Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Eric Eager breaks down the short and long-term ramifications of the Vikings' 5-1 start

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

Former PFF and current Sumer Sports data scientist/podcaster Eric Eager joins Matthew Coller to talk about what the numbers say about the current Minnesota Vikings team and whether they were smart in hindsight to go all-in on last offseason. Does a hot start change anything about what we expect from their future direction?  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and joining me is Eric Eger, who has now left Pro Football Focus to join Sumer Sports

to take over the National Football League and its analytics. Eric, I'm very happy for you with this move from PFF to Sumer Sports. And I'm listening to your new show that you are doing with Thomas Dimitrov, former NFL general manager. But I have to say, and this is with respect to Ben Brown and Brad Spielberger, guys that have come on the show, and this is with respect to Ben Brown and Brad Spielberger, guys that have come on the show, and I love them. The forecast, it will never be the same without you and George together. So I'm happy for you, but I'm also a little sad because that's my jogging show. So now I'm having to like

split. It's like when your parents break up or something. Well, and honestly, that's like how, you know, and I don't know if george will listen to this but like it sort of is how it felt it was sort of like a breakup you know you're you're both you're both you know graduating going to college or something like that in different towns and it just wasn't going to work and i know we did a few shows after i announced and you know we did our final show and and i gotta say like i cried enough at the end of that show where i was i was dead ass supposed to go on the show that i do with seren petro the red golden bolt uh show with he him me and jeff chadia and i'm like guys i gotta be like 10 minutes late here i'm i'm trying i'm trying to

to get around this but uh yeah i mean i you know it it certainly it was four and a half years and one Vikings playoff appearance. But I really enjoyed that show. And, you know, I'm really enjoying getting to learn from Thomas and learn from some really sharp people who have both worked in the league, who have worked outside the league as consultants with Sumer. That was one of the reasons I really liked Sumer. The idea of Sumer Sports was everybody that, at PFF, I mean, Timo Rischke was a genius in my estimation. Ben Brown was fantastic. Brad Spielberger is amazing, as your listeners know. It was good to go to another group that had fantastic talent and working on very interesting problems. Right. So you're creating this podcast that people can listen to the Sumer sports

show. It's S U M E R and also working on the other side, which is building products for teams and things like that, which I won't ask you to go deep into, but it's a very cool advancement of your career. Happy to hear it. But now we need to talk about the Minnesota Vikings were five and one. You started this off taking a jab jab how they've missed the playoffs but now it's all actually

going to take work for them to miss the playoffs after they've started five and one I think we need to just begin with the broad discussion and maybe you could tell me kind of how we should look at this from a numbers perspective when you start off a season this hot, it's almost hard to let it slip through your fingers, which I know Vikings fans are going like, oh, is that a dare? Because this team has before, but the landscape of the league is what I really want to focus on here with you. What is going on with this league just today as we record this Arizona lost their guard and they lost their starting wide receiver Carson Wentz gets hurt for Washington and oh look those are the Vikings next to opponents I looked at the PFF passing grades and went down the list they are the lowest I've

ever seen outside outside of like the top three you have jalen hertz is playing fantastic football josh allen is just like john elway out there and of course patrick mahomes and those guys are at the top and then it's like everybody else looks like daniel jones uh and it is comparable to him kirk is ranked sixth and this is by far the worst he's played as a Minnesota Viking quarterback. So your thoughts. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, I mean, growing up in Minnesota, I remember them starting 5-1 in 04, finishing 3-7 and going 8-8, and then beating Green Bay in the playoffs. Sort of knowing how this can go.

The prior year to that, Mike Tice started 6-0, finished 3-7 again, missed the playoffs. And then your first year covering the team in 16, they started out 5 and seven again missed the playoffs and then you know you your first year covering the team in 16 they start out five and oh and missed the playoffs so you know they certainly can happen but you know i was just looking at the pff simulation the one that myself and timo risque built and they have the vikings not only with a 76 chance to make the playoffs but it was 76 to win the division right so you know that you know that bodes well for Minnesota Green Bay playing horribly to your point right like there was a lot of stuff that happened this offseason and you know when I when I think back when I think about back to the the

Kwesi Adafo Mensah hire the Kevin O'Connell hire and you know we kind of looked at that and you know it was obviously cool for somebody like me for for somebody like quacey to get a job like that and you know when they made the decision to sign kirk cousins for a year and you know go into the future we saw the usa today article by jory epstein uh where where adapo mensa said you know kirk's not a great quarterback but he's our quarterback and you know more or less and he got a lot but he's our quarterback, and, you know, more or less, and he got a lot of flack for that. And he's been right about that, but he's also been right about the league as a whole

and how flat it was to be. And you think about it, well, okay, Tom Brady's 45 years old. Like, at some point, the ball's got to fall off the table with him. You know, Drew Brees retired a couple years ago. Phillip Rivers retired a couple years ago. Big Ben, Drew Brees retired a couple of years ago. Phillip Rivers retired a couple of years ago. Big Ben, you know, retired a couple of years ago, you know, morally and absolutely this offseason. And sort of you see, okay, you have drafts like, you know,

the 2018 draft, which had a lot of first-round quarterbacks. Really only two have been any good, right? The 2019 draft you talk about you know Daniel Jones that was mostly a flop although his team's five and one uh Kyler Murray got a contract extension but does he's not he's not one of those like Josh Allen Patrick Mahomes guys um and so you go through the list and you're like well the where's the next quarterbacks coming up and you also saw what I thought to be a great sort of repositioning of teams right so A.J. Brown goes from Tennessee

where he's a huge surplus to Ryan Tannehill a you know let's be honest an overpaid quarterback the same way that Kirk Cousins is an overpaid quarterback but when you have much like the Vikings do a wide receiver who's transcendent making you know first round pick money you can make it work right and then you know he's up for a contract so then he goes to Philly to play with a guy who's a one million dollar quarterback well now Ryan Tannehill what's he's going to do with his hands at this point right and you know you look at Aaron Rodgers you had him and Devont Adams. Devontae Adams goes to Vegas and plays with Derek Carr. Well, Derek Carr's not good enough to fully be a Super Bowl team,

even when he has Adams. So there's a great sort of regression there. But then there's regression in Green Bay because, as we saw with the Vikings in Week 1, who's he going to throw to? And so other than Allen, who I think we all agree, if you took Stephon Diggs away, he'd still be good, and Mahomes, which you already saw. They took Tyree Kill away, replaced him with Smith-Schuster,

Valdez-Scantling, and Sky Moore. That's the second-best offensive league right now. Other than those guys, and there's probably two of them in the league altogether, everybody else is getting smushed to the middle. And credit Adolfo Mensah. He saw that and he said, look, if we can just get above, like, average coaching at the end of games, special teams, like at the margins, take a team that basically played a bunch of one-score games last year

with an easy schedule. And look, I think five and one is well beyond how they played but five and one was within the realm of possibility and in fact if they had gotten unlucky let's say lost to detroit and lost to you know one of the two new orleans uh you know or uh you know chicago even if they were three and three right now i think they'd be in a much better position than they had been the previous two seasons so credit to them for understanding the landscape of the league and which is bad, like unequivocally bad. This landscape of the league is bad and it's going to make for an interesting second half. It's crazy because I think the fully healthy roster last year is better than this full healthy roster. And I think that

compared to 2018 or 2019, I don't even think it's close. I think those teams are much better than what they are running out right now. But you look at last year's schedule and it was actually pretty hard. At the time we thought the Bengals was a bad loss and then they went to the Superbowl and Arizona turned out to be a pretty good team. So some of the teams they lost close to early on when they had the full roster, but then when they had some injuries as they went along, that's where things fell apart. And this team has been completely healthy outside of some rookies that weren't making contributions anyway. That's a huge element of this. When you talk about living on the razor's edge and winning games in the final minutes or by one score, well, you're a lot healthier than

the Miami dolphins who had more injuries within the game than you've had all season long, which I think, you know, plays into this as well. And that's why with Kweisi Adapalmensa in the direction, and by the way, the owners even said they were the ones that set the direction. So I'm not sure I want to go like all in saying this GM brilliantly solved this coming. I think that was the owner's edict from the very beginning. And then he followed it. And I'm not even sure that they followed it in the best way they could have. Because when you look at some of the short-term plays, okay, Z'Darrius Smith was a good one. That is a multi-year contract. So it's a little bit more extended out. Harrison Phillips has been okay. That's a multi-year contract. All right. But some of

these other ones, like those are really short-term deals that are going to punch huge holes in your roster in the future that I'm not sure how exactly you're going to fix and extending someone like Adam Thielen, who is averaging like nine yards a catch at this point. I mean, there were just a lot of moves that, that, that wouldn't have made a huge difference to where they are now. And one of them is that quarterback. Marcus Mariota averages a whole yard per attempt more than Kirk Cousins at this moment. I mean, are they not 5-1 with him or 4-2 with him? And yet you're spending a lot less. You could fill up the other parts of the roster better.

Atlanta's not even a good team. They're 500. So I think there's like a counterpoint to the like, well, they brilliantly saw it coming. Like, or has everything so much gone their way that it kind of looks like this. And now the big question is, can you turn this good break of a five and one start? And I mean, they could very easily be seven and one when they play Arizona. And when they play Washington, can you turn this into something real? Which is my next question for you. If I told you that they turned this into something real and they won 12 games and were at the

top of the NFC right behind, say, Philadelphia, how would that have to happen? Because right now the statistical indicators are suggesting that's not a thing that they should be able to do. Yeah, they're 13th. I think they'll go up a little bit, but they're 13th in PFF's power rankings. They're like 17th in Football Outsiders' DVOA, which I can cite now that it don't work for PFF anymore. And, you know, the market ratings have, you know, Ben Baldwin's market ratings have them right around, you know the you know uh middle you know 10th right 10th to 12th or so um but that's again because not a lot of teams the nfl like the funny thing is relative like you said like even relative to last the last two years the big difference is the

quarterback play is worse like much worse and in fact you know we the last time you and i were on the show together i said they could perform better and Cousins could have worse statistics. And part of me is thinking to myself, it's like, these two things have been roughly similar the last two years, except when you play better teams, you have to, like, it forces the quarterback to be aggressive at the end of the games when they're behind. And that's where he piles up some of the statistics now it's not meaningless right because he does in many cases

bring the team back and take a lead and he's done that this year against new orleans he's done that this year against chicago um he did that um you know uh you know he's done that before and he actually had some big throws the other day but like within that all the three and outs those have been there for a couple years now you know it's just that when they're when they're a combination and i'm gonna say i'm gonna heavily lean towards when it's a combination of playing bad teams with backup quarterbacks you never get to see the one drive a game that takes kirk cousins from 6.5 yards per pass attempt to 7.5 yards per pass attempt because they don't have to.

They're ahead in these games, so you never see Kirk Cousins one, two, three, throw a deep ball to Justin Jefferson. You can, as an observer, decide which division of credit you want there. I'm going to go more on Jefferson than Cousins, but that part is censored out of his data this year because they're ahead because they're playing worse teams. You know, the defense is like 21st in football as there's DVOA. You are seeing good pressure numbers,

but you also are seeing like significant chunk plays. You look at that Chicago team, and that's a team that scored seven points on Sunday or at home on Thursday night against a bad Washington team that put up good numbers against you and and if Cam Dancer doesn't make an incredible individual play you might lose that game um so to answer your question like they it's so weird because this five and one team needs to turn it around to actually be good now the benefit is we've seen this team turn it around to actually be good. Now, the benefit is we've seen this team turn it around before in the middle of the season.

We saw it in 2020. They started 1-5. They got to 6-6. Last season, they started 1-3. They got to 500 a few times. They have been able to turn it around. The two things I want to say is stacking up five wins in the first six games is not insignificant because if you turn it around,

you're going to be adding to those five wins, which means you're going to get playoff seating that you're going to want. You're going to get home games in January, and that's wonderful. The question is, we've also seen the same thing happen. They start out slowly, they turn it around in the middle of the year, and they don't figure it out in the end of the season. And then if that happens this year, they're very likely going to be a playoff team that goes into, much like 2019, goes into the playoffs a little bit weaker than we all expected.

I think, for example, the 2019 season, that team in the middle of the year was as good as it ever was that year. And I do know they beat New Orleans, but when they went to San Francisco, they were truly outclassed by a 49ers team that made the Super Bowl. So I guess my worry is, okay, let's say that that happens. So let's say they figure it out here. They win games they're supposed to win. They trail off a little bit at the end because their quarterback looks a little older this year, and he does look

a little weaker throwing the football. Adam Thielen, as we predicted, is pretty much washed at this point. K.J. Osborne has not taken the next step. Dalvin Cook Thielen, as we predicted, is pretty much washed at this point. K.J. Osborne has not taken the next step. Dalvin Cook is famine, famine, feast. And, you know, as the end of the season goes, those feasts might go away. Offensive line has been shaky. The rookies are not going to offer anything this year. Let's say Tampa, Green Bay, L.A., and Philly.

Philly's already good. But let's say those teams all figure it out. Are the Vikings a favorite in the playoffs? I would say no. But I do think that the answer is they can be. They can be a for real team. But I think the most likely outcome is they're going to go into the playoffs with a pretty damn good record.

And we're going to be surprised that they're not even favored by that much in those games. And we're also going to be surprised. We might also see an upset by a team that just comes in with a much better quarterback because that's the, the, the recipe in the playoffs. And unfortunately right now, uh, I think most Vikings fans, even the art more, most ardent Kirk Cousins supporters don't think that he's got it right now. Yeah. The thing for me, that's that I kind of am swinging back and forth on is we have certainly seen sections of seasons from Kirk cousins where he averaged six yards of pass and where he had an 80 something quarterback rating and didn't grade particularly well by PFF heck the end of last season. And this is where I can run this right now. If my

computer won't melt while I'm trying to do this but I I mean if we go back to the end of last season and look at the extended sample size on cousins there is some reason to be like uh what exactly is is going on here but there's also reason to think that because of his history he has progression I guess where he can like have one of those hot months. And he certainly has the upcoming opponents to think about it. Let me look at it. Like what his last 17 games looks. Oh, it's a pro football reference is just exploding as I try to do this.

So that is not helping me, but not, not the website. I'm just having trouble searching the game log. But even if we go back to the end of last year like it's now been a while since he has looked like the guy who puts up like those huge numbers you talk about and he had like a 70 yard game that they won against chicago last year had a game against los angeles that was a major struggle that was mostly alvin cook and right i you know it's tough because the questions that I have are when's the Calvary coming right in 2020 you had no Justin Jefferson in the first two games and Kirkland Corandes you put Jefferson in against Tennessee he was amazing and you sort of had this bullying stage where once

the defense you know started playing weaker offenses you saw how this team could win football games. Last year it was Christian Derrishaw. Christian Derrishaw came in in the middle of the season, started protecting the passer a lot better than Rashad Hill did, and we saw great things. I think that the hard part, the hard realization right now for Vikings fans is barring a trade, and I don't think Adolfo Mintz is the kind of general manager who is going to like shove the chip.

Look, I know, you know, the ownership gave him the edict. I also think it's good. It was good on him to sort of, you know, you know, I think it's going to generate a lot of goodwill this year for him. So I think it was still smart. But I also think that the test for him is going to say, OK, how do you view this season in the landscape of reality? And if he goes and blows draft capital on some players to try to get this team into the

Super Bowl, I think we have our answer. I think if he doesn't, I think we also have an answer, and it's a good one, in that he understands where this team sits. Are they going to win a Super Bowl game against Buffalo? No, there's no way. I do not see them beating Josh Allen in a game. Kansas City, a little bit weaker, but I still don't think the Vikings have a chance in that game. So what are you really doing here? I think, barring a trade, this is as good as personnel as this team's going to get. And there's no one walking through that door the way they did in 2021

when it was Derrissaw. It was a little bit of evolution in the offensive line. And Dalvin Cook getting a little healthier. And then in 20, it was Justin Jefferson turning into the best wide receiver in football. Like, we don't – there's nothing here. Like, do they play Kenny Nwongu? He doesn't have a carry this year.

Like, there's no one sitting on the bench anywhere that's going to make this team better. This is who they are. So I guess my issue with them getting better is going to be, where's it going to come from dealing. I just think is on a downward trajectory. Cook is just on a downward trajectory. Maybe Irv Smith gives them something, but I don't think that that's,

you know, Justin Jefferson is already amazing. It's as good as it's going to get for Jefferson in this team. And of course, offensive line has been healthy throughout the whole year. If you sustain an injury or two there, only God knows what will happen then. So I think that's the worry. It's like you, much like 2017, just have to hope that the team stays healthy for the majority of the season.

And yeah, that's the tricky part for the Vikings here is health. Because every other team in large part is struggling because they black that. Folks, those who know me well are aware that I'm not a big drinker, but when my neighbors recently dropped by, they were surprised to see a bunch of tall boy cans laying around. No, I didn't change my life choices. Those cans were liquid death water. In particular, I've become a big fan of the sparkling lime flavor. As you know, I'm a big soda guy, but I'm starting to think that water

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or go to liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider and use their store locator. So I got it to work. last 10 games for cousins now so he had when they lost to detroit he had a big statistical game that day in in the detroit loss after that though was the pittsburgh game and that's when everything looked weird but that's also when theelin got hurt and has never been the same and he limps every now. And I think that might be playing into the explosiveness where the separation down the field just isn't the same.

So Thielen went down in that Detroit game and didn't play against Pittsburgh and so forth. And so in the last 10 games, Cousins has an 89.4 quarterback rating and averages 6.91 yards per pass attempt. Those are numbers that you would expect if you had to start like an average backup quarterback for 10 games that you would he's got 17 touchdowns nine picks 237 yards passing per game like those are not star quarterback numbers

at all and i think that if you're asking where it can get better is if those numbers get better, if they start to come back around, because I did an, I did a statistical bad and I did the arbitrary endpoint, but I, but I also did when you don't have two receivers. And this is something that you have really looked into in the past is when you rely on one guy all the time, that there's answers for that. And the other day when Justin Jefferson has 107 yards and they finish with like 178 passing that, that is just not a recipe to beat anyone. So I think that where it really comes, first of all, I'm not going to do, I told you so because I feel bad that Louis seen got hurt.

But if Jamison Williams was coming off the IR right now, boy, that'd be exciting. Anyway, I like, like, so I don't have anything like against. Or if they had, I mean, the honest to God truth, and we hate to relitigate this, but like Zedaria Smith is probably the most expensive and best free agent signing the Vikings have made in the Kirk Cousins era. Second, by the way, or depending upon how you do the contracts,

Dalvin Tomlinson, who's also played wonderful football to, you know, Rick Spielman's credit, honestly, last year. But like, you just didn't have the money to go out there and get a DJ Chark or a, you know, a Christian Kirk or, you know, somebody. And again, like these guys aren't difference makers in a vacuum, but yeah, my research in 2021, you know, looked at, you know,

secondary receivers. And an offense goes, the EPA for an offense, goes as the second and third receivers go. And in fact, in playoff games, which means you're playing teams that are healthy, you're playing teams that have the personnel to beat you, right? And it's why Green Bay has struggled because in 14 games a year,

you're playing teams like the Lions and the Vikings and you can just throw at Adams all game, right? But if you're in the playoffs, there's almost no correlation between your EPA in that game throwing the football and how good your number one receiver is, meaning that they can take your number one receiver out when these games matter the most. And that's what I worry about because, again, Thielen's been a tremendous Viking. He's probably going to go Ring of Honor. He's among the great receivers in the franchise. But when you look, his yard for route runs, 2, 2, 1.75, 1.5, and then this year I don't have the numbers after last week.

You're talking about like 1.2 yards per route run. A little bit of that is some of them playing three wide receiver sets, and my intern Zach Drapkin wrote about that. But that also underscores the Vikings went from a two wide receiver offense to a three wide receiver offense, and they didn't get extra wide receivers. They drafted Jalen Naylor out of Michigan state. And,

you know, that's just not a way to build a team. And, and the, and, and this isn't to ding Adapo Mensah because they didn't have the cap space to do it. Right.

They needed a second pass rusher. They needed, you know, to, you know to you know shore up a secondary that has somehow stayed together uh with toothpicks and glue and like so it's just one of the issues they're going to deal with but to your point like it would be really nice to get a wide receiver into the room right now because the the stuff

they banked on which is adam thielen hanging on and kj osborne taking the next step bc johnson staying healthy. Of course that didn't happen. Like none of those things are coming to fruition. Like this is who they're going into the second half of the season with. And unfortunately, like, you know, if I was at the poker table, I would, I would pick up and go at this point. Like that, that, that's how it goes because, you know, they, they've already gotten, I

think the best of it. It's kind of a yes and no with the receiver thing though, because not drafting one waiting until the sixth round is, and instead look, uh, the right guard at Ingram may become a good player. He is not a good pass protector right now. In fact, he's one of the worst pass protectors by PFF in the entire league. If you were playing Chris Reed, you're probably better off significantly, which again is like, that's a long-term thing. He could be a good player for you. It's also a guard and in comparison to the value, another wide receiver, as you just laid out, uh, maybe even in the second round or something could have helped there. I mean, I was in on drafting a corner,

but they drafted one who had a very significant injury history again with receivers. They've just ignored receivers in the draft outside of Justin Jefferson for many years now and thought, no, we'll just keep drafting him in the back end. And Osborne is nice, but like the ceiling there is not as high as it is for someone in the first round. Not only that, they also spent money on someone like Jordan Hicks, who again, I really respect him as a veteran player and he's kind of solid, but then you draft a third round linebacker who's not playing or is barely playing. Where did that money go? And then it's a defensive tackle, Harrison Phillips, who I think has been solid against the run, but where did that money go? As opposed to

what was going to drive you as a successful team, which is really your passing game. So now we've reached a point where it's like, that's the re litigation of the off season and a little bit of, and I'm sorry to do it, but a little bit of, I told you so with the, like, you definitely needed another wide receiver here. You don't have one. So for me, it's entirely, how do you get KJ Osborne the ball more often? Because he's not going to line up on the outside and roast dudes. Like it's just not, he's not Jefferson. He's not feeling, but I also think he's much better than what we've seen so far. And this is where it ties in to Kevin O'Connell. This is a real test. In fact, this is

maybe a harder test than if you had started off mediocre and everyone was like, I don't know. That's just who they are. Five and one. Now you're expected to be good. And now, and now you have to fix these things to maintain the good. So I think this is a really great first test for someone who I think has really done a lot of the things that he promised to do, which if you've seen some of the other coaches around the league, doesn't always happen. So I'm very impressed with a lot of things, but this I think is his first huge test as a head coach.

How do you keep this going when there's a lot of things that I think need to be a little better if you're going to make it a 12-win season? Yeah, my co-host on the the kansas city chiefs podcast the regular golden bold show seren petro he said you know it's why the loser in a rematch has a little bit of advantage because the the winner if they change their game plan people are going to say well why the hell did you go away from what worked i think that's what o'connell has the issue with i like i do think and and this is a credit to you, I think,

as the best Vikings content creator out there, I think most Vikings fans look at this team and they're like, it's not a very good team, right? I'm fairly sure that unless you're going to some of the scammy sites and stuff like that, they know, right? And I want to say, and this is back to the Adolfo Mensah bit as well, is maybe their plan was not to win this year. Or if they won, it was going to be, how I say it, on accident, right? And so maybe when we say, well, why didn't they get a number two receiver?

Why didn't they do this? Why didn't they do that? It's like, well, they couldn't do everything, right? So they felt like they did the best thing they could for the future, which is to get a bunch of secondary players in there, try to develop them. They're thinner there, frankly, than they are at wide receiver, which is hard to do. And just say if Adam Thielen doesn't turn out,

if KJ Osborne doesn't turn out, you charge it to the game, you move on to 2023, and we weren't that good anyway, and we didn't have the resource to be that good, right? So that's a little bit of a point I want to make on like what they could have done maybe that's that was their thought process on the o'connell thing it's absolutely like if they change anything up like let's say they go more you know let's say they do you know they run dalvin cook more or they they go more past happy they go with you know more eric smith or something like that people are gonna be like well what you did work the first five six games of the year what the hell are you doing and it's like well no actually it didn't work like they

just played the Bears and the Bears suck and and they're starting Skyler Thompson of Kansas State uh every man a wildcat Ema is starting against them yesterday and like and Andy Dalton which by the way Andy Dalton's played pretty good football so far this year. But you're playing Andy Dalton in London. And you're playing in week one a quarterback that's been using LSD all offseason, Aaron Rodgers. He was licking mushrooms, okay? Yeah, yeah. It's sort of, like I said, I think most Vikings fans and observers know that this team still has to kind of turn it around

to still be a real good team. And observing the team, I'm happy that they've won five or six games. It's just like, but they do need to change it. And I think that is really the tough thing for O'Connell is I think he's been really good on the margins. I think he's done a good job of hiding his quarterback to this extent. I think he's done a good job of the end of halves have not been a disaster for him the same way they were with Zimmer. The special teams have been great. I think the special teams coach for the Vikings is going to be a future head coach in this league. All this kind of stuff is great on the margins, but the core things that they're supposed to do, which is

play efficient offense and stop people on defense, they simply haven't done, and they do need to change it up. I never thought i would say this about any team the special teams is keeping them alive i'm not even kidding like they are at the top of the league in average drive start for and against and the other day you get a three and out you get pinned back and your punter just changes the game for the 73 yard punt six of his 10 go in the 20 like when you're when you're asking Teddy Bridgewater to come in and go 80 yards or 85 yards down the field to score and Miami can't even run the football which uh was just a laughing stock their offensive line so they couldn't even really effectively run the ball like something like that is is one of those around the margins things that they hired

an absolutely brilliant special teams coach and you see the impact of that I things that they hired an absolutely brilliant special teams coach and you see the impact of that i think that they hired a really good offensive line coach and that we've seen aside from this miami game more out of the offensive line than we have in the past we've seen development of christian derisaw until the miami game we've seen better play from garrett bradbury and i think that a lot of those things have played into how they've started five and one. It's just that, like you said, can you really rely on 73 yard punts all the time? Can you rely on last minute fumbles all the time? And I think that's the whole point where, you know, somebody sent me a tweet today and was like, where do I write my apology letter for us being five and one? And it was like, well, that's not really what anybody's getting at when they're talking about this it's after the game kevin o'connell says we can't play like that from week to week and still

expect to have a great season i also i'm curious sorry go ahead if you bet on the vikings against the spread you've lost four games and won two like it's still like a weird you know like you you've made more money betting on detroit against the spread this year than you have the Vikings. And so there's this clouded weirdness of like they're not reaching market expectations, but they're still winning. They're finding that like, they're finding that crevice in the expectation that I never thought Kirk Cousins, Kirk Cousins-led team could. And like you said, it's like, it is the special teams.

It is the stuff that when those two were hired, O'Connell and Adolfo Mensah, they said, we're going to work together. We're going to try to like, we're going to try to be a holistic group and stuff like that. And like, we all thought, and I think for the most part, it's all kind of like words, but having a special teams, that is not a disaster. And understanding to take 40 seconds off the clock at the end of the first half, as opposed to letting Jesus take the wheel with timeouts.

Like, you will, like, that is, those scores matter. And those yards matter. And they're being helped out there in that regard. But I don't think anybody has to apologize if they doubted the Vikings. Like, this is not a team that is necessarily good they just won games well and I I think that the person's point was like do I have to apologize for being excited about them and I think the answer is no like of course you don't have to apologize for being excited about five and one because it sets you up to be better to make corrections and of course the schedule is

still not super scary the rest of the way and i think in the long term what it does is it allows for certain things to happen sort of naturally which is you have a good season here but cousins doesn't have the numbers that he did before and you start to look toward the future and say well we've got a lot of bones of something for the future with Justin Jefferson, of course, starting out there and draft picks that you made for the secondary that you're hoping will eventually come to fruition. But the emergence of some players like Cam Dantzler,

Cam Bynum, guys who can be on rookie contracts and go into the future with you, guys like that. And you could say we could, we could have a winning season, then draft a quarterback, play it out with cousins through the next year where he's under contract and turn it over to the next guy. And then have some of these players like Derrissa, like, you know, like, uh, you know, whoever else that they've drafted recently on the offensive line, Cleveland and Bradbury and whatever, staying together for a long time. And you can sort of see it all kind of come together. Like the, the lady with the numbers and the gif there, you know? Right.

So my question to you though, is, and this is like mostly tongue in cheek, but a little bit of serious. Should no one ever draft a quarterback again? Like what is going on i just was looking at these last four drafts like you said kyler murray is struggling daniel jones is bad the rest of that draft class didn't work out joe burrow is a mega star so is justin herbert tua on the fence so far hurts might be a star and sit and everybody else man like mac jones might have lost his job to Bailey Zappi. You have Kenny Pickett that I don't know that he can play. Trevor Lawrence is sort of like sputtering around where he makes progress and then has a step back.

And, I mean, we've talked about like the draft, the quarterback thing is a solution for the Vikings for a long time. But now I'm seeing like Mariota and Geno Smith and these other – like I'm mostly kidding but i feel like the the way that these draft classes have gone has got to be a little bit scary for teams yeah i see i disagree via amelia and and here's why i i don't like you when we look at what the goal is it's to win right and and in a league and and i i agree that like the easiest path we all watch the 425 game buffalo kansas city that's the path find the guy who is as the kids

say him and nothing else matters you know mahomes is thrown to a guy named sky more right like you know we we have you know that that's the way to go about it but everybody else lives in a different reality and the the hard part is is if geno smith keeps playing this way like he's not on team control that that dude's making 30 million next year and then life gets really fair when you're paying geno smith 30 million bucks right just like it got fair for the vikings when they paid kirk cousins that much money so i look at a team like the jets for example a team that my podcast former podcast co-host derided significantly zach wilson's not playing great football but you know what when you can sign carl lawson and when you can sign lincoln tomlinson and and and uh you know duane brown on a

pinch right like the vikings could never sign duane brown with the quarterback contract they have but the jets can just write it off because they've got a quarterback making hardly any money. Garrett Wilson, Elijah Moore, Corey Davis, a big free agent signing, old Vikings fan Tyler Conklin, tight end, to go along with C.J. Uzama from the Bengals over and over. And you're like, why are the Jets good? It's like, my brother in Christ, they got every freaking player on the team. And of course they're going to be good.

And I think even think about this, like the Bears with Trubisky have made the playoffs more than the Vikings with Cousins have. Because again, when you've got that quarterback, he doesn't even have to be good on a rookie deal. You can just shovel talent around him. And it becomes, I think since 2012, every single Super Bowl, except for one, has included a quarterback on rookie deal money. And you look at the Eagles, is Jalen Hurts good? I don't know.

And that's the beauty of it. I don't have to know because he's got A.J. Brown, Devontae Smith, Lane Johnson. They go and get Hassan Reddick back, former Temple guy to play defensive end. They got Chauncey Garner-Johnson, James Bradbury. Like, they just got players. And so if you can get Cousins off your books and you can get a rookie quarterback in there, and then you got Jefferson, which I've said this before,

resigning Jefferson is going to be harder than it sounds. You get Jefferson in there, and you start to build this thing up. I think next year is going to be a little rougher of a year than people believe, but you've got to draft a quarterback because the blueprint is there. And unfortunately, the seasons you're seeing out of Mariota, the season you're seeing out of Geno Smith, they're pop-up years. They're transient. They just happen.

And at least when you've got a guy like jones going 10 and 7 for new england you don't have to assign him to that big deal right what you know when you get a quarterback on a rookie deal you can you can see that success and not immediately have to pay for it uh the next year you know if if the falcons decide to go with mariotta they're gonna have to pay him right now because he's not on team control. Same thing with Geno in Seattle. And so that is the way to like build a roster is to have that quarterback where the concerns about his money are fixed. And then you just, if he's good, you shovel talent around him. And if you're the Jets and if Darnold sucks, you just move on.

And then, you know, you try again with Zach Wilson and you try again with the next quarterback. And if you hit on all those guys at once, then you're the Jets and you're walking into Lambeau Field and you're winning 27-10. And that's despite a quarterback who I will, as a Zach Wilson supporter early on, I will say has not played great. Yeah, I think that the advantage remains as large as it ever was or as that we thought but we've just seen so many of these go up in flames recently that it's really stood out that when we

were told certain draft classes were going to change the entire face of the nfl it hasn't happened which has opened the door to your geno smith and your Marcus Mariota's and teams making desperate plays at quarterback, like trading for Matt Ryan trading for Russell Wilson, because the quarterbacks were not there to draft or they didn't hit on them. If Denver hits on drew lock, then they'd be talking about doing the same thing, but instead he was a miss and Jalen hurts was the hit. So Philadelphia gets to be the genius and Denver gets to be the fools,

right? Because they made a desperate play for an older veteran Denver gets to be the fools, right? Because they made a desperate play for an older veteran quarterback who, by the way, doesn't run anymore. And, you know, if this is his breakout game before we're recording this before Monday night football, so then sorry, no apologies to Russell Wilson. Still not, it's still not a great move to take a risk on a quarterback who's the same age as when Donovan McNabb completely fell apart. But to your point, if we're trying to lay out the Vikings timeline, this is why it's so important that you take full advantage. And I mean, home playoff games, division championship,

everything you can to, to win this year. And I don't know what they could do with the trade deadline with their cap situation, but if there's something reasonable, uh, what, what Robbie Anderson was acquired for a sixth, like get in on these phone calls if you can, because as you go into the future, it's going to get harder. Kirk isn't going to get younger. He is not going to get cheaper because no one is getting cheaper in the NFL. So everything aligns for even the Vikings. And there's a lot of teams that need quarterbacks to even attempt to trade up or something like that. And I, and I completely agree with you that there's, there's a lot of ways to be a good

team and to be a really competitive team, but there's only one way to be a great team for a long time. And we saw it on Sunday when Buffalo played Kansas city. That's to draft dudes who have insane arms that do things that break my brain. Every possession with those two guys. And there's a couple quarterbacks in this next draft who can do that. I really like Anthony Richardson.

I think that people who are like, oh, he doesn't throw the ball that good or something like what did. First of all, he does like a lot of times their team isn't very good but also like look at the skill there look at the talent there if you want to win for many years that's what you're going to have to have otherwise you're just taping it together and being like oh what a good story our journeyman quarterback is this year but that will not last well and and the

other thing and this is something that you know we we saw like i was talking to our friend sage rosenfels all in nebraska last week and it was like there's also the aspect of you have to be able to see what these quarterbacks the unseeable because you know college like there's no way he's getting the best and i know napier is a decent coach but like there's no way anthony richardson is getting the absolute best coaching the same way as patrick mahomes when he had cliff kingsbury he Richardson is getting the absolute best coaching. The same way as Patrick Mahomes, when he had Cliff Kingsbury, he was not getting the absolute best coaching. And Andy Reid has his faults, but he goes to Kansas City, and the guy's a god because

the talent is there. Same thing with Josh Allen, and it took Allen a little bit longer. But you're absolutely right. I mean, it's just the way to win is to have a quarterback that overcomes so many things. And without insane talent, it's just going to be hard and you know brady didn't win the super bowl stafford did win the super bowl i do think that we also the the the um the lesson here is that variance is a bad teacher right when you see a a you know a five-seeded tampa bay win a super bowl and a four-seeded la win a super bowl and then everybody everybody after that is like, oh, I guess, okay, all right, Colts,

we're going after Matt Ryan, right? We're going after, you know, we're going after Russell Wilson. We're going at, you know, Aaron Rodgers was the preferred choice to Denver, and it didn't work out. And it's like, well, how's that working out now? It's kind of got – you've got to hit a royal flush for these things to work. And you have to hit a good hand to win a Super Bowl anyway. But I've got to tell you, the Chiefs have made four straight AFC title games and there's some bad

football that that Chiefs team has played over the last four years you don't have to have as good of a hand at the poker table if you're the Bills or the Chiefs you have to have an absolutely amazing if not perfect one if you're going to try to emulate what the Rams and the Bucs did with their quarterbacks. And so, like, let the – and hopefully Kweisi believes this, your rear Vikings fan. Like, let the other teams chase that kind of nonsense while the Anthony Richardsons of the world and the C.J. Strouds and the Bryce Young, who was fantastic Saturday against Tennessee in a loss. Like, let the rest of the league chase those guys you chase the the first round you chase the tried and true thing of drafting a guy with an immense skills putting a coach that you trust in charge of him giving him wide receivers like

Jefferson and hopefully if you're the Vikings fan another guy to pair with Jefferson and and see what's possible because that you know that's really the only formula that works long-term in the NFL. Before you go, how many wins do the Vikings end up with? I haven't gone through the schedule one by one, but I think it's 11. I think it's 11 or 12. I think they win this division. We'll see. I mean, they're not that good, so they could drop to Detroit a couple of times. They've already beaten Green Bay and Chicago both at home, in this division. You know, we'll see. I mean, they're not that good. So they could drop to Detroit a couple of times that, you know, they've already beaten Green Bay and Chicago both at home are although but, you know, it's just not that hard for them on the stretch. And in fact, as we

said here, they could get better. And if they get better, some of these games are going to be easier than what we've seen previously, which which would be, you know, a breath of fresh air for Vikings fans. Now the Sumer Sports Show. I have become a listener. You and former NFL GM Thomas Dimitrov doing a weekly show, and people can find your work there. And at EricEager underscore now on Twitter, which is just... I copied my friend Austin Gale, who did the same thing. And it's easy.

They can find, you know, some other. There's a con. There's like a state senator in Texas named Eric Eager, unfortunately. So kudos to him for squatting on that first. I'm not going to make any jokes and I'm just going to end the show. So great stuff, Eric. Great to get together with you again. We will do it again soon, sir.

Thanks for having me.