Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Eric Kendricks' post-firing comments about Mike Zimmer are telling

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about Eric Kendricks' blunt comments about Mike Zimmer, saying that he was not sure about his relationship with the Vikings former coach and talking about how the organization can't be "fear-based." Kendricks' comments are nothing new. We have heard for years about Zimmer alienating players and people within the organization. Beyond that, Murphy reacts to Mark Wilf's talk of collaboration and what's next at GM and coach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Brian Murphy who has written at the old website, Wilfs must deliver for Vikings fans who deserve better. Your reaction to the firing of Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. I want to get into your thoughts about where they should go, Brian, after this, of moving on from Zimmer and Spielman. But we have to start out with Eric Hendricks press conference today. And he kind of said the quiet part out loud about Mike Zimmer. Now on this show,

we have long discussed Zimmer's relationship with players and how it has been very rocky at times. And Stefan Diggs was a big part of that, but even going back to 2016, Sheree Floyd, Anthony Barr, the kind of alienation of the locker room that year, the Case Keenum comments that upset a lot of the players, and then most recently with Kellen Mond, and then for some reason being offended at the idea of getting Justin Jefferson the ball for his record. And Eric Hendricks said today, I don't think a fear-based organization is the way to go. When he was asked about what they should do next at head coach, Kendricks also said, I feel there

were some things that were left out there. As far as our relationship, you'd have to ask him about how he got along with Mike Zimmer. Now, if this is any old player, Brian, I think you'd say, well, you know, sour grapes, players win and coaches get blamed and all that sort of thing. This is Eric Hendricks. This is a guy who has been through all the wars with Mike Zimmer, is one of the most high character players in the National Football League, all pro, Walter Payton, Man of the Year nominee. One of the guys I think of all my career of covering football players or athletes in general, I have most respect for. And he just he couldn't he couldn't hold it in anymore. He had to say it.

And I think that that tells you pretty much what you need to know about the Mike Zimmer era in Minnesota and how he treated people, not just players, but just entirely around the building. Well, I think a couple things, you know, both with Kendrick's comments and even Mark Wolfe's comments things, you know, both with Kendrick's comments and even Mark Wolf's comments earlier, you know, Wolf didn't reveal a ton, but I kept I was struck by how many times the word collaboration was uttered. And we're looking for for leaders and who can, you know, build something that players and fans can relate to. That's a pretty thinly veiled way of saying the old man was just too crusty and old to have anybody listen to him anymore. And I think it's, you know, when Zimmer was hired in

2014, you know, there was a lot of talk back then about how, why didn't this guy get a better shot earlier? You know, he had had several, he had been a finalist several times coming off his defensive coordinator years in Cincinnati. And I think there was a, there were owners that were put off by his bluntness, that were put off by his old school maxims as they were, you know, the disciple of Bill Parcells, you know, who, who would chew people up and spit them out in from to 19, all the way to 2000, all the organizations he worked for, but he had success. So he had a little bit more credibility to do that. Problem now is it's 2021. This is the social media era, the era of the empowered athlete, the empowered player. Mike Zimmers was hired at 59. He's now 65 years old. I mean, he's

40 years removed from the people he's managing. And I think, again, a lot of fans really embraced the old school, the hard-nosed, the blunt truth speaker, the guy that Hard Knocks had sort of celebrated as the spitting nails and profanity and demanding more. There are values to that and there's a place for that. But I think you mentioned the chronology of this. I mean, this isn't just something that occurred this year. I think his abrasiveness, certainly with the media, and again, nobody is going to shed a tear for the media, but he's the public face of the organization. And there were times where you could just feel like he didn't want to be bothered with the role of daily updates and answering questions and taking accountability. And how dare you question me, Mr.

Football expert, when you're just sitting there, you know, trying to eat free food and looking for, for handouts, which is, which is an awful attitude to have, but it obviously alienated the locker room and it obviously alienated people in the building. And that came out in the comments today from Mark Wilf and Eric Hendricks, Brian O'Neill as well. You know, Brian O'Neill just was saying, look, I'd like to have somebody say, hey, how you doing?

Good morning. You know, I'd like to be acknowledged as a human being as opposed to a cog in a wheel here. And I think, you know, they act more thin. It was all fun and games when you're winning. But when the unjustifiable and inexcusable losses piled up and the drama piles up and you don't want to be bothered with that role and you just come across as an old crank, then it's not old school anymore. It's just old. Right. And there's so many things to kind of touch on there. I mean, if this was a one year problem this year, then we would have said, look,

it's just that's how it goes it's the end of somebody's time and usually by the end everybody's got something bad to say because they just are tired and frustrated and disappointed but in 2017 when they're winning he's slamming case keenum in press conferences after wins. He's saying the only reason that Case Keenum was good is because he got lucky. And I know for a fact that that upset even Kirk Cousins, that he coming here didn't want that to happen to him. And eventually it did. Eventually Zimmer came from him with the vaccination stuff.

He had largely tried to not say too much, and then he just couldn't help himself. And look, you know, you could talk about the vaccination thing with cousins all day long but it was not the right approach with your quarterback to come out on day one and just hammer the guy in public i mean it did did john harbaugh do that to lamar jackson who's unvaccinated did frank reich do that to carson wentz who's unvaccinated no they didn they didn't. They just said, I'm not going to really get into that and we're going to move forward. And look, you know, I was a beneficiary many times of talking points and things to discuss on the show because of Mike Zimmer's bluntness, but was it the right thing to do in many instances? Probably not. And I think, you know, when I was at the 2019 Combine, no, 2020, after Zimmer had

nearly been fired at the end of that year, remember they won 10 games and played a meaningless game in a good way. And still he almost got fired that year because of the way he treated people. I remember being told by someone with the Vikings, people in the organization were distraught that he wasn't being let go because of the way that he had treated people. So this is not new. And I've brought this up on the show. I'm not just bringing this up today. Like you can go back and find other conversations where I've mentioned this, but people just,

you know, kind of move past it. You know, when it happens like, oh, he just, he did that thing, the Kellen Mond again, I guess it's just, you know, the pressure getting to him or something like, no, this has been kind of a dictatorship of the last number of years where players have been treated more like cogs in the machine. Even how about even the Everson Griffin thing happens. This is a player who's been around with Zimmer forever. And we asked Zimmer like, Hey, you know, how's he doing?

Have you reached out to him? I don't know. I haven't talked to him like what? Like, no, but I guess that shouldn't be a surprise because that's kind of how he views players is just you're either hurting me or you're helping me and he was always willing to lash out at somebody else and rarely willing to take his own responsibility for anything it was john d filippo's fault it was kirk cousins fault it was rick spielman's fault for not having enough depth at whatever position and that kind of thing and And look, all those things could be true. Mike Zimmer was never wrong when he came out and slammed

people, but it was like, you do this enough and people are going to be tired of it. And then I'll tell you to talk about tired of it is he also took out his childish anger on a reporter who covers the team year after year after year. And I've been around the team for this entire time and I could never figure out what the hell the reporter did wrong and yet you know he's asking questions i don't know maybe some of them are annoying we all ask annoying questions and yet he's going off on this guy all the time trying to mock him in the very last press conference well mike he's got a job you don't now today how about that right yeah you know it's just embarrassing there were so many times where he just embarrassed the whole organization. Well, don't even forget to, you know, this is the thing,

speaking of childish and treating your, your players like, uh, not as men. Remember the old fat cats get slaughtered stunts where he, he strung up a bunch of stuffed animals in the locker room on a Friday, uh, when the Vikings were what what, undefeated and slashed them all, and there was fake blood everywhere, and it just was a childish stunt, and he barely took responsibility for that, seemed to lash out at people for making a big deal about it. Slammed the offensive line after that game, too, if you remember. Yeah, it was against Philadelphia, and they didn't play very well, and there has not been a moment of self-reflection for him. I mean, he was offered opportunities yesterday to go down that road and he chose not to very

defiantly. You're right. He's burned through four offensive coordinators. He's scapegoated, vilified and enabled them all. He's, you know, not had anything complimentary to say about his bosses. I mean, when he signed, when they signed Kirk Cousins, he basically said, well, I'm not a big fan of this move. And it's going to chew up a lot of salary cap. That's going to eat into my good defense. But whatever Rick's in charge, maybe it'll end up getting me fired. In some ways, that prophecy came true. It's just, there was a sense of, again,

it's somebody else's fault. Why are you bothering me with this? Leave me alone. I know better. You know, year after year of that, again, you better be winning and winning big and going deep into the playoffs to have that kind of an attitude on a daily basis. Mediocrity, I mean, angry and mediocre is no way to have longevity as an NFL coach. I mean, we've been saying for weeks, it's clear his messaging, his scheme, his philosophy, his attitude is not flying anymore, both in the fan base, in the locker room, and with the results on the field. So I'm not surprised that this is all kind of, some of this venom is now coming out. That tends to be what happens. I'd be curious how he reacts to that. At some point, he's going to sit down for a thumbsucker interview with somebody, some network somewhere, and he's going to lay out his grievances and his side of the story. If he refuses to take any

responsibility or does any serious self-reflection, then he may find himself coaching defensive backs for the rest of his life as opposed to getting another head coaching job. Because his winning percentage and his record could earn him a job if he so wanted it. But I don't know if at 65 years old, he's capable of changing his stripes at this point. Well, also people do their research now. I mean, Jason Lock on for a quote, tweeted my tweet and said, expect to hear more of this. People now can pass that along pretty fast. And when other organizations around the league, and I'm not saying that other ones are always the smartest, but see that this is what one of your great leaders is saying about the head coach being gone. I mean, there's just not much that's all that attractive

about that head coach at that point, especially considering how much they fell off. And there are lots of reasons why they didn't win. And I think if you got to the end and Zimmer had been like Ron Rivera, for example, who went out in about the classiest manner possible, whose players had very specific and wonderful things to say about him as a human being, that would feel very different than this, where everyone's just like unshackled that they're just, they've grown so exhausted of this. And I actually don't think that it's a generational thing. You know, I think that Bill Parcells was very hard on players as a coach for what he demanded

of them. And I'm sure could be overly blunt at times in the pre social media era when it came to his press conferences. But there's a different side of Purcell's that Zimmer was missing. It's kind of like if you've ever seen what's the, what's the Orson Welles, the famous Orson Welles movie, Citizen Kane,

Citizen Kane. You ever seen Citizen Kane? Of course you have. Many times wrote a paper on it in college. Okay. Citizen Kane, Scott Rosebud, right?

That's, that's Bill Parcells. Bill Parcells has the, the has the the the heart that you wanted mike zimmer to have and i have read a lot on social media of like zimmer was a guy with a big heart and like yeah i mean i guess at times like for his kids i'm sure his family and everything else but we're only talking about a football perspective he in a football perspective did not have that relationship with players he didn't have his rosebud. He didn't have his, wow, Eric Kendricks and I were so close.

Instead, it's Kendricks going, yeah, I don't know. He hasn't talked to me. I'm not sure. I don't know what our relationship is. He tried to be that way with Anthony Barr. But Anthony Barr, when asked to describe his relationship with Zimmer, said, yeah, well, he's a straightforward guy, is how he described him. Like, yeah, straightforward when MFing you for doing anything wrong. I mean, it's just like

that, that soul existed in Bill Parcells that did not exist here with Mike Zimmer. And I look at also someone like Andy Reed, how old's Andy Reed? It's gotta be pretty old. And yet, and I know Patrick Mahomes helped Andy Reed, but he was good with Alex Smith too. Andy Reed is not this guy. And John Harbaugh is 59. I think, does anyone realize how old John Harbaugh is? No, but he, because, because John Harbaugh, when he wants to go for two, he goes over to Mark Andrews says, what do you think, Mark? Should we go for it? I mean, it's like these guys who know how to handle players is a big deal. These athletes are highly intelligent. Many of them, not all, but many are very, very smart. They know the game.

They're grownups and being treated like it's the 80s and you could just hammer players and everything else and then making a bunch of excuses in front of the media when you lose even even to the last moment. He's making excuses about, well well we lost on a final drive in Dallas yeah to Cooper Rush come on man what so I think that a lot of this he just did not handle things in a very class manner and did not endear himself to players to the point where when he gets let go you haven't seen any tweets of players being like oh I'm you know so sad to see Mike Zimmer go or anything like that. You normally would for a coach. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. Love you, coach. Anything like that.

I haven't seen much of that. Well, and I think it's just to piggyback that a little bit too, I think, and we'll get into more of the Spielman aspect of this as well, but it sounded like it was top down all the way. Spielman was as much of a cold fish as anyone else in terms of, I mean, he obviously enabled Zim's behavior, but there didn't seem to be a sense of, you know, we need to sand this down a little bit. We need to embrace our players a little bit more and listen to what they have to say and treat them like human beings if that's the way it's coming out today. And we're not just talking the locker room. We're talking to people in the building. And this was a problem with the Wild GM who was let go a couple years ago.

God, I can't even think of his name now, Paulson. We're in a heightened sense of sensitivity in workplaces. People need to be treated with respect. They need to be treated with dignity. They needed to be treated with dignity. And when you mash up that alpha male world of the NFL and professional sports, and, you know, if you're treating the Xerox mechanic like dirt, and you're treating your starting linebacker like dirt, that reflects on you and either an insecurity or an inability or an unwillingness to, as they, as Mark Will said, to collaborate. Collaboration. I mean, you can tell that was a buzzword on his

note cards. And that was a message that wanted to be put out there that we thank Mike and Rick for what they've done. But they've been big jerks lately and we're not putting up with that anymore. For all of your Minnesota sports inspired goods, goods, use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER when you go to SOTASTICK.COM. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.COM. You can get their North State beanie, their Adam Thielen autographed shirts, Marcus Foligno fan club design for all of you hockey fans out there, and the one I always mention because it's the best one, the Randy Moss disgusting act. You can put that on a hoodie shirt or almost anything else.

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Yeah. Well, tyrannical. That's well. And think about this. So we are. Here's the thing. Whatever you are good at, dear listener, whatever your thing is, that's us for read between the lines for football, men talking football, right? That's like what we do. I had Scott said, well, on the show and asked him about being a scout and something he threw in

and stud. Well, again, is the highest class of high class. So he was not throwing someone under the bus, but I think it was insightful when I asked him about being a scout and he said, well, you know, I mean, Rick Spielman was the guy who made all the decisions and I respected that. And it was like, yes, all the decisions. Like what I had heard a couple of years ago was basically it's Zimmer and Spielman show and everybody else is just living in their world. If they want to nose tackles, they get to nose tackles. If they want the poor cap guy who's, you know, just like blink twice if they're making you do another bad contract, Rob Brzezinski, if they want him to do the contract for Cousins that's going to screw them, then he's doing it.

Like there's, there wasn't input and it wasn't that kind of thing that you're describing. And that's why now being free of that is so much better. I just see, I think that it isn't that people become more sensitive. Like we're not different than people from any other time. Like we're all the same. It's only that we find out about it very fast now. Like if somebody, for example, if some coach was similar this way to people in the organization, even five, six, seven years ago, I mean, do I know about it from another city immediately? Like, no, but we know about it now. Like it made it, it would have made the newspaper. They may have

talked about it on the radio locally, but like the other day when hub Arkish called Aaron Rogers, a jerk, and it made the entire nation. It was just like, that would have been just a local thing that people went like, yeah, he's a jerk's a jerk screw him right but now it's like a big controversy so i think we just find out about these things faster i don't think anyone ever liked to be treated poorly as many people were um in the organization i want you to interpret this for me though this this comes from charles robinson maybe you saw this tweet. He says, Wild! Multiple sources believed as recently as early December that Rick Spielman was on track to promotion in the Vikings organization to senior position that would have placed him between the GM and coach layer and ownership.

Apparently, some of the Zimmer fallout changed that roadmap. What the bleep does that mean? You know, I've read in recent weeks sort of that notion or had been hearing that notion. I think you may have broached it either to me off air or on this podcast that there was a sense that maybe Rick would be kicked upstairs or moved into a position that didn't have as much to do with roster control and personnel, but would maybe be involved in overseeing the search for a successor because the Wills trusted him implicitly. I could not understand any of the rationale to that. I mean, or the notion that that all blew up in the last three or four weeks. Like they were on that track at Thanksgiving.

And then suddenly what's occurred in the last three or four weeks, well, we can't do that. I don't see any football. You know, I don't know offhand, but I can't imagine any professional sports organization, let alone an NFL team, that would move their general manager and just basically neuter him from all football ops. I mean, what was Rick going to do? Go work in ticket sales or marketing? I mean, what was he going to do as a vice president if he's not involved in roster decisions? But tell me any general manager that would want to come into an organization where his predecessor is somehow involved in the selection, is looking over his shoulder, is weighing in on roster decisions,

or weighing in on who should be the next head coach. No, you're all or nothing. You are either the GM or you're not. You're either in the organization or you're not. I never understood that chatter. And I don't know who was putting it out there. If it was Spielman's camp trying to salvage something out of this and a paycheck. I know he's got kids and he's been here 15 years and I know he likes living here.

Even for his sake, though, how humiliating would that be to be in that kind of position? I don't care what kind of paycheck you're drawing. If he wants to stay in football, he may be able to get another gig. I mean, he's got a decent track record. It's not like he could not do this job again or be a consultant or be an AD somewhere. There's no reason Rick Spielman could not be in football management anymore. So I don't understand how he would have accepted that role. I don't know why the Wilfs would have wanted that role. And I don't know where all of that was coming from. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just saying it never made organizational sense to me. So this whole notion that, well, Zimmer was a goner, but boy,

big shock that Spielman went to today. I'm like, no, we've been saying since August, I thought they were a package deal all along. That if Zimmer had to pay a price, Spielman did too. And I'm, I think this is the, the way it was predestined, predetermined to go. And it's the way it played out today. Right. And, and I had always believed that myself before there was a mention of it in a Jeremy Fowler article. And I know that Spielman texts, Jeremy Fowler secrets out after the Kellen Mond keenly aware tweet Jeremy sorry that source is gone but uh I figured well he must be telling people then that this is what's going to happen and so if he's telling people that then that's probably what's going to happen and it made sense to me or maybe he wished it to be true yeah well that's that's right or maybe he was trying to

get the public to be saying oh what a good idea it would have be to still have zimmer around i don't know i mean he's he's always got a twisted sense or always had a twisted sense of what we thought of stuff because when we would talk to him our one two three times a year he would say stuff like you guys think this and we're like no we don't like all the time and it would like, I don't know what you're talking about. But, um, so maybe he thought that that would like shape public perception if they thought that he was getting this job or something. I'm not sure, but it only made sense to me on the level that I have heard before of how much those or how much Spielman is respected by the Wilfs and all that sort of thing. And with the Wilfs talking so rarely and only talking in complete

platitudes, it's so hard to figure out like this isn't Jerry Jones where, you know, where he stands on everything. It's so hard to figure out. So if they had this love festival with Spielman, okay, well, I guess that makes sense that they would try to just bury him somewhere else just to keep him around. Or maybe they like his experience. I mean, their decision-making over the last four years has been poor. His experience as a general manager and someone in NFL management over a long period of time is a good track record on the whole or a decent track record. So I could put that together, but did he deserve it just as much as Zimmer? Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, of course, like we've been through the decision making over the year here, basically breaking it all down of, you know, the mistakes that they made in the general path.

But I think that what they now need is to look at, like, how can we be an efficient organization? How can we focus on the things that win and not just whatever Zim and Spielman want, but like the things that are actually working in the national football league, not, I mean, I keep saying signing two nose tackles, but how about I'll move that crack to franchise tagging a safety who was a sidecar, like that, you know, things like that, that just things that never really made a whole lot of sense, but was clear. It was just sort of the whim of whatever these guys wanted to do. And now for them to have an opportunity to say, we're going to put a lot around the quarterback. We're going to focus on the offensive side of the ball. We're going to find a coach who manages the game more efficiently. We're going to find a general manager who understands positional value and doesn't draft a center in the first round. And all the, all these things, I think are opportunities

for them to look at what was done wrong over the last four years. It was basically a lesson in how not to efficiently manage a football team. And the fact that they got to eight and nine is, I guess, just, you know, thanks to Justin Jefferson, but beyond that I think that there's a lot to take away from this, that they can apply to their next hires. Well, I look, just thanks to Justin Jefferson. But beyond that, I think that there's a lot to take away from this that they can apply to their next hires. Well, I look at it, too, and look at increments. So you have the last four years of the Cousins era, which produced one playoff victory.

You've had eight years of Zimmer, who Spielman was instrumental in hiring. And I think from 14 to 17, they were ascending, got to the NFC Championship game, peaked. And now the Cousins era, they had a few moments, but has mostly been a steady decline. I also look back at the fact that for the last 10 seasons, Rick Spielman has had roster control as the general manager. That included Leslie Frazier.

That included drafting Christian Ponder and Matt Khalil in the first round that failed miserably. He also had some good later round picks that have done fine as well. You can go through his swings and misses all you want. But now he's been with the organization for 15 years, in the front office for 15 years, as long as the Wilfs have owned the team. So it's understandable where their loyalty is. He's really the one guy that they've had consistently making decisions, other than Rob Brzezinski, the cap guy, in that front office. But I think they realized we need a new look. It's a cliche, but you need fresh eyes. You need a fresh outlook. You need something different. Clearly Zimmer's schemes, his conflicted schemes, especially on offense,

his inability to settle on or find an offensive coordinator that is either both progressive and independent enough to follow the trends and maybe design game plans that match personnel as much as he may want to run the ball like it's 1983. And also, Spielman was able to put together several coaching staffs. The Wilfs have seen what he's been able to put together, several roster reconstructions, teardowns, rebuilds, however you want to put it. They've seen how close they came on the cusp. They know that he went, you know, Kirk Cousins, the Vikings needed a franchise quarterback. He was the most productive on the market. He got a fair market contract, a fair market extension,

but it also hamstrung Spielman's ability to truly rebuild the offensive line and fortify the defense as opposed to just filling potholes the last several seasons. So they've had all of that work product to examine. It's time. I mean, it's clearly time. Now, I don't know if that means young progressive coach, analytics-driven GM. There could be room for an experienced guy. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to put the puzzle together, but the fact that they now have two huge pieces to fill and also a major decision to make on their quarterback here

in the next couple of months this is really a pivotal point I mean this is the most important consequential time period and decision already that Ziggy and Mark Wilf have made since they bought the team in 2005 so and the easy part's done you know they did the team in 2005. So, and the easy part's done. You know, they did the obvious. Now the hard work really begins. And, you know, what they decide in the next couple of weeks, months or so, both again, front office, coaching staff and quarterback decision is going to impact them

for years, if not the next decade. What's hard to figure out is like what they're thinking will really be when it comes to this decision. Because I think that if you go the opposite of Zimmer and Spielman, you're headed pretty much in the right direction. I mean, sometimes you go the opposite of the guy that you just had, like say the Carolina Panthers. They had a great coach in Ron Rivera, not a perfect coach, but a really good one. And then they went Matt rule. Let's go with the sexy college guy. And you're just like, Oh, that's not, you go the opposite of Ron Rivera. You've gone too far

degrees wise. If you're going to one 80, maybe it should have gone like just a little tweak from Ron Rivera to an offensive coach or something, but instead they went full dopey recruiter guy from Baylor who didn't even really win there. So that's a mistake that some teams can make is trying to go too far the other way. And that's why I've talked about, and there's lots of guys like this, but you know, Byron Leftwich and how it's somebody who's been in the NFL his whole life who has been a player, quarterbacks coach, an offensive coordinator, who's worked with Tom Brady. And I know that people will say to me like, oh, well, it's Tom Brady, right? But Tom Brady didn't have a great year in his last year in New England. And then

is like number one in passing in the NFL right now. And he was handpicked by a great coach to manage Tom Brady. I mean, I think stuff like that is, and also to give the keys to the offense and work around what worked best for Tom Brady. Like these are the things that they wanted. These are the things that Stefan Diggs wanted that if it's so funny to think about like how, if Mike Zimmer listened to his players, he would have just been better off. They would have probably accomplished more even with the inefficient and poor decision-making and trades for Chris Herndon and all the other things that we've talked about. But like if he just had taken their feedback

and applied it as opposed to being overbearing and tyrannical about offensive coordinators and how to run the offense and telling poor Clint Kubiak to get up in the box, which was one of the most, just pull your pants down in public things that sometimes, and this can be this way in politics. There are so many things that happen that you like, well, remember that one that was like three weeks ago, but we should have talked about that way more when he told Clint Kubiak, get off the sideline, get up into the press box to call your place. It's like, okay, I guess we know who the offensive coordinator is. Mike, it's you.

Do you know offense? No. But does your coordinator have any experience? No. Does he have any power? No. But you are calling the shots. I mean, just kind of unbelievable how he treated even that situation.

So you have a lot to look at that if you go 180 on this and you draft a quarterback and you put these things around him that you already have on the offensive side and you get a coach who knows how to work with that quarterback and who becomes locked at the hip, like a Mike Holmgren and Brett Favre, you've just got a much better chance. I mean, that's just the, I think the facts of the NFL and that's why today I've looked at it so much as an Eric Hendricks comments to tie it back in a weight off the shoulders of fans, a weight off the shoulders, probably of the Wilfs who have been hearing this stuff for many years now, and a weight off the shoulders of the players who matter

and who are going to be here. I don't know if the next hire, the next quarterback or whatever, it's going to be perfect, but I know it's going to be a lot different than what it was. And I think that that makes everybody feel like, okay, maybe we're going to have someone that we can work with here as opposed to the way that Zimmer and Spielman handled things. And let's not forget the, the fraught relationship and that's putting it mildly between Zimmer and Kirk Cousins. I mean, it was a shotgun marriage that Zimmer, you know, there's been some stories that have kind of regurgitated his comments from the, I think it was the 2018 scouting combine after they had just signed Cousins. And he sort of predicted his own demise where we're going to put all this money into a quarterback that

I'm guessing he wasn't really fond of because maybe he saw what a lot of other people saw, which was a productive stats driven, non-winning, un-leader. And now I got to inherit this guy and try to work with that. And in the meantime, my coveted defense is going to get chipped away at because we can't afford to either retain certain guys or we're just going to patch it together from here on out. That, I think, eroded Zimmer's relationship with Rick Spielman, too. But Rick Spielman was under pressure, and I don't blame him for making the move to get Cousins. I think he was probably overvalued, and they thought maybe a change of scenery would change his stripes. But we've debated Cousins ad nauseum here.

But I think what this tees up now is they have a key decision to make. You would know the timeline better. I'm guessing March is when they're going to obviously have a new GM and coach by then. Oh, it'll be, it'll be quicker than that. I mean, I don't know when the trade debt, you know, what the trade window typically is, but that's their best option, obviously is to trade him to get that salary off the books and start fresh

somewhere else. But, you know, and I don't know how many times this happens, but would somebody that they hire maybe say, you know what? Let's just ride it out one more year with them. Let's see what we can get out of them. Let's see how our relationship evolves. Maybe Cousins gets a breath of fresh air because he doesn't have Zimmer's foot in his ass week after week. I don't know.

I don't see Cousins leading them to the promised land, but I don't know what's behind him. So if this regime comes in and says, I think we can still win right now with this guy and we'll make the bigger decision, we'll kick the can down the road one more year, eat the $45 million hit. We'll figure out if we can do this one more time. I mean, that's the other big decision that has to be made. I mean, there are three major decisions that are stacked up. GM, head coach, what do we do with Cousins, and what does this mean? Because once all that's been resolved, then what are you selling to the fan base? You know, are you selling, I know, you know, I listened to Mark Wilf and some of the guys were asking, you know, how are you, are you terming this a rebuild, a teardown?

Is this a quick fix? I mean, you're trying to get these phrases that we're all familiar with because marketing people don't want to sell a rebuild. Fans don't want to pay for a rebuild, even though that may be the obvious route to go. So it'll be interesting to see once these monumental decisions have been made now

what are they selling to an exhausted uh resigned public and fan base that that is demanding more and deserves more see i think that this is the most excited vikings fans have been in years because what are you selling was more of this year oh yeah look nice delvin tomlinson he's gonna stuff the agam like you can't put that on a billboard um not that delvin tomlinson was bad i think he's a good player it just shows you like what that decision meant to the defense they were horrendous at stopping the run like yeah and delvin tomlinson was good so what does that do but uh yeah i mean i i think that if you're talking about um you know a new coach new gm new quarterback free agency draft with

multiple first round draft picks i think that this fan base will be through the roof to see those things happen um that even though you know kirk cousins people are on a vast spectrum of kirk cousins but i think it's my experience talking to fans a lot which i you know emails that even though Kirk Cousins, people are on a vast spectrum of Kirk Cousins, but I think it's my experience talking to fans a lot, which I get emails, messages, Twitter, everything else. I think that 95% of the fan base is like, look, I mean, the guy's a fine quarterback, but he's just not going to take you there at this price. I think that that's where almost everybody is.

And then the 5% of either complete lunatics who say he's the worst quarterback in the world or who say he's the best quarterback in the world. Well, they, they fight each other on the internet. Everybody else understands the deal and you don't have the defense and you can't build the defense, um, to, to have an average quarterback. And I, and like, look, we all watched Justin Herbert throw the football last night, right? Like there are certain skills that now are required to win in the NFL. They probably always were Dan Marino, John Elway, Jim Kelly. Like they always were, you always had

to be this great playmaker and rocket arm and all those things to win consistently over many years. Um, but, or the most accurate quarterback ever in Tom Brady or whatever, you have to be that to win. That's just facts. Otherwise, you go through history. You're like, what is he? I don't know. Jim Harbaugh, the way Jim Harbaugh was in his career or something. He was more of a playmaker, but, you know, average quarterback. Anyhow, I asked Mark Wilf myself, what's the deal with the quarterback situation? He said, well, whoever we hire is going to make that call. But aren't you asking first question? Your GM candidate sits down. All right. Cap analyst from Kansas city. What are you doing with the quarterback? That isn't that the first question you are asking? Yeah, because it's $45 million of my money or 32 million real money. But yeah,

I would think that's the very first question they're going to ask. I noticed, you know, people tried. I mean, I give Mark credit. I mean, again, these guys don't speak publicly a lot. He was pretty polished. He said what he had wanted to to say he didn't stray too far out of his lane uh to make any glaring headlines i guess he deferred to the players to do that um but i think uh i think you know i'm surmising that they they recognize this moment as well they've been pretty reclusive absentee owners they live in new New Jersey full-time. They're commercial real estate moguls. That's how they've made their money, made their fortune. This is who they are. This is a toy to them. It's an expensive toy, but it is a toy. But they've also been here for 15, 16 years

now, and I think they're getting antsy. I think they want a trophy. Everybody wants a trophy. I get that. I just think now that this is several regimes in and now this is a consequential moment for them, I would hope that they are thinking that this is a decision that may define us as owners going forward. Everything else has sort of been a little bit of a learning experience and we've deferred to the people that we've had in place, including Rick Spielman, who they inherited. So now it's a chance for them to really put their signature on where they want this franchise to go. And it's going to be interesting to see who they empower to make this decision. He wasn't going to name names, but they've got some really experienced people in that front office. I mean, Lester Bagley's been around a long time. You know, even Rob Brzezinski, who's a salary cap master, he may survive this as well. You know, Jeff Anderson has been with the team for a long time and knows what he's doing. So they've got smart people in place that I think can really bring a broad sense of this is what hasn't worked in the last 15 years.

This is what we need to do going forward as an NFL team in 2021. And I think that what you just touched on there was layered in Mark Wolf's comments was we have some really impressive people that work for us. And in parentheses that our guys haven't been listening to and rob brzezinski i mean i know that every once in a while like vikings twitter will say oh look what he did with this new contract and everything else and sort of his name is out there as their cap guy uh but i have talked to people who say like this guy is really really well respected around the league the same way that george Payton was like, like, no, Rob Zinski is somebody that they should be looking to.

And if they were just telling him, hey, cat monkey, fix this contract for me. Well, you know, I mean, that's maybe not the way you should do it. And then he's not the only one. He's not the only one that felt left out of the conversation. And that's the way I would put it.

That a lot of people felt very much left out of the conversation. Like they were grinding away at their jobs and just weren't included. And that's, you know, it includes some very smart and accomplished people. So I think that that's a major positive that they can go forward with is having people who have the right ideas that were not being listened to. And the number, this is the thing, the number of times that I would talk to somebody or get a message or whatever, somebody in the know that would say, yeah, we know what we just did. Wasn't good. Uh, and we know that

press conference wasn't good, but what do you want us to do about it? It's just, you know, and sometimes, you know, this too, sometimes you'll write something that's pretty ruthless and you'll hear nothing. You're like, must've nailed it. So, you know, must, must've got that one. So I don't know. I wonder if anybody's reading sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know the purple insiders are for your columns, Murph, that have been terrific. I mean, I feel like putting it together in an ebook of follow the 2021 season through the eyes of Brian Murphy. It was a lot of fun to do these. And I know that we're going to get together from time to time throughout the off season when they pick a coach and when they do something, a quarterback, either extend cousins or make a decision on, on cousin situation. But you know, this, this will, this will end the Monday morning Murph

locked into these, uh, situations. And I just want to say it's, I mean, this, it is an honor to work with you. It is, um, you are one of the smartest, most clever, funny, um, just in intelligent people that I've ever worked with. I look up to you as a journalist and I just have had so much fun doing this every, and I know that I've rambled too much and probably talked over you when I shouldn't have or whatever, and probably published a couple of typos that I should have caught in your article. So I feel bad about that, but it's been, it has been so much fun and I look forward to continue, continuing to do this onto next year. We have an off-season project that

you and I are working together. So it's been, it's been really great, man. Well, I'm flattered. And I, you know, I think back to when you called me up, I think it was May or June and kind of threw this out there. And I, I, I thought, well, if it's not too time consuming and it, and it doesn't, you know, sort of interfere with whatever I'm doing professionally or personally elsewhere, this could be a lot of fun. And then I just had the sense that, you know, much like 2010, this just sort of had a feeling of this is going to be a monumental season. And little did we know that it would be the week to week content machine that it was. But it was fun, and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to really just sit down in front of a keyboard and let it rip, because I've kind of been out of practice for a few

years now. And I mean, you gave me a lot of wide latitude when I went out to LA to chronicle some things. And just, I mean, just the sense of write what you know, write what you feel, and to connect with an audience has been pretty gratifying. I hope I elevated the coverage, and hopefully people took it with a grain of salt and a wink and not as seriously. I try to make sure. But I feel like, again, as an outsider who's been here 21 years now, I kind of feel like I have a sense of what the fan base is thinking. And so much of it was a raw nerve this year. So that was kind of fun to,

to kind of turn the mirror around and, and reflect the fan base. And obviously your audience is, it's a paying audience. It's a loyal audience and they know their Vikings football and they know their football in general and they know their emotions. So it's, it did feel like a really good fit and I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to, uh,

continuing, uh, that relationship. And, you know, sometimes we have contests on the show of like, Hey, if you retweet this, you could get a, you know, soda stick hat or something. We can do the, if you pick what player Murph goes to their house next year, then you, then you win a hat. Yeah, I will not be tracking down Jeff Gladney or anybody else anytime soon. I hope not. A little bit aggressive, and I was too excited to get back in the saddle. And I, yeah, we won't be doing that anymore.

I would defend that all day long, though. But anyway, well, you're one of a kind, Murph, and I'm glad we could do this. And we will talk again very soon, man. Thanks. All right. Thanks.