Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz compares the 2022 Vikings to two past Super Bowl teams

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Matthew Coller is joined by Football Outsiders' analytics pioneer Aaron Schatz to talk about why the Vikings' numbers aren't matching up with their Win-Loss record and what that says about them. Aaron compares them to two teams that reached the Super Bowl and talks about why calling them "frauds" is not as accurate as calling them "interesting." Plus Matthew answers fan questions about Christian Darrisaw and QBs/the Super Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining the show, as promised, Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, who was introduced by NFL Network on TV as a statistical OG. How do you feel about that, Aaron? I am, man. I am the original. I mean, you know, we started Football Outsiders almost 20 years ago, summer of 2003. There was not a lot of football analytics going on when I started my website 19 and a half years ago. So, OG, I think I do get the title. And one of your first things to claim to fame analytically is proving to the Boston media that it wasn't establishing the run that was the issue with the New England Patriots, if I recall correctly.

Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I started was by trying to prove or not to prove, but to see whether establishing the run really meant anything. And I think the funny thing is that, you know, 20 years later, we're still trying to explain to some commentators that it doesn't mean much. I just saw Bucky Brooks tweet something about the importance of the running game in the playoffs. And it's like, did you not watch last year's Rams? Because that team could not run the ball at all. And as far as I can tell, they won the Super Bowl. And in fact, in the Super Bowl, Aaron, they ran too much. They kept the Bengals in the game by running too much. But the Patriots of 2002, which is the team that sort of inspired me to start doing football analytics to begin with are actually kind of similar to the Bengals of today because in a sense essentially what happened with the Patriots is on their way to building a Super Bowl champion they somehow won a Super Bowl

right like the Patriots are better every year from 2000 through 2004 by our numbers. The regular season numbers are better. Like the 2002 Patriots are a better team than 2001, but they didn't make the playoffs. And the Bengals will make the playoffs this year, but it's the same kind of thing. The Bengals this year look a lot more like what the goal was than the Bengals last year did. But sort of on the way to building this Bengals team, they somehow stumbled their way into the Super Bowl last year. Well, in part, maybe because Tennessee was the one seed last year. And maybe that's a good transition for us a little bit because we were trying to figure out at Purple Insider Industries like some comparable anything to this team and one that came up was was that example where the Tennessee

Titans it was hard to find exactly on paper last year how they ended up as the number one seed but they did the Vikings sitting in the number two seed but I think as far as history goes, this is a hard one to find anything that's all that similar. And you tweeted out this chart that showed that where you would expect them to be in terms of win loss is the farthest away from where they actually were of anybody that you could come up with. Yeah, there's never been anything like this year's Vikings. Now, have there been teams like this, but not to this extent? Yes. And I'll give you a couple that I think are more promising for Vikings fans. The 2003 Carolina Panthers and the 2008 Arizona Cardinals.

The 2008 Cardinals are a little different because one of the reasons that the 2008 Cardinals overperformed their actual play-by-play is that they kind of didn't play hard in the last couple games. Like there was a snow game in New England in like week 16 where they just got slaughtered. So the 2003 Panthers might be a better comparison, but this is the first year Football Outsiders existed. And all year long, I was like, the Panthers aren't that good. The Panthers aren't that good. The Panthers aren't that good. And then we get to the playoffs and the Panthers go to the Super Bowl anyway and come within two minutes of winning the thing. So despite everything that all of us statistical analysis people are saying about the Vikings, nothing's going to stop, you know,

there's still the possibility that they go on a run in the playoffs and go to the Super Bowl. I mean, there's a possibility they win the Super Bowl, although comparable historical teams lost the Super Bowl, like the 03 Panthers, like the 99 Titans. But like, for example, in our DVOA ratings, we currently have the Vikings at minus 9.3%. That's 25th. The previous worst 12-3 team was the 2019 Green Bay Packers, and they were at plus 9.3%. That is a gigantic gap. I do think that we're missing a little bit about the Vikings when it comes to DVOA. Like if you ask me subjectively, like how good do I think they are? I do not think that the Vikings are the 25th best team in the league. They're probably closer to like the 18th

best team in the league, but it's just, there's never been a 12 and three team, anything like this. I mean, you know, as you can tell the the fact that no team in history had gone 11-0 in one-score games. It's just crazy. I mean, it makes no sense. And I was there. I was there for all of them. And every single week, it was a different kind of one-score win, including if you told Vikings fans before the season their kicker would nail a walk-off 61-yard kick.

I think, Aaron, they would have not believed you, considering the history with Vikings kickers. I'd love you to explain, because we reference DVOA a lot on the show in terms of as a guidepost to kind of tell us where the Vikings are going to go. And so, of course, earlier in the season, we're going, man, you know, if they got the 25th best DVO, a, like this looks like they could fall off and they had a really tough stretch of their schedule, which we sort of circled and said, all right, well, when they play

Buffalo and of course, well, you know what happened against Dallas, but new England looked better at that time, maybe then, uh, they turned out to be overall. But I mean, I guess how does it happen that a team can have this record with that DVOA? I just kind of loved you to explain how it functions and what it tells us. Well, first of all, so how DVOA works is it gives a success rating for every play based on the down and distance. And then you compare that to a league average baseline that is adjusted for situation and opponent and normalized for each year. So every year averages at 0%. So how the Vikings have done this is a combination of two things. It's a combination of games where they slightly outplayed their opponent, and it's just you don't normally have 11 of those.

And games where, frankly, they were outplayed by their opponent and got lucky with the bounces of the ball and the order of plays and when drives happened and missed field goals by opponents and all kinds of weird stuff. I mean, the best example of that is the Buffalo game. The Buffalo game, by our numbers, we have a stat called post-game win expectation. And what that is is it says, based on the stats of this game, the number of plays each team ran, penalties, DVOA, et cetera, how often would we expect each team to have won the game? And Minnesota had a post-game win expectancy for that game of, hold on, I'm looking it up right now, 1.7%, which is like one of the 10 biggest surprise games of the last 25 years.

Like Josh Allen fumbling on the one-yard line. Like, first of all, aborted snaps are normally recovered by the offense. So let's start with that. Like, first of all, the random chance of him fumbling. The random chance of him fumbling, the random chance of him fumbling right there, and then the random chance of Minnesota getting it when those are normally offensive recoveries is just crazy. And not only that, in that individual game, I mean, how often does any quarterback throw an interception in the end zone? Like, I mean, I've only seen it a couple times all year. Aaron Rodgers had a couple of them, and I remember one from Lamar Jackson.

But, I mean, generally when you look up red zone stats for quarterbacks, you're going to see like 30 touchdowns and no picks. There are not a lot of interceptions. That's why, you know, look, that's why, for example, the Seahawks' decision in the Super Bowl in 2015 to throw the ball instead of running with Marshawn Lynch is not the bad decision that people think it is because you don't normally – your normal expectation for that throw is it's either a touchdown or an incomplete, and then you give the ball to Marshawn on the next play. So interceptions in the red zone are rare, except apparently for Josh Allen this year. You know, it's weird.

It's just part of the parcel of the weirdness. For the Vikings, if you look at the Vikings so far this year, games that they won were the post-game win expectancy, says they were supposed to lose. They have a 33% for the Colts win. The Jets win is 50-50. Like I said about the Buffalo win was 1.7%. The Washington win was 40%.

And the New Orleans win was 36%. So they've got a few of these where they were sort of outplayed on a play-by-play basis, but because it bounces the ball or the order that plays win or whatever, they managed to win. And here's the thing. Nobody's trying to take away the wins that they have. I think there's sort of this impression that all of the analytics that we're doing, like we're trying to, I don't like saying that the Vikings are frauds. I like saying they're historically interesting because those wins happened, right? The goal of football is not to have the highest rating. The goal is to win the game. And they did. They won the game. Those wins happened. The reason why we talk about this so much is, one, we're trying to predict the future. And these other stats predict the future better than wins

and losses. And two, it's incredible. We're just marveling at how incredible it is. Early in the season, when they got to like five and one, it was like, okay, well, they don't have to give those wins back. So they have a great chance of making the playoffs. And my feeling was what they'd have to do is improve throughout the second half of the season. Like, so you got some lucky wins early on and you're going to have to get better. The thing is that they haven't really gotten better.

And I was looking up neutral situation yards per play to kind of figure out like, should they be maybe running the ball more or what, what's going on here? And they've actually gotten worse. And I thought, okay, you know, getting TJ Hawkinson would make you better in those sort of neutral situations where you could run or pass. And it kind of hasn't. And I guess I just can't explain it because even like last week, they're up on the giants. They've got chances to dagger that team. And I think it's not just the random lucky wins that they've had, but also the fact that they refuse to put any team away.

So even when you're way up on the Chicago Bears, you're letting them take the lead on you late. Kyler Murray had a chance if maybe his punt returner catches a punt to go down. I think they even had the ball with a chance to go down and potentially tie the game. And then Daniel Jones actually did it. The New York jets are in the red zone, you know, a bunch of times. And they, you know, come up at the end of that game as well. It's like, I think that their,

their strengths are so strong that they can win at the end of those games and their weaknesses are so weak that they can allow absolutely anybody to come back on them or be right there at the end with them and they've come out on the right side of that i mean the funny thing is i don't feel like the vikings have glaring weaknesses they're just it's just all sort of below average everything about the vikings is just kind of below average, except that they have the best wide receiver in the game. I mean, you know, listen, I mean, Z'Darrius Smith is in, and Daniel Hunter have really good numbers. But if you look at like ESPN's pass rush win rate, the Vikings actually as a team don't do very well. So yeah, those guys stand out a little bit.

But for the most part, everything about the Vikings, nothing stands out as like, oh, this is, you know, they can't run the ball or they can't stop the run. Like nothing stands out as like a huge weakness. It's just all kind of below average except Jefferson. Yes, certainly Jefferson. I guess I was thinking about it in terms of them ranking 28th in defense as far as they have a secondary and maybe a defensive scheme that can allow any quarterback to look like Joe Montana on any given day. I mean, you go to –

Oh, my God, they are 28th in point-to-points. Because we have them as 22nd, and I tend to think – I tend to think in terms of our numbers, not in terms of the official NFL standings. So I don't think of them as a terrible defense. I think of them as just a little bit below average on defense, right? But, yeah, I mean, they are 28th in points allowed. They are.

Yeah, and that's despite doing decently with – it's not like they have no sacks or it's not like they have no sacks or it's not like they have no interceptions. Like the interceptions have kind of saved them at times. And I think where there's concern about this going into the playoffs, and I know that offense is more predictable than defense, but it hasn't even been great quarterbacks that have lit them up. I mean, the great quarterbacks have, but it's also been like Andy Dalton had a very

comfortable day against them. And Daniel Jones had a very comfortable day. That was maybe one of Daniel Jones' best games the man's ever played. And Mike White, like with all respect to Mike White, it's Mike White. And yet in the second half of that game, he was unstoppable. And I mean, we've looked for answers all season long. Should they blitz more? Should they change their coverages? Should this or that? But they just don't have a secondary unit or linebackers that seem to be able to cover and they allow all sorts of explosive plays through the pass. But I also think that if you're going to be weaker on one side of the ball, that defense

would be your easy choice to be weaker on that side of the ball. Yes, I agree. And if you, if you were going to choose one unit out of three to be your best unit, it would be offense. Right. And so offense is definitely better.

We have their offense 19th, but you knew you do have the fact that Jeffersonfferson is transcendent and that darisaw has been very good this year as well and you know theelin and hawkinson are good and osborne is reasonable for a third receiver cousins is having a bit of a down year that's what's so so strange about this is that they're 12 and 3 with cousins having his worst year as a viking like the fact is you've had all these close wins, including over Buffalo. But when you get into the playoffs, I mean, your first game is probably going to be against the Giants. But your second and third games, you're going to have to probably beat San Francisco and

Philadelphia. And that is going to be very hard. I mean, that's the thing about the Vikings. Like, is there a chance they can do this? Yeah, but it's very hard to see the Vikings running a three-game road gauntlet of San Francisco, Philadelphia, and then either Buffalo, Kansas City, or Cincinnati in the Super Bowl. That first one, like the Vikings are going to win that first wildcard game and everyone's going to go, the vikings are for real no no it's just the vikings are going to play another like i mean the giants are like the number two fraud team of this year so you know it's it's it's um you know they might win one of those three but it's really hard to see them winning all all three of them folks we had some friends over this holiday and my wife and i cracked open some liquid deaths at nine in the morning and let me tell you that drew some strange looks, but it was also delicious and refreshing. The liquid death mountain water and sparkling water comes in a tall

boy beer can, and that'll have people asking some questions sometimes, but it's also saving the environment. Liquid death gives 10% of profits to bring an end to plastic bottles. So every time you're drinking from the can, you're doing a little bit of good in the world. So go to liquiddeath.com slash insider to find out more or get Liquid Death at Target, Hy-Vee, 7-Eleven, or Whole Foods. Again, liquiddeath.com slash insider. Yeah, I think, and this is why they will probably play their starters to fight for,

to keep the number two seed, because if they lose it to San Francisco and San Francisco has the tiebreakers. So if the Vikings were to lose against green Bay and San Francisco went out, then they would have to go to whatever it's called now, Candlestick Park. Yeah, although I think, although it's funny, I think you'd rather, it's interesting, you would rather play the Giants in the first round than play the Packers or the Lions at this point. That's true. You would rather play at home than go to Levi's Stadium in the second round.

I'm glad that you knew it was Levi's Stadium. I've been there, but I, you know, whatever. Yes, we call it the pants. Oh, the pants. Okay, that's good. So as far as matchups go, I mean, yeah, I totally understand what you're saying about San Francisco and Philadelphia, and it's hard not to feel the same way.

And they've had a lot of time to prove us to feel differently with this since they played Philadelphia or since they played Dallas. And yet they allowed, you know, the Indianapolis Colts to take them all the way down to the wire or be up 33 on them, which I think if you're saying like, Hey man,

that's not good. That's then you're right. Like that's, that's the funny thing about this season, Aaron, even when it comes down to Kirk Cousins and I'd love to talk about him because when you're you've watched the games there are sections of these games that are so frustrating with this offense you cannot figure

out what's going on like against the Jets it's a good defense but they average like four yards a pass what is happening here and then then the Jets get turned on when it comes to the fourth quarter. And I was looking at their expected points at added difference between three quarters and then the fourth quarter. And it's unbelievable. Like they're 25th or something in the first three quarters and then first or second in the fourth quarter. And they just become one of the best teams in the league. And I could see why if you're a Vikings fan, you'd be looking at Kirk Cousins and be like, hey, that's kind of what we wanted from you before. Like nobody ever thought you were going to be Patrick Mahomes, but could you just come

through in the clutch from time to time? And he's done it every single time. So even from trying to analyze the quarterback, it's been very difficult with Kirk Cousins. Yeah, although, you know, I mean, I have watched a lot of Minnesota this year, and Kirk Cousins looks like Kirk Cousins. Like, he doesn't look any different than he usually does. It's just the results are all a little bit worse than usual, but not that much worse than usual. I mean, he's 12th in total passing value in our numbers.

He's 17th in value per play. Like there's a couple more interceptions that he usually throws, but he also leads the league in DPIs, right? He's tied. So that's some sort of hidden yardage that he's gotten. I mean, but a lot of their plays are just chuck it up to Justin Jefferson and let him do something amazing, which is not a bad play, but you know, it's again, you know, how sustainable is all this? I mean, I think Jefferson being good is sustainable.

The question is that can you find other weapons on a week-to-week basis or can you not allow Kirk Cousins to get his face beat in which I think is something that's been very impressive from a like hey we're football men type of thing because he's been very very tough this year he's taken a boatload of hits and he's also set his career high in sacks already and hasn't even played 16 games yet. I mean, what did the numbers say about that, about sacks, about offensive line pass protection, like how much that impacts you in a regular season versus maybe in the playoffs? Because I think that that's the most concerning part going into a San Francisco or a Philadelphia, is that those teams have defensive lines, and you could just see them hitting Kirk Cousins all day long. Yeah, I don't have in front of me like the ESPN pass block win rate type numbers.

Minnesota is average in adjusted sack rate. Like they're very high in the number of sacks they've taken. But if you adjust for the defenses that they've played and the number of passes that they've thrown, they're more average. And I know that Derrisa obviously has been really good this year. Let's see if I go to the ESPN pass block win rate. They have minute, where do they have Minnesota for pass blocking? They have Minnesota 21st, like everything else. It's slightly below. I mean, like everything else with this team that isn't Justin Jefferson, it's slightly below average. I mean, like everything else with this team that isn't Justin Jefferson,

it's slightly below average. But I don't think it matters more in the playoffs. I don't believe that playoff football is different than regular season football. I know people want to think that it requires more guts and gumption. I know people want to think it requires more of a running game. There's a little bit of that depending on the weather. But last time I checked San Francisco, doesn't get too cold.

Minnesota is a dome stadium. You know, Philadelphia is a different thing, but the Superbowl is in Phoenix. So like if Minnesota, if things go the way we think they are, Minnesota only would have to play one bad weather game in the playoffs. Right. And not we're not even sure they would have to play.

You know, if Philadelphia loses by surprise, then they don't have to play. So, you know, I think that the playoff football is it's football. It's just, you know, the same stuff. Passing is still more important than rushing and offense is still a little bit more important than defense. I mean, there certainly are historical years in which great defenses beat great offenses like 2000, but I think overall, the same things apply in the playoffs that apply in the regular season. I wanted to ask you about, because you said that, you know, you think the Giants would be an easier matchup. And I completely agree.

I'm interested to see this week, you know, how Green Bay looks the second time, because the last time I saw them was week one and they didn't know what they were doing. And it took until very recently to have any idea what they were doing. And now even Christian Watson's kind of banged up. So I'm not sure if he's going to be playing or not. That seems like that would be a big factor. But I do want to see just how they look against each other because it is possible, not super likely, but it is possible that they could end up playing each other. And Detroit also is a fascinating one for me because they start, what, one and six.

Then they reel off all those wins, including a very impressive win over the Vikings. And so, of course, all of us are talking about like, oh, Lions, man, you don't want to face them. And then. And then. And then. Oh, my God. Chuba Hubbard.

Yeah, that was horrifying. But if you want to talk about offense being more predictive than defense, Detroit is sixth in offense in our ratings and 28th on defense. And that offensive rating is more predictive than that defensive rating. Goff is the number two quarterback in passing value this year, which is insane and a testament to Ben Johnson as their offensive coordinator. Can we give Goff some credit on the show here? Can we give him a little credit? I mean, the man has done this several times. I'll give him some credit, but it's also a testament to the offensive coordinator.

It is. But I have also witnessed Jared Goff absolutely torture the Minnesota Vikings going back to the 2018 game where he had a perfect quarterback rating against the Vikings in L.A. When he gets protection and a good scheme, he's great. He's like the human jugs machine. Just point him, tell him where to throw, and it's good. As soon as he gets off schedule, all hell breaks loose.

How could we even begin to measure Brock Purdy? I mean, it's an amazing story for Mr. Irrelevant to come in and play this well. I think we're realizing more and more over the last couple of years, the difficulty of separating the quarterback's performance from the scheme and the teammates, that it's harder than we thought it was. Because on one hand, like you have times like this with Purdy, where you have what seems to be or should be, I mean, maybe Purdy secretly is really, really good, but theoretically you throw a seventh round rookie in, it should not be like this.

Well, you're a New England guy. I mean, I guess maybe once every two decades once every 25 years this happens right i mean yeah right so uh let me ask you one more thing just um what do you think the best super bowl matchup would be well okay so first of all i'm selfish and i before the season predicted Bill's Eagles so I'm rooting for Bill's Eagles because that's what I predicted um I mean I think that the Bills are a more they're still the most balanced team but although they lost something when they lost Von Miller, and I don't know whether the status is that Miller can come back for the playoffs or not. So I think, I mean, I think the Bills, because they're the most balanced team, because Allen is so exciting when he plays so well, and because I like seeing fans who have never won it, win it.

So in that, with that idea, it, it would be Bill's Vikings, right? Cause one fan base would go home unbelievably happy. But as far as quality of teams, I think,

I think it would be Bill's Eagles or Bill's 49ers. And, and because the Eagles and the 49ers are hands down right now the best teams in the NFC, no disrespect to Dallas, but those are the two best, most well-rounded teams. In the NFC and the AFC, the most well-rounded team is Buffalo, plus you have the added addition of those fans. I mean, Buffalo fans versus Philly fans would be an amazing, amazing week in Phoenix. A violent week, potentially.

Yeah, but hopefully not to people, just to tables. Yeah, just to tables. Well, when I was in Philly for the NFC Championship in 2017, it was violence to people and lots of other things. So they're very aggressive fan bases, not exactly like the Midwest where I'm sure that Packers and Vikings fans will be outside cooking up sausages together before this game this week. So, well, I picked before the season.

My pick is still alive. I picked San Francisco against the Los Angeles Chargers, which. It's still possible. It's unlikely. Our numbers do not like the Chargers this year. We have them only 21st. But remember the number of games they played without Keenan Allen. And now they're going to get Joey Bosa back.

So they're a better. And they may get Rashawn Slater back. So they're going to be a better team than that rating indicates well we will see i don't trust the chargers i just that was i i thought like well they're doing that thing with the rookie quarterback contract and i thought they were going to win their division so yeah yeah yeah well we uh we should never underestimate patrick mahomes um but uh aaron this was really fun. I'm glad that you could come on and shine some light on the bizarre nature of this season. And I'm glad you said it because people like us love data and love analytics and love what they tell us.

We also like when it's weird. And this has been weird. And it's also been just super interesting to cover the dynamics of how a team could win 11 one score games it would probably never happen i said yesterday on twitter the vikings let's assume the vikings don't win the super bowl they will still finish second in what might be the most important metric which is fun right like in the end what do we want most from our team not to do well in some ratings we want the happiness of exciting wins and no team has had exciting wins like the vikings so other than the team that wins the championship i don't think any team has brought more happiness to its fans

this year than the minnesota viking uh and more torture at the same time like when you're down the torture that ends with happiness it's true being a patriots fan this year and you end six yards away from the goal line and then remandre stevenson fumbles or you tie the raiders and then you do the dumbest play in nfl history i would much rather be have the torture and then the win win is good yeah it usually goes the other way for vikings fans um but uh i'm sure everything you said just terrified them for the playoffs so the torture, and then the win. Win is good. Yeah, it usually goes the other way for Vikings fans. But I'm sure everything you said just terrified them for the playoffs. So, you know, that's kind of the status of things that they always assume.

The worst thing is coming. I will admit, I will admit, I think it's more likely that the Vikings finally lose a close game in the playoffs than that the Vikings get wiped off the board in the playoffs. Like as much as we're all like, oh, the Vikings are not really that good. Philadelphia is going to wax them. Like, I think it's more likely that Philadelphia beats them by three. Right.

Yeah. And this year is filled with close games. I mean, as close as it's ever been, every single game, even the bad games are close, which we've seen a lot of recently. So, Aaron, football outsiders, everybody knows where to find it. Appreciate your time. Glad I could have you on the show here, and we'll do it again soon, man. Sounds good.

All right, let's get into some fans-only questions before we wrap up for today. We'll start with Jason. What went wrong with matt khalil the fatalistic vikings fan in me is looking at christian derisaw and hoping that there are some tangible differences yeah i mean i think a couple of episodes ago i said that you guys have an unbelievable ability to think of every possible thing that could go wrong. And certainly this is hearkening back to a first round tackle that was amazing at the early part of his career and then fell apart. And, you know, I think a big part of it was the injuries played into it that I

think he was playing through injuries and then eventually in 2016 got hurt and never really recovered from that. He went to Carolina and he struggled, but there were also some other hints that, I mean, what's hard to understand as us, because you look at these football players and they are very wealthy and successful people. A lot of times they grew up at the top of their class for athleticism and so forth. And they won all these different awards as kids and they've been competing at a high level and they went to huge colleges like USC or Virginia tech. And you just sort of assume that they're used to what it takes mentally to handle something like the NFL.

But a lot of times, especially for high draft picks, there is so much pressure that goes along with it, and it can be very, very difficult to take. It can be hard. I mean, this was kind of earlier days of Twitter with Matt Khalil, but social media was around enough for him to understand what people were saying about him. He was, I presume, aware of the PFF numbers that showed how much he was struggling. And that was right about when PFF and the offensive line statistics started to become used as a credible resource. And I think that they have proven, and I've done my background on those quite a bit, that they've really bared out with how teams view their offensive linemen.

And we've seen that here, that when linemen did not play well, they were usually replaced by the metrics that's matched up with their decisions most of the time. And with Matt Khalil, I think that the Vikings always held out hope for him that his traits and his physical ability would kind of snap him back into it, but it never really did. And I think that was in part just the mental element of the strain of being a left tackle. It's not quarterback, and it's not, not say number one wide receiver. It's not the pressure that Justin Jefferson feels, but that's a good comparison to look at, you know,

someone like Jefferson, despite all of the expectations for him and the bar that he set for himself. And you would not think being around Justin Jefferson, or you watch him in an interview, or we have him at the podium each week and he does one-on-one interviews with the reporters pretty much whenever we ask, I mean, you would never get the vibe that this guy had the pressure to go out every single week and put up 150 yards and be the reason his team won and carry a huge load because it's just his personality. And sometimes that can change through the years with NFL players, with contracts and things like that. I mean, Russell Wilson might be a good example of a guy who eventually changed, but I've

been blown away from day one of how Justin Jefferson has handled superstardom. He is not different really now in the way that he acts toward any of us and the way that he carries himself in public. Maybe he's a little more confident on social media now that they're winning to tell people to stop talking about his quarterback or whatever. But I mean, it's just, it's like you built him in a lab for somebody to handle being a star. I think Stefan Diggs actually struggled with it after the Minneapolis miracle a little bit more. And you saw some of that pressure kind of come to the surface in 2019 that he felt like, and not only could he use his voice a little bit more, but I also think

that he felt a little bit of the pressure as the Minneapolis miracle guy to put up those huge numbers and be the reason that his team won and got more frustrated feeling like, Hey, I should be the star. And now in Buffalo, he's more comfortable in part because of that role. So I think about how that mental element and handling the pressure of the week in and week out the fan criticism, the media criticism. And if you are too sensitive to that, it can really get in your head. And, you know, the other thing too, is even just having a bad game or bad performance or getting rocked by another player, like the best players in the world, they just bounce back from that.

Think about corners who get beat all the time and they just go out like Patrick Peterson against the giants got roasted a couple of times and then came through with the biggest play. And we've seen that from all the star players, Justin Jefferson does not drop a ball very often, but if he does, I guarantee you the next one out, he's going to make that catch. And, you know, confidence is just so big in this league that I think that Matt Khalil struggled with that. I think he made a lot of excuses as well. And, uh, you know, when he went to Carolina, he said something about the coaching and then he played worse than he played in Minnesota.

Like, oh, well, we finally got good coaching or something here. And then he played worse. So it's really a sort of a character study of how someone could be so gifted, but also have it go wrong in the NFL. And with Christian Derrissaw, there's no guarantees for anybody. But my observation about Christian Derrissaw is he is about the calmest person. sit down with him one-on-one and have a conversation about his training camp and just how at peace he was and how happy he was to be out there playing where it was very chaotic in his first season coming back from injuries and so forth. I just think that he's a very calm person that nothing bothers him. And we've seen him get beat from time to time, but he never has a bad game. And that's what really blows my mind. He just never has a bad game. He'll, I mean, how many guys can say that where, Hey, it's just going the wrong

way and you got beat and then you let it kind of, you know, pile up on you and so forth. So there's always the injury element. I'm concerned about him a little bit because of the multiple concussions. That's always going to be a major concern after this happened this year and you just feel for him with that and it's something that you know probably you won't forget about anytime soon you know every week that he goes out there that's a guy that you can't lose and injuries can ruin anyone's career in football but as far as his personality it is so much different than Matt Khalil I think Matt Khalil was wound pretty tight and I think he let everything get to him and Christian Derrissaw to

me comes across like he lets nothing get to him and he I mean he's got all those other traits that are probably equal but that one is hard and I had a conversation with Jeremiah Searles and a prospect tight end at the combine in a hotel bar or something where we were talking about offensive linemen and how tackles are usually not wound very tightly. They're usually loose and kind of laid back, whereas guards and interior offensive linemen are usually kind of like these pit bull type, you know, tough guys that get in your face and everything else. So there's different personality traits that go along with it and you know there's another thing that some people might say and i really love this question so i appreciate this is just that the love of the game has to be there because the process is so difficult to get to week one mean, you think about the season gets over and a player has to heal their body to get back to the point where they can even start working out again and preparing

for the next season. And then oftentimes, and this won't be the case this year, but it was going into this year, you're learning a new offense. You're trying to correct the weaknesses that you had. You're going to mini camps, OTAs, meetings and meetings and meetings and meetings. And if you aren't completely obsessed with every single thing, like Eric Hendricks said today that he's addicted to the chess match

between offense and defense. And like that, that's exactly it. Like if you are not all the way in all the time, then you're just, you're just not going to be able to play at the highest level. And I think you see that from every play. That doesn't mean you can't have off field hobbies. So I'm not referring to Matt Khalil owning a pizza shop. I just mean that if you, if you never truly loved football and you got Pat got by on your athleticism because you were just a better athlete than everybody else in college. That happens all the time. That's why the draft is so random. Like, you don't know that, you know, maybe Zach Wilson, he got here with his arm

strength, but then he didn't love the process of, you know, every meeting putting effort in to get better and to understand what he's supposed to do. Because he looks like a guy to me, and this may have been the case with Khalil, I don't know. But Zach Wilson looks like a guy that doesn't do the homework. He looks like he shows up to the book report and just never did the homework. So you can't know that when you draft someone, how much they're going to put into it, how much they care about it, and are they addicted to the chess match of football and getting better? Or are they just there because they were a great athlete and my gosh with jefferson and derisaw i think as far as character goes they just completely hit the ball out of the park with two guys who are obsessed with the game and who can handle all the pressure that goes along with it so again great

question it's a really, really fascinating subject. One of my favorites to talk about is why some guys make it and some guys don't. But Derrissaw, I think, has a special and perfect makeup for a left tackle. So I don't think there's a similarity there between them. But the injury thing would be a bit of a concern. All right, this one comes from, don't know exactly how to say this. Maybe it's Jake Rupa 80 on Twitter. How is Harrison Smith? Not a pro bowler. It doesn't really matter. But when you're on your podcast saying he needs this many pro bowls and all pros

to make the hall of fame, then it does matter. Like in 2017, he makes all pro, but not the pro bowl eventually as a replacement it's unbelievable yeah the thing that is so hard about being a defensive back and making the hall of fame is that you usually have to be on a great team and if you're going to make the pro bowl you usually have to be on a great defense with zadarius smith and his sacks and pressures it's a little easier to quantify and i know harrison has interceptions but if you get four interceptions in a season and cause a fumble or two it's not really going to stand way out unless you get like eight interceptions or something like that if you're leading the nfl someone will take notice but if

you're not they're going to look a little more at your defense as a whole and say, well, were you a great defense or not? And I think with 2017, he made a case for defensive MVP that year. And like you said, he did not make the Pro Bowl, but somehow made all pro. I I'll never, never understand that. But this year, I don't know that he's been able to have the same impact as he has before in the past. And that's not to say that he isn't deserving in that conversation, but there are a lot of very good safeties in the NFL. And I think that when you play on a defense that ranks 28th,

that a lot of the voters are not even going to think of your name because they're going to say well look this is a past defense that really struggles yeah that guy's got five picks but how much is he really impacting the game and you know i just think this year he hasn't been allowed to do so for most of the year they did it a little bit against indianapolis i didn't see it as much against the new york giants with him moving up to the line of scrimmage he hasn't been allowed to blitz very much this is not Harrison Smith's fault and it really speaks to how players and their usage can impact what we think of them and then the total impact that they have on their defense can be either maximized or limited and this would be my number one criticism of Ed Donatel and the Vikings defense is that

they have just not let Harrison Smith be Harrison Smith. And that's why there have been less of those impact plays that we've seen. I mean, he has 12 times rushing the passer this year and two pressures. That's just not Harrison Smith. Last year, he had 43 and eight pressures and three sacks by the PFF numbers last season. So he was an impact player in the pass rush. I think he was more of a run stop or two because he would blow up those plays and the data backs that up as well. That last year he had 22 run stops and this year he only has 14 so far.

And that's him coming to the line of scrimmage and making plays. So this is his worst graded by PFF season since 2013. It's hard to make the Pro Bowl that way. A lot of people look at those PFF numbers. I don't think he's a worse player. I think his impact has been limited by his defensive coordinator and the defensive scheme and from that end there have been a lot of safeties that have had good seasons and i understand how he didn't make the pro bowl

because i don't think the pro bowl is usually based on like hey we know this guy is the most talented player at his position um so we're going to give him the Pro Bowl. Usually it's this guy had this big statistic, this PFF grade, or played for the number one defense, and that's why he's going to get in instead of Harrison Smith. I take nothing away from Harrison Smith's overall ability and his ability to still be a major asset in the defense. It just has not been there the same way it was in Mike Zimmer's defense. And I think that Zimmer did everything he could to use Harrison Smith

all over the field to be a chess piece as opposed to being a cog in the machine, which I think is what he's been asked to do with Ed Donatel. And what's very odd to me is that Ed Donatell will say like, oh man, what a pleasure it is for a guy who can do so many different things, but just does not use him in the same way. Like looking at his box count, 337 snaps in the box last year, only 209 this year. That's a big difference. 104 at the line of scrimmage last year to 38 this year. So that probably plays into it. And it does not getting a pro bowl here does hurt his hall of fame candidacy. And I'll look this up while we're talking about it. Um, because I think that this

has just been, it's, it's been frustrating to watch when we've seen it for so many years, and I think we all know, right? Like, you guys know and we know, but, you know, maybe it's not being fully maximized. So let me just pull this up right here as far as Pro Bowls go. Let me see guys who have seven Pro Bowls because, you know, obviously, yeah, there's a there's quite a few hall of famers with seven pro bowls usually they have multiple all pros

but earl thomas seven pro bowls one all pro or am i looking at that wrong no no no three three all pros yeah so that's yeah it's going to be hard usually guys with seven also have at least three all pros i was looking at the wrong category um daryl green had seven pro bowls and only one all pro so that would be maybe the only other comparable usually they all have multiple all pros though and it's going to be hard for him to get it past this year because it's going to be the like well he's past his prime and he's not impacting it the same way. So yeah, it, it certainly matters for that. It certainly matters

for that. So, all right. Uh, next question comes from at Kevin Houston one on Twitter. Do we actually like and trust Kirk cousins now? Can he be a Super Bowl winning quarterback? Whether you like Kirk Cousins is kind of up to you. You know, I don't like or dislike any player. We just talk about them in the way, you know, that's the facts is how we do it on the show. As far as trust Kirk Cousins, that's an interesting one. Certainly in every clutch situation there's no no arguing with that um that has that has been something that's very different in his performance for sure this year and how much you'd believe in him getting the ball with a chance to go win the game and

sometimes you wish you could just uh copy and paste i'm sure that people feel this way copy and paste this to some other years i mean mean, that 2018 team is very, very good. A lot of great players on that team. And if you get a couple of drives in that season, 2019, you get a couple of drives in that season, maybe things are a little bit different. Even 2020, last year I thought he was really excellent at those game-winning drives.

But in 2020, there were some chances to do it, one against Tennessee, another I think maybe against Dallas, against Chicago, and they just didn't come to fruition. And that shows you how difficult it is to maintain that because in the bigger sample of Kirk Cousins being Kirk Cousins, it was always possible that he would be able to do this and put in the right circumstances that he could have a run because he's talented enough of these clutch performances and so he's proven that and nobody

can ever say that cousins isn't clutch which was not ever a part of the conversation for us because i had studied that and i had found that he was just fine in terms of his data when he was asked to lead game winning drives or whatever else that he was pretty much on terms of his data when he was asked to lead game winning drives or whatever else that he was pretty much on par with the rest of the league and now he's probably moved past that with the fourth quarter numbers this year have been just just absurd so that was never that was never a me criticism i mean i definitely saw that um every time that a drive wouldn't work out it would be like oh well kirk isn't clutch and so forth. But there was nothing to really back that up in the numbers. So I never, I never was into that. When it comes to trusting him, it's sort of two different questions of like, do you trust them

to lead a game winning drive? Do you trust them to run the offense? Do you trust them to win a big game? And they have won some of those this year. The Giants game was a big game and they have won some of those this year the Giants game was a big win and you know beating the Bills was big do you trust him to take you to a Super Bowl I don't know how you really can I mean that's like that's a that's a hard thing with almost any quarterback but given that there are some shortcomings on the offensive line, there are some physical limitations with Cousins as far as being a playmaking quarterback, the running element, it doesn't exist. And sometimes in the past, it's just not been enough. Even if he is a great thrower of the ball, even if he does have an unstoppable top receiver,

there have been matchups where the other team is just too strong. And we saw that against Dallas this year, 2019 San Francisco. So trusting him to actually take you to a Superbowl is a longer shot. However, when you say, can he do it? Is that possible? Of course that's possible. That's always been possible. The only thing was that the discussion we would always have is, well, everything has to go right around him in order for him to get there. And wow, has it ever. And I really came to this relay realization maybe a year or two ago about quarterbacks in general and how I would rank quarterbacks. Because one of the things that is just absolutely obnoxious is quarterback rankings.

And if you love them, bless you. But I just like power rankings. I just can't take it. It's like, because everything is lacking in context. It's just like, this guy's 12 and this guy's 11.

And that's the, that's the facts like, well, nothing works that way. They have whole teams and everything is about, in my mind about winning is what does it take for your quarterback to win? What do you need around the quarterback to win? And like, what, like what, what, what is his capabilities in terms of talent to put you in a position to potentially win the Super Bowl?

So let me just put this into the categories that I have them in the way I chunk quarterbacks. So at the very top is Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, who are going to give you 10 chances in their careers for their team to win a Super Bowl. Absolutely 10, 8 to 10 chances where there'll be a season where they win 12, 13, 14 games and they go into the playoffs as favorites or one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl. Because those guys are your quarterback, that's what you're going to have. If they play 15 years in the league, 10 of those years, they'll have a chance to win the Super Bowl legitimately.

That's the same way it was with Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre. Those guys only won one, but they probably put their team in a position to win between eight and 10 times over a career. That's what the all-time great quarterbacks do. Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, 10, 12, 14 times, depending on which guy you're talking about. Almost every single year, you go into the season with your odds from Vegas saying you're a top five Super Bowl contender, right? And you win 12 to 15 games and you've got a chance. So that's your elite of the elite. And almost no matter what happens, you're going to have that chance. The next group is the ebbs and flows are going to

affect them. That's the Eli Manning's that's the Matt Ryan's very, very good quarterbacks that can go to the super bowl. Kurt Warner was probably like this, that when things were bad in New York, you know, he didn't play very well, but then when things were great in Arizona, he takes them to the super bowl. So that's a guy that gives you five chances to win a super bowl. You know, I mean, everyone knows my appreciation for Steve McNair, but I would put like a Lamar Jackson in this category. And there's probably guys that, you know, the story really isn't written for them, but if we're trying to do the quarterback rankings, I'm not sure if Joe Burrow, where Joe Burrow is, he might be in the 10. He might be, that's very possible, but he's

probably somewhere between the five and the 10. You know, so there's, there's quarterbacks that are going to give you a great chance if they have the right stuff around them. And the next level down is where Kirk Cousins exists, which is a guy that probably gets one chance. And that is not a massive criticism of Kirk Cousins. It's only to say that he's not going to be MVP. He's going to need everything to go right in a single year to get his one chance. And that's like how Jay Cutler was. For example, Jay Cutler got to an NFC championship game. He had his one chance and he was a really good starting quarterback for a long time. And when everything

went right, that was his shot. And we have seen those quarterbacks when Joe Flacco is a great example of this. Joe Flacco had one, I mean, he had multiple chances where he had great seasons and great teams, but he had one year where that was, everything went right for him. He had in his career, he had two 12 win seasons. So yeah, I guess, yeah, no, I think, I think Flacco is pretty good comparable here for Kirk and one, it all came together. He played unbelievable in the playoffs, and he won the Super Bowl. And we have seen that from, I mean, even Carson Wentz.

It's hard to believe Carson Wentz wouldn't have put his team in 2017 right in that position. That's another guy who would have, and he's worse than Kirk by a lot. But you know what I mean. That's a guy who's going to have one chance. And this is it. This is the chance. There probably won't be another after this. Um, it's possible that there is, uh, but like considering his age and everything else and sort of how things have gone for similar quarterbacks like him, you get this chance and here you are, you've put yourself in a position

to go win the Superbowl and it's happened for other quarterbacks that were not considered on the same level as a Tom Brady, where they've reached that Superbowl and they've had their chance to win it. And sometimes they have. So yeah. Can he do it? Yeah. I mean, no, no one's going to, no one's going to put them as the favorite to do it because of the point differential and so forth. But I also think that anybody, like Aaron Schatz said early in the interview, if you're saying, oh, they're frauds, they couldn't possibly and everything. Sure.

Sure they could. I mean, Matthew Stafford is exactly like Kirk in this way. That he had one chance to legitimately win a Super Bowl and he did it. And Kirk and Stafford, I did that big piece a few years ago comparing the two and how close and similar they were statistically. And I don't think they're similar in their playing style. I think there's a differential there in the arm talent, but Kirk is also less reckless than Stafford.

But as far as those quarterbacks that I'd put, hey, this guy's going to get one chance to win a Superbowl legitimately one chance, not, Hey, it's 10 win season. It's a nine win season and Stafford got it done. So there's nothing to say in the rule book that, you know, they can't continue to have things go right for a few more weeks, get clutch performances, throw to Jefferson, like, yeah, it can happen. Um, it's going to be a very, very difficult road though. So if he gets it, he's going to a billion percent have to earn it. I mean, he's just going to have to be absolutely marvelous. But again, Eli Manning was, I'd put him a little higher than cousins as far. I'd put him in that other category of a guy that gave his team probably five chances

to win in a career. But I mean, still like you can have someone have a run in the playoffs where they're just marvelous. So anyway, you guys are, you guys are bringing absolute, uh, absolute heat here with these questions. Let me get in.

I'm just having a good time answering them. And maybe you could judge by my long winded answers. So, you know, fast forward me in 0.15 or whatever you sociopaths do. Okay. Let's see here. We'll do one more.

This one from at Kyle Shaner on Twitter. If the Vikings were to win the Super Bowl this year, where would they rank among the most unlikely Super Bowl champions of all time? I don't know that they'd be particularly high. I mean, as far as like analytic championships, um, you know, they, they wouldn't match up with a lot of the teams that have won the super bowl if they were to do it. And the point differential particularly, although of course that can change in the next couple of weeks, but usually if I remember this correctly, the lowest teams outside of that super random

Giants team that was nine and seven and had the negative point differential, all the rest were at least like plus 50 and then, you know, all the way up to plus 200. So that would make them unlikely just based on the point differential. But based on how much they won, they're an average Super Bowl champion. And when you look around the roster, all-time great receiver, legendary corner who's going to be in the Hall of Fame, you know, offensive coach, that's sort of a modern coach, modern approach. You know, one of the best hires in the off season. I guess maybe him being the first year coach would make it a little unlikely but there have been some weird super bowl winners

my friends i mean some i mean kurt warner coming into the league after bagging groceries and creating the greatest show on turf has to be one of the most unlikely super bowls ever the new york giants beating the the San Francisco 49ers in 1990, and then the Buffalo Bills that were a juggernaut. And of course the Giants beating the undefeated Patriots. Like this would, Peyton Manning winning in his worst season, Nick Foles beating Tom Brady. Like there's a long list of Super Bowls that are crazy and completely unpredictable. I mean, Tom Brady's first one,

my gosh, that's probably the most unlikely of all time coming off the bench for Drew Bledsoe. So I don't, I don't think it would, I don't think it would get that. I mean, is, is there any other Super Bowl champions who through most of the season that people didn't think that they could necessarily win? How about last year? Last year, I don't think people thought going into the playoffs that the Los Angeles Rams were good enough. Everybody kind of had it as being the Packers with the number one seed and 13 and three MVP quarterback.

Like the, the Rams were an unlikely championship in that they were the number four seat, which is going to be lower than the Vikings, no matter what happens the rest of the way. So it'd be only unlikely in that they're the Vikings. Like that, that's part of it. If you want to make that case, I'll buy it. That they've just had this franchise that so many years have had things go wrong. But I've always said this since I got here. That even though I believe in the past the Vikings were cursed,

and you can prove it by the number of totally unexplainable things that have happened to this team, I have never believed that they couldn't do it based on being the Vikings. Because if you asked Saints fans, hey, how's your team doing? Before Drew Brees, they would have said, we are the biggest calamity in all of sports. I mean, they had the Dome Patrol back in the day, and they blew playoff games back then. And then they had all sorts of horrendous, awful seasons. Mike Ditka, the brief soiree with Aaron Brooks and thinking that he could be their franchise quarterback and Jeff Blake showed up. It was super weird.

They had two guys named Billy Joe. I mean, like, you know, like they were a disaster and they got drew breeze and they won. And, you know, I don't know.

Like it's, it does just how it goes sometimes is that even the most cursed seeming franchise can have it all come together in one year. I mean, Philadelphia, they went a long time without a championship. I know you guys felt really bad for them. But, you know, when they won, they looked at it as like, hey, we went through a lot to get here. I mean, five NFC championships for Andy Reid. They had the ball at the end of the game in the Super Bowl and Donovan McNabb couldn't come through and all, you know, all those things.

A lot of teams have their cursed stories and then end up finding a way to get over it. So it would be by Vegas standards. I think that it would be a pretty unlikely championship. So that's my, maybe one perspective to look at, but I don't think, I don't know, because if they got to the super bowl and played the chiefs or the bills, like how much would they be favored by? We've already seen them in Buffalo against the bills where they were a big underdog. So maybe, maybe there is a case there for, from the Vegas and gambling perspective that they'll go into the playoffs with a pretty low percentage chance to actually win it. And they would be unlikely. So maybe, maybe I've come Vegas and gambling perspective that they'll go into the playoffs with a pretty low percentage chance to actually win it. And they would be unlikely. So maybe, maybe I've come around a

little bit, but as far as most unlikely stories, team has very expensive veteran star quarterback team who's been in multiple pro bowls team has legendary receiver, a lot of big name players, you know, that sort of thing, like veteran experience team. It's, uh, if they do it, it's much like last year's Rams or much like, you know, the Ravens that we referenced. So it can, it can be done. I don't think it would be one of the crazier stories ever, but, uh, yeah, it would be, it would really be something to spend the entire season going like, do we even think they're good? And then have them win the whole thing. So that's, but hey, like, look at this conversation, eh?

This is a podcast in almost New Year's Day. There's zero draft talk. There's zero rebuild talk. There's zero fire and people talk. It's only, hey, you think, what if they won the Super Bowl? What a place to be in our lives, eh? So anyway, thanks for all the great questions. And my apologies for this excessively long podcast

where I just was really having a good time answering these questions. So we will talk to you all again soon.