Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin answers: Do the Vikings have the players to be good?

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Following another tight loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Adam Thielen said that the Vikings have 'the guys' to be winning some of these close games. Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin debate whether that's actually true. Matthew digs up an interview from a former Cousins coach that raises an eyebrow about not getting the ball to Thielen and Justin Jefferson and Courtney breaks down some of the puzzling play calling and execution that has led to the offense going ice cold. Plus Courtney picks whether the Vikings will go 2-0, 1-1 or 0-2 in the next two games against the Los Angeles Chargers and Green Bay Packers. 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. Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. All right, let's get to the show. So welcome to another episode of Purple Insider.

Matthew Collard here as always. And as our roster shuffling continues here with Brian Murphy out of town, he will be back next week. Playing the role of Monday morning Murph is Courtney Cronin from ESPN, making an earlier appearance on the show. What is up, Courtney? How are you? How was your trip to Baltimore?

It was exhausting. It was very long. I didn't have crab cakes, but Chad Graff and I did have a version of crab at the place that we went to on Sunday night. So it was good. I'm honored to be Murph because Murph always comes with like a fastball, like a three seamer. Right. Split that. Was that a right baseball terminology? No. OK, well, two seamer, two seamer, split seam. I don't cover baseball. I know nothing about baseball, but he always comes. The faster one.

Okay. Well, he comes with it every week and I'm honored to fill in these shoes and hopefully do it justice because this is one of my favorite parts of Purple Insider and seeing what he writes on Monday morning for his column. So hopefully I can do it justice. And I tried to get Murphy and myself in the column that I wrote about how these thrilling games are just no longer thrilling to Vikings fans. And I wonder how you feel about this, because everybody is crabby after the loss. Get it? The Baltimore, the crabby.

So when I tweeted out yesterday, hey, guys, at least it's been entertaining. I was kind of just like kidding around like this is not good for anyone, but got a lot of responses that told me where to go after I said that. And I thought, you know, that's right. The thrill is gone, as BB King once said. It's just not there anymore of a close game, win or lose. Oh, well, at least we played them close that when it happens over and over again and so um i'm i'm sure that you agree with that it's that it's just exhausting

but let me ask you a different question that adam phelan when he came out and talked today said that he knows we have the players to win these close games like they did yesterday, played another loss. Do you agree with that? Yes and no. You certainly have two very good receivers. When you go down and look at the crux of what you have offensively, you have two Pro Bowl receivers. Justin Jefferson's an absolute star who's just not getting a lot of run right now.

Outside of that great 50-yard touchdown he had in the first quarter, two catches, 19 yards, one of them coming in the second half. It's not like he wasn't targeted, but there's something wrong there. Dalvin Cook, a superstar running back. Any team would want to have him. The epitome of the modern running back, somebody who can catch passes out of the backfield, you know, do everything that you want him to do from a running back slash, you know, pseudo receiver type the obvious three, because then you look at Kirk Cousins, you're like $33 million quarterback.

Of course, you should be able to do the things that would come with that price tag. And he can't, and he hasn't, or he just won't. You know, taking chances, for example. I mean, I asked Mike Zimmer a question about some of the cover two excuses that Cousins is doling out week after week about, well, this couldn't happen.

Sorry, cover two, you know, real, well, this couldn't happen. Sorry, cover two, you know, real exotic look. I haven't seen it before, allegedly. And he's not able to take shots down the field. So, you know, with all that said, when Adam Thielen says we have the guys, I say you have some of the guys to get this thing done. Again, your offensive line still is not perfect. I think that they've made it work. It's actually kind of, I think, an indictment when you see how well Mason Cole performed in place of Garrett Bradbury in his first start. Like, that's a whole other topic.

But, you know, you don't have it in the tight end room. You have it with two and a half receivers because we knew the K.J. Osborne thing would be like he's here one week and he's gone for two here one week, gone for a couple, whatever. So I guess it's kind of a roundabout way of saying you have it, but you don't probably have enough of the guys to get it done because you would be able to overcome things offensively if you did indeed have the full crux of the guys,

of all of the skill players that you're allegedly touting. So part of this for the guys is several of the guys would be the guys. But as we wake up today, the Vikings are 30th in pass blocking by pro football focus. I believe those guys are important. Highly. Right. And despite this team's handling of those guys, they're still not performing any better than they ever have when they had a flawed offense. But I also found something else. I ran across this on the interwebs.

I was fiddling around and I typed in Kirk Cousins and Deshaun Jackson because Deshaun Jackson got released. And I have always now not all of his opinions do I appreciate Deshaun Jackson or his life choices, but his performance I have always had a great deal of appreciation for is the truest of true deep threats. So I thought, what if they brought in like Deshaun Jackson or something? I don't know. They were making cap room. Let's just type in Kirk Cousins, Deshaun Jackson. Here's what I found. This article right here. This is from Clutch Points, which is some sort of aggregator, but this is based on a Washington Post interview. I'm going to read this to you.

Jay Gruden has been candid about his tenure with the Washington football team. He revealed some of the relationships on the team. While Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins had a couple of productive seasons in Washington, Gruden shared that he never seemed to have much chemistry with Deshaun Jackson and Pierre Garcon. Here's the quote. There were some jealousy issues, I think, between the two of them a little bit. When they got in the huddle, I don't know what happened. If they gave Kirk a hard time, made Kirk uncomfortable, throw me the ball, throw me the ball.

It could have been like that, but there wasn't real true camaraderie. I would say between the three of them, in my opinion, does that sound familiar to you with two great receivers who couldn't get the football from Kirk cousins? That was from February, 2021, that article, by the way. And that was, you know, think of his best season of his career prior to when he joined the Vikings. That was from February 2021, that article, by the way. And that was, you know, think of his best season of his career prior to when he joined the Vikings. That was what, the 2016 season when it was Deshaun Jackson making him look good.

Pierre Garçon making him look good. Jamison Crowder making him look good. He had everything around him. Like, what do we always talk about with Kirk Cousins? Give him status quo, give him perfection, and it'll work. You've tried that, and it hasn't panned out to many degrees in Minnesota. And I think, you know, when you talk about that quote from Gruden about, well, maybe Kirk was uncomfortable because they were demanding the ball or things like that. Like, the first, I just wrote this down next to me because I think it all ties together kind of with what we were

talking about just at the start of the show um the word was aggressive that's an aggressive thing like give me the ball I want to win give me a chance give me an opportunity even if it doesn't look like the play is is going to happen or I'm going to come through on it give me a chance for a 50-50 ball a contested shot something. And I just don't think that Kirk shares that same mentality from everything. I mean, we talk about sort of that, you know, energy that you need. There's not really an appropriate way to say it here on the podcast. So I won't, but let's just call it, you know, macho guy energy.

Aaron Henderson energy. We'll call it that. Baker Mayfield type energy. That's a type of, I don't know how you describe it, even though Baker's had his ups and downs and all that, but he has a swagger about him. And I hate that stupid word because we used that with Kirk earlier in the season because somebody said it and then a bunch of people ran with it. But I think it boils down to the fact where it's,

I hate using this word too because it's a cliche. It's that killer mindset, that killer instinct where you have to demand the ball in the highest of stakes situation, not shy away from it. And that's what those receivers have done. And what this is, this, that, that whole thing that you just laid out sounds very eerily similar to 2018, 2019 here in Minnesota, when the writing was on the wall,

that Stefan Diggs was not happy with, with Kirk cousins and the way that things were going offensively. And if you want to foreshadow that, you know, to, to the current day, when you have the playmakers, you know, Adam Thielen, if you read between the lines there and what that means, that's, we've got the playmakers here, Kirk, you have the guys, you have all the weapons at your disposal. Give us a chance because you're not doing it. That to me, when I read that quote is kind of how I interpret it.

Right. So every response to that or maybe 90 percent of the responses were, well, they have to fire the coach. They have to fire the coach. But when you look back at the same thing being said when they had two great wide receivers before and you look at the graveyard of offensive coordinators who have tried to make this different and they've tried every which way, that's where I think that, yes, you can have lots of criticisms for Mike Zimmer. And you could certainly look at some of the Clint Kubiak play calling of which there were shots taken yesterday and maybe a few even today by Mike Zimmer. But you could say like, look, your play caller isn't perfect. He's probably not as good as Kevin Stefanski or Gary Kubiak. And your head coach makes some pretty bizarre decisions when it comes to the game management. And I thought they got worked by a ravens team who is the cream of the crop with in-game decisions they they pushed all the right buttons against the vikings even though for a lot of that game they played worse football um but yet the bigger picture keeps coming back to think of it this way Let's say you have the, I don't know, eighth best non-quarterback roster.

Which way does your quarterback move the roster? Like, I don't think they're actually eighth. Maybe it's like 14th. But does it move it to the top 10 when you have those two receivers, by the way, they both left after 2016. Both of them. Two elite receivers left. And then another receiver here left. And I know it was more of a beef with Mike Zimmer than it was Kirk Cousins,

but we're talking about a pretty significant pattern of behavior. So when I think about do you have the guys, I think like no, yes, some. Yeah, some. That's the right way to look at it because your skill position, like you're never going to have three of the same with the receivers. Like I know everybody wants to talk about like a number three receiver. Like what K.J. Osborne is in this offense is exactly what he needs to be, situational receiver.

Some days you're going to be great and get a lot of catches because Jefferson and Thielen are taken away by the opposing defense. situational receiver. Some days you're going to be great and get a lot of catches and, you know, because Jefferson and Thielen are taken away by the opposing defense and that's fine, but that's not going to be a consistent 17 game thing. You have two really elite receivers who you should be getting the ball more to. And I wrote this in my story coming out of the game where like they can't even get to their, to addressing their identity crisis because they can't even move the ball. Their identity crisis is, Hey, we have two elite receivers. Should we evolve more into a pass heavy offense where we can be a little bit

less predictable, or we still have this really great superstar running back. Who is the epitome of what a modern running back should be. Should we be run first? You can't even address your offensive identity crisis that you're going through right now because you can't even move the ball because the person who literally holds on to it every single play is the crux for why this whole thing is failing. And that's a pattern. And I don't know how you fix it.

And, of course, like play calling, I, I've, I've taken a lot of issue with play calling in recent weeks and especially after yesterday's game, because when you watch that, that series and overtime you know, the third and eight where you've got the defensive end on the weak side, you know, coming off, you don't ever leave somebody unblocked defensive end, like on your blind side on block. weak side, you know, coming off, you don't ever leave somebody unblocked, a defensive end,

like on your blind side unblocked. That was, you know, Zimmer said it was like an inverted protection. I think that they had seen it before or something, or maybe they had practiced it a different way. They'd seen the look, whatever. Real quick on that. Sage Rosenfels explained on Twitter that that was Kirk. Yes.

That Kirk has to change that protection. That was entirely, they had three over there and two over there and that they had enough guys to block those five. And he just did not change the protection. But they also didn't, according to Kirk, they did not, they had longer developing routes. That's the word that he used when I asked him about that. He didn't have a hot route. How do you not have a hot route in that situation?

How do you not have a quick underneath throw? You don't have a check down, you have a check down every other circumstance but you don't have one then that doesn't make any sense isn't this just though like why this team doesn't win these close games is that we talked to one guy and he's like well we didn't have the routes we talked to another guy and he's like well should have changed the protection we talked to another guy who's like we drew up aggressive plays got got to throw it down the field. And then the reality is Kirk is not good enough at all of that X's and O's stuff to be Tom Brady and stand there and do nothing. You make mistakes with protection throughout a game.

You know who can run away from is Lamar Jackson. I mean, this is what it comes down to for me is that, yes, it's like anyone who makes the coaching point is right. And anyone who makes the roster point is right. And anyone who makes the roster point is right. That you built a very, very thin, like paper thin roster that if anyone got hurt, there were problems. But ultimately you're not getting bailed out at all by the guy who's paid the most to bail you out. And this is where it's like, yeah, you're all to blame, but you win that game with a quarterback who can run away a little. You win that game with a quarterback who's willing to throw the ball up to jefferson or theeland more than once and when the guy's

wide open like you there are so many circumstances in which you win that game with a different and better quarterback not even just like better in terms of his whole quarterback rating for his whole career but just better in terms of skill set and mentality that instincts yeah like i mean i think the instinctual stuff for sure um you know and that i get that question all the time and i got it a lot yesterday like does kirk have the ability to audible at the line well let's go back to last week when kirk did not want anything to do with those timeouts that he apparently, according to Mike Zimmer, has the ability to call them in that situation at the end of the half. Like, I just tend to think Kirk wants to do his job, do his job to the best of his ability. And that's great. But anything that falls outside of that realm is like, whoa, absolutely not my responsibility.

I cannot handle this. Look what I already have dealing with on my plate. And that's just, you know, some people welcome that's the aggressiveness. Some people welcome the added extra. Yeah. I'll take that on. Yeah. I will master that when Kirk's just like, let me stay afloat with what I have, because I've got a lot on my plate. I'm not saying he doesn't, he's got a million things that he's trying to do to make sure a play is successful and doesn't fail but you throw one extra wrench in there and it throws the entire thing off kilter and you know he's not audibling out of you know what the protection was or he you know throws it's a bad it's a bad read on on a screen to dalvin cook

that gets blown up i'm not using yesterday as an example, but it's like previously that has happened. Those type things like tend to be like the downfall for this offense that starts with the quarterback. Folks, Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore. That's because TickPick, that's T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need

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that's why the funny thing is when you look at his quarterback rating and then look at his espn qbr where they factor the game situation it's a much different story like the qbr is much lower which i think would make sense to anyone in fact yeah factors on everything play and that's where so it's like when you go through the, do you have the guys? Well, some of them you do, some of them you don't. Do you have a great play caller or a brilliant offensive coordinator? Certainly not convinced that you do,

but do you have anybody who makes those guys when they're wrong? Right. Like if Mason Cole doesn't call out that protection because he's a backup center, then who's making him right? Well, it's not the guy responsible with the football. wrong right like if mason cole doesn't call out that protection because he's a backup center then who's making him right well it's not the guy responsible with the football i remember jeremiah searle said that philip rivers like sorry center whatever you think doesn't matter philip rivers is calling out the protections because he's the man right i mean this is just not this is exactly what aaron henderson is tweeting about like, this is, this is not the guy

who's going to put it all on his shoulders. If somebody else makes a mistake, it's like, well, it's your problem. Or if you have the other team is playing a cover two shell. So you can't go deep. He's not going to say, I'm going to put it in that window. No matter what he's going to say, well, not my problem. And this is why this combination of people does not win football games and by the way the last time they were 500 was week 13 of 2020 they were at 500 you know what their record is since then four and eight four they haven't they haven't been above 500 games they haven't been above 500 since 2019 that's the point i was about to make like isn't that crazy like when you think about a team that spent this much money in the last couple off seasons um where it's gotten them and to one one thing like Kirk Cousins mentioned about the protections with Mason

Mason Cole yesterday and like no like you know he knows I have the ability to override him at the line like whatever I see but I trust him I trust him that he's going to get it right. Like he didn't do anything to apparently lead Kirk Cousins to believe that that wasn't the right call right there. The one that the center was making. Well, that fall, that doesn't, that falls, it still falls on Kirk Cousins. Like, I mean, like what you were saying with, with Sage's tweet, which I saw, I mean, you can, and I get things change in football games and sometimes pre-snap is

different than post-snap, but you saw what was in the box. You saw what was going on at the line pre-snap. And then the second after the ball was snap, you have a free rusher. Like if you're Kirk Cousins and you see an unbalanced, unbalanced protection, that's on you to change. Because your center can only look at, you can only see so much a backup center at that i do appreciate that kirk trusts his backup center i think that's good but like at the end of the day you should want that responsibility you should thrive off taking that being like no this is what we're doing um kind of like they've done i mean

like when you talk about those moments of like k going down and winning the game and yeah, he did it against Carolina and he did against Detroit. Like that gets legitimized when you do it in situations like you saw yesterday. And every single time it's against a team like this versus a team like that. And that meaning like the team that they've beaten those circumstances. This is the result. And this is where I have gone back to many times. The schedule really determines how well he plays because teams that are really bad, they usually can't execute things like that. And the Ravens did not play particularly well, but they made enough plays and they made enough adjustments. Now I have another crazy stat for you

that I want you to guess there are 36 quarterbacks who have enough to sort of qualify for statistics, like enough passes, whatever, you know what I'm saying? How many out of 36 NFL quarterbacks who have had a significant number of NFL passes this year are throwing the ball farther down the field on average than Kirk Cousins out of 36? How many do you think there are? Well, I mean, his average depth of target against Dallas probably brings him down in terms of, like, where he's at,

and he's got to come back up for that. I'm going to say 16, just about maybe about a little bit over half. Is that half? It's 33. Okay. There are 33 quarterbacks who are pushing the ball down the field more than Kirk cousins out of 36. And he's number 34. The only two who are being less aggressive than Kirk cousins this year are

Jared Goff and Mike white, who probably shouldn't qualify here with enough passes. So really Jared Goff, that's it. Jacoby Brissett, Davis Mills, Tyrod Taylor. These people, Taylor Heineke, are being more aggressive than Kirk Cousins this year. I cannot imagine from Zimmer loving the hell out of Gary's offense last year that this was the plan. No. Remember, I mean, Zimmer, I mean, practically just, like,

talked about Gary the way that you would talk about the person you love the most in your life about that offense last year. And this year, they wanted to do the same things. And it's not. It is very, very different. We've talked about the play action usage, where it's at this year versus where it was at last year. I don't, I really would like to know

what the true reasoning is behind it. Is it protections? Are you worried about kind of what your offensive line is doing to sell play action? Like, why are they not running it as much as they had last year? Because that's how you got the explosive plays, the deep shots downfield off of play action i don't truly understand why like what what is the defense showing you i mean kirk

cousins talks about those cover two looks you're not seeing that the i mean you're seeing it a lot but you're not seeing it like every single play the whole game so how does that factor into things um your personnel hasn't really changed that much like Like, I mean, outside of the only thing I can think is like terribly different is they use a lot of 11 personnel that didn't last year because they had capable and competent tight ends. And they just don't have that this year with Irv Smith and no longer with Kyle Rudolph and Tyler Conklin's only doing so much. There's like it should, in theory, be the exact same scheme, but it's not. And it's not that Clint's like trying to like change it and take the car, you know, take the railroad car off the tracks. I just think that they've the personnel part is where what factors into this because of the limitations of their personnel and what they can and cannot do offensively. I've got a couple of theories. One theory is that they are actually a horrible running team

like they seem to think that they're a good running team but let me they're unimaginative as hell i'll tell you that i mean outside of that 66 yard run that dalvin cook had in the first quarter um he averaged 2.75 yards per carry the rest of the way that's bad and in 100 and of his 110 yards i think 105 came on three different runs not but that's that's a story of who he is though when you think about it like he is a chunk yardage guy like he wants the big 20 to 30 yard runs to be you know that bolsters his stat line go back and look at him over the course of his career. It's never been a consistent, you know, average, like, yeah, the average will look like five yards of carry,

but it's not like he's doing that every single time. Well, here's my statistical evidence for my claim, because they average in terms of yards rushing per game, a very high mark, and yards per attempt is very high mark. But in terms of expected points added, which sort of compares situation to your success or failure, they are the fourth worst running team in the NFL. And so I think that this is where, this is where, you know, how they talk about marrying the run in the past. Well, certainly there, I mean, certainly they're not putting

themselves in position to marry the run in the past when you're on third and eight all the time because you're running on first and second down constantly. And if it's not, like you said, a boom play. But they also are marrying like bad with bad. Right. I mean, like bad decisions by when to call the run plays with then like bad reactions to that, which is usually to just run again. And then not being able to also change with whatever defenses are doing because Vic Fangio's two safety deep defense has been adopted all over the league. You know, somebody does something well, then they take it because everyone ran the play actions in the boots.

So San Francisco's offense doesn't work the same anymore. And the Vikings offense doesn't work the same anymore. And the Vikings offense doesn't work the same anymore. And I think that these things all are playing together to one big bucket of you rank 18th and score it. Yeah, of course, teams are going to figure that out and teams are going to have to adjust. But like, where is the adjustment? Like, that's the thing when Kirk, is that on play calling? Here's my thing. Like when he talked about like the too deep look and that like, Oh, can't, can't throw the ball. Sorry. No deep shots too deep. Going to throw an interception, but that's what he's saying. I don't want to turn the ball over. There's a reason

that he's, I mean, great. I think he's got two interceptions on the season, two or three, and he didn't have any yesterday. That's great. But there's a reason for that because he's not actually putting himself in position to take any chances and to give his receivers any chances downfield. But, like, if that – like, let's just say that that really is a big problem. You can't work around it. So what is that? Is that on your play caller to not have – like, do you not have, like, anybody who can run underneath route, a shifty, twitchy guy who can get open, a Hunter Renfro style guy?

They can do that similar thing. Maybe not an Adam Thielen, Justin Jefferson, but how? That's my one question. What does that say about the quarterback who won't give his receivers a shot, which kind of circles back to the Deshaun Jackson and Pierre Garcon thing that we were talking about at the beginning with your quote from Jay Gruden. And what does that say about the receivers? Can they not do what I just said about running underneath routes? I think they certainly can. I think it's just, where do you marry all of that together to come up with a solution? Because they don't have one

right now. It's an all or nothing thing. And that's in the passing game same thing with the running game though because they're so unimaginative there in ways that they just have not been historically and it's kind of baffling when you think about yeah same running back for the last few years um same backup you know now you've got somebody that you absolutely should be playing some offensive giving some offensive snaps to and kane wong lu because you know, what do you have to lose at this point?

And it might actually help you offensively, but like when you don't have those solutions to figure it out and it falls on the response, who's taking the blame, who's taking the responsibility, like only so much can go on to Clint Kubiak. Some of that has to go on to the personnel itself. And I think in that circumstance, like what I mentioned with the cover to stuff, that's on Kirk.

Right. And that's where somebody asked on the website today, a question of like, I mean, Clint Kubiak isn't really not drawing plays up for Jefferson and Dillon, right? No, I'm certain that he is.

It's just what's, what's the missing piece. And now I do remember I did a huge story on gary as we all did and as everyone really should even if you're not a reporter just start asking people about gary you'll get a lot of great answers but one thing somebody told me might have been steve berline was gary is super good at being up in that box as the offensive coordinator with we had gary cam back. Yeah, we did with my binoculars back when he was here.

Just so we can make sure. Watching him call the games was a pleasure. But, you know, so he said that Gary had this great vision for tendencies of the defense. This guy's playing this look this way, and this guy's playing that look that way and

they're doing this or that and i think that only comes with the experience of being someone like gary kubiak sure over years and years so that may have opened up the door for them to hit on big plays and things like that at times because of just his experience so i don't think clint kubiak has that but ultimately i fully believe when mike zimmer says uh yeah we drop routes that have beaters for cover one and cover two of course they do every offense every everybody does yeah right this is but like but the way that cousins talks about it makes it sound like oh there's only longer developing routes that's a scapegoat that's that's saying that like the check down or the intermediate route or whatever

else it was was not there and i just have a hard time believing that when you know yeah you are going to be caught off guard sometimes like with the blitzing thing yesterday like the ravens didn't blitz a lot like you know they came in expecting that the team with the fifth highest blitz percentage is going to blitz a ton and they only blitz 25 of defensive snaps yesterday which is their second lowest of the season so like some little trickery here caught the vikings off guard we're like holy crap blitz it's in your face and then the the drive is dead and you don't get the ball back in overtime like that's good coaching that's good scouting is what that is because that's like okay this is we're gonna make them think that we're gonna do make them think that we're going to do

something we always do. We're not going to do it. We're going to throw it at them when they least expect it. There's been a lot of, when you least expect it here type conversation, when we talk about what the Vikings and you know, what the offense or the defense is, is giving the Vikings. What about taking like, that's my thing.

Like when Kirk's like, oh, I can only go with what the defense has given me. What about, what did you just take something? And that's where the aggressiveness comes with taking shots and forcing them to adjust to you, forcing them to play you differently because you see a look and you're like, nope, got to stay away from what I would normally do in that situation. That's a problem.

So I was thinking about just tying this all back to my initial question then of course i mean there's a pie chart coming for you oh gosh it doesn't matter if it's monday or thursday there's a pie chart on the way uh but um so i was thinking about it like let's say you have the second third fourth best receiver group in the nfl okay but if we but if we go through all the other things and we talk about the flaws we just discussed and so forth, and you have, let's say the 19th best play caller and you have the, you, you don't have a very efficient running game. So your running game is just whatever, like 15th, even if you have a great running back, it's not a great running game. And you have a bottom five offensive line, bottom seven offensive line again.

And you have a quarterback who doesn't make any of that better or different. If guys aren't open, he's not throwing it. The famous Jay Gruden quote has really come to fruition. And then, so you take all those things, but you sprinkle in the NFL has changed quickly on defense and the way that they, even the way that they approach defenses, especially the smart teams.

You mentioned not blitzing like teams now are doing the Bella checky and thing of week to week where they don't just play their scheme. What a concept. Everything. Right. Only took till 2021 for more people to figure it out. That's ridiculous. But yes,

I agree. And so what your result is, is your bad football team. I mean, that's what your result is. Like you have the guys like, but, but all these things added up together, you have a few of the guys, but nothing that's going to push that in any other direction. If you had all these same things and the greatest offensive coordinator in the world, then you are probably a bit better. like they were in 2019, but you needed a really good, a really easy schedule. And maybe even two years ago, these defense would have played you differently. It's like time has sort of passed a lot of these things. It's past a pocket quarterback

who's really limited in the things that he can do. It's past a head coach who can't even explain why he didn't go for it for two at the end of that game with his defense being completely shot. He, you know, it's, and it's past like the Gary Kubiak offense, if it's not run by Gary actual Kubiak himself. And even then there were times last year where we felt like, Ooh, I don't know, is this being kind of figured out? So I think it's, I think it's everything.

And I do too. And I think that like, it's the adjustment thing where if you can't adjust, it's adapt or die. Right. And if everybody else around you is not trying to ram a square peg into a round hole, what makes you think that you can do it? You haven't proven anything with the ability to do it so far. So why do you think now, all of a sudden you can get away with that? Like that's just never going to be the case. And you're going to keep it like that was a definition of insanity, doing the same thing over expecting different results. You're going to be banging your head against the wall as Mike Zimmer tries to

explain his way out of this every single week. And it's the same things popping up because you're not actually changing anything. Like you're talking about it. You're not doing it. Or they are. And your quarterback's not executing it. Sure.

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where you can find a phone number to get a free consultation. This is an attorney advertisement from Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com. So even though I'm willing to put, if I was doing a pie chart, this isn't what the pie chart is, but if I was doing a pie chart, even if I was willing to put like a 33, 33, 33 on like Zimmer, Kubiak and Cousins, I think that the fact that this is such a pattern with the same quarterback

makes me lean toward, I think Zimmer knows the X's and O's. I think he knows probably what to do and it's just not happening and you don't have the line to do it. And you don't have the quarterback who is suddenly become very, very, very, very unbelievably timid.

I mean, like he's very shy out there. Alex Smith can't believe how timid Kirk Cousins is right now. Yeah. And I mean, there are things to blame Zim for that go away from what we were talking about. The in-game management stuff is just baffling. I mean, you talk about the decision to not go for two and yeah, analytics technically did support that, but like his explanation made very little sense.

And then giving the Ravens, gifting them a minute and 33 seconds when you call the timeout there and you give them a bunch of time to go score. And they did, and they made it a one possession game, but that's on you. But the same limitations with Kirk Cousins' game are the limitations they've always

been. They've just been disguised differently. And this year I think that because the offense is struggling with play calling in large part, but it's exposing Cousins weaknesses because there isn't a workaround this time as much as there has been in the past, because you don't have that institutional knowledge of how to find that workaround as things are collapsing, as your quarterback's not taking a shot as, you know,

routes are not developing, whatever. Like you don't have that in game turnaround or in game, like, you know, adjustment right there. And that's, that's exposing Kirk kind of for what he is. I thought of something funny and then I'll give you the pie chart and that'll be the show. But it's funny that like Kirk cousins gets offensive coordinators promoted and head coaches fired right think about how ironic that is but it's just true right like he hasn't done it in a while i mean stefanski

yeah yeah stefanski and then you know gary retires but like stefanski sean Sean McVay it's like wow oh you got this much out of Kirk like you're hired but Mike Shanahan and then Jay Gruden who didn't get fired like right with Kirk but that's where the franchise went down and it's just funny to think about here we are with Mike Zimmer on the hot seat for like four straight years so anyway speaking of, these next several games, Courtney, I want you to tell me pie chart 2-0 against L.A. and Green Bay. 1-1, they split. 0-2. There's literally nothing else.

Well, I was thinking about like roof collapses as being, well, I mean, like they did, they did just add two more players to the COVID-19 reserve list while we were in the middle of podcasting. So I guess one of them could be a forfeit. Yeah. They've got five on the reserve list. Now the two that were added right. Just a few moments ago where Ryan Connolly and Timon Paris, who's the practice squad tackle, offensive tackle.

So, yeah, I guess we could potentially see that happen. I don't know if that's, like, super likely a forfeit. I think Zim would go out there and play himself. But, I mean, we basically got, like, a situation here where there's three very, very, obviously very likely and very realistic. Um, okay. Put forfeit.

Because they have like a mini outbreak here. Let's kind of do. Yeah. Let's go to an O one and one. Oh, and two forfeit, uh, forfeit at least one of the games.

Yeah. So I will say that two and O here, 10% seems like a very highly unlikely thing that's going to happen. One and one, I'm going to put that at a whopping 70%. So I've got 80% down. I've got 20% to work with. I'm going to say 0% for the forfeit. I do not believe that it would happen, but 20% for Owen too. And the reason that I have like 70% with one and one, like they were right there yesterday. Like you would in the chargers have been like,

it was such a weird game for them where it's like strength against strength, like with the, with, with Herbert's arm and, you know, Philly's run game and kind of all, they were, you know,

just the back and forth battle that they had there and they played them close. So I think that if there is a game that the Vikings are going to steal, it will end up being this one on the road where, you know, they're pissed off at this point. They don't want to go 0-3. They just had two brutally embarrassing losses with Dallas and then just another collapse. And I think that you lose the locker room. If you lose again, like in that sort of fashion on the road against Charger, I think people you lose the locker room if you lose again like in that sort of fashion on the

road against charge I think I think people tune Zimmer out I think you start getting players taking more than just subtle shots at each other in the media or at the quarterback um so I do think that that'll probably end up being the most likely outcome I just have a gut feeling about this Chargers game that they will win this one but but they'll lose to Green Bay. 0-2 does feel very possible, and that's why I put it at 20%, but I just have a really heavy gut feeling it's 1-1 these next two. Okay, I think where you're wrong is to put 0% of forfeit. I want to put 1% of forfeit because I just want to say it is – I think it's possible. It is possible, but this would not – I just highly doubt it would be this team. But this team is so unvaccinated.

So unvaccinated. It's very possible. Well, also, I think that the city of Los Angeles is pretty serious. Yeah, there's a new OSHA mask mandate or something about in stadium, where players have to be masked like in which situations the whole thing so like would they not let your covid team fly to la i don't know i'm gonna put it at one percent um the one thing the one thing i keep thinking about though for uh the possibility of losing at los angeles is 98. You play 98 plays and then travel?

Yeah, no, I mean, that's even Zim said himself that like, he's got to be very cognizant with what he's asking guys to do. Everson Griffin played a career high 87 snaps. He's 33 years old. He didn't come back here, anticipate. They didn't come back, have him come back here, anticipate that that would be his role. So they have to be really smart about what they do this week because the defense was gassed yesterday. In overtime, they did their best to Anthony Barr in the interception,

and of course they can't do anything off of that. But they've been run into the ground. When you're on the field for 46 minutes, it doesn't take three days to recover. It takes a whole week, if not longer. And that's going to be a really tough battle against a team that likes to throw the ball a lot. And if you can't get off the field and have your offense be your best

defense, then you're in a tough spot. Isn't the Steven Weatherly trade just like, Oh my God. Hindsight is a a real b it's just sort of emblematic of kind of the team though that they they think oh this will be fine and then it's immediately not fine dj wanham is just what he played more than half the game yesterday and i think got one pressure it's just like yeah that's it's it. Exactly what you thought. Yeah. That doesn't work because that's not a good player. And you moved out a guy that you would have immediately needed. It's just, well, here we are.

Well, they got us. Don't worry. They've got, they've had a low draft pick. They got one back. They're fine. That's all that matters. They just, they just, yeah, they moved up and they don't have one now in 2023, which, you know, I guess we'll track that one closely. That'll be the next Tom Brady or something.

So anyway. All right. Well, good stuff. And I hope I did. Hope I did. Murph proud. You did. Yeah.

No, you did. You brought it. Murph is a little heavier on the one liners, I think. So you have to. I don't have as many of those. And I'm also like been up since 3 a.m. Eastern. So you're going to have to excuse me on that.

But I will come. I will come prepared with more jokes and one liners and witty, sarcastic comments next time. Thank you. Well, everything will be fine. You've only got to travel now to Los Angeles after Baltimore. So but, you know, someone's got to put me on a pitch count this week. I'm toast at this point. Yeah. Only so many TV appearances and articles for this week i'm toast at this point yeah only so many uh tv appearances and articles for this week for you so uh well i appreciate your time and we will talk again very soon