Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Frustrating loss to the Bears is the final nail in the coffin for the Vikings' postgame chances

Episode Date: December 20, 2020

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic break down how the Vikings lost to the Chicago Bears in maddening fashion in which they continued to run the ball when they needed to throw it and ultimately Justin Jefferson showed some signs of frustrations. And with the Vikings more or less officially out of the playoffs, how do we end up looking at this season? Have we reached a breaking point with Mike Zimmer's style? How much needs to be fixed on the defensive side? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey, everyone. It's Lindsay Rhodes, and as always, celebrate. previewing games. We'll get you set for the weekend fantasy with our Fantasy Friday episodes, and we'll answer some of your questions as well. So subscribe to the NFL Roadshow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Playoff Talk is over. You will still end up in the In the Hunt graphic, but not for good reason. The Vikings' playoff chances will be at nary a blip now after a loss to the Chicago Bears, which I will start by saying was well earned. That the Vikings did many things to earn the loss against

the Chicago Bears and the Bears allowed them to stay in the game especially because of a late Mitch Trubisky interception which reminded us all that he is indeed Mitch Trubisky and not Steve Young which is how he looked for the majority of the game against the Vikings. So the Vikings lose. They are now, by all intents and purposes, out of the postseason. And they did everything today that they've done all season to earn losses, including not being able to pressure opposing quarterbacks, allowing bad to mediocre quarterbacks to succeed, i.e. Mike Glennon and Andy Dalton, to stand in the pocket and make throw after throw to open wide receivers. They did that for Mitch Trubisky today.

They did not stop the run, and this time they actually faced a very good running back, and David Montgomery ran over them, so their complete inability to stop anything on defense, a common theme throughout the season, especially in big situations and late in games, which they did not really do for the Bears today. And then decision making and the obsession with running Delvin Cook in every big spot. All of these things have been themes of the season, and they combine for the Vikings to now be out of the playoffs and lose a disappointing game at U.S. Bank Stadium. And I think Paul, intern Paul with me the last time that we were on here, we talked about how this season is going to be viewed if they end up

missing the playoffs now that that's more or less happened. I think that it should be, yes, a transition year, and yes, some bad breaks with injuries and with special teams going wrong. And hey, good for you, Dan Bailey, you made your kicks today, but not last week. And that hurt a little bit. But the issues that this team has are not super easily solved through one offseason, which we'll now sort of turn our sights onto with a couple of games to go, maybe get back to a little skull searching possibly, and looking at the free agent class, the draft class, and all those things, getting a kind of preliminary view of how they can change things.

But, Paul, tell me if you think that I'm wrong here. Kicking field goals in the red zone when you need touchdowns, running Delvin Cook on fourth down behind Dakota Dozier, Kirk Cousins taking key sacks in big situations, which he did today, despite the way, you know, overall he played quite well, but took sacks, mismanaging the clock, taking a timeout early in the third quarter for what? And how does that help you? And it only hurts you at the end of the game when you absolutely need that timeout. When you're down in the third quarter, you can't be burning those just to save five yards.

They've done that I don't know how many times this year. All of these things have been actually persisting issues throughout the Mike Zimmer era, but in 2017, they have an amazing defense, the number one defense in the NFL. So you get away with any of these types of things. If you're not maximizing the full efficiency of the offense, that's okay because your defense is number one in the league. in 2018 they try to deploy more of a pass heavy type of offense and Mike Zimmer hates it and he fires the offensive coordinator and still these mistakes are made and they lost games that way with the clock and with certain play calling situational type of stuff and even last year they had an easy schedule they had the offense cooking

and playing really well with Kevin Stefanski but these things still cropped up every, they had an easy schedule. They had the offense cooking and playing really well with Kevin Stefanski. But these things still cropped up every time they had a must-win game. And here we are again. So I don't think that it's as easy as just writing off, hey, they'll get Anthony Barr and Daniil Hunter and Michael Pierce back and everything's going to be solved. And they'll sign a veteran guard who can actually block somebody for once and snap your fingers and it's all set I think that there are a lot of things that go beyond this that need to happen in order for this team to be legitimately competitive next year for the NFC North title

and today was the encapsulation of all the things that the Minnesota Vikings are. Do you agree with that assessment? I definitely agree with that assessment. I think it just all the same things keep coming up every week. We didn't have a special teams blunder this week, which shocker, I guess, didn't affect the game that much. So when you just play average special teams, people don't really notice it. But yeah, I think like we said last week, this season, maybe from a whole, when you look back at it five years from now, you're going to look at all the injuries, you're going to look at the year of transition, and you're probably going to look at a seven and nine record. And you're going to say, that wasn't that bad. But we've been in this season day in and

day out. And it's a season of missed opportunities. It's a season of blunders. It's a season of like some head scratching mistakes that coaches like Mike Zimmer and Gary Kubiak, you don't expect to do. You expect those guys to be running a well-oiled ship, not running like in the final possessions when they shouldn't be, not like running up the gut into Chicago's interior offensive line on fourth and one at your own, whatever it was, 35. Then the next fourth down running a deep or like a deep play action pass to Tyler Conklin instead of to Adam Thielen or Justin Jefferson. There's just a lot of

head scratching moves. I agree with you. It's confusing. And they still even had a chance to win it at the end of the game, which has, again, been a theme of this team. They've still been able to, every game, almost find a way out, and sometimes they have found a way out, and games like this, they didn't find a way out. Those have been obviously happening more than the latter, but it's just, it was a frustrating game.

Mitch Trubisky looked great. That shouldn't happen against the team. And I was going to ask, can I go back to skull searching, but are we skull searching for a quarterback or should I be like grinding the defensive linemen tape and big boards and interviewing people about different interior offensive or defensive linemen and edge rushers? Is that where I should be, where I should be focusing now?

Well, this is a great question because I'll just, before we dive back into some of the things that happened in this game, I'll just say this as an overview for what is going to be talked about on this here podcast for months leading up to free agency and the NFL draft and so forth, and the same at the old website, purpleinsider.substack.com, you are going to see that they have quite a bit of things that need to be addressed, and they all cropped up today. At some point, I don't know when, maybe if we got in a spaceship and circled the earth so fast that we went forward in time to 50 years from now, they would have a left guard who can play. But for some reason, this organization absolutely cannot find a left guard.

They have had, I think, every year of the Zimmer era, maybe Brandon Fusco was the left guard in back-to-back years. I'd have to go back and check. But maybe not. I mean, it's been a different left guard every single year. It was Boone, and then it year it was Boone and then it was Nick Easton and then it was Tom Compton and then it was Pat Elfline and now it's Dakota Dozier and I remember people being upset with Alex Boone not playing as well as they wanted from a free

agent and yeah he's like 400 times better than Dakota Dozier, who they choose to trust and choose to run behind in a key fourth and one situation. So there's things on the offensive side that need to be addressed, including Justin Jefferson's usage. Now, today, they threw him the ball a lot more, but still, the hot mic catches a pretty frustrated Justin Jefferson in the end zone, and Adam Thielen gets left out of the party in this game. Now, they passed fairly effectively throughout,

but they still end up handing the ball to Delvin Cook like they were winning. I mean, giving him 24 carries and five more passes, I mean, that's what you usually do when you're up by two touchdowns and you're trying to run the clock out on the other team. That's what Chicago is doing all day with David Montgomery is we're up in the game. So we're going to use our passing game to, you know, complete third downs and things like that and hit deep balls down the field on crossers and stuff. But mostly we're going to let our running back just grind clock off and we're going to win that way. And it worked for Chicago. But the Vikings treat it when they're down, even in this game, like they're not down in this game.

And the ultimate example is when it's less than three minutes left and they've got the ball down three and the first two plays go to Delvin Cook. If you are Justin Jefferson and you're Adam Thielen, we haven't, we've never really heard anything from Thielen on this topic. I really severely doubt he would ever say anything publicly, but he is also watching Stefan Diggs and Justin Jefferson is watching Stefan Diggs and they know how this has played out. And I just keep coming back to, if you let Jefferson go ignored or you don't rely on him as the center of your offense because you're always going to delve and cook, eventually he's going to get frustrated.

And I think in the last couple of weeks we've seen some of that. So, I mean, when we talk about the offseason, there's a lot more to be addressed than just, yeah, they need a defensive lineman. I mean, of course they do. My gosh. I mean, they can't stop the run at any point. Having the linebackers out, of course, do. My gosh. I mean, they can't stop the run at any point. Having the linebackers out, of course, is a huge problem there.

And then they cannot pressure Mitch Trubisky. I joked in my post-game reaction column, like, I think Mitch Trubisky got his novel started when he was back there because he's just, like, he had so much time. And in previous years, Mike Zimmer's defenses have relied on Daniil Hunter, Everson Griffin, Linval Joseph, Tom Johnson, guys like that, to get after the passer themselves. And then he switched to, okay, we're going to blitz a lot more.

But that's got a shelf life. I mean, if you blitz every single third down, teams will figure it out. And especially someone who's athletic like Trubisky, they sent a blitz on one play where he just dumped it down to Montgomery for 16 yards in the first down. I mean, Trubisky was great, but Glennon performed way above what we thought. Andy Dalton performed way above what we thought. When they played Russell Wilson, they did a decent job for a half and then got in a key situation. He went and scored a touchdown. Against Tom Brady, a couple of drives where they play decent. Key situation, Brady throws touchdowns.

I mean, this is a defense that has, to me, many more gaps than just, oh, yeah, draft a defensive end and you're going to be all set, which, by the way, a defensive end in the middle of the first round and not at the very top of the first round. So whoever the best defensive end is, I'm not even sure you're going to get them in the draft with where you end up standing. So from an overview standpoint, now that it's official that they're, or nearly official that they're not making the playoffs this year, unless a lot of crazy stuff happens, I think you look at it and say, there is a lot of work to be done, both like on the roster and from the front office, but also in terms of looking in the mirror and saying,

are we doing everything to maximize the skills of Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen? Are we doing everything that we possibly can to get every point out of this offense? And also in terms of the in-game coaching decisions, Mike Zimmer goes for it on his side of the field on fourth and one. Now, I support. I think it was the right move. The other quarterback, he's not that great. They will probably run.

They might kick a field goal. And you are also down, and you should be aggressive and try to get these. We treat it as if you fail on a fourth down, as if, like't know your stadium gets hit by a meteor or something like if you fail on a fourth down you can't overcome it well they did and failing on the fourth down and so that was to me good reason to go for it you needed to but then he gets ultra conservative when they're in the red zone the next couple of times irv smith drops a pass in the end zone it's like well send the field goal team out immediately but why you're at the four yard line or the six yard line. It's like you have some of the best human beings in the world that's scoring touchdowns and you don't even trust

yourself. So there have been a lot of these things this year where I felt like Zimmer is just flipping a coin over there, that he has been really inconsistent. Are you going to be aggressive? Are you going to be conservative? And there's almost no way of looking at it and saying oh well when they're down they do this and when they're up they do this it just has been pretty random of whether you're going for it on fourth whether you're trying to score touchdowns instead of field goals and all that sort of thing and I think that that's where the biggest fan frustration over this entire season has been was you were this close to being right in the race with Green Bay despite all of the things that went wrong and yet you're not because of everything that I just laid out and one last point because I know I am ranting here a bit

but one last point is there are some I told you so's here after today. And the biggest one is you didn't trade Riley Reif and you didn't trade Anthony Harris or anybody else or Kyle Rudolph. And what good did it do you? And what difference would it have made? And at one in five, you get a win to go to two and five. And suddenly you decide that, that, that, you know, Moses has parted the seas for you to walk into the playoffs because you, you're not flawed. You're not so flawed that you're probably going to make other mistakes in games. Like, of course they were. And they let opportunities to pick up more draft capital for the continued rebuilding

of the roster. They let those go by and, you know, multiple teams needed a tackle. Multiple teams needed a safety who were in the playoff race. And I don't know the prices, but I do know that it hasn't made any difference to have Riley Reif versus Rashad Hill starting or Anthony Harris versus Josh Metellus. At least we would have seen if Josh Metellus could play. So I think that, you know, it's really been a complete effort to get to the point where they're at. It's been the offensive side taking the sacks and playing conservative. It's been the defensive side not pressuring the quarterback and struggling to cover.

It's been the front office for trading for Yannick Ngakwe, then deciding you're out of the playoffs and trading away from him. But then he still leads the team in sacks. He still leads the team in sacks. He still leads the team in sacks. What? He left in week six. So there it is. There it is. That was supposed to be a brief overview.

So I'm sorry for that. No, you took my Yannick and Gawke, the one guy they did decide to trade, still leads the team in sacks, still leads the team in tackle for losses as well. I didn't realize that. That's unbelievable. Eric Wilson is at six. Jeff Gladney is at six. Eric Kendrick is at four and a half.

But those are the only guys that are touching him. Yeah, at one point, Odenabo came out of the game, and they said, you know, he's of the active guys on the roster. He's leading the team in sacks. And I looked it up and it's three and a half. Yeah. Three and a half. So that's that's your active team leader in sacks. And to go back to the offensive point just a little bit. I was I was keeping track, looking at the stats of Kirk Cousins pass attempts versus running attempts. And at no point it did. Kirk Cousins did end up with more passing

attempts. But do you want to know at what point in the game that happened? It was the Tyler Conklin touchdown in the fourth quarter. That is the first time all game where they, at any point, they were tied for about seven minutes of the game when it was 0-0 and 7-7 for a brief three minute span. Otherwise, they were down the entire game and it still 0-0 and 7-7 for a brief three-minute span. Otherwise, they were down the entire game, and it still took until the fourth quarter for Kirk Cousins to throw more pass attempts than the team had rush attempts. If that doesn't kind of just encapsulate how married to the run they are regardless of the circumstances, I don't know what is because they were never up. The Bears had like 40 run attempts to 20 pass attempts, but at least that was a little bit

defensible. I still wouldn't run that much, but at least you can say we were up the whole time, so we're going to do it and we were successful. They just kept on running the ball and kept on running the ball and it never worked out. The times that they did throw the ball, those were the drives that they scored touchdowns. The drives that they decided to throw were the ones that were successful. Like, big shocker there. So that is just confusing. Over the past, like, eight years, the Vikings are pretty much 50-50 in terms of passing and running attempts.

The NFL average is much closer to about 60-40, and it's been that way all throughout Zimmer's era. He's just much more dedicated to the run. We know this, but the stats just show it, and passing is more efficient, and we don't need to do this whole thing again. But especially in this game, when you're down so much, this is when you throw the ball because you have to,

and they still wouldn't. And that's just one of the bigger indictments I see is they just didn't adjust in-game really at all, and they still had a chance to win, which is the crazy thing. But if they played the game like they should, they'd probably win this game. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com

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Pepsi made for football watching, go to made for football, watching.com to check out the latest football, watching content from Pepsi. And the other team is six and seven heading into the game too, which I think is a factor for how they almost ended up winning. And this is a team that's playing some cornerbacks because both of their starters were out that I had no familiarity with,

put it that way. I mean, they're playing guys I'm like, don't recognize the name, but, you know, good for you. And so it's very clear these last two weeks, maybe even three weeks, if you include Jacksonville, though Jacksonville got smoked on some throws, as well as, you know, Tampa Bay gave up some throws too, and Chicago gave up some throws for sure. But it was very clear, once again, that teams have said, you know what,

loading the box against Delvin Cook just makes it so easy for Kirk Cousins to find one of his elite receivers downfield, that we're playing two safeties deep. And I saw that all day long. And they were fine to let up, you know, a 10-yard run here or there, a 12-yard run here or there, because it's not a big, big play. And, I mean, credit to Delvin Cook. He was marvelous today I mean he broke tackles and he looked fast which at this point in the season considering his usage is not an easy task but I also think that that was part of Chicago's strategy is hey you know what we have these injured corners and

it's going to be really really hard for us to stop Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen one-on-one so we're going to make you throw underneath to them, throw to your tight ends a lot, throw to Delvin Cook, and then hand off, hand off. And it was almost like they took the bait. And there were drives where Cook broke off big runs and he had a great game. He averaged 5.5 yards a carry, which is very, very good. But is that enough when you're down by two scores to get you back in a game? It isn't. And in some ways you're running the clock out on yourself. And they didn't do that as badly today as they did against Tampa Bay, but they still had a drive that went over five minutes when they were down. And it was just an act of God guiding Mitch Trubisky's brain to do something

really, really stupid in the red zone for it even to be as close as it was. I mean, it just, you know, hand off to David Montgomery two more times and they probably get in the end zone and that's that. And we don't even have any conversations about a last second Hail Mary or how they made it close again and all those types of things. So I think that this offensive philosophy issue is not so much that, you know, they want to give the ball to Delvin Cook. And it's not even about a run pass ratio necessarily. It's about when they use this particular run pass ratio. It's like they're getting themselves behind in games and they'll still run

or they'll still throw quick short passes to Delvin Cook like they did in the second to last drive and the situational type of stuff seems like you're just you're just missing a layer of this and I think everybody who calls it kind of like 90s clock management or 80s clock management has got a point that you know these are things that it's almost surprising when a team has fourth and three at the goal line and they run out the kicker. You're like, wait, what? He's going to kick an old extra point? I mean, at some point in our lives, Paul, I think that no team will ever do that unless it's a game-winning field goal. That it will just be, like, mocked by everyone.

Hey, look, it's like sports center year 3000 and they're like oh my gosh someone did something from the 2020s and they kicked a 21 yard field goal what like uh it just doesn't it doesn't get you to where you need to go when you don't have a great defense when you have a great defense it can i mean in mean, in the Minneapolis Miracle game, Mike Zimmer kicked, I think, a 21-yard field goal. And, well, of course, they did blow a 17-point lead in that game. But it was like, you have the number one defense, you can get away with it, you can do it. Does this team have the capability within the next year to build a number one defense? No, it does not. So you're going to have to change a lot of things about what you do. And I don't see that happening. And I think that that is where Vikings fans feel very stuck with

where they're at. Because when you watch Cousins have a good day and throw the ball effectively, it's really exciting. I mean, he can make great throws. And when you watch Justin Jefferson make a catch like he did late in the game with his toes on the sideline, oh my gosh. I mean, just an all-world type of catch. And he does that every single week. And we know how great Thielen is. He's going to be a pro bowler year after year and all those things. And even Irv Smith made a key drop today, but also had a couple other good plays these last couple of weeks. When you have this level of talent and you can't win with offense you you say well why i mean there are other teams in the league cleveland is one of them that has no defense i mean it happens like there are years

where you get guys hurt and you're not that great we talked all off season leading into this year about how fragile defense is and if you lose a player to you're screwed and that's what's happened but can you overcome it like yeah but you can't overcome it by when you have three minutes left in the game running for three yards on first down like that just really is not going to work so I don't know if there's any chance that they change this and a lot of people tweeting me want Zimmer fired. I don't see that happening. I don't see the quarterback being drafted.

I think what they'll say is, Hey, we lost a lot of close games that if we have the Neil Hunter, Michael Pierce, we draft the guy, we sign a guy here or there that we'll run it back. We'll do it again next year though. I could be mistaken. So if I'm mistaken, I apologize for this. Cause I'm going to have to, you know, I'd have to look it up. But somebody tweeted me about this, and I think it's right, that they play the AFC North and the NFC West next year. Two pretty tough divisions with a lot of really good teams. You know, this year they played a lot of, I think they played a lot of really poor teams, especially recently.

Who left the door open for them? They played Houston. They played Detroit with Matt Patricia. They played Jacksonville. They played Carolina. And even today, and twice Chicago, that Chicago came into the game, you know, pretty poor. Like it's not a good Chicago team.

It wasn't a good Detroit team. You know, 40-mile-an-hour wins against Aaron Rodgers, all those things. I don't know if it goes that way next year. I think you've got to be better than this to get better results, not the same and add Daniil Hunter. So that's kind of what everything keeps coming back to, and I apologize for the repetitiveness of it, but I also think it's what's driving Vikings fans crazy is just this,

you were right there on the doorstep, but you didn't have that extra eye on efficiency that you need to have now because a lot of teams do. Yeah, and again, it was in a year where the NFC didn't have a clear frontrunner either, where it wasn't, they just had no chance. As we're talking right now, the Jets are beating the Rams 20-3. So I don't know. It's just a tough year when you look at it.

And I don't know, your postgame reaction was about the defense and just about how they can't be a playoff team with this defense. And I want to know, do we give Mike Zimmer a pass this year for the way the defense has played? Because we know he's down his top three guys, like the top guys. We know it's new corners. We know all of that. But at the same time, like, they shouldn't be giving up this many points

to some of the really mediocre teams that they're playing because no one really is doing that to some of these teams. So do we give a pass to him for the way that the defense has performed this year? I don't think that anybody has a good defense with Hercules, Mata'afa, and, I mean, Ifadi Adenimo is an NFL player, but is he a starter on a good team? Probably not. He's probably a very effective role player, like he was last year. But he's like your best player is someone who's usually an effective role player Jaleel Johnson I am not sold that DJ Wanham is going to become the next Daniel Hunter I think that he's shown some signs but there's also a long way to go there Shamar

Stephan is a backup on the 2017 team Tom Johnson played more snaps than he did on that team that there are so many weaknesses. And then your best player, your all pro gets hurt for three games and you lose two of them. That's not a big shock either with Eric Hendricks. You lose a pro bowler and Anthony Barr who people can debate if he's overpaid or not, but he's a very good NFL linebacker. And then your all-pro goes down. I don't know that there's any way to make up for that with scheme, and the fact that they even are decent in the red zone and third downs is probably Zimmer doing his best at scheming. I've never questioned his ability to scheme a defense, to game plan with a defense, and I think that as soon as they have better players,

that it'll be good. And Cameron Dantzler looks like a starter to me in the NFL. Jeff Gladney has also looked that way for the majority of the second half of the season, albeit not a lot of really tough quarterback matchups in the second half of the season. But to my eye, those guys look like they're NFL players and then we'll see what their ceilings end up being. We'll see if Mike Hughes can ever come back. I'm not putting any eggs in that basket. But if you can't pressure quarterbacks at all, there's no scheme you can use for that. There's no, it's like if you are Bill Parcells and you're one of the greatest schematic defensive minds in history. It didn't hurt that

you had Lawrence Taylor. It was like you had one guy who you knew the other team had to account for every single week. Who is that guy for the Vikings? I mean, it's Harrison Smith, but that's a safety. It's not a position that can make as big of an impact as a corner or as a defensive end. Not having anyone that an opposing team has to account for, not having any concerns about running the ball effectively, running in key situations for opponents. They don't even have to worry about it. They can just do whatever they want. And having NFL quarterbacks stand back there with Allen Robinson running around getting open,

I mean, these are things that are impossible to overcome. It's sort of like how Kyle Shanahan is struggling with Nick Mullens. You know why? Nick Mullens is terrible. He's absolutely awful. And when you have Jimmy Garoppolo, if things go wrong, you have injuries, so forth, you play tough opponents, you can still win with Jimmy Garoppolo, I mean, and Kyle Shanahan, because what Shanahan draws up can be executed. What Zimmer draws up on defense cannot be executed. And that's why I look at this defense, and we could go through the list right now. I mean, okay, let's even assume that the Daniil

Hunter contract situation is fine. And let's even assume that Michael Pierce has been busting his butt and he is a thousand percent ready to go you still need two more people if not three or four more people who can play because it's hard it's hard to even look at this and say there's rotational rushers like a fadio denabo might be that and dj want him might be that i'm not certain on want him yet we'll see and the rest i mean shamar stefan is a rotational run stuffer okay i mean you you look at great defensive lines. They usually have four, five, six dudes who can play other than just, you know, your one or two superstars up there.

And that was the story for San Francisco last year where they have Dee Ford, who's a great player, coming off the bench and being a situational rusher. Same with the 2017 Eagles defense that had four, four five six people who were able to do that so they have a long long way to go on the defensive line and I think when you're that far down when you are a bottom five if not the worst defensive line in the entire NFL I mean you mentioned it your leader has three sacks I mean come on I mean like you have a lot of you have a lot of place to go so I don't think that anyone should walk away from this season and say, oh, well, I don't believe Zimmer still has his defensive fastball. I think you should walk out of this season. And I'm sorry to harp on this because I know it's like, it feels like I'm needling Vikings fans, but I'm not. I'm only saying cautionary tale here. The Stefan Diggs thing is really concerning and should be that he goes somewhere else and they do exactly what he wanted

and his team is 11 and three and in the playoffs and you can rationalize, you can say, we got Jefferson and you can say it's not a big deal, but who it reflects on is not Justin Jefferson. He's great. He's amazing. It's incredible. Who it reflects on is your head coach. And that is the concerning thing you should take out of Zimmer this year. Is he going to be as efficient as other coaches? Is he going to change his offensive philosophy? Will he ever acknowledge his quarterback? Today, after the game, first thing he says on his very, very short press conference was defense was the problem. We didn't do good enough. It's like this guy doesn't even say Kirk Cousins' name in most press conferences.

There is – it feels like, and I don't know for sure exactly the relationship they have. It feels like none. It feels like there is zero communication between those two. They are two ships passing in the night, and that is Gary's problem. I just – head coaches and quarterbacks, even if it's a defensive head coach, are tied together. And Belichick is the ultimate defensive head coach. He's tied together with Tom Brady for years and years and years. And to have this separation between the quarterback and have them be entirely

separate entities, the quarterback and the offense and the defense with someone who is a head coach and is supposed to manage the entire thing who wants this offensive philosophy to focus on Delvin cook. That to me is much more of a concern than anything on defense. I think this front office knows how to get defensive players and that they probably will again. And then their defense will return. Can you be a Super Bowl team, though,

if you're not maximizing everything on the offensive side? That's where I don't know. Yeah, and I guess it would be one thing if he's not mentioning Cousins in the media and he's not really talking about the offense in press conferences, but then he truly kind of seems to let the offense do their thing. Cause that's not, that doesn't seem to be true. It seems his hands are on this offense in terms of when they're running the ball,

when they're taking the ball out of Kirk Cousins hands and like the decisions that are being made. So you can't do that and then seemingly not talk about it at all in the press conference, put it all on Gary or just not talk about the offense at all. You can't have it both ways. You are affecting the offense, that much is clear, and it's been clear throughout your whole tenure here, so you have to own it, you have to talk about it. So yeah, I don't know. I want to ask you, like, if they don't have a lot of flexibility

going into next year. It seems like what they kind of have on the roster, plus the draft picks they have in, plus if they can maneuver their way around the cap, if they get rid of Anthony Harris, they get rid of Riley Reif, maybe they can bring in one or two pieces. Where is this team ceiling then if we're not seeing much turnover at all? If you don't see any sort of change at the coaching position, which I don't think there is, and I don't necessarily think there should be, but if that's staying the same, if Kirk Cousins is the quarterback going into the season with largely the same weapons, largely the same offensive line with like plus one or two bargain bin free agents or a top pick, and then a defense that assuming we're going to assume Daniil Hunter's back, we assume Anthony Barr's here.

You can do whatever you want with Anthony Harris, but where is this team? Because it seems like they're locked in. They've pretty much locked themselves into that. We've kind of seen that over the last couple weeks. They've won maybe too many games to where they feel like they're going to blow it up. So where is this team next year in your eyes then?

I think that the expectations because of who they have at wide receiver and who they have at quarterback will be extremely high, will be you should win the NFC North because you have gone all in with Kirk Cousins and you've had a year to transition from the older veteran players that you let go to drafting guys. And you'll have two free agencies to be able to add players. And you have a win now type of mentality that was shown by not trading anybody else at the deadline. That says to me, you were never trying to be a rebuilding team. So when we set expectations, it will be to win and to be very good and to be a top seed in the NFC,

especially with the potential for huge, huge changes in the NFC and an opportunity for you to be one of the better teams. I mean, if Drew Brees retires, if Tom Brady retires, or if either one of those guys severely falls off, I mean, same with even Aaron Rodgers. I mean, he's having an MVP year. They'll probably stay with him, but we have no idea what's exactly going to happen there. But let's just say, you know, so the Packers will still be good, but they've got salary cap problems.

And so you're set up to be one of the most competitive teams. None of us are believing big time in any NFC East teams being great, right? So your opportunity is there and your expectations will be there, but it's hard to see, and this will be fascinating because from a, you know, entertainment perspective, it's more interesting when they start making aggressive moves and start making philosophical changes and start kind of going all in. I remember saying this before 2019 that, and I know it didn't work out because of off the field stuff, but before I knew about all that, Antonio Brown was always a fascinating thing to me because it was in my mind,

how can you do everything for Kirk Cousins? Because that's your route to winning. And that may have some people roll their eyes and they may say, I just don't believe in Cousins because that's your route to winning. And that may have some people roll their eyes and they may say, I just don't believe in Cousins. He takes sacks and he gets timid and throws to the middle of the field with no timeouts. Kirk, that's not the way to go, my friend. If Irv Smith just bats the ball down instead of catching it and getting tackled inbounds, it's probably better because they used almost their entire clock in doing that. And clock management has just been a major, major bugaboo for this team, really since Cousins has gotten here.

Like, you know, managing the clock on final drives and when to call a timeout and when to be aggressive. All these things are not even close to being perfected. But if you're going to have a chance to win, it always sticks in my mind just the teams that go to the Super Bowl as teams with elite offenses. Patrick Mahomes is going to put his team in position to have that every year. Kirk Cousins isn't. So you have to build around him to do that. So Jimmy Garoppolo is not an elite quarterback either. Jared Goff is not an elite quarterback either. Matt Ryan is better than those guys, but in 2016 with Kyle Shanahan and

weapons all over the field, he had an MVP season and took his team to the Super Bowl. So I always like that idea of creating, trying to do everything you can to create a new three deep and then signing a guard. And they've not done a good job of that. Dakota Dozier is not an acceptable NFL left guard. I'm sorry. It's just not. I think he's a great guy. And I think that he should have a long career as an NFL journeyman who can fill in and all those types of things. And those are great careers.

My podcast co-host Jeremiah Searles on Tuesday Morning Left Guard had that career. And it's great. I mean, the 1% of 1% ever make the NFL. So respect to that. But that's not an NFL starting left guard. If you find one, you're immediately better, like by a lot, to have an average player there, as you saw with Nick Easton in 2017. Like, that's an average of an aside. If it were me, I'm looking at how do you get the most out of your quarterback that you paid all this money for, and then you try to find smart pieces on defense. This is just something that the Vikings, and maybe it's the cap, that they have not done in recent years. But, you know, they signed a captain, Munderland, like from Carolina, uh,

back in what, 2014 or something. And for a couple of years, solid player, not great, but like solid player, Terrence Newman comes here from Cincinnati and is real good. Not a pro bowler, not a mega star, but he's real good. Linval Joseph was a kind of a third wheel on a great Giants defensive line and then he improves when he's here because he has great players around him and he got better and he's really good but these are these are not mega signings these are not huge that even Sheldon Richardson was a cheap signing when they got him and this year they just foregoed all of

that which is fine outside of Michael Pierce but even he was very expensive for his job. So I wouldn't even say that was like a savvy signing. Those need to happen. And then if you can add someone great on the offensive side, whether it's a first round draft pick, who is another weapon who you're going to actually use. And I, and this is where you run into that brick wall of like, well, would they actually use Devonta Smith if they got him from Alabama, who's unbelievable, or Jamar Chase or any of these wide receivers, Kyle Pitts?

Would they use him? I don't know. I mean, because the opportunity is there. This draft has amazing playmakers in the first round. And it also has a handful of very good offensive linemen, which you couldn't complain about either. and it also has a handful of very good offensive linemen which you couldn't complain about either but when you're throwing to a number three tight end and good job Tyler Conklin he's on the team next year for sure when you're throwing to Chad Beebe for nine yard gains at the end of a game

you're just not explosive enough to have things go wrong on defense or special teams and overcome them and I think that that's a main theory and point that I keep coming back to over and over and over again is it's probably not going to be perfect on defense again. It just won't. And you have to be able to overcome it. And this year they have not been able to overcome it. Yeah.

Right now they sit at the 14th pick. So we don't know what, there's going to be some tackles there. There's going to be some tackles there. There's going to be some wide receivers there. I would implore them to try to pick one of those guys instead of opting for a defensive lineman or something because I think what we're seeing with the teams that are contending right now is you just need to be average. And I think although the defense hasn't been good this year, if you're giving Zimmer another year that's not a COVID year,

to be able to sit there with those young guys and to get some of the other guys back and maybe they go back to some of the bargain bin things that they were doing before like I don't know why they didn't try to sign Logan Ryan or anything like that maybe it wasn't scheme fit but like that's just a good player that would have helped you this year regardless of scheme that you decided not to try to go get there were pass rushers that you could to try to go get there were past rushers that you could have tried to go get that were cheap they didn't try to do that so i agree with you it's matt it's about maximizing kirk cousins he's got some just not great stats when

you're trying to rely on let kirk cook like courtney cronin had the stat after the game that cousins was pressured on 40 of his snaps again uh They're one in seven when he's pressured at least 30% of the time. They're five and one when it's less. So I know some of that's on the offensive line, but some of that's on Kirk. He continues to kind of hold the ball and that internal, he's getting better in terms of pocket awareness and pocket, like maneuvering in the pocket, moving outside, running when he needs to.

We've seen those nice developments happen this year. But there still seems to be a little bit where that internal clock, he'll go through his reads, it's not there. And instead of just throwing it away right away, he kind of flinches a little bit. And then that's when he gets strip sacked. That's when he gets just bad things start to happen. So I'm with you. It's all about the offense.

It's all about how they can maximize it, how they can keep Justin Jefferson happy, how they can keep Adam Thielen happy, and probably how they can keep Dalvin Cook happy because he's not going to have 30 carries a game and he's not going to end up after games just being battered because I know he says he's doing fine, but those Mondays have to hurt for Dalvin Cook

after just blow after blow after blow and having to kind of shoulder the load for your team. That cannot continue into next year because he's not going to be able to do what he did this year. Or if he did, it's by some sort of miracle that they cannot bet on. So I agree with you. If this team has the expectation of going to the playoffs, it needs to more solely focus on that offensive piece

and just be fine with the defense being average. And that might take a shift from Zimmer in his mindset because after this game, if he's talking all about the defense and he needs the defense to be better and he needs the defense to be better, it feels like he can't even come to the sense that he's okay with his defense being average. He wants his defense to be top of the league. That's why we're drafting Mike Hughes in the first round. That's why we're doing all these things. The defense has to be good. I'm a defensive guy. Our defense is going to be great. I think his

mindset needs to shift to our defense just needs to be average because the rest of our team can elevate us. And I'm just not sure that's going to happen, but that's what should happen. 2020 has already reshaped how we work, and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. Indeed is the number one job site in the world with more total visits

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and I apologize for that. When people ask for signed copies, I'm like, let me just tell you, I don't know how to operate a pen with my right hand. Like, it's really bad, and I'm so sorry. But I appreciate the support. He asked, hey, you know, are you crazy for thinking about, you know, corners and three techniques and defensive ends in the draft? Like, of course not.

No, of course not. And that's probably the route they go. It's how can you actually get to be a Super Bowl team? And you have to fix your three technique situation, of course. You have to get another pass rusher, of course. We broke that down. If you're losing to Trubisky, you certainly aren't going to win the playoffs next year if you can't pressure better quarterbacks than that.

It's just, what's the route to actually getting there? Can you fill those positions with savvy signings? Yes. Can you get an elite playmaker with savvy signings like no like that's those guys come in the draft can you get a great offensive lineman with savvy signings no you can fill a position okay but you can't be great unless you draft the guy high because you're just not going to have enough money to do that and let's not just look over oh Anthony Harris is gone oh Riley Reif is gone. Like, those are good NFL players.

So you're going to have to replace them with other good NFL players. So we've gotten, you know, deep down the rabbit hole already of the offseason. I just wanted to point out before we kind of wrap up this rant festival, Dan Bailey made his kicks. Good for you, Dan Bailey. I mean, his longest kick was 24, which says that he shouldn't have been kicking at all. But he made the extra points. And I hope we don't have to do that again. Like, this whole, you know, should they cut him? Should they not cut him? I don't know. Maybe he'll make the next one. Maybe he won't. Hard to say. Like, it's just, I wrote about it for my Sunday article, but it's just, who knows? Yeah the this was the ideal yeah this was

the ideal game for dan bailey not have to attempt to kick longer than a pat get the media off you a little bit put it on to someone else and just get another week to kick some field goals and then maybe next week we'll we'll warm you up to some of the bigger ones it was like putting in your rookie late in the game of a of a fourth quarter and just letting him chuck up some shots like you know he made that one three so that's cool like yay and then maybe we'll start to work in some bigger he can go in with the starters later maybe we'll let him attempt a 35 or a 40 or a 50 yarder uh and he shouldn't have been even taking those field goals so but yeah he was warming up yeah he's he's back i'm and i and I laid out in my article just how many other really good kickers have had a couple of bad games and stuff. And great athletes, that happens to them all the time.

I don't know. I would have stayed with Dan Bailey. And hopefully that works out so we never have to have that discussion again. One more thing is that as we go forward here, there's two games left, and I just wanted to say that things that we're going to be looking for are more or less what kind of numbers Justin Jefferson could put up. Can you pull an upset on Christmas Day against the Saints now that you're essentially eliminated from the playoffs? Can you at least show that you care and that you want to fight to the end and you're really just looking at how does Cameron Dantzler play how does DJ Wanham play how does Jeff Gladney play how does Ezra Cleveland play who we have not really discussed but it has

not gone great since he's come back and maybe the ankle injury is is hampering him to some extent but today the interior pressure it was there again and it wasn't all Dakota Dozier and it wasn't I mean I think that Garrett Bradbury in terms of hanging on for dear life with his size has done okay in recent weeks but with Ezra Cleveland the last couple weeks have been pretty rough and it looked pretty rough today we'll have to get the full breakdown from Jeremiah Searles all these things will just give us the final bit of sample size to what we're dealing with going forward. Like we know a lot of things that are for sure have to be changed. You know, you can't, you can't have two QB hits in a whole game against Mitch

Trubisky. So it's obvious that things on the D line need to get changed, but is anybody going to show you something toward the end of the season that points toward the future? That's what we'll be looking for more or less. And an announcement. Time to bring back the tunnel. Yeah, but time to bring back the 2021 tunnel. I know.

That's right. I forgot about that. We've got to bring back the tunnel. I forgot about that. And by the way, the Vikings do avoid sending anyone to jail today. No one went to prison. They did throw to Jefferson. I'm not going to say enough. I'm going to say they did throw to Jefferson, but they did not throw to

Phelan enough, I don't think. But no one goes to jail. And yeah, we don't need the 21 tunnel because we're sort of almost at the end of the tunnel. Here's the thing. It's almost like you fell asleep in the tunnel and you thought that, oh, you're like, oh, I'm not in a tunnel. I'm a, you know, you just sort of lost where you were when you woke up out of it and then like oh yeah I'm in a tunnel right we're in the tunnel yeah that's kind of how it is um like those couple of wins against Jacksonville and Carolina were like no I'm fine I'm not in the tunnel like this year playoffs that like no we're you were you were in the you were always in the tunnel you were never not in the tunnel so an announcement before we wrap up that this entire season you have been known as intern paul every podcast we introduce it intern paul matthew

collar with you however you now are a grown-up you're a big boy you have accepted a job in the journalism field and you can say where if you want or not say where if you want but you have accepted a job in the journalism field, and you can say where if you want or not say where if you want, but you have accepted a full-time job in the journalism field when you leave college at the U. And so now you are Paul Hodowanik, H-O-D-O-W-A-N-I-C, if you want to follow Paul on Twitter. You have a full name, and you're a big boy. You're a grown-up. I'm very proud of you, Paul. I'm super happy and pumped for you to jump into the business to go from intern to real boy.

Congratulations, Paul Hodowanek, real person. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I am staying in Minnesota, so I will still be on the podcast. I don't know if you have been receiving hate mail regarding intern Paul, but it will, you will still be getting it podcast. I don't know if you have been receiving hate mail regarding intern Paul, but you will still be getting it, just with my full name now. I will still be here for game days, still helping out. But yeah, I'm here. I'm excited. I graduated on Wednesday, accepted a job on Friday, so it's been a big couple days for me, and then to talk on this podcast, of course, another big crowning achievement. So Ben quite, quite the few days. Uh, I'm excited that people know my real name.

I feel like I've lost my identity a little bit. Every, everywhere I go, I'm known as intern Paul amongst the sports media in the twin cities. I think they don't, no one knows my last name. I'm just intern Paul. So I might have to, I don't know. I might have to keep that branding slightly until people fully get it. But yes, I'm excited to see the intern name stripped from my title. And people can try to pronounce my last name, which probably won't go well, but that's fine. It's at least an attempt. It's not that hard, Paul. And you know what? That's the thing, though. It is impressive that someone just interning for every possible outlet that you could, could make themselves into their own brand while not actually having a real job. So you have done a lot of great stuff in college, and I'm very happy to see it that as soon as you come out, it's like getting drafted

and then you get a starting role in your first year so uh good for you congratulations and um from now on yes you shall shed the name and that's what I when you tweet it out I want you to announce that that it's over no one is allowed to call you intern Paul anymore so congratulations on that and we will be together again I don't know are we gonna like are you are you doing the Christmas day are you gonna be busy you're gonna be around I mean I'm gonna be together again. I don't know. Are we going to, like, are you doing the Christmas Day? Are you going to be busy? Are you going to be around? I mean, I'm going to be here. I'm here.

I'm ready. Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. All right. Good. Then we will see you on Christmas Day after Vikings and Saints, which went from potentially very exciting to, eh, it's football. There's probably stuff we can talk about.

So we'll talk to you then, Paul. All right. See you.