Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Did the Vikings play too conservative after turnovers? How great was Bud Grant? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions, starting with whether the Vikings needed to be more aggressive after turnovers last year. Then a question about whether any NFL franchise would have said no to DeShaun Watson, Also how great was Bud Grant? Really great, man. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and this is another fans only episode as we continue to roll with my entire goal to clear out the file as we approach training camp and then your questions get even hotter and more wonderful so if you want to send me an additional question and continue to load up on these fans only podcasts go to purpleinsider.com at the top right corner, contact us. That will go right to me via email. Or if you're on Twitter, then just go to Twitter, tweet me, tell me it's a fans only. If you're a real tweeter, you can hashtag it or you can DM it to me. I always check my direct messages and I get a ton of great questions that way. So I've got a few left here to work with. So let's buzz through them as we continue to roll on throughout this week. All right, let me

pull up the diet. Dr. Pepper here. We've got one ready. Okay. Let's dive right into it. And by the way, man, I am really ready. I'm ready for training camp previews. I'm really ready for training camp in general, because as much as I enjoy all of this talk and we'll still do fans only during training camp during the season, if the questions come in, then the podcasts keep coming. But I would really love to react to some stuff. Every time we get to training camp and then practices start happening, players start rising and falling, coaches say stuff, players say stuff, and we can actually take new information.

Think about this. Like, it'll be the first time really since the draft that we've had new information about the team. So I'm really excited about it. The Vikings announced their dates. There's going to be a lot of open dates for fans to go, which is cool because people can watch practices and give their own feedback and things like that. So it'll be really fun when that starts. And until then, we'll preview the heck out of it. We'll take a ton of your questions and we'll have a grand time. So, all right, let's jump right into the first question here.

Now, I'm going to admit something to you guys. Normally, fans only is for no prep. Fans only is for I read the question more or less for the first time. Basically, if you say fans only question in the email, I just copy it, paste it, and then read it for essentially the first time when I see it. And so you're getting my unfiltered first reaction. However, this one I noticed needed a little bit of investigation. So the first question here, I did prepare the answer to this question. All right. JTMN Skull says, is there a metric that shows how well quarterbacks slash offenses rank after a defense has created a turnover?

Where has Minnesota been with the Cousins-led team? Seems like Kirk hasn't been one to capitalize on a score once the offense is provided with the ball following a turnover. Now, I didn't look at this through the entire Kirk Cousins era, but I did take a peek at last year and whether the Vikings were able to take advantage of turnovers. So if you want to know how to do this, there's a thing called stat head that is on pro football reference. And unfortunately you don't have to pay for it business expense for me, uh, but you have to pay for it. If you want this thing, I don't think it's that expensive though. So pro football reference stat head. And what that allows you to do is to customize your searches for different

statistics. So if you wanted to find out like how well quarterbacks did on third down and long, you go to this, you go to gameplay, you type in third down and long, you hit search and boom, it tells you how all the quarterbacks did on third down and long. So I've used this exactly 1 million times. I mean, it's such a great feature. It's incredible. Couldn't do the job without it. It's so great.

So I went there and there's a thing called drive finder and it allows you to look, this is how detailed this program is. It allows you to look how every team performed after a turnover. So last year, the Vikings only seven of the 12 scores were actually touchdowns. So, or no, I'm sorry. Only five were touchdowns and seven were field goals. And they also had the second most punts after a turnover. I mean, you'd imagine that it's not often that you end up punting after a turnover, but the Vikings had the second most and they also didn't score touchdowns all that often. So what that tells you is that your instincts watching the game have actually been right,

that the Vikings did not really take advantage of the turnovers that they got last year. And, you know, this is something like hidden elements of the game that affect the big picture stats and why big picture stats can be tricky sometimes because turnovers really vary from year to year, from team to team, they go up and down a lot. And the scoring after a turnover is very high. I mean, think about scoring, even if it's a field goal, 57% of the time when the Vikings overall scoring percentage is about 41%. So this kind of speaks to how they come up with expected points added, where you get

the ball, how much you advance the ball versus, you know, the down and distance and all that sort of stuff. So if you only score five touchdowns in 21 chances after an interception or a fumble, that's not enough. And so I think that, you know, you're right now looking for what the explanation is, that's a little bit harder. Could it be that they weren't aggressive enough after getting turnovers that they didn't really go for it. Could it just be random? Could it be a small sample that, you know, just, it was unlucky. Those drives didn't really work out, uh, where the turnovers happened on the field would matter here. If you got a lot of turnovers on, you know, the, the right side of the field, then you could

score easier. Like a lot of things could go into that, but in general, having watched them and all of these happen, I would say that there was always something to Zimmer and cousins that they were oil and water in a lot of ways, but where they were similar in not a great way is that being aggressive on offense was just not necessarily their nature. So it was almost like, and you wouldn't think it would be this way. Cause you'd never act this way on a video game or in a simulation or something, but it's a human game that you got to turn over. We've already won something. So if we settle for a field goal, that's fine. Let's play it safe. Let's make sure that we don't screw up this turnover we got and settle for a field goal. Let's run a couple of

times. Let's make sure we just get three out of it and not always playing to say we got a turnover. Let's go have this make a huge difference. I think this also tells you, cause I didn't realize the percentage was that high, just how much turnovers do impact the game. There's no real actionable thing because no team ever wants to turn the ball over. So you can't say, why don't you just not turn the ball over? But the Vikings benefited from this effect a lot last year by being the second lowest team in turnovers. So the nervous or conservative nature giveth and taketh away from last year, um, in some ways, because they didn't allow opposing teams to get the ball from them and score too many extra points, but they also didn't take advantage when

teams gave them the ball and they did have a fair amount of turnovers that they caused from last year. So that's great instincts by you. Uh, I don't know though, if that's a small sample size thing, or if there's actually something to it, or if you can change it by throwing more or being more aggressive or whatever else. But, uh, if they do better than that this year, then five touchdowns on 21 attempts, then, you know, that's one of those little hidden areas. But then on the other side, you know, you're probably going to turn the ball over more than they did last year

where they were second best in the league. So other teams will have those opportunities against the Vikings as well. So I guess how well you take advantage of the other team's mistakes. It's sort of like in basketball points off turnovers is a huge deal. So great question and great eye to think of that. And also again, shout out pro football reference. I love the fact that I can give you a real answer and that I don't have to say, well, yeah, it kind of felt like that. Didn't it? JT onto the next question. Okay. Uh, let's go on to the next question though uh this comes from jason mark 80 on twitter

what's your take on the way the teams evaluated a trade for deshaun watson for the teams who didn't pursue him was that just a business decision or do you think teams stood on principle and decided that this guy's baggage transcends football. Don't get me wrong as a long suffering Vikings fan, seeing this guy in purple would have been awesome football wise, but I'm a dad first and I'm raising daughters to expect respect for men in their lives. And I'm raising a son to treat women around him the same way. For me, it's bigger than football. Do any of the owners feel the same way or decisions ruled upon by dollars and wins? I think that there is a great deal of evidence.

Unfortunately, my friend to suggest that these things are ruled by dollars and wins that no team stands on a higher moral ground than other teams. There are some that could claim it, but then you could always go back and say, well, yeah, but you had this guy and you didn't cut that guy or whatever. I mean, think about like the Pittsburgh Steelers. What comes to mind for the Pittsburgh Steelers? Respect class. They have this A plus coach that everybody wants to follow in Mike Tomlin.

And I respect the heck out of Mike Tomlin, but look at his quarterback. They didn't cut Ben Roethlisberger when he had some of the same things go on. Why? Because he was the best quarterback in the league or one of them, right? And the same thing goes for Deshaun Watson. If you are a backup quarterback and you had this go on with you, you would never sniff the NFL ever. If you're as good as Deshaun Watson, you get a huge contract

to go along with it. What I think that the Browns logic was, and it's very possible that they are justified in this, was that it was kind of over. That when one of the cases got thrown out, that it was over. That they decided, the grand jury decided it did not have enough evidence to take it to a trial, which I've talked about in the show before that. I learned a lot about the legal system during my time being a juror way back when I think this was right before the combine. But when I was a juror, what I realized that I didn't really know before is juries are given an outline of what the charges are and it has to meet a certain threshold to be able to find someone guilty to check off the boxes to say, yes, that meets the threshold of this charge. It does not mean that there's no truth to the matter. And in the case that I was dealing with, there were three charges and two of them were the person was dead to rights.

And we were saying absolutely no question. The third one, if you ask me my opinion, I would say, oh yeah, the guy did it, but we didn't have the evidence to be able to check that box. So that's kind of the point about Deshaun Watson. Anyway, I think that Cleveland decided once they couldn't check that box as a grand jury, that they were in the clear and it was all good. Okay. We're set. He's probably going to settle with some of these people. That's his problem. No big deal. The NFL will hand down a four game suspension. We don't care. We're going to set up his contract that way. And off we go. Now, if the NFL ends up suspending him indefinitely with the minimum of a year, then I think the Browns got hit really hard by this and maybe did not fully understand that more was to come. And remember, so he's now settled with 20 of the cases,

but there's still other ones that are continuing to fight with Deshaun Watson, which could make things really dicey in the discovery process if things come out that make him and the Texans and the Browns all look worse, that could result in more of a suspension. However, right now, it's my understanding that they're going before an arbiter where the NFL PA wants no suspension. And I guess they could argue time served from last year, though he was never officially suspended.

So you can't really make that case. And the NFL wants this reportedly this year long suspension. So if the Browns end up with a year long suspension, I mean, then which is going to make it very hard for them to keep their team together and win games around Watson. And wouldn't surprise me if it ended up very similar to what happened in Houston, where they were good for a little while, but then, you know, couldn't continue to build around him. Um, that's, that's not going to be easy for them, but if it's a six game suspension is where it ends up, then they've won. And even though they didn't care at all about the things you're talking about, about how it looks in the community, how it looks to the women who work in the organization and on and on and on, um, it's, you know, they're going to essentially just get away with it and have a great quarterback.

Um, but as far as around the league, if you can point to me to a team that holds some sort of higher moral standard with how their players act off the field, I'm sure we could dig up X, Y, or Z that, you know, you could argue differently. Um, you know, this has happened before with the Vikings in the Zimmer era where it was like, Oh yeah, Zimmer cleaned up the Vikings, but then the Delvin cook thing happens. Team doesn't suspend him. Mike Zimmer comes out and defends him. Um, because Delvin cooks really good at football. If that was another running back, I guarantee you, he would have acted differently about it. Um, J Ron curse, for example, J Ron curse had an arrest and the thing that he was doing on the relative scale, if Delvin Cook is indeed guilty of what he's accused of,

or at least if a civil court finds it that way, what Delvin Cook is accused of is much worse than what J. Ron Curse did. And yet Mike Zimmer held it against J. Ron Curse. If that was Harrison Smith, would he held it against him? That is how the league works. It always will be. There's way too much money at stake and I wish it was different. I mean, I really do. I wish that there were repercussions for players that felt like they were just completely allowed to treat people and women, however they want. I wish it was different,

but there never really has been, unfortunately. Um, and I don't know the answer to that. And I think part of it is that fans won't stop coming to the games and they won't stop cheering their team if they make a super bowl and on and on. And they know that like, they know that they know that for every, for every one fan that decides they're done with the Cleveland Browns, there's going to be a lot more that think we finally got our quarterback. And, uh, it's a little bit craven to be honest with you and frustrating, but that is definitely pro sports. And I guess I would say that in a lot of ways, the only thing we can do is look at these situations and talk about them. Like you said, with your kids, this is not how you act.

And it's hard though, because I'm sure if your kid says back, but doesn't that guy have a bunch of million dollars? Like, yeah, he does because the NFL is going to allow it. But I would say this, I would say this. If Deshaun Watson ends up with basically two entire years out of football because of the way he acted and out a heck of a lot of money, you can say there are repercussions for what he did. It doesn't mean he can never play again, but it means that this cost him a lot.

His reputation, his money, his, a big chunk of his career and his prime seasons taken away because he felt it was more necessary to abuse these women than it was to even think of his team and his career and all those things. So maybe that's, that's the lesson. And I think if he gets suspended for a year, then, you know, we don't have to ever forget. You don't have to buy a Deshaun Watson Jersey, but we could say some justice was served and we can move on with our lives. And I guess I would say it's probably, probably fair.

And then we won't talk about it a whole lot anymore, but yeah, that's kind of where that stands, but no, unfortunately no team stands on higher moral ground than other teams. There's probably some that are a little worse than others, but I don't think anybody is safe when it comes to that question. A good one though. Okay. This comes from Josh via the email. He says, here's a question for fans only. I'm currently reading Bud Grant's autobiography. Having become vikings fan in 1998 i didn't understand how truly great of a sports figure he was he played football for paul brown in the navy won an nba championship with the minneapolis lakers was a first round pick for the eagles led both the nfl and cfl in receiving became a head coach at 29 took his his Canadian football team to six gray cups in 10

years, winning four of them and took the Vikings to four super bowls. Of course, all of this took place between 1950 and 1985. Is there any way to contextualize where he stands as an all time great in the NFL and sports history? Uh, yeah, I mean, you laid it out pretty well. Is there a way to contextualize it? Uh, other than to say that simply Bud Grant is one of the great sports figures in history. Um, that's probably the only way that, that I'd be able to, to frame it. Um, let me look up where he stands as far as coaching records. Uh, I'm kind of interested by that because it has to be among the best of all time. And you mentioned the Canadian part of that is, is such a cool part of Bud Grant's legacy. And he's gotta be one of the winningest coaches of all time. Let's, this is going back to the old

pro football reference here. Yeah. Bud Grant is 29th all time in win percentage. So right on par with Bill Cower and with Joe Gibbs. I mean, how about that? Like that's pretty good company there. And as far as wins go, Bud Grant is 17th all time. He's ahead of Mike Tomlin and just behind Mike Holmgren. And as far as conference titles go, he is one of only eight coaches of all time to ever win four or more conference titles. The other ones, Belichick, Don Shula, Tom Landry, Chuck Knoll, Dan Reeves, Bud Grant, Joe Gibbs, and Marv Levy. That's ahead of Parcells.

That's ahead of Andy Reed, ahead of Bill Walsh, more conference championships than Mike Shanahan, Tom, uh, Tom Coughlin. I mean, yeah, folks that, I mean, you cannot understate Bud Grant's greatness. And it is such a cool part of his legacy that he did all those things before that he was a great athlete himself. But one of the things that I thought was really cool. And if you guys remember going back a while, when I had Scott Studwell on the show, one of the things that was really great finding out from Scott Studwell was just that Bud Grant, even though he was very, very tough, he was not authoritarian. And I always wondered if part of it was that Bud Grant was a great

athlete himself, that he understood what got through to his players and what did not get through to his players. He set a standard so high that they knew exactly where the bar was. And if you were below that in the way that you acted, you were letting down bud and that hurt enough. Like you didn't even need bud grant to go off on you and yell at you or anything else like that, that you knew where he was setting the standard for you and you knew where you stood. And I thought that that was really interesting and great to find out. Uh, I guess that's the way I would put it is that he is simply one of the great, not just, not just coaches, but great figures all time in sports that that's probably it. It's like a

different echelon. And unfortunately he didn't win the super bowl. And if he won the super bowl, it's very possible that you're having that conversation about best coach of all time. Um, because, you know, these other guys who won four conference championships, they're all considered up there, but he's just like Marv Levy in that way that Marv Levy won four, didn't get there. Uh, Dan Reeves won four, didn't get there probably thought of in a lot of the same ways as those guys where you are one of the great coaches of all time. But since you didn't get those two super bowls, like Shula or two super bowls, like Tom Landry, you're not quite in the same echelon as those guys, which I think, you know,

is both fair and unfair. It's very hard to win the super bowl, but without any championships, you can't call someone the best coach ever, but boy, it's like just outside of a Mount Rushmore and one of the coolest sports figures ever continue to tell his story, man, because people absolutely forget when he's 95 years old, how great of an athlete he was and what a extremely cool career he had before he was coaching the Minnesota Vikings. So great question. And, uh, yeah, I mean, this, this is the thing about Vikings history is everyone will always focus on the Superbowls and that's fine. And like championship is the goal. Everybody knows who listens to the show. Championship is the goal, but there's so much great history literally from day one

of this franchise, every era, like you don't have any era of Vikings football. You might have pockets, but there's no era of Vikings football where it's without great figures all time in the game. And it's a, you can kind of pick all sorts of different places to go when you talk about this team's history. And Bud Grant is one of the coolest ones ones so i have not read his autobiography but that sounds like a great suggestion and it's one of the things that i'm trying to do is read more football books and i do have plans to have more football writers come on the show we had doug farrar a few weeks ago so that is a plan but um that's a great suggestion, Josh. And I really

appreciate the question. Uh, okay. Let's see here. Um, Oh, uh, Josh also added that he's been listening since I regularly recorded with Donald Jones. That is OG Donald Jones, the former Buffalo bills, wide receiver that, uh, doesn't do media stuff anymore, but Donald is a, is a good friend. And he was, um, super helpful when I first launched the show of helping me get things going. So I really appreciate that. Okay, I've got a couple predictions to get to. And then you're not going to believe this. The file is almost empty, friends.

Got a couple more predictions and then that's it. So we got to fill this thing back up. All right, this comes from Joel S. Hey, Matthew, first, some background. My New York Giants fan friend and I have a running bet. Back in 2016, we bet a bottle of scotch on whose team would win the Super Bowl first. If no one wins the bottle, we have a small toast and the one with the better record keeps the bottle for the year. When one wins, he keeps whatever is left in the bottle. So my buddy took the bottle for the first year and I have held it every year since. Well, that's yeah, for sure. The Giants have been a mess. After the small toast each year, the bottle now is about half full. So here's my prediction for you.

We're going to need another bottle. That's good. The Giants are terrible. They're not close the vikings look closer but they've looked that way for years with the new regime continuing the path of the previous one i agree with you that the vikings have another nine win season then try to draft a quarterback next year but it seems like that is the plan for a lot of teams so relying on next year's draft class is a big gamble even if they get a winner, it will take a few years to pay off. So we're going to need another bottle. Thanks, man.

Love the show. Uh, that's yeah. Okay. So I think that you're probably right. I do think you're probably right. So let's, let's lay it out though. So how would either one of these teams or Josh and his friend, how would they need, not need another bottle? Meaning one of those two teams wins the Superbowl. Let's think. Okay. So with the Vikings this year, it would mean this if they were to win in the net. Well, let's even say the next two years, because I don't think the giants are winning this year year's Super Bowl with Daniel Jones, probably not. So you're probably safe for this year. Let's say within the next two years, let's call it the final Kirk window. Maybe we could get a song for that. That this year,

they show signs of progress under Kevin O'Connell. Everyone is happier. Vibes are better. And the draft picks that they just made are good. Two or three or four of them can play, which does happen from time to time in a draft. So Louis Seen is an impact player. Andrew Booth Jr. can play. I don't know. Throw in another one who's good. Brian Asamoah, whatever. So then you've got a pretty solid roster with young players now starting to emerge. Then you would also need your star players to not fall off. So no drifting back for Harrison Smith, no drifting back for Daniel Hunter, Zedarius Smith, et cetera. Who am I missing there? Adam Thielen. So everybody is pretty much as good as they've been for the last few years for the next couple

of years. And the offensive system works a little better and they throw the ball more and they get another wide receiver. Things work out at the guard position and you have a really rock solid team. You draft somebody who's a winner in 2023, then you don't go the quarterback way. Let's just say, and if they, if this was possible for them to win the super bowl, and then they have Aaron Rogers retire and Rogers goes off and starts a CBD company. Okay. And then he like runs for office, but it's on some very weird weed ticket. Okay. That's like,

that's what Rogers is doing. So Jordan love is playing and Jordan love is terrible. And the lions buy into Jared Goff mistakenly. And he's bad. Justin Fields is a bust. So the division sees part for Kirk cousins and the Vikings to win 12 or 13 games. That's your shot. And then you go into the playoffs and somebody gets monkey pox and then you just win right like it happens it happened for the rams the seas parted in the playoffs for the rams the arizona cardinals forgot how to play and then the tampa bay bucks what uh blitzed for no reason after a huge comeback and then gave up a massive touchdown. Jimmy Garoppolo forgot how to play in the second half, a safety dropped a touchdown. And then in

the Superbowl, Cincinnati just couldn't make a lot of progress after getting a lead and messed up the final drive and you win, you got a Superbowl. It's happened to a few teams that it just seemed like everything went their way and they didn't necessarily have Mahomes or Peyton Manning or whatever but it just worked out so there there you go that's how that can happen for the Giants I think they've got a pretty good team and I'm trying to do this you know before you run out of your bottle. So it's like in the next couple of years, this has to happen. So not like long, long-term they've got a pretty good team. The path to the Superbowl is this. And I mean, if you look at their roster, go player by player, if they're healthy, they've

got some, they've got some things to work on or work with that. Joe judge had no idea what to do. And plus they were the most injured team in football. I would be very interested if someone could show me how it correlates injuries to coaches getting fired. There's probably some connection there. Maybe that's a PFF study. Let's say the Giants this year go seven and 10 and they bail on Daniel Jones.

We're done. But at this very same time Kyler Murray is sick of the Arizona Cardinals he does not sign a contract he signs with the New York Giants and Brian Dable takes Kyler Murray and says you are the new tinier Josh Allen and he guns it all over the place and the NFC kind of falls apart. Tom Brady retires, you know, Aaron Rogers is living in the Alps, just like doing cleanses over and over again. And there you go. Like there's an opportunity there. If you're the team in waiting for someone who is a disgruntled quarterback with their team, who wants to come to you. That's the only way. Other than that, it is possible that the Vikings could build up this roster to a point where they're ready to move on to that rookie contract. And you still have players, Justin Jefferson, namely, let's say Irv Smith Jr., Brian O'Neal.

You've got this talent here. Louis Seen emerges. And then you get that guy. And then he sits for 2023 and goes into 2024 as the starter. And he's awesome. Whoever it might be. And he's awesome. And then you've got a shot.

You're always like both really close and really far away in the NFL. It's a strange world. And that's why 32 teams are super popular because you're always this close. You're always that quarterback, that draft pick things going right away from having your chance. So that's really fun. That's a good idea of something to do with, uh, with your friend, but I have a feeling you might need another bottle based on the histories, recent histories of these teams. Uh, but I have a feeling you might need another bottle based on the histories, recent histories of these teams, but especially the long-term history of the Vikings. All right, let's see here. This comes via Scott, Scott via the email says record for this year,

eight, eight, and one, of course, throw in a tie, Scott, you would. Uh, what if the Vikings precisely hit the old 500 mark after all this, I know the ties are rare, but I can't help but make the prediction for the sheer absurdity. And I appreciate that Scott, if this happens, I predict enough injuries, take their toll on the roster that the Vikings could try running it back again. If only the injuries don't happen again, we could be okay. Like, yeah, that's what they've always said, right? Every failed season. I also predict that they will stumble and lose a key game in the final weeks

if this scenario plays out. Maybe we'll see a bit more of a rebuild happen, like dropping veterans and even drafting a quarterback, if they somehow hit.500 on the nose. But seriously, my guess is that the Vikings will end up one or two games above or below 500 as a longtime fan. I cannot bring myself to get too excited about the team this year. I hope they prove me wrong and have a great entertaining year. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate that. So let's talk about the 500 record. Uh, Let's try to predict the tie. No, I'm just kidding. I won't try to predict the tie.

London screams tie though. I'm just saying. Jameis Winston, like Saints have a pretty good defense. London screams 16 to 16 tie. And actually Kirk Cousins has a tie on his record in London when he played for Washington. And it is weird that he has two career ties when nobody ever ties. I mean, it's like a classic Kirk Cousins kind of thing. So let's talk about that 500 thing. If they go 500, I would be surprised if they decided to run it all back again and say the injuries were the problem. Injuries are always a problem for every team and they happen.

And last year, the Vikings had some, but we're not one of the more injured teams in the NFL, as I mentioned for the giants. So unless they are absurdly injured and then overcome and end up as 500, like say if cousins got hurt and Mannion started eight games and went four and four, and then overcome and end up as 500. Like say if cousins got hurt and Mannion started eight games and went four and four, and then they ended up 500 or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Or, uh, let's say no, actually in that scenario, Mannion goes like two and six and they have to overcome it to get to 500, that kind of thing. Then maybe you'd be talking about running it back. If the games where Kirk cousins played, uh, they, you know, succeeded,

but it was really his injury. That's always a scenario you could talk about where they would run it back. But I think in doing this, they all decided Kweisi Adafo Mensah, the Wilfs, Kevin O'Connell, they all decided, let's give this a shot and see if we're different. If they're not being and being 500 is absolutely not. So if they're not, then I think that they have no other choice, but to make a change in a lot of ways, in, in ways of there are some players that they've locked themselves in, that they cannot move. And I mean, feeling and Harrison Smith look pretty much unmovable with their contracts, unless a lot would change. Maybe they're tradable, but I doubt it. Like their contracts really locked them into being Vikings, but it's really about that quarterback position. That would mean a big change. If they are 500 though, you could see them saying,

let's let the quarterback sit, play it out for a year and try to improve from the last season. And it might be a lot of excuses about, well, we had a new offense and defense this year. We know the system, which has really been proven not to be a whole bit of a thing, but you could see that if they went 500. And I think that that's really the nightmare scenario for Vikings fans is if they went 500 again, and then they decided that it was this excuse or that excuse or the other one, and they needed to run it all back because this time things won't go wrong for us. But I think we've done this dance so many times with the Wilfs that they're willing to give one more shot, but that's it.

And if they don't go 11 and six, 10 and seven is super borderline. But if they don't win 11 games, if they don't win a division and we're talking about five years, 18 through 21 through 22, that's six years. Is a six or is a five with Kirk 18, 19, 20, 21. Yeah. It'd be five. Okay? 18, 19, 20, 21. Yeah, it'd be five. Okay. So five years. Do you want a sixth year of this? And the answer just cannot be yes.

At least I wouldn't think so. I was surprised that the answer was, do you want more Kirk this year? I did think they might just let his contract play out. They instead gave him the shortest extension that they could possibly give him. And I think that was intentional. And where you really felt like the pressure is on with Kirk Cousins for it to be different is when he talked to the media for the first time and he said, I have to earn the right to be a Viking for life.

Well, eight, eight and one does not do that. And so I think he was taking a little bit of a shot when it came to the short-term contract of like, Oh, I guess you guys don't think I'm good enough to be your quarterback for life. So I guess we'll see. That's kind of how I read it. I'm sure Kirk would say that it meant something different, but like, right. Uh, that's how I don't see much other interpretation other than saying like, well, I guess my team doesn't believe in me enough for a long-term contract. So here we are.

Well, that's right. They, I don't think they do. Uh, I think that they are willing to play this year for year. And if he goes out and he wins 11 games and they go deep in the playoffs and we're talking NFC championship here, then no, there's no reason to move on from Kirk cousins. But if it's short of being a great season, if it's eight, eight and one, that means there was a lot of mediocrity. It means a, not a whole lot of entertaining, exciting times. It means a lot of the same then, you know, you, I think you have to move on there and it's really, it all centers around that.

Like when we did timeline week on the show, everything always centers around the quarterback. Like that's just how, how it ends up working. Um, so they wouldn't blow it all up, but they would make it very clear. It's either the last year of cousins, uh, is 2022 or the last year's 2023. And that's it. If they were to go eight go eight eight and one i don't think that your prediction is insane though i mean to see this team in the middle and i have felt from vikings fans exactly what you're saying now you will change your tone i absolutely guarantee you you will change your tone at the first preseason game they'll have a preseason game and the vikings will have a good offensive possession and you will say to your friend o''Connell's got it. And I can't wait for the start of the season. I know how all of you football

fans operate. If you say I'm not that excited about it, it will not be long before you are because football, right? Because hope always springs eternal in training camp. And you know, that's a time where everybody just wants to get excited late summer, bring on football, that kind of thing. So I know that, you know, for me, it's sort of the same thing where it's like, you know, we think we know, we think we have a good sense for it. But with football, you just absolutely never know where these things are going to go. And I can't wait to find out.

So it will be, I guarantee you, no matter what happens, an interesting season. And that's the thing too. Like you could say, oh, you know, boring 500 season. Have any of these last few seasons that are 500 been boring? I think they've been nuts. A lot of them. Maybe 2020 was kind of boring. But aside from that, it's usually crazy.

So we'll all go on that ride together, including all of you who will continue to send me fans only questions. As of right now, that is all of the questions and all of the predictions that I have received as I am recording this. So send more and there will be more fans only questions. Thank you all so much for listening to these episodes. I cannot tell you how much fun I've had all week, just sitting here answering questions and we'll continue to do this into training camp through

the season and we shall roll on. So thanks again. And I will talk to you all later.