Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emergency Podcast: Kirk Cousins on COVID list, will miss game vs Green Bay

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom react to Kirk Cousins landing on the COVID list. Will his loss to the Rams be the last start he makes as a Viking? Should the Vikings start Kellen Mond instead of Sean Mannion? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to an emergency podcast that I'm whispering because I am doing in the Chicago O'Hare Airport where I was just sitting and waiting for a flight back to Minneapolis from my brother's wedding. And the biggest news of the year broke because, of course, it did. Of course, it came just after I was at home doing a regular podcast with Sam yesterday. No, no, no. It had to come at my busiest time. But we will make time for this. Kirk Cousins placed on the COVID list, and he will miss the Vikings Sunday night football game against the Green Bay Packers. Sam Ekstrom is on the phone with me because, Sam, I have covered this team long enough that I always keep the recording gear with me.

So give me your reaction to Kirk Cousins going on the COVID list, meaning that Sean Mannion, who is coming off, is very likely to start over Kellen Mond in Green Bay on Sunday night. There are so many layers to this, Matthew. I mean, and this news rings differently today than it would have three months ago as well. The virus has changed. The protocols have changed. So let's try to unpack all of it. Right. So this was foreshadowed Sunday when Kirk had a very defeated response when I asked him about extra protocols this week. How are you going to make sure you don't get this now that sean manion has it and here's what he said almost resigned to it he said it's in our building

it's going to be in our building it's going to spread we've got to be disciplined to keep our distance and make sure we don't get it but it is going to be difficult like he kind of called the shot and the fact that it happens this late in the week means he can't test out of it um even in a week where the nfl relaxed the protocols so dalvin cook got to come off three days early because he was asymptomatic um this probably does mean these relaxed protocols mean that cousins will only miss one game um and two, but it's the game. It's the Packers game. This is the game you couldn't afford to have them miss.

This was the game where if you were circling games where Cousins should not get COVID before the year, this was probably in the top three. This is Mike Zimmer's complete COVID like COVID nightmare bingo card complete. It's like basically a blackout at this point because all of these guys we worried about pretty much got it. Adam Thielen never did, but he got hurt. So it all came to fruition. We'll hear from Mike Zimmer, you know, as we're recording this in about an hour and a half and hear his thoughts. But it's astonishing that this happened. Now, Matthew, I don't think Cousins will get destroyed for this like he would have a few months ago. Would

you agree? Because we came to find out that a lot of vaccinated people did get the virus. And we also now are in a protocol scenario where vaccinated and unvaccinated are basically treated the same way. So Cousins won't get as much negative coverage, I don't think, as he would have. Still, though, he still deserves, I think, to be pilloried to some extent for sort of his brazenness to go about the year and assume this wouldn't happen. Well, I think that the number of vaccinated people who have gotten the most recent variant, it seems, which I guess, you know, is I'm trying not to play epidemiologist here, but like more people are testing positive, but having lighter symptoms

if they're vaccinated, things like that. So we've seen this uptick all across sports. And so I do agree from that perspective that, you know, if it was weeks and weeks ago where there was almost no one on the COVID list and especially not the vaccinated players, and then he had it happen, we would have said, look, all these vaccinated players have not gone on the COVID list and you have, and now you're out. But since there have been more, I think it does give a little more understanding to the situation. However, the rules are still different and have been different, I mean, all year, even when they're trying to relax them. And also, hey, I mean, if you're vaccinated, you have less of a chance of this happening.

Even if vaccinated people are still getting it to some extent, they're still playing football games and fielding teams because enough players are not getting it even when it's in their building and you think about if everyone was unvaccinated what that would be but the more than anything it is mike zimmer's worst fears playing out and coming to fruition because what i was thinking about as soon as that notification popped up on the phone which is why you always have to have the Vikings and Adam Schefter and everybody else on the phone at all times, no matter what. I was going to take a nap in the airport, but I'm glad I didn't, I guess. But, you know, going back to that day in early August where Mike Zimmer talked to us and he said, look, I mean, it's possible that we could miss somebody really

important, including Kirk Cousins, in a game that we absolutely have to have. And then it's almost like he saw it in his crystal ball and said, oh, no, Green Bay, the last week of the season. I am sure there's a podcast somewhere in August where you and I are talking about how there's this very realistic possibility of this game even specifically because we could see it. The Vikings would probably be on the bubble, be in the hunt. They would need this big game in Green Bay. And the other thing is, too, Sam, that Kirk Cousins has struggled in recent weeks, but his career against Green Bay outside of the 2019 season has been pretty good. And he played his best game of the year against Green Bay. And, and then, you know, he's got a chance here to do something that he basically has not done as a Minnesota Viking, which would be to win

the big game that, that they paid him to come here and win. And instead he's going to be unavailable. And that is definitely connected to his vaccination status, even if other people have gotten it and things like that. So I think that the criticism will be high, and a lot of people will look at it and fairly say, you didn't do everything you could to stay available for your football team. And if this ends up being the last time that he ever starts, because we'll have to see about what happens with Chicago, but if it turns out to be the last time

he starts is against Los Angeles, it just, it's like the, the, the perfect ending to the Kirk Cousins era in Minnesota. If they end up trading him in the off season and moving on to somebody else, because it's a meek performance in a big game against the Los Angeles Rams where it's mostly a no-show the a receiver was frustrated and then a self-centered decision by him ends up costing them and you know the timing of it is almost like so it's like Mike Zimmer wrote it down on a piece of paper put it in an envelope and now he's opening like oh yeah this was the exact week that I predicted that this would happen and i think if you're the organization the ownership and this is someone you've invested so much in to take you to the next level and to

lead your organization to have him not available for this game in part because of a choice that he made to risk his availability it is going to um, I think, or it has to influence their decision if they were on the fence. I mean, we know that they like to give it as much time as possible, the Wolves do, before making decisions. So if they were trying to take this one down to the final weeks, like, hey, if Kirk does something amazing when it comes to Green Bay and gets us in the playoffs and takes us deep, then maybe we'll change our minds. Well, that opportunity is very likely not to come because now instead of Cousins versus Rodgers, two of the higher rated quarterbacks in the league, now it's Rodgers versus Sean Mannion. Yeah, and I think there's probably a debate to be had, Collar, about the Mannion versus Mond decision. Because I think you and I both agree that Mond will start this

football game. Mond has far more favor with the Vikings. Kellen Mond seems to have very little. I tend to think that Mannion is the correct decision. I think that while Mond is maybe the more exciting player and he can freelance a little bit. I still think the reality is if you get a rookie who is a very different style than what you've sort of laid out in your install all week, it's going to be difficult on a freezing night. That's not the environment where you want a rookie playing. I think Mannion can probably execute a little more cleanly, even if he's not as maybe athletically gifted as mon i think manion is the correct decision but are we going to step out of this game and say kind of the way we did about other other guys the vikings have had this emotional attachment to are we going to say

why did the vikings pour everything into sean manion as their backup or is that what our reaction is going to be because we really haven't seen him play much in games um except for that meaningless game against chicago a couple couple years ago and at that point we kind of shrugged our shoulders and said eh he's not going to win you big time football games um is that going to be our reaction stepping out of lambo like why why was he the number two and not kellen mon What do you think we're going to say? Yeah, I think it's more like why wasn't there a number two who was more proven and vaccinated? I mean, Mannion is, but Mond isn't. From the very beginning, though, because they got to the end of training camp in preseason and said, oh, man, Kellen Mond is nowhere near ready.

If he'll ever be ready, we don't know. But his preseason and training camp was just I mean they brought in Kyle Slaughter because they just had to have somebody who had seen the system before but it was not even as good as Kyle Slaughter had looked in the preseason and in training camp the year before and Slaughter got cut and yet I would say Slaughter clearly outperformed what we saw from Kellen Mond and both of them were beaten out by Sean Mannion, so they kind of desperately at the end had to come in and say, I guess we'll just get the guy who we had before

because he kind of knows what we're doing here. But I'm not saying Case Keenum would have signed here necessarily, but there's Case Keenum likes all across the league of veteran backup quarterbacks who can come in and fill in a game and give you a chance to win a game and they decided that they didn't want to do that that they were going to rely on their third round draft pick and think about there's a couple of draft picks on this team Wyatt Davis and Kellen Mond who were expected to fill important positions as draft picks and they decided not to spend money on those positions and instead put

it into nose tackle cornerback and so forth and you it's ending up costing you now because when Baker Mayfield went down in case Keenum came in the Browns won a game they kept their season alive uh if uh Derek Carr were to go down Marcus Mariota is there and yet here's the Vikings with a rookie who proved that he wasn't ready or anywhere close and then they have to scramble at the last minute and Sean Manning is the last guy on the trash heap getting cut by the Seattle Seahawks so I think that's where you can second guess they knew that their quarterback was unvaccinated they knew that this was a very realistic possibility and yet they didn't really do a whole lot other than bring in this backup quarterback who has

essentially never played in Sean Mannion and he'll certainly be looking for his Cooper Rush moment as he goes down to Green Bay but the chances having seen Mannion play in a limited basis the chances of him beating Aaron Rodgers are pretty low and also they're getting Jair Alexander back which makes it especially difficult they didn't face Rashawn Gary before now he's going to be in the lineup it seems for Green Bay and he's been an elite pass rusher this year I mean this is an incredibly difficult task for Sean Mannion who by the way was sick himself and and had symptoms and that's the reason that Mannion was even on the list being a vaccinated quarterback to begin with so I think that's the reason that Mannion was even on the list of being a vaccinated quarterback to begin with. So I think that's where I question it. And to your point, I mean, I understand why fans would

want to see Kellen Mond play because they're saying, well, he's more athletic and what's the point anyway? But if you're Mike Zimmer, you're looking at it like I need the guy who I can trust to run our system and looks like he knows how to play NFL quarterback, which Kellen Mond did not. And Mike Zimmer has no interest in the future. Sam, what does it matter? He's probably getting fired anyway, maybe even after this game. So he might as well just start the guy that he can trust and maybe gives him a chance to throw a couple of deep bombs and pull a Sean Hill against Tennessee in 2016.

Yeah, no doubt. I think there's probably a formula here where Sean Mannion only has to throw the ball 15, 20 times. And that relies upon Dalvin Cook just running gangbusters on the Green Bay Packers. Is Green Bay going to let that happen? I doubt it. They're going to let that happen? I doubt it. They're going to dare Sean Mannion to beat them. And, I mean, the only thing I can say about Sean Mannion is he seems to have a pretty strong arm.

He might be able to power it through the wind chills at Lambeau Field. But the Vikings are going to be severely limited here. And do we think the Vikings are going to be able to win this game 17 to 13 no i mean unless aaron rogers toe um like falls off in the cold i don't see how the vikings can win anything but kind of a shootout or at least a semi shootout somewhere in the high 20s so this becomes about a 10 proposition for the vik to win this game. I think it was about 30 coming in, and now I think we've dropped almost into single digits, kind of like the temperatures. It's going to be an impossibly hard task. And, you know, I remember when people were excited about Joe Webb playing at Lambeau.

He replaced Christian Ponder, and people thought, oh, he's this kind of just, you know, getting some fresh blood in there. The Packers won't know how to prepare for him and how that go. You know, that, that's kind of, I think what we're, we're in for, especially if they played Kellen Mott. We'd realize that his athleticism doesn't really get him all that far. Sean Mannion can probably make some shorter throws and hand the ball off, but I don't know if that's going to be enough against, you know, a Packers team that's pretty red hot right now. So I guess my question now is how much of an excuse is this for Mike Zimmer?

Because I look at it as Zimmer knew and Zimmer tried everything he could. There is no blaming Mike Zimmer for this. He was bringing in the world's experts to explain vaccinations to people and then going out in public in front of us and saying, it is not my fault when this guy gets COVID and can't play. I did everything I possibly could. And I think we gave Zimmer credit for seem very, very educated on an important societal issue and things like that. It was a new tone for Mike Zimmer that we had never heard before on issues like that. I mean, he's usually just all football, but this one seemed to be a big deal for him.

And I think a major part of that is availability, knowing that if you lose key players, you're going to lose big games. But I also don't want to look at it and say, well, you know, Mike Zimmer's not to blame for this season because they lost Delvin Cook to COVID and they lost Kirk Cousins to COVID. And those guys were unvaccinated and those were their choices and not Zimmer's and so forth, because a lot of teams have dealt with it, if not every team, including the Green Bay Packers. They lost the game with Jordan Love starting. So they've had to deal with this, too. And then I think Rodgers had to play a game where he didn't get to practice all week because of the rules. And there are lots of other teams, the New Orleans Saints, starting their fourth-string quarterback that looked like you and I out there

just running for his life scared. And yet there were opportunities when you were a mostly healthy team that was not suffering from more than a player here or there lost to COVID or even injury and and you put yourself in this position where you couldn't possibly lose this game or your season is over the fact that you're in this position to me is no excuses and to tell you the truth I didn't think that Cousins was going to win this game anyway and he so often hasn't but if they are one two three games better this year which they very reasonably could have been better coaching better quarterback play better roster

decisions all those things uh then you know we're talking about well you know this game might drop them to from the six to the seven and well that's tough uh you know it's not really that big of a deal that's what we would be talking about if they had taken care of business and won the games they were supposed to win. And they didn't. They made their own bed with this, knowing all along that there was a realistic possibility that you could have your quarterback missed for a game. Yeah, I look at the scope of the season and I say they were always on the margin they were always on the margin and they put themselves there with conservative offensive approaches against bad teams bad defensive performances against good teams some questionable you know maneuvering by a young

offensive coordinator who was really you know given a pretty big voice by by this coach and entrusted by this coach and um you know it goes back to decisions made in the offseason decisions made in the preseason a lot goes into it right in in the end you know i i think you look at the sum of the parts and you say mike zimmer didn't do enough to put this team like out of harm's way enough because they were so susceptible all year to bad things happening and bad things happen I mean this is a year where terrible things like could happen at any point in terms of losing players like on on a whim and that happened to the Vikings and they weren't quite able to overcome it when a lot of other

teams had to deal with it and did overcome it so while i feel bad for mike zimmer like i i think that he got dealt a pretty bad deck in a like kind of a key year for him um as a head coach it wasn't a great year to um like have your future riding on it but um his defense wasn't very good that's his bread and butter his defensive backs weren't very good that's his bread and butter and he stuck with a little bit of an antiquated offensive system too um so i think that you know while it's not all his fault there is blame to go around and and as we've discussed um this partnership just isn't working they're not meant for each other they're not right for this team right now so i think you can still like acknowledge feeling bad for mike zimmer and um and further acknowledge that it's probably time to move on right you can say that none of this

is his fault none of this is mike zimmer's fault that he uh did everything he could with players like delvin cook and harrison smith and delvin tomlinson and kirk cousins to try to get them all the information that he could. But when you pull back and look at the bigger picture, as you said, there is so much adversity that goes into any NFL season with everybody, everyone, every team, even the best teams can say, well, we went through this injury. We went through this absence. I mean, David Bakhtiari is out. Zedarius Smith is out. Jair Alexander has missed a lot of games for the Green Bay Packers. Their whole offensive line was hurt at one point. I'm

watching an Indianapolis game. I've never heard of any of their offensive linemen. That's because their whole line was out with COVID or injuries. Every team is dealing with these things, and there were plenty of chances when you weren't dealing with anything, when Daniil Hunter was healthy. You can't go back to those excuses because you lost games with Kirk Cousins. You lost games with Daniil Hunter and with Delvin Cook where Delvin Cook played well and you didn't win. You didn't take advantage of Kirk Cousins' best games. And you also have to look at the entire body of work, too, that every year there's some

woe is me. It's, you know, Daniil Hunter got hurt in 2020 and so did Anthony Barr okay is there any team that doesn't have two players hurt I mean right and then yet your your offense is healthy the whole year and you can't make the playoffs and then you know 2018 it's John DiFilippo's fault you know 2019 well Diggs is you know being his way or whatever or Xavier Rhodes isn't playing the way that he was. It's always something, the left guard, the right guard that we go back to with this team. But we've reached this point where, you know, even going into Green Bay, I think most people felt like no matter what happens here in Green Bay, they weren't going to be convinced that this is the right direction anyway. And I guess I want to circle back before we end, because I'm trying to keep it somewhat short and less distracting to everybody in the airport here, is just the idea that if they lose this game, that they should just maybe play Mond, even if with the protocols being changed, if Cousins could come back. And if he can't, it maybe ends up being his last game of the year and maybe his last game ever.

Would you factor this in if you're the Wilfs? I think that you would to your overall analysis, but would you, Sam, if you were in the Wilfs' position to decide, are we keeping the general manager who signed him, or are we going to pay Kirk Cousins another contract extension? I think that with this not feeling like it's going to go away, I certainly thought by December 31st that this would have been gone in 2021. And yet I'm, you know, speaking to you through a mask still in the airport. But, you know, I feel like even

for that reason, that it doesn't feel like this conversation is over or going to disappear. Uh, they signed Harrison Smith to a huge contract despite being unvaccinated. That was a little surprising even to me. Um, but I also think that, personal choices get involved in this, but it's from a football perspective, as it's always been when we've discussed this, from a football perspective, he didn't do enough to keep himself available and then it ends up proving to be incredibly costly. If that's the final impression, I think it would have to matter to the entire evaluation of his future situation. Oh, entirely, because you have to think the wilts were already sour about the way the season was going and this is just going to push them over the top think

about it this way this entire season was built on the premise of improvement improving off of seven and nine kurt cousins improving further the defense improving and what improved the record has not improved um except i guess they're one game better than they were last year the defense has not improved and has kirk cousins really improved i think tail of the tape probably not i think that there was a chunk of time where you said wow this guy is is balling like the first three games of the year. But if you look at the end result, you know, he's still going to have, I think, X number of yards. But you watch the tape, you know, he still makes some careless throws now and then. He still fumbles now and then. He's not really any more mobile. And is he any more consistent no i i think that he has plateaued so the idea that

you know you could convince the wilts that that next year is going to be different um i think it's foolhardy like and as i've said i think there probably is like a scenario where the stars could align with this partnership and and maybe you could catch lightning in a bottle i've always thought that kurt cousins is the type of quarterback like a matt ryan like a jared goff you know maybe even lowering him as far as saying rex grossman like the one the one year wonder who in the right situation could make a super bowl but that's it i mean that's what you're shooting for and that doesn't seem like a very smart thing to invest in. So I would not allow this to sort of influence either way the way that I was going to go. And I would I would hope that the way they were leaning would already be to make some changes because it shouldn't be a one game decision.

It should be a body of work decision. And now we're going to be talking about one playoff appearance in four years. That's not a very good body of work. Right? No, it's not. And I did want to say, cause you mentioned this earlier that there is always a world where Delvin cook runs for 200 yards and somehow, uh, they win this game. It just seems so much less likely now, but I wanted to mention like there is a path, but, um, cause, uh, we can't say definitively that it's over, but man, does it ever feel like today any chance they had to make the playoffs or any chance that cousins would be back or Zimmer or anybody else that, you know, that, that, that this would be different there, like whatever chance there was that they would go a different direction than

what we think, which was new coach quarterback and GM. I think this kind of put an end to it. And, you know, it really is sort of definitive of what the Cousins era in Minnesota was, which is, you know, he kind of made his own decisions. He did his own thing. It never felt like him and Zimmer were on the same page about just about anything. And so big surprise, they weren't on the same page about vaccinations and sort of comes to a head with this. You know, of course, it had to be, you know, in Green Bay, the perfect place for it to be. And I don't want to make it so people, you know, get offended about their own decisions. But from a football perspective, this was

possibly avoidable and he didn't do everything to avoid it. I don't know how you could just turn a blind eye to that, especially when it's the biggest game against your biggest rivals. So anyway, well, Sam, I appreciate you jumping on here and doing this emergency podcast as we have so often been forced to do. And I'm sure there will be more in the future. But you and I are headed down to Lambeau where I guess we're kind of going to possibly see maybe even the last game that Mike Zimmer ever coaches, depending on how this goes. Yeah, it's going to be interesting regardless. Any time, and Kirk Cousins has started every game here, right?

Except for the Sean Mannion game, a meaningless game in 2019. So this is really the first meaningful game that he will have missed. And I still enjoy seeing a new quarterback back there, just to see what he can do and all of the drama surrounding this. It's still going to be interesting, though it could get ugly for the Vikings. Yeah, which that would be my prediction. But with the Vikings, you never do know. And I always make sure we say that before ever saying anything definitive. So, Sam, thanks for your time. And we are going to hear from Mike Zimmer at some point here shortly. And that will be maybe a press conference for the ages. All right, Sam.

I will see you in Lambeau. See you, Matthew.