Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Do the Vikings' previous opponents give them a blueprint to beat Dallas? And Murph thinks Vikings can go 4-2 in the next stretch?

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

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Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Alright, let's get to the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Power here and it may have been the bye week but Brian Murphy does not take a week off from watching football so it is Monday morning Murph. What is up Murph? How are you? I'm good. I feel a little empty without really having to say anything today, so we're going to have to manufacture some stuff. There's nothing to riff off of. I mean, wasn't a lot of great games yesterday to watch. Yeah, that's an understatement. I won't rant again because I did a reaction yesterday to just the games and gave a bunch of opinions but the

first opinion was come on why give us some good games man it was kind of fun watching the monsoon in san francisco but that got old after about 10 minutes yeah the the slop fest yeah that was a struggle um good for xavier rhodes the funniest part of last night, though, was that Xavier Rhodes, every single game of his career, he's been limping around. And they acted like, I think they even brought up Willis Reed on the broadcast. No. They acted like his leg was hanging off and he was dragging it behind him. But when he had that pick six yeah i mean he may have saved the indianapolis colts season to be honest though i mean they they've played a

lot better lately but they got themselves in a big hole and he gets that pick six to kind of keep them alive in that race but they were showing them you know hobbling around in warm-ups and look i don't expect the national broadcast to know that xavier rhodes is always hobbled but that was kind of a that was kind of a fun well you know the willis reed dramatics have been it's been flogged to death for a long it's been 51 years and for those that don't know willis reed came out of the knicks locker room after injuring his leg in game seven of the NBA finals, I think against the Lakers at Madison Square Garden. And of course, Marv Albert,

a very young Marv Albert made the call about him coming back onto the court and he made a jump shot and the place went nuts. And yeah, okay, fine. But that was also game seven of the NBA finals. So, you know, Xavier Rhodes limping around in week six in the rain of San Francisco doesn't exactly excite the senses. But, you know, if they've got video, go with it, I guess. There are other funny things about that, which is that Willis Reed didn't have a huge impact on that game. If I remember correctly. No, he just hit one shot and he went around right yeah and i thought it was the most incredible thing they'd ever seen it was walt frazier who had a great game and carried them uh the other thing is that there have been other

football players this is crazy to think about who have been dealing with injuries and played through them jack youngblood played with a broken leg in the super bowl just just an fyi well tarrell owens played with a broken ankle in the super bowl as well and many hundreds of others just they really needed some extra storylines but good for xavier rhodes because when he left minnesota i thought he was completely washed up and he's been good in indianapolis um so anyway i guess that's a takeaway why let's even talk about that San Francisco game real quick, and then we can sort of relive and revisit. Oh, wait, the cat's coming again. so far this year and sort of what we know in hindsight about those opponents but so san francisco though goes to the super bowl in 2019 and every other year that kyle shanahan

has been there they have been bad and they're not good now and uh i, I think it's fair for some people to say like, is Kyle Shanahan, the genius that they sort of made him out to be, or was it one year that that team was stacked and everything kind of fell their way. And it was mostly their defense that drove them. They did have a great offense in 2019, but you end up with this sort of thing that happens in the NFL where someone rises and then everyone figures them out and then they fall and maybe that's happening I'm not sure but I don't know how serious to take them when we make the list of all the great teams the Vikings are playing I was assuming San Francisco was going to be a really tough team this year and after last night I mean they're now two and four

and they're climbing the ladder like everybody else I don't think that's an easy game in Santa Clara but it is certainly not the like oh wow add that to the list of all these incredibly tough games I think San Francisco is just now a mediocre team well they were they started two and oh now they've lost four straight and boy to lose four straight in the NFL that's when uh the foundations start crumbling. And not only that, they're 8-14 since reaching the Super Bowl two seasons ago. So this isn't just a 2021 slide. This has been a steady decline, a lot of it on the shoulders of Garoppolo. And don't forget, too, that they almost coughed up that season opening win in Detroit. I mean, they built up a huge lead lead and then Detroit clawed its way back so the two and four even comes with

a bit of an asterisk for the Vikings though it would be more helpful maybe if they face them this week coming out of the bye or perhaps November 7th unfortunately for them it's on the back end Thanksgiving weekend of this brutal four game stretch stretch, five-game stretch coming up. So I would think that the 49ers could already be dead and buried and the Vikings could be in bad shape by the time that game comes to fruition anyway. Because now they've got, you know, obviously Dallas and Green Bay at home bracketing the two road games in Baltimore and in L.A. against the Chargers. I if they can get to San Francisco still, you know, 500 or a little bit better. Yeah, that could be a stepping stone type game for them. But I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't look too far ahead to it to a middling team because they've got a ton of business to take care of.

No, you're right about that, that if you can survive the next handful of weeks here, then you do get some teeth. Now, it's hard to say what San Francisco will look like then, but not as strong as we thought. Still, even if they start to get on a winning streak after this and you mentioned Garoppolo and so much of it with him has just been his health and he's coming back from another injury and who knows where he stands with the Vikings eventually play them. So I, I was grasping for things to think about related to the Vikings last night and just throughout the day.

And that was one of them that man, you know, San Francisco was supposed to be a serious contender and really was Seattle that's playing tonight. Same deal where, you know, Russell Wilson gets hurt and all of a sudden they're not really a legitimate contender either that it's going to take a lot for them. A Gino Smith win and Russell Wilson coming back, maybe faster than expected. And then them solving a lot of different problems. Like that division was supposed to be unbelievable.

And they have two good teams and two teams that are just sort of mediocre. So let's go through these Vikings games and sort of what we know in hindsight now, though. Because I think that's an interesting conversation. I got a ton of tweets about that yesterday. Cincinnati. I think that there's a natural Cincinnati and Arizona. We can kind of bucket together where there's a natural feeling of a lot of Vikings fans to say, man, we were close against those two teams that might be the two best teams in the NFL or are very close to

the two best teams in the NFL. And I guess with one of them, I'll say yes. And the other one, I would say no with Cincinnati. I think that Cincinnati largely beat the tar out of the Vikings and then almost blew it but Arizona the Vikings had a two score lead and they drove their success offensively which is more reflective of what they're going to have to do in the coming games how do you feel about those two losses now that we know that both of those teams are far better than we expected? I feel worse about the Cincinnati loss. You know, it's easier to say, well, if Greg Joseph, of course, makes his 37 yarder, the Vikings do take down Arizona and they're not the only undefeated team left. But I feel like the Vikings were a bit in over their head that whole day against Kyler Murray.

And granted, they did have a cushion that they allowed to get whittled away, but I never felt like they were in control or on the verge of taking control of that game. Cincinnati, Zach Taylor, their coach, just kind of handed them the opportunities to win that game, at least on one questionable third down call. And then, you know, if Dalvin Cook does hang on to that ball or they win the coin flip of a replay review, I mean, they're very likely going to win that game. I will say this, though.

I think Joe Burrow, who had moments against the Vikings, has really established himself as an elite passer right now. I mean, to go into Baltimore, a place that's notoriously difficult for offenses to play, and put up, what, 416 yards, three touchdowns. His buddy from LSU, Jamar Chase, I mean, he's having an incredible year. He had 200 yards receiving as well. I mean, they handled Baltimore pretty good.

And Baltimore looked great every week. They kept getting better and better. So at 5-2, I mean, they're kind of the pole sitters right now in the AFC North and the AFC. So I would say that loss maybe doesn't look as painful as it did in week one because everybody thought that was the layup on the schedule, certainly the early portion of that schedule. I think the Arizona loss may be not as painful anymore, despite the fact that they were a short field goal from winning it. I think that the Cincinnati game maybe validates the fact that they were facing a good opponent and a very good quarterback on the road um maybe they should get a little more credit for for kind of the resiliency they did show in week one and in fairness to the Vikings

they have been resilient now you know when you create your own mess and resiliently clean it up it does take a little bit of shine off of that but this is a team that has found a way to almost give away its wins look awful at times while winning but at the same time prevented themselves from losing those games as well which you know emotionally and psychologically these teams could have shut down it would have been very easy for the Vikings to shut down against Cleveland, to shut down against Detroit. Kirk Cousins, of all guys, your leader, you know, your fearless leader has found a way four times this season

to drive them down the field and put them in a position to extend or win games. And that's one thing that had been missing from his resume. So I think there's – they are evolving a bit. There's still a lot of issues that could plague them in this tough stretch coming up. But if anything gives me hope or should give fans hope is that, you know, Cousins is shedding that small game reputation he had. He's making big plays at big times, and that's what you need. Now he's going to have quality opponents to continue building their resume or revert to

what everybody thinks he is, which is a mediocre October quarterback. So let me circle back to the Cincinnati point. I think the thing that you'd look at with the Cincinnati game is, well, one, Joe Burrow was playing his first game coming back from that injury. And still, I mean, he made some phenomenal passes. I thought in that game that he was the reason that Cincinnati won along with their defensive line. And I think that that would be what would concern you is that these two quarterbacks who have played great, who have played as well as Dak Prescott,ar Jackson Justin Herbert the guys you're going to face coming up and Aaron Rodgers they did really well against the Vikings and Burrow got banged up in the second half of that game so they started running a lot but I thought if they

had pressed the gas pedal down they could have run away from the Vikings if they had sort of stuck with Joe Burrow driving them early in that game and and I think part of it was that he took a hit, his ankle was hurt or whatever. But the fact that Cincinnati has a good defensive line now, and that defensive line largely dominated the Vikings in that game, the Vikings did not run very well. Kirk Cousins was under pressure. The offensive line committed a bunch of holdings and penalties. That's a thing that has taken them apart in a lot of different games, including Cleveland throughout the years with Kirk Cousins. And you're going to face some good defensive lines here going forward. And we're going to sort of find out if the offensive line is better.

But if we look at, okay, when did you play good defensive lines and how did it go? Against Cincinnati, it was not good. And against Cleveland, it was not good. And those are the only two that have really complete strong defensive lines. So that's kind of a takeaway for me is not, wow, you played close within a point, but your weaknesses where your weaknesses and the other quarterback probably should have beat you by more. And that was a game where Bashad Breland also got roasted. The Arizona one, I think is much more telling for what you'll have to do against Dallas. Like Dak Prescott's probably going to throw for 400 yards against you. How are you going to beat him? I don't know that there's an answer to Dak Prescott. I was watching back his game against new England and just like, wow. I mean, there's, they, they should have beat new

England by more. There was a fumble at the goal line. They had some mistakes in there. But Dak Prescott is reading defenses, reading blitzes, making plays, delivering brilliant passes. I mean, he is just on point. And if the Vikings think, oh, we're going to play a 16 to – or whatever it was, 19 to 17 game against Dallas, I think they've got another thing coming. There will be big plays. And they have to find a way to be there at the end with a Dallas offense

that's going to put up points. And the way they did it against Arizona, Murph, was their offense, they pushed it. They used creativity in that game. Kirk Cousins was great in that game. And they're going to need that again. And I thought that maybe Clint Kubiak earned himself a little bit of confidence in the second half of the Carolina game, which we'll get to. But I think

that Arizona game was, this is the model of how you're going to have to win over the next four weeks. Well, and let's not forget too, Dallas is also coming off a bye. So they're going to be just as rested and just as prepared as the Vikings are. I mean, they're, you know, sometimes teams coming off a buy or playing teams that are a little more banged up. Well, these are going to be two evenly matched teams on the national stage, the Sunday night game, which is another one of those Kirk Cousins blemishes, right? He doesn't perform well in prime time. I do believe he finally won a Monday night game last year, didn't he? So I don't know.

If you lump them all together Thursday night Monday night Sunday night Christmas day Thanksgiving day whatever it's not good he doesn't necessarily rise to the occasion so here's another opportunity um for that as well I you know you mentioned when the Vikings do step on the gas as they did in Arizona um and they did in Carolina well it took a blocked punt for them to kind of and Adam Thielen uh raging up and down the sideline to kind of awake them from their slumber. That's what has happened in instances where they've needed that last minute drive to force overtime or overcome a quick deficit that suddenly happened in front of them. You know, I'm thinking of the Cleveland and Detroit games and even Carolina, you know, where they, again, they forced overtime, made the two point conversion suddenly. Well, maybe we ought to do something and dominate on offense. I mean,

why can't that be the man, the mindset from the moment they take their opening opening series, as opposed to the scripted runs, the second and twelves, the third and eight draws, take what the defense gives you, go for the third and eight draws, take what the defense gives you, go for the killer, you know, go for the jugular right away. I mean, they've proven themselves when they are focused and dedicated to doing that. They can, they can run with the best of them. I mean, and when I say run, I mean, run and gun, uh, the Arizona game. I mean, they, they were moving up and down the field on the road against a really good

opponent. So you wonder why, and again, is it Zimmer holding the reins? Is it him trying to figure out when is the good time to unleash that? When's the perfect opportunity for that? Do we need to establish the run? Because that's been their mantra forever. Let's get some defensive stops. Let's pick and choose our moments. How about unleashing from the get-go? Because that's how Dallas plays, and that's how they're going to roll in. And, you know, the Vikings win the toss. They'll defer. They'll hand the ball off to Dallas.

Don't be surprised if it's 7-0. And if you're running Cook and you're running conservatively, it could be 14-0 before you decide, hey, let's take the reins off. I do think deferring is the right move, though. Just as a longtime Madden player, getting the ball back in the second half is great because if you can score at the end of the first half, they do a little double dip there. That will require some quality clock management.

And that generally doesn't happen at the end of halves touche on madden for me it does i mean if i got 40 seconds in the real world here matthew in the real world uh the vikings would rather take a knee with a minute and a half left and take whatever momentum they think they have defensively into the locker room to talk about it and and isn't that the funny thing though that the real world in a lot of nfl cities has become how i play madden with that level of aggressiveness and it's really starting to shine more when a team doesn't act that way when they have 40 seconds and they nail down you get boos from the crowd i think san francisco did that last night and the crowd was booing it's like why aren't you trying to score more because everyone is seeing that around the league every week.

And maybe at this point they understand, like you have the offense to do it. You have the talent to do it. Cousins has been able to make a lot with a little bit of time at the end of games when it's necessary. Why is that aggressive attitude only unpacked on occasion? It should be always available. And that's, I think, where the clash seems to be. And we're trying to, you know, you guys out there every day, like drilling down on this. I mean, is Kubiak not rising to the

occasion? Is he, you know he sticking too much to scripts? Is Zimmer holding him back? Is Cousins not allowed to make changes at the line? How is all that? How is that dynamic playing out in real time? We don't know exactly. We can speculate here and there. But it just seems the product is this. When the Vikings play offensively with urgency, good things happen. When they lay back,

they put themselves in a position where they have to play with urgency. You should be playing with urgency because that's what makes you successful, not to avoid defeat. Yeah, no, that's a really good way to put it. And I was just looking up the Vikings when they're either tied or trailing in Kirk Cousins' numbers this year versus when they're leading. And when they're either tied or trailing and Kirk Cousins numbers this year versus when they're leading. And when they're leading, they average under seven yards per attempt, which I think speaks to their lack of aggressiveness when they're tied in games. Cousins has 131 quarterback rating and averages over eight yards per pass attempt. And when they're trailing, it's still much better than when they're leading so putting the gas down is just not something that they've really done uh so far this year now that

would be my next game which is seattle and the win on against seattle where the only way and this has always been the fact in sports right kansas did this uh the other day in college football if you watch the Kansas game, what is the way to keep a great offense off the field? Why did Oklahoma struggle to beat Kansas? Because Kansas had the ball the whole time. And the Vikings did this against Seattle, where they just did not let Russell Wilson touch the football field in the second half. And the only times that he did, he was playing from behind and seattle is a very bad defense as bad as it gets in the entire nfl so i i don't know that they're going to see

a defense this bad again for a while uh but that sort of strategy of keeping dak prescott off the field by keeping drives going hitting on screen passes being able to run successfully does matter and then converting on third downs I mean if they can do that against some of these great quarterbacks the Seattle game shows you that it's possible to keep these guys limited even if your defense is not you know the 2015 Denver Broncos or the 85 Bears well and then it's going to be rising to the occasion too, because what you have is you're going to have a packed house. It's going to be loud. It's going to be raucous. And this is the whole league's going to be watching. So what version of themselves do the Vikings want to put out there? You know, do they want to show, you know, everybody that's

going to be scouting them that, you them that this is a team that can, if you can control the clock and stay aggressive on offense, then you can grind teams down. I'm not sure Zimmer believes that yet. He's been shown that, and I think he, it's almost like he wants to dive in, head first into this new world order but something keeps pulling him back and that's that that that fallback position of you know this is who I am this is what's gotten gotten me here to where I'm at and I'm going to die trying it this way so I just you

can feel the internal tensions playing out uh both in the offensive and defensive philosophies, but also just overall in general, is this the direction they want to go where they're going to have to, you know, they're playing reactionary football as opposed to setting the agenda for a game. When you're at home, you have the opportunity to really set the agenda for a game. And I, we haven't seen the Vikings really do that yet. We've seen them do it in spurts. I think this, and I think going on the road to Baltimore and LA before coming home to green face green Bay on November 21st, we're going to know everything we need to know about the identity of this club, what they're capable of, how they react, whether or not they are going to become a more contemporary team, or they're going to straddle the line of old school versus new school, being resilient

when we can be, being opportunistic when we can be, but not making it easy. And that's what I think fans are dying for that, that gimme. I don't see it on the schedule anytime soon, but they have shown there's, they have shown ways that they can dominate portions of a game, but they just haven't done it for 60 minutes. So I think it's going to be a rollercoaster ride for the next four weeks. And then just for the rest of the season as well. Folks, Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore. That's because TickPick,

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So you want to go to TickPick.com slash Insider to save $10 on your first order for Minnesota football tickets. Again, TickPick.com slash Insider to save $10 on your first order of Minnesota football tickets. Something interesting about Dallas is they only have 11 sacks all year, and that is 28th in the NFL. The team right next to them is Seattle, who the Vikings had all day to operate against that Seattle defense. But the Cowboys are incredible when it comes to causing turnovers, and they're number one in the league they're causing turnovers

on one out of every five drives not when a guy named digs is coming into us bank stadium so he is but the thing about that stat though is like that's really hard to maintain um the 2000 ravens had something like 50 turnovers or whatever caused, but it's really, really hard to maintain one out of every five drives causing a turnover. And normally when a cornerback is that aggressive, there are opportunities there to take advantage of that corner. And we see this with Marcus Peters sometimes who's got tons of interceptions, but also gets roasted a lot. And in the game against new England, Trayvon Diggs gets a pick and then the next drive Mac Jones throws it over his head for a big touchdown and I think that

that's there for the Vikings is some opportunity for a team that has relied really heavily on turnovers to take advantage of them that's just sort of a side point because I was trying to figure out like how dangerous is the Dallas defensive line and it's good, but it's not like, Oh no, this is Cleveland. That's got a ton of sacks or something like that. Um, now speaking of Cleveland, this would be the worry about facing Dallas. So we just talked about how the offense showed they can do it, that the offense probably against Dallas's defense can, um, produce some points if the Vikings get the ball because in the Cleveland game they ran over the Vikings and they ran and they ran and they ran and they ran and I think that is possible for Dallas because their offensive line is back and they have the number one graded run

blocking offensive line in the NFL by pro football focus. That should be very scary to the Vikings, especially if Michael Pierce is not back. Armand Watts played well against Carolina. This is not Carolina. Carolina has a horrible offensive line. This is the best offensive line probably in the NFL because they're healthy too. And that should be the concern because I haven't seen, even against Carolina Murph, I haven't seen this team consistently stop the run the whole year well and that had been their bread and butter for so long too and and and you know back going back to when you had Linval Joseph in the middle obviously they signed Pierce he hops out he comes back this year and looks pretty pretty solid before going out getting banged up again now prior to the bye I believe Rick Spielman told you guys that he's expected to be back for this game.

And then also, what's the secondary going to be? You know, Patrick Peterson late in that Carolina game, you know, it sounded like, oh, he just had some cramps. He'll be fine. Well, no, it turns out it's a hamstring injury. And those things can be particularly finicky. So they put him on short-term IR, but he's going to be gone for at least, what, three or four games at the very least based on that. So now it's Cameron Dantzler, here you go, it's all yours. And Rashad Breeland, which, you know, I think he's recovered a bit

from his on and off field struggles, let's say, to grasp the the moment to grasp his position uh but that's that's going to be ripe too for Prescott and don't think that you know the Dallas offensive scheme is not looking at we've got two sort of unproven corners one of whom is a bit petulant and maybe we can pick on them early and and expose them and then soften up even that run defense a little bit more. Yeah, I wonder what their strategy will be. If it is, hey, they've got a cornerback out, let's just throw it all over them. And that was the case in 2019, I think, right? When the Vikings beat Dallas, that press got through for something like 390 yards.

They attacked Mike Hughes all day long, and they just threw and threw and threw and threw. But this healthy offensive line in the run game is really scary though. So they, I mean, they could have a complete offensive performance or they could do exactly what we talked about the Vikings doing against Seattle, which is just never allowing Justin Jefferson to walk back on the football field because you're just plowing through that Vikings defense and getting first down after first down. And this is why, like you said, right from the jump, the Vikings have to be an aggressive team and score when they can and not leave any points on the field, not get to the 25 yard line and start handing off and playing for field goals because there's just so many ways that the Dallas

offense can beat them. And I have a tough time seeing this particular group. You know, this isn't the 2016 or 2017 group where you'd be saying, look, they could face off against anyone. I don't know if you could face off against this defense or this offensive line, and they're going to give Prescott time and they're going to run. And that's where it's going to be tough. But I think that the fact that Cleveland steamrolled them on the ground, that could be what we see. I mean, Mike McCarthy still has his old school nature that he might come out and try to do that. So now do they get Pierce back? We won't know until Wednesday when they get back on the practice field, what's going on with Michael Pierce. They did not put him on IR though. So it's possible he could return. That would be huge for the Vikings. Now the now the um the last two wins Murph Detroit and

Carolina I think the lesson is simple I mean part of it is what we were just talking about like you can't let teams hang around uh but it's also you you can't commit a bunch of penalties and mistakes and holds and punt blocks and things like that if that happens then you're going to lose but that's hard to say like hey these random things that pop up my question for you though is and punt blocks and things like that. If that happens, then you're going to lose. But that's hard to say like, hey, these random things that pop up. My question for you though is the fumble in the big moment from Alexander Madison,

the punt block, things like that. Do you think that that is like just random or is that fundamental to who this team is that they've had those key penalties and mistakes and they haven't been a crazy turnover team but it seemed to be at the worst time like is that random and they can clear that up or just the bounces will go the other way or is that fundamental to who they are as a 500 football team i think it's both i mean i think turnovers are random period they just are block punts totally

random um but you're right it is indicative of who they are what it what it spells out though is that and we've said this before is the margin for error is nil they really cannot afford and and we i've used this terminology all season long the whack-a-mole every time they figure out how to whack another mole another another one pops up, whether it's penalties in the offensive line in the first week, an untimely turnover, a lack of creativity, clock management. Again, in Carolina, the block punt made that game completely, I mean, the Vikings were basically going to run the clock out on Carolina. In fact, if anything, the block punt and the 97 yard ensuing touchdown drive that Sam Darnold put on them with the two-point conversion really just bought Sam Darnold another start when everybody knew he was gonna he's falling apart and he's he's a shell of what he was

and of course he was benched yesterday uh in an embarrassing loss again so all it did was stave off the inevitable which which was Darnall was not going to be a threat to you, but then you made him a threat and you spoon-fed a team momentum that they didn't probably deserve or put yourselves in a position you didn't need to be in. I guess in baseball, they call it the high leverage situation for a reliever, right? Well, Kirk Cousins and the Vikings have been in many high leverage situations this year, and they've thrived in that. So there is some benefit to that. It's not the way you want to operate. But they have, again, they have shown some resiliency that can pay off later. If they are down, if huge momentum swings huge emotional swings they've proven that they can bounce back from that

but what they have maddeningly not proven is that they can consistently put together a game and I think that's where the frustration is I'm looking forward to Sunday night's game because this is really I mean what the Vikings did it took them six weeks to get to 500. So basically what they did is they bought themselves an opportunity to reset their season. They're at 500. It's an 11-game sprint. They're what I think they're hanging on to the last playoff spot as we speak. The Bears are falling apart. They're kind of in a position now to wipe the slate clean and make something out of these last 11 games. And it's also a nationally televised Sunday night game, Halloween. It's going to have a vibe to it. You know, the stadium is going to be rocking. They need to rise to that occasion

and put down a quality opponent and give people a reason to buy in. They've, everybody's been kind of a little bit abused and a little bit left wanting, but also excited by the potential, which has made for great conversation over the last seven weeks. But they really haven't earned anybody's trust, and they haven't really earned a position to be considered a playoff contender. They have to go out there and prove that. And I want to see how they rise to that level, both from a scheme standpoint, from an offensive production standpoint,

how they hold up against Dallas's defense, how they rise to the occasion in a big moment, how Cousins can he continue this stretch where he seems to be not only gathering steam as a, as a productive quarterback, but also as a leader. And there's momentum there that's building. So what, how are they going to come out of this on Sunday night? Are they going to freeze in the moment? Are they going to thrive in the moment?

Oh, that is what makes football so much fun, Brian, as we'll find out. But you know, remember the last time they played on Halloween? It was 2016 against Chicago. So I guess they'll have to hope it's not as spooky this time as that was when they lost to a terrible Chicago team. Jay Cutler, who had been playing horribly, all of a sudden finds it against the Vikings. Norv Turner quits.

Yeah, that was quite a time. Zimmer goes blind. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That was the Zimmer eye injury night. Um, so, uh, let me ask you before we wrap up Murph, uh, the Vikings traded Steven Weatherly to Denver for essentially nothing. I mean, they swapped seventh round picks this year's for next year's or however it is. 2023 goes their way. 2022 seventh comes this way so you know somehow i'm sure they'll turn that into four seventh round picks anyway uh i don't have a like a huge hot take on stephen weatherly being gone other than signing stephen weatherly to compete for the starting job

when they did was kind of nutty uh because they didn't know Everson Griffin was coming back at that time. And they thought, well, we know this guy, even though he had done nothing in Carolina and his stats underlying stats in Minnesota were not that good. Like this is one of those guys that they fall in love with and eventually figure out just like Shamar Stephan. Like this is just not a good player. And it just takes them a while, I guess, when they believe in somebody who's a defensive lineman to figure it out. But it opens the door for Patrick Jones to play. Not the most exciting trade ever. Weatherly was basically not getting on the field anymore. The thing I wanted to ask you, though, is why you think the NFL's trade deadline is such a

snooze fest? The NHL fun major league baseball is fun basketball usually comes up with some good stuff but in football you basically don't even need to set your adam schefter alerts on your phone for the nfl trade deadline i don't know if the vikings will try to pull something off but it's usually pretty bland and i wonder why you think that is. Well, I, I haven't delved into it too much, but it's, I guess it's the salary cap. I mean, teams, you know, tinker and shape and reshape their rosters over a series of deadlines in the off season. I mean, you've got free agents in March, you have the draft and unlike other sports, maybe that the draft, you can have impact players deeper into rounds. You have cut down day around labor day. the draft, you can have impact players deeper into rounds.

You have cut down day around labor day. And then, you know, especially with the Vikings, they've been so razor thin on that salary cap. I mean, you know, better than I am. What do they have to spend right now going into November 2nd? It's like 5 million. I can check on over the cap, but it it's, it's enough to make a small move, but to make a big move, they would have to do something. Either going to have to offload. So, I mean, player for player swaps in the middle of an NFL season are so rare. I mean, yeah, baseball and hockey, it's great because you can you can really turn your team around.

You know, you can find a plug and play kind of guy that will come in and not only make a difference on the field, but maybe even in the locker room as well. The Vikings, I think, you know, they have one more test against Dallas here, so they could be three and four or four and three. So does that dictate, all right, we're four and three. We feel good. We can make a run if we add this extra piece for X amount of dollars. You also got to survive another wave, an injury cycle, what comes out of that game that may dictate how active you get at the deadline as well. If you lose a key player, then you look a lot harder to plug and play. If they're three and four, I would ask you this,

what do you think the selling parts are if they want to go into a sell mode, as they kind of did last year? And what value could they bring back to a team that may want to overpay because they feel like they're in a position to make a run? I think that's really the only window of opportunity is how they perform Sunday against Dallas. If they show themselves to be a contender, then it may be like, look, we got $5 million to spend. Let's spend every penny to get a key role player or three and four.

We didn't look great. It may be time to look ahead a little bit. Although with Rick Spielman playing, you know, managing for his job, I don't know if managing for 2020, 2022 or 2023 draft picks makes a lot of sense for him if they lose as well. But it's just, I think we'll know more on Monday because of where the season is teetering on that performance. Folks, football season is in full swing, but we've got basketball and hockey getting rolling

as well. And Soda Stick has got you covered. You have to see the Moose t-shirt designs for Marcus Foligno. You could also get your hands on the very popular dollar bill Kirill shirts as well on the basketball side, the design with three wolves howling at the moon, perfect for the spooky fall season and the design with the wolf carved into the state of the Minnesota is just awesome. It's very cool stuff. And Hey, for you, college football fans, check out the Tanner Morgan t-shirts as well. SodaStick has tons of hats and hoodies with all their great designs on them.

You will love it. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K. Check that out today. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. And also follow myself and SodaStick on Twitter for our giveaways. I think either way, they're a buyer or they're nothing. They have a lot of parts that you could sell off,

but you're not getting much back. Like if you put Xavier woods out there, I mentioned Madden earlier, you can usually rip off teams on Madden and get like a second round pick for a starting player. Who's rated an 80. That's not how it works at the NFL trade deadline. Like even good players, Yannick Ngakwe, look what he's doing with the Raiders. Like that guy's a good player, brought back a third round pick. That's about as high of a pick as you're ever going to see at the trade deadline, barring some very shocking blockbusters. So if you were to put Xavier Woods, for example, a guy in a one-year contract out in

the market, he probably brings back like a fifth or something. So Riley Reif last year, they just decided it's not even worth it. We might as well just keep him and play him rather than taking the sixth or fifth round pick that somebody was offering. Now, I think a few teams made a mistake by not getting Riley Reif or not offering more,

but that's just how it is. The offers are not high. You're getting a half a season out of a guy. If you trade a high pick and the guy gets hurt and you're the big idiot, right. You know? So it's weird how right before the season, the prices are high in the off season. The prices are generally high. I mean, the Vikings paying a fourth for Chris Herndon is a lot. And then in the mid season, it just disappears. And I agree with what you said about like, they're not in a position even at three and four to say, okay, well tear it apart, take it down. I don't think they're in that spot. They just have to keep

fighting and they have to hope that they can be three and three or better in the next six games and set themselves up for a fight to the very end. So I don't think that they're going to move off anyone. Do you have any ideas to make this better? I think that a salary cap exemption, a trade exemption would maybe help inspire a little bit. Well, you get one of those moves in season. You get a move that cannot be counted against your salary cap,

or you could push it to the next year's salary cap or something. And it has to be in season. It has to be beyond week four and before the trade deadline or something like that. So you can't just wait till week two then make all your trades. Basically, it has to be a trade deadline or a mid-season.

If they offered a salary cap exemption, then maybe there would be a chance. Here's my other idea, would be to have the whole league go on a buy for a week and so you could trade for players then they get in and they practice i know i'm saying that if you wanted to make it more exciting if that was a huge focus then you would have the whole week go on by you cannot have the nfl shut down for a week vegas would not stand for that all of our addicts would not Vegas would not stand for that. All of our addicts would not stand for that.

You have to have games. I agree. I'm just saying, if there was one way to do it, it would be to do that so you could get players in, get them acclimated with your team throughout that bye week, and teams, let's say, could still practice or whatever throughout that week, and they just don't play. So everyone would have two weeks.

I've actually thought this idea is not terrible to get everybody healthy again get the league healthy again and sort of hit the reset button for the entire nfl uh but i agree with you that people would lose their minds if they went a whole sunday without football those are my two ideas halloween weekend no nfl games on sunday oh i know it it would be not good not good for fans but think about this let's say that you're a fan's really intrigued by front office intrigue let's say that you're the Carolina Panthers and you're feeling it slipped through your fingers because your quarterback is terrible and let's just pretend they have lots of draft assets and didn't trade them for one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL because they have no idea what they're doing. But if they were thinking we need to save our season and traded for another team's quarterback

that maybe was struggling or out of the race, like you can't really plug and play a quarterback in the middle of a season from another team. But if you had an entire week of practices, you see what I'm saying? Like it kind of encourages that possibility yeah but if I'm Joe Sixpack in Portland Oregon I don't care about what Carolina can do to rehab their quarterback position I'm just trying to come up with some ideas to encourage more trades in the NFL because I got nothing else I mean it's it's just hard it's hard to bring somebody in and say go play for our football team now well you, you know, there's no shortage of, you know, headlines in the NFL. I think boosting up the trade deadline would be

fun to a degree. Is it really on everybody's priority list? Probably not. Probably not. You're right, Murph. Actually, I'm sorry. I just threw a wet blanket over the last 10 minutes of your conversation. Well, I was thinking, I was not a way to end our bi-week podcast is it i was basically headline why bother why bother yeah uh well no you're right about the nfl i was thinking about this though yesterday about um just like the level of stress and drama for fans each week this was always my argument for why they didn't need more football games it's like like after 16 games, these people are exhausted. After six. That's what I mean.

That there's an extra one of these. I was looking at the schedule yesterday going, oh my gosh, there's 11 of these left. And every one of them will be a last second Greg Joseph field goal. So, well, Murph, it sets up for a lot of excitement. Let me ask you one final question. Since you ruined all of my trade deadline ideas, then you have to answer one more question.

After the next six games, what's the Vikings record? I'm going to say they're, you know what, I'm going to go out on a limb as cynical as I am. I'm going to say they're going to go four and two. I'm not going to pick the wins right off the bat, but I'm going to say four and two. So what's that put them at? Seven and five.

Okay. Seven and five. Yeah. Just lock and load in. Let's have some fun with it. Baltimore looks a little more vulnerable. I think they win at least one of the two home games. I don't know. Maybe the chargers look a little vulnerable too. So let's say they, let's say they beat, well, let's say they win three straight and then lose to Green Bay. That's not going to happen. I don't even know why I'm saying that out loud, but it just feels like, I feel like

they could come up with three wins out of this mix. You really snuck some sunshine into the coffee there this morning. Well, I think three and three. I think if you go three and three and you're six and six, then. Then we talk about another reset. Right. Well, then you're six and six, then then we talk about another reset. Right. Well, then you're in. Well, then you have the lighter games coming up and then you are like in a position to be in the playoffs at that point at six and six. Looking at the rest of the way the NFC is playing out. And I think if that's the expectation is that you're still right there in a playoff spot as they are, as we record this,

then like that's where we wanted you to be. Of course, everyone wanted to be better than six and six, but you have a chance to run down the stretch and get a couple of big wins and be in the playoffs and have a shot. And like, that's what everyone is looking for, for the season at this moment. So now, I mean, there are some people who say if they don't make the super Bowl, then every season's a failure. But I think at least giving yourself a chance to do something in the playoffs with the talent that you have, that's

what we're looking for as of right now. And with this tough schedule, if you do better than six and six, then I think I'm taking you seriously. Like as a contender, if it's six and six, we're still talking about the good and the bad. If it is seven and five or better than, okay, wow. You've really proven yourself as a legit. The more I hear it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. I think I'm going to revert back to your, your three and three mark. I don't know why I'm thinking they could win for the next three of the next four, but I,

maybe it's just the optimist in me that wants to keep this as interesting as it can be to the very end. So we drag everyone with us. Yeah, that's right. Or it's just a beautiful fall morning. Maybe that's it, Murph. You're not stressed from the game of yesterday. Well, Brian, we'll be here a Monday morning, Murphing it up after the Dallas game to break it all down. So I appreciate your time on this bi-week, another fun conversation, and I'll talk to you again soon. All right. See you guys.