Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks Vikings panic, pressure and how to beat the Colts

Episode Date: September 18, 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 and joining me as always from ESPN, Courtney Cronin. What's up, Courtney? Just enjoying another fall day in Minnesota. It's beautiful out.

We've got football on tap this weekend. I'm feeling good. How about you? This is the small sweet spot of fall where it's actually nice. And played golf the other day, I know you did as well. Just perfect, flawless, wonderful golf weather. And then it turns hellacious very soon. So enjoy it while you have some warmth and some football happening before everything in the weather gets terrible. So where do you want to start with this week? I think I'd like to begin with Vikings fans get a grip for a second. I mean, just like I get it.

I totally get it. I do. When it's the Packers, it's just worse. Everything feels worse. Your friends and neighbors across the street are probably rubbing it in your face. But they're not tanking for Trevor Lawrence or firing the coach in GM or whatever number of other crazy wait a second it's not happening it's been such a week you've seen people accuse them of tanking at this point not accuse them but

suggesting they should oh my gosh what is wrong with people? It's one week. Like I'm all aboard the panic train when it's time, but it is even after that annihilation on Sunday, it's not time to be on the panic train yet because there are reliable fixes to what appears to be an unfixable situation of just kind of conceding your defense

is not going to be where you wanted it to be this year for a number of factors but to suggest that the recently extended Mike Zimmer and the recently extended Rick Spielman are going to be fired that's comical that's funny no one's saying this in my mentions I'm just getting yelled at by a bunch of people who say they're not going to watch the NFL because of social justice causes. Yeah, and if they check the TV ratings for last week, those are bots and not real people, because real people were watching a lot, but that's another podcast. But so now that we've got that out of the way, they're not going to tank and they're not going to fire the head coach and GM after one loss to the Green Bay Packers. Holton Hill, Mike Hughes, and Cameron Dantzler are not busts yet.

So I guess where we need to start is how much of this can get washed away by beating the Indianapolis Colts? If they beat the Colts, does everybody just cool down a little bit? And I'm not even saying that these criticisms are wrong of where their defense is at or the offense's struggles or is Gary Kubiak still got the fastball? I mean, there's a lot of questions to come away from week one, and a lot of them are very seriously legit.

It's just that the freakout has been a little much. But what does a win against the Colts do for everyone's mind, I suppose? Calms everybody down that you're not going to be in a situation like you were in 2018, where you get to the end of the season and say, crap, we shouldn't have tied that game in Green Bay. We shouldn't have lost to Buffalo at home. And then maybe if Kirk doesn't fumble the ball away inside the, you know, 45-yard line against the Rams the following week, then maybe you set yourself up for a playoff run. I think these early season losses that we saw, especially two years ago, pile up, really played a factor into where this team was able to go and

ultimately where they ended in 2018. And you just don't want the thing to snowball because you know you have your work cut out for you on defense. You know this is going to take several games, if not a couple months, to work itself out when you have such a young secondary and a group of corners that don't just turn it on. Like, last I checked, it is very hard to play cornerback for that coach, Mike Zimmer, who apparently invented the cornerback also last I checked. So with all that said, you go into the season anticipating

that there's going to be a massive learning curve, and without a preseason, it's harder. That's the fact right there. So to get to this point now, we're sitting here after one week saying, oh my gosh, if they start 0-2, the playoffs are out of reach. You know, I don't completely fault fans for having that sort of mindset because it just feels like with this stretch of quarterbacks you have in the first five weeks of the season, now it's Phillip Rivers.

And then it's Ryan Tannehill, who was the best play action quarterback last year on a very, very good team that now has Jadavion Clowney part of their pass rush. And then it's Deshaun Watson and the mess of the Houston Texans team, but it's still Deshaun Watson. And then you have Russell Wilson. So I think people look at the schedule and it's like get a win where you can because if you started out, you know, if you lost all five of those games, let's say worst case scenario then then everything is a mess at that point and I don't know how you salvage

anything but you know early season woes it happens but I just think in the fashion was so jarring watching that team last Sunday and its inability to generate any sort of pressure with backups playing in starters role roles you should certainly expect that but it's still jarring to see nonetheless so here's something that I've found very interesting is everyone's explanations I will not call them excuses but explanations for the different things finger pointing is that what we want to call it because it certainly felt like it. It felt like it. Let's just go like one by one.

So there's a fourth and three where Kirk Cousins makes a preposterous decision and decides to heave the ball to Tajay Sharp. And after the game, Mike Zimmer says, well, supposed to throw it to Thielen. We look at the all 22 tape, which finally came out and everyone stopped freaking on Twitter and should have thrown it to Adam Thielen. I mean, the safety was not rolling over the way that Cousins said he was. Kirk had, yeah, explained it.

But okay, whatever. Like, plays happen and decisions happen. And he's always going to trust his pre-Snap read. That's what you get with Kirk Cousins. Like, let's move on from that one because that is about as cut and dry as it's going to be. Also, a better throw possibly gets – I mean, he had the coverage he was looking for. It was one-on-one.

There's nobody else in the world around. He throws a back shoulder or something else happens, and then it's an amazing play to Tajay Sharp, hero. So, okay, fine, all right. I didn't love that play call, but that's all right. The fact that Zimmer says after the game, well, he was supposed to throw to another guy, all right, there's a little finger pointing. Cousins shoots back with, well, the safety's rolling over that way. Okay, there's a

little bit of that. We had the defensive guys saying the offense couldn't get off the field. We have the offensive guys saying the defense couldn't get off the field. We have Andre Patterson saying it was the coverage's fault for not being able to cover for more than 2.3 seconds, and Aaron Rodgers got the ball out quickly, which that's a stat I challenge, by the way, because two or three times, Aaron Rodgers just caught the ball and like chucked it right to somebody, whatever they call those plays, like shovel pass kind of things. Well, that's not really a good representation.

They had plenty of opportunities to pressure Rodgers and didn't do it. It's only interesting that Andre Patterson freaked out when you asked him about it and mentioned this like five times. He threw the ball fast. He threw the ball fast. It's just like, I'm not panicking. You guys are panicking. Yeah, no, I mean, it certainly, you can read into what's going on on the defensive side of the ball as they're trying to like, you know, batten down the hatches here and hold on for dear life. Cause they know that this season is not playing out the way they wanted it to.

And they honestly, in order to work through this reboot that they have on the back end, they needed everything to be perfect up front. Well, you don't have Daniil Hunter, at least through the Houston, at least until the Houston game, you don't have Michael Pierce. So the run defense is really going to struggle this year and that's something that no one's talked about from the first week of the season we're also worried about them trying to pressure Aaron Rodgers that they don't have any interior push well you know call me when it's 2018 again and they finally have a real three technique but that's neither here nor there

we're not talking about the run defense which is you know kind of baffling. And Yannick Ngakwe is not up to speed. So you can't, you're not going to be able to do what you want to do with the defensive line when you're playing backups and starters roles. That's just, I mean, Andre Patterson is a terrific teacher. He likes the underdog. He wants to develop and groom these players, but you just don't have the time to do that and to be a competitive team in the NFC if you have what you had on Sunday. So, I mean, that's kind of where at least I see the conversation going now of, is it fixable? And if it's not fixable, how do you work around that? That's at least what I was trying to get at with him when I asked about, okay, you talk about the quarterback is holding onto the ball not very long.

2.3, 2.25 seconds was what pro football focus had for Aaron Rodgers. Well, Phillip Rivers held onto the ball 2.27 seconds, which is not that much slower. And he has a far better offensive line without a revolving door issue of not knowing who's playing right tackle. We know that the Colts have a very, very good offensive line. Historically, for the last few years, they've been very good at it. So, you know, really ever since they drafted Quentin Nelson and worked everything around the interior of the line that way. But the way that I look at the situation now is you could have the exact same

thing happen in week two that you had happen in week one, and it could potentially be worse so how do you fix that is it a matter of you know cover you need to cover on the back end okay well that's easier said than done when you might not even have the cornerback who played the most snaps last week playing this week because he wasn't practicing on Wednesday and Thursday so I don't know I understand that the pass rush and what happens on the back end, you know, rushing cover, it all goes hand in hand. But to me, there's got to be something there that you can deviate from,

kind of like an emergency valve that you can pull when things are going as badly as they are. And I've got theories on it. I think back to the Rams game and what Zim had to do two years ago when the pass defense was, you know, really bottomed out. I think there's ways to fix that, but truly, if you don't get it, if you're not getting pressure on the quarterback and are you say, are you going to concede and say, okay, we'll wait until Daniil Hunter gets back.

We'll wait till Yannick Ngakwe is up to speed. That may be the path of least resistance. We'll find out if indeed they are, if they're able to do it better than they were last week, if it really is that Ngakwe needed another week to knock the rust off get up to speed okay but I'm starting to believe that it won't be that way and that it's going to take at least until Hunter gets back before they look have any semblance of a pass rush and we have no idea when that will be IR means at least three games it It doesn't mean only three games. So this could go on for much longer,

but I don't think it will. I don't think he'll come back after three games. I think there's, you know, there's been plenty of indication from what we've seen of him at practice. He's, you know, running around just fine out there.

It doesn't look like he has like too serious of a neck injury when he's on the rehab field. And people I've spoken with have continued to reiterate that this is a precautionary thing. And, you know, I could go all conspiracy theory on you and point out that his contract is awful. And that maybe- Are you into that? I've had many people ask. You know, I'm not going to go full Zulgady in here, but like,

I definitely think there's reason to believe that Daniil Hunter should not, and is not in any rush to get back until something gets figured out because why risk when you're making 14.4 on average a year, you are like the eighth highest paid when you should be in the top five of defensive ends, just based on the average salaries, five year $72 dollar contract he signed when he was 23 you know they should probably be trying to look to restructure you right now before you get back because if i'm him why would i risk injury when i'm already maybe dealing with

something i mean clearly it's a neck injury um you know we haven't heard the team say anything but that's what my sources tell me so why would you rush back from that when your contract sucks it's your fault you signed the contract but the contract's not great um and you're also dealing with a tweak like you know slow play this until you get it to where you're comfortable playing out there and you're comfortable with the contract so we'll see well I think the Vikings could actually do this and not have it hurt them a whole lot because they are set to pay 17 million on the cap to him next year anyway so this would have been always a time to rework a deal or extend a deal and so forth and with him you can extend him 10 years and feel good about it considering the position

he plays the age curve for the position he plays what he's produced I mean I'm not saying literally 10 years but if you say he'll be 35 he'll literally be at the end of his career biking for life. Why not? He's so young that if you gave him a 10-year extension, it would be fine. So they should do that. I've never quite gotten around to the conspiracy theory. I do think it's smart of him to take his time. To look at this defense and look at this team and say, it's very hard to convince me at this moment, this could change in like three weeks,

but at this moment and heading into the season, it's hard to convince me that this team desperately needs me back to chase the Super Bowl at this point in where they are. So I should take my time and get back with this neck injury. The other thing is too that other pass rushers throughout their careers have started out hot and had injuries that add up pretty early on and then you see a fall off later on in their career and if you're hunter you don't want to rush yourself back re-injure the neck and then go forward but you know I guess I only put it

at a very small percentage of me buying into the contract being what it's all about yeah could it be a small portion of it yeah possibly or or some percentage of it that's where I'm at that's why I'm not full Zilgadian like I said I won't go full Judd craziness on that um but he and I he and I have talked about it and I absolutely adore his theory because I could totally buy into it but um but no I think I think it certainly plays into some of it it's not all of it but like you said and like you and I have talked about since the draft this team is built for 2021 if you win this year it's gravy it's all extra if you win this year but you were really truly set up for expectations to be at

their peak in 2021 so for a defense you know is going to have a lot of up and downs especially within this first quarter of the season why rush back when it really may not matter and I hate to say it like that but it's like if it's not going to be make or break a complete difference when your defensive line has already taken multiple hits this year by not getting Griffin back, by having Michael Pierce opt out, by not having a true three technique. And now Hunter, like, you're just not going to be able to do what you want up front. And it's, you can't replicate it.

Real quick. Did I ask you this before? Do you think Michael Pierce regrets it? The fact that there has not been any coronavirus outbreaks? No, no. And I spoke with him. think Michael Pierce regrets it the fact that there has not been any coronavirus outbreaks no no and I spoke with him I spoke with him uh at length for a story that I wrote in the middle of training camp and you know what he and I talked about and this is just why I think the whole Kirk Cousins thing of just was so crass when he says if I die I die well Michael Pierce was very concerned about ending up in the hospital because he had pneumonia during the 2017 season with the Ravens.

And that's just something that, I mean, you know, he's in the 340 range right now. That is his body. He is a massive human being and his lungs don't work the way that yours do, mine do, or anybody else's. And I think that for him, it's a rather safe than sorry situation I did not sense an ounce of regret in his voice when I talked to him in in August which is a couple months a couple weeks removed from the decision initially and I don't think he should because truly we're one week past this yes the numbers for coronavirus and what we've seen coming out of the first week of the season it's not like okay one team lost their entire offensive line because everybody got COVID like knock on wood it's great I'm thrilled with the way the NFL has handled this so far I hope we can keep this going but I'm not holding my

breath more than a week at a time I don't think anybody should right yeah good good point and if you're Pierce you only could know what you knew at the time which was there will be protocols but there's certainly no guarantees you didn't know it would go this well. I just wonder if the NFL should have offered a certain date for players to opt back in, but then there's salary cap implications and things like that that would make that potentially very difficult, even for a team like the Vikings who spent the cap space.

I want to circle back to on the field and Yannick Ngakwe, because when I was running down all the excuses slash explanations for what happened, I forgot Yannick Ngakwe talking about how it's not an excuse, but it's not an excuse three different times for him not being fully up to speed. Now, I actually am buying this one from Yannick Ngakwe, because looking at his recent history, I couldn't find too many games where he only had one pressure. I think it was only the third time in the last

three years he's had one or zero that he's always had at least two or more pressures in every game. So I think that he will get significantly better. However, this week you're facing really good offensive linemen and I'm not sure, and a quarterback who gets rid of the ball quick I'm not sure how much he's going to impact this week either yeah I mean he and Anthony Costanzo like I asked him about what they have a history and I think I mean it was a little surprising that they did keep him on David Bakhtiari that long considering he played uh I think it's like 40 something of the 72 snaps that the Packers were on the field, in Gawkway, that is, when he was on defense.

I didn't, you know, they didn't take him off him until I think it was somewhere in the third quarter. So that was a little surprising. But, you know, it was an expedited process. The guy had nine days to learn a defense, and he's playing standing, you know, he played standing up last year in Jacksonville. Like, he's playing in a three-point stance I mean it's different now so I think I don't know he Dre didn't want to call it rust Yannick called it rust I think it's just I haven't played football for eight months like by the time he got more than eight months by the time he got to practice that last week of August before cut downdown day, this was to be expected.

But how much better can you really anticipate the defensive line being? I mean, you can't rely on one player. Like, that was the whole thing to bring him in in the first place. If Daniil Hunter was healthy, they knew Daniil was going to get chipped. He was going to get double-teamed. They were going to put a tight end on him. It was just going to be hard for him to generate any sort of pass rush on his own. You'd anticipate they see the best rushers lined up against the left tackle, we're going to put a tight end over there too. We're going to dedicate extra attention. We're

going to put our running back over there, Johnson Taylor and pass pro. Like, that's at least what I would anticipate as far as like, you know, the extra attention that's going to go in Gakwe's way I just don't think that this defensive line given what the scheme is what their rush plan is from week to week and what we saw for you know historically the last few years that one player can do it alone um Daniil Hunter's special he has generated a lot of work on his own, but when he and Everson Griffin were on the field together, they were a fantastic tandem. That's not something I think a player who's brand new in your defense, all of a sudden you expect him to turn it on and be great after a week? It's not realistic to me. I want to remind you to go to Sodaastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports inspired

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It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi made for football watching. Right, and he's much more of a guy who impacts one or two plays a game, but it's a huge impact, and that's where you notice him rather than every single play. You don't get run help from him. You don't get run help from him. So what's that going to mean this week? It is interesting to me.

Eric Kendrick has got to be exhausted from the last week and what's projected for him this season without having Linville in front of him. And I think the Indy is going to run a lot. So I just pulled this up. Ngakwe had 30 rushes off the left side and 13 off the right side. So they did put him over the right tackle a little more than they did over the left tackle. And he had zero success against David Bakhtiari going up. But it took him until the third quarter to do that. Right. So that was his usage was a little bit interesting. And I would expect much better from him. But I agree

with you that he's just not the guy who is going to carry your entire defensive line. My question off of this is, okay, you know, when Hunter comes back, he's good at football. You know that Ngakwe is good at football. But the rest of these guys, you do have to start asking the questions, I guess. Like, what did you see that made you want to hang on to some of these players? And if they don't improve, we're going to be going, well, what was it? Why? And Jalen Holmes is a great example. I mean, Jalen Holmes played 30 snaps, had zero pressures, is one of the lowest graded players by PFF, in three years has shown nothing for them.

I mean, Jaleel Johnson has barely worked his way into games in the past, played 57 snaps, again, one of their lowest graded players. Hercules Mata'afa remains on this football team. What's your favorite Hercules Mata'afa memory? I mean, is it nothing? I just, like, in a lot of, I can't believe that he's still out there on the football field. At some point, it'll probably be this week, he'll get a strip sack and run it for a touchdown and dunk it in my face. But what in the world is this guy playing for, is my question. I mean, was there no one better in the world than Hercules Mata'afa at this job?

You know, I tend to think that these are the project-type players that Andre Patterson wants to see through. You know, for me, if the guy's not Aaron Donald, I don't want him, if I'm a coach. Like, I would be – I had this conversation with somebody earlier. I would be the worst person in a personnel department. I'd be like, if he's not perfect, get him the hell out of here. I don't want him on my team. So essentially I'm Mike Zimmer. But you know, it's just,

that's the hand that they're dealt by their own choices. Like if they would have spent differently, they would have had the money and free agency to go after a three technique. I'd have to go back and look to see who was available, but, you know, if they spent differently, maybe they go get a Jadavian Clowney, and far earlier than they got Yannick Ngakwe. Maybe they're able to, in 2019, get a three technique. Maybe they're able to retain Sheldon Richardson. I don't know. Like, I just think that the way that the interior has panned out, where you have Shamar Steffen kind of on this last ditch effort. You're just trying to move them around and make it make sense.

And then on top of that, you still don't have a great push. Like I think it's just comes down to decision-making. It doesn't, it just doesn't make sense to me because you've spent so much money on your edge presence. And you're a team that wants to win with four. Like that is, you know, typically what Mike Zimmer wants. He's not drawing up exotic blitzes.

I know Frank Reich said he is. I don't consider the double agap blitz exotic anymore. Like I just don't. So, I mean, I think that the pressure that they're able to generate off of the quarterback has never been something that has come from the interior of that defensive line routinely so you're now in a situation where it's like you have all these projects you have a Jalen Holmes well what is he well he was a defensive end in college and we moved him inside because he's got to wait his turn before he becomes a defensive end what

like that doesn't make any sense and then you have know, what are you doing with Armand Watts? I think eventually that one will work itself out. What are you doing with Hercules Mata'afa? I think Watts actually has the potential to be good. But the Mata'afa thing, you... Doesn't make sense to me. You used this one line once, and it went over my head. I'm mean, girls.

But, like, stop trying to make Mata'afa happen. So maybe it's part of the domino effect of Hunter being out is that you can't use a Fadi Adenabo in this type of role so you have to use uh Mata'afa my question is every year when they go to the draft and then UDFAs and they tell us about how well you see that one time we got Daniil Hunter. Remember that? Remember Daniil Hunter and how good he was? Like, yeah, okay. Have you done it with anyone else? I mean, Steven Weatherly is pretty good, and he got a contract in Carolina.

Happy for him. Nice guy. Not really a significant player on a team. You have Adenabo, had a nice year last year, still not really sure he can play. And these other guys have not shown anything in what they year last year, still not really sure he can play. And these other guys have not shown anything and what they needed this year. And we'll see if this happens at some point. And I'll, I don't know, issue an apology if it does. But we needed to see in order for them to have a successful defensive line development, we needed to see guys rise to the opportunity. And that was

going to be what swung this defense. If someone rises to the opportunity, and that was going to be what swung this defense. If someone rises to the opportunity and all of a sudden Mata'afa becomes this great situational rusher and gets eight sacks, okay, wow, look, the new Tom Johnson. But it just doesn't look like it's happening with any of these guys. They don't look any better than they've looked since they got here. Well, what do you think then about, that brings up a point, because when you think about Mata'afa and you think about back before training camp started, I didn't even have him on the team,

because I thought James Lynch was going to rise up and take that role. And obviously it showed you what a truncated offseason does to guys learning how to play NFL football. The developmental learning curve is steep. But is James Lynch just going to be another Hercules-esque type player where he's a cleaner and he's not fully one thing or the other? What about DJ Wanham? Is he really Daniil Hunter-lite?

Like, you know, I look at these fourth-round draft picks, and yes, maybe I'm overreacting because it is still early in the season and neither of them have played. And it's, you know, a situation now where you're just wondering, okay, are they going to pan out? What is their development? What does their learning curve look like? Is it just going to be history repeating itself like we have with a Jalen Holmes, with a Hercules Mata'afa, with a Jaleel Johnson, with all these guys that they've brought in who are really never more than rotational players.

And, yeah, you can have a rotation. You should have a rotation, but it shouldn't be like – that shouldn't be what you deviate to all the time. That should be like kind of in a pinch or if you really need it. I think that what the salary cap has done to them, because they run it right up to the very edge and they spend a lot of money to make sure they keep everyone, which I don't think we've even talked about Delvin Cook's contract

since the emergency podcast. But when you run it right up to the very edge by paying absolutely everyone and you have a big quarterback contract, it does not allow you for wiggle room to bring in veterans who can make an impact, who are average players. Because what you have, imagine that they got some situational rusher who's an average player. Let's say like Vinny Curry.

Remember him for the Eagles? There's just an average guy who gets a good amount of pressures for the job that you give him. Great. Average player. Well, that's a lot better than someone who doesn't belong in the NFL, who's not going to get a second contract in the entire NFL, which that's the way that Jalen Holmes is trending at this moment, is that after this is it, that'll probably be the end

of Jalen Holmes, unless he takes some huge steps forward that we just don't see coming. But the gap between someone who's going to be out of the league after their rookie deal and someone who is a proven veteran who's done it at an average or above average level is the same difference between average and superstar. It's a massive difference in terms of the impact. And I think that they've taken a lot of swings thinking, oh, well, we like what we see with this late round pick. We like what we see with this UDFA. The reality is most of those things fail. It doesn't matter how good you are at coaching. If Phil Jackson has bad players on the Chicago Bulls, we don't know him as the greatest coach, right? So I think the same thing with Andre Patterson. I believe he is a marvelous coach and he really connects with players

and he knows all the techniques to teach them and how to teach him and all those things. But if you don't have the NFL talent, you're just not going to get anywhere with this. So I think that if they had regrets here on the D line, it's the situational veteran who costs you 2 million bucks, who they have not been able to afford at a couple of different positions. I think that that's where it really hurts. Now, once one guy gets hurt, we've seen this since they signed Cousins.

If one guy goes down, then there's a big domino effect and it impacts a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, and that's just kind of why, at least in my mind, when you're playing backups in starters roles, this is what you should expect. I agree it's almost it's almost kind of arrogant to think that it's going to be better than this and that you can look at one player i.e. a unique Ngakwe and say hey Daniel Hunter's out go make magic happen go make a pass rush by yourself like make the whole thing by yourself it's all on you like that's why I think when he said on on Wednesday that you know he doesn't feel any added pressure because, you know, they're two different styles of rushers, two different styles of players, and that, you know, it's not about filling a role.

Like, he was brought in here thinking it's going to be a tandem, and it is. So I don't think you should take that extra pressure to be like, I'm going to dominate Phillip Rivers by myself. I'm going to sack him six and a half times like I did over the first eight games I played against the Colts. That's just not going to happen. So kind of this is a hand that you dealt to yourself so the results being different I don't think you should anticipate anything other than maybe a marginal difference that they look a little bit better this week after knocking off the rust you know team-wide in week one but also you know being in a situation where you're exposed on the back end

regardless you have young corners you're probably going to not have Cameron Dantzler out there if this injury to his rib holds up and he doesn't play in week two it's gonna look bad because it's just a bad situation to start from the start like I don't you can't make chicken bleep out of like chickens you know what I'm trying to say here? Yes. It's – like, you have stars on the defense. They should be able to elevate those around them. You can't – if you don't have stars in a certain position group, though,

you're not going to have, like – you just can't. And I don't know. The injuries itself are seriously hurting this team, and the personnel changes that they've made across the board, that's going to be the storyline of the season. So let me ask you this. Can Kirk Cousins overcome this? Because the last times he had this,

and it is times of where he didn't have a good defense, when he was in Washington, He put up a lot of stats and got his teams to 9-7, 7-9 in that ballpark. But that was kind of where he formed that reputation of being down by 20 points and then putting up a bunch of statistics and so forth and not being able to get you over the hump. There isn't a whole lot in his history that says without a defense giving him a lot of bites at the apple on offense that he's going to be able to overcome it. We didn't see a whole lot of the weapons that we thought we would with Justin Jefferson and Irv Smith, but also I

feel like I got zero percent sample size on the offense. We got one scripted drive, disaster strikes a couple of times, and then all of a sudden you're playing out of the shotgun which is not their offense throwing it down the field to Thielen which is not their offense against the prevent defense so I I don't have any sense for what this offense is going to look like going forward because I just don't think we saw it they got behind so quickly in that game against the Packers and never had the ball that's's what I wrote. That was, like, my follow on Monday of, you know, time ran out on the offense to show what they can be like without Stephon Diggs. But I do think that there are some trends there, unfortunately,

for this offense that are just going to continue to repeat itself. Like, remember when Kyle Rudolph was, like, passive-aggressively talking about Kirk Cousins in 18 about, like, how he wouldn't throw him open and that you know Kirk's gotta like trust you to like the nth degree he's gotta have your social security number your birth certificate any sort of identifying document about you and then you'll get the ball thrown to you as long as he has that sort of security what did we see on that Tajay Sharp play he trusted his pre-snap read more than he did his

pro bowl receiver who's been to more pro more than he did his Pro Bowl receiver, who's been to more Pro Bowls than he has. Like, that's not a trend I think that's going to change. Kirk is into his 30s. Like, that is who he is as a quarterback. And when you don't have the established veteran playmaker opposite Thielen, you're probably looking at Thielen trying to, like, get back to where he was in 2018, or at least, you know, compete with that trend of eight games of a hundred yards receiving,

but that's strictly, that's not even a good thing. That's not a necessity because that's all Kirk Cousins knows. BC Johnson is still a little bit of an unknown. Justin Jefferson is a total unknown and he's a slot receiver so far in this offense. So, you know, what we saw from the offense in week one was so limited that i don't i'll give them i'll give them the benefit of the doubt of a do-over because yeah dalvin cook had two rushing touchdowns and he looked okay but you know just like kirk's 19 for 25 stat line it all

came in garbage time like that is that is a quintessential kirk cousin stat line that make you makes you believe unless you looked at the all22 or if you just watched the game, period. Oh, or if you could read a box score to realize that was not competitive whatsoever. The score was not indicative at all of how badly the whole team played. But this is an offense. If the defense is going to play this way this offense needs to score a ton of points I don't think it's going to happen because they're not going to be able to on a routine basis bail out this defense as much as the tides have shifted in Minnesota and it's certainly

with the spending with you know the outlook of the team even you go back to Kevin Stefanski last year and just how much of a focal point he became within this offense. And the defense kind of took a backseat. That's just, you can have all the optics you want, but it's not going to be enough to hold up this team when it really matters. If Stefan Diggs was still here and Adam Thielen was healthy, would you feel differently about that? Would you feel like they could keep up? I would too. In 2016, he did it with Washington.

They had great weapons all over the field. He had a good season, and they went, I think, 9-7, which this year would be enough to get you in the playoffs. But without Diggs, like you said, there's so many more questions. There isn't – Thielen is really excellent. Diggs is a guy who, I mean, last year won games by himself. Philadelphia, the one that comes to mind right away, Denver too. It's just like he took over with those deep plays.

I don't know if we're going to see that from Thielen, especially without anybody else out there. Thielen needs a guy to clear out for him and to be the deep ball threat, the straight line speed guy. I think that that could be Justin Jefferson, but how long is that going to take? Because, you know, even Kubiak has mentioned like, you know, he's going to be a big part of this offense. He's not committing to saying, yeah, Justin Jefferson is going to be getting five, six targets a game.

I mean, he only had three balls thrown his way and he caught two of them. That's a rookie stat line. And that is a stat line of what you would expect in an offense that doesn't use a lot of three receiver sets so it's like he's already kind of got two things going against him from the jump and now going into this early part of the season his usage is going to be tapered like I had I mean same thing too I mean aren't we all expecting Irv Smith to have this unbelievably massive breakout season yes I tell people to kind of cool their jets on that I get that fantasy question all the time how many targets should we expect from him this that and the other thing you had one in in week one and you know is that a sign of things to come I honestly think for now it is I think you know cool it for a little bit because think about what it was last year.

He didn't get going truly until feeling went down. Now, you can't anticipate an injury. You wouldn't want to. But that was at the halfway point of the season before they started figuring out that their tight ends could catch passes. Get back to the conversation in 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

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I was going strongly the other way. I was going leading into this like Irv Smith's going to catch five, six, seven passes a game. And I still, because there's so little to take away from a situation where they had to play shotgun most of the game. Think about this for a ratio. They were like 60-40 shotgun on last Sunday. Last year, it was more like 70-30 not shotgun. So I still think that that's going to happen. The question is, with a tight end, even as good as he could be, does that offer you the same threat as having a Thielen and Diggs? And the answer is no.

I mean, it's just not as dangerous when it comes to the big plays. And so it's not like when they had Garcon and Deshaun Jackson with Kirk and then two very good tight ends and a running back out of the backfield. But at the same time – Yeah, great offensive line too. Like don't forget how good his offensive line was. Yes, yes. 15, 16.

I think too, just to mention, just to jump in real quick. So like you mentioned how often they were out of the shotgun, and that's just not this offense. Right. The one thing I'll be watching, or one of the many things this week, is just the play action usage was a trend that was just kind of really bizarre and yes I know they had 18 minutes and 44 seconds to you know pull it together and get this thing going and they didn't but when they had the opportunity to either

you know we talked about the safety that was a play action technically that was an attempt because and he sold it really well because Johnny Alexander thought it was a run. Sometimes it's just, you know, guys not, you know, not doing what they were supposed to and somehow it works out. Must be nice. But, you know, that's got to be the staple of his game. And that was just so bizarre that it wasn't. Like he had one successful play action pass,

which was that 37- yard touchdown to Thielen in garbage time um you have to do what Kirk Cousins is good at you can't deviate from the plan because if you do you're just selling yourself setting yourself up for failure and that's kind of at least just from like a play calling perspective I think something that Gary Kubiak would want back yeah and I asked Gary about the play calling and he wasn't really taking the bait uh i guess because i just i was sort of hinting and maybe he knew because he's gary he's a wily and stuff but he um he just i i was like you know when you make a bad play call like uh does that sit with

you a while and he's like no i just get over it i'm like okay but you know fourth and three what was the deal uh or the play action in the end, so the safety. So, yeah, the play action usage, though, to completely bail on it. I mean, what we forget after looking at the final score is that the Vikings had the ball down, what, 22 to 10. That is not at all a devastating situation. I mean, down by 12 in the middle of the third quarter, you can come back from that at home for sure. And to kind of bail on the play action then was weird. And I wonder if they got spooked a little because last year the Packers blew up some play actions, then they blow one up at the goal line,

and then it's like, uh-oh, they've kind of got the answer. They don't care about our run. They're just going to attack Kirk. So now we've got to back away from this. And then you wonder, will other teams start to do the same thing because they know what's coming? And the one thing I would say, I got this question for the Friday mailbag, and I don't want to really go there after one week,

but somebody asked if Koobz is washed. I'm like, come on, man. Oh, no. Come on, man. Come on, Gary. I'm going to give you the Gary disappointment shrug for even mentioning that question. That breaks my heart. Here's what I'd say, though. Stefanski last year, just like Shermer in 2017, was on fire. A lot of things that he dialed up worked. And from year to year, with different play callers, not something that you

can always count on. And the safety is a good example. It might have been a different play callers, not something that you can always count on. And that the safety is a good example. Like it might've been a great play call. The guys were wide open, but it didn't work out. So. And that's the thing you're going to constantly, if it's boom or bust, like if that play, if they clear out and Conklin catches that ball and they're, you know, somewhere within the 20 yard line, their own 20.

And they're going to be able to either punt or get the hell out of their own, like, red zone, then we're saying, that's great. Like, we're not second guessing anything, but it was the execution of it, and, you know, it just, it was a broken play from the start. Like, you know, I think from both sides, I mean, Jair Alexander thought it was a run. He got lucky. He literally got lucky. That shows you how good Kirk is at selling play action. That's it. Like, really. And then Mike Zimmer hinted that somebody didn't do their job. Well, you could probably assume it's Dalvin Cook. I still think that would be asking a lot for him to break off of what he was doing in helping Dakota Dozier and just, you know, pick up Alexander and pass pro on 0.3 seconds notice.

Not going to happen. So I don't know. I think about that play call. I mean, it's not keeping me up at night or anything, but it's something that you just wonder, how does that stuff happen? And if it works out differently, we're not talking about it but is the execution of the quarterback in other circumstances the fourth and three play the um you know at other points throughout that game is could the play can the play calling bail kirk out that's it has to at points this year and it

just i mean i wouldn't say it didn't i mean they ran out of time for it to bail Kirk out or to at least set him up at a point where he'd be comfortable. It's just a point about how play calling year in and year out can be great for you or not as great for you. And sometimes it's not even about the person who's calling the plays. It's just about how things, how the cookie crumbles. And I'll give you an example. So I did an article with Cousins about his very first start when he was in Washington. And he mentioned throwing a touchdown on a backside post. Now last year, they threw two touchdowns on backside posts. Everyone

will remember them. Denver and then against Detroit when Thielen got hurt. So big plays in the season. But he said that those are the only three times in his whole career he's hit that particular route for a touchdown. It just worked last year. And so you might not get those looks this year from the opponents that you face, or maybe you will. We don't know because we have such a small sample and it's freaking week one, which kind of brings me all the way back to as much as this has been the panicky podcast that maybe when I started out, I said it shouldn't be. But I think it's time for a pie chart to pick the game for you.

Okay. Here's how we're going to do this. I've got my paper next to me. Let me draw my circle. All right. Here's your four odds. Circle's drawn. All right, here's your four options. Trickle's gone. All right. This game is a shootout with the Colts winning,

a shootout with the Vikings winning, or a blowout with the Colts winning, or a blowout with the Vikings winning. The one option I'm not even bothering to include is a low score 9-7 victory, victory because a who cares about those games and b i just can't see it with these two good offenses and bad defenses so pie chart me all right so 25 i'm just hold on um do do do do do do that i got the pie chart music. It's a pie chart. Draw it in a circle.

100% pie chart. Okay, are you ready? Yeah, give me one second. You got to hum the song if you want more time. No, you hum it for me. This is your podcast. It is. Yeah, it's a good point. You're the production crew.

How long does it take? You have four options. Alright, time's up. Okay, okay, okay. I got it. I've got it. God, just give me time. I'm not good at math. Everyone who listens to this podcast knows I'm terrible. Terrible with numbers. God, I'm terrible with numbers. Just give me a second.

I'm making sure it adds up to 100. I mean, it's more fun when it does. It added up to 90. Christ. Okay, all right. I got it. I got it. I got it.

This is very hard. I don't like being put on the spot, especially when it comes to math. See, you know what? I used to come home and cry in, like like third grade because kids would make fun of me like especially my third grade math class they were just so mean because these math boxes we used to do um were so difficult and my mom was a math major and i didn't get the gene clearly as you could tell with the pie charts why i like stats because stats are not math stats are stats and i know that Eric Eager would be like, Courtney, what the hell just came out of your mouth?

I think he's a PhD in math, but carry on. I'm not going to stop this train wherever it's going. It's just going to just give me some time. It takes me time to put things together when it comes to math. Okay, I've got my – and rant. I've got my pie chart. Okay, let's hear it. It looks good.

All right, so shootout with the Colts winning. I put that at a 35% chance. I think that Phillip Rivers, if he can cut down on the wild turnovers and if he's getting the ball out in 2.27 seconds again, they're not going to have a pass rush because Andre Patterson told us it's impossible, so I'm just going off of that. So 35% chance it says the Colts are going to have a pass rush because Andre Patterson told us it's impossible so I'm just going off of that so 35% chances as the Colts are going to win a shootout and at home not that not that home field advantage you never make this easy on yourself you're just throwing those five percenters that get you a little bit thrown off okay so don't worry it adds up to 100

it adds up to 100 Vikings in a shootout Vikings in a shootout will be a 30% chance of a win because you bounce you know if we actually see the offense have a better time of possession if the defense doesn't you know put them in a situation where they're on the field for less than you know 19 minutes there there's some stat I had from last year that they're like a perfect 8-0 when they have at least 30 minutes of time of possession. And beyond that, I mean, they just need time to work. Kirk needs time to make things happen. He needs extra chances.

So if they can do that, they'll 30% chance that they win in a shootout. The next one was a blowout and the Colts being, you know, the benefactors of the blowout. Yep. What happened to them. I put that at a 10% chance. I don't think that, I mean, I don't think that's going to happen. I just don't.

Not with this defense, not the Vikings have. And then the 25% chance would be the Vikings losing the blowout. That seems more realistic to me. Okay. So you're saying, so there's only 10% chance that the Vikings blow out the Colts, right? Yeah, so that the Colts would lose in a blowout. Okay. That's how I went off of it.

Right. Okay. And then what was the Vikings losing a blowout again? 25%. 25%. Okay. That all adds up to 100. As much consternation came with that, it's a very solid pie chart.

Thank you. The only thing I would tweak, notice I threw that in, tweak, little tweak, is just like my neck, I would tweak the, how thick do I have to lay this on before you get the tweak reference? I already got it. I was not laughing. I was trying to let you talk. It's your podcast.

I'm not going to take it over. I just expected a little, like, a little just acknowledgement of the – anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm still recovering from this pie chart. So I would change just that I think there's a better, a slightly better chance that the vikings win a shootout and that's how i'm picking it i'm gonna pick it you know 35 31 vikings i think is the way that i'm gonna go i think it's gonna be fun and exciting and i think that they

come out on top and then everybody can sort of hold on to the freak out for a week at least that's how i'm gonna put it but i also think equal chance that close to equal chance that they lose in that fashion i have them losing in a close game my prediction that i filed this morning at espn.com was 28 24 colts i think the vikings were three point underdogs in that and you know they're playing inside again so i mean we don't have to worry about kicking. So I wasn't even like thinking there's going to be some last second field goal or anything like that. But the turnovers for Phillip Rivers do concern me if I'm thinking about this

from like a betting perspective. If I'm thinking about it from, okay, well, what's going to happen? But that's stuff that the Vikings can capitalize on to keep the game close. So I still think that this pass rush, and I still think that, you know, and they're going to have issues on defense. I really do. For the first few weeks of the season

until Daniil Hunter gets back, and I'll be happy to eat my words if it doesn't happen this way this weekend, but I flipped my pick on this show last week with the Packers because of Daniil Hunter being out. Originally, I had to, remember how many times you made me pick a schedule over the last six months? And this is why we do it, because things change.

And trust me, after this game you'll be doing it again. Oh, sure. And, you know, underrated point here that we haven't even, nobody asked Gary about today or anything, but it's like, we know that Pat Elfline is on injured reserve which you know whatever like it might be the best place for him because he was not very good in week one um and that's I just think this experiment's over I think that it's time to move on and he apparently got injured in practice on Thursday so what does that mean it means Drew Samia is playing and Drew Samia I

thought was supposed to be the one who won the right guard job considering how much they you know bloviated about him this offseason but that also brings up the fact of the matter Ezra Cleveland didn't even dress last week yep is he ready to be a backup backup like is he ready to be a backup period like that's that's a concerning territory to be in that if somebody else goes down, if you do keep Dozier at left guard and you now have Samia at right guard, is Cleveland's development so backwards because you had him play at left guard when he probably shouldn't have been playing at left tackle

and he probably could have moved on from Riley Reese? Maybe it would have panned out differently. I don't know. But, yeah yeah it's a weird spot to be in with the offensive line too that's just one thing that you know keep your eye on like who's going to be in it if he's inactive again then I think that that's a pretty telling sign that not good that your second round pick is inactive yes uh the Samia thing will be interesting to go back and watch after the game and get a look at how he performed.

And then, of course, we're going to wonder, like, why did you, maybe, if he plays well, we're going to wonder, why did you have Elfline there to begin with? And will we ever see Elfline again? I suspect not, if Samia is good. So there wasn't really time for a real competition. But at the same time, did we ever think it was going to work to move Elfline to his third position in three years? Probably not. So, well, this was epic and lots of fun.

And, uh, this is going to be super weird. You and I not traveling to Indianapolis because there's no point with COVID at putting ourselves at risk to travel for no extra access. So this will be like preseason. It'll be old times again. I know I'm excited to do the game recap pod on Sunday. I think that that'll be a lot of fun. It's just, it's I haven't covered a game off of TV, like a true game because preseason we're just chilling. Like, I mean,

and this time I haven't covered a game off of TV since the Browns game in 2017 when they were right which is wild so hopefully my coverage is not awful um it's just it's such a weird thing but you know I think back to Sunday and how almost like I felt like my mental checklist and of course like you're rusty because it's your first game and especially you didn't have any preseason games that's to be expected but the way that I felt leaving there I was like did I miss stuff and like when I watched back the the the game film you know the broadcast that night I DVR'd it I was like oh man Tajay Sharp why I mean I realized it in game and I'm like man that was a really bad read uh like live read for Kirk Cousins and you realize little things here and there about like how long Ngakwe was on David Bakhtiari and um you know just

how quickly Rodgers was getting the ball out it just it was very hard for me to pick all that stuff up in the stadium because the environment honestly felt like you were kind of just in this you it felt like you were in like a shopping mall yeah the ambient because the environment honestly felt like you were kind of just in this, you, it felt like you were in like a shopping mall. Yeah. The ambient noise. The ambient noise. It just like when you were in a bowl and it just went up to the ceiling because it travels.

And I, I honestly hope that, you know, it's going to sound different when we watch the game off of TV. I don't like that. It's not an accurate representation of what's going on in the stadium. I hope that the NFL is going to be willing to change that at some point this year, but I honestly don't know how that's going to work because the noise level was just gross. It was just so like, it literally felt like elevator music. Yeah, it was bad.

I equated it to being in your house and someone drives by with their windows open playing music it's like it's slight you go like oh is someone driving by and now that's about it um 2,500 fans will see how much noise they create my guess is it doesn't make a huge difference so all right well looking forward to it we're gonna pot after the game too so that will be uh fun as well we'll have lots of coverage and uh all right panic season already let's go the wait is finally over football is back you might not be at the game this year but you can still be in on the action at bet online bet online is going the extra mile to make sure that you can get in on every possible change to win this season. From game spreads to totals to team and player and coaching props, BetOnline gives you more options to wager

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