Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin thinks Sam Darnold is staying regardless of playoff outcomes

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Matthew Coller is joined by ESPN's Courtney Cronin to discuss the Vikings' impending Sam Darnold decision, the playoffs and the Bears season and future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and guess who is alongside? ESPN's Courtney Cronin, who is in the midst of a coaching search in Chicago, but not playoff games, Courtney. So do you want to talk about the playoffs? Yeah, let's talk about the playoffs. I haven't covered a playoff team since 2019. Like it's a, it's a drought. Like it took me like realizing that the other day that it's been 2021,

five seasons of this where, I mean, the two years in Minnesota and then the last three seasons in Chicago, and this was supposed to be the year that maybe they got in, but that ship sailed very quickly. So now I will be watching wildcard weekend at home, like everybody else who is not covering a playoff team, but I'm excited about the football. Yeah. Well, the football should be glorious, especially in the NFC. So why don't we begin there with some takes on the Vikings and the Rams? How shaken was your confidence in the Vikings after the game against Detroit? I would be lying if I said, man, Sam Darnold picked the worst possible time to have

his worst game of the season. And I don't put it all on him. I put some of that on Brian Flores, and we know how good Jared Goff has been against Flores' defenses over the years, but it was such a letdown that that wasn't even a competitive game. That's what sucked when you watch it. You're like, wow, I wanted to see week seven version of this game in week 18 to decide who goes to get home field advantage in the one seed, and you could have pulled Jared Goff at halftime. I just hated that. I absolutely hated it, and I don't pin it all on Darnold, but it's like, come on. How could you not be upset if you're a Vikings fan watching that

and thinking, man, you've got to go on the road now to Los Angeles or to Phoenix. We don't know yet, obviously, where the game's going to be. I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty just around the team right now and around where the game's going to be played and everything else. But I guess more so than anything else, my confidence being shaken in Minnesota, any thoughts on the playoff viability of that team, how far they can go. I just keep wondering, how many more of these sorts of games, these ass kickings, frankly,

does Detroit have in them like because every time we say oh they're too injured like they're you know couldn't possibly be able to compete with this roster with all these people on injured reserve yes they did get Alex Anzalone back they're getting David Montgomery back apparently like that's on the table I just I can't believe that they keep doing this so I don don't know if I'm going to pick against the Lions again, because every time I've done it the last couple of weeks, it has bitten me and bitten me very hard because they're putting up 40 on the San Francisco 49ers. They've got 31 on Minnesota in that defense that I thought was going to make a ton of adjustments from week seven. And it looked even worse than it did when they were playing, you know, against Jared Goff in Minneapolis, but it's, you know, this is a tough draw, I think, for the Vikings

in the first round playoff game against Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay, and, you know, it's not like I have a whole ton of confidence in the Rams right now either. They haven't really impressed me all that much with their offensive performances the last month or so, but it's, you know, nobody wants to go into the playoffs kind of back. I wouldn't say backing your way in, but like you had the one seat in hand guys. And then now you're the five, like that's, that's brutal. Well, first give them a little credit. It was a close game until halfway through the third quarter. Sure. Okay. Yeah. You wouldn't have pulled Jared Goff at halftime. You would have pulled him in the third quarter if you really wanted to. Right. The game really swung have pulled Jared Goff at halftime. You would have pulled him in the third quarter if you really wanted to.

Right. The game really swung when they had a long drive and Jameer Gibbs some problems halfway through the game, but there's never going to be a game against that team where you just shut them out. Like I was looking into defenses that made the Super Bowl over the last 10 years, and you've got the, you know, the 2014 Seahawks, the Legion of Boom, and you've got the 2015 Broncos. But in recent memory, there aren't too many defenses that have just dominated and taken a team to the Super Bowl. Even last year's 49ers were good, but the Lions put up points against them. Kansas City's had some good defenses, but have allowed some points in playoff games. It's just not how the league seems to work anymore. Offenses have so many answers that you're going to have

to outscore people. And I think as the Vikings go into this, the biggest concern is does the offense have enough consistency? Because throughout this year, they've been really good at times. They've hit a lot of explosive plays, but then there's also been a lot of little mini droughts that happen in games like Seattle or Arizona, or even against Atlanta at the start of that game. And then they eventually run away toward the end, but there's just been times where you're like, is it consistent enough to take a team all the way through the playoffs? Yeah. And I think that that's the big question. And if you don't buy into the Vikings, like that's the reason you're not, but like they've gotten this far and I know people have tried to poke holes in their resume

and it's been a different Sam Darnold since the Jacksonville game. That's a good five, six. No, it's more like seven weeks. That's a seven week sample size where you've seen a different quarterback, a more confident quarterback out there, a quarterback who wouldn't say that he didn't buy into the coaching before, but like really is latched onto it to a point where he's going out there and he's got command that I don't know. It was almost like it was on like shaky ground in the first part of the season where it's like, he's putting up these numbers, they're winning games, but nobody had the belief in Sam

Darnold. Now to like revert back and be like, oh, I don't trust Sam Darnold anymore. Like this is not, I don't know. It's not like we're waiting for the pumpkin to, or for him to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight. This feels very different. And we've talked about this on national radio the last couple of days, just because people have asked me to compare it to the Case Keenum situation in 2017. I'm like, there is no comparison.

Like, I guess the only thing you would ever say that like would be anything on a remote level playing field is that you have two quarterbacks who sort of unexpectedly made their way to, you know, got this team to the playoffs. That's the only comparison there. But I don't feel like anybody's looking at Sam Darnold, truly looking at Sam Darnold saying this, this guy's a fraud. This guy's going to like revert back to form. Like he's changed who he is fundamentally as a quarterback because of the

coaching. And I would like to believe that going in knowing that like Kevin O'Connell's got the institutional knowledge of what the Rams were when he was there and what they are now, you're in a far better situation than going against a Detroit team that honestly is, is playing a level of football that I just, no one expects from them because of the attrition, because of the things that they've had to deal with injury-wise over

the last six to eight weeks. Really, I mean, you could even point back to when Aiden Hutchinson got hurt. They found an answer for that, and they're just too deep. They're too deep, which is wild to think about with a team that's that injured. I still feel like Minnesota presents as a very good playoff team. Now, I don't think they're going to win a Super Bowl. I probably would be feeling a little different if they had home field advantage, if they had the first round bye, but I don't think they will win a Super Bowl. But I do think that they present as a team that can go on the road

and beat the Los Angeles Rams. I like the 17 versus this year comparison because the 2017 defense was prolific. It was number one in total points, yards, rushing and passing Goff and completely took them out of the game. And Case Keenum just had to survive and not screw it up, which he tried to a few times. And Mike Zimmer made that very clear to us that he had made some mistakes, but he kind of ran the ball. They ran a lot of screens. And then every so often threw the ball up into the air and had Stefan Diggs or Adam Thielen come down with it and then just play defense. That is not the 2024 Vikings. They have a top five defense. They're really good against the run. They're really good at getting sacks and

turnovers, but there's been a lot of games down this stretch where Sam Darnold has been the reason that they have won. And he was not good enough to be the reason in Detroit because you can't just rely on the defense to stop Detroit for an entire game. But I think that both tells us about Sam Darnold and about what they would need to go on a D playoff run. They need Sam Darnold to be the reason it's not going to be the running game. We know that they're not going to run in the red zone and have it work out. They're not going to just shut out Matt Stafford and then play whoever, play Detroit and shut them out or play Tampa or Philly and just completely eliminate them.

A lot of this is on his shoulders, which makes the whole dynamic of, is he the quarterback? Is he not the quarterback? Even more fascinating. Do you think, and I'm curious because this is the topic nationally, the perception out there is that he has to win a playoff game in order for them to keep him around next year because of the idea that maybe J.J. McCarthy would present a good case for a trade for a team that needs a quarterback.

This quarterback class isn't great in the draft. I just don't buy that Sam Darnold has to win a playoff game I mean obviously it helps his case to get paid no matter what but he got this team to 14 wins like does he really need does it you can't obviously go in there and throw for 90 yards or whatever like you can't have a terrible performance against the Rams but I don't believe that he has to be in order for them to win. Yes, he needs to play great, but in order for him to be the quarterback of this team going forward, which I think is an even more interesting conversation, obviously Vikings fans want to see their team win multiple playoff games, something that Kirk Cousins was not able to do in a singular season. Like, but I don't think that the bar has to be, man, he's got to go on the road to beat the Rams. And then whatever happens in the divisional playoffs, it's gravy. I think he's, I think

he's a quarterback either way next year. I really do. But I'm curious what you think about that because you're there. Like, what do you make of the conversation that we have nationally on the quarterback situation in Minnesota? Well, one, I would say it's driving me crazy because there's a playoff game that I want to preview how Dalton Reisner matches up with the D line or something. But I think that it feels a little silly to make one football game, the entire decision on someone after an entire year of play. The other dynamic is if you win 14 games in any other season, you're the number one seed playing at home. And this year just so happened that the Detroit lions built this behemoth over three years and were the super bowl favorite all the way from the start and had to beat you in

the last game in order for you not to be the one seed but then now you're the five seed i mean it just the whole system seems kind of ridiculous like normally if a quarterback had a season where they were the seventh best by pff and top 10 and quarterback rating all the other metrics and had 14 wins and game winning drives, game winning plays. The connection with the number one receiver was great. We would just be talking about like, this guy's great. But the last thing you saw was really rough. And also the fact that you're going on the road, it feels different than it actually should when you win 14 games. So I don't think that everything has to be on this game, but I also know that we said the

same thing in 2019. Hey, you really shouldn't make a Zimmer decision and a Kirk decision based on one playoff game in new Orleans. And yet they did now, maybe the Wilfs learn from that a little bit. Uh, and in this decision, cause I'm sure there'll be greatly involved, realize that they overreacted, but it's football and overreaction is the nature of the game so I don't want to say oh well there's no way they base it on what happens in this game but I mean do we do we need a chart well if he throws for this many yards and they lose by this much he's still fine and he's coming back but if they win but like that it just the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous to make it about Vikings and Rams honestly that kind of sounds like a pie chart idea not that not that I'm volunteering myself for you know you put on the spot for that

but it feels like that's how the fan base and like everyone is talking about Sam Darnold like he has to show up and be this version of himself and if they lose they can't lose by more than like this and he has to like throw for this many yards can't't have any turnovers. He, you know, he has to have a game winning drive the way he did in Seattle, but he can't look like, stop. It's really annoying that we like completely ignore his body of work through the 18 games, excuse me, the 17 games over 18 weeks that we saw him and act because there's no other quarterback out there right now that we're doing that with. And yes, there aren't other quarterbacks who are other teams rather that are facing the situation that, that Minnesota's in right now, where it's like,

well, you've got somebody in the wings waiting, but you've got a lot out of your guy that you brought in on a one-year deal who was supposed to be your bridge quarterback. And you turned out to fall in love with him and really find the right fit. To me, the smartest thing you can do when you have that, and like Kevin O'Connell, there's the great, and we're seeing this right now with the candidates that are popping up for the six open NFL jobs. There's those who are like the great X's and O's and the gurus of like Ben Johnson, for example.

And I think Brian Flores probably falls into that too, because there's going to be questions about leadership. Of course, that's just because of what happened in Miami and the fact that he sued the league, but there's no question that he can like out scheme just about anybody with the way that he schemes his defense. With someone like Kevin O'Connell, he's in such a rare, like a rare category of like doing the X's and O's stuff really well, but also the EQ, the emotional intelligence he has as a coach, where when you pair quarterback with coach, with EQ, and also coach is going to like put him in the right position from a scheme standpoint to

succeed, why on earth would you ever want to deviate from that? And I know that they drafted the guy they thought was going to be their franchise quarterback, might still be their franchise quarterback, and have him there. There's no doubt in my mind that J.J. McCarthy would benefit from more time to learn within this offense and to learn behind Sam Darnold. I don't think the Vikings need to be in a rush to do anything, but I do think that they need to keep Sam Darnold beyond this season, because you're,

if you send him into free agency, if you don't even, I mean, they're going to tag him. I think at the very least, like you kind of have to do that just from a business standpoint, but you want him doing this for somebody else when you saw it work so clearly.

And we really have no clue whether it's going to work or not. There's no bot. There's no sample size really to know for JJ McCarthy, if it's going to work, I would be just no sample size really to know for J.J. McCarthy if it's going to work. I would be just very quick to hit the pause button and pump the brakes a little bit for anybody saying, oh, well, they're ready to turn the reins of this thing to J.J. McCarthy. I don't think they are. I don't think they should be.

Why can't they go the Green Bay route? Why can't any team just wait, be patient? I know that it seems like, like just impossible to think about what's the harm in going the Aaron Rogers to Jordan love route. Cause it seemed to work for a team that they faced twice a year and have had some super competitive games with, and they've gotten real, they've gotten to see some really good quarterback play off of a guy who just started doing this three years into playing in the NFL. I think what, if you take the most rational and reasoned and laid out approach, it's just not a great ESPN radio topic because then we start to get into the, like you

said, like what you're saying right there is very reasoned and rational. Like, Hey, if you were to give JJ McCarthy more time to develop, what a tragedy that would be for your franchise. Oh, wait, that's probably the best thing for him, which Kevin O'Connell has repeatedly said that he's going to make sure that he is as patient as possible in developing McCarthy, who, by the way, hasn't thrown any passes or run any plays or anything the entire season as he's been recovering from his knee injury. So he is put behind in that development.

Why would it be a bad thing to bring back a quarterback that has won you a lot of games while still developing another one? But that's just not hot. That's not us yelling at each other. So there's really not a whole lot there. And then we get the other thing, too, which is over the cap.com is a wonderful, incredible website created by Jason Fitzgerald, but it also has made a lot of people into salary cap experts. When I think that if you again, start to lay it out, here's the money that they have, here's how they could formulate contracts and things like that. It doesn't look anywhere near what it looked like when they were trying to build around Kirk Cousins when he was

taking up all that cap space. It looks, it's just a different circumstance, not the same picture. So I will tell you that what I have ascertained from talking to some people around the National Football League league how am i doing here as an insider good you're using all the right buzzwords yeah yeah not connected with the minnesota vikings have suggested to me that a three-year deal that's actually like a two-year deal sort of like baker mayfield that has a low cap hit in 2025 so they can resign everyone and add people and then kick that decision down the road makes the most sense. And knowing that they have the franchise tag in their back pocket, that's 40 something million guaranteed. So if you top that number

for fully guaranteed for Sam Darnold, plus the fact that you have the franchise tag, the Vikings would hold all the cards in a decision like that. And there's another, another part of this too, that I think that Vikings fans and the world at large who wants to argue about this should probably also say they are so competent as a franchise right now that they're probably going to handle this pretty well. That that's one thing when everyone wants to yell and argue about it. It's like, I think they're, they'll probably figure this out. They, I mean, what, what decision can you point to? Like when you think about like the Vikings at large, like, yeah, there were injury concerns about Andrew Van Ginkle. I think that that ended up working out in their favor concerns about, man, you're letting Daniel Hunter go. Oh wait, Jonathan

that worked out really well like three years in and it's it's funny for me just because i left at a time where they were starting their rebuild to come to chicago to cover the bears a team that was also starting a rebuild at that time and just how vastly different the two teams approached getting to a place where you're competitive and yeah maybe year one you had more to obviously you had more talent on the roster in 2022 but like the step forward to the step back like i'll step back last year to like then just completely ascending in 2024 where you're just like sprint in a full sprint it's pretty remarkable how the vikings went about, doing the quiet reconstructing behind the scenes,

letting players go, bringing players in. It's kind of a masterclass, honestly, in how you can get back to being competitive without taking a blowtorch to your roster, more or less. I think it's really impressive. And anybody who would have concerns, oh man the Vikings aren't going to get this right give me a give me a situation in the last couple years that they with this with this general manager and this head coach that they've messed up they really can't point to any I mean they paid Justin Jefferson what they had to when they had to and as they should have they decided to not sign up for more of Kirk Cousins, which of course now looks like an incredibly wise decision based on what happened in Atlanta.

They brought in some good free agents that become great players in, in this scheme. Honestly, when we talk about like, you know, front office of the year, all of those awards that typically come out right around now during playoff time, why wouldn't the Vikings be at like the top of that? Considering how they've handled just about everything this year and what that then aligns them to do in the off season?

Well, they did lose their last game. So that means that- So yeah, that means everything's out the window. They suck. Yes, yes. But I think, you know, I actually think that it's with Ryan Poles and that franchise and Kweisi Daffelmense,

Kevin O'Connell, where it has been very instructive is even if the direction is flawed, which I thought the competitive rebuild was a flawed idea, just, okay, you're going to try to win and stay in the middle. And that's just really hard to do. And Kwesi D'Affolmenta admitted at one point, it's actually harder to do than tanking. Historically, tanking usually gets you to the top faster. But I think if you're a front office that knows what it's doing and works together and has a very specific plan that you're following and following through with it, you're more likely to succeed

than if even if you did something better by the numbers, which is to tank, but you're a bleep show, which is exactly what the Chicago bears have been. So when it comes to this future decision, Oh man, if they signed Arnold, they're not going to have any cap space or something like they have one of the premier cap people in the league and Rob Brzezinski, they figured this out before they will do it again. They will figure out because it'll be part of their plan that they follow along with. Whereas Chicago, I don't know that there's any trust in anybody to do anything, which does lead me to the next subject.

I have not talked about Brian Flores and his potential for getting a head coaching job. He's got a lot of interviews. I'm not convinced that anyone is going to hire him. Do you think that he is a legitimate candidate for the Chicago bears position? I think he's a serious candidate. Do I think he'll get hired here? It's probably like odds on favorite. No, no. Like, I mean, but then again, when you think about like, who should

they hire? And of course, Ben Johnson's name, Mike Vrabel, all of those guys float to the top immediately. Something, maybe it's a skeptic in me, but something just doesn't believe that like the biggest of big names is going to land in Chicago. And there are some reasons why you'd have reservations about taking this job. Certainly the GM situation is Ryan Poles towards the end of his contract, he's going to get an extension. You're going to be aligned with him, whatever it is that plays into, that plays a big role in everything and then you know beyond that it's like what are they looking for like Caleb and his development is the most important thing and that's not to say that a defensive coach coming in can't do that by any stretch um

Brian Flores like I mean the connection with Ryan Poles obviously obviously Poles and him have a very similar background. The Boston College stuff from the two of them. I don't believe they had any overlap there because he graduated in 2003 and Poles graduated, I want to say, in 2005 or 2006, somewhere in there. They're cut from the same cloth, like through the Patriot system, obviously Scott Pioli, like there's connections there that tie everything together, uh, with the BC stuff too. Like, I know that he is somebody that is on their radar and somebody that they, they want to interview. And Flores did say he would take all interviews as he should, like, you know, think about the tumultuous couple years for him when, you know, in 2022 he gets fired, he gets these sham interviews, he sues the NFL,

he goes to Pittsburgh, he goes to Minnesota. Like, he reinvents himself in a very short amount of time and ends up being, like, one of the best at what he does. So any team with a brain would want to interview him. Now, you know, I just don't know as far as, like, I would love to know who his staff would be because that, like, first and foremost, if you're going to hire a defensive head coach, you have to be without a shadow of a doubt confident that your OC is going to be with Caleb Williams for more than a year, which is hard to do.

Like you don't, this guy's going to be on his third play caller more than likely by his 18th game in his NFL career. That's a real easy way to screw up your quarterback if it's not the right person. So I'd want to be sold if I'm Poles, if I'm Kevin Warren, if I'm George McCaskey on not just the plan for Caleb, but the plan for the staff that you're entrusting because you're a defensive head coach. Of course, you have to have a voice in all of this. But Matt Eberflus was in a lot of these meetings with the quarterbacks, the breakfast club, as they called it, and that didn't really work out all that well.

Yeah, you can talk about, like, what do you see on this? How, as a defense, do you attack what I'm doing? Like, how should I, you know, what do you see? Whatever. I think that Brian Flores is a strong candidate. I don't think he will be the candidate, though, for this job because I do think that they're going to go offense. I really do.

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I don't think, I mean, Trevor Lawrence hasn't been fantastic, but he also hasn't been terrible. Their defenses have mostly been terrible. And I think Flores also needs kind of a hardened quarterback who's been in the NFL before and not one that you're trying to coddle and teach how to play football. And I was listening to Ryan Fitzpatrick the other day, and I transcribed this and included in my article about Flores when Fitzpatrick was talking about Brian Flores, he had some very pointed things to say about his time in Miami. He said, I'll just read this to you, what Ryan said on his podcast.

He said, which version of Brian Flores are we getting? In year one in Miami, we got rid of every good player they had and jokingly called it tank for Tua. And halfway through, we hadn't won a game and there was a shift in the way he was approaching his job. He was likable, relatable, demanded a lot out of the players, but he was able to get the best out of the players. As his tenure in Miami went along, he became unrecognizable. Fitzpatrick added that he thought Flores burned a lot of bridges and alienated himself from the entire staff, and he used the word dictator and said that he ruined a lot of relationships and noted that his ego grew so big. There wasn't any room for anyone else. Fitzpatrick also said, I think he's learned a lot. The job he's done in Minnesota this year has been unbelievable. He's a relatable guy

when he's just himself. And I think that's the most important thing for him. I hope he learned the most, uh, be you and don't try to imitate Bill Belichick. I think if you're, if you're Chicago and you're doing your interviews and you hear that you think I just can't have that. And I think Brian Flores has learned a ton from Kevin O'Connell a ton, but I don't think you can have a disconnect between the head coach and the quarterback. I think they have to be completely in lockstep the way that O'Connell has been with Darnold, the way that we're projecting for him to be with McCarthy. I don't think you can have a hard-ass defensive coordinator and then just saying, so what's going on with the quarterback?

I just don't think that you can have that scenario for Caleb Williams. And I want to believe, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I don't know Brian Flores. I don't know how, obviously we hear how well-received he is. And of course there was that press conference after the Tua Dan Levitard thing came out where he was talking about how his life was miserable every day in Miami and Brian Flores made him feel awful.

The strategic placement of the two players on both sides, Brian Flores, who came and showed solidarity of like, yeah, that was me. I've learned from that, though, and my players love me. That's great. But, you know, you bring up Belichick. It makes me think about Bill Belichick. What did we get out of him this year? We got a fun Bill Belichick who was light. He was, you know, away from football in the stress of the day to day. And he was a human being that was relatable. And that's why people fell in love with him. Honestly, I think that's, you know, that personality like may have washed over people enough at North Carolina where they're like, wow, what a captivating guy. And he's got six Super Bowl rings without seeing, I don't want to call it baggage, but without seeing the real, real Bill Belichick that they're going to be getting at North Carolina,

who's going to turn back into that. Does a zebra change its stripes? It can mold itself into something different, but it really, you're not going to get it. Who he is at his core, and when he's back in that head coaching position, if it happens, there will be things he reverts back to. That's just human nature. And so I'd be worried if I'm the Bears, everything sounds great right now. And we talk about like all the things that they say they want, like leadership and accountability.

If I have to hear those words one more time, like I'm going to jump out a window because it is literally all they've been regurgitating. And Caleb saying I wasn't coached hard and, you know, reports about like what was really going on behind the scenes. Careful what you wish for. Like if you bring in somebody like that who could, who might not be speaking the language of the quarterback to begin with, because he's a defensive guy and also might not be speaking to the quarterback in a way that's going to help him constructively become a better quarterback, then you're playing with fire. Then you're ruining your investment. So it might be just like a safer thing to stay away from that, but it doesn't mean that Brian Flores can't be a good coach for someone else in a different situation and get an opportunity as a head coach again in the NFL. I just, I think timing matters and in the timing of like where the bears are at, like where the franchise physically is right now would not line up well with Brian Flores.

But I do think he will, he will probably present a very strong case here. Um, they, they, you know, polls knows him. He's a respected coach in this league, but I don't think he's the right coach for the bears. I think he is an incredible football coach who as a coordinator has galvanized their room. They believe in him. They love him. And I think what Fitzpatrick said about him being his genuine self was absolutely true since he's been here.

And I do think that watching O'Connell deal with quarterbacks might have helped, but I just think that even fundamentally, like even remove the person, Brian Flores, or even the background or anything else, you want to tie those two things together. Your hope is that Caleb Williams is the quarterback for 10 years. You don't want him changing coordinators all the time. And even with Tom Brady, he had Josh McDaniels for a very long time. I think continuity matters a lot. Think about they made Kirk change coordinators from D Filippo, then to Stefanski and then to Kubiak. And then not that Stefanski and Kubiak weren't really good at their

jobs, but you're always asking someone to hear a new voice in the headset year after year after year. And I think that's really hard on a quarterback. I also think Caleb Williams, though, deserves a lot of the responsibility for how this season went. I don't think he was the leader that they needed at quarterback to push through a lot of these problems. Organizations have problems. Coaches screw up ends of games, all those things. If you have that guy, like think about how Belichick

treated people that whole time there. And Tom Brady powered through as the leader of that team and was the reason for them for so long. When Caleb Williams is kind of melting on the bench against the Vikings. My thought was, you know, if you had a little more from this quarterback, a little, maybe 10 fewer sacks, for example, just seeing the field a little better, a little more toughness, a little more leadership, a little more resilience that you see from the great quarterbacks.

I remember, well, you remember this, you were at that game when Josh Allen beat the Vikings early on. It was like, this guy's going to be a problem, even if he can't throw the ball yet. Look at his, like he's overmatched their defense is better but look at the way this guy fights and claws and scratches to try to Anthony Barr hurdles Anthony Barr I just didn't see fights and claws and scratches very often from the quarterback there were moments like especially some of these um you know especially some of the games where he led,

he got them in position at the end where you, you had the faith. Okay. It's not all bad. It's their moments. Like he had the, the, what should have been the game winning drive in Washington, what should have been the game winning drive against Green Bay the first time around, what should have been, and we got them to overtime against Minnesota the first time around. He had them in position against Seattle. There's those things that you're like, okay, that's the good Caleb. But then the stuff about him holding onto the ball too long is real. And I thought Ryan Poles actually did a pretty decent job the other day, not pinning the blame, like being, you know, giving you like truth, like not pinning the blame. Oh man, it's the offensive line.

Cause that's obviously that would, that would reflect poorly on him because it's his personnel decisions. Like, but there's a lot of shared blame in the 68 sacks that he took this past year. And it's not just the offensive line's terrible. It's not good, but that's on the quarterback too. And, you know, from a leadership standpoint, I think he has, was never really comfortable asserting himself and what he wants. And also, I think it was just the playbook, like learning, not saying that you want to be Jaden Daniels in the sense where you're like transferring schools and you've got multiple different offensive coordinators.

But like Caleb was with Lincoln Riley for three years. He got spoiled in that sense where you have the same voice, same offense. Obviously, they're spread offenses in college football. They're easier to learn. I think that there was a comprehension thing, too, that was a steeper hill for him to climb as a quarterback, just in talking with some people around the situation, that the learning curve was steeper than the Bears thought and probably steeper than Caleb thought. And in year one, trying to master that while also being a leader and being assertive, it's just too much. It was just too much for him to handle.

And it was a bad situation from the start. Could it be different this next time around? Yes. But to your point on not having coaches leave, if you get a head coach, and i know that they're going to interview everybody like offense defense like they're not interviewing any special teams coordinators even though they say everybody all three faces they're like if you have an offensive head coach it's not and it works and even if it doesn't work it's not like he's leaving after one

year especially if you have a play caller the guy who's going to be calling plays is also your head coach there's a benefit to that in terms of stability and continuity that you would be breeding with the quarterback that I think will probably factor in for the bears. Ultimately, like if I had to like handicap it, not necessarily names, but like thinking offense or defense, I think you're going that route because it just, it's a clearer path to like having a couple years of this to then see, all right, what do we really have in this quarterback? And can we win with him on his rookie deal? Because if you're changing

those things every like one or two years and you hire a defensive coach and you do get the OC, right, but then the OC becomes a head coach somewhere else, then you're telling it, then you're putting your QB in a really tough situation year in and year out and probably not maximizing his potential. Drew Petsing is actually an interesting person for this. He interviewed, we covered him in Minnesota, runs the kind of Stefanski Kubiak stuff, play action, run and build off of that, which maybe Caleb needs. I also think that in a competent franchise, they would not have let the fans run the team, which is meaning to put Caleb Williams, one of the youngest prospects who was a wild man at USC and just say, go back there and play and run an entire offense and lead a team with a lot of start and then worked him in later, even in the way that new England was able to do with Drake may, but instead there was so much pressure. It was the number one pick. Everyone wants to see him get him out.

The outside noise of, well, like he's not going to be happy if you don't do, if you don't acquiesce to everything he he's going to, he needs or what is perceived that he needs, which is no competition, none of this, none of that,

not saying that you should have kept Justin Fields and not traded it because that would have been toxic. But like to then not have a viable backup, their backup was Brett Rippin and Tyson Bajan. But like Brett Rippin was like the vet in the room during training camp. And maybe from a salary cap perspective, they thought, okay, we don't have the finances to go get a Joe Flacco, which would have been fine. Like if you got him or somebody else, like you do have the finances to go get a Joe Flacco, which would have been fine if you got him or somebody else. You do have the finances for that. I think they learned a lot about their process and how they handle egos, how they handle outside noise, and how they handle vetting a situation. Because Ryan Poles was in Kansas City when Patrick Mahomes sat the first year

behind Alex Smith. You couldn't tell me that you couldn't find an Alex Smith out there on a one-year thing just to be able to get Caleb comfortable. But, of course, like, you know, there's optics too. He's the number one overall pick coming to a city that has starved for a quarterback. Like, how realistic? It was not realistic to think that you could sit that guy for a while, maybe even a whole season, and then him like year two like he talked about it he said they were too outcome

over process driven this year and the expectations fed into that so that is outside noise that is the fans that is the perception of what the Chicago Bears should have been factoring into the decisions that they made this year and honestly it not working out for them in 2024 right exactly let's uh circle back here to the playoffs and the vikings because some of us are covering a football game this weekend uh i want hmm let me think what would be a good idea here i think uh i guess i'm thinking a pie chart would make a lot of sense for here well i should have been prepared for this but i wasn't um all right i didn't actually think there was anything that we could pie chart this for but you thought there was no chance that there was

going to be a pie chart you know i i just wasn't sure um but i'll pull i'll pull up my my math my calculator we'll see if i can get it right this time okay uh last time it was an epic last time it was really really bad but you know it's okay like learning you know what though do people really doubt me like i'm sam darnold in this situation you're gonna throw away all my good work that i've done on this podcast since its inception you're gonna tell me i'm terrible because i get a pie chart wrong one time but i think your priors on pie charts are uh very suspect to the point where people thought you were tanking on purpose,

but I promise you that's not the case. So unfortunately not the case. Well, here's, here's the potential outcomes for the Minnesota Vikings. Okay. Let me write. So they,

uh, that typing noise is very loud. Sorry. Sorry. I'm just trying to make sure that I do this in your head. Nope. Nope. Nope. Can't do that. I have to write it here and i do the math on my phone don't don't don't mess up my process oh okay all right well the turn down your volume i guess uh so we've got the outcome of the vikings being eliminated in the wild card. Okay. All right.

This has become like a comedy bit with a dropped in noise. But okay. We've got the outcome of them being eliminated in the divisional round. Okay. And we've got the outcome of them being eliminated in the conference championship, which you and I experienced 2017. Okay. All right. I experienced in 2017. Okay. All right.

I've got that. And then we have them being eliminated in the Superbowl. All right. So I want you to give me the percentage chances of each one of those things. And then of course there's win the Superbowl, but let's just say, don't get ahead of yourself here and have me throw five in. At least I can do like some pretty decent math with this one.

So, okay. I won't give you a, I won't give you a five if you don't want five, but I think five is probably deserved here for those are all the outcomes. Fine. Give me the fifth one. Like they get,

you know, eliminate, they win the Superbowl. Is that the last one? Yeah. Yeah. Eliminated in the Superbowl or win the Super bowl is that the last one yeah yeah eliminated in the super bowl or win the super bowl so there's five all right eliminating wild card round eliminating divisional round eliminating the nfc championship what's this one eliminating the super bowl eliminating super bowl wins win the super bowl yes all right so this is going to

be your toughest challenge yet all right promo read that you can like do right now so i'll let i'll let you think by just talking through these if the vikings are able to get past the los angeles rams this weekend or monday i think that things become very interesting for them matchup wise, because then you could end up facing if things go right, Tampa Bay, or I mean, if things go really right for them, they could go to Tampa Bay. And that matchup, I think favors the Vikings. There's also a scenario in here where they host a playoff game.

If there's two upsets, which is not crazy because Philadelphia's quarterback is coming off of a concussion. They're an imperfect team. They had some close calls this year and green Bay has been playing mostly well until the last two weeks, but green Bay's numbers are good for their entire season. So I think that matchups may be closer than people think Washington and Tampa Bay. We saw Washington pull off a win against Atlanta. Uh, and they have been a good offense for essentially the whole season outside of a dip in the middle. They could be Tampa Bay. So there's scenarios here that could help the Vikings. So they don't have to go back to Detroit or don't have to go to Philadelphia.

If they do, then they will not be favored and it will be a difficult matchup. But Detroit or don't have to go to Philadelphia. If they do, then they will not be favored and it will be a difficult matchup. But I also don't think, do you have it? I'm ready. Okay. Well, I'll just say, I don't think it's impossible that they could beat Detroit as well. Okay. Let's go through it. Percentage chance in a pie chart out of 100. This is clear. Not out of 140, which I think is what happened last time. So a percentage chance that they are eliminated on Monday against the Rams? I give it a 20% chance. And I tried to stay with whole numbers here because I didn't want to mess up the math.

So I think that I'm not putting too much stock into the loss that they had against the Detroit Lions. Obviously, it's not great. You're not feeling great going into a playoff game when you were only able to put up nine points and your defense gave up 31. But there's a different challenge with what Brian Flores presents, with how heavy he blitzed Jared Goff, and how good Jared Goff has been historically against Flores' scheme. I think that's a big part of it. I don't think you get two stinkers from Sam Darnold back-to-back. Factoring that they're going on the road, still don't really know where the game's going to happen,

but I don't put it as a very high percentage chance. I haven't made my official picks yet, but I'm probably going to be picking the Vikings in this game. Okay. So that means you think that there is a very high chance that they are moving on to at least the divisional round. What is the percentage chance that their season ends in the divisional round a la 2019? I put that at 30% because of who they would be playing. And obviously there's the receding factor. There's, you know, if they play a team like Philly, Philly is super complete.

And I think that Jalen Hurts will be just fine going back in. Like I said, I think they were slow playing this. I think the offense is going to look really good when they get him back out there. Defensively, there's probably not even, like I know I said Detroit's most complete team. Like in theory they are, but, like, injuries, I'm still not willing to go all in on that.

I think that that crown goes to Philly if they face, if they somehow were to, like, match up with the Vikings in the second round. Or even if it's, like, you know, if it's Philly, I think it's probably Philly winning and them moving on. If it's Tampa Bay, then I think the Vikings have a chance to get past the divisional playoffs. And, I mean, I could go through other matchups hypothetically, but I think that, you know, just some of the ones that like I'm looking at across the bracket for now, I'd be, I'd

be okay saying 30% there with the divisional playoffs. Okay. I think I would have had both of these numbers a little higher. I probably would have had maybe 30%, 40% on just this game and then maybe taking us all the way up to like 80 chance they don't get past the divisional round for me you've got you got 50 chance which is showing a lot of belief in the vikings ability to get deep into the playoffs so i think the nfc is wide open i really do and so it's if for them losing in the nC championship game, I'm not going to like a week ago, everybody was saying with Minnesota in the driver's seat for the number one

seed, wow, this team could win a Superbowl. Like we can't pivot course wholly on that. Of course, now they have to go on the road to do that. That does factor in, but I put them losing in the NFC championship game. Cause it's also like, if they get to a certain point, then they've played some damn good football along the way. That justifies them being there. I put it at a 20% chance that they would be eliminated in the NFC championship game.

Okay. So now, well, I shouldn't do the math for you. No, I know what my math is right now. My math is at 70% of the pie chart being filled. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. 20 plus 30 plus 20 is 70.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought that you said. I'm sorry. I thought you said 30% that they were eliminated in the championship round. You said 20. My mistake. Okay.

Yeah. No, I think I did that right. So that means you're putting them as a 30% chance to go to the Super Bowl. Wow. You're a Vikings believer. Have you just been watching way too much Chicago football? Is that the problem? I'm an NFC North fan.

No, I'm kidding. I won't even do that. I think there's some flawed teams in the NFC North, or excuse me, in the NFC right now. In the North, I think Green Bay is flawed. I don't know what version that the version we saw last week, you know, it's hard to tell because, you know, they had Malik playing out there for most of the game. They lose Christian Watson, you know, how does Jordan love look? He was limited. Like, I don't know that they're going to be in regardless of the injuries. I don't think that they're getting past the second round,

getting to the second round. Washington, great story. Love what they've done with Jaden Daniels this year. Love, like, the guts that that guy has in the final minutes of games. Do I think that they're getting past this weekend against Tampa Bay? Maybe. But, like, I just don't, but, like, you know, then if you face them in the divisional playoffs experience matters in these

things, like it really does. I don't know that I have confidence that Minnesota is not a better team than some of the other ones that are like seated lower than them. I get that. So I put it at 20, a 20% chance in the NFC championship game. Did they lose there? So the 30% that I have here for them to lose the super bowl, who are they probably going against? Kansas City?

Buffalo? Baltimore? Best quarterbacks in the NFL? Three of them right there. I put it at a 25% chance that they would lose the Super Bowl. So then that leaves me with the 5% that they would win the Super Bowl. If they get there, I'm not discrediting them if they get there. You know what I mean?

Like you're going to give a team some respect. Nobody's going to the Super Bowl and you're saying, oh, it's a 0% chance that they win. If they get to the Superbowl, I think that they would lose it more than not because of Kansas City being in the driver's seat to get there. But 5% chance to win the Superbowl, add it up and tell me if I did well. I'll give you my percentages. Get a calculator. I'm at a loss for words. I nailed a pie chart. It adds up to a hundred percent. Thank you. This is a big moment for me and my family.

I want to think, okay, sorry. I'm sorry. I went a little tangent there. Thank you. Lord and savior. Gary.

Yeah. Miss Gary. Miss Gary. Well done. Well done. So I, I think that you're probably a little on the uh belief side for the vikings getting all drinking the kool-aid right now i think i really am and i think it's just

because i look at the rest of the nfc right now not super confident in tampa not super confident in the rams especially the last couple months like these performances that they've had on offense losing to the seahawks, what they did against San Francisco. I don't have a ton of faith in that, but I think where I would try to end up, I like your 5% to actually win the Superbowl because of who they would likely face there. I would probably end up more around 15% chance that they get there and maybe 10, five that they win it. But I don't think it's's I don't think it's a wild opinion what is really the 5c like that's you're right about the whole system being a little broken here they're

not the 5c they're 14 win team that it so happened that that's how the seating shook out because they didn't win their division and like they're better than like they shouldn't be fifth they should not be fifth and that's why like I gave them probably a little bit more credence than you're giving them to get to the Superbowl, just based on how the other team, what I feel about the other teams in the NFC. I think that is very fair. Part of it for me is that this Rams matchup just won't be easy. I mean, you've got to go out there somewhere and face kind of a nemesis of Kevin O'Connell's.

And I think it's going to be a really tricky matchup to start with. And then, but after that, anything can happen. Uh, Courtney, thank you so much for making time during a coaching search that you're dealing with.

I'll be glued to my computer for the next, I put in the over under on when they hired the next head coach or announce it at like January 27th. That seems fair, right? Yeah. That's like three more weeks. That seems fair, right? Yeah. That's like three more weeks of you. Well, I mean, they have like 50 billion candidates that they're trying to talk to.

So you've got to factor that in. When the Vikings went through it, I have never been so exhausted in my life with the Harbaugh and you know, I was covering that too. That was exhausting. And a general manager. Isn't that funny though, that Jim Harbaugh and Kevin O'Connell, here they are in the postseasons having turned franchises around. So maybe whoever they hired would have been fine.

Courtney, I wish you the best of luck with that. We will definitely talk again very soon about this Vikings team, the playoffs, maybe when the Bears hire a coach. So thank you for your time and football. Thanks for having me.