Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin is on the fence about Vikings-Cardinals

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin play a game of "talk me into..." which includes Courtney trying to talk us into a Vikings win against the Arizona Cardinals this week along with why the Vikings didn't trade Cam Dantzler to the San Francisco 49ers and how they'll need to stop Chandler Jones. Visit tickpick.com/insider today and use the promo code INSIDER to save $10 on your first order of Vikings tickets! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar and Courtney Cronin sitting outside on a very nice but slightly breezy day. So if you hear the wind, I'm sorry. This reminds me of our days back at Winter Park when we didn't have any place to do it inside. Cause the bank people would yell at us to get out of their lobby. So we'd go sit and

sit out front of the, uh, big building and do it on the, we were sitting on like a perch, like a little, I don't know. It was weird. Like we were next to like shrubbery. I mean, we're kind of next to shrubbery now, but gosh, you're bringing me back to 2017. I know. And these September days are delightful, honestly. I mean, because it gets worse from here. Beautiful weather. But there's a nice breeze. Oh, you were talking about the schedule.

I was talking about the ancillary stuff. Worse from here. You're like, man, it gets worse from here for Minnesota. I was thinking about the nice things, like the weather and other stuff. Yeah, well, I was just thinking about, like, the degrees going south and potentially the season. I guess we'll find out. I guess we can start there.

Well, let's talk about that because, you know, the game that we have so often played is Talk Me Into. Yeah. And now we have a game, or an actual football game, to play our game with Talk Me me into and so there's a lot of different things that we could discuss from cincinnati moving on to arizona but i but i like the game so we're going to do it that way okay and i want you to just start off by talking me into a win in arizona well they contain kyler murray mike zimmer said that it's uh wishful

thinking to think that you can keep him in the pocket, but they have the right rush plan in ways that Tennessee's defense didn't. And Tennessee does not have a very good defense, right? Like, we knew that. We knew that that would be an issue when you're going against this unbelievable athlete who's not just, like, quick. He's quick and fast. And I know that people think that that sounds the same.

It's not. It's very different things because the decision making the ability to make those throws on the run to go from one side of the field to the other pause and launch a throw that becomes a first down like that's the tough part of Kyler Murray so somehow they're able to maybe get some of that pressure on him where they can contain him force force contain him in the pocket and keep your edges high, I guess. Hoping that your secondary is able to bounce back, hoping that Bashaud Breland doesn't have another game where he's the target of officials because of the penalties. And if he does get out of the pocket, Kyler Murray that is, then you have your receivers covered, hoping that it was just more of a fluke thing with your secondary and Breland and the PI against Cincinnati. But I

know you don't want me to talk about the defense. I know you want me to talk about the offense and everything that went wrong in Cincinnati. Well, they won't have 11 holding penalty offensive holding penalties and false starts there's got to be some sort of positive regression there because they're going to get their butts chewed this week if they do that in practice and the thing was they weren't seen Zimmer said he wasn't seeing them do it in practice during the preseason so this must have just been let's chalk it up to first game nerves and the fact that they're back in a loud stadium on the road for the first time. It was hot. I don't know every other excuse in the book that you can say that's the reason they had all those penalties. If those penalties don't exist, then you're not in second and 15, second and 20, third and 30, because they're not a team,

according to Mike Zimmer, that's built to play a drop back game. So hoping things like that happen and that you can actually have the communication on the offensive line, I think will play into a better situation than what they were faced with, what they put themselves in in week one. But I'm also I mean, I don't want to like contradict. I want to win the game. I want to talk you into this. I'm not even going to mention Chandler Jones. Maybe you'll set me up for something with that later. How did I do? Well, no, you did great.

I mean, this is always a thing that happens in the NFL where we decide whatever just happened is the absolute truth. And I don't think that the Tennessee Titans are going to be that bad all season, right? Not at all. I don't think the Green Bay Packers will. I don't think the Philadelphia Eagles are winning the Super Bowl like there are a lot of things that happened in week one around the league when you're not there in that city and you can look at and go okay well that's probably not gonna hold up oh I think the Texans are winning the Super Bowl I don't know about you Tyrod MVP I saw that game and I was like man book it AFC South champs considering everybody else in the division lost.

And now David Cully and Tyrod Taylor are the new Belichick and Brady. I do hope the best for Tyrod Taylor because he got jabbed in the lung last year. And then he lost his job because of an injury in Cleveland. I mean, the guy's been through a ton. But, yeah, no, I get it. Like, we overreact to week one every single year year everything looks magnified because it's the first real action and then you you see such a difference from what pre-season football looked like to be like oh my goodness like how did that happen how did aaron rogers when he wasn't getting pressured literally they

weren't pressuring the quarterback how do you only score three points like things like that but no i agree with you it's it's more magnified in the city that you're in and the team that you're covering and I think from that 30,000 foot view you can look at it like the league at large and it doesn't look as bad and I know that the Vikings lost to Cincinnati and like let's not let's not try to shine a turd here it was it was really bad it was a really bad loss but there were some positives in that game the fact that they were somehow able to keep themselves in it offensively in the second half um there's got to be some sort of takeaway there that you can think might actually play out in arizona right i think that um so from the week one that doesn't have to be who you are

like this team should be better than that. The problem is more that 0-1 is bad with the schedule. And if you go 0-2 because you are playing a tough Arizona team and then you have to play Wilson and Mayfield, and even then, I'm not 100% sure you just go 2-0 against Detroit and Carolina because you just lost to Cincinnati. And one of those games is on the road, and Carolina almost beat you last year. So it's not just like, oh, right in W is guaranteed.

If you don't win this one, then all of a sudden just the math doesn't look good for you, the path doesn't look good for you. But as far as you talking me into them bouncing back and winning, I am very much 50-50 on this game game I really feel like this could go either way I don't think what Arizona did in week one makes me go oh well the Vikings could never like they're just it's just an L because they're so much better I think that they're actually very Vikings ish the difference is Kyler Murray or could be Kyler Murray but I think they're Vikings isish in the way that they're flawed, but they've got a lot of talented players, and any given week they could be great,

or they could struggle. And that's my impression right now of the Cardinals until they change. So I think I'm like 50% talked into they could go and win. I'm honestly the same way, even though I just tried to set up a scenario where I'd make you believe that they could win I will probably end up picking them to lose this game I feel like there's some sort I mean we heard it today in in press conferences and just kind of that tightness around this team that didn't really exist on Monday when we talked to Mike Zimmer Daniil Hunter KJ.J. Osborne. They're still processing Cincinnati.

Like, I think on film it kind of looks worse what you saw Arizona do to Tennessee, not like the Vikings digesting all of their screw-ups in Cincinnati. It's really the next opponent I think looked really, really difficult. So if you go 0-2, though, though the hole that that even with the 17 game schedule like the hole how deep that hole is to dig yourself out of is going to be really tough because you have two really tough games back to back at home and yeah you're fortunate that you're at home you'll hope to play off your home crowd the whole thing but that's it feels like that could be a very quick landslide.

Well, and you look down the road, too, and Baltimore is obviously going to be a good team. And this could be a must-win for Baltimore this week when they play Kansas City, because then they have four road games. That's tough. But I think overall, they'll be a competitive team when the Vikings face them, so they're not going to be easy, and they have a good defensive line and so forth. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a great defense, so that's going to be tough for the Vikings

the Cowboys have a great offense that's going to be like it doesn't ever get easy after this so you really have to survive this and then get into the second half of the schedule because it can all be sort of undone early on one in three oh and four I mean you are in such a big hole there and then you don't get the luck of playing the Packers early when Aaron Rodgers has been screwing around for months you play them at the end of the season when they'll be in full go and presumably it'll be a race in the NFC North so um that how much they need this is more based on just the way the schedule plays out than it is saying that what they were in Cincinnati is what they're going to be. All right.

What can I talk you into? All right. I'm going to steal my own idea here or the idea I was going to, I thought you might ask me to do. Talk me into Chandler Jones coming back down to earth and not wrecking the left side of the Vikings offensive line. You know, I want to nominate someone for the most taken-for-granted player

of the last five years of Vikings football, and his name is Riley J. Reif. I don't know what his middle name is, but... Joe. J-O. J-O is right. That's right. That is an inside J-Oak. But anyway, actually, when I said said Delvin Jay Cook the other day, it actually was Delvin Jay.

Yeah, Delvin James Cook. He's named after his dad. So anyhow, Riley Reif was never a supreme Hall of Fame gold jacket, put him in Canton left tackle. He was not Orlando Pace. He's not Teron Armstead. He's solid. And when you would go up against a great pass rusher, you knew that Riley Reif gave you a chance for most of the game

to be okay, to where your game was unlikely to be ruined. I can only remember maybe one or two games where Jerry Hughes in that Buffalo game destroyed him, Khalil Mack maybe once or twice. But aside from that, like Riley Reif was really solid week in, week out. And now with Chandler Jones going up against Rashad Hill, it's just a massive, massive mismatch. And that one is hard to talk you into aside from saying that if the Vikings can run the football, and I know what I sound like here, but this is the best I can do. If he can run the football successfully, Kirk Cousins' numbers when

he has second and short, third and short, are so outrageously better than they are in long situations. And it just makes it so much more difficult for pass rushers when you're doing the play actions, when you're doing the play actions when you can boot away we've seen this happen a handful of times when they get ahead of the sticks because they can run even elite pass rushers just don't have great days against them that's why Chicago gives them so many problems right because Akeem Hicks shuts down the run and then Khalil Mack can just do his thing but I'm thinking of of Philadelphia two years ago where Rashad Hill played and Brandon Graham was going up against him,

and it was fine because they were ahead of it the whole game. So I think that there is a path to not getting sacked five times, but that is the one and only path because Cincinnati was able to take advantage of them when they were behind the sticks. And I think every single team will, and I keep going back to what Mike Zimmer said, we're not built to play like that. It's just true. You're just not.

And that's the only way to negate Chandler Jones. Yeah, I appreciate the effort. I don't know if he'll get five sacks. I don't. I feel like that was an anomaly. When we talk about pace, he'd be on pace for 85 sacks. I think that would break a single-season record by a long shot. By like 62 sacks or something.

But I just don't think they're going to have as stupid of a game plan as Tennessee did in just leaving Taylor LeJuan out there. And then when they put a tight end over there in max protection, a tight end wasn't even chipping your star defensive end. He was just getting the other guy, especially if they played up in the box. I just feel like he didn't have the help that he needed. So they clearly won't do that. They'll probably throw multiple tight ends over there, like they do with Khalil Mack,

like they've done in other situations where you have really good elite edge rushers. But I think Chandler Jones is going to wreck havoc on this game and just take advantage of that weakness. Unless you're going to all of a sudden pull a switcheroo and put Brian O'Neal over at left tackle, that's not happening. I don't trust Rashad Hill over there, and it's nothing against him. I just think it's a complete disadvantage for him in terms of skill level. He's a good pass protector but i mean you have

taylor i want as a pro bowler right at one point like and rashad hill is a veteran backup playing left tackle until your christian derisaw experiment decides it wants to work out that's going to be really tough i can't i can't be talked into that one well i've got no other attempts that's fine no i appreciate you i appreciate the effort because i knew that that was i set you up for failure because i knew that was a no-win situation but it had to be addressed especially since they just slowed down derrick henry in the run game and i think that that it's so funny to be talking about it this way in the year of 2021 how it sort of all connects back to the run game but the Vikings are not going to pull a 2018

and go in the shotgun and make quick passes and just like no because someone will matriculate down the field someone's gonna someone's gonna get fired if they try to do that and the offensive coordinator here knows that that's not how Zim wants to play offense that's just not gonna happen and they really aren't built like that could they be yeah i think there could be a little bit more of a balance but hell you didn't even see any balance last week because they weren't able to establish a ground game which then of course and i know that all the football outsider nerds of the world will tell me oh you don't need the run game to set up play action if you're in second and 20 there's no threat of the run right at least what you believe so you know there's just there's no way and 20, there's no threat of the run, at least what you believe. So, you know, there's just no way to do that.

There's no way to establish a deep passing attack. The only way you could honestly do that is rolling him away from pressure. Like, not even with bootlegs, just rolling him straight up away with pressure. Right, and I think they will try that. That changes launch points, you know. Exactly. And I think the other part about that is there isn't a connection necessarily with teams that run the football really well and play action.

Like, so there will be, even if you're a bad, here's a good example. The 2016 Vikings couldn't run for two freaking yards, but yet they were one of the best play action teams in the league because defenses are going to play the same way each week. So that's the connection. But when there's no threat of play action, you might as well not even bother because no linebackers jumping up to try and stop somebody on third and 20, if it's a fake run.

So I think that's kind of how that works. I want you to talk me into K.J. Osborne, comma, difference maker. I think the sheer number of snaps that he played in week one, and I know we've seen this like a few times with Aldrick Robinson, never with Chad Beebe playing that much, really never with Laquan Treadwell playing that much. It's been so sporadic that they've had a difference maker as their wide receiver three.

The way that he continues on in this role, I think those catches that he made show Kirk Cousins, yeah, I can throw this guy in critical situations, throw into him on third and 24 and the body control and staying in bounds and trying to hurdle that guy. And that's set up Adam Thielen's touchdown. The fourth and four catch though, I think is the one that Kirk called elite, just that move that he made. I just, you know, there's the body of work, and it's something that has been going on for him since spring, so that makes a solid case. DeeDee Westbrook, though, I don't think is ready yet.

I think that last week was indicative of where they think DeeDee is at in terms of workload because he should be your number three receiver. Like, he should be. You can put him in the slot and you can put the other two outside. They will continue to run 11 personnel, I think, as much as they did in week one. I know that you can run out of 11 personnel, too. That's what they did last year. They barely used it to like throw out of it,

but you can do that and still have an effective run game. So we'll see the snap count continue to be pretty big for him until I guess D.D. Westbrook is ready to play a more considerable role. But, you know, Osborne can do things for you, I think, that will really, like, maybe it doesn't show up in the stat sheet because he's freeing up some chances for Justin Jefferson. If they can actually establish a deep passing attack, if they can, you know, I think that you, if you can't do that, then you end up going short passing game, some slants, throw some crossing routes in. There are ways to do it where it's not just dinking and dunking your way down the field. But using K.J. Osborne more than situationally is going to be the key for them because the second you go back to what you did with the wide receiver three here the last couple of years, teams are going to key in on that. You're going to have your secret target on third down taken away also the tight end group uh we didn't see anything from them in week one so i anticipate those targets going kj osborne's way because they're going to

need him to block they're going to need him to block so they stopped chandler jones they are going to need him to block so there will be uh no passes to the tight end all those targets go to kj osborne i'm slightly talked into kj osborne um throughout training camp you always have this feeling of you know we've seen guys emerge in training camp and who knows what's he gonna do when the lights are on right but his first time out was doing it when the lights were on making a play with the football and i don't think he's really a deep threat but i also don't think you need necessarily someone to be this big deep threat who's just always going 40 yards down the field i think that having someone who's just reliable and can make a play i mean this it was very jarius right ish to have just made a play that was the first person i thought of from 2016 the last like guy that was

had a role that wasn't just a situational third and short type role or trick play type role like jarius was a consistent element of this offense with digs and and theelin and who was before that um well you had your char Johnson, your Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace, the 2014 of 15 and then 16 and him coming on. So I think that's a great comparison because he's really the last, like, third receiving threat that was a consistent give you 400, 500 yards, maybe like three or four touchdowns a year type threat. I think KJ Asburn could set up perfectly for that.

Now there is a part of me, though, that looks over at the other team and says, says, yeah, look at all your weapons. Rondale Moore, Christian Kirk, AJ Green, and then DeAndre Hopkins. And this is where we go, well, look, one team said, we've got to give our quarterback everything. And the other team said, hopefully a fifth rounder becomes something. And maybe he will. And it seems like just from that, that he did way more than we ever saw from Chad Beebe

just for just from a big third down conversion where he made a special play right and then a fourth down that was really impressive um so I I am buying on KJ Osborne I am convinced that he can add more than we've seen before, whether that becomes truly dangerous, I think we're going to have to find out as it goes along. What would you like me to talk you into? Talk me into Patrick Peterson going back into the house he built. I don't know if he actually built it, but I don't think so. Talk me into him going back in there

and just having an unbelievable day, picking off DeAndre Hopkins. I don't know if he'll shadow him. There was not enough to really go on for a storyline as far as Patrick Peterson in week one because Breland's play was so glaring at times. So I feel like this is the true Patrick Peterson debut, and it comes week two against his former team. Fans are going back to stadiums, so you have to be ready

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I think when they moved to glendale from phoenix in the 2000s right like oh three and anias williams i think left right before that but he was like their best player in their history before they went to glendale i think but i'm not sure about the timeline entirely anyway um this will be very interesting because Patrick Peterson was not tested a whole lot and he did noticeably stay on one side I believe throughout the entire game so he did not travel around with a wide receiver and Jamar Chase ended up notably on Bashad Breland and had some big plays there but we just didn't get this feeling of what does it really look like and another problem that we're dealing

with this week is the all 22 film the coaches film has not been put out yet so it's extremely hard to look at corners and go back and say oh Patrick Peterson was actually phenomenal or actually bad because you could only tell on tv when they actually target someone so that's a hard analysis to do so we are kind of getting our first real look at him. And the targets that they have are just dynamic, explosive. Rondale Moore is one of the quickest players I think I've ever seen with the football. His explosiveness is crazy. And he averaged, I think, 17 yards catch last week.

So there's a lot to be concerned about or nervous about with the secondary and with Patrick Peterson going back, because I feel like this will be his first test. And if he does end up on DeAndre Hopkins, I mean, that's one of the truly elite wide receivers in the league. Now, I've not done a good job of talking you into it. So let me attempt to just say that Patrick Peterson throughout training camp preseason didn't show us much we didn't see him in any preseason games on a daily basis in training camp he looked fine it wasn't like he was getting roasted and falling on his face but he is as savvy of a veteran player as exists in the NFL and he knows some of these receivers extremely well. He knows their tendencies.

He knows that building. He knows that coach. He knows their route combinations. That's where I could see Patrick Peterson having an advantage. I don't think he'll have some perfect game, some Darrell Revis or like Marshawn Lattimore against Devontae Adams this last week. I don't think that's what we'll get from Patrick Peterson. Those days are probably in the past. But can he be very good because of his familiarity and his veteran intelligence?

I'm going to say yes. I can be talked into that. I think situationally, and yeah, we didn't see it against Cincinnati because those targets, they saw the weak link very early on. I'm wondering, are we going to, at least in the early part of the season until the vikings get a good look at at peterson's athleticism to know okay is he a step slower going against elite receivers will they just play sides because remember in 2019 or was at the end of 18 they had to start doing that with roads um like because of the injuries and stuff like that and just like him being a step slower will they have to do doing that with Rhodes because of the injuries and stuff like that and just him being a step slower. Will they have to do that with Patrick Peterson at some point?

And just like in Peterson and Breland, will we start seeing somebody shadow, follow guys into the slot, do whatever? I think Patrick Peterson's the best corner on this roster. I really do. But he's also 31 years old. So I think he will go in there and use the institutional knowledge this is why you can probably use more of like the the the zone matchups if you want to if you want to go that route because it relies more on like the intuition and just like the the mental makeup than

it does like pure athleticism versus athleticism um I think he will I don't think he's gonna get like torched by a DeAndre Hopkins. I think he's honestly too smart of a player to let that affect him. So let me double up real quick. I got two that I want from you. One can be sort of quick, and then the other one might be a little more complicated before we wrap up. Okay.

Talk me into why it was a good idea not to trade Cameron Dantzler to the San Francisco 49ers? Eh, well, they're getting on the plane, and Mike Hughes makes that pick to seal the win for the Kansas City Chiefs, and they're like, damn it. Insult to injury. How poetic was that? I mean, my God. I think that they realize we can't give up on this guy just yet. He played 13 snaps on

special teams in the preseason. And I know Mike Zimmer on Wednesday said, well, if he wants to play, he has to play special teams. He's a backup. Backups play special teams here. Well, you got to get him better there first. And I think that that's on coaching. Because if, I mean, you got to do all you can do. If you don't want to play it, then that's on him, and he's going to find himself on the wrong side of this thing eventually and cut him. But it's too early, I think, to move on from him because, you know,

if you trade him away, and the trade was what, for Drake Kirkpatrick or for? Well, I don't know what the offer was. It was just reported that they had called about cameron dancer and i think they are signing drake or pat that's what it was they were signing kirk patrick um because they had the injury to what's his name uh during uh verret yes uh yeah so they hadn't i mean they had a lot of injuries they got hurt a lot in week one. But I think that they still see if San Francisco was willing to call about him, they say, okay, well, another team sees the potential. We can't give up on this yet. And they just, you know, the Mike Hughes thing is just maybe an anomaly. Maybe Mike Hughes won't

actually be good in Kansas City. I don't know you can't that's a bad look start trading away like corners who have been here a year you already lost Jeff Gladney like to a situation that was not within your control but goodness gracious that would just be I think a really ugly look and they don't have any depth like that's the problem like their depth isn't any good but like at least you don't have any right now and I don't think you can afford to do that right that that's the biggest thing for me for not trading him away is that he is depth and I don't have much trust still of Chris Boyd despite how he played in the preseason um there's been a lot of we love Chris Boyd now but um this is a seventh rounder who last year got a chance to play and really struggled so I'm gonna need to see a lot more to be convinced that that's fine.

So it's better to have some numbers. At the same time, if you don't like a guy, just get rid of him. I mean, it just feels like they've just had enough of that with Dantzler, and he is in the doghouse. Yeah, he's definitely done some things that are wrong. Like as far as, you know, where he's at right now with his career and just being a starter last year. Like, I just want to, like, implore this and just drive this point home

that he started last year and he wasn't great. Like, you and I talked about this earlier today where, oh, best rookie cornerback for the second half of the season. Why? Because Jeff Okuda was hurt and was terrible when he was playing. All the other rookie cornerbacks were terrible last year. Usually cornerback is a very hard position to play right off the bat because of what they call you for and just like every advantage

is to the receiver. So it's like, yeah, he was the least worst of a bad bunch. Like let's not look too highly into those PFF numbers just from his rookie season from a short, small sample size. Because, A, he was hurt a good bit of 2020 because of injuries. And, you know, the sample size you have from Dancer doesn't never led me toland alexander that he was going to be a depth piece and that he was going to be using this year effectively as his rookie year to like learn how to play the position right also let's be responsible with pff grades i showed you the chart he had two good games last year with the coverage grade two out of all the games that he played and it was

against mike back up quarterbacks yeah and mitch trubisky right so you know i i could see and and it was always an unknown for me, and I could see why they would get to this place where they just want to play veterans over him. But there is a part of me that says, well, look, if you don't think the guy is going to be anything and you've relegated him to not even playing, I mean, what's the point? But I think I'm talked into that not being a good idea.

I just think it's too early. Like he hasn't done anything that egregious. It'll cost you a game. They'll find a way to use him, and they need depth at some point because their depth is so bad right now. It's too early. It's just too early. Okay, last one, and then we'll pick our scores or whatever you want to do.

Just talk me into this Anthony Barr bar thing not being red flags whistles flares shot in the air just all of the danger that he's not going on ir yeah is that it is that the is that the way to talk me into it because him not practicing today when we were up there i thought i mean well what is what's going to happen here the way I can talk you into this is telling you they know his body they've seen him for you know nearly you know eight years now they know the knee they know it's been a chronic thing for him like on and off and even Zim said some days he feels good some days he feels bad really hoping that he starts feeling good here because you know they're on defense I'm not gonna like blame that

on the linebacking group like they they ran the ball differently in the second half and honestly I felt like Nick Vigil had a decent game is it the same as having Anthony Barr in there no but they'd be okay without him like for another week I. But as far as him and long-term health and him not ending up on IR, this is just something that he's working through and that maybe he has to have another procedure or something else, and then he'll be okay. But until they put him on IR, I guess I wouldn't be too convinced that it's that serious.

Not convinced. I'm sorry. No, that was tough. I think it's a serious not convinced no that was that was tough that was i think it's a serious problem the guy hasn't practiced like i mean he has not been out there in in earnest since august 6th he practiced in limited capacity wednesday last week and then he's dnp he's dnp for the game um i, that's a serious concern for me. It's a problem. Like, Anthony Barr and the injuries throughout his career here in Minnesota,

like, they've been up and down. I mean, you think about the hamstring injury in 2018 and some of the other things, the pectoral injury last year. Like, you need this guy. Like, you really do. I just, I mean, I know i'm basically answering for you but yeah you just um tanked you just tanked that answer i'm sorry it's hard because i know what i believe internally and that's a hard one for me to try to fake yeah that's um that's why the game

is the game so you don't think the vikings will win this contest I haven't picked officially yet I will probably I'm like leaning probably 80 percent towards Arizona at the time of us recording this podcast my picks don't go live until Friday morning so with the ability to change based on what comes out on the injury report who knows but I'm gonna end up picking Arizona in this game I don't think it's gonna be nearly as much of an ass-kicking as it was with Tennessee just, like, laying down and dying in that first game, but I think that Kyler Murray is going to be way too – going from Joe Burrow to this team.

And that's why I was asking Mike Zimmer today. Like, there are some parallels. Like, they go four wide all the time. You got to see – well, not four wide, but you got to see some of that with three really dynamic, really good receivers. Can you take any of those tendencies that you had in coverage and be like, okay, that was good. Let's do that against the Cardinals. I think there's ways to beat them and win this game, but when I think of Chandler Jones and what he did last week, I'm so concerned about this offense still when I think of Chandler Jones and what he did last week I'm so concerned

about this offense still I think defensively they'll be okay like Kyler Murray's gonna get his you can't keep him in the pocket forever that's fine but I am very worried about what this offense like this offensive line it's there's no quick fix Christian D'Arceau is not going to be playing this weekend so Mike Zimmer said it was a long process I'm gonna that leads me to believe it's not going to be this week at all so I don't know I I but I right now I'm not picking the Vikings no what about you I think I'm gonna pick Mike Zimmer pulls out all the stops defensively every scheme he's ever thought of is going in this week because you have no other choice I mean you have to win this and I will say that they win with a Greg Joseph field goal.

Hey, that's what I had last week. At the last minute. And, boy, you were right. I mean, you got the Greg Joseph. It just wasn't, you know, regulation, but he did kick a field goal to tie the game in regulation. Well, and he probably would have again if Delvin Cook hadn't fumbled and the referees hadn't called it a fumble.

So I'm going to go with that this week. I'm going to go with a Vikings bounce back where it will be ugly at times, but the defense does enough to hold down Kyler Murray, cause a turnover or something. They have to force some turnovers. That's something that we just didn't see in week one. So I'm going to go that they win. I mean, I haven't decided on a score yet,

but maybe like 27-24 or something. Close, yeah. Yeah, so. Okay so okay well thank you for your time and you mostly did your best until the final question you know um and we will do not all heroes wear capes that's true uh so we'll do it again that has to do with this but no it's fine nothing