Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about a bizarre week in Vikings land, moving Kirk, injuries and the final record

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

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the Chevy Silverado is in a league of its own. Strong, advanced, and dependable. Download TE1 today, wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with TSPN's Courtney Cronin. And Courtney, it has been a week. It has really been a week. My mentions are a complete truck fire after writing that it's not really all that realistic for the Vikings to tank right now.

And their chances at Trevor Lawrence aren't super high despite an 0-2 start so how's your last few days? It's been good probably better than the Vikings considering they've lost what feels like a player a day to injury with Troy Dye going on IR, Anthony Barr four days or three days prior going on IR, now you have two cornerbacks who don't look likely to play on Sunday. And then another one enters the injury report today with Chris Boyd and a hamstring injury. So I mean, it's just a lot. I'm great, I guess, comparatively speaking to the team that we cover. But it's just kind of amazing to me as I've toiled over the last few days following the Colts loss and figuring out, wow, this went south very, very, very, very, very quickly. Of all teams that are 0-2 right now or the ones who were really struggling,

I think the Vikings are the ones who did not anticipate being where they're at more than any other team in the NFL. The Jets stink. They anticipated stinking. If you ask people to speak reasonably and realistically about that, I don't think anybody in that building in Eagan anticipated that they would look this bad through the first two weeks of the season. That's just kind of why it feels so jarring at the early part of the year.

It also kind of feels like we're writing off the rest of the season in a season that we anticipated playing out so differently than what we're seeing right now. Okay, let's talk about that for a minute, because I went poking around to see other prognosticators who picked the schedule and who, you know, named the division winners and so forth. So, you know, the athletic and other different places like that, see what everybody picked. And I didn't find anyone except for our friend Eric Eager on this very podcast saying 6-10 for the Vikings. There were a few 8-8s,

and there were a lot of picking the Vikings to win the division. And you and I both set the bar for them, which I feel like is a little different than saying if we were betting a lot of money on it versus where the bar is set. So we set the bar at 10 and 6. If I were gambling, I would have taken the under, though, which is kind of because I always felt, and I think you did too this offseason, that they were walking on thin ice that if something went wrong like say him Daniil Hunter has a quote tweak and then he has to miss a bunch of time that they are so thin in so many areas that if someone got hurt that there would be a domino effect and they would fall off and they

would not make the playoffs I think we all saw that possibility coming to enter the season 0-2 with allowing the second most points in the NFL and being a disaster on offense to where they only can put up 11 points against the Indianapolis Colts and the only touchdown is very late in the game. That is something that I don't think anybody, any of the prognosticators or us saw coming. So what did we miss and were we in the same boat as ownership and as the front office and as the coaches who seemed to go into this season thinking that they were going to be a division contender I don't know that we really missed anything just and I know that probably sounds like a cop-out if we know know everything. We picked this to happen. No, we didn't. But I can't remember a time where I was so bought into the offensive continuity that this team had. It's the one thing they talked about until they were blue in the face all offseason long,

dating back to that Monday press conference after the San Francisco game where Zimmer talked about wanting to keep the same, same, same everything. Same play calls, same play design, formations, same play calls, same play design formations, verbiage, the whole thing, which is just pointed to at that point, they're going to try to hire Gary Kubiak. They did. And all of that was supposed to bring out the best in Kirk Cousins and that, you know,

he had five offensive coordinators in five years or whatever it was. And this is the first time he kind of had a little bit of continuity carrying over from the 2019 season and that you know at that point everybody was the same on offense well you trade Stefan Diggs you get Justin Jefferson okay it's not going to be as good as it was but you have a first round receiver you'll figure out how to use them wrong um I just I always kind of felt in the back of my mind that this offensive continuity argument, or at least the perceptionins everything literally has to be status quo and the situation has to be perfect around him the product of his supporting cast in order for him to succeed so the second you start taking pieces of the way the second things aren't great it's going to be hard for him to replicate that success that he had in 2019. So I always never really bought into that. And I never

bought into the fact that the offense was going to be able to pick up the slack for the defense in a year that was supposed to be all along about player development, even though they made the trade for unique and Gawkway and all of the pieces were there for them to look really good on paper as a defense. Again, it felt kind of like this house of cards that was going to fall apart very easily once they actually had to get out there and perform. And that's exactly what we've seen. It shouldn't surprise anybody that they're this bad. It really shouldn't because they're built for 2021.

They're not built for this year. So that's kind of the thing that, you know, we expected them to be able to be like, yeah, sure, like we're built, you know, for the future, but we can still win now. They just, it doesn't surprise me at all that they're in the situation that they're in right now because this felt more expected than unexpected, if that makes sense, because we know the strength of this team and it's going to be its defense and when you pull that away you're asking way too much of a unit that has been such a yo-yo since

you know the last few years ever since Kirk Cousins got here and I just don't think that this is a team that's built to be able to outscore opponents and pull the weight of a defense that now is decimated by injury it's even worse a worse state than it was to start the season I think the way that we looked at it before the year was there was a very clear-cut best and worst case scenario with this team that the best case scenario was that Irv Smith Jr. takes a huge step forward Justin Jefferson is ready Delvin Cook is still dominating but healthy throughout the whole season. And you make up for the absence of Stephon Diggs. And you have some

offensive linemen step up, Ezra Cleveland, Drew Samia, and so forth. And then on the defensive side, the cornerbacks are more ready than we expect them to be. And that even though they might have some struggles, it's not as bad as Xavier Rhodes last year and the safeties make up for it and the linebackers make up for it and all those things and you can really talk yourself into it in part because the Vikings had just not been bad in such a long time not truly bad since 2013 was the last time you looked at them and went oh my gosh this team is a mess and then Zimmer comes in and they had just never been a mess under Mike Zimmer. And so why would you expect it to look this bad starting off when under this coach, it had never happened. And under almost every coach, except for Belichick,

there's always this time that you hit, there's a wall you hit. At one point, Marvin Lewis is one of the best coaches in the league and has a 12-4 season. The next year, he's 6-9-1. And Andy Reid even hit a wall eventually late in Donovan McNabb's career or maybe after McNabb was done. You end up with, I think, I'd have to check, but a 6-10 or something like that season that everybody gets to that point eventually when the roster

runs its course and then if you don't have a quarterback who can just keep you afloat even though you have a struggling team and then these injuries have been such a huge part of it where if you don't have Daniil Hunter all of a sudden you're in big trouble you have your star nose tackle opt out I think this is a very different result in the first two weeks if you have Daniil Hunter and Michael Pierce on the defensive line with Yanni Kingakwe. I think that that's a lot different of a look than it was for these first two weeks. So when we sort of lay it out for what this season could be, the best case was you go 10 and 6, and that's how you kind of pick the schedule then because you don't know what could go wrong. But the worst case was always written.

And I guess my question is, do you think that they saw the worst case or just tried not to ever acknowledge it? Because, I mean, when we were doing the, you know, pre-season type of interviews with these people throughout training camp, it was like Harrison Smith said, oh, I didn't know we were supposed to be bad I guess the yeah I'm just finding out like well here yeah well you're bad so uh I just think they didn't want to believe it yeah it never seemed like they could wrap their minds around the Minnesota Vikings not being competitive with Mike Zimmer as their coach sure and the fact is like you just paid your quarterback a lot of money to extend him to keep him here. And you thought you made moves that would yield a win-now type team. You can do all that all you want.

Like, everything's good on paper until it's put forth into reality, right? Like, with the defense. I mean, I remember writing after Ngakwe was traded here that this should be a team that's top 10 in defensive efficiency just like they were last year like they were the year before like they were in 2017 because it makes sense star players yield yield good results right but then again it's like when you think about it in realistic terms you have a whole position group that's down this year with your cornerbacks like it just to anticipate that you have all these other players who are able to pull along a unit that has been decimated by free agency and now is with injuries and you have young players having to step up against really good quarterbacks and really good wide receivers

that they're going against because let's face it the Vikings were a good team last year good enough to where the schedule is brutal for them in the first five weeks of the season. Of course, like, it doesn't look that bad. But once you start parsing through and you start realizing, did they really make any changes to the offensive line that were going to pan out in 2020? No, they didn't.

Did they really make any changes to the defense in a way that you would anticipate things playing out and better than they are right now? Well, yes, but then circumstances happen. Michael Pierce opts out. Like you said, like you didn't sign a three technique and you didn't draft one. Well, Everson Griffin, you couldn't get him to come back. All these things that I think they were,

they thought they might've just been able to overcompensate for or beat out didn't go their way like they just that's just the way it is and um I think there was just too much faith put into changing the identity of this team where the offense could carry the defense because it has never been like that in these seven seasons Mike Zimmer has been here. I mean, you even heard him say on Sunday that, you know, this is not the way that we play. And no, it's not because you don't have an offense that can score at will with others when your defense isn't able to pull its weight. That's just the way it is. And I don't know how easy it is to change your identity based on your personnel and the strength of your personnel, and especially with who you're

playing with now and probably what this team's going to look like five six weeks from now which is why so many people are already looking towards 2021 there's a fan base that's saying tank for Trevor because it's just very unusual territory to think about this team being an offensive team that can that has the firepower to compete with the likes of Green Bay, with the Saints, with the Cowboys, with high-octane offenses across the NFL, that's never been their MO. And I don't think it will be. And even in a year like this where so much has gone wrong,

I just don't think that you can change who you are fundamentally this quickly to be able to survive. And my main point on Tank for Trevor, by the way, is not that it would be the bad move. It's that it isn't really feasible unless you are going to bench Kirk Cousins today, because there are some teams in the league who are so bad. They are already, even though you're all 0-2, they're already looking a leg up on you. The Jets specifically, I think, are missing their top three wide receivers this week. So they are out in front of you. And Sam Darnold can absolutely continue to lose a bunch of games,

and so can Daniel Jones. But Kirk Cousins cannot. So, I mean, not lose to the point where you're going to go 1-15. So unless your plan is to bench him, benchvin Cook bench Harrison Smith or trade off everything including I mean could you trade Cousins I don't think so at this point but I mean I mean I don't know you never know if someone's quarterback got hurt and they wanted to trade for Cousins that's really the only scenario but I don't even see that and that's talking about this year alone to get to that point where you could get Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields you are going to have to be so so bad and I just don't see that as being a possibility and you're going to pick the schedule a little later but I I'm not telling anyone that picking Trevor Lawrence would be a bad thing for the organization um speaking of the

offense though because like I feel like this week I've obsessed over the big picture here and there's some small picture things that are developing that are really interesting. And one of them is Gary Kubiak talked about how he needs to find ways to get the ball into the hands of Justin Jefferson. Totally agree. And through watching back the tape, I'm going to say something that people might be horrified by and maybe upset and may get some pitchforks out, but I didn't think Indianapolis was entirely Kirk Cousins' fault. I looked back at all 22, I couldn't find receivers open. I mean, there have been times in his career he's missed open receivers, but I couldn't find them. He threw some interceptions. Some of them were on him and other ones a Hail Mary, but there were, but even the interception, he just heaves it up to someone in double coverage because no one else is open. And I guess I'm sitting here saying, I'm not even sure what else he was supposed to do on Sunday between the offensive line and the scheme, not getting people open and the receivers not being open. And I kind of went to Kubiak he was looking at himself in

the mirror today and wondering maybe this is something we just didn't anticipate was Kubiak is going to have to work himself up to that fastball he's not just coming back after not calling plays for a while and throwing 100 miles an hour that's a fair point and Gary did take ownership and accountability of the fact that he's got to get guys open. I mean, I think it's just like a hard thing for people to stomach and to fathom that your $33 million a year quarterback needs you to handhold him in this sense and scheme guys open. need the help of their offensive coordinator, but when you have somebody who is not able to overcome play calling, and if a play breaks down, you know, change up the line of scrimmage, that whole thing, I think that frustrates people, because Kirk was looked at as the missing piece, as the answer for this team in a Super Bowl, and it just hasn't panned out that way, so now we're blaming play calling, like, and just to be honest with you, I mean, I went back and watched all the interceptions. The Jair Alexander one in the second quarter, I think it was in the second quarter of that,

whatever it was in the Packers game. Thielen was, you know, running an outbreaking route. Kirk threw the ball inside towards, you know, Thielen's inside shoulder. That's not on Gary. Kirk had all the time in the world on that throw. The interception, the jarring one against Indianapolis when he's throwing in double coverage, he's forcing it. B.C. Johnson was breaking over the middle of the field. He was open. I'm not going to say he's wide open. I mean, he's a second-year receiver, so, you know, I just don't think Kirk Cousins trusts his other guys.

Is that on Gary Kubiak? Maybe. But, like, you know, the more jarring thing to me is the safeties and just kind of what the play calls were. Like, these play action drops when you're backed up towards your end zone and kind of, like, everything that transpired in both of those and leading up to both safeties and a safety play itself, like that doesn't,

it's not a mark of a team that is really like aggressive and something that you should fear. That's kind of soft in my opinion, when you're calling that. And when you're honestly, it's just, when you're calling a couple of play action passes here and there to get Kirk Cousins comfortable, like that, that to me screams somebody who needs like half field reads and is that on play calling sure but like shouldn't you expect more out of your quarterback at that point like that's just where I struggle like I think that there's plenty of blame to go around and yeah Gary Kubiak has not had a fastball the last

two weeks as we've seen um but is there a balance between Kubiak finding ways to get Herb Smith involved, actually, you know, establishing the run? Like, I know this sounds kind of silly, and people will argue with me, oh, you don't need the run to set up play action. In this offense, you do. I'm sorry. Like, because it hasn't worked without it. And Dalvin Cook has gotten going way too late.

And I know Gary even today was talking about the, you know, per carry but we haven't run it enough we'll run the ball more that's on Gary Dalvin Cook doesn't call his plays so that's on Gary um but beyond that I think that it's kind of this perfect storm between bad protection on the offensive line um Kirk Cousins not trusting. He doesn't have a contested catch monster in Stephon Diggs anymore. Like, you know, everything's going Adam Thielen's way. That's where coverage is being dictated towards by defenses. It's very obvious. And Kirk's got to trust other guys are going to get open for him, but he doesn't. Like that's just, that's, I mean, think about what Kyle Rudolph said two years ago. It's not, it's very obvious, like, how people feel about Kirk and, you know, his teammates and about him getting, him giving them chances and things like that.

Like, that's not going to change. So does that go to Gary then to make the, you know, to make this, all of this reads very obvious so he's not having to, like, dissect defenses and read coverages just knowing he has to throw the ball to a certain spot then yeah I could see why people would say okay Gary is the blame there. I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports inspired goods if you have not seen this stuff yet you've got to check it out one of my favorite designs is of the Metrodome I have a t-shirt of this one myself, and it's perfect for those of you who grew up going to the Metrodome. All of their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft,

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really well. Los Angeles, Philadelphia, where the other team had a great defensive line, and he was able to get the ball out quick, run screens, run quick slants, and things like that to make up for the fact that Tom Compton was their starting guard that year and was just getting annihilated by the likes of Aaron Donald and Fletcher Cox. And so they were trying to get the ball out quickly. And we've just seen nothing come easy for him in the scheme. And I think that that's where I question the play calling through the first two games. Not, I mean, the safeties, of course, I got that.

And that was a fun little debate we had over, should you play action safety here or play action back into the end zone? Cause you could get a safety and all that but in terms of the overall last year Kirk Cousins averaged something like eight yards an attempt behind the line of scrimmage because there were a lot of really successful screens to Delvin Cook and then he could hit deep passes because they were running successfully and all that stuff but this year everyone knows exactly what's coming before you even step on the field. So if you can't execute it at a super high level, there's got to be a different answer for them. And that's where at least last week, there was

not a different answer. It was a lot of the same. He came out with a couple of more bootlegs, but that's still like everything can't just be mash the play action button mash the the bootleg button like you just mash the Delvin Cook button like there has to be a consistent successful passing game at some point there has to be easy completions that result in big yards like even Patrick Mahomes who is the greatest quarterback that we have seen and I don't know how freaking long like maybe since Peyton Manning at his peak right but how many easy yards and completions does he get every week on little screen passes to Tyreek Hill or little throws to running backs out of the backfield that he made all these bad running backs or even okay running backs look good with

these little passes out of the backfield? Like that is something that has not existed in the first two weeks. And if it doesn't exist, then I'll take it back. Like Kirk could look this bad all season long. I don't think it's possible, but if they don't find ways to get him easy yards, you're exactly right that he will not throw it to a covered BC Johnson. He will not throw it to a covered Adam Thielen, a double that I'm feeling very often or Justin Jefferson or Irv Smith.

Like he he'll just hang onto it and take sacks or throw the ball away or whatever it might be over and over again for the whole season. Yeah, and that's the thing. I understand what you're saying. Give him some gimmies, right? Drop some quick screens. Drop a few quick play-action drops to get his confidence going. To give him some easy yards, essentially.

Like, don't make him – he doesn't need to take deep shots at the beginning of the game or anything like that, but find ways to make him comfortable so then you can get a little bit more aggressive as the game goes on. But like you said, I mean, the play-action game hasn't been there, which is just kind of concerning because this is a guy who led the league with 13 play-action touchdowns last year. He's attempted eight play-action passes total this season.

So that's just kind of weird. And that's on Gary. That's on play-calling. But when it comes down to Stephon Diggs, I know that we talk about him ad nauseum, but it's important because what you're seeing, they haven't been able to replace what he did so well. Certainly he was the deep ball threat,

but Justin Jefferson ran a 4-4, 4-4-3 40-yard dash. He's a straight line speed guy. He can be your deep threat, but why aren't you using him to clear out underneath for Adam Thielen or using Thielen to clear out for Jefferson? You know, why aren't you running these deep overs off play action and having Jefferson be that guy? That's what Stephon Diggs did.

Hell, that's what Adam Thielen's done before. It's like, why can't they use the playbook, or at least parse through it, to use pieces of it with Jefferson, with the personnel they currently have? It's not like, you know, Jefferson may be young, but he's obviously played at a very high level before, and he runs a pro-style route tree. He knows what he's doing, and you can ask considerable amounts from him. I just don't really understand why those type of plays have not been called

to try to bring out the best in your quarterback, because you're right. There's just not a lot of variety. It just feels like we're seeing the same thing over and over again. And they can't, you know, they can't win games that way because defense is A, regardless of whether you're playing against this soft cover two that Indianapolis plays or playing, you know, a team that's going to blitz you all the time. They're just, it's just very easy to figure out what this offense is going to do. It seems like it's very predictable. And the other point on Jefferson is even if you feel like he doesn't have the route tree mastered, can you just give them the football somehow?

I mean, I think that everyone would sign up for that, that of just run a reverse with him, run a toss sweep with him. If you have to throw a bubble screen, throw us a quick slant underneath, or I mean anything to get the guy running in space, because over these first two weeks, they have had nobody get the ball in their hands and make a play. And I would say the same thing for Delvin Cook. If you're going to use Delvin Cook like Terrell Davis in 1997, I mean, that might not be the most effective way to use a guy who could come out of the backfield and make plays. So he did line up in the slot in one play late in the game.

And I thought maybe this is a hint to where this has to go because running up the middle worked really well for them last year because Pat Elfline, I know that everyone is driven insane by Pat Elfline. He was a top 15 run blocker in the NFL last year by Pro Football Focus. I can guarantee you that will not be the case with Drew Samia. I can guarantee you that will not be the case with Drew Samia. I can guarantee you that will not be the case with Dakota Dozier. And Josh Klein was fine. Josh Klein was the best right guard they've had since Joe Berger. And not to say he was great, but he was fine.

And he knew what he was doing in the blocking scheme and so forth. Now they have two guys that are well below average, and I'm not even sure you can run behind them after what we saw the other day with DeForest Buckner just eating them alive. there's going to have to be creativity here and that's where you go I'm not so sure that Gary Kubiak is the there needs to be creativity guy and I'm not trying to be ageist and you know that we talk about all the time we we love Gary but when you're out of the game for a bit, I even remember this from Joe Gibbs, a football life that when he was out of the game for a bit and he came

back, probably John Gruden went through this too. Things had changed and it took some adjusting. And that might be what we're seeing over these first couple of weeks. Now, I also wanted to ask you about Mike Hughes, a neck injury. As we record this, he did not practice again, which points to bad things for Sunday. Usually if you don't practice Wednesday or Thursday, you're not playing on Sunday, a neck injury, same issue we had before. And I mean, are we going to look at Mike Hughes at some point and just say,

I don't even know. I don't even know what this guy is. I don't even know if I could say like like, he was a bust because he couldn't play or just because he hardly ever played. I think we're going to end up looking at this like he was doomed to fail from the start because the injuries held him back, and he was never able to fully assume or play up to the level of his draft positioning. You know, it's unfortunate um the whole bus label I mean the reason I bring that up is because I see that in my twitter mentions

just about every fifth tweet that's sent my way since this guy's a bust he you know but would you be saying that had he not had the ACL tear I don't know I feel like he just was so behind in his development and so much is being asked of him. And the perception that he's supposed to be this veteran at 23 years old in his third season, when the guy came into 2020 having 20 career games under his belt, that's unrealistic. Like, stop it. Like, what the team should have done in my eyes, and I think, you know, it's a realistic thing, is bring a veteran along. This guy's still learning how to play cornerback in the NFL because injuries have limited him in so much of the first two years of his career that it's kind of unfair to put these expectations on him because he was behind from the start.

Ever since he injured his ACL against Arizona in 2018. And then just the surgery and all the fallout from that and how long it took him to recover and come back. I just think that he was set up in a way the injury just hurt him. And I'm not going to blame it entirely on that. You'd like to think that he could, you know, be what you drafted, but it just doesn't appear that's going to be the case and I think it's because the outside expectations have set it up

to where okay he's a first round corner like you've got to you've got to live up to that at some point he just hasn't been able to um and I think people freak out too with Jeff Gladney being a first round corner and he hasn't played great um early on because like what we saw from Mike Hughes in those first few games as a rookie probably appeared more promising than what you're seeing now with Jeff Gladney. I mean, even someone like Cam Dancer. But, granted, look who was playing with Hughes back then. It was a decent Xavier Rhodes before the decline in Trey Wayne.

So I don't know if it's fair to judge it in that respect. But, you know, pretty soon, I mean, if this season goes the way that it's trending, and obviously before next year they need to determine if they're going to pick up Trey Wayne – or excuse me, Mike Hughes' fifth-year option, you might not be in a great situation. He might not have himself in a great situation to make that happen. This is going to have to be a huge turnaround for that to happen, especially for how much the fifth-year option costs for corners, which people are paying more and more for corners,

which means the fifth-year option costs more and more each year. And usually you'd be talking about, okay, the way this team does it, sign a guy to a fifth-year option and then sign him to a long-term contract extension after that or or decide whether you want to after that like they did with Anthony Barr or not doing that with Trey Wayans and but in this case you might be talking about not even doing the fifth year option because you're just too concerned about his injuries and where this is going to go in the future because if if, I mean, multiple neck injuries just sounds like this isn't going to go very good. I mean, anytime, that's the thing with Daniil Hunter where, hey, look, leave them out as long as you need to leave them out because A,

none of this matters. And B, it's Daniil Hunter and a neck injury could mess up your entire career as a pass rusher. Well, the same goes for a cornerback. I mean, we're talking about getting your head around and all these things. Not that a neck injury isn't a big problem anyway, but if it's keeping you out for the second time, that's where you go, uh-oh, this could be a pretty bad situation. And honestly, I feel for the guy because there's nothing you could do about

these injuries. In ACL, those happen to a lot of players. A random and kind of bizarre neck injury, I'm guessing that this one has something to do with the last one. And you get in a situation where we might never, ever find out whether Mike Hughes was actually good or not because we saw flashes. Last year in the Giants game, he's terrific. In the Dallas game, he was awful. And then this year, he struggled mightily against the Packers

and then was good against Indianapolis. And then Cam Dantzler getting hurt so quickly. Coming into the league, his big thing was the guy has no meat on the bones. He weighs nothing. And then he gets a rib injury right off the very start, and that's not great for him either. That's one where you go, that'll recover a rib injury right off the very start. And that's not great for him either. That's one where you go, that'll recover the rib injury. But still, are we going to be talking about that with him too?

And Jeff Gladney not starting. And he's got the knee thing. And all of a sudden it's like, remember when we were talking about how all these young corners were going to be better than Rhodes and Waynes? Well, not if they never play. Or when they do play they're hurt and I don't know there's there's no like oh guys you should have seen this coming to it it's just that when you talk yourself into things like the young corners will be fine we don't need to sign Drake or Patrick

or Prince of Makamura well think about maybe the worst case as well as the best case yeah no I mean I think they were placing too much of a responsibility on this cornerback unit to come along as quickly as would be required to play at a competitive level and to be good and to be able to, like, hold their own. You needed a veteran presence there. You needed a Logan Ryan. You needed a Drake Kirkpatrick.

You needed somebody who had played the position more than 20 games over the course of their career, like Mike Hughes had, to be that presence. As much as Hughes was being relied on kind of as the teacher of this group, you know, kind of like player coach, they're looking to him, hey, you've done this, you've been in this defense. Well, he's still a student himself. And I think that's a lot for him to shoulder. So the way that I look at it, I don't think it's really Mike Hughes' fault that things are the way that they

are. And I don't think that you could blame that he hasn't come along quickly enough. I think it's just, you know, this front office, I mean, the decision that they made to not really kick the tires on any corners, that's a serious, it's kind of a serious thing. It's not playing out the way it's supposed to. That's probably one that you regret. I mean, there's a lot that you can regret from things that they've done in the off season to where they're at right now. But the fact that they never really came close on signing any of the veteran cornerbacks that were out there to me was just really bizarre because that felt like the most obvious move. I know that I had several assignments where i had to pick kind of like

what would you expect to happen and that was one to me it seemed like a no-brainer get back to the conversation just a second but even though sports took a break your business didn't you have to keep moving and that makes hiring more important than ever indeed is here to help indeed.com is the number one job site in the world because indeed gets you the best people fast unlike other sites indeed gives you full control and payment flexibility over your hiring you only pay for what you need you can pause your account at any time and there are no long-term contracts at all. Plus, Indeed provides you with powerful tools to make your search even easier, like sponsored jobs, which are shown to be three and a half times more likely to result in a hire. And with 73% of online job seekers visiting

Indeed each month, Indeed is going to get you the important hire that you need, just like they have for over 3 million businesses. Right now, Indeed is offering our listeners a free $75 credit to boost your job post, which means more quality candidates that you will see fast. Try Indeed with free $75 credit at Indeed.com slash BlueWire. This is their best offer anytime, anywhere go right now to indy dot com slash blue wire terms and conditions apply offer valid through september 30th yeah i mean guard corner situational rusher all these things we talked about and talked about and talked about and nothing happened and now it's coming back to bite them because Eddie Yarbrough isn't your situational rusher and Drew Samia is not the answer at guard and your cornerbacks are hurt and

maybe not ready for this the fact that Zimmer didn't play any of the previous crop of highly drafted corners until basically their third years tells you exactly how hard this is to do. And then to put so much pressure on these guys all as a young group to handle it. I think we always saw that as this could go sideways fast and here we are. It's gone sideways fast. So now Chris Boyd shows up on the injury report and it's like Harrison and can Nate Meadors come back and play corner? Is Terrence Newman around?

I've made that joke. I saw Captain Munderland tweet, hey, Vikings. So, I mean, right? Like, what are you going to do if Chris Boyd is also banged up? He's got a hamstring injury. I don't even know who's playing slot corner. It must be Jeff Gladney would be the plan here. That's my thought, that it would be Gladney at nickel.

I mean, he'd be playing the whole game, because he's going to have to play outside too, and it would be opposite Holton Hill. But when they're in nickel, Harrison Hand, or you call Mark Fields back up. Is he still on? No, he's up. Yeah, Mark Fields is up.

He's up, so I guess you use him i know mark fields yeah that's that's that's just that's the state of things where we're at they can't they can't fields a defensive back group here oh my god um i do unfortunately so i mean he'd probably have to start outside uh if you're in nickel and then have gladney in the slot outside holton hill but oh man that's you think he'd be the offense's mark for that week mark fields yep there you go that's why you do the podcast and that's why people listen uh so bad uh and i'm also not i'm also not convinced holton hill can like play good play good. Are you? I feel like he gave up on a couple plays, to be quite honest with you, last week and – or made, you know, what we call business decisions not to tackle. Oh, against the Rivers, yeah, especially against Rivers

when Rivers was trash-talking him and he elected not to lay him out, which I think said quite a bit about how everybody was feeling that day. But I think it's just – it's possible you talk these guys up, you say like, oh, well, he's got the potential, the potential, the potential. But we only saw a tiny bit of him in 2018. And that was with a really good defense overall that pressured the quarterback constantly. Now he's actually forced to cover a lot and it looks like he can't play. So if you have a Holton hill that can't play

jeff gladney in the slot where he's never been before really outside of training camp and mark field slash maybe an injured chris boyd and possibly holton uh i'm sorry harrison hand ryan tannehill is going to throw for what, like 400 yards? 400 yards, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes, yes. Like, there's no way around it. And I just, you're going to be exposed one way or the other. Last week they chose to play the corners differently to try to help them out, and what did that yield? Jonathan Taylor carving up the run defense by and large throughout like the

first three quarters of that game. So it's not going to look good. And I don't know if it's fixable at this point. The expectations of that group were just too much. You can't, I just, of any position group, like that is directly responsible for keeping receivers in check and trying to limit the effectiveness of passing games across the NFL with really good quarterbacks. You can't have first year, second year players,

third year players who have been injured for most of their career. You can't expect them to be awesome. And I don't know if it was just that we bought into some of the hubris that like this is the cornerback guru and Mike Zimmer and he can figure it out. And, you know, the other corners were such trash. So how much worse could it possibly get? Well, I think you're finding that out right now. And it's like, pick your poison.

Would you rather have Rhodes and Waynes back here, given what happened last year versus this group? It might not be as bad to be quite honest. Oh, no, they were close. They had no money. They had no money to be able to do that. You know, so yeah. I look at a lot of,

a lot of the things that they've talked themselves into the same way as my golf game is that, you know, our buddy Sam Ekstrom and I were playing not too long ago and I made two long putts and Sam said, you know what know what man you might just be good at putting and I was like you know what hell yeah I am good at putting and then of course the next time we played no long putts were made and it really turned out that it just kind of fell my way that previous day I was I didn't have any secret sauce for how to make long putts. I was just kind of hit it right. And I think that this team with some of the, hey, we can just draft late round

defensive ends or three techniques and turn them into stars. Or hey, we could just draft corners and we'll just develop them and they'll be great whenever we want at kind of the snap of our fingers. I think those were kind of long putts. Like, yeah, you did something that got you there, so you deserve credit for it. I get to write down a birdie, but if I'm going to count on that all the time going forward, I probably shouldn't. And it turned out for the rest of the summer, I didn't hit much long putts. And the same goes for the Vikings.

And, you know, I think that they kind of – you could talk yourself into – well, this is the cornerback guy, so anyone they draft will just work. And that goes back to the, hey, maybe you should have had your, like you said, Logan Ryan or whoever else, because I think that the funny thing about this situation, as bad as it is, it didn't necessarily have to be. It's just that the worst things that could have happened are happening, and that's where you're at. So I have one more subject before you pick the Vikings rest of the schedule to wrap this up, and that is, is Anthony Barr done being a Viking forever after, I mean, well, really just in general because of his injury.

Maybe. I mean, they can get out of that, right? So 2019, he comes back. It's basically the first two years, and then it's a backloaded contract after that. It would have to be in a situation, I think, where you're trying to cut your losses,, you need to unload Kirk Cousins however you can, but you also need to create salary. If you can't, then you're trying to create salary cap space elsewhere. So if you can,

if you can dump his contract or cut him and get rid of him, just move on. I think you might. That's always kind of been the one that you looked at when he shortchanged himself a lot to come back and play here. You look at that contract and say, okay, well, at 2021, you know, after the first two years are over, there's probably a way that they can, you know, cut their losses with Barr and move on.

And I think it's honestly just because you talk such big game about making this guy a situational pass rusher and it was just never like you just never played out the way that you wanted it to right so it's like well you've seen what you're going to see with him do you really need to see more do you really think it's worth investing that much in keeping him around past this season he's got a 15.5 million dollar cap hit next year kendrick's goes up to 12.53 um it's expensive so i'm looking at it right now if you cut him in 2021 you have it's it's it's just like gosh it puts you in a bad spot there's a 7.7 million dollars in cap savings but the dead money for that is 7.8.

So that's a lot like, but it would be huge. It would be after that though. Yes. And, and it's sort of like a, the digs trade where it got you a little now and a lot later. Sure.

But once a team starts accruing a bunch of dead cap space, you're like, you start looking at them a little side eye, like something going on. Are you guys okay? Are you guys going to be all right with all that dead cap space, you're like, you start looking at them a little side-eye. Like, is something going on? Are you guys okay? Are you guys going to be all right with all that dead cap space? Because usually that hinders you eventually, and it will for them.

With Barr, you ever think, I'm trying to think of like a comparison with Anthony Barr and becoming more of a pass rusher. It's just like, maybe when I was a little kid, my parents always talked about taking us to Disney World and never did. And it was sort of like maybe there's that to it. It's like someday we'll go and we'll plan on it. Okay, great. And it just never, never, ever happened. His press conference after he comes back, they're talking about, oh, yeah,

more of a pass rusher and all that. Just never, never, ever happened. And I think it's fine that it didn't happen. It's just funny to me that it was nonstop discussed, and even through this whole offseason with the Friday mailbag questions I get. Is Barr going to become a pure pass rusher? Like, no. No, he's not.

We're never going to Disneyland. So, you know, but I think that if Eric Wilson plays really well, he's going to be cheaper than Barr in the future, even with the dead cap situation. And then you mentioned something about getting out from under Kirk. I am putting odds Kirk Cousins is a 2021 quarterback at about 95% at this moment. Maybe this could be our like Kirk-o-meter watch or something.

You could do a pie chart with this one, to be quite honest. My whole pie chart is Kirk's coming back. And then the other ones are just tiny little slivers. Am I wrong at putting it at 95%? And at this moment, in September of 2020, it's just not even a discussion that he's not the quarterback in 2021. I mean, unless you honestly go 1 in 15, if you have a chance to draft Trevor Lawrence, you do it. No question. But I just don't think that they're going to get there.

Like I said this, I think, on the podcast on Sunday. They're like a team that's in this weird purgatory state where they're never going to be so terrible that they lose every or almost every single game. Like they're a 5-11, 6-10 team on paper right now, and that's not good enough necessarily to get you the top quarterback that could be your game-changing, franchise-altering player. But if you have the chance to do it, you do it, and then you just have to take your, you know, just take your lumps and say, oh, like, Kirk's a very expensive backup at this point on

our roster um you cannot dump this contract it is essentially effectively a fully guaranteed contract again with the two-year 66 million dollar guarantee because of the way it's structured his base salary next season which is 21 million is fully guaranteed beyond that that 35 million dollar base salary in 2021 becomes fully guaranteed on the third day of the league year in in that seat in next year so his 2022 base salary let me say that again because i remember when this whole thing came out i was like what like his base out the way they structured this you're paying for him in 2022, three days into the 2021 league year. So how are you going to trade him? Who's going to want to take on that contract?

You have tethered yourself to this guy, and it is your own doing. And I think that the Osweiler situation isn't quite comparable because he didn't have a $45 million cap hit. Like, he had a cap hit, but it wasn't like this. The other thing I would say, too, the Detroit Lions had a wonderful case to draft Tua this year, and they picked Jeff Okuda. The San Francisco 49ers had a great case to pick a quarterback in 2018. They stuck with Jimmy Garoppolo.

Washington, the football team, had a great case to draft Tua. But a lot of times when teams make a decision on who our quarterback is, they stick with it and they go with it. And I think that it's possible that even if the Vikings were drafting in the top three or four, that they would not do that, that they might even trade out and take the tackle instead of taking Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields. I think that that's possible. And I know that anybody who just heard this, if you're in your car, you drove off the road. If you're near a window, you jumped out of it. But I'm telling

you, it's realistic. That's the Detroit Lions. The Detroit Lions had about the most miserable year ever last year. And they still didn't pick a quarterback because they're sold on their guy, Matt Stafford. And here we are. He's 0-2 again. I mean, Matt Stafford, the most celebrated 68-81 quarterback of all time. I've never seen a quarterback do so much losing and get so much celebration as Matt Stafford.

But I think that they feel the same way. Like, he's our guy. We can win with him if we put a good team around him. I think the Vikings feel that way. And also, if you draft Trevor Lawrence, you better be handed in your resignation papers after that. Because you signed Kirk Cousins to an extension and told everyone he's your guy. This is the real him in 2019. And if that's the case, that means you were so freaking wrong that you might as well just walk away.

So I think that it's very possible that we don't see that even if they get to the top two, which, by the way, they won't. So you're saying stubbornness of this front office and the willingness to the non-willingness to concede. Yeah, we screwed up would prevent them from drafting Trevor Lawrence if they had a shot at him. Yeah, I think there's... To protect their own jobs, not for the sake of the franchise. There's no guarantee that they take a quarterback in the top two if somehow they end up getting there, in my mind, because they're the ones that extended Cousins and were sold on him

as being the 2019 version. They have pushed all the chips to the middle of the table with Kirk Cousins. They've said, he being the 2019 version, they have pushed all the chips to the middle of the table with Kirk Cousins. They've said, he's our guy, he's our franchise. And to double back on that means you were wrong about everything. And so if you were wrong about everything, then you might as well just not be running the team anymore. If you were this wrong on this position, that's how I look at it. And so I think it's always been, hey, we just got to give Kirk this, give Kirk that, and it would still be that. And I might be completely wrong.

I'm just saying it's possible that this circumstance, as we've seen before with San Francisco not drafting a quarterback high, and we've seen with Detroit not drafting a quarterback high, that we could run into the same thing. So, all right, this has been epic, and you have to finish it off this way by picking the rest of the Vikings schedule. So this weekend against the Titans, what do you think?

Loss. Okay. 0-3. They go down to Houston. Loss. 0-4. I think I know the next one. Yeah yeah loss we are that one hasn't changed it's they're starting i already said they're starting out oh and five you can't flex that one

too early uh falcons on october 18th the game that they want to have fans at i think that that's going to be a win i don't think they're starting out oh and six going into that week seven by i really don't okay at green bay sorry go ahead no that's fine i i don't i don't i just don't think they're starting out 0-6 going into that week 7 bye. I really don't. Okay. At Green Bay – sorry, go ahead. No, that's fine. I just don't see that. But they're not – like we said, they're too talented to be absolutely atrocious. But they're not able to overcome enough to be better than where they're at right now. So I think that you're on – I mean, I'm not going to give,

I'll stop there because I'm not going to give away kind of what I have in my head for this team. But yes, at Green Bay, I think that that will be a loss. Okay. Then they play Detroit on November 8th. That will be a win. Okay. At Chicago, even when we thought they were going to be good,

we were giving them L's at Chicago. That's still going to be a loss because it's Soldier Field. Okay. Dallas comes in, which Fox has. This is their 325 game because they thought this was going to be good. Can you flex that out at that point? I don't think so. I don't think so.

I think you're stuck there. So the Cowboys at Vikings. That'll be a loss. All right. Panthers and Jaguars, why don't we just pin them together, unless you think there's a difference at this point? I'll say that Carolina is going to be a loss. All right. Panthers and Jaguars, why don't we just pin them together, unless you think there's a difference at this point. I'll say that Carolina is going to be a win. I think Jacksonville is going to be a loss.

Okay. So they have three wins going into the final quarter of the season where they play at Tampa Bay. Tom Brady looks decent so far. Loss. Okay. You have the Bears at Minnesota. Win.

All right. They go down to New Orleans I'm going to say that I'm still keeping that as a win I think that Because there's always some wild Yep Doesn't make any sort of sense Like when the Browns beat the Ravens last year Like it's just

It's always something wild So what do I have now? I have four wins at this – I have five wins at this point. Five wins at this point, and they're playing Detroit. Detroit at Detroit to end the season. January 3rd, 2021, the best year of our lives. That's a loss, so they are a 5-11 team. Okay.

That's about – I have them 5-11, 6-10 at this point, too. I think the same way. I think that they steal one earlier than you have them stealing one, maybe against Houston, but either way. Houston's a toss-up. If Houston loses this week and both teams are going in looking for their first win of the season, I might say, gosh, it's weird. Houston's more talented on paper, but I just, I don't know.

Deshaun Watson's the better quarterback. And if you're dealing, I mean, but then again, if you get your cornerbacks back, which I don't know if it's really that much of an advantage, maybe you're in a better situation going to Houston if you're healthy, but, you know, you're still down Daniil Hunter probably at that point because I I have said this I don't think he's coming back anytime soon even though he's got the he's got the ability to come back off IR at least uh after three weeks which would be the Houston

week then you're down Troy Dye is not going to be able to be at that game Anthony Barr is out for the season um who knows what other injuries will pop up. Like, yeah, I just think that that's still going to be a loss, but it really will depend on how good or bad Houston looks against the Steelers this weekend. Here's what we know. It's not going to be normal, and it's going to be a wild ride, and we'll be there for every bump and every twist and every turn. So, Courtney, thank you for your time as always.

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