Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Dissecting what went wrong for the 2020 Vikings and where it's going with PFF's Eric Eager

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Matthew Coller and Eric Eagar of Pro Football Focus get together to completely break down why the Vikings missed the playoffs, from struggling to decide on a direction to Mike Zimmer's coaching to salary cap issues etc. Plus Matthew takes fan sentiments about defensive injuries, last year's playoff win and drafting and offensive lineman and throws them at Eric. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey, everyone. It's Lindsay Rhodes, and as always, celebrate. previewing games. We'll get you set for the weekend fantasy with our Fantasy Friday episodes, and we'll answer some of your questions as well. So subscribe to the NFL Roadshow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with PFF's Eric Eager from the PFF Forecast podcast and much I understood sports gambling would have made money with a lot of things that you guys had this year including the under on the Minnesota Vikings uh earlier this year on this very podcast you predicted a 6 and 10 season to the ire of many Vikings fans we sit here 6 and 8 and uh 6 and 10 very much on the table over these last next two weeks so uh

how you feeling about this team eric you know it's not fun to be like right about a team's demise you know but we it was it was sort of easy to foresee right in fact matt we've kirk kirk's played great for the better part of the last 12 weeks, right? Like, you know, he played horribly the first two weeks. Justin Jefferson, by the way, wasn't playing in those first two weeks much. It shows you the value of wide receiver. It shows you, you know, sort of the risk they took by getting rid of their best one. But the funny thing about the 6-8, and they'll probably finish 7-9,

so maybe I'm wrong by one game or so. You know, the win total in Vegas was 9, who many thought was low. 9.5 probably I think is where it closed at. But it's like when you look at this team, like, you know, people come and say, well, you know, you guys say Kirk sucks. No, Kirk doesn't suck. In fact, Kirk's played really well. Kirk, though,

represents a symbol as to why you guys can't win anymore, which is like he was brought in for a different purpose. It's sort of like, you know, you bought a Porsche, right? And that was supposed to be your take it out during nice times car. And your other car went to shit and then, you know, it has to be your everyday car, right? And it's simply not worth it in that way. The PFF grade on Kirk Cousins has him as the eighth best quarterback in the NFL this year. And by quarterback rating, he is also the eighth best quarterback in the NFL.

And what that says to me, when you get top 10 quarterback play and you are six and eight, and you even got some game winning drives from Kirk this year. So we can't blame the game winning drives on Kirk Cousins. I think what it really says is that this team, even from the very beginning of this year, had many holes that they couldn't overcome just because of their quarterback that if those holes were filled they would be a 10 win team or maybe an 11 win team with the schedule that they've had I mean you've got losses to Chicago and Mitch Trubisky and Andy Dalton on your list here right and so um I and Atlanta as well a really bad loss to Atlanta. And that one is on Kirk. But normally when you get this kind of quarterback play,

you end up being in the playoffs if you have top 10 quarterback play, but not if you're giving up 150 yards on the ground to David Montgomery because you don't have defensive tackles that even exist. Or when you have, you know, cornerbacks, Cam Dantzler's playing really well recently, but cornerbacks who have been a merry-go-round and kind of an adventure because they were so young, which we spotted very early on. And one of the other things, too, is that they provided themselves with no depth. Their entire depth for both offense and defense was basically like, let's hope this guy who's never played before knows how to play.

And it's just, I mean, we were looking at the free agent list going into training camp going, you know, there's a dozen players that you can bring in here. And instead they decide, no, actually we're going to trade for Yannick Ngakwe. We're going to manipulate our left tackle by, you know, threatening to cut him if he doesn't lower his salary. And then, hey, big surprise, one player wasn't that much of a difference maker. And that's kind of the theme of this year to me is you kind of thought that this one guy would drag up the play of everyone, and that's not really how it works, except at the quarterback position.

But they asked a lot of different positions to do that. Yeah, I mean, the thing, I think that the word, especially in a pandemic season, the word that you have to, when you evaluate this team, is fragility, right? So, and again, I hate to compare everything to the Kansas City Chiefs, but they're a team that literally just went 8-0 on the road this year, and their road opponents outside the division were 48-22. Wow.

Tampa, New Orleans, Miami, Buffalo, and Baltimore. And the Chiefs last yesterday, Mitchell Schwartz, the best right tackle in football, he's been out for months. Mike Remmers, who Vikings fans said was not good enough to play for them, was out yesterday. And he was their right tackle during this entire winning streak. They were on their third right tackle. Stefan Wisniewski, this is the second consecutive year the Chiefs have picked up Stefan Wisniewski off the street to start for them.

Defense, not very good. They're not getting what they paid that they paid for to frank clark the secondary is a little slow etc etc and the team continues to win why because they're built in a very anti-fragile way right they're built that they depend upon the least amount of things to be truly elite minnesota in 2017 you were covering the team. You wrote a terrific book about it. Thank you. There, and to bring up a betting sort of analogy, the Vikings hit on a five-team parlay that year.

Their entire defense was healthy the whole year. They got quarterback play for pennies on the dollar. They had two wide receivers that were Pro Bowl worthy. Their offensive line hung together, and they got the best year out of Pat Schirmer that he's ever produced. The nature of parlays is that when they hit, they're, you know, 5X, 10X, 15X returns, right? The other nature of parlays is that if one of the bets goes broke,

the entire collection of bets goes broke, right? And so when they signed Kirk in 2018, the bet that they made was our defense will stay maybe not elite, but our defense will stay good enough to win with. The other bet they made, our offense will be coached by somebody who knows what they're doing. The other bet that they made, our wide receivers are the best in the league, and they will continue to be so. Right?

And how many of those have actually come? And then the other bet was Kirk Cousins will be a top-ten quarterback. Now, that bet hit. That bet hit. Every other one has gone bust. The defense stinks. They couldn't make Diggs happy enough to stay. You know, and I know Jefferson did a good job,

although your pick of Jefferson was dependent upon another team screwing up the pick in front of you. You know, the offensive line certainly hasn't performed up to the 2017 standards, and they're on their third offensive coordinator in as many years the the issue isn't Kirk but the but Kirk represents the issue with their approach to the last three seasons I think that that is a tremendous summary of it and then to add on to that, kind of to stick with your analogy, I mean, the needle to thread is very small when it comes to all those things hitting. So your Yanni Kingakwe trade can't go bust, and it definitely can't go bust immediately and make you not only lose your sack leader, who is still your sack leader, and I can't stop saying it. I just can't. Like, he left in week six, and he's still your sack leader who is still your sack leader and I can't stop saying it I just can't like he left in week six and he's still your sack leader but there were think about all the mini

bets like on the side that they made they made a bet that Afadi Adenabo would step up and sack a bunch of people like he did last year turns out when Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter on your defensive line they get the attention and not you And so projecting someone to just do it again was unreasonable. They projected that Jaleel Johnson, a fourth-round pick who had essentially never played for several years on the team, would just be a fine three technique after Michael Pierce opted out. But they had time after he opted out to sign someone else, and they thought, no, it's fine.

We'll just stick with this situation. Shamar Steffen can play in the league, but handling 70% of snaps with a guy next to him in Jaleel Johnson who, for my money, could very well be playing in the next version of the XFL. And then you're hoping DJ Wanham, a fourth-round pick, is good. You're hoping that Jalen Holmes, a guy, again, who's never played, is good. All these things were really tough. And then so you lose one guy in Daniil Hunter and two guys in Michael

Pierce, three guys in Anthony Barr, and all of a sudden this crushes you when good teams have other answers to those, whether it's developing players who are developed and ready to go, or whether it's signing veterans and I think we see this from the Buffalo Bills the biggest takeaway there is if you're okay at a lot of positions you're good and if you're because it's really the ones where you're terrible is what sinks you and we see this along the offensive line year after year with the left guard situation like Riley Reif is solid Brian O'Neill is downright good Ezra Cleveland's had his moments and I think Garrett Bradbury has actually been mostly fine this year um and you yet this left

guard position just demolishes any chance you have uh to be a good offensive line and I think we see that with Kirk Cousins as quarterback where maybe like you're saying if it's Patrick Mahomes yeah left guard's not going to make that much of a difference but think about all the things that had that they relied on and all the people that they relied on to think that they were going to win 10 games I mean it's just a tall order it's not impossible but it's really tough and the winning 10 games is should never dude I'm 34 years old I was born and raised in the Twin Cities. The team has been good my entire life. At this point, it doesn't matter, right?

Who cares if they're 10-6 and they're basically a touchdown underdog in both playoff games last year. They give a thriller in New Orleans, but ultimately it dies, and it dies against Jimmy Garoppolo. We're not talking about Steve Young or Joe Montana. It dies at the hands of a very average quarterback on the road. And everybody, you know, the Patrick Mahomes thing, I get it. Everybody's like, well, you can't just have a Patrick Mahomes. Sure, but you can have a Josh Allen, right?

And that's the whole thing with the veteran quarterback that is the issue. If you got a Mahomes, the betting analogy, you make one big ass bet, right? That's it. Nothing else matters, right? Really, nothing else matters if you have a player like Mahomes. And the path to getting that player is to draft a Josh Allen. And when you have Josh Allen, by the nature of the way the NFL is set up, you can pay him such where you don't have to, like, you can buy Cole Beasley. You can buy Stephon Diggs. You can buy John Brown. You can buy a defense that's just not going to get railroaded the entire time.

And your offensive line is fine. And if you are good enough at coaching things up, you can win. The path, like, people, it's not a Kirk problem. Kirk's doing with what they have, what you would expect. The problem is what Kirk represents, which is a high-priced quarterback that's not good enough to win by himself. And when you're not good enough to win by yourself, that differential, the $10 million that Allen makes versus the $35 million that he makes

or whatever it is, you know, that differential costs you an interior of the offensive line. It costs you the fragility on the defense, you know, the player or two that you need to step up and be an NFL-caliber player when players go down. Like, that's what we're talking about. We're not saying go out and get them a Holmes. It's not that simple. But getting a Josh Allen, right, gives you the best chance. And if you end up with a Sam Darnold, who cares?

You weren't winning the Super Bowl anyway. Right, right. So I have a list, by the way, of things that I've picked up from comment sections and Twitter mentions from fans just kind of broadly paraphrasing what they've been saying. And I want to run down a bunch of those because I think they're kind of interesting and fun and not all ridiculous. I'm not making fun of fan sentiments here, but I want to go through those. But to your point, Matt Ryan is the next ranked quarterback after Kirk.

And I just think it's perfect. And like Derek Carr is right after him by PFF grades. And again, it's just perfect. Like these guys are similar in talent i think matt ryan is similar in talent now maybe his peak he's better than cousins but now he's similar or or even a little below because he can't really move or do stuff anymore but uh derrick car the same kind of thing a quarterback who is not by any means perfect and does cost a pretty penny and makes it really difficult to build up a great roster.

You can build up a great roster, but you definitely can't do it by missing on drafts and not developing players or not getting players who were capable in the first place of that development. Maybe stop trying to draft the next Daniil Hunter with every draft because there will never be another Daniil Hunter who doesn't sack anyone in college but is one of the great physical freaks of all time in the NFL like it's just a very unique situation maybe you know you're not going to get another digs in the fifth round as a wide receiver so you should probably keep drafting them in the first round and then you can't miss on fourth down decisions goal line decisions kicking field goals yesterday on my website, I ran through the numbers on those. And it basically, if they had gone for a touchdown

and scored the touchdown would have doubled their chances to win as opposed to barely losing anything in win probability if you don't score because the other team has the ball at the five yard line. So, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it where I think that there's a lot of frustration toward Mike Zimmer and toward Gary Kubiak that is very much justified and has been laid out in great detail on this here podcast. But it's also a little bit forest through the trees because the big picture is how can you take Cousins and build around him enough to be great? You can, but not by having bad luck in the draft with the guys from the third, fourth, or fifth round. I mean, honestly, not by drafting a running back in the third round that you're never going to use.

I mean, something like that is just, like, preposterous. And not trading for players that you're not going to sign to contracts so you trade them away for less. Like, these are mistakes that if you have have mahomes we'd never even remember but when you have cousins they they matter and they matter a lot yeah i that 100 and that and that's the hard part and and you know them getting 15 draft picks was great coming out of it with no realistic quarterback option was not right and and you know coming out of it like i thought that they drafted tremendously this year even at the time you know glad gladney dantzler you know cleveland they all have jefferson obviously they

all haven't worked out troy diaz has been kind of brutal but i thought he was a good draft pick but the the issue was is again like you're asking all of these players to be NFL players in a pandemic offseason right away. And that's just not something you can do, right? And that's not bets you can make, you know, when Kirk Cousins is your quarterback and you're sort of in this limbo position of whether or not you know if you are, you know, sort of rebuilding or not.

That was also the issue, right? Like, we did not know, and they did not make sense during this offseason, whether they were rebuilding or whether they were reloading or whether they were trying to compete. Like, just the whole thing, you know, screams of, you know, sort of like dissonance that I just don't think you can win with. And, you know, you look at Miami, by hook or by crook, we know exactly the direction they're going. Cleveland, we know by hook or by crook exactly the direction they're going.

New England, it's not that clear, but, you know, you can discern some things from them. Obviously the elite teams, we know what direction they're going, and the bad teams, Jacksonville, New York Jets, we know what direction they're going. The Vikings were always Jacksonville, New York Jets. We know what direction they're going. The Vikings were always this amorphous thing because the NFC North we thought was weaker. The Vikings were favored to win the NFC North in the betting markets coming

into the year. And to me, it was predominantly because we simply, like, you know, they had some talent, but they were so fragile to minor perturbations, and it didn't take even those to take them down. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com

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the latest football watching content from Pepsi. And your point about the direction is one that really crops up when they're one in five and then they go and beat the Packers and congratulations, it was a good win, but that changed their thinking. It seems seems I don't know all the offers that were made for Riley Reeve for Anthony Harris for Kyle Rudolph and so forth but by sticking with those players it said no we have to go make the playoffs and to me that's where you can make a very reasonable criticism of the direction because this offseason okay you made some moves to try to win, including the Ngakwe trade. That's okay because the needle could have been threaded that you could have had a great offense. You had tons of offensive talent. They have certainly the offensive numbers to be a team that's in the playoff race. And you could talk me into Zimmer will scheme, Harrison Smith will,

Eric Hendricks will, Anthony Barr will. You could talk me into those things in the offseason and they did I picked them to win 10 games so I end up not being right about that um because I thought well that's where they're setting their own team expectations so that's where we should set them and uh once those things already went wrong though you had the sample size of like oh that's that nope that didn't happen that's where you can say all right well we gave it a shot and now we can turn back the other direction i'm not saying tank because this team is too good to tank but be realistic and tack on more draft picks and more players that down the road you can develop from young players to maybe find the next stefan digs or something from a fourth round pick or a fifth round pick. And they just said, no, we're not going to do that. And now it puts you in kind of

a tricky situation too, because you don't know if Josh Metellus or whoever the backup safety is can play. So if you have to move on from Anthony Harris, what do you do? You don't know if Rashad Hill can play left tackle or if Ezra Cleveland can play left tackle. So now what do you do? Is Ezra Cleveland a guard? Well, if you're going to move him to tackle, well, why didn't you just trade Riley Reif then, right? So we don't know if he could play tackle or if he can't play tackle going into 2021. That's where you didn't get answers. And until Kyle Rudolph got hurt, you didn't get answers even on your other tight ends. Now you have those answers only because he gave them to you by getting hurt. So I think that

all of those things say to stick with the direction when your chances of making the playoffs at two and five were about 10% at best, that's where you could say all the numbers were against you, everything was against you, and you counted on, well, we'll just beat these bad teams, but you're bad. So that was the problem. And that's the thing. Like I joke about this on my show, the P.M. Forecast. I said I'm a professional expectation setter, right? Like I'm not negative about the Vikings.

I'm trying to set reasonable expectations for them. Coming out of a three-game homestand in which you beat Jacksonville, Dallas, and Carolina by a combined one point. Oh, I see. You outscored those three teams by a combined one point. You went 0-3 against the spread. And, you know, you needed basically Joey Slide to miss a reasonable field goal. You needed Mike Lennon to throw it right to Harrison Smith.

You almost went 0-3 on the road against – and all the people that were like, well, yeah, but we lost to Seattle by one. We lost to the Tennessee Titans by one. You got those games back. And just even them coming back for more in the second half of the season to try to come back and say, no, this team is actually low-key good, was something that I just wasn't, like, I think the Vikings are an average football team with some major holes. And that's kind of, you know, similar to last year. The holes didn't materialize. They had an easy schedule.

And they ended up 10-6. This year, they were a little bit worse, I think, fundamentally, and the holes were exposed. And so, you know, now we see where they are, you know, and it's unfortunate, but it's the way, you know, it's the way things go. And you have to, I mean, if you're a fan, you have to have, I think, reasonable expectations of the team or else these years are going to burn you. Let me run down some of these fan thoughts. These aren't specifically attributed to anyone.

They're just I received hundreds of messages, and thank you all for that, from either the postgame podcast or the postgame column and sort of gathered some ideas that kept cropping up. And one of them is that we should not overreact to the way this season went because of the Daniil Hunter absence the Michael Pierce absence and then the injury to Anthony Barr and then of course late in the season the injury to Eric Hendricks that all of those things shaped how this went so I'm just going to have you kind of react to these. I'll present them to you and you tell me what you think. I mean, is Danelle Hunter and Michael Pierce, the difference between you and a Superbowl?

Yeah. I mean, definitely not. Definitely not. Also, I would add that, I mean, if you have no one behind them, like do other teams have players get hurt or opt out? I mean, I think they do. You need to have someone behind them. This year has been a mass unit for basically every team in the NFL. I mean, can you imagine where the Vikings would be if Kirk got hurt for a month? Oh, I mean, yeah, we'd be talking about Justin Fields. Yeah, their best two wide receivers have played every game. If you only miss one game, right?

Yeah. So their best weapons on offense have played every game. If you only miss one game, right? Yeah. So their best weapons on offense have played every game. You know, people will say Cook, but, you know, Cook's a running back, and, you know, Madison's about 90% of what Cook is. If Kirk's out for four or five games, like, right, like Philadelphia's quarterback forgot how to play football. Dallas lost Dak, like, early in the season. They didn't keep the Vikings from losing to them, by the way.

And, you know, Breeze was lost for four games. You know, people act like this is, like, the most bad luck-stricken team in the NFL. I think it's ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, like, losing Hunter is significant when, again, your leading sacker is still Yannick Ngakwe. And they did say, and I think there is some validity to, if you trade for Ngakwe and you have him next to Hunter, then those two are much, much, much more effective.

But is it changing a lot? And that's the thing. Is it changing? You're going to be racing for the seventh seed with a few more daniel hunter sacks or a few more yanni kingakwe sacks because of that's like that's just who you are i mean i don't think that it overall changes the result even if there's one more win in there because michael pierce could you know take up two gaps or something well and here's the other thing.

Hunter was criminally underpaid as a wide receiver. Sorry, as a defensive end. Diggs was criminally underpaid as a wide receiver, by the way. They didn't keep them trading him. But Hunter, if you trade for Ngokwe and you pay him a market-level deal as a defensive end, you're paying Hunter more. So it was like it was a trade end you're paying hunter more so it was like a it was a trade to get to pay to pay two defensive ends more money right yeah and that's

and that's why i thought from the very beginning that that was the plan was to like sign them both and have them locked in for a very long time and then you know kind of work around the cap and everything else and then when it turned out not to be the plan that's where you of say, okay, this is one of the more regrettable moves they've ever made because you clearly didn't think that one out or weren't familiar enough with him as a player or whatever it might've been to have that go sideways or that you didn't fully consider the fact that, you know, you, you will have to probably rework Daniel Hunter's contract or do something there. All right, let me give you the next one. This one you don't have to spend a whole lot of time on, but I just thought it's interesting.

This comes up now and then, that Kirk Cousins should take a pay cut to give them more cap space, and he should be a team player. I mean, you have to work within the realities of your life, so no. I mean, Kirk, look, Troy Aikman took a pay cut so Deion Sanders could sign with the Dallas Cowboys in 1995. You know, Tom Brady took, you know, people, the validity of the deals that he took for years is under question, but on the books he took low-end deals to keep the Patriots dynasty in order. That does not appear to be what Kirk Cousins is about. Well, I would also say that he kind of, I mean,

he didn't take like a sweetheart deal, but he did reduce by taking an extension, your cap hit by, I think his cap hit by this year, like $10 million to create space to sign a nose tackle. And so, I mean, I would also say this, that no matter what job you work in, you're working for PFF,

if they offered you a contract and you agreed to it, oh, sorry, we need to pay George Shahuri more money. Like, okay, that's a you problem, not a me problem. Like, you signed me to this contract, and if you didn't foresee that there would be issues, despite the fact that there were already issues with the cap over the last few years, because you signed them, well, then why'd you sign them again? So that's not, to me, that's not a Kirk Cousins problem. And to me, I don't think it's a thing I ever want to criticize him for because he's not the one that offered himself

a deal. Otherwise I would say to a blue Podcasts, I'm offering myself a million dollars a year. So thanks, I signed my deal. Like, no, they offer me a certain amount of money, right? So if, you know, anyway, that's, if you want to be critical of someone about that deal, it's not the person who signed it. That's the way I look at it. The Vikings should trade Mike Zimmer. Like, that is a thing that has popped up because it was sort of under consideration at the end of last year. And part of the broad issues with the team is there is, I think, among a lot of fans,

a lack of belief that he will change anything from where it's been and that under him he will always hold back the offense, just like restrictor plates in NASCAR. Like they still go really fast, but they can't go as fast as they want to go or that they're capable of going. Look, I don't think that Zimmer's the long-term answer for the Vikings. The issue is just because a trade was a reasonable option last year does not mean that one is a reasonable option this year. And if anything, like what are you going to get for him?

And is it worth it for another team to give up capital when, you know, you're probably going to fire him anyway if you really want to get rid of him? Like I don't see it. Let me give you two more real quick. The Vikings should draft an offensive lineman in the first round. I mean, okay, but, like, they should also – they also have needs at wide receiver, defensive back, well, not linebacker maybe, but defensive line. I mean, they have needs everywhere.

Like, to go in and say we need an offensive lineman is sort of how you end up with Garrett Bradbury, you know, and Bradbury is not terrible, but it was, it was not great value. Eric McCoy and who's the other guy? Alton Jenkins. Alton Jenkins are both terrific linemen and they were taken like 40 picks later, 20 picks later, right? Like that, that's how you, that's how you make poor decisions is when you go into a draft desperate for a

specific position. You know, you end up thinking that the curve is a lot steeper than it is as far as talent. So, I mean, look, here's the other thing, and this is like a – this is getting to Belichick with wide receivers territory. You're bad at evaluating offensive linemen. So, like, are we – and the learning curve for all offensive linemen in the NFL, my colleague Timo Riske wrote about this, is the steepest. So, like, are we – and the learning curve for all offensive linemen in the NFL,

my colleague Timo Riske wrote about this, is the steepest. So you're going to draft a position where the guy can't play right away and the most valuable thing about rookies is how little they're paid. You're not getting anything out of them during the time when they're being paid less. Like, I just think it's a bad move. Whereas Justin Jefferson's – the Vikings are a top ten team this year in terms of wins above replacement generated by quarterbacks, wide receivers, and O-linemen. Why?

Because Jefferson's and Paul and I are making hardly any money. And that's where you can get the biggest bang for your buck. And, you know, it's not against the law to have three NFL wide receivers. And just a real quick point, because this is setting the stage for lots of my draft opinions that will be coming your way, that will frustrate people who want offensive linemen. I get that. And offensive linemen are good and you need them. But they threw to Chad Beebe yesterday on, you know, drives where they were down by two scores late in the game

or when they needed key spots. It's a nine-yard pass to Chad Beebe. It's like they're going to cover Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson, and you don't have a quarterback who's going to find them on the move or who's going to create more time or who's going to fire a laser beam into double coverage. It's important that you have more people who can do more than a guy who runs a four, six out of Northern Illinois and was undrafted.

And like, he's a nice story to be an NFL player. Like you, if you have another one of those guys, it becomes unstoppable is kind of the point there. Okay. Last one. The biggest mistake this team made was to win in New Orleans last year in the playoffs.

Yes. Well, look, it wasn't a decision they consciously made or didn't make. Right, right. You've got to try to win. It's sort of like talking about the Jets yesterday. It's like players don't tank. Adam Gase is certainly not tanking. There's nothing in it for him.

Like Zimmer coached a great game against the Saints. It was a bad outcome for the course of the Vikings franchise, though. I'll go to my grave believing that. Like, you know, Stefanski is the coach of the year right now. I said that the Vikings were top 10 in that war per dollar spent. The Browns were second. And that Mayfield, Landry, they're not even

getting it. They're paying Odell a ton of money and he's not even playing and they're still getting a ton out of their receiver. Donovan Peebles-Jones, a six-round pick. Rashard Higgins was considered a bust. Hooper was a relatively reasonable free agent. And obviously was a, you know, a relatively reasonable free agent. And obviously Mayfield and Landry, Chubb and Hunt, like, you know,

this is a team that was unplayable last year with Freddie Kitchens, and now they're a 10-win football team. Stefanski was really the, I think, the one that got away in a sequence of ones that got away in the Vikings franchise. And unfortunately, again, this wasn't necessarily a conscious decision they made. But I think when you look back on it, you know, as if you're a fan, the sensibilities are, well, of course we wanted to win that game. But as like an analyst, you're like, well, this is, is this good for the franchise long term? And I would say absolutely not.

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you can also say that Mike Zimmer is a good enough coach that you could always see next year them you know bouncing back and being really good because he has that capability so it's sort of like I definitely think that you're right but I also never want to say that Zimmer won't win going forward because of some of his shortcomings because he does have the ability to raise the level of play of a defense unless his defensive tackles get pushed 14 yards down the field when David Montgomery is rushing. That's a bit of a problem. Zimmer's purpose as the Vikings head coach has evolved over time. You know, when he took over in January of 2014, the Vikings had had basically what? Since Childress, they had one playoff appearance,

and they had more seasons losing six or fewer games than they had winning seven or more games. It was a franchise on the brink of being a long-term loser, and him getting them in position to be a long-term relevant team again, which they were under Dennis Green and they were, for the most part, under Tice and under Childress, was an accomplishment in and of itself. The issue is the decisions that they made after 2017 and then, again, after 2019 were to maintain the level of confidence. And, again, these things't bad or good, right?

Like the Tampa Buccaneers got rid of Tony Dungy because they had reached – Tony Dungy, his purpose was to get them out of being terrible, right? Fifteen straight years of ten or more losses, right, or whatever it was, to being good enough to win. But eventually that sours, right? And you need a new voice and you go get Gruden. And now, granted, Gruden didn't have sustained success in Tampa Bay, but what did he do?

He won a Super Bowl. And I think, you know, there's different times and places for different people. And, you know, Dungy was that guy relative to Jim Mora in Indianapolis, right? It just was a different voice. And in Minnesota, Zimmer did the right thing. He got them out of this hole that they were going to be in. But times changed, and expectations changed, and, you know, their stature in the NFL changed.

And that's – unfortunately, the Vikings, I don't think, saw that for what it was. Eric, I listen to every episode of the PFF Forecast podcast. It is tremendous. After each Sunday, you guys are recording at 1 o'clock in the morning to make sure that everybody wakes up with their coffee to a PFF Forecast podcast. You and George are absolutely tremendous, so I appreciate all your work there, and every time you come on the show, always great. It has been a super fun season of having you on from start to finish to track.

We basically had the six and 10 tracker this year. It was like every couple of weeks, it was just like, oh, it's not going good. They won a couple of games and they beat Green Bay. And now it could happen. And I think I've told you this before, but George picked seven and nine. So that week 17 game might be, might be huge for the six and 10 tracker. I guess we'll find out. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think the Lions have been competitive. You know, the Lions have been pretty competitive the last few weeks,

despite not being very good. But, you know, much like the Vikings are 0-5 in their last games last five games against Mr. Biscay the Lions are something like what they're like 0-6 in their last 0-5 in their last five against the Vikings in general so if it gets down to the Ford Field game let's say they lose on Friday to New Orleans I still think they'll be favorites against Detroit. Well I mean Mike Zimmer against Matt Patricia was like, what's your oldest child that's probably like four foot tall?

It'd be like you dunking on them. That's kind of Mike Zimmer versus Matt Patricia. And also, one last thing, George owes me an ice cream because I bet him that Dan Bailey would miss at least one extra point against Tampa, and it happened. So I get to guess. Wow, you should have did a points bet and made it like an ice cream cone for every miss.

Yeah, I'm trying to stay in shape, so I would have needed a lot for those two games. Anyway, Eric, great stuff. Follow him at PFF underscore Eric if you dare, and we'll talk again soon, man. Take care.