Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about Vikings' win over Lions, Zimmer's postgame and things we're certain about

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin talk after the Vikings' win over Detroit about some interesting comments from head coach Mike Zimmer about the team's final record. What's the No. 1 offseason priority, what is the outlook for Justin Jefferson and what did this year mean for Kirk Cousins's future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hello and welcome to the in-depth Vikings-Lions breakdown, where we go through every single score and every single call by the referees today that led to a, what was the final score, Courtney? 37-35 victory for the Vikings. That's right. I'm surprised that you made it all the way to the end to know that score,

given what was not at stake for this team, but also the fact that they barely scraped by Detroit and should have probably lost that game, but somehow ended up winning it because of two failed two-point conversions there in the second half as Detroit tried to even things out. But man, season's over, and they seem pretty happy when, you know, Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson, Mike Zimmer all spoke with us post-game, there really wasn't the melancholy mood of, man, 7-9, it really sucks, we're super depressed, we're not in the playoffs. It was kind of, well, you know, it's the best we could do this year.

You know, we're coming back, fighting hard next year, a lot of positives to take away, a lot of good things to take over from 2020 to 2021 and sure justin jefferson is an absolute star what we saw today with him breaking randy moss's franchise record for receiving yards as a rookie and then following it up two series later by breaking anquan bolden's record the most receiving yards in the super bowl era had to make sure i got that right it's technically the second all-time on the all-time list behind bill groman uh who set that record in 1960 which just to pivot here that's pretty impressive 1960 and that guy's you know setting like the record that's held like for however many years later thinking of how offenses were were different mike zimmer offenses were more relevant probably in 1960 than they are in 2020 i didn't look into this. Is that an AFL record? It's an AFL record, yes.

Okay, so the AFL, this is like going way back. I mean, that was the original like open it up and throw all over the place league. And then, you know, they kind of, when they merged, went to more of like, you know, NFL sort of style. And then eventually in the 80s and 90s, it kind of went to the more running. But it was really exciting, I think, was that they were trying to throw more and get more attention. So I guess I'm a little surprised. They were ahead of their time.

Right, exactly. So anyway, it's also funny to look back at some of those stats and like Joe Namath averaged like 17 yards of completion or something. They would just throw it down the field all the time. Anyway, that sort of derailed what you were talking about. But I'm just, I'm going to, the most interesting thing that happened all day is after the game. And what you're referring to is the quote from Mike Zimmer to end his press conference was the event of the day not involving Justin Jefferson and records.

He says, we fought like crazy and seven and nine is not great, but under the circumstances and everything that went on, maybe it's the best we could have done. Reaction. You know, it's an excuse. And this is the same coach who all season long, I mean, when we're going back to August, asking about, look at all the turnover you had losing all these pieces.

And then where's the Neil Hunter? Oh, it's a tweak. Where's Michael Pierce? Oh, he opted out. How do you think that's going to affect things? I've never had a bad defense ever. It's just kind of convenient timing of like, oh, okay. Now we're going to use all of those things that we said we weren't going to use as excuses and lean on them as a crutch. And I can understand that to a certain degree during the season. You don't want players to get complacent. You want to see growth. You don't want guys to just kind of give in to a built-in excuse. But to say that seven and nine was probably

the best that they could do this year under the circumstances kind of feels like a cop-out on your way out the door in 2020. That you're going into the season being like, look, we shouldn't have to face any sort of consequences for how the defense played. Our defense wasn't good enough. We couldn't get to the playoffs. We didn't deserve to get to the playoffs. They weren't a playoff team, is what Mike Zimmer said. That's all true, but just kind of the way that that's the final thing that you say in 2020, to cap off the season, put a bow on it. We knew that all along. It's just kind of convenient timing that like, oh, now we can buy into that excuse. Now it's valid when, you know, before, you know, you weren't willing to

concede anything and to really to own up to anything that had happened. And, you know, to my overall point here, it just feels like a weird time to say that considering how he bristled at the notion of any of that earlier in the year. And making it sound as if it was unpreventable. So when I look at the other teams that missed the playoffs this year, especially ones that had in the ballpark of the same sort of wins that the Vikings did, 4-5-6. They either fired their coaches or had their quarterbacks get hurt or had their quarterbacks turn out to be complete trash, like Carson Wentz or Drew Locke, for example. This team had a healthy offense the entire season long.

They're two superstar receivers. They're superstar running back. They're highly paid quarterback. Their entire offensive line outside of the right guard was healthy. And the right guard was healthy for, what, 10 games out of the 16 in Ezra Cleveland. He's going to play, what, 9 or 10 games this year.

So most of the time. How often do you ever get that for a healthy two tackles that were healthy all year until this final game? Your left guard was healthy all season long. Your center was healthy all season long. And on the defensive side, yes, they lost a lot of players. Kendricks was toward the end of the year, but he's thrown Kendricks in there as if they didn't have him all season long,

which I think is a little bit, like you said, of a cop-out. The defensive line was healthy for the entire season. They were terrible. Right. Nobody made you trade for Yannick Ngakwe and then trade him away. Nobody made you ignore the free agent market at cornerback where they did have injuries. But actually the injury to Holton Hill probably made them a little better because they were playing Cam Dantzler more often and he played okay. Not that Chris Jones was any good, but it's negligible, right?

The difference between Chris Jones and Holton Hill, neither one of them was ever going to be any good. So they didn't dip into the free agent market to solve their problems. And then they also lost games they should have won. They should have beat Tennessee. They were up two scores. They should have beat Seattle. They were up two scores. They should have beat Dallas late in that game.

They have the ball with a chance to go win. They should have beat Chicago. They have the game in their hands at the end and so now to say that's the best we could have done when I just named four games that were right there for the winning and a bunch of things that you could have done and the fact that you had a healthy offense the entire year which usually if you're Tennessee or you're Cleveland can get you over the hump. If you have a bad defense, that's an odd thing to say and sort of sounded to me like a plea to not hold him as responsible for this year. Like lots, lots of things went wrong. So not all my fault. And here's how I read that too. What is he talking about there? The defense,

what is Mike Zimmer, a defensive head coach? That's something a defensive coordinator would say, not somebody who is the head coach of an entire team like you were also the head coach of the offense head coach of special teams and the head coach of the defense it just kind of felt like look defense is my responsibility i understand all of these external circumstances were out of my control but look my defense you know we weren't good enough because of these circumstances I'm not going to mention the offense and how they could have helped us in certain circumstances I'm not going to mention special teams I'm just going to take accountability for my group when in reality the whole team is his group that's just kind of I think the frustration a lot of fans have

with Mike Zimmer's approach this whole thing he's a defensive coordinator thinking as a head coach or acting as a head coach and really having more of the focus always being on his defense and I understand they were the weak link absolutely but your offense never made your team better like you had all these great pieces on offense you gave Kirk Cousins the extension Dalvin Cook Justin Jefferson and you're still a team that was seven and nine you didn't get any better this year and you can't just completely blame the defense for everything and all the shortcomings and all of that. Like, your offense did not elevate the team.

And, yes, it all goes hand-in-hand because your defense can't get a stop. But, you know, last I checked, it all kind of goes, you know, it all works in conjunction with one another. And there are plenty of other areas to blame and things that were actually in your control that probably would lead you to believe like you said if you win a couple games here and there you lost by one point to two teams in first quarter first five weeks of the season um you know it's a different story we're talking about a team that's potentially on the cusp of

the playoffs if they could have actually pulled out the wins when they needed to right and yeah I even left out losing badly to Atlanta which is just the the ultimate unacceptable loss that gets you know thrown in there as well and giving up 52 points to New Orleans while your defense or while your offense was actually rolling and giving you a chance in that game I mean there are many ways you could look at this. I mean, the big picture is, yes, when you have that much turnover, you do expect to drop off from where you were the year before, especially on defense. But it just seems like a weird rewriting of the season to go back and say, well, this is about as good as we could have done.

It's like the football people are always into this, like, winning is everything. We got to play our starters in week 17. We can't play Kyle Hinton and lose against Detroit. But then you get to the end of the game. It's like these two conflicting things. Your theory for today was let's throw out all the starters. And by the way, when Kirk Cousins ran, I don't know what it was, like a read option or something, I thought, imagine if he tore his ACL here.

Like you can't trade him if that's what you want to do. And also you won't be able to play him for a year if that's what you want to do. Who's playing quarterback? If you play Kirk Cousins and he gets hurt today and after he got two or three sacks, I thought maybe they should put in Sean Mannion because he keeps getting sacked. He ends up having a great day, but it just seems to be conflicting to me to say, well, we're throwing up our hands. A lot went wrong. It was the best we could do, but we've got to get this seventh win and we've got to drop down two draft spots. Like, I don't really understand how those things add up. If you're throwing up your hands and saying you're kind of all set with this season and there wasn't anything you could do then why did you push so hard to win this game against Detroit and play all of your stars

well I mean going into this game we knew that Mike Zimmer at least the perception he's going to be safe regardless like even if they were finish it going to finish six and ten or seven and nine that his extension hasn't kicked in until the following year. It doesn't kick in until 2021. And he's got three more years. They're not going to fire him now. Like to me, I still think that he probably felt he needed to prove something to,

to ownership and to anybody else making decisions that, Hey, seven and nine is almost eight and eight where he almost won half of our games in spite of all these other circumstances that, you know, were against us. And then shooting ourselves in the foot in other games, you know, probably three or four games there that they, you know, were self-inflicted wounds. So getting that seventh win, you know, the difference between 6-10 and 7-9, it's not a lot. But to say, hey, we got seven wins this year in a year where, you know, we were fighting for the playoffs towards the end of the season. We were actually in at one point. I just think it was a way to kind of make his leash a little longer, you know, show that they weren't going to quit, show that they weren't going to try to, like, tank at the, you know, the final game of the year to get a better draft pick, show that they put the fight in.

Otherwise, why wouldn't, you know, you would have thought that they would have, you know, if they really were believing it kind of on the other side, they would have started trading veteran pieces away at the trade deadline instead of going and using that eight week eight win against Green Bay to be like, hey, we can actually still fight and try to get back in this thing. It's probably the wrong gamble because you know you could have fixed some of your cap issues that you go to to next year you could have gotten more draft capital um you could have done a lot of different things but they went the one route to

show hey we're going to have the perception of going all in and being kind of to back the moves that they made this offseason really so it didn't look like hey we screwed up here we're trying to remedy it but like by remedying it we are admitting fault if that makes sense yeah and i think you make a great point about mike zimmer and needing his team to fight and win this game to show that they didn't quit on him because when you give up 52 points everyone says i think they just quit on their coach and there were certainly some more business decisions today. Anthony Harris will not be returning. My goodness, he will not be returning. I don't know where he's going next year because that was –

for anybody who needed a big game today, I would have said on defense it was Anthony Harris because he's coming off the franchise year. He's trying to get an extension here. It's not going to happen. He's trying to set himself extension here. It's not going to happen. He's trying to set himself up to get paid elsewhere. You know, dropped interception on the, you know, first couple plays of the game and then, you know, gave up the touchdown to Marvin Jones and was assisting on a second one. Like, he couldn't have gone any worse for Anthony Harris. And I wonder how that's

going to affect his potential earnings and the type of deal he's going to get when he goes elsewhere. Which will impact what the Vikings get back, which circles all the way back to the offseason in deciding to keep Anthony Harris to have a roster that could be competitive on defense and make up for the rookie corners and all that stuff for why they needed to franchise tag him. Now we get to the end. The reason that in part they didn't trade him is because they thought they would be getting a third round pick as a compensatory pick. But now that doesn't seem likely that they will because I don't see anybody ponying up 10 or 15 million dollars a year for Anthony Harris after the way he played this season. So anyway, the big picture takeaway from the game, of course, is that it didn't really matter, but they did play hard and they got the offense going together. But I also thought about this game that it was just the most 2020 Vikings game that they've had.

It's like the first couple of drives are miserable. And if they're playing a good team, they're down 20 points right off the bat, probably. And since they're not, they weren't't and they were able to fight back but you know you get a weird play at the end of the half and the offense moves sometimes but then Kirk Cousins throws the ball right into the gut of a Lions player he doesn't catch it because he plays for the Lions there's bad calls and things like that so you needed a lot of things to fall your way to win by two points because you couldn't cover anybody you couldn't pressure Matt Stafford they were talking all game about how tough he was it was like toughness not really required for this one I think he's tough but if you were ever going to play an injured quarterback it would have been against this

defense and he just for the most part outside of a very poor throw into the arms of Harrison Smith, just completely shredded this Vikings defense. And I was like, yeah, this is about right. I mean, this is how every game sort of went, where the offense waits till they're down to start playing more aggressively and throw the ball to Justin Jefferson. And then once they do, they get rolling. But the defense isn't good enough to shut him down. And in a lot of key spots, they come away with a 23-yard field goal. Like why? I don't know why you're kicking a 23-yard field goal in a game like this,

but it's the Vikings, so they do. And they ultimately come out and finish off a close game, which they did sometimes against Carolina and Jacksonville, and sometimes they didn't, depending on kind of how things bounced. And I don't know if there's any other takeaway other than like, yeah, that was a Vikings game for you. Did you have other takeaways from this one? I mean, if we want to talk about Dan Bailey,

I don't think he's going to be on the roster next year. They, you know, he missed a couple kicks today. And Mike Zimmer tells us finally like what happened. I guess he got hurt. He hurt his back on the first kickoff against New Orleans that Zimmer was not considering calling up Taylor Bertolette from the practice squad I don't think you can have Dan Bailey on this team next year and that's not a knee-jerk reaction he's had you know a couple weeks now to bounce back and all of that but you know some of those same and maybe it is the back injury I don't know I'm sure that's incredibly painful and you know you get a lot of your motion from your back and your hips and the

whole thing I don't know so we can either chalk it up to a bad injury or the fact that this has kind of been repeated issues down the stretch of the season that, you know, cost them in Tampa Bay. Didn't cost them today, but he did miss a couple kicks. So I look at that and say, okay, they just gave this guy a three-year extension in March. Are we going to be back to prototypical storyline of Vikings training camp, another kicking competition? Yes, of course we are. But outside of that, I mean, I just,

I look at this defense that had 23 sacks this year, which is a franchise low, I believe. If they don't blow up that entire defensive line, and if they don't go really aggressively in free agency and in the draft to upgrade every single spot there, you need another edge rusher. You absolutely need a three technique that can play. You're going to, you know, assuming you get Michael Pierce back, you're probably okay at the nose tackle position,

but who knows what's going to happen with Daniel Hunter and coming off of the neck injury, everything else. You need to really focus your, your, your money and your mental energy up front, all of your resources, whatever they are, have to be on fixing a defensive line because that's, you know, that helps fix things on the back end. It all, you know, everybody says it starts up front. Well, yeah, it does because if the quarterback has, you know, all day to hold the ball, then your corners are going to get burned, especially when

they're inexperienced and going against really good receivers. So you have to make sure that you address that part of the team in order to fix things because it just didn't get it done this year. I know that they are big on homegrown talent and development and all of that. Well, none of these guys developed into anything that you can write home about and say, yeah, look, we made something out of nothing. There was nothing there this year. You need Ngakwe to finish team high in sacks.

That's a problem this year. And I think it's a really bad look for them, but it's something that they need to hear just to know how bad the rest of their defensive line was. You cannot win in this league if you can't generate pressure on the quarterback. Usually Matthew Stafford is running for his life against the Vikings defense. That has not been the case in either of the meetings this year. So for me, as I look forward to getting into, you know,

the off season and free agency and who they might draft, like I feel like you have to go all in and start looking at the prospects and defensive line and think that, you know, how are they going to allocate those resources? Because yeah, I know people want to complain about the offensive line and say they need to upgrade the guard spot. Like, but let's just, let's just go off history here. It's not, it's not a priority. It's never been a priority for this team and free agency to go after an

offensive lineman. That is going to be a significant improvement for the interior it's not but rick spielman's probably more adept to wanting to go after a defensive end or a defensive tackle i mean they did it with sheldon richardson a few years ago they brought in you know they they made it a priority to restructure everson griffin to bring him back here the year that they could have gone after uh roger saffold in free agency to fix the interior of the offensive line they spent spent all that money on Barr. Like, the list goes on and on.

It's not going to be an offensive line. I mean, like, let's get it through our heads, people. That is not a priority for this team, nor has it ever been. But fix your trenches on the defensive side of the ball and defensive line, and maybe you'll have a better chance next year at actually pressuring quarterbacks. I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There are many great designs. Someone on Twitter recently sent their John Randall shirt,

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SodaStick, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. Yeah, I think that when Mike Zimmer was talking after the game about already being pretty sure that he knows where they're going to go this offseason, he sort of implied like, well, I already know what needs to be fixed. And when you draft over and over and over again defensive linemen and you don't develop a single one of them or get a guy who ends up being a hit, this is what you get when you don't have any cap space to sign free agents. Now, there are some moves that were kind of confusing to me, like Snacks Harrison now plays for the Green Bay Packers. Why he didn't play for the Minnesota Vikings this year, I don't know, because that's a two-gap type of guy who could stuff the middle

and that would have allowed Jaleel Johnson to not play for this team. And I'm not sure why they let certain things continue to happen, even though it was clear that they were not working at all. Even throughout the season when there was a guy like him available and the Seahawks pick him up, didn't play him very much. And then, you know, Green Bay picks him up at the end and I'm watching him a little bit here and he looks okay. And that's all they needed was okay at that position to improve. They needed much better at the pass rushing spots. That's clearly going to be their, their number one thing that they need to fix. I think that where we should go just to kind of put

a bow on this and we'll of course get into Courtney, our draft scout and everything else, but I want to just say things I'm certain of, but one real quick, real, real quick comment. Alexander Madison's pretty decent at football, huh? So is Mike Boone, so is Amir Abdullah, and why these guys never played this year is always going to be such a mystery to me. I mean, Alexander, well, I mean, okay. It's because the head coach is obsessed with Delvin Cook, but they have to justify the contract, call it what it is. They had to show, Hey, we paid this guy a bleep ton of money at a position that does not usually see contracts like that because of the depreciation value.

Let's get our money's worth this year. And, yeah, I think Madison's one of those players. He's not Dalvin. Like, let's realize that he's not somebody who can just step in in the first play. He's going to look electric. Like, to use a running back term, he has to get lathered up. They have to, you know, give him a lot of carry to get him in a rhythm.

Football. And that's just who he is, so that's why it took a couple plays but you know that's that cut back that he did to you know get into the end zone was a really nice run for him off the play action um you know the play action uh catch that he had from from kurt cousins uh so all of that said he's a really good football player it's just like you have to get him going more if you want him to be effective like he's just not somebody who can come in cold and expect him to be great like that's just you know what happened against Seattle when he was having a really good game in place of Dalvin Cook he had like 20 something carries they kept giving him

the ball and giving him the ball and what happens today they keep giving him the ball he looks pretty good so you don't have to be one-dimensional in your rushing attack either that's a big takeaway I think for next year yeah I just in watching Mike Boone and Alexander Madison and Amir Abdullah all play well and I know it's against a horrendous defense but these guys can play and they should be in the game sometimes. I mean, you just, maybe they'll get away with running Delvin cook like it was 2001 again. And he's Sean Alexander or Larry Johnson. Maybe that'll be fine. Maybe he recovers in the off season, comes back,

averages five yards to carry next year, but there's only so much longer you can do this for before it eventually costs you. And when you have these other players who are reasonably decent at their jobs, I don't think that any of them are close to Delvin Cook in terms of, like, superstar talent. Cook is a top-five running back. But can you play Alexander Madison when you're ahead in a game to close it out?

Of course you can. Can you play Alexander Madison for a drive or Mike Boone or mix in Abdullah to throw him the ball? Sure you can. And they just never did that at any point this year can you have Madison and Cook on the field at the same time that is dream seems to never come to fruition for me I used to say it about Latavius Murray and Cook and they would never do it and I don't understand why these are two very good playmakers so that's that's one sort of takeaway for me because I really struggled to come up with any other ones except for Marvin Jones I guess will kill the Vikings forever and very good playmakers so that's that's one sort of takeaway for me because i really struggled to come

up with any other ones except for marvin jones i guess will kill the vikings forever and i think he's a free agent so maybe they should sign him i have one other takeaway i wanted to bring this up to you and see what you thought um when kirk cousins was talking about justin jefferson's big day today he gets you know he finishes the year in 14 games really uh 1400 uh receiving yards because I'm not taking out those first two games so if he would have if he would have played more the first two games of the season where would he have been I mean that's that to me is kind of the big tell there that they you know I wonder you know when you think about where digs was his rookie season and and where laquan treadwell was and all of this stuff and mike zimmer

is is this like an old school coach thing where eventually like this year they realized two games in or after the second game like hey let's not like do the whole like you gotta earn the stripes or he's got to do whatever like let – take the wheels off and let him go because Diggs got a slow start his rookie season. Right. You know, Treadwell wasn't even active, you know, for a big portion. And he didn't catch his first pass. He only caught one.

But, like – and I'm not comparing those situations completely. It's not all apples to apples. But was that a product of Mike Zimmer, you know, trying to do things the way he's always done it and being like, well, rookies don't play right away. Like, blah, blah, blah. Like, you have to earn your spot. I don't know. But Kirk Cousins said something that I wondered about. Like, I'm going to read you the quote here about how, you know, Jefferson, where was it? Justin did another good, great job today. In this offense, we're going to run the ball so

that's going to open up a lot of explosive plays for Justin but he also has to stay patient because it's going to be times where we're running the ball well and we're not throwing it to him every play he did a great job this year being ready when his number was called and just continuing to show up for us is that a warning sign of like or at least like a very read between the lines of this ain't changing. This is the offense. So don't start thinking like digs and think you're going to be getting, you know, 80 catches 8090 catches a year. Is that where we're going here with that? Like, I don't know. I guess what I thought when he said it, and maybe I'm completely off base, but I read into that comment that we're not changing here. It's not, oh, you know, yeah, we realize Justin Jefferson probably should have been going since week one. And, you know, maybe you would have had 1,500 receiving yards as a rookie. I don't know. But we're not going to change the philosophy and go all that different because I like what we're doing right now because it's good for me.

Put it under the same way. Yeah. Put it under the quotes that make you go hmm type of thing here's what I've thought all year long is that there was no way that Justin Jefferson had it lost on him what Stefan Diggs was doing and where Stefan Diggs came from and the circumstances in which Stefan Diggs left like there's no way that Jefferson just missed all that like he is aware what everyone is saying. He's aware that people are saying that he needs the ball more often, and he does. He ended up getting it a lot in total for the end of the year, but there were so many times where early in the game, they were trying to establish the run or throwing shorter passes and not attacking with Jefferson until they were losing. And I could pull up his first and second half. They wouldn't be adjusted for today. But his first and second half numbers are really amazing how much more often they went to him in second halves

when they were absolutely desperate. And I think that it's sort of like the order in which it happens also matters for, you know, whether he's driving success or whether he's just getting catches at the end of games or only when they're desperate and they need him. Hold on. I'll get this because I had this somewhere in an article and now I want to look it up again. Okay. So when they were trailing, he had 50 catches of his what 79 before today is when they were losing. And in the second half, going into today, 47 catches to 30 in the first half, 32, and double the yards, 815 yards to 452. So the point is that if his perception is you need to establish me and not the run,

then he's right. Then he shouldn't be patient. Throw it to Justin Jefferson and you will succeed. So his numbers end up being amazing, record setting. And yet it still feels like you left a lot out there because you always waited until you were losing to go and throw the ball to Jefferson. And just, it's just a fair warning to the Vikings that don't do it again. Like don't make the same mistake again. Make Jefferson the centerpiece of your offense, just as Stephon Diggs should have been, and you'll succeed.

And then run. Then when you're winning, then you run. And pound it down the face of the other team with Delvin Cook. That's the one thing that I think is going to sit so frustratingly with maybe fans, of course, but also that quote implies that with Jefferson a little bit too, like I could have won us some games instead of catching balls only when we were losing. Yeah, no, I mean, I just, I don't know if that signifies that we're not going to see any sort of changes within their approach and things that would make logical sense that,

you know, when you're down in games, you're not running the ball that would make sense you're not killing the clock on yourself and also god forbid you can start throwing the ball to set up the you can you can pass to set up the run right like it's not you know yeah yeah that's that's a pretty modern concept in today's NFL so that's at least how I interpreted it maybe I'm off base and we don't know what Gary Kubiak's future holds I know that he was asked today just about our Kirk Cousins was asked today about you know Gary Kubiak and hoping that he can have the same sort of continuity carrying over from year to year because this would actually be the first time he has the same play caller, I believe, in back-to-back seasons outside of Stefanski from end of 2018 into 2019. It would be Kubiak from 2020 into 2021.

But I don't know. I never got the vibe that Gary is completely locked on for coming back next year after he spoke to us at the end of last week. Yeah, he left it very much of an ear. Yeah, that's something that i look at i'm just like man um you know we'll see because if there's i don't know where they'd go like i feel like you know if you're gonna bring somebody if you're gonna have to bring somebody else in to take over an offensive coordinator if kubiak retired if something else you know transpired i don't know how they would, you know, I don't know if you'd have a whole lot of options just from the candidate pool

because there's a very specific approach that they're taking here. And if you don't believe in it, then you are not going to mesh well with this offense at all. And I think Kirk's statement really kind of set up to don't expect wholesale changes. You're still going to be getting the ball, but like you're not the number one priority here. We're going to be cooking that thing with Dalvin. And that's just, I don't know.

That's maybe, again, maybe I read too much into it, but that's at least how I saw it. I don't think so. I don't think you read too much into it. To specifically say that he has to be more patient, I mean, A, I don't agree. I think that wide receivers who are this dominant don't be patient demand the ball because you're the ones driving success i mean imagine if uh aaron rogers said to davante adams like sorry pal you know just uh you're gonna have to wait your turn because we

have to run aj dylan like no that's not no nope um and the same thing with digs and buffalo they're a number two seed and their offense has driven their success. And their quarterback is what? I mean, he's talented, but is he, like, unbelievable? I don't know, but I don't think so. I think it's their offensive philosophy that's driven their success. Anyway, I want to wrap, though, because it's, you know, week 17, everything's all set.

I just want to say a couple of things that we're sure of for the offseason because there's a lot of things we're not sure of but I think that after today I am sure that Kirk Cousins is the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings for the next year and I might even say that I'm sure he's the quarterback for the next two years I would agree with that at least certainly for next year one one billion percent um and beyond that because you know he's under contract for 2022 it could honestly be extended because that cap hit is so absurd that I think you have no other choice you might be the quarterback for longer than that and I know there's the argument um

that you know they're six in offense they have enough talent on that side of the ball to make the playoffs they don't have it on defense well I don't think that's a complete that to me seems like a cop-out of like well you can't blame the offense they they did their job this year well they didn't though not completely it's not a full job because they didn't beat the winning teams they didn't beat the good teams um and some of that's their fault. Some of that's on the defense, but you know, for cousins, I think you can say he wasn't the problem this season.

Like he's not the issue moving forward. They've got to improve the offensive line. But he's probably good enough to win you games in the regular, certainly to win you games in the regular season and you know, the occasional playoff game here and there. So I do think that they're going to look at this and the regular, certainly to win you games in the regular season and, you know, the occasional playoff game here and there. So I do think that they're going to look at this and be like, look, we have the quarterback position solved for now. Does that mean you don't take a quarterback this, this April?

I don't think that has to depict that. I don't think it does at all, but they're probably not going to. Like in my mind, I would, because I think that you start building for the future. And I think that you start building to, you know, move on from life after Kirk Cousins. And maybe if you really do want to keep this defensive philosophy, you spend a lot of money there and you have a cheaper quarterback like

Mike's, you know, that's really the way Zimmer wants to run a team. He's still going to be the head coach, I guess, but I can't see any other circumstance in which Kirk is not on the roster next year, and even in 2022, it's very questionable at this point. So I want to tell you about Blue Wire Hustle, a brand new program where you can host your very own podcast here at Blue Wire. Hustle was created to give everyone the opportunity to take your podcast to the next level. Or if you want to host a podcast and just don't know where to start, Hustle is the perfect place for you. As part of the program, you'll receive a personal cover.

As part of the program, you'll receive personal cover art, Q&As with Blue Wire's top podcasters, access to our community Discord and e-learning course full of tips and tricks. And on top of that, we'll help you next time. show that wants to grow hustle is an open door leveling up your sports experience acceptance of the program is limited so get your application in today go to bwhustle.com slash join check out the description box to find out more that's bwhustle.com slash join yeah and we're a long way away from that if they go seven and in 2021, then maybe we're talking about something different. I just, after today, the final statistics that he ends up with,

the reasons for them losing this year, ultimately falling on the defense for the most part, it really points toward this team is not going to look at Kirk Cousins and say, boy, we need a new quarterback. The problem is that his cap hit doesn't get any better. It only gets $10 million worse going forward. And so it's always, well, it wasn't really his fault. It was kind of the defense. It was kind of the offensive line.

It was kind of not having a third receiver. And what is missed there is the ties to Kirk Cousins and his contract and how that all works together. What are you certain of coming off of Week 17? I'm certain that they were in a playoff team. I do agree with Zimmer on that, that they were not good enough to be in the playoffs this year. I'm certain that I still stick by my guns to what I thought they should have done at the bye week and traded off some expensive assets and tried to build for the future I think that that probably would have been um the right call even though they took a gamble there but I'm also certain of the fact that

this whole year was panned out as it didn't make sense like the moves didn't line up I remember saying this all off season that like some moves tell you that they're all in some moves tell you they're in a rebuild and certain parts of the, of the team, they are who we thought they were in that sense. Like they did exactly, they, the season turned out exactly how you think it would for a team that isn't really sure which direction it's going. So I'm certain of that. I mean, this team had they

somehow gotten into the playoffs I mean they would have they would have lost in the first round there's no doubt in my mind because you can't stop these offenses right um but other than that I mean I'm certain that the defense is going to still take time and I know that I wrote something about this last week and just to clarify for anybody listening who thinks that I'm suggesting that they're in a rebuild like the jets where it's going to take 10 years. Absolutely not. You can, you were in a rebuild the day that you lost those nine players on defense. You were in a rebuild the day that you drafted nine of 15 on defense in last

April. Rebuilds on defense can take one to three years. It probably will. Like I'm still very confident in that take of mine. Um, and I think that a game like today, you know, it's, it's the end of the season. The guys didn't quit. I mean, it's all, you know, neither here nor there, but it just proves to me further that you need to invest in a lot. You have a lot more work to do on defense. It's not like, Oh, you get these guys back and it's fixed. You have to upgrade the roster in a number of different ways i agree with all

that uh especially the part about just not snapping your fingers and oh daniel hunter's back everything's good like that's i don't think that they're that close um especially if some of these things and some of the players that we're not sure of just don't end up working out I mean you're going to have a new safety I don't know about any of your cornerbacks going forward I don't have a whole lot of confidence in Jeff Gladney at the moment or that Cam Dantzler can stay healthy at the moment or that you know someone like Harrison Smith won't have a decline in his play next year. There's a lot of questions to still be answered. And there's, think about, they had so many pro bowlers at every level

when they had a number one defense. I mean, they had, what, three on the defensive line. They had two linebackers who are pro bowlers, not just that particular year, but in general. And, you know, a safety who was in Harrison Smith at a Hall of Fame level. I mean, there's a lot to still go if they're going to get back to that level. And I guess the question is, you know, how much can they do in a single offseason? And how good does the defense have to be to get them to be a very good team?

Like right now, they're not close to being a very good team with a real good offense, real talented offense. So how many, you know, how many players does it take to go from seven and nine to twelve and four where you're a legitimate contender again um i don't know if they have enough capital and money to be able to do that in one year with many other questions so the last thing i'm certain of i i'm certain something will be done this offseason that we never see coming because it's the vikings they always do stuff that takes us by coming because it's the Vikings they always do stuff that takes us by surprise so it's the reason to be now excited that it is the offseason court no I'm thrilled

for the offseason I think that we made it making it 17 weeks plus another month and a half of training camp and all the the preseason stuff without a preseason, you know, every team, especially the team at the Vikings that didn't have some massive outbreak, they weren't, you know, they were really locked down from the COVID standpoint, which honestly, every team that didn't have some crazy sort of outbreak or were reckless with it should be proud of themselves. Like, and I think we, you know, having made it through this season and it's just such a weird year where your coverage is changing because you're all dealing with Zoom interviews and what have you, all of that.

Like, it feels like an accomplishment just making it to the finish line. Like, I don't think I've been this exhausted at the end of a season. And we, you know, my first year here in 17, like they, you know, I start from day one when I get here in August of that year and I don't finish up until after the Super Bowl so I don't I haven't been this tired just because it's been such a grind and a grind that no one's experienced before and you're still learning on the fly going into week 17 um that to me shows it's kind of just like can all exhale now and I think the team kind of feels that way too I mean they I know we only had a very limited sample size of players that we talked to this

afternoon um after the Detroit loss but nobody was really hanging their hats on not making the playoffs that's just kind of the vibe that I got from Zimmer to um hanging their heads uh from Zimmer to Cousins to Jefferson they all seem really excited that they beat a crappy Detroit team. And they're just ready to end this season and get to next year. Yeah. Justin Jefferson said that he's going to take a long vacation. Not same Justin Jefferson. Purple Insider will not be taking a long vacation.

It will be diving directly into free agency, the draft, and what we can learn from the playoffs and what is next for the vikings and of course you as always will be a big part of that and i appreciate your breakdowns uh all season long courtney and now get out the courtney r draft scout hat shirts socks all of it because it's time yeah she's about to come out of hibernation um there is a lot of tape to be ground oh yeah um grinding and ground oh my mistake assume that's the you know the active verb um so there's there's a lot going on there she's you know tonight will be kind of her transformation into coming out into um you know moving forward in january like my current self is gonna go hibernate and

take the vacation and do all of that but draft scout is coming she's you know there's so much tape to be ground i just can't even draft simming to come and oh my god there's mock analysis i mean it's exciting i mean i might even just do a full seven round draft sim this week i i think that that's the only appropriate thing to do. So we will be getting together constantly and doing these things, and it'll be super fun. So thank you for all of your contributions after games, breaking them down, sometimes with wild rants for both of us.

And now it is time to go all in on the offseason, though. So I appreciate your time.