where the Philadelphia Eagles got to stay home. They played a inferior New York Giants team that had won on the road in a very tense game, then went to Philadelphia. And then they pounded their face in. And then Philadelphia got a good break in the NFC championship game. We'll see what happens with that, whether, you know, as I'm recording this, I don't know if it's the Rams or the Bears yet. one way or the other, Seattle as the best and most complete team in the NFL will be hosting

in the NFC championship with Sam Darnold as their quarterback. And there's no silver lining to that for the Minnesota Vikings. Had J.J. McCarthy worked out, had he been what they thought he was going to be, if they were in the playoffs and McCarthy got them there with, let's say, 11 wins and played well and the future looked bright, then maybe you would just say, well, good for Sam, we don't need to talk about this too much because everybody's happy, sort of like the DeNeal Hunter, you know, him going to the Texans and the Vikings getting Jonathan Grinard. It's like, well, you know, that's good player and good player and everybody's happy with what happened or digs for Jefferson ultimately

ending up being the trade. But thus far, that is nowhere near the case. It's this guy had another great year. He led the Seahawks to the most points they've ever scored in franchise history. and then now he has quarterbacked them to the NFC championship and gets to stay home and wait for his opponent. An incredible year for Sam Darnold. And the best part about it is that there's nothing to me that's more frustrating than quarterback narratives that are just built entirely on while this happened. So that must be the truth. And maybe this is just me growing up with Dan Marino being the best quarterback and not winning a Super Bowl and Trent Dilfer winning a Super Bowl. but it rings are great and rings matter a lot and I would never take them away from Tom Brady

and calling him the best ever. But if we do it on one playoff game or one week 18 game, if you're saying if this happens, then we keep him. If that happens, then he goes. I don't think that's the right way to do it. If he has a great game this week, he is a champ. And if he has a bad game this week, then he's a loser. In football, when the sample sizes are already so small, is that really the way to look at stuff, probably not. So having covered all of Sam Darnold's 20-24 season, having seen him day in and day out, earned the trust and belief of his teammates through just working hard, putting his head down, never trying to dunk on anybody.

I mean, you don't even see it now. He does the post-game interview, and he's thanking his special teams. He's thanking his line. He's thanking his defense and saying those are the guys that really won the game, as opposed to, hey, told you so New York Jets or Carolina Panthers. So the way he has handled everything from start to where they are now, to me, says as Vikings fans, you should just be happy for Sam Darnold and you should be rooting for Sam Darnold into the future. But I will say it does make it hard as we go forward talking about where the Vikings are at

and talking about their quarterback situation to not just keep going back to that decision in saying now that Kwezi Adafo Mensa declared that they, made the decision on incomplete information. It's like you, you, you, you went to J.J. McCarthy on incomplete information when you had lots of information about Sam Darnold. And then you spent a lot of money that did not need to be spent on players that didn't perform up to those dollars. You just couldn't have a worse look as Sam Darnold reaches the NFC championship.

Let's talk about it before we get to the end of the bills game. The Minnesota Vikings have decided not. to extend the contract of their offensive line coach Chris Cooper. This is something I've been asked about a lot and I did not want to say definitively that they would be moving on because to me, the offensive line coach is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult to try to judge from the outside inside the room, inside the meetings, the offensive linemen, the coaching staff, they know a lot more about how that dynamic is operating than me.

but there was a sense based on some of the performances this year from the offensive line that there might need to be a change. And normally when you come up this short as an offense, you don't see everyone from a coaching staff return. So Chris Cooper ends up being the guy who gets lopped off of the coaching staff here. Now, overall, at the end of the season, the Vikings were by PFF top 15 offensive lines in both run and pass blocking and their best games, because obviously some of those early games were not great,

but their best games, shocker here came when they had four starters in, came when Christian Derisaw was playing at his best, and they had Donovan Jackson healthy, Brian O'Neill healthy, those guys were out at different times, and Blake Brando playing center, who even though he was not Ryan Kelly, was still a serviceable center. But when they had four offensive linemen, they put together really good performances. And I feel for Chris Cooper with this last year. I mean, Christian Derisaw, they thought he was going to start certain games. And then all of a sudden, he's not starting those games. I don't know how many coaches are ready for that. That may have been part of the equation that they felt like they weren't. But asking Justin's school a career

backup, oh, hey, man, you didn't prepare all week to be the starter. But actually now you're the starter. That's pretty tough. And when Ryan Kelly was in there, he was a top five graded PFF center, but he only played about 300 snaps. So if you had put all those guys together on the field at the same time, you would not be changing offensive line coaches. In fact, you probably would have been playing in the postseason. But instead, you know, somebody as Jeremiah Searle, my friend likes to say, somebody gets tossed into the volcano. Now, I also had reported, and I saw some people throwing this in my face, which I guess is fine, but it's also true that I had been told by Vikings offensive linemen over the last couple of years that they

enjoyed the coaching style of Chris Cooper. And this was both on and off the record that they talked about that. And that doesn't mean that, you know, Kevin O'Connell, his feeling about Chris Cooper's performance is exactly the same as how the players feel about their offensive line coach. A lot of times they do form a close bond with that person. But I did want to bring this up that there is a little proof of the reporting there from Christian Derisaw's Instagram where he posted a couple of questioning emojis right after the news came out that Chris Cooper would no longer be their offensive line coach. So there is truth there. And I imagine there's several offensive linemen saying, really, we're going to blame Chris Cooper for not having Ryan

Kelly, not having Christian Darrasaw, but it also is an opportunity for them that I think a lot of the best teams have an interconnectedness of their offensive line coach and their running game. That is, I think the best case scenario is to have your offensive line coach also be very, very involved in the design of your run game, which I don't know how much Chris Cooper was as a former offensive lineman himself. And it seemed that they were bringing in other people, like an assistant like Keith Carter to try to help with that run game, which did improve significantly from last year, but they might want, they might want someone who is really, really dedicated to that run part of it, or they might just need a little bit of a shift

in communication and game planning and blocking plan. Now, these are details that are very hard from the outside to figure out, but I think overall it was a really, really tough year for Chris Cooper in the offensive line. And now they can look for a different offensive line coaches. And I think the expectation based on their roster and what they have here, get a center in and you could have one of the better offensive lines in the entire NFL next year. Let's circle back to the playoffs. The end of the Denver Broncos game, the first four quarters of the game are breathtaking.

I mean, two quarterbacks who are not playing by any means. perfect football. Josh Allen turns the ball over at the end of the half gives up a field goal. I mean, it's uncharacteristic of him now. Early in his career, it was characteristic to turn the ball over and try to do too much. But it felt like Josh Allen early in the game was trying to just entirely win all of himself. And he made a couple of mistakes because of that. Throws an interception where he's got two defenders in the area and he's firing it down the middle of the field and just some unnecessary scrambling around, holding the ball out, getting it knocked away. And then in the second half of the game, when he was down, you saw why Josh Allen is the

best player in the world. And then you saw the razor's edge that everybody lives on with, I mean, one, how one play can totally change a game or a career. And also how refereeing in the NFL is still as subjective as it has ever been. Now, the razor's edge of a single play is that at the end of the game, he had Dalton Kincaid open and he overthrew him. And they had to settle for the tie of 50-yard field goal for Matt Prater because he didn't hit that pass. And in the past, in the playoffs, these things have happened to Josh Allen, where he has

been so freaking close time and time again. I mean, how about the Dalton Cicade one last year where he couldn't bring it in, kind of dropped the ball or 13 seconds where he gets them the lead at the end of the game or the Stefan Diggs dropped the year before that? I mean, just there's so many tragic moments in the playoffs that Josh Allen now can point to. And that was self-inflicted, but still right there, you hit that pass. The game is over. You win.

Good night. Buffalo is going to the AFC championship. And instead, overthrow. him, we go to overtime. And somebody put it on Twitter, and I'm sorry I forgot who it was that said this, that it was the best four quarters and the worst overtime. Because Josh Allen throws a ball to Brandon Cooks, which Brandon Cooks appears to catch and get all the way to the ground with the football. And then it is taken away from him by the Broncos defender and is ruled an interception. Now, the referee after in the pool report did say that it was the review official in New York,

the mysterious, you know, wizard of Oz head that makes all the decisions in New York about how things are going to play out. And this is where when people say, oh, the NFL is rigged. I mean, of course, you want to be like, bro, what are you talking about? But then you're like, oh, well, a mysterious person who we don't see on camera and doesn't have to ever give an explanation, they're the ones that made the decision on this very controversial play. And I'm supposed to say, oh, great. Well, that, well, goody, goody for them, whoever that person or people or whatever is in whatever room they're in in New York that we can't see. But ACC games in college can show us an entire review process. And XFL or UFL games can show us an entire review process. But the national

Football League in a playoff game in the biggest moments that's going to determine do the Broncos go or do the Bills go, we can't see it. That I got to say, I will never, ever understand. And until then, you have to question these things of who made this call. How did this happen? What in the world was that? I think it's very fair for Buffalo Bills fans to feel like they got screwed by this play. Now, the interpretation is this. that Brandon Cook's never really had the ball. That as he's going to the ground, yes, he's on the ground, but it's very hard to find a camera angle where the ball is in his person and stopped and he has possession and he's on the ground, which would end the play. That it does look like the ball could be bobbling still as he's going to the ground, but there's no perfect view that shows whether that ball was still shifting or not.

not on his body or if he had it really locked into his claws as he hit the ground because you see the back of him and his side is down in one of the views and then all of a sudden the ball is in the defender's hands, which in that case, you kind of have to go with what they called on the field. And if that's the explanation, which it was per the pool report, then I I understand. I understand how you'd come to that conclusion that the ball was never really his and it was up for grabs as they went to the ground and the Denver player is the one who came away with it. Now you could say, hey, if Brandon Cooks doesn't want the ball to be intercepted, then he's got to hold on to that ball all the way to the ground. And if he truly had it on the

ground, how did the other guy have it once he hit the ground? So if you're in Denver, you're making that case for sure. You're saying, well, okay, you could say you have it, but it looks like our guy had it. How did he get it? Well, it must be. have still been jostling around. I understand where that comes from. If the ruling on the field, the initial ruling, the referees who watched it, saw the ball bouncing up and basically into the Denver players hands, then that is kind of what you have to go on. I think it's more about the process, though, because all of us can watch this in a bunch of different angles and say, well, there's no way that this, or he looks like he's got it in the air. And as he falls,

he's definitely down. And that's really hard. And personally, I think that he did have possession of the ball and was on the ground and was already down and then the Denver player just took it away from him. But that is so close. All I want to know is what that discussion is like between the referees and whatever is happening at that league office. That's what I want to know. What did they really say about that play that made them decide to go with the Denver Broncos having the football because they determined the game's result on that call. And that is what. And that is what, But nobody wanted. No one.

As you get to overtime, you're saying, okay, you're in overtime here. This is an all-time classic game. Just don't come down to a call. And it did. And it came down to multiple calls, but here's my thing about the overtime. So in overtime,

there's a defensive pass interference that gets the Broncos 17 yards. Now, it looked like a little suspect. There was a sure grabbing of the arm, but on the same play, Joey Bosa drilled Bowdox after he threw it, way after he threw it, and it was a 15-yard penalty anyway. So the difference was really two yards. So it's kind of like, whichever penalty you took was going to get them into field goal position at that point.

And for me, the end of the game that the pop-up throw where it's, hey, you know, sort of settling underneath it, the classic underthrow, and then the defender runs into him, as much as you may not like that pass interference call. It's called every single week in the NFL forever where the underthrow and the defender runs into the slowing down wide receiver early. That's what happened. It is a horrendous way and it is a brutal way to end the game. But that call looked right to me because he did arrive on the spot much earlier than the ball was actually getting there, which is past interference. And when people say like, oh, you can't let the game be determined on a call, there are rules that need to be called all the time, whether it is a big moment or whether it is not.

And this drives me nuts about the Super Bowl, where clearly referees will let past interferences and holdings go like crazy because they don't want to slow down the game for America. So if you're an offensive lineman, just hold all day during the Super Bowl. I think there was like no penalties called or something in the last Super Bowl. it was something crazy like that because they don't want to determine on a call. Well, you got to call the rules the way that they are. And that underthrow interference is always called and was deserved and the Broncos end up winning. But then here we are 15, 20 minutes later. I'm on to the next game. It's already, you know, a three touchdown game or whatever for Seattle. All of a sudden news starts to trickle out that you think is fake. It reminded me of the Luca Donchich trade.

where when it broke, everyone went, wait, wait, wait, wait, did AI glitch? What happened here? Is this a fake account where Bo Nix will not play in the AFC championship or if they make the Super Bowl because he suffered a fractured ankle when he was running, or at least it seems that that was when it happened? He tried a run to his left side and fell and turned his ankle or was tackled and turned his ankle. So now he's out. So not only do we not get Josh Allen in the AFC championship, But now Jared Stidham, Jared Stidham, will play against either Drake May or C.J. Stroud in the Houston Texans defense.

And Stidham has been developing for a couple years and I guess could earn himself a lot of money or, well, I think he actually might be under contract with the Broncos. I have to check on that. But maybe earn a trade or something out of there. If he plays great and wins the Super Bowl, it will be a very Nick Foles like situation. but here's a guy, Bo Nix, who today, this storyline about his ankle is also going to take away a little bit and Sam Darnold from the fact that the Vikings did not draft Bo Nix. And you can keep saying that he's not that great and his teams in the AFC championship. So I don't know, wasn't that your plan? Wasn't that the Vikings plan to draft a quarterback, if they couldn't get May, Daniels, or Williams to draft a quarterback that they could build a team so good around that you could get to championship weekend.

and Bo Nix has proved good enough, especially with a couple of his longer touchdowns, which I was told he wasn't able to do, despite him throwing 45 of them in college. But the touchdown at the end, which I think was that to Franklin, was it Franklin who caught it, and then ran his back into the camera person.

That was an incredible throw by Bo Nix, and he battled through some tough moments in this game, and there are times where he throws short so many times where you're like, come on, man. You're going to have to push the ball down the field. But clearly Bo Nix proved their draft pick very much worth it, their decision and evaluation of Bo Nix to be correct that he was ready to lead a team there in year two. And that's another one that is pretty darn tough to watch if you're in Minnesota.

Because first, I mean, you know, your quarterback whisperer head coach picked a guy who wasn't anywhere close to ready. And I still will maintain that McCarthy has a chance someday to be. be a very good quarterback. But as far as being ready right now for this all in approach and spend around him and all that stuff, well, it turns out that the guy they didn't draft was really the guy who was actually ready. And you could say, well, he only did this or he only did that. His team made the AFC championship. And they're named the Denver Broncos, not the Denver Bo Nix was the right draft pick team. Right. They're not the Minnesota McCarthy's. They're the Minnesota Vikings and they're

watching from home as Bo Nix's team is in the AFC championship. but just such an unfortunate situation for him. He does all that to win the game and then ends up on the last couple of plays injuring his ankle. And now we're setting up for one of the crazier storylines. Immediately my brain went to, of course, as maybe all of yours did of a certain age, Jeff Hostetler, where Phil Sims got hurt, Hostetler came in, beat the San Francisco 49ers, and then led the Giants to victory against the Buffalo Bills in 1990 NFL.

season. So that could be Jared Stiddam or it could be, I mean, it's not, I don't think it's going to be easy for anybody who has to go to Denver. You saw that atmosphere. Jim Nance really enjoyed talking about the altitude for a majority of the game. But whoever has to go there, I mean, if you're Drake May and you've got to go there after playing the Texans or if you're the Texans and your offense is not clear. So I don't think that this means the Denver Broncos cannot reach the Super Bowl. But if they go to Super Bowl with Jared Stidham and Seattle or the Rams are waiting for them. That might be maybe not the best Super Bowl that's ever happened. I did see a couple people saying, oh, the NFL is going to be worried about ratings now.

Remember they said that on Christmas and then everybody watched. That will be the case for the Super Bowl no matter what happens. I promise. I promise that people will watch the Super Bowl. I know it's going to happen. It's crazy. But let's just take a quick look here on Fandul right now. So there's two early lines out on Fandul.

The Patriots Broncos line is the Patriots would be four and a half point favorites and the Texans would be three and a half point favorites. So clearly the Bo Nicks injury significantly impacting those lines. If you want to answer in the comments section, do you think the Broncos still have a chance to win the Super Bowl? I don't think it's insane, but it clearly got a lot harder since Jared Stidham has not played all year long. and Bo Nix has taken every single snap. So a bad break for him as he will now have to have surgery and miss the rest of the season. Let's go to another big couple of pieces of news here. The Atlanta Falcons named a head coach, Kevin Stefanski, goes from Cleveland right to Atlanta.

And we'll see what that means. But I don't think Atlanta is a team for a potential lateral move because they have said that they are keeping their defensive coordinator. but what Atlanta does at quarterback under Kevin Stefansky is very interesting because we've talked about a little bit how, hey, could Kirk Cousins come back to the Minnesota Vikings? And they restructured his contract to, I mean, he'll be released in March. But could he decide to stay in Atlanta? Like his family moved down to Atlanta. And now they bring in a head coach that was with Kirk Cousins in for my money, his best season,

which was 2019, and that is fascinating now. Or does Kevin Stefansky in taking this job, when there are other potential offers on the table, does he believe in Michael Pennex as their future quarterback, even though he's now injured and has a very serious and concerning injury history and truthfully did not really play that great when he was in. So that will be interesting to watch in Atlanta. John Harbaugh makes it official with the New York Giants today.

And then we have another major move that will impact the Minnesota Vikings in the future, which is Matt LaFleur signing a long-term contract extension. And the Packers basically saying, all your guys talk about firing Matt LaFleur, totally bogus. Rob Domovsky pointed out that this is not a prove-it type of deal. This is a real deal type of deal. We are locking ourselves into Matt LaFleur. And I saw some Vikings fans say, oh, great, well, good. You know, all he can do is reach the number seven.

seed. Easy to forget that the Packers were 9, 3, and 1 and in the lead against the Denver Broncos when Micah Parsons got hurt, they will have Micah Parsons coming back. Also, Jordan Love did play statistically like a top five quarterback in a lot of categories this year, which does draw back to Matt LaFleur. I thought this was a very challenging year for him with offensive line injuries. They couldn't run the football with Josh Jacobs, which you know he likes to build everything off. And then when you look at their defense, it was built so much around Micah Parsons. He goes out and they're a completely different team. Hard to believe that Caleb Williams wins either one of those two games against the Packers,

if Micah Parsons is in there when they were trying to protect leads. But I can see where your point is that they have only gotten so far with Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love. and they've only won the one playoff game and melted down in several other playoff games, including being up 21 to 3. But I also think that Matt LaFleur is the type of coach that sets a pretty high baseline for his team. And if things fall into place, like they have with Seattle, for example, if some of these draft picks start to click for them that he can put out good quarterback

play, they can run the football in their best circumstances. and also we'll see about Jeff Halfley because there's rumors that he might become Miami's coach, but at least they still have one of the best defensive players in the world. I don't know if it's something for Vikings fans to celebrate. I mean, you'd rather they hire like Matt Patricia or something, right? But I also don't think that Matt LaFleur has coached to such a level in the postseason that you could say, man, this is Andy Reed level or this is, you know, one of the great coaches, the Sean McVey, the Kyle Shanahan.

I think he's probably one notch behind. He probably is much more in the Kevin O'Connell type of, hey, this guy has shown that he can get a team to winning records, get a team into the playoffs, but can you get them over the hump? That has not yet been proven. But I don't think it's a great day for Vikings fans. I also didn't really expect the Packers to be reactionary and fire the floor.

I actually think one of the reasons the Packers have had such long, sustained success is that they don't do that. They don't overreact to small sample sizes with quarterbacks. They don't throw quarterbacks in when they're not ready. And they don't just fire coaches without thinking too much through it. So we'll see how that ends up working out for them, this decision to stick with this regime. I think they probably made the right call. And the last note that I have is just that Durante Jones, the Vikings defensive backs coach,

interviewed with the Dallas Cowboys. there's been no interview for Brian Flores, which is interesting, but there has been an interview for Durante Jones. We'll see if that is on the way. But some of you have asked me, hey, what about like, you know, their defensive coordinator position? Shouldn't they be interviewing, you know, people to fill the spot if Brian Flores goes? And you know what? Yes. Actually, they should.

They should. I mean, if this goes into another week and he takes more lateral. move interviews and these other processes stretch out. I think they do need to have some conversations because now they have no defensive coordinator at the moment. Their DC is a free agent to sign with whoever he wants to sign with. So they might want to bring in Rahim Morris or they might want to bring in, you know, somebody else.

Now, they could do this without it getting out there if they really wanted to. But normally agents like everybody to know when somebody's getting interviewed. So I guess we'll find out about it if they do. I would think the answer would be yes. I would think they'd want to be sitting down with Durante Jones and talking to him about, hey, do you want to be our DC? Maybe if, you know, this all doesn't work out with Brian Flores. And every single day that he doesn't come back makes it feel like more and more that he

and the Vikings are at some sort of stalemate and that they're not going to be able to find a resolution. But we'll see he's clearly investigating and doing all the work that he's, he wants to do in terms of due diligence as a free agent. I think the Vikings have to start doing theirs as well. I wanted to get to a couple of fan questions that were sent to me that I've had in the old email here, but I haven't had a chance to get to because of just the hectic end of the season. So let me get to those.

And I'm sorry to these people that it took so long for me to get to your emails. But I've got a second now and certainly got the energy after these two football games. Man, wow. Another crazy to every day is crazy in the NFL. Let's see. So Seth sent me a note and said, what do you think the Wilfs have learned from the Ponder Spielman-Zimmer timeline to have the impact on McCarthy, Quasi Duffelmanso O'Connell?

This feels like Tony Dungey 2.0 with Brian Flores. So in terms of like the different eras, this is an interesting subject to me because someone asked the other day if this reminds me of 2021 into 2022. And my answer was yes and no. Like I think this team's much more talented on the defensive side by leaps and bounds. That defense was starting Cam Dancler and Bashad Breeland and they just they couldn't. I mean, this team has Isaiah Rogers, Byron Murphy, Andrew Van Ginkled,

rising Dallas Turner, Jonathan Grinard, like a lot of players, Blake Cashman under contract that you feel really good about as a core of the defense, when that was not the case at all in 2021, they were doing desperate things like Breeland or trying to bring back Everson Griffin. I mean, just, yeah, it was not an ideal situation by any means when it came to the roster on the defensive side was so far away from competing for a championship that it doesn't feel that way with this team. But I know that that's not exactly your point. I think your point is just across these eras. We are now looking at 20, what is it, 25 years, 20 years of willf ownership, I guess is closer to 20 years of

willf ownership, and they've won three playoff games. And it does feel like history has repeated itself several times along the way. And they have reached, well, it is a different roster from 2021. They have reached the let's do something desperate because we're all trying to fight for our jobs portion of the program. And that usually doesn't yield very, very good results, right? I mean, if you are, I guess it would have been a desperate move to bring in Brett Favre, that may have yielded good results. But the other times, how often has that really worked out? And the one that I was here for was Zimmer and Spielman. And they started doing stuff like trading for a kicker slash punter, sending a fourth round pick out for Chris Herndon, desperate stuff.

Just, hey, we need this one more piece. We need this one more piece. And I actually think that last offseason was reflective of that as well for the Vikings. We need this guard. We need this defensive tackle. We've got to have it. Otherwise, you know, we can't, right? There's no way we can possibly have it work out. We've got to trade all these draft picks for players right now to help us because we got to win right now. And we can't think long term at all. And it feels like this offseason is going to be pretty similar. Why would you start now looking deep into the future, right like that was something that felt like they did in the 2023 off season i don't know how many times i gave them a ton of credit for that of thinking long term moving on from older players

getting the salary cap right setting it up for this moment and because the quarterback was not what you thought he was going to be now we've shifted back into that desperation mode and now you're looking at well is it kiler murray is it kirk cousins is it Aaron rogers is it you know, somebody else to come in and try to save your bacon. And that to me is not much different than extending Kirk those times to try to save your bacon, except for the fact that Kirk was better than than those quarterbacks that I just named are now. And so even though you might have a better defense, are you going to get better production

from the quarterback position than Kirk gave you in 2020, 2021? No, probably not. It seems pretty unlikely that you will. So I think there is that. But across, I think that the lesson, if there's going to be a lesson and it's going to be applied, it will be after this fails. If this fails, then I think the lesson that has to be applied is that sometimes you do have to take a step back to take a step forward.

And that is something that they have never really wanted to do. And yet, when was the time that they were able to do that with building through the draft? Oh, that's right. after they had hit rock bottom with less fraser and then had a top 10 draft pick to work with stack draft picks to work with hit on a bunch of those in 2015 and then built the team out with a good salary cap situation so that was really the last time they were able to do that right so i mean maybe that that's the lesson but i also always want to stop short at saying like yeah hey why didn't you try to lose right that that's uh i think a strange

criticism for an ownership that you like a good ownership wants to win a lot but when i saw the runies say this week that they are not a rebuilding franchise that's not how they work i thought well and what's been the results of that year after year which is just barely getting to nine or 10 wins and then what happens after that never really finding your next quarterback never really being a serious contender so it can be done it the the competitive rebuild can be done it is not illegal for it to work. In fact, the Seattle Seahawks would argue that they had about the best competitive rebuild anyone has seen in a long time. And the San Francisco 49ers, I mean, they did have a four-win season that helped them get Nick Bosa, but they've mostly had to kind of build on the

fly as a competing team. So again, it's not something that is impossible to do, but it certainly is difficult and they, I thought, kind of lost the thread as soon as they got a taste of the winning of like, now we have to do these desperate things where maybe, maybe that's not always the most prudent. But yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot there. There's also a lot of bad luck there. There's, I mean, Bo Nix worked out and Drake May worked out and Jane Daniels, I would still say worked out. And Caleb Williams worked out. And J.J. McCarthy, to this point has not. I mean, sometimes, look, any time that there's four or five quarterbacks drafted in the first round, how about go back to when Dante Culpepper was picked,

what quarterback was he? Wasn't that Cade McNown and Achilles Smith? Right. I mean, everyone on draft day thinks that they've got their guy, but it doesn't necessarily mean it. If you draft six of them, there's a likelihood that four or three of them will not even work out. And that might be the case with McCarthy or it might not depending on what happens going forward. So yeah, I mean, lessons to be learned, I don't really know. I mean, I don't really know other than you have to keep your eye on longer term always and not try to always think chips to the middle of the table the minute that you get a sniff of winning, which they've done numerous times, including really going in on Kirk as well. I got another question from Caden that said,

If B-Flow gets a head coaching job, I thought Durante Jones was our succession plan, but what is the likelihood that B-Flow would bring a Durante with him as his DC? Well, that could happen as well, right? That's where this feels like extremely up in the air for what's going to happen with the Vikings situation. Because if you're Durante Jones and you're getting these interviews to be a defensive coordinator, I mean, if someone offers you the job, you run and take it, right? A interview with the Jets and the Cowboys, yeah, go be a DC somewhere, right?

So if, you know, Brian Flores goes somewhere else, yeah, I mean, he could make Durante Jones his defensive coordinator, take him with him. And again, the Vikings are sort of left without the paddle there. I do think there will be options. It's not like there's no one else in the league for the Vikings to have their defensive coordinator. But this situation feels so unique with the way this thing has been built that if he's not here and it's somebody else trying to emulate it, just look at them after he left Miami. still had good defenses with Andrew Van Ginkle there and Zavian Howard and some of those guys wasn't quite the same though as when Brian Flores was there. And it feels like it's going to be hard to truly emulate and squeeze the most blood out of the

stone of a defense like the way Brian Flores did this year with the Vikings or that you felt like Durante might be able to continue to do because he knows where, you know, something Kirk used to say where all the bones are buried. Well, Durante is probably the guy that knows that the most. one more question from Jason Trinidad Chambliss can't go back to Ole Miss. Should the Vikings draft him? If 2026 goes bad, then Broom, KOC and Kway C. I know what you mean by Broom and go draft a new quarterback.

I'm all for drafting a quarterback in 2026, just for another chance a guy can develop. Yeah, I mean, with Trinidad Chambliss, as exciting as he was, I don't think he's a great prospect or considered one, that he'd be much more of a third or fourth round pick. and I don't really see the use for this regime to be drafting a third or fourth rounder. I just don't see the point. Like you need either McCarthy to work out or you need a veteran to come in here and win. And those are kind of the two options right now.

I agree with your point, though, that if it all goes sideways and they do end up changing regimes, well, then you're looking at probably drafting a quarterback in 2007. But what has usually happened? I mean, this team's probably going to be good enough to win enough games to not draft all the way. at the top again in the vicious cycle returns. So yeah, I think a lot up in the air. I like Chambliss as a player. He's very fascinating and he's throwing a lot of college passes, which you know is important to old purple insider and not a whole lot of other people when Bo Nix was coming out. But you know, I mean, looked okay today until he broke his ankle. Uh,

anyway, I don't, in theory, this is where it's a lot, a lot of you guys get it. In theory, these are good ideas. Your idea to draft Chamblis. if he has to come out. I see he's like suing the NCAA. Man, I'm glad I don't cover college. I'd have to be a lawyer, right? I'd have to go to law school to understand college. But, you know, the point just being that if he has to come out in the draft,

yes, it's a good idea. Of course it is. Draft him in the fourth round or something. Take a shot. But is it likely to happen when they need a lot of different stuff in the draft? Probably not. Anyway, well, so thanks for jumping on. And Sunday night, Manny Hill and I will be recording kind of late into the evening

as you can see again, have some things going on away from the home. So, you know, I'm trying to do this on the road. But Amanda and I will have a podcast up for sure on Monday morning. So thanks everybody for watching and listening. And we will catch you all later. Thank you. Football.