Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Does a Rams-Bengals Super Bowl tell us anything about the Vikings?

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the insane AFC and NFC Championships and how Matthew Stafford was able to reach the Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams. How game management played a big role in the 49ers falling apart and how Jimmy Garoppolo didn't come through at the end. Plus what it says about building teams that Joe Burrow is in the Super Bowl in just his second season. A Jim Harbaugh update and lots of Vikings candidates looking strong on championship Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

oh welcome to the rams and bengals are going to the Super Bowl. Matthew Collar along with Paul Hodowanek here and Paul, I think that we witnessed history today. The history was the worst managed games of all time by Andy Reid and Kansas City at the end of their game, getting Patrick Mahomes sacked several times rather than just running the clock down and trying to score a touchdown or kicking a field goal at the end there. And then Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay dueling mistakes at the end of the game. Kyle Shanahan chooses not to go for it on fourth down, punts it away. Two plays later, the Rams are right back in position. They go down and eventually tie the game and ultimately take the lead after the Rams defensive line takes over. And Sean McVay just challenging everything that moves

completely runs out of timeouts, which could have put his team in peril as well. And at the end result is the Los Angeles Rams coming out on top. So of course, all of the things that happen prove all the things that everybody thought about whatever it is you thought about, which is what you see on the internet, instant reaction. But I would say my reaction here, Paul, is it's a pretty fun result. I mean, it's one team that is on the rise with a great young quarterback that just two years ago was the worst team in football. And it's another team that is on the rise with a great young quarterback that just two years ago is the worst

team in football. And it's another team that went all in. And as everyone knows, I was very, very skeptical about whether the all in was going to actually work. And think about how close the all in came to not working. Matt Stafford throws a horrendous classic Matt Stafford bomb pass to nobody that is dropped in the middle of the field with no one else around. And that's the difference. Kyle Shanahan, who once blew a 28 to three lead in the Superbowl completely melts down. Doesn't use his timeouts for only God knows why. It's, it's amazing about how close these things have become, especially in recent years, and how insanely close we were to very, very different results in the AFC and NFC championship game. Yeah, I have been a major proponent of you got to put

a chip in the football. And I think the Rams should be even bigger proponents just so it stops Sean McVay from making horrible challenges. Like they should want the rule to pass just so they can take away that ability of McVay to be like, well, let's, let's, let's try that. Like he just gets, it seems like he gets really, really emotional with some of those decisions in the moment. Like maybe the crowd or just the team, like he gets egged on to do it. And he'll throw that challenge flag at anything. So he should be the biggest proponent of the robot referees, whatever innovation is coming, because it'll keep him from wasting timeouts and making some truly bad

mistakes. But yeah, it was, it's weird because we've had two weeks of really, really great football. But now you come to this matchup and even this week and you say there's been a lot of you've seen a lot of flaws in the teams that we've um I mean in the in the Rams in the Bengals certainly in the 49ers uh the Chiefs showed it today but it's it's just weird I don't feel like we normally make it to the Super Bowl and just can look on both sides and clearly see so many weaknesses and I I think that'll be an interesting way to look at this game because there's going to be for the Super Bowl for the next two weeks, because there's going to be clear things that

both teams can take advantage of. It's not going to be like, well, man, you either got to stop Mahomes or Brady. Like those decisions, those conversations end up feeling like who's going to get the ball last or what unlucky thing is going to happen. There are some serious flaws with all these teams. And that's what makes them exciting to talk about, exciting to cover and watch because you really don't know what's going to happen. Like, I didn't know it, it really felt whoever was going to get the ball, it was going to be whatever team, like through the last turnover between Jimmy G and Stafford. Like, that's what it felt like. It wasn't the last one to score a touchdown. It was the last turnover between Jimmy G and Stafford. Like that's what it felt like. It wasn't the last one to score a touchdown. It was the last one to mess up.

So that was really interesting. And it's going to create a really, really fun next two weeks as we try to delve into this thing. But yeah, it was, it was weird watching both super, super highs and super lows this week with the play calling some of the quarterbacking and the decision-making. It was really interesting, interesting week. I mean, this might be the most random that I can remember the playoffs being. I mean, even think about with Cincinnati, with their journey here,

they're playing a game right to the end with the Las Vegas Raiders where Derek Carr has a chance to, what, either take the lead or tie that game late, and it doesn't get it done. And then the next week, Joe Burrow doesn't even play well. The two defenses beat the heck out of each other. Cincinnati comes up with an interception at the very end of the game. And then they lose the coin toss. And of course, everyone freaks out over the overtime rules,

which is probably right. I think that it's an unfair advantage. But Patrick Mahomes briefly forgets how to play football for like seven plays in a row. He got sacked a couple of times with a chance to go ahead late in the game and then ends up throwing interception. It was an unbelievable play to get the interception. But still, that was not a great sequence at all for Patrick Mahomes, which is very unusual for him. He doesn't generally make heaps of mistakes like we expect from Matt

Stafford. The Bengals take advantage of one and then set themselves up for a game-winning field goal and end up winning. And the Rams in this game, the same sort of way. How many times in this game, and then you talk about the chip in a ball, how about a buzzer when the clock hits zero because four different times the clock went to double zeros before the Rams snapped the ball and it was never called there were very bizarre calls there was a taunting penalty where I saw nothing now maybe some words were said but the linebacker for the 49ers got up and was walking away from Cooper Cup and yet he ends up getting a flag and I can't remember if they scored on that drive or not but there just seemed like there were quite a few calls or non-calls that ended up impacting it maybe for both teams and you could say it evened out like

at the very beginning of the game Fred Warner headbutts Matt Stafford for no reason and there's no flag called there when he could have been ejected for a hit like that. I mean, that's, I guess what the NFL wants is more drama and everything to come down to the very last minute. But I think that we even had an idea as this season was going along that no one in the NFL was emerging way ahead of everybody else. This was not like, you know, the Patriots or something that won every single game the one year. I mean, this was a lot of jockeying for position where even the Kansas City Chiefs showed weaknesses throughout the season. The Bills showed weaknesses throughout the season. And Cincinnati basically ends up taking advantage of the fact that nobody's perfect.

And the Rams, here's what you could say for them they timed it absolutely perfectly with going all in but here's the other thing too is that Odell Beckham like I thought Odell Beckham might still be able to play he's not just kind of playing he's phenomenal he's open all the time this is why you don't want Baker Mayfield for any longer than if he was a one-year rental. Because Beckham is great still. And he really proved that down the stretch for the Rams. And that was one where who would have ever seen that coming,

that they just pick up this great wide receiver in the middle of the season. And I also want to say, too, that when we talk about all-time wide receivers, Cooper Cupp is probably going to be there at the end of the day. Wasn't he a record holder in college for catches? Comes to the NFL, not even a high draft pick, and is open on every play. And I think that maybe the thing that I underestimated in bringing Stafford to Los Angeles is that Cooper Cupp would go from a really good receiver to the best receiver in the league, the most unstoppable receiver in the league, because McVay could do whatever he wants with him and Stafford could put it on him. And, you know, there's so many little things you could point to of reasons why the Rams are there, but their team that they put together, that they

stacked up for an all-in season it worked they used a strategy that doesn't often work and usually has long-term ramifications see vikings but it worked for them and they're in the super bowl and they don't have to apologize to anybody the odds were not really particularly high that this would happen and in the fourth quarter they're down 10 points but it happened and i agree with you that this Super Bowl now becomes really fascinating because neither one of these teams is necessarily like an unstoppable force yeah it's and it's with two quarterbacks that I think I mean it'd be it's early in Joe Burrow's legacy but if he wins second year in the league that is like some historic stuff out of him and if stafford does it changes kind of the

whole complexion of his career and what it looks like so there's there's gonna be plenty of time to talk about what it what it means for the super bowl but yeah it's it's really interesting that we don't get these two juggernaut teams there are two teams that had major flaws and throughout the year you know at the bangles win a couple games games, they'd beat the Ravens on the road. And you're thinking, Oh boy, here come the bangles. And then they lose to like the jets and some teams.

And then you hop right back off. And the Rams look like Stafford first eight weeks in is an MVP contender. And then he knows dives and comes back and now is playing really, really well in no small part to Cooper Cup, in no small part to Odell Beckham. Cam Akers has come back and has run relatively effectively. And then you got Aaron Donald, and that's really cool to be able to see him again playing in a Super Bowl

and see how he's going to do. But to me, the most interesting team was just the Bengals and how they won and what they, what their win kind of can signify and mean. I saw you getting into it a little bit on the idea of tanking and whether it works and applying that to the Vikings, but it, I mean, it certainly worked for them in two years going from two and 14, one year drafting burrow going for 11 and one, I think with him getting injured and then this, they go out and draft

chase, they go get free agents. And it's a really cool look at building on the fly and building with a young quarterback that you draft. And I think it's, it should be a model that more, more teams go after. What do you think? Well, you know, so I was, um, giving people a hard time because I think I get frustrated by the idea that if the Vikings were to have to take a step back next year for a long term vision, that that's some sort of terrible thing that, you know, I'm not saying necessarily that the Vikings want to tank and want to win two games like Cincinnati did because they have too much talent for that on the offensive side. Irv Smith is going to come back. They've got two good tackles. They have Justin Jefferson. So tanking is not necessarily in the cards for them because their offense immediately gives them a chance to win seven or eight games, even if they have one of the worst defenses in the league, which would be very, very hard to turn around in one year. They tried to do it by signing a bunch of free agents. Do you want to do that again and again with no cap space

and just run it all back and make the same mistakes that your predecessors just did to end up eight and nine? That's more of the point, is that if they were to trade Kirk Cousins and get another first round pick or whatever it may return, second round pick, I don't know. If they were to do that take a step back bring in marcus mariotta gardner minshu whoever you want as your backup quarterback that

can bridge you to the next one give him jefferson thielen a running game tackles and win eight or nine games to try to make the playoffs like i'm not i'm not saying like they should tank but there's another point to be made. And this was my sort of dunk on Vikings fans who were giving me a hard time about this. But it's like the closest the Vikings have been to a Super Bowl since Brett Favre was when they almost got Andrew Luck. And I know 2017 they were in Philadelphia, but they got steamrolled and run out of that building. Here's the thing about quarterbacks. I started playing around with this idea and I really like it. If you draft an all-time great quarterback like Joe

Burrow, you will get 10 shots to win a Super Bowl. Go through the all-time great quarterbacks. Almost everyone gets about 10 shots where they have double digit win seasons. They go into the playoffs and have a really good chance to win the Super Bowl.. Aaron Rogers, I believe has 10 double digit seasons, the greatest quarterback ever. Tom Brady, 17 seasons of 11 wins or more nuts, right? But most of these guys, Drew Brees, they're around 10 seasons where you have a chance to go into the playoffs and think we could absolutely win the Superbowl. If you have middle good quarterbacks like Phillip Rivers, Eli Manning, guys like that, Matt Ryan, you probably get five or six years. And Manning just so happened to win it in his years.

Phillip Rivers and Matt Ryan have not, but Eli Manning did. And then when you have 500 type quarterbacks, you probably get one shot in a career. And like Jay Cutler is a good example. Jay Cutler had two 10 win seasons. One time he's in the NFC championship. He gets hurt. They don't win. They never come close again. That's 500 quarterbacks. That's where Kirk Cousins falls.

And then, you know, there's this other sort of weird mix mash of quarterbacks on rookie contracts. And it's, it's when you look at the recent years, here's burrow quarterback on rookie contract, and he's phenomenal, but the Rams are in it. Who did they trade for Matt Stafford again? Oh, the quarterback that they drafted hard, drafted high and who took them, you know, to the Superbowl himself when he was on the rookie contract. And then they traded that for somebody else. They don't get Stafford probably if they're not making that trade. Like the point is just that drafting high quarterback and having them on a rookie contract.

It's a, it's a thing that works because if you get burrow, you get 10 shots at it. And if you get Wentz, you probably get one within the first couple of years. If you end up with someone who's reasonably decent, but look, I'm trying to watch these football games and I wasn't going to flesh all of

that out on twitter.com. I was trying to just enjoy football games and I wasn't going to flesh all of that out on twitter.com. I was trying to just enjoy my day. So I muted those conversations. But the point is that tanking doesn't always work. Rebuilding doesn't always work. Trying to win with offensive line or defense or receivers. There's no model that works every single time. And I feel like you could punch holes in everything.

But the thing that gives you the best chance is to, to go, you know, to get really lucky with a burrow or to get a Wentz or a golf and be able to build your team well enough. I think that that's that, that point remains through this. I, I, you know, I think we're always trying to take who makes the Super Bowl and then make grand statements about it. And maybe if you have some, you can make them. But I would stay with that, with here's another quarterback who was drafted and is on his rookie contract. Mahomes made it in his third year. Goff made it in his third year.

Burroughs there in the second year. Wentz's team with Nick Foles made it in his second year. This seems to be happening a lot because of the advantage of being able to build a team. And then if the guy's as good as Burrow, well, you know, you could get a couple of drives like he had where he's dodging people on third and nine. This is another point, you know, that's a, that's separate is the playmaking ability is just there with these two quarterbacks. They have, they're both number one, overall draft picks like rights. Yeah.

Yeah. And you can, you can make a direct comparison because to the Vikings, because both the bangles and the Vikings spent some money, this free agency trying to bolster their defense. Both of them did it. And what you see with the bangles is one, they invested in positions that are a higher value of talent they go out and get trey hendrickson as an edge rusher that's more important than a run stuffing

guy in delvin tomlinson like you'd rather have trey hendrickson he makes a couple big plays in this game that are really really pivotal for the for the bangles so that was a better use of some money along the defensive line that the vikings one didn't have the money to give to Hendrickson, partially because of Kirk Cousins' contract, and two, they gave it probably to the wrong position group. They should have given it to more of an edge guy like Hendrickson, and then they go out, and even though Riley Reif didn't play in this game, they go out and try to get more tackle depth.

Important. They go out and go for cornerbacks, which the Vikings did as well, but I prefer the method that the bangles went after which they went after young guys who are first second round talents and just flamed out for whatever reason eli apple now he's coming in making big plays for them so they took shots on that defensive side of the ball and i would just say like if you look at that rebuild of their defensive side of the ball compared to the Vikings the Bengals just upgraded in more premium positions of talent and they took swings on better guys they didn't take swings on an old Brashad Breeland and a old Patrick Peterson they

went after Eli Apple, Chidobe, Owusie, Mike Hilton all those guys are playing for them so you can draw some parallels to the Vikings and just show this is what a rookie quarterback contract. This is the defensive players you can go out and get in free agency. If you have that smaller contract, if you have that bigger contract, then you have to go this other route. And that route is just much, much harder. But I, in general, I wasn't necessarily wanting to make this about the Vikings. It's just, it's cool to see what the bangles have done. And they just took down Mahomes in Kansas City. And I mean, Burrow just, we talk about the defense and they kept him in the game, but

Burrow just makes a couple of those plays every game. And it's just, wow. I mean, if he, I mean, just to make it to the Super Bowl this early, but if he wins it, this is like, I mean, you can't start a career any better. And that starts you off on just an insane trajectory. Folks want to tell you about HelloFresh. With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep.

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whichever way you like because that's what people do with sports and politics and many other things but if you look at the afc you would not want to be josh mcdaniels who's joining the las vegas raiders because you are going to face patrick mahomes j Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow. Like this is a stacked place to be in the AFC. How are you making it deep in the playoffs? Because one of these guys will have the luck or the calls or the magical plays that we talk about every single year. Josh Allen had a magical drive at the end of that game that he'll never be remembered

for or get credit for because of the 13 seconds thing, but he's capable of it as well as, you know, probably five or six other quarterbacks in the AFC. Now I would look at it as find yours in the NFC because one of them is retiring. We think everyone is saying is retiring. So is probably retiring in Tom Brady. Drew Brees retired not too long ago. Aaron Rodgers might go play for someone in the AFC. Be the team that has the guy and you can be the Mahomes if you get that person. Now, I'm not saying that whoever they draft will be Mahomes, but if you get the guy who's a playmaker and who is cheap, you have a really good chance there, but without the playmaking ability, that's one thing that you just can't work your way around here.

And even with Jimmy Garoppolo, it gets to the end of the game and the pressure gets to him. And it's like, Oh, I've seen that before. We've seen that many times. And I think Garoppolo is a very good quarterback. I think that he executes that offense as well as you could ever ask. And he made a great throw on the touchdown to George Kittle. I think that he's very, very good, but there, but that's the one difference there is the physical skill, the playmaking ability, the arm strength. It's just not the same as some of these other quarterbacks. And that's the same thing you could say for Kirk Cousins. And I was looking up what I wrote a few years ago. I did a huge comparison of Cousins versus Stafford and how the numbers were very, very close all the way through all the traditional numbers, the PFF

grades and things like that. And one thing that came out though, at the very sort of deepest depth of analysis was that Stafford relied on big time throws, whereas Cousins relied on more of hitting singles and doubles, like hitting open throws when they were there. And I think what we've seen in this playoffs is you need a home run hitter. You absolutely need a home run hitter. And that is like Stafford is having the month for the home run hitter. If it's Ryan Howard or whoever strikes out a lot and hits a lot of home runs, he's having the month in the playoffs

where he hits all the home runs. It reminds me a lot of Joe Flacco when he went to the Super Bowl. It's like, and Eli Manning. These were top draft picks with huge arms who when they got hot, they went crazy. But is the capability there to get hot in the playoffs against great teams if you don't have the type of arm strength that Matt Stafford has,

the type of playmaking that Joe Burrow has? And the answer is probably not. Yeah, I mean, you can liken it to other sports too. You can liken it to hockey and the goalie just standing on his head for a while. I mean, Stafford is kind of doing that. I mean, let's not sugarcoat it. I mean, he had some throws that were bad today. I mean, he should have had probably that the first pick was just a bad throw in the end zone that he's thrown behind.

That guy's already covered. He throws behind. It gets batted up in the air. They intercept it. Tart, I believe, was the second guy that missed the the interception that should have been an easy interception for him too so he's he's still making those plays uh but yeah in general i i've i came around on stafford last week he didn't play up to that level but i think it's cool for him that he's gotten to this point now uh that he gets this chance to really cement his legacy in the playoffs

and i think it's naturally gonna bring up the question of what caliber of quarterback can do what he just did uh but i think it's just safe to say there aren't many teams that can put their quarterback of this caliber in this position with those players around him. That is a roster that you generate once in 20 years or something. You have to hit on Aaron Donald, a generational pass rusher. You have to trade for a disgruntled cornerback several years ago who continues his really, really good play, even though he may have dropped an interception today too, in Jalen Ramsey.

You have to have a team that wants to get rid of Von Miller uh like to bring him on you need to get a disgruntled wide receiver to come over to play for you you need a generational play caller to come play for you so it's even if Kirk could do what Stafford just did. It is not feasible for this team to ever get put together like this. And it probably won't look like this next year for the Rams or the year after, which makes this so interesting

that they were able to capitalize this year when they have all that talent and it erodes alongside of you, Dak and the Cowboys just can't figure out their end of game stuff against the 49ers. They lose. The Packers just can end of game stuff against the 49ers. They lose. The Packers just can't generate any offense against the 49ers. They lose. You are able to beat Brady. And so he's no longer there. Like all these things have aligned really well and you

could never have forecasted it for them. But it's, it's amazing to see that the team building is actually working because so many things had to break right for this type of model to work and it's happening. And so it feels like if they can capitalize with a Superbowl, this is, this is one of the like just most interesting and unique team building jobs that we've ever had that has had success. If they lose you, we won't look at it that way, but they're set up now for that to happen. No, you're right that this type of thing has been tried many times, including by the 2018 Minnesota Vikings. They thought they're bringing in Cousins and they're bringing in Sheldon Richardson and they'll just be better than they were in 2017. And that was the root of my skepticism

on the Rams, which as you mentioned, I mean, think about, uh, Kirk Cousins likes to say the razor's edge while they blew a huge lead to Tampa Bay. And then Tampa Bay called a ridiculous defensive play that left the best receiver in the league wide open. And then they win based on that. And the same thing with this, they're down by 10 points and Kyle Shanahan gets nervous again and refuses to go for a fourth and two also the third down play call look the Trent Williams thing in motion is great it's the Vikings did this back in the day with Randall McDaniel it's awesome put the greatest athlete who's the best blocker in the world in motion it'll be crazy run behind him I mean come on I mean two times in a row in the last

couple of weeks they have tried to be like oh they know we're going to go that way so I'm going to super confuse the other team like this is classic Kyle Shanahan overthinking it and this is one of the reasons that they have come up short even when they were playing Kansas City in the Super Bowl and they're throwing when they're ahead and they could have started running the clock down on Kansas City and instead they get a couple of passes bat down they stop the clock and then in Atlanta they're up 28-3 they don't run the ball it's like the keep it simple stupid thing does not exist for Kyle Shanahan in this world and that's his his big problem because his offense is

terrific and his defense is terrific, which I want to talk to you about next. Uh, but he just has this big glaring weakness that has cost them in so many games. He actually reminds me of Andy Reed when Andy Reed was younger, uh, where Andy Reed would get Philadelphia to the NFC championship all the time, and then not understand how the clock works or something in the biggest moments. I guess you're hashtag blessed if you can have that coach who gets you to this position over and over again, but it really stands out in these huge games for Kyle Shanahan. Now, I wanted to ask you, we've talked about this each week if you thought any of the coordinators did anything to change their potential outcome as Minnesota Vikings head coaching candidates yeah and I we've had

this discussion of should one game matter uh but even though they lost like D'Amico Rines seems to have been like had like a three-week heater here where he just stifled the Cowboys stifled the Packers and I mean we talked about it Stafford was goaded into two big mistakes only one of them panned out uh but in general I think they played really really well on the defensive side of the ball you hold them to 20 points we just talked about all the playmakers that they have on offense uh I think he's been really impressive and if you're seeing anyone's stock go up it has felt like him um and i don't think this week would have done anything to change it even if his team even i mean even though his team lost i think he has continued to show that he's gotten a lot out

of a cornerback group that has been much maligned all year and is just not very good. And in the end, Cooper Cup, you know, escapes from one of them. That's going to happen. Like no one stopped Cooper Cup all year and that didn't happen. And he got open against an inferior group of cornerbacks that just don't have the talent. But from what I saw from these last three weeks from D'Amico Ryans, he feels like he's played his way more into that role. And it sounds like he's going to get a

second interview with the Vikings. And so I can't imagine this week would give anyone pause about that. If anything, it would increase it a little bit. Other than that, I mean, Raheem Morris, I think he probably did well again today for that defense but getting Garoppolo to self-circuit isn't exactly uh like revolutionary stuff and so I I think I would probably say D'Amico Ryans if anything up to his stock but I don't think any of it really should be oh we were going to hire O'Connell before this week but man Ryans look at what he did like I don't think that's where we're at at all, but another good showing from, from Ryan's, I think, and none of them embarrassed themselves. None of them had a Kellen Moore situation where you feel like, can we do this? Like,

can we, can we really do this? Like, I think after this week, one clear candidate didn't come out, but none of them eliminated and eliminated themselves either. And the latest reporting, by the way, if you caught the emergency Jim Harbaugh episode, is that it's leaning toward Jim Harbaugh joining the Miami Dolphins, which I don't know whether to call that dodging a bullet or not. I mean, if he ends up going to Miami

and not coming to the Vikings, because there are people that are really convinced that it's a great idea to have Jim Harbaugh. And based on what he did previously in San Francisco, it's hard to refute that. I mean, I think that was a bit of a perfect storm with their drafts and their team building over a number of years to get them in that position that that really helped the 49ers when Harbaugh was there. But it's hard to deny that they were a Super Bowl contender year after year when he was

there. But there's also the volatility. And I ran across an article from the San Jose newspaper out there that broke down. You know, a lot of people have sent me messages that said, oh, it's all Trent Balky. He was the worst guy. And that's why Harbaugh didn't get along well the breakdown from the reporter was much more 50 50 on that and one of the big issues was at the center of this article was that Harbaugh did not have roster control but constantly had issues with everything bulky was doing with the roster all the way down to cutting a fullback who had gone to Stanford so So that sounds very Harbaugh-ish. And my whole concern there is if you hire Harbaugh, your franchise becomes the Harbaugh Vikings

and he runs everything. And you might be okay with that, but that usually burns out quick as it looks like it maybe even has in Michigan. So that would be my concern there, but it looks like he's leaning more toward the Miami Dolphins, which leads me to say that if you, as the Vikings pick D'Amico Ryan's Raheem Morris, Kevin O'Connell, they haven't interviewed Mike McDaniel, which is surprising. Who's the

offensive coordinator for San Francisco. Some other teams have, but you're, I mean, it's probably equal odds with all of those guys that they turn out to be a good head coach I don't know how to separate one from the other I like Raheem Morris's background somebody who has been a passing game coordinator for Shanahan but D'Amico Ryan's our friend Sage Rosenfels played with him and said I mean he was one of those guys even as a player that everybody knew would someday be a head coach and we have seen other head coaches who are young ish that have a rise through the ranks. That's pretty quickly and they take over and they do well. So, uh, you know, I don't know. I don't know how to put odds on that. Kevin O'Connell is sort of interesting to me

because they throw to their number one wide receiver constantly. I think that's the biggest thing. And play calling is not that important to me. Has he called plays or is he not called plays? Because Doug Peterson didn't do it for Andy Reid and won a Super Bowl. But you can kind of spin yourself in circles saying, well, I like this guy better because of this or that or the other thing. But what you have here is coaches who are coaching in the NFC championship game and the Superbowl and guys who have earned an opportunity here. But I think that we're going to get much closer to a resolution, maybe even by the middle of the week, Paul. Yeah. One of the reasons why I'm not a full,

like they should hire Harbaugh, but why I think I am more open to it than some is one. It's sounds like at least Vic Fangio may come with with which is a big piece to bring on the staff if that were the case you maybe even like don't downgrade in defensive coordinator which kind of felt like a guarantee with where the Vikings were going to go just anywhere because Mike Zimmer is just a really really good defensive coordinator but with the group that we have left that the Vikings have interviewed and seem interested in, uh, there's just so you're taking a gamble on any of them. If you go with O'Connell, you're going with a guy, another one of the Sean McVay tree guys, some have worked out, some haven't, and he's never called play. So I know that's not a big

deal, but that is also just, you haven't seen him prove something there. Uh, so you don't really know what you're getting with him. and then you go to D'Amico Ryan's only been here only been a coordinator for a year so you're gambling that he's going to be able to take a big big step step up to the head coach role he's going to be able to fill that out and he's going to be able to have a staff that goes with him on the offensive side of the ball which I think would maybe be a concern is does he have the connections to bring someone you really feel good about with to Minnesota to head the offense? And then with Raheem Morris, similar situation with the defense, you're gambling that they

can figure out the offense. And so with Harbaugh, your biggest gamble is if he can get along with the front office, which is a huge gamble to make. I mean, it's one of the biggest things that, you know, plagued Zimmer and Spielman is they didn't get along and it didn't work out. And so you're worried about that happening again. You're worried about having to look for another coach in two years. If it blows up,

I think the average coaching tenure is like 3.2 years. So Harbaugh both seems like the boom where you could go really, really well. Or after four years, you're looking for another coach because it didn't work out. All these guys seem like they have some major risk that you're taking on with them, just whether they're unproven or they mostly because they're unproven or they're Harbaugh. So it's what gamble you're willing to take. Are you willing to take

on one of those kind of mystery guys? You don't know how it's going to turn out, or are you okay with the warts that you know exist in Harbaugh? And are you hoping those can get massaged out? Are you hoping he's learned some? Minnesota fans will probably be triggered a little bit by that because we went through that whole song and dance with Tom Thibodeau in the Timberwolves. It's like, oh, he learned. He's not going to bench his starters a little bit more,

and he's going to be a little nicer in the front office. None of that worked. So, yeah, I think it's really interesting where they're at, and it sounds like we're going to have more mid this week. But yeah, all of them at this point have gambles. It doesn't feel like the surefire that maybe we felt like Dable could have been or Leftwich could have been where there were just less question marks. And those guys might not work out either, but just from our perspective, it seemed like they had less question marks. All these guys seem to have at least one that you're, all right, well, if we hire them,

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And also, Randy Moss is the Goat, the Purple People Eaters, Bud Grant designs for the old-school fan, plus the hockey and basketball teams are both actually exciting this year. And SodaStick has you covered there as well. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. And use the code Purple Insider for 15% off. To me, it was always with Harbaugh, does it fit with where you need to go with your timeline

because you know i'm doing a piece right now about the secondary you have four starting positions that need to be replaced in the secondary like that's just not easy to do you need to draft people develop people i mean maybe there is a player who they've drafted recently. Not that I can think of. I mean, Harrison hand really isn't in the mix for this, but, or you draft late that develops over a couple of years and becomes a starter or something, but Breland and Mackenzie Alexander and Patrick Peterson and Cam Dantzler is the only one, which I think that Dantzler actually played pretty well this year overall, just not in some of the biggest moments where they really needed him. But I think it takes

a few years to develop corners. So, okay, Dantzler, he's the only piece you have. You got two corners that you need to replace, and the previous regime didn't trust Dantzler at all. You have another safety that you have to replace. Anthony Barr is going to leave. You have a linebacker that you need to replace. There's a decision to be made on Daniil Hunter. If you sign him, it's got to be to like 20 to $25 million on the cap. And then you need an interior pass rusher, which they have not had since Tom Johnson. You need another defensive end because DJ Wanham looks more like a rotational player based on his bigger stats, not just the sacks. That's a lot. That's a lot of players. You need two, you need two more interior offensive linemen. And the other thing too,

that watching these playoffs, I would say is very important is I like what KJ Osborne brings to the table. How about one more? How about one more receiver? Because a lot of times what happens is it's third down and they're doubling whatever number one receiver. And here comes the number three guy. Even like Trey Aikman said on the broadcast, like you're as good as your number three receiver a lot of times. And, you know, that's why getting Odell Beckham for Los Angeles was so important to have another receiver after Robert Woods went down. Like there's a lot there.

And, you know, what do you do with Delvin Cook? Is Irv Smith going to be back to 100% right away? You know, there's a lot of positions that need to be fixed on this team. And I think if you hire a D'Amico Ryans or you hire a Kevin O'Connell or Raheem Morris, you could say, all right, look, look, we're not tanking. But we want to develop these players. Like, I don't think Mike Zimmer cared in the last couple of years at all about developing players. It was about saving his own rear. And that's why Cam Dantzler wouldn't be

playing over Bashad Breeland. It was, you're the veteran. I trust you. I don't know if Wyatt Davis deserved to play. I think you can't play guys who don't deserve to play, but when it's week 18 and there's nothing to play for, and you're not even playing the guy or you're not even starting him in preseason games. You're not trying to develop that player. And if you took a developmental mindset, you could get to the end of next year, maybe make the playoffs and also know what you have and maybe have a quarterback you've been developing, which by the way, I don't want to get too far off track, but I found a stat that i really like for trying to pick out which quarterback might be the best in the draft class okay which i know i have i've deemed to be impossible but kevin cole tweeted this out i

saw this this was really good something that has correlated to success recently that i think you can actually connect with your own eyeballs to what you see in the playoffs and anywhere else is the ability to scramble when you get pressured. Is that exactly it? I'm trying to read back and look for his, it's like scramble EPA and like escaping. Yes, that's it. Yeah.

Scrambling EPA and escapability. So the guys who were coming out recently that had the best Kyler Murray, Trey Lance, who knows Deshaun watson patrick mahomes jalen hertz who has outplayed his draft status already and matt corral which i think is interesting and then you have actually mac jones surprisingly is on this list tua is surprisingly on this list and then you know the the jury is out on trevor lawrence but cars, but Carson Wentz and Justin Herbert are lower down in the list as well. But of a lot of the quarterbacks who did not escape Josh Rosen, Daniel Jones, Jacoby Brissett, Cody Kessler, Mason Rudolph, Baker Mayfield, Zach Wilson, actually surprisingly. So, you know, I, I don't know. It's just, um, that I thought was interesting

and worth bringing up, if your plan there was one like there was one play there was one play burrow i think was on the negative part of that list on the bad side but he made one play today where he avoided like three different sacks to throw for a first down and i jokingly tweeted out like how many times in that play would kirk cousins have gotten sacked and it was like at least three separate times and i think for anyone watching that's been one of the biggest things you can point to Kirk is he gets a little statue in the pocket and can kind of just get brought down. And so, yeah,

there were a couple of those rookie quarter or those soon to be rookie quarterbacks that I think made the top 10 or 20 of those lists in terms of people drafted in the next, in, in this year's, in this year's draft. And it's guys you really have to be taking a look at. Right. So it was a really, really super long way of making the point that if you draft matt corral with the 12th overall pick or you know i don't know malik willis or whatever whoever you're taking and you have

marcus mariotta and you have domico ryan's as their coach everybody can figure it all out together on the way up in the in a certain direction it would you bring in Jim Harbaugh, it feels much more like, okay, Kirk stays, you got to fix this now, get right to it. We're going to pay you an unbelievable amount of money. And I could be wrong about that. That might not be the direction. He might say, hey, I once moved on from Alex Smith. I don't know.

But that makes more sense to me that Harbaugh would not want to come to a project, which I think this roster is much closer to anyway, let's circle back to, uh, the Superbowl to wrap up here because, um, it'll be an interesting week. I think we're going to have a coach by the end of the week. Um, who do you think's winning? Who do you think's winning the Superbowl, Paul? You get the first pick on the show. Yeah. Thank you so much.

You give me so much time to think about it and look at it. Oh man. I, I, I think I'm going to go with the Bengals and it's solely off of Joe Burrow and what we saw from that defense. I mean, in the second half of this game, the chiefs went punt, punt, interception, punt, punt, field goal to get it into overtime. And then interception 83 total yards in the second half it was just locked down some of that was the chiefs struggling but a lot of that

was the defense that the bangles had and i think they can probably do some if they can do that to patrick mahomes they can do it to matt stafford and then i trust trust Joe Burrow in his first playoffs more than I trust Matt Stafford. And I would have normally given the massive coaching edge to the Rams over Zach Taylor. But what we just saw out of McVay is concerning. And what we've seen from Burrow is that he's able to carry Zach Taylor. And maybe I've been too hard on Zach Taylor there are still too many second and long runs and screens on third and goal from the 15 to my liking like there's too many of those plays for me to feel good but they keep winning so maybe that's me not seeing something on the coaching side from Zach Taylor so I'm gonna go with Burrow I'm gonna go with him because I just feel like you can't anymore you see him wearing the swaggy outfits coming into

the game, and I just don't want to be on the wrong side of that. I can be on the wrong side of the Matt Stafford argument. I've already been on the wrong side of that this year. So I'm happy to go back to that well. But I want to be on the Joe Burrow train. I want to be rooting for that, and I want to be rooting for one of the best starts to a career that you can have. So I am picking the Bengals. I am going to pick the Rams because of a Ron Donald. Uh, I think that that Cincinnati offensive line is pretty abysmal, which, Hey, look, you are allowed to overcome stuff. That's been a theme on the show for years, but, uh, I don't know if you can overcome that. That is the best player in the world on the defensive side.

And in the biggest moment, he comes through with a huge sack or whatever that was on Jimmy Garoppolo, a huge pressure. And Garoppolo tried to, you know, fling the ball away at the end of the game. I, we talked about Burroughs playmaking,

escapability. He has it. I don't know if there's any level of playmaking and escapability that escapes from Aaron Donald. And then there's weaknesses on that Cincinnati defense. They weren't that great this year. It's, I mean, this has really been the Joe Burrow show all the way to the Superbowl. I think the more complete team eventually ends up coming out on top, which is always a thing, right? What's the best way to reach the Superbowl is to be good at everything. They have, like you said, stars all over the defensive side, stars on the offensive side

and people didn't get hurt. Andrew Whitworth came back for them in this game and their offensive line was healthy and their defense was healthy. And a lot of times that also determines who ends up in the Superbowl. So that's who I'm going to pick, but I like it. I mean, I think it's fun. I wouldn't want every year, cause then it would feel kind of like hockey. I wouldn't want every year where it's not two teams that were the best teams in the league in recent years. It has been mostly. But I like that. It's that it's kind of surprising and random and how crazy the route was to get here. So I think it will be fun. Final thoughts, Paul. Yeah, I, I totally get your rationale and Aaron Donald will be in my nightmares with this pick, but I don't know. I I've kind of

discarded the like burrow has like the it or that intangible or something, but he just keeps doing it too often for me to not recognize that he he's got something that at least keeps his team confident for him to play and I was just super super impressed even when he looked bad during these games that he was able to play and continue to kind of pick himself up and continue to play well and they've played dominant defensive lines they've played Tennessee who kind of killed him but they won anyways And they played the Chiefs who have Chris Jones and they created a lot of pressure, but they still won. And Aaron Donald's probably going to do that better than anyone. And we'll see what happens, but it's going to be a really fun week,

a really fun kind of lead up. Cause there's a lot of flaws that both these teams are going to expose and some of them are going to be exposed. Some of them won't be, and it'll be interesting to see who comes out on top. So I'm, I'm excited. I'm kind of sad. We don't get my homes in another super bowl just to see that greatness, but this, this is a cool outcome. I'm glad we don't have Jimmy Garoppolo by the way, too. I'm happy about that. You know what I'm happy about is that the Vikings will likely name a coach during pro bowl week, because this is the most boring and miserable week in sports in the universe usually but lately i mean we've had a new gm named harbaugh rumors like here we go and then now we're cooking with gas right we'll finally get the answer to the head coach and then we can start talking about what

to expect how he's going to build the staff how it's going to look what they're going to do with cousins based on the coach's history and all those things that end up being super fun. And so I don't know that I've ever had this before. I mean, since I moved to Minnesota, Mike Zimmer has always been the coach and Rick Spielman has always been the GM. And in most of the years, the majority of the years, they are out of the playoffs. There was one year where we were able to talk about an NFC championship loss in the following week but aside from that i mean usually this is kind of what do you want to talk about and now there's a lot of stuff going on also i have a fun idea for later in the week to have a gambling

expert who's one of the best in the world on the show and we're going to talk about like would you bet certain things for the vikings future so that'll be really fun as well did you see before we go someone put like a 20 parlay down on guessing the absolute correct scores from today's game and they guessed them both it was a 20 bet i think they netted like 579 000 off a 20 20 back because he bet the correct score of both games and parlayed it. We need to get that guy on maybe. Who knows? That is amazing.

That's amazing. Well, gamble responsibly on the Super Bowl, I would say. So anyway, well, there's a lot to come on the show, and we will be here for you for all the coach search needs. So thanks very much, Paul, for being available after these games. And if you're not at a Super Bowl party, maybe we can do that as well. And we will talk to you all later. Thanks for listening.