Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about whether the Vikings loss to Rams signals the end of Mike Zimmer's tenure

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin get together to talk about Justin Jefferson's frustrations with the play calling and the lack of energy surrounding the team heading into the game against Los Angeles. Now as the Vikings go to play the Green Bay Packers, is this thing over? Why do the Vikings always seem to end seasons like this? What we will remember about the final days of Zimmer's tenure if ownership decides to move on? Get your football tickets at TickPick.com/insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Tick Pick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, ESPN's Courtney Cronin here with you, working on just a couple of hours sleep since you did ESPN show in the morning and had to wake up at 3 a.m. So we will try not to test your patience here with this. I mean,

covering this team is testing everybody's patience and everybody's sanity and everybody's health. I mean, there's COVID in the quarterback room. There's COVID in the building. There's bad football on the field. Like we're all victims at the moment. And there goes my alarm that was supposed to, that was supposed to wake me up during Mike Zimmer's press conference.

And I slept through it. So this is off to a roaring start. Thank you. Well, all you missed was Mike Zimmer trying to say, look, don't do the Jefferson thing with the digs thing, like so forth, which, you know, I think that it is being viewed differently because what happened to digs and even let us not forget Adam Thielen's agent earlier this year, tweeting out his own frustrations about the way that the offense was being run.

And I think when you have one guy who's a star in Buffalo who worked his way out of here because of the offense and because he wasn't getting enough passes in his way and they couldn't figure out how to get over the hump. And then you have another guy whose agent is publicly earlier this year showing his, you know, how upset he is about how his client and the offense is going and all that. When Jefferson makes comments, then it's like, okay, well, another guy is upset. I think clearly everybody is, but you know, I don't want to start with that because I think that's sort of obvious. Like, yeah, Jefferson's not happy and you better figure out a way to make him happy. But I wanted to ask you about like how you're going to remember the final days of Mike Zimmer,

because at this point, I'm not saying that I'm 100 percent sure, but I just feel like there's a difference between a team that goes down swinging. And I remember Sage Rosenfels talking about how no matter what the Houston Texans for Gary, Gary Kubiak wanted him to get to 500, even when they had a bad season. And when the talk is there's no energy in the building, Jefferson's upset after the game, you kind of no show against the Rams. If it happens in green Bay, that this team gets steamrolled the way that they did against new Orleans. Like that's how I think we're going to remember that sort of the defining trait of this team was that when push came to shove,

they got shoved down, even though their coach had a fighting mentality, but so often they could not win the games that they needed to win. And it's really defined the last four years of football for them. Everything came to a head for me yesterday when Mike Zimmer was the one who pregame, I caught him out of the corner of my eye having to break down the huddle. That's not something he typically does. So that's why I asked Anthony Barr about that post game. Like, why did he do that? That's just not normal. It's not ever like Zim to get into the middle of a huddle of players. He's 60 something years old. He's not Sean McVay or one of these younger coaches who gets in there and, you know, chest bumps with guys and rah, rah, and all that stuff. And he's not a college coach for the love of God. So like, I just was so weirded out almost

like by that. Cause I'm like like what is going on that is not normal that they switch that thing up and Anthony Barr's answer was so telling just of how from the get-go they realized something was wrong Zim realized something was seriously wrong and looked at them and said bring your own juice because it's dead in here. You and I were looking at each other pregame 15, 20 minutes before is there were more than enough time for fans to get to their seats and people are kind of lollygagging. And we said, good Lord, it feels really dead in here for us, a game that has critical importance for the playoffs and everything else, a must-win situation for them to run the table here, like the whole thing. So if we felt it, certainly Mike Zimmer felt it. The players must

have felt just, damn, the situation we're in, he's feeling tight right now. If he feels that he has to be down here hyping us up because he doesn't trust us to bring our own juice, which I think we'll speak to at the end of the day, not that players quit on Zimmer, but I think that the message, I think that the shtick, I think that the overall attitude and philosophy is starting to fall on deaf ears. I think that guys are just tuned out at this point. And I'm doing a feature this weekend and I sat down with a player, which you'll read about this weekend. I sat down with a player last week and we just kind of were talking about everything that he was going through, like for the season, the ups and downs. And I remember asking him about Mike Zimmer's relationship with him and to paraphrase here and by the players Eric Kendricks I'm so tired I don't know why I'm being like coy about

it the players Eric Kendricks I'm doing a story on Eric Kendricks but like I just I want to make sure like I don't misquote him but like to paraphrase here because we were talking about Mike Zimmer and just like you know by and large Kendrick has been the linchpin of this for two years, even though he himself was hurt last year at the end of the year and had to miss time. He's been the one constant that hasn't been in flux for two years of ups and downs with this unit. And we just got on the subject of Zimmer's relationship and, you know, with him. And he kind of like said, like, you know, I don't I don't really know. I asked myself that question kind of often and I don't really know where it stands. And I was pressing him a little bit on it, but we ended up kind of just, you know, working through that.

And he didn't really say much, which to me, this is Eric Kendricks. This is one of your staples, one of your guys, one of your ones that when there is a problem on the team, whether it is we're not fighting Jacksonville in training camp to everything else that's going on in the locker room and taking the temperature of the locker room, he pulls the same guys aside. Eric Kendricks, Anthony Barr, Harrison Smith. I'm sure there's guys on the offense that just can't even think of them right now, probably an Adam Thielen, but I know those three are guys on the offense that just can't even think of them right now, probably an Adam Thielen.

But I know those three are always in the mix. For him to say he didn't really know where his relationship stood with Zimmer at this point, to me, really hit me. And I don't really know what to make of that, to be quite honest. I kind of walked away from that interview thinking, huh, is he saying that it just kind of like is what it is like he's over it like he and Zimmer are just you know there's no there's no coming back from where they're at at this point in the season or is it did something change something happened because I wouldn't expect that answer from Eric Kendricks where he's been here since 2015 he's one of Zimmer's first you know he's a second draft class so one of his first guys like and he's been here since 2015 he's one of Zimmer's first you know he's a second draft class so one of his first guys like and he's been around like for him not to be like oh my god this is my dude like through thick and thin and maybe I overestimate the importance of what a coach

and a player relationship is supposed to be but you've never played anywhere else you know nothing else so if this is somebody who is not like pound the fist in the table at least openly like you know right then and there when when we were talking about it for your head coach I I wonder how the rest of the locker room feels and and that's why I say but I just kind of feel like for weeks Zimmer has resigned himself to the fact that it's probably at least just in gathering him and what he says in post games press conferences it almost kind of feels like he's at peace with whatever's going to happen because it's too tall of a mountain to climb it is too tall of a mountain to climb and he probably

needs to win multiple playoff games to secure his spot so it just kind of feels like he's resigned himself to the fact that it's out of his hands. And I tend to think the players have too. So I think you touch on something really interesting here and maybe I've told the story before, but my favorite, a football life documentary is Curtis Martin. If anybody wants to see it, it's on YouTube. You could go find it. Or if you have game pass really easy to find, it is amazing. And one of the things that Curtis Martin did in his career is when he won the MVP, he gave the MVP trophy to Bill Parcells. And imagine, imagine like this is a guy who came from nothing, like an incredibly dangerous upbringing where, you know, he just had nothing

and he worked his way all the way to be an NFL MVP, which is, you know, he just had nothing and he worked his way all the way to be an NFL MVP, which is, you know, almost impossible, right? What are the odds? And he cared so deeply about his relationship with Bill Parcells that he gave him that trophy. And then Bill Parcells talked about how he has it like front and center. It's like the thing that he's most proud of as a coach that his player would give him his MVP trophy. And there's this Parcells has this ability, had this ability when he was a coach to connect with players on a deeper level. And they didn't win a Super Bowl. I mean, they had some good winning teams, but they went to a Super Bowl once with the Patriots, but they didn't, you know, they didn't win a Superbowl with that team. So there's a different like, oh, well, he just remembers him because they won the Superbowl.

It's not like that. Parcells seemed to always have this ability to connect with people on a different level than Mike Zimmer didn't take away from him. I guarantee you, he took away the X's and O's and being hard on guys and sort of, you know, busting on them and trying to give them a hard time and things like that. You see him do that with players, trying to joke around with them and kind of talk trash to them. But there isn't, there has never been the comments from players that say, you know, Mike was really there for me, put his arm around me or whatever else.

That just has not happened. Even when Charles Woodson was here interviewing Harrison Smith about them both playing for Zimmer, most of it was like how hard he was on them and they they're great players. And he has been a really good coach along the way. Uh, because I don't think there are too many people that know better how to scheme who know, uh, how to teach systems and things like that. I think he's really good at all that. But when it gets to this sort of push comes to shove moments and you need to beat the Indianapolis Colts in 2016 at home or when you need to go down to Green Bay

and stay alive in the playoffs the following week or when you need to go down to New Orleans, and I know they were beat up and there's always some reason, and the quarterback is also at the center of all of this because, you know, sometimes your culture is only as good as your best player. And when your guy who matters the most, no shows for four out of the last five weeks, it's hard to make the playoffs. But at the same time,

like they haven't had that extra level when things have gotten tough in many circumstances here, really over the last few years. And you could point a lot to a lot of different places, but I think that that comment from Kendrick's is kind of how everybody responds that we've ever asked, like, what's your relationship like with him? And it's like, well, he's a great coach. And that's what you always use. Great coach. But what, what is it personally that you connected with him? There's very few people who we've heard stories over that over the years. And I for certain want to make sure, like, I don't think there was any sort of malicious.

There's absolutely nothing malicious that came from Kendrick's and that, or him being like, you know, forget Mike Zimmer, this, that, and the other thing. I just thought it was interesting. A guy who's been here since 2015. It's not like he's a new player like a Patrick Peterson who just had like one year with with Mike Zimmer or someone like you know a different maybe even like a younger rookie who's like Justin Jefferson who's been here two years it was just that Kendricks has been here since 2015 he knows nothing else other than Mike Zimmer and for it to be like yeah I just you just, you know, I don't really, I don't really know where it stands right now. Like that just kind of hit me. And I,

and I felt for him a little bit on that because like you said, no one will ever question Mike Zimmer from the football acumen standpoint, people will question his in-game decisions. They will question whether sometimes he'd lost his fastball with some of his defensive calls, but when it comes down to it, the man knows football. The man knows X's and O's. But, and I felt this for a while, I think the message is lost on the younger generation here. And you have older players who are towards the end of their careers or gearing up towards that.

And those guys are just different than the younger group in the locker room. And that's what I tend to think when you get a group that comes out flat and can't gel that way, when you have, you know, the generations of the Chris Boyds, the Harrison hands, the cam dancers. And then on the other side of it, in that DB room, you've got Xavier Woods, who's a seasoned vet Harrison Smith and Patrick Peterson were way seasoned vets um it almost feels like it just can't mix and I'm not trying to say anything about like I've been in the DB room I know how bad like I know how bad or good it is it just I think the older players are kind of probably the last of the breed that will buy into what Mike Zimmer's saying and and

see that this is a way to get it done. Cause I think a lot of these other young guys, I know young is a relative term. Like Justin Jefferson's a baby, right? Like he's 22 years old. Like, but some of these other younger guys, these younger players, I think they look around the league and see how other teams are getting it done. And not everybody's a player coach not saying that but the message from mike zimmer the the hard ass stuff the

you know it works sometimes but then when you when you need to cut when that's like your like baseline and you need to come back to that like every once in a while you need a foot up your ass right like you need that but you cannot have that be your mentality every single time. Cause that falls on deaf ears eventually. And people are going to tune that out. So I do wonder if the hard nature, you know, and grind it out and you know, the Parcells and stuff, I wonder if that's worn so thin that players have tuned it out now and are

just kind of laissez-faire about getting the season over with and just moving on and maybe trying to get a new voice in here. Hey everybody, Minnesota football is in full swing and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for Minnesota football tickets because TickPick, that is T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site. It's the only one you'll ever need as your go-to for football tickets. TickPick got rid of all those awful service fees that the other ticket sites charge, which allows them to guarantee the best prices on all of your tickets. Don't believe it? If you can find better prices on the same seats on another site, TickPick will give you 110% of the difference. Now we've had lots of exciting

games at US Bank Stadium this year. It's always interesting when Chicago comes to town. So you're going to want to go to TickPick.com and check it out and make sure it's tick pick.com slash insider, because you can save $10 on your first order for Minnesota tickets. That's tick pick.com slash insider. And I think that to your point, all these guys have the internet. I mean, they all have each other's phone numbers. They all talk to each other about what their circumstances are like. And I think what we've seen even since 2017 is there has been pretty monumental shifts in the league. And that goes for not just the way that some of the younger coaches are coming in, McVay emerging, even Brandon Staley, not that I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame as a coach yet, but the more modern way of coaching in the NFL,

I think is more toward a Brandon Staley than it is toward a Mike Zimmer. And that's not to say that if this team had better quarterback play or, you know, Danielle Hunter doesn't get hurt or whatever, they wouldn't be in the playoffs. But there has always been this missing that we've been talking about. And it seems like in the, in the biggest and most important games where you can sort of either go one way or the other, like, Hey, we're

going to dig our heels in and find a way, or we're not, um, the Los Angeles Rams gave them every chance to kind of say, no, we're going to go to the playoffs, but then there, you know, there's look when, when you've been at this since the middle of July and you get to the end of December, it really does come down to how much you want it. I mean, it is such a grind for everybody that, you know, there may be people who want to go home and in some positions against the Rams, they played like there were guys who kind of want to go home and just be done with the season and don't want to try to go through the playoffs to lose in the first round anyway. And that, that to me is kind of how I will remember the final weeks potentially of Mike Zimmer's time coaching.

This team is just, just the apathy from everybody. I mean, and, and really honestly, like there, there have been other years where I think that they've lost and players have wanted to rip our heads off and Zimmer's wanted to rip our heads off for just you know doing what we do but just we're there and we're the ones asking them the questions I haven't even felt that really I mean it hasn't been like how dare you guys question us been like yeah yeah you're right those things are a problem I mean it it really even with Jefferson is like you know what did you want to see well I want to see us you, give me the ball in the red zone or be more aggressive. It hasn't been that sort of a indignation that you expect from or not. I mean, that is, I think probably the worst place to be in professional sports is when your fans are apathetic and so are your players and your coach is trying to do everything he can to get them

to bring some energy to a key game and he can't get it. I mean, that's just not a good place to be. And that, that is probably the best argument for why there needs to be a major change. When you're done, you're done. And there's no coming back when you get to that point where it's like guys can either take it or leave it. Like there's, we talked to Patrick Peterson today and I kind of sensed a little tone in his voice and just kind of like, yo, like there's, you know, we, you know, we have an outside shot looking in now. Like it's not, Hey, we're still in this. The NFC is wild. 24 teams are, you know, still in the playoff picture.

Like we got to fight like hell and we'll be there. It was, yeah. And we used to have a chance. It's an outside chance, but like, we still got a chance. That's, that's it right there. And apathy from your fan base, that is a trickle-down effect to the players. And what was most telling to me yesterday from Anthony Barr, like when you were talking, my antenna was going up,

when he walks in, and he had a good game himself, but all things considered, he's probably pretty ticked. That first interception, they're at the 11-yard line. They gift them awesome field position and kick a field goal. He has another interception, they're at the 11-yard line. They gift them awesome field position and kick a field goal. He has another interception. He has a quarterback hit, seven tackles, two passes defended. He had an awesome personal game. But when he was asked that first answer yesterday afternoon,

good personal game for you, but everybody else struggled, quote, we can't worry about what the offense does we just have to continue to do our job as best as we can minimizing scoring drives and continue to get turnovers oh my goodness you and I looked at each other like sometimes we tried to do a little side I like doing to decide like that was a full-on like about face to you like I turned 90 degrees and just like glared at you because that was so, oh my gosh, like a moment like that. Like we're not even trying to hide how we feel anymore. We're, I don't care that I just threw the offense under the bus and said,

well, we did our job. Can't worry about what the offense does. Like read between, you don't even need to read between the lines. I didn't wrote it out there for you. Read that. My goodness. Like, so it's that type of stuff when we're talking about the potential end of the Mike Zimmer era, where I think players are not going to be afraid to voice how they really feel. And I applaud Anthony Barr. I applaud Justin Jefferson for giving us the real on Sunday. And I know Mike Zimmer said, don't make anything of his comments today. Like I know where you guys are going with this. Like I know it's 10 minutes after a game and he's heated. You know why interviews are the best right after a game. And typically when we can get guys in the locker room, because that's raw unfiltered emotion and

it's nobody trying to be like, gotcha. It's trying to get to the core of it before you realize, oh, well, football is politics. If I say this and I'm making this person angry, I might not get playing time. Like you don't have to worry about any of that stuff or momentarily that stuff doesn't matter. So like I appreciated from the bottom of my journalistic heart, I appreciated the two of them going up there and saying what they did instead of the usual that we get from Kirk Cousins of like, I'm not going to have a good answer for you until I watch the tape on this. All of that. Maybe for the final Kirk Press conference, what I'll do is ask him about all the plays again after he's watched the tape because we've had so many times.

Yeah. The one thing that I thought about, because you said, have we covered any other season where guys at the end of like, you know, at the end of the clinic with Adam Thielen on the sideline, like Kirk was very blase after that game. Everybody else was hot because that was their chance to back their way into the playoffs. Kirk and his year zero comments, whatever. We know what that was. Like that was, that was a really bad look for him but I remember being in that locker room and just how awful those guys felt of good lord we were supposed to be a Super Bowl team this year because the the notion around us Mike Zimmer, Kirk Cousins, Rick Spielman may

have never uttered the words we are a quarterback away from the Super Bowl but optics are everything as we know here like that's how that team felt. That was how it was presented to the team. Guys were taking pay cuts to stay here. And then they get let down in the final game of the year. I remember guys were hot after that game. Everybody except Kirk cousins, because of his press conference. But that's the attitude where it's like, we just fought for 17 weeks.

And what does it result in? Eight, seven, and one. Like, guys, we're not happy. And I feel like at this point, they'll say it differently publicly. I feel like guys want to go home. Guys want to check out for the offseason. Think about how long this bleeping year has been. Going all the way back to before the start of training camp,

you lose the guy who's supposed to be helping your novice play caller call plays and your offense struggles mightily because of it. And then there's COVID and then there's injuries and then there's just everything. Like, I think people are just kind of tapped at this point with, with everything that we've seen and just kind of where this thing's going. It just feels like two more games and it's done, which, you know, brings into, into spotlight, the green Bay game. If they know show in green Bay, that is all you need to know. And yeah, COVID is in the quarterback room. It's obvious like that to me, I was going to point this out one more,

like one more thing when you're talking about what is the end of the Mike Zimmer era going to going to be, what do you have to remember it? If for some reason, Kirk Cousins ends up testing positive because we, he said it himself yesterday, like it's in our building. And I know I'm not a scientist, but I know the Omicron variant affects vaccinated people differently than unvaccinated. But unvaccinated, clearly, Dalvin Cook can still wind up on the COVID-19 reserve list. If they're down to Kellen Mond or even Sean Mannion, if you can come back, because Kirk Cousins pops positive and can't be there for Green Bay, that is Mike Zimmer's gigantic, I told you guys this was going to happen. And it might've been a long shot for us to get in, but the quarterback torpedoed our season because he wouldn't get vaccinated. That I think will be,

that's like cherry on top of this mound of BS that they have dealt with all year of self-sabotaging because of that. I, I, you know, you hope nobody gets it. You of that. I, you know, you hope nobody gets it. You hope nobody's sick, you know, but like, it just feels like they're playing with fire right now. And if that happens, I can already hear what Zimmer's going to say post game.

My God, that will be a not, you do not want to miss that if that really happens. Yeah, if Zimmer decides that this thing is probably over, um, I mean, we'll be there for whatever podcast or one, uh, or I'm sorry for whatever, uh, press conference or whatever zoom call that happens. But, uh, that, that that's going to be, he'll be more honest than ever. Uh, at the end, I don't know if he'll do, if they,

if they let him go, if he'll do a press conference at the end, some guys do,. I don't know if he'll do, if they, if they let him go, if he'll do a press conference at the end, some guys do, but I don't think Zimmer will. I remember I was around when Chan Gailey got fired in Buffalo and he did one and sort of said, I'm sorry, it didn't work out. Like we tried everything we could. And, you know, I, I feel bad that I didn't give you guys what you wanted and kind of did it in a very classy way, but I don't know that Zimmer will do it. But I was going to say to just a couple of your points there. I mean, one of them is this, this resigned feeling, I think comes like, think about this. Like I'm not tall enough to dunk a basketball, but if I decided, I mean, I'm okay, nevermind. I'm tall enough, but I can't jump high enough. So if I spent my whole summer

trying to dunk a basketball and got to the end of the summer and I had convinced myself, okay, I just need bouncy shoes. They used to have these. Yes. I know what they are. The moon shoes. Yeah. So I've got bouncy shoes and I'm doing box jumps every day and I'm going to the park and I'm trying over and over and over again. And I get to the end of the summer and I'm like, this is it. This is, this is where it needs to happen. There's been some ups and downs. I've gotten closer or I've had setbacks and I jump up and I come up short again. Eventually I just go, you know what?

I just can't dunk. Like that's it. And that's how it feels like with this team. What happened against the Rams was no, we can do this. We grind a win is a win in Chicago. And all of us are going, not really though. Cause if you play like that again, but, but I get it though. A win is a win. A win is a win against Pittsburgh. It doesn't matter how it looks. Okay. So we're, we're getting there. We'll do it. And then when the game where it matters, you can't

dunk, you get stuffed by the rim. What else can you say that that that's kind of how it feels right now is what else is there to say not much and I mean you brought up Pittsburgh do you remember Mike Zimmer after that game like he looked weathered he looked like good lord here we go again like these are not fun for him anymore I don't know which Sunday it was but he said Sundays are not fun and he looks stressed and he on the sideline you know when he's got like his play card, like he doesn't not saying physically or anything like that, but he just the body language, the whole thing. And then in postgame press conferences, obviously after a loss, it's tough to stomach. And yesterday he was short and he walked out after four minutes. But there have been these times where it almost feels like a therapy session, limited therapy session postgame where he's talking about.

I keep trying to tell them what to do. I keep trying to show them the right way to do things. And that's his way, it sounds like, of just lamenting that they're not getting the message. They're not getting what it takes to not be playing in tight games and have everything come down to the final play of the game. Sundays are not fun anymore. And I'm not saying he doesn't love coaching this man. This man's going to like coach again. Like I really believe that he'll probably be a defensive coordinator or he may not like, he may just say, you know what? I've made a lot of money. I want to sit on my buyout and I want to go somewhere else or hang out for a couple of years, enjoy my grandkids, the whole thing. But he's not, I don't, he has not lost his passion for coaching. I just think the message is gone.

The message has gone on deaf ears and it has for a while because there've been so many times this season where Zim has just lamented to us that they're not getting what I'm saying. But I feel like it's been like that for a couple of years now. When he called his defense the worst defense he's ever had last year after New Orleans, that certainly didn't sit well. But that was the old way that you would do things, where guys would hear that in a Parcellsian world and be like, shoot, you're going to take that?

They called us the worst defense in the world? Like, let's show them. This is 2021 when you say something negative about somebody we're in a society now where it's like we kind of like say okay you believe that about us screw you like i think you very rarely will find that a big collective will be like yeah let's show them let's prove them wrong because a lot of people are just like, you know what? In the NFL, I'm on borrowed time to begin with. My career is a certain window. Like if you don't believe in me, I'm going to go somewhere else where I can get mine. And I mean,

hell, you see it in college football, the college football transfer portal. Like, why am I going to suck it up and sit behind so-and-so that you just brought in in my position when I want to play and my window's small I'm going to go play somewhere else and of course there's people say we're all snowflakes and we're soft and we can't deal with it I just think that it's changed society has changed the way that you coach has changed the way that you relate to players has changed and as the gap has grown wider between Zimmer and some of those younger players who have done it at a different have been coached in a different way throughout college and into the get to the point of the NFL where you can't talk to a Kyle Rudolph the same way that you can talk to maybe like a Justin Jefferson or a KJ Osborne I'm just using younger players like I'm not I'm not insinuating anything it's just guys who were around at the beginning of this was Zimmer to guys

where they are now, like the younger players who this, this isn't all that they know with football. It's just, it hits different. Folks. It's that time again where you're doing your online shopping for the holidays and look, if you want free shipping, I can help you out with that. For all of your Minnesota sports-inspired goods, use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER when you go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com.

You can get their North State beanie, their Adam Thielen autograph shirts, Marcus Foligno fan club design for all of you hockey fans out there, and the one I always mention because it's the best one, the Randy Moss disgusting act. You can put that on a hoodie, shirt, or almost anything else. And plus, anything you want with Skol on it, SodaStick has it. Again, that's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Perfect for gifts, and you can get that shipping free by using the code Purple Insider. And I think that as we go kind of, you know, round and round to the different

reasons that we're here, another big part of it is I think for Zimmer and his exasperation that has been noticeable in the recent weeks is that even from training camp, he knew we just don't really have the guys. I looked up DJ Wanham's PFF grade, by the way, it's the same as last year. It's like a 50, which means if you played a replacement level player, they would be better than him. But you'll find people who will tell you he's great.

Well, you know, you'll, you'll find people who will tell you he's great well you know you'll you'll have that but uh yeah he had a good game against chicago and then he's but that's the thing though people like what happened he had a great game against justin fields for sax then he showed up and they and they couldn't pressure they couldn't sack stafford yesterday and all that and dj want him came back down to reality because in between the yeah dj want him for saxon oh no nothing from dj want him that's where he is he's in between there there's these these peaks and valleys like with a lot of these guys just right and we get stuck on that because for a week or two or at least the coaching staff and the players get stuck on that

because it's like damn we did really good this week. Consider the source. Consider who you are playing. Like, that stuff matters. Caliber of opponent in how we judge players and the ultimate success of this team. And I think that Zimmer just knew from the very start that if people got hurt, guys like that would have to play major roles and they would have to find magic that was not there

because he'd seen them practice. He knows what they have in terms of talent. And I think that he understood that if Daniil Hunter goes down or Adam Thielen goes down, look, I mean, K.J. Osborne's emerged as a nice number three. He's not Adam Thielen. He's not close to Adam Thielen. And I think that's been a huge reason for why Kirk Cousins' play has dropped off,

because all of a sudden he doesn't have a guy who he's so comfortable with over a number of years, like Adam Thielen, to go to every time he can't target Justin Jefferson. And then all of a sudden it falls off the play pretty significantly, which is what we've always said about Cousins. And I think the same thing goes for Mike Zimmer, where if you have the players who can handle what he's asking them to do and the way that he coaches, they will be really, really good. And if you don't, this is what you end up

with. And I want to talk about just the last thing, um, because I know that you, you've got very little sleep that you're working on here. and I appreciate you taking the time is just how remarkable it is the end of the seasons that I know that everyone who season ends in the NFL before the Superbowl is disappointed. But if you go back to 2000, okay, 2015 Blair misses a field goal. All right, what are you going to do? But 2016, the corners go rogue in green Bay and start doing things that zimmer doesn't want them to do because the locker room is essentially lost 2017 they blow a lead they get the miracle play go to philadelphia and completely no show and get blown out in a really memorable ass kicking and then after that it's week 17 no show against against the Chicago Bears where they missed the playoffs. San Francisco, where I remember Stefan Diggs being the last guy walking off the field and us talking.

I remember our last time talking to him. I think I said to you, this is going to be the last time we talk to him because he's probably going to try to get himself out of here. Lo and behold, two months later. Yep. And just getting their tail whipped by the 49ers in that game. I think they threw for like 160 yards and just, just like a meek ending. They're punting down three scores and that kind of thing against San Francisco. And then last year it's the, this is the worst defense I've

ever had, or this is a bad defense. And then here we are again this year with, well, they kind of no-showed against the Rams. I mean, that's really every single year where the last impression of this team for fans is, what the heck? Why did it end like that? And I just don't know how you recover from that if you're a head coach in Mike Zimmer. And I think that that is such a defining trait of this team is that by the end of the year, they're always leaving disappointed. And I don't mean just get to the Superbowl. I mean, even like a great game against San Francisco that, Oh darn, they

made a 50 yard field goal to lose. What a season it was like, you know, how you'll see this from other fans of teams and, and, and reporters will be like, Hey, you know, they came up short at the end, but what a season this team had. I mean, 2017 is really the only year we could say that for, and man, that is, that is tough. And I really honestly feel for fans who have dealt with this because they've been dealing with it for a long time that just, it is piled up over the years. And I think that at some point you have to relate that to the head coach. Um, and, and that's probably one of the reasons we'll be talking about a coach search pretty soon yeah and how much longer can it keep going on this way and expecting different results is what ownership has to ask themselves of like have we reached the end of the road we may

love mike zimmer as a coach we may really respect him as a person but is you can you run this back and expect a different result next year because Because if you do, I just don't think that you're, I think it's going to end up in the exact same form that we saw this year. And, you know, one thing that I also wanted to point out, like when we're talking about Zimmer resigning himself to, you know, it's just probably, he probably realizes like he's on borrowed time here. You know, he's doesn't feel like he's the only one trying to uh to go out to go down with the ship feels like i mean i was just looking for it i can't find it but do you remember the comment he made about yeah we don't know enough depth or something i think

it was on the defensive line what who do you think that was directed at yeah we know who that was i mean we were talking about in in preseason that like everybody. And this is what everybody does when the ship is going down. They grab life preservers. be a lot harder for unvaccinated players to have a normal season this year. And he was pleading with people to get vaccines. And I know that that's not the end all be all here, but think about it down the stretch. Who did they need yesterday? They needed Dalvin cook because Alexander Madison just did not have a good day. His field vision was off.

You've got offensive linemen running into the back of running backs and not making blocks. They need a Dalvin Cook. He's following rules from unvaccinated players, so he's out for 10 days. They need Kirk Cousins. They cannot have this come down to being the Kellen Mond experience for the first time in Green Bay.

But how fitting that would be if the quarterback that they, they better be hoping and they better be putting him actually in plexiglass to keep him away from whatever is inside this building right now. We know the variance there. Like it just took out the backup quarterback. Like they better hope and do everything to in their power to make sure that he doesn't pop positive can you imagine that's just like the ultimate I told you so from the head coach if they end up having to have a different quarterback in Green Bay because of the rules for unvaccinated players and all of that but yeah it just it just I mean at this time of year is always weird because teams are exhausted coaches are exhausted the ones who were like hey we're not technically out of it, but we're,

we're on the cusp. Like green Bay is playing. And somebody yelled at me today. Some dumb ass on Twitter was just like, how dare you say green Bay is the best team in the NFC. They just won by two to the Browns. And I'm like, did you see Aaron Rogers? Have you seen in the last five games? He's thrown for like 1600 yards, 15 touchdowns and zero interceptions, 16 touchdowns, zero interceptions. I'm worried about that Aaron Rogers. Cause the Packers kind of felt like they were like waffling a little bit here because of the COVID thing with Rogers. And then obviously

his toe and everything else. The first time the two teams played, they're a different team all these weeks later. And if they lose in green Bay, what is next week? Like, I keep thinking about that in my head. Like, what do you do next week? Do you start Kellen Mond?

I don't think that this week will technically eliminate them from the post season, just by like the odds and all of that, there'll be some wacko way for them to get in which you know probably is going to require like three teams and scoreboard watching but like what what is next week like i just think about that i'm like almost like cringy just thinking you know and it stinks that we're not in the building to truly be able to take the temperature we're you know over zoom from here on out but my goodness how does next week look do guys are guys just like checked out and like business decisioning their way into the off season

like that would be really really bad yeah if they lose in green bay and that's what we see because that to me is just like sign seal delivered he's out at like without question at the end of the year if that happens it could be very ugly in week 18 in many cities uh i just got an email that said vikings roster when i went oh is this only udo is on the covet list so it is well kirk so anyway only udo was it was kirk's right guard yesterday yep so um well i guess we'll see how it goes, but it's just been kind of a sad ending here to the season. If it ends in green Bay, it's kind of the perfect graveyard for this team's hopes to go down once

again. So Courtney, thank you so much as always for a wake waking up from a nap to do this. I really appreciate that. And we will, I mean, see in green Bay cause everything's zoom. So I'll see you in Lambeau. We'll see you in green Bay.