Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles tries to talk us into this Vikings season still being worth it

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles plays the "blame game" in which he attempts to separate the blame between GM Rick Spielman, head coach Mike Zimmer and quarterback Kirk Cousins for the Vikings' ugly 3-4 start to the season. Jeremiah is then forced to talk us into keeping one of the three long term and the Vikings still having a successful season. He breaks down what it's like inside a locker room for an underachieving team and talks about Danielle Hunter's injury and Patrick Mahomes looking human. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time for the Tuesday morning Left Guard show on Purple Insider. They're too strong, my dog! You're too strong! Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles for Tuesday Morning Left Guard, which we are recording in the afternoon. But at least it's on the right day, Jeremiah.

And also, just for your own personal mental well-being, gave you a little extra time to process what happened between the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys. Here's where I want you to start, Jeremiah. I want you to give me two solutions to make that not happen. Is it possible that you can give me two ways the Minnesota Vikings cannot have that happen several more times this year and end up either out of the playoffs or barely, barely yet. The first one is when Adam Thielen is running wide open down the field, you throw him the football. Number one. Number two.

When you're an offensive lineman and there's this guy on the other side of the line of scrimmage that wants to beat up your quarterback you need to block him he needs he needs to have someone in front of him that you can hit with your hands and not your face and block him for around two and a half seconds i think if we can do that we can win some more football games but we're now what eight weeks into this thing now or seven seven eight weeks yeah seven eight and they didn't lose in the bye week yeah we have yet to prove that we can do that on a consistent basis so those two things seem very simple they seem fairly simple but yet that we seem to make them very hard now i want to run something by you that i please said a couple of times,

and I just want to get your feedback because you can disagree if you like. We have talked a lot about solutions and things like that. And even going back to when Kirk Cousins first got here, we looked at the offense that John DiFilippo was running for him, and he had his moments, but then he had his quite bad moments and turnovers and things like that. We said, you know, I don't know if that's quite a fit. So then he gets let go, and Stefanski comes in, super bright guy,

runs the boots, the wide zone, baby. It's 1996 all over again. And even Bubby Brister could run this offense, right? And Kirk has a good year, but every big game that happens, the thing that just happened. Right. And so now it's Gary, Gary himself, the man, Gary legend, every big game, that thing happens again. And so here's Clint poor Clint, probably not ready for this to begin with, but he gets

off to a decent start. Kirk, Kirk is throwing the ball around quick game. Quick game is back. All right, baby, quick game. No, no longer the long developing passes. So there's some moments it's PFF grade is good, good stats. Uh, but then he did that thing again. Uh, and I just, I don't have any answer for how you stop that from happening the only answer I have Jeremiah is when he plays really well you can't miss a field goal or fumble at the end of the game you have to win every game that Kirk plays well because there will be games like that and when you look at the rest of the season and we're going to play talk me into I just have a tough time thinking that

there's no more of those games coming no matter what change Clint Kubiak and Mike Zimmer make I have to agree with you and the way that I look at it is what's the consistent right when you just named all these different offensive coordinators all these different play schemes and schemes that people want to run what is the consistent there and it in my mind is two things it's poor to average offensive line play right and then it's your quarterback because you have adam thielen you have justin jefferson you have tyler conklin who's having a phenomenal year and you're like okay okay the weather you have dalvin cook alexander madison's been playing better than he has in the last few years like so those things all seem to

be trending in the right direction but i think we've said this and i think this is the second year in a row we've seen this kirk is who he is i don't think there's any changing who kirk cousins is when he's on he's nails right like when he is on there's might not be a better guy in the nfl when he can do the things that he does well but when something comes off the rails for him and i don't know what it is so there's a disconnect somewhere that when one thing happens to him it just completely throws him off the rails with his confidence, with his decision-making and all of that, that he tightens up so much that he plays with what I like to call the fear

of failure instead of the killer mindset to go out and win the football game. And when Kirk falls back into that fear of failure type play, you see the check downs to CJ hand, you see the not wanting to push the ball deep and for a long time we all could blame those offensive coordinators right we're like well maybe zimmer's not just turning them loose maybe zimmer's not just letting him fly but you can tell zimmer's like the plays were called the plays were there and kirk just didn't make them and you see it across the nfl that yeah at times quarterbacks can't make it but it just seems that i something

has to happen for kirk to get the momentum and the confidence early in the football game so that that thing we talk about doesn't happen at the end of the football game, which always seems to rear its ugly head at the worst possible moments. So I feel like I've been sort of bouncing around from and now I'm on the whatever. If it was like some sort of game where you had to go to different squares, it's like now I'm on the Kirk Square. Now let me jump to the Zimmer Square. Now let me jump to the Spielman Square. We'll all talk about how these things have gone sideways. Who let who down here? Is it Cousins letting down Zimmer and Spielman? Is it Zimmer letting down Cousins with restraining him and wanting him to never turn the ball over and so forth? Is it Spielman letting down those two with this overall approach to how they've built the team and the offensive line, sir, which again,

you drafted a center who can't pass block. did not replace the right guard position the guy you drafted is apparently too fat for you uh and so you moved the tackle into a position he wasn't at all prepared to play i mean who let who down the most here that's hard because i feel like let's let's let's just start eliminating people right i? I think, I think you can eliminate Spielman. And this is why I say that he's put weapons around Kirk cousins, you know, okay. You draft Justin Jefferson in the first round, second round, first round, whatever he was superstar, superstar, right? I mean, I was cold on him last year, but the dude's a superstar. I mean, and then you put Adam feeling around him, all pro pro bowl type wide receiver, right? If you have two of those guys on your team, put weapons around your quarterback right i mean look around the league not not a lot

of teams have two true studs that can go get the ball like those two guys can't you have a guy get hurt and irv smith who okay you planned but tyler conklin stepped up in a big way so you did have some depth there right even after you let rudy go you put Dalvin Cook you draft him good player you draft Alexander Madison good player so you can say you can give Spielman he's put pieces around Kirk Cousins he hasn't put the full mantra because you can't talk about the offensive line and the misses we've had on that but you then flip it to the the distraction piece of Kirk and Zim. What's the actual relationship? Is it the relationship of you like that, smacking each other in the chest?

Or is it the relationship of they walk around the facility and no one talks to each other? And no one has the answer to that besides Kirk and Zim and the players that are inside of Egan, right? And you can speculate all you want, but I do think that it's those two guys taking turns with each other. I think you can say that those two guys take turns and who lets who down. Those two guys look at each other and say, okay, I did really well this game. Maybe you didn't do this yet.

And you can't really pin it on one guy, but I will say the moment they signed Kirk cousins, all three of those guys intertwine their fates together. Yep. The minute that they signed Kirk cousinsousins all three of those guys intertwined their fates together yep the minute that they signed Kirk Cousins Rick Spielman Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins intertwined their future in the in purple with each other and we're starting to see that come to the end now I think where it's either going to turn and they're all going to be all right or it's going to crash and burn and things are going to go really poorly but that's kind of how I see those threes blame game. If you want to call it

going on there. Yeah. Yeah. New game, like blame game. And we'll play. Talk me into here soon. Yes. This is going to be your first time playing. Talk me into, but I like blame game. That's pretty good. Uh, I was also going to say that Rick Spielman had a chance to separate himself from this conversation, the NFL draft, with a guy named Mac Jones, who now has a better record than the Minnesota Vikings. And Justin Fields, who looked pretty good last week, I think he'd look different with Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, but he maybe wouldn't be playing in that scenario. He'd be sitting for a year that they mildly attempted to trade up for and then didn't. So if Spielman had drafted a future quarterback, he might have had a chance to say, well, you know, I've got this plan for the future to build around this guy. That's what this is really about. And instead they drafted a tackle to fix their tackle problems. And overall this year, they've had one good game at tackle that was against Carolina from

Derrissaw. He did not have a good game, which we can talk about. But in terms of the blame game, the one case I would make for the general manager is that first one right there, that you had an opportunity to draft a quarterback with your draft pick for the future. You chose not to. That's one. There's some other moves that we could nitpick on.

This one hasn't worked. This one hasn't worked. That one hasn't worked. However, the offensive line part of it, like, let's just say, let's say Kirk Cousins had a bunch of kryptonite near him for these last few years. And like Superman's going, ah, the kryptonite, they've just shoveled more on him. They're like, here you go. Here's more kryptonite. Oh, you thought we were going to get you a guard in free agency? No, you thought we drafted a tackle, but now he's a guard, but he's not really good at that. But oh, well, like they have botched the offensive line

50 ways sideways every season. And so, yes, Kirk and Zimmer certainly deserve the criticism and the blame game, but there's also this, you knew what the kryptonite was for the guy and you kept kryptoniting him. I think too, looking in, I'll play, I'll play, I'll play a Rick Spielman's defense attorney here. All right. I'll play, I'll play the defense attorney. I think looking at this in the offseason, you look at your roster as a whole. There was a lot of leaks in the dam, right? A lot of leaks in the dam. Where do we start plugging holes in the dam? And to Zimmer's and to Spielman's defense, he's never put the emphasis on the holes need to be fixed on the offensive line. That's not in his DNA. That's not who he is. And when you also put into that

decision-making who your head coach is, that then also plays. So the holes in the dam in their minds, priority number one was obviously the defensive side of the football. That's the way it went. I think they thought we can plug holes in the dam through the draft. And that's always a crap shoot. You can never bank on that, right? You can say, yeah, we did our due diligence, and I've seen plenty of good players in college that get to the NFL, and they just don't have it, right? And you can say that's the case for Wyatt Davis. Again, the book is not written on him yet.

The book for his rookie year is written on him. I don't ever write someone off on their rookie year unless they're just atrocious, but he hasn't even got a chance to go out there and show what he can do in real live bullets. So then you draft Derisaw who gets hurt. Can't really help that, but I thought he had a good showing and I still believe Derisaw is going to be a really good player. I mean, he got thrown to the wolves. I mean that defensive front for, I mean, I, I blocked Randy Gregory. Dude's an absolute freak show. I had to play against for two years in practice sucked. So seeing him develop and he's going to, I mean, he's playing at an all pro pro bowl type level right now too so I think you can say Spielman looked at it as I plugged the holes in the dam that I deemed most necessary through free agency and thought we

could fix it with young talent planning for the future as you say it on the offensive line front you draft two guys and you playing okay rookies we're going to play them take our lumps but they're going to get better by the next year and we're going to just put them on the brian o'neill path right put everyone on that brian o'neill path and expect them to turn into brian o'neill that's what you can hope that didn't pan out for him so that's hard for me to look at spielman and say well you didn't address it at all you you kind of did you just sometimes you might have hit a foul ball instead of a home run. And so I think that that way he did fix that. But you got to remember, this defense was awful last year. I mean, it was bad.

And so that is improved on that side of the ball. The problem is you don't have enough money to fix the whole dam. And that comes down to the bigger issue of cap. And people talk, well well we should trade this right it's like we can't afford to pay anybody else we are in cap hell when it comes down to how we can afford players and that's the bigger issue right now because we've kicked the can down the road as you like to say with cap issues and now that's become priority and issue number one right they've done everything you possibly could to

manipulate the cap and you're still in a position where you can't make a bigger offer for Joe Tooney than the Kansas City Chiefs were able to make before Patrick Mahomes contract got super serious and they've got some of their own problems and yikes after watching that game maybe maybe that's under hate to see it when we talk about it later but the way that I kind of look at it is the blame game. It's I think it's three people in the biggest positions who are not making each other better. I don't know that the way that the roster is constructed is making Mike Zimmer a better coach or Kirk Cousins a better quarterback. I agree with the weapons.

You sort of luck boxed into those weapons, Adam Thielen for one, and even Justin Jefferson, who probably should have been the first receiver off the board or C.D. Lamb. And, you know, OK, but you've given some weapons, I agree, but notite there that's within him of I can't escape the pocket when I get the pressure. And look, no matter who you are, how good your offensive line is, Randy Gregory is going to get you sometimes. And in big games, it gets antsy. The feet move around. The throws go wild. The checkdowns happen. It's just on repeat. So that's kind of the way that I look at this.

And so now let's get into talk me into, and I'm going to start out with this. Talk me into if this thing goes sideways soon, one of the three of those stays. Talk me into one of the three. Spielman, Zimmer, Cousins. I'll talk you into zimmer staying how about that okay all right zimmer bold i think this is a bold choice this is this is me going for the top top rung here you know i think zimmer stays because i think if you do something what i like to do is you look back right look back at bodies of work look back at what has been accomplished Zimmer has proven

he can take a team to an NFC championship he's proven that Kirk Cousins has not Rick Spielman has proven that he can do a lot to put the pieces around but not make the final piece so if I'm just looking at why I would say that Zimmer sticks the defense shows improvement when he has all his pieces last year he would like I think last year I said he's playing chess with checkers right like you can't do that this year you're starting to see him get his pieces back he gets to Neil Hunter back that sucks he's gone now you bring Everson Griffin back Anthony Barr back Eric Hendricks is back you bring in in a veteran in Patrick Peterson, who's also hurt. So again, he has the pieces on his defensive side that I think if you want to win a championship, you have to have an elite defense. That's just the way it is.

I think you can say, I would rather give Zimmer another year with moving on at the quarterback position on offense and seeing if maybe that was the problem versus you burn the whole thing down when you fire the head coach when you fire the head coach you're going scorched earth raise it from the ashes knew everything I don't think this team is to a point where it needs new everything in my opinion I think it needs some key position changes I would rather have Mike Zimmer at the helm and steering the ship on how he wants to do things but he needs to be allowed he needs to be open to bringing in people around him that he will listen to that's my one criticism of him is i don't think he brings people around him that he

is willing to say you're right i'm wrong let's go that path. And I think old Gary could push that. I don't know if there's anyone on that staff besides maybe Andre Patterson who actually feels like they can go into Zimmer's office and be like, listen, this isn't how this is working. We're going to do this. And Zimmer would go, okay, you're right. Let's try that. I think that you tried really hard there to talk me into it.

And now look, if this had been 2018, I think I might agree with you and say, yeah, look, I mean, you could hire Joe judge and then what's your franchise just goes in the tank for five years because you hired Adam Gase or something or urban Meyer and you'll just never win. And that's, that is a scary proposition when you change coaches. There's also the other part where you change coaches from Rex Ryan to Sean McDermott, or when you change from Anthony Lynn to Brandon Staley and all of a sudden, and I know the Chargers haven't played super great lately, but all of a sudden you've gone from a good coach who is functional and has his warts

and also has his things he does very well to a top-notch coach who's making everybody better. And that's the sort of part of it where you go, you've had eight years, you're still three and four. You haven't been above 500 since the year 2019. I mean, technically January, 2020. I mean, how much more do we need to see? And how many more times does the clock need to be messed up? And how many more times do they need to run on second and 10? And how many, like how many more of these things that does not maximize what you have in terms of your talent on the offensive side need to happen before you go, okay, you need to try something else. My answer to this would be cousins. And that's not

because I think that there's any magic potion as we went through earlier. It's only because he's got one year left on his contract. So that would give you an opportunity to draft a quarterback this year and sit them behind cousins. We've seen what a disaster it's been for some of these quarterbacks who have been thrown to the wolves. Uh, I think it's better if quarterbacks sit, unless they're really ready, like Mac Jones was, or I think Trevor Lawrence was. You sit him for a year. I think that model works. You just play it out with Kirk. You work around that big contract, figure it out. And then that new coach that you have, if he gets more out of Cousins and he's the genius that does it, then wow, oh my gosh, you found something here. And if he doesn't, then he's got his quarterback that he hand selected at the draft to go forward

to the future and have that rookie quarterback contract. That's why I would go with Cousins because you're not locked into him in terms of his contract. Here's the rebuttal to that. You just nailed it. Who do you go get that you think is a certified superstar? Because a lot of these coaches that you hire, I mean, Slay, right. I think I'm saying his name with the jets. How do you say it? Or, uh, Oh, Robert Sala. Yeah. Sala Slay. He Sala, right. Brandon Staley, Robert Sala got mixed up there together. Right. But for me, it's like, I thought he was going to be a stud, but again,

he has a bad team. Like the jets are wow. But so you could bring in a guy that you think is a superstar and, and it spirals on you, right? It spirals on you. At least, you know what you're getting with that. And the other piece too,

is it, if you bring a guy in and he then takes a quarterback, that is going to be his guy. The NFL does not allow. And I don't know if it's the NFL as much as public pressure does not allow you to sit your quarterback for a year. It doesn't look at Andy Dalton is our starter. Burr,

burr, burr, burr, first sign of trouble. Andy Dalton is now our backup, right? That just that model that we know is a proven model to work. Allah,

Patrick Mahomes is not allowed to happen anymore because of public pressure. And because of how often you have to win in this league and if you don't you have to make changes and so i like the idea of keeping kirk cousins but would someone be willing to bench kirk cousins would you be willing if you brought in your own i mean again if you brought in a guy in the draft would you be willing to say things are going kirk sit the bench and get paid all this money well the reason you can do that though is because you're a first year coach so there's no you're going to get fired uh unless it goes freddie kitchen's bad right and i don't want to

say never steve wilks was the guy right um uh rob chudzinski also had this happen but let's just assume it's not that bad uh let's say you hire Kellen Moore. He looks like he's got some ducks in a row there. You know who he throws to with his offense? It's good receivers. That's why I like him. That's why he's my new favorite candidate. Throws 100 yards each for his top two receivers.

That'll play. So let's say you hire Kellen Moore, and he comes in, he works with Kirk, and it goes good. And, uh, he has a good season. They go 10 and seven, they make the playoffs and they lose in the first round, tough game, whatever. Then you can move on to that other guy, but you're competitive enough. And Kirk is going to keep you competitive. Like even this year, I don't expect that Kirk cousins loses the rest of the games out. I just smacked my hand on what's next to me in my other chair. Really hurt.

It was an aggressive point that was being made there. It was too loud to ignore. Fight through adversity. It was a broken hand. I'll never type again. But think about it that way. The Alex Smith, they were a competitive team, and they were in the playoffs.

And then they lost in the playoffs, and they moved on to Mahomes. Right now, San Francisco is in the same place with Trey Lance and none of the quarterbacks that you can draft are like plug and play Trevor Lawrence. They're all going to need some development. So that's why, I mean, in terms of, you know, how, which guy you would select, I think that having Kirk be the lame duck quarterback for a year also opens the door to, Hey, what, what if, I mean, what if it's good? What if it's really good? What if it's great? I mean, what if they go 12 and whatever? And it's like this Matt Stafford thing that we're talking about where it's like, Oh, he was held back quite a bit. Right. I mean, which I, you know, we'll see. Well, let's look at this. If you want to play this game, there's no quarterback in this year's draft that I'm willing to bet the chips on.

There's not a single one that I am willing to look at in this year and go even close to caliber of Mac Jones, Trevor Lawrence, or Justin Fields. I'm still not sold on Mr. Wilson up there in New Jersey. I was never big on him coming out of college. So I'm going to say the big three, right? Those three guys, Trey trey lance again i wasn't huge on coming out of north dakota i think those three were the best three quarterbacks that were pro ready coming into this year's draft you look okay we fire zimmer we move on to the next coach i don't know if that coach is looking at this draft going i don't want to bet my job and my professional on one of this year's quarterbacks because there's not there's a kid from liberty who liberty right right there's a

kid from nevada he's pretty good he's got some good receivers but i don't see him as a day one starter in the nfl which if you take a guy as high as that you kind of have to think that if something drastic happens to your quarterback like kirk, he'd be ready to go in and perform at a high level. I don't think that this year's draft offers that in those type of caliber quarterbacks. I mean, I haven't done, I've done quite a bit pre-draft grades here. Looking at guys, I just don't see one. Okay. Counterpoint to that. Uh, Justin Herbert was taken after Tua Mack Jones is currently the best quarterback. Currently, I'm not saying he'll be the hall of famer, but currently the best quarterback who's

drafted the fifth guy. Lamar Jackson was taken 30 seconds overall. A lot of times at this point in the game, we don't really know. I mean, it was Joe Burrow, even the first overall pick in November, beginning of November was Mac Jones. I mean, not really. I mean, started to emerge throughout the season. And then when we got all the way through it, we started to figure it out. But even then first round talents, it's pretty much a coin flip. And here now here's the winning point here. I've got it for you is that if you, if you screw it up, if you draft the wrong quarterback, you draft another one. And so look, I mean, Arizona, my friends, they drafted Josh Rosen. Oh my God.

And then they said, whoops, Josh is our quarterback. Yeah. And then they drafted Kyler Murray and he's amazing. That's another one, right? That's a fair point. Washington should have drafted another quarterback after they drafted Haskins. Like just draft another one. I mean, if, if because that if he

fails that means it's not great and you'll get another opportunity to take one so that's looking like way down the road but I want to I want to go another a completely other direction here let's do it talk me into this is a good season somehow oh man uh this is your hardest challenge i've ever given you but this is a tough one this is a good season based off the fact that we can do this is tough okay this is a good season based off the fact that we turned things around here after this game we all nailed it we all of a sudden start scoring more points than the opponent i don't't know about you guys, but I've gotten very good in my life at admitting when I need some help. If you are struggling to figure out how to navigate workers' compensation and disability laws, I've got a team that can lend you a hand.

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You do not pay a single cent unless they are successful in obtaining your benefits. So make sure to go to their website, yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com. That is yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com. This has been an attorney advertisement for Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer. I mean, it's hard for me to argue this point because I watch the games each and every single week. And for me, I feel like I watch the Husker games and I go, man, hard for me to argue this point because I watch the games each and every single week. And for me, I feel like I watch the Husker games and I go, man, we're close. Wow, we did. We got all the way to the end and then we blew it somehow.

And then I turn on the Vikings game and I feel like I'm watching the Scarlet and Cream, but in purple and gold. And for me, that also is the thing that you look and go, can we fix this? And you and I talked about, I think it was two weeks ago before the buy, there's not really something you can point at this year and fix all the issues that is happening. You just can't. And so for me to make this a good season, you have to just kind of have the players fix it themselves. At this point, the players are there, the pieces are there, the coaches can do all they they can but the players have to really go out and perform and when big moments come up Breland catch the interception when big moments come up Kirk throw the ball to Adam Thielen right like you can you can scheme all those up as you want but at the end of the day coaches coach players play and I think that this becomes a good season if the

players are able to get themselves together enough peer peer-wise, look at each other face-to-face and be like, we are NFL professional football players. We have to play better. And that's really, at the end of the day, the only way this thing really turns around and becomes a successful season. Yeah. The way that I look at it is so shamed by the Cooper Rush loss. They are inspired to take the next step with this team that Kirk is

inspired to not care anymore, knowing that everyone's talking about his future again, which usually the minute that you've declared the Kirk Cousins era over anywhere, that's when he has the great game, right? It was like new Orleans, 2019 season is, ah, well, they're not going to extend cousins. This will be his last year. And then, whoa, what a playoff game. What a final drive. What a throw to Kyle Rudolph who didn't push off at all. I mean, that's a, but no, really, I mean, like that's tends to be cousins where the minute you think that, oh, wow. I mean, it's just, this is going on a bad way. That's when he gets hot again.

And that's the Kirk coaster. But, um, the Ravens are not an impossible opponent. The Los Angeles chargers have shown that they have some issues. Green Bay is a division game, which is just always tough. And then if you win two out of three, we're all of a sudden, we're kind of back to that. Like, well, you're right in the thick of the playoff race. And can you make it to the playoffs? And then can you get the hot version of Kirk cousins to win you a game and go forward? So I don't look at this so much as the season is definitely over fire. Everyone at this second, it's teetering on the brink once again. And tell me how this is, what this is like in the locker room when this happens, because dealt with this 2016 you dealt with this every week the season was on the line you had bad breaks for sure like uh washington was a close game detroit on thanksgiving bradford throws the pick

at the end i mean there was lots of yeah i mean just name all of them that hurt or 50 yarder after we go down and score a touchdown yeah it was like 59 man yeah that was a good one good from 76. it was the best field goal i've ever seen in person i was like screaming like in the press box like what what did i just witness that was from space anyway um so yeah all those tough losses uh offensive coordinator um can i use finger quotes here uh left yeah definitely wanted to not be there anymore um certainly had all the control that is usually given to offensive coordinators anyway so i won't carry on with that snarking um what's it like what's it like when this happens it like when this happens? It's draining, not just physically,

but emotionally. It's really emotionally draining. It's one of those things that I tell people all the time, the NFL is the hardest place in the world to win. It's really hard to win week in and week out every single week. And when you have even something that slightly distracts you or even something that's slightly not allowing you to focus on the game plan, whether it be bad tweets after a game or whether it be rumors about your quarterback or whether it be rumors about your coach getting fired or blah, blah, blah, blah, right? All those things factor into your mind as a player and you can try and block it out as much as you can. You can try and not focus on it, but it's human nature, right? And in the world of Twitter, even though Twitter is not a real place, it's still a real thing

and you see it. And unless you can just block yourself off it completely, which not many players do because of X, Y, Z, I didn't, you see that stuff. And it's really hard to not let it affect your daily life and the way that you go about your practice habits, the way you go about preparing. And so you have to find a way to band together to the point where you keep it all outside the walls. And I don't know if at this point in the season that enough stuff has crept inside the walls

that it's impossible to now get it out. And so it just becomes a distraction. It becomes really hard to get over. But it's like you said, the one thing that does fix all that is winning. Winning cures all. You go put two, three wins together in a row, all that stuff starts to quiet down. And now you can really get back to focusing on what you did. And I actually said this on a Husker podcast the other day. When you win, it's really easy. You just go back for the next week and you just rinse and repeat the way that you won, right?

The way that you prepared is what I'm talking about. When you lose, especially when you lose close one score games, you then go back with your next week of preparation and start changing and tinkering with even the smallest thing, right? Maybe it's a game plan. Maybe it's, hey, maybe I was a little tired in the fourth. So I need to do this in recovery or I need to do this, this, this to maybe get that edge to get us to that win. And so when you, especially when you're not stacking wins, it's constantly evolving.

It's constantly changing. Instead of just when you're a five and one, six and one team, and you've won a bunch in a row, you just rinse and repeat every single week and build those habits of winning and build those consistencies of how you got to that point to where now that is the habit right you're no longer changing everything and i feel like the vikings every week feel like we have to tweak this or tweak that in our game plan or our preparation defense offense special teams whatever it is because whatever they're doing just hasn't been able to allow them to stack wins on top of each other i think that's really well said. And, you know, I saw the other night during the game, an agent for a couple of players with the Vikings tweeting about how he was going to go off,

you know, about what was going on. And you talk about, like, distractions getting inside the walls. When this happens, everyone you know will talk to you about it. And I know this from what I do, is when I, everyone, you know, we'll talk to you about it. And I know this from what I do is when I wake up on Monday morning, I have so many emails and DMS and everything else, not even just from subscribers, which I greatly appreciate those messages and put them in the Friday mailbag and, and enjoy hearing from people. But I mean, for people, I know like my parents and my friends and everybody else like, Oh, what's wrong with your team, bro. What's going on? Like it's when the Vikings are

winning. No one says anything to me. It's when it's all going sideways and there's vaccination debates and all sorts of, then I hear from everybody. And I think players are like that too. I mean, Justin Jefferson lives with his brother here in Minnesota. I mean, you know, those guys went to LSU. They're used to winning. And I even asked Jefferson that, like, how do you deal with all the losing? And I mean, this is not something you ever dealt with before. And I don't know that there's any answer for a young star like that to go through something like this, especially when the expectation for him is championships. It's greatness.

It's excellence. That's where he set his bar. And so I'm sure everybody who knows him is like dude what is going on with your team right i mean i'm sure that that's how it ends up turning out for all every player in the locker room and and the other thing too that i like to look at is a lot of times and i know i just said like the players have to get themselves up right well who is the voice in that locker room that you trust right you've got to go back to the 2017 2018 teams that won 10 plus games went deep in the playoffs as young players you have to hear

from them you have to hear from guys that are proven winners right because if you've got a guy that is coming in there and he's been 500 his whole career or you've got players that have never been to that type and you're listening to them say, this is how things are supposed to be done. You kind of look at their body of work and go, well, you haven't done it. Right. I mean, who says what is extremely important and who the voice in those locker rooms are extremely important, which is why guys like Josh Allen,

they bring in guys like digs and they say, Hey, this dude went to an NFC championship. Here's how he did it. And then he brings that whole room with him, right? You bring Kirk Cousins, who's made playoff runs, but he's never gone. Like, you're going to respect what he has to say because he's Kirk Cousins. But at the end of the day, like, sometimes he just doesn't do quite enough. So then you as a younger player going, what do I have to do different

than what Kirk Cousins does? Or what do I have to do different that these guys haven't done? And the longer you don't win, the longer you don't go in deep in playoff runs, the more of your roster becomes less quote unquote winners. And then that becomes even harder to instill a winning culture. And so that's, that's kind of the slide you're seeing Minnesota right now is the longer they go without making these playoff runs and these winning, the more the roster becomes full of guys that aren't used to winning. And that then becomes really hard to grow the winning culture.

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t-shirts as well. Soda stick has tons of hats and hoodies with all their great designs on them. You will love it. Go to soda stick.com. That is S O T A S T I C K. Check that out today. Use the promo code purple insider for free shipping and also follow myself and soda stick on Twitter for our giveaways. This is, I think, all ties back to who your quarterback is and what his record is for his career. I was thinking about just now how when I was in college, I knew this catcher who was an All-American for our school, and he had an eye injury that screwed up everything and he really wasn't very good anymore just because he couldn't see the baseball to hit it but everybody

on the team still believed that the dude was gonna come through every time like he's done it man he was an all-american like he'll figure it out he's and uh eventually you know he was okay he was good but with quarterbacks like tom brady has this bad game against New Orleans. Do you think anyone cares? They're like, all right, whatever. It's all right. It's fine. He had some bad games last year.

Who cares? He'll do it. With Cousins, the minute he starts the happy feet act and checks down to CJ, I bet CJ sees the ball coming his way. He's like, oh, no. What? Again? Me?

It's always about me, right? Like, I'm always the guy in the and then Micah Parsons just right. Just gets him in his ribs. But that's, I mean, every player on the team when they, they know it, they see it. We see it upstairs. The fans see it. The fans couldn't get behind the team the other night because everybody sees it and it sort of permeates all the way through. And there's always been, since he's been here, sort of this every man for himself kind of thing. And that's what it felt like with Zimmer handles the timeouts. Not my problem. Like, yep. Every man for himself. Uh, 2018, it was now Kyle Rudolph was supposed to

block that guy. That's why I threw the pick six. Yep. Yep. Just, he hasn't done that as much in terms of blaming people, but they still make it sort of clear where it's like, Hey, I don't know. I did my thing. And then Zimmer, Hey, I don't know. I called routes down the field. He didn't throw them. Yeah. That's not going to take you very far. So, uh, let's do a little love to see it. Hate to see. I think you did well for your first talk me into, I did my best. I did my best. Tough situation.

You battled through adversity. I'll just go hate to see it. Daniil Hunter out for the year. I mean, you know, Daniil. He's not only an incredible player, but an incredible person. The amount of work he puts into it to come back the way he did from that injury. He's a smart guy, treats people well. I mean, it's just,

that's just brutal. That's just the toughest part of the league is an injury like that. And he's one of those guys that I was talking about as a winner, right? He was on those teams. He's been all pro. He's been sack leaders. Like he's the one you want mentoring the young guys in the room. Having Everson back is going to help keep that going. But when you have two of those guys, man, that's what really helps development of young players keep progressing. So hopefully room having everson back is going to help keep that going but when you have two of those guys man that's what really helps development of young players keep progressing so hopefully denille sticks around in that room stays very involved and can help those guys continue to progress i hate to see it sticking on the same train of thought derrick henry man you talk about a guy

that's almost lapping the field in rushing yards in the nfl and to have him get injured too is the NFL is great when the players are playing that's why you turn the game that's why I watch the game on Sundays watch the freaks do the freak things and for him to get hurt on a Titans team that's playing really well that sucks because I love I mean offensive lineman we love a downhill run scheme and to see him keep battling through it and the fact that he finished the game on a broken foot is just incredible uh i will go love to see it here okay backup quarterbacks baby that was your weekend backup quarterback weekend cooper rush geno smith someone named mike white yes on this show we love backup quarterbacks and mike white that guy's gonna have a job for a long time

after that cooper rush too somebody will sign cooper rush to be like i remember seeing that game against the vikings that he pulled out in the end with that fade pass i mean might as well bring them in those guys they will go down in their teams the fans who watch their team each week will be like remember that cooper rush game that was crazy that's that was that that was last weekend in the nfl backup quarterbacks man also people don't realize when you go win a game as a backup quarterback you extend your career by like five years because now everyone's like oh yeah he can win a game and then you go sit the bench for six years in a row and then you get a chance to come back in you're just collecting checks and just writing things down on the clipboard over and over again um because almost no one is humanly capable of winning a football game right so when you find a guy who even won one you're like well maybe right i mean matt barkley

did it for us the bills right on a monday he came in started on a sunday against the jets beat him cut nate peterman the next day they're like goodbye goodbye nate and then matt barkley has been the backup for the last three years, right? I'll go with another hate to see it for me. I guess it could be a love to see it, too. It's amazing. I'm going to go love to see it. Michigan fans trying to oust Jim Harbaugh because he can't beat Michigan State and Ohio State when he has a top 10 team.

And they're like, get him out. Get him out right now. Like, it's unbelievable. First of all, you can't lose 30 when you're up 30 to 14 and let what you guys quote, little brother, come back and beat you. But I just think it's hysterical. I'm living in a world of horrible college football in Nebraska right now where we're like, we should be fire coach if we only win three games.

And you've got a team that's a top 10 team, still a chance to maybe make a new year's day bowl and your fan base is like get him out i want him out he can't win the big ones i can't be michigan like i just i think it's borderline hysterical that they just can't stand jim harbaugh up in michigan right now after the season that he has put together yeah that is a conflict of love to see it hate it because what a what a shame to see Jim Harbaugh under fire. I mean, you just, it's too bad. I think you love that, but you hate,

you hate to see a team that's actually winning since your team is not winning, criticizing their coach. Maybe that's having a standard of like, we're supposed to be up here. Once upon a time, Nebraska was that, but we won't get into that. My sarcastic hate to see it is Joe Judge. Don't blame technology, my friend.

The NFL investigated Joe Judge claiming they've had headset issues and found no issues. Sir, they can look into that. If you're going to use a fake excuse, make sure it's one they can't look into. Another love to see it for me is the golden horseshoe that has fallen out of Patrick Mahomes behind. Oh. He no longer can. I know he's capable, but I'll never forget sitting in an offensive, in a protection meeting with myself, Josh Allen, Matt Barkley, and Derek Anderson blast from the past here, watching a chief. We were getting ready to play. I think

the chiefs are watching a game where the chiefs are playing, watching protections. And I can remember Derek, Derek Anderson going one day, boys, the golden horseshoes going to fall out of this kid's ass. And all I could think of is he was right. It's finally kind of happened this year. He's not being able to just do the crazy Mahomes things we've seen him do. He's throwing interceptions. He's doing all the things that you look at him and go, he's human. And I love to see that because I know a lot of Kansas City Chiefs fans, and I love watching them all eat a little bit of humble pie.

I guess what I would say is let's wait and see because – If that defense doesn't get fixed, it don't matter what's going to happen. It really does not matter what Mahomes will do if that defense can't figure something out. The thing I don't understand is what I said today, and I'm not even kidding to a friend of mine, is I'd call up Gary Kubiak at the ranch and be like, Gary, teach me some wide zone. Teach me some boots. This man needs some boots. Like it really does. Everything

is difficult. Everything. It's like the other team is playing everything way back. They're playing in zones, two deep safeties, and they're just sitting there. And then he's dropping back. They're running the same route combinations they've run. He doesn't sammy watkins anymore it's a great three wide receiver he doesn't have a great running back to check down to at this point some guy was playing a running back i'd never heard of gore at first i was like is that frank gore i was like did they sign frank gore and i was like no he's moving way too fast yeah i was gonna say and also too skinny like frank gore is a house um but i mean put a fullback in there run run the ball i mean they're running out of the shotgun all the time you get

two three yards two three yards no one has to fear that and uh i feel like you're not punishing the opponent for playing way back on you and there's no real answer and i would also say too that farve had a tough year in his career manning had absolutely everybody hits sort of a wall some sometime um but i wouldn't be ready to quite declare him dead until i'm not saying out of the playoffs or they lose or something he's still the luck that he's had the last four years have been pretty ridiculous like the throw it up and 10 people touch it and it lands in it lands in a hill's hands and he's streaking down the like i'm getting thrown and i throw a 500 ball and all of a sudden someone's standing wide open and oh it's a chief and then he like those things are not happening

to him this year and i'm okay with it yeah uh fair enough the afc is setting up to be really entertaining and honestly so is the top of the nf. Jeremiah, again, you did well with your talk me until you tried your best. And that's what matters here. It's not like football where it's wins and losses. It's like, did we have some fun and try hard? And we're going to eat orange slices after the podcast. So thanks for your time.

We will do it again next week. And you never do know which direction things are going to go. Who knows? Who knows?