Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Have the Vikings turned the tide after win over Packers?

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about whether it's been a fun year for Vikings fans or too stressful for them to enjoy. What does it mean that a Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins-led team suddenly has a top ranked passing offense? What does it mean that Cousins didn't have a good PFF grade versus the Green Bay Packers and yet Justin Jefferson made him right. What troubles still lurk around the corner despite the team having found their offensive identity? How does the last two weeks change the view on Zimmer's future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider.

It is time once again for Monday Morning Murph with Brian Murphy. And you have written your column at purpleinsider.substack.com called Hold On Tight Vikings Fans. And I have a question for you, Brian, right off the start here, right off the beginning. Here's what I want to know. Because you and I, we do our thing in a certain way, and we connect with the fans and how they feel,

and we speak with them all the time, and I get lots of messages and emails and DMS, everything else. But it's a different feeling from, you know, giving your life to loving the team versus covering the team. So let me ask this. Do you think Vikings fans should look at this season as being fun or torturous? Which one of those things would you say that they should look at this season as being because every game has been crazy entertaining but two weeks ago they were ready to throw mike zimmer in the ocean trade kirk cousins to the saints and just wash their hands of this entire thing and then in al pacino like style once you think you're out they you back in, and now they're at 500, coming off a tremendous offensive performance.

So where does this fall, do you think, for – It's got to be both. I don't know if you can pick. I think you have to – if you're having fun, from a pure entertainment standpoint, dispassionate, clinical, objective entertainment, it doesn't get any better than what we've seen for 10 weeks. I mean, there's really only two games to me that are kind of

forgettable, and that would be the two wins, too, you know, against Seattle and LA. Very pedestrian games, but they actually won. Every other game is insane. Six games out of 10 decided on the final snap. Not the final minute, not the final two minutes, the final snap.

You know, if you can't learn how to lean into it, then, you know, maybe maybe you shouldn't bother at all because you can't really can't be a little bit pregnant with this team. You know, you've got to be all in. And I said back in August or when the season started and we previewed, I very distinctly remember saying fans don't avoid it. Lean into the chaos. Now, I had the sense that it was going to be controversy because of Cousins being unvaccinated, Zimmer melting down. You know, I thought I thought it was going to be of that ilk. I didn't think it would be sheer entertainment value and such a roller coaster ride. And I think it's both. I think if you're if you're a true fan, you can't look away because if you do, then what's the point? I mean, would you, you know, OK, yeah. Would you would you rather be sitting eight and two with some blowout wins? I mean, that's fun. Hey, 1998 was fun, right? But from a sheer appointment viewing standpoint,

I got to imagine the ratings are through the roof for the club and just the, the, the attention right now, because, you know, I'll see on Twitter casual people either in the media or fans that sound like, you know, I don't really follow this, but I can't walk away. I can't look away right now. I mean, that's, that's the ultimate entertainment right there. Yeah. I mean, to have all these games be where at the end you're clutching the side of your seat or leaning forward, what's going to happen has been, you know, from a coverage standpoint, really fascinating because every game then has so many twists and turns to break down. And that's what I like the

most and you like the most is how many things are interesting discussions that come out of a game. And with the Packers game, there's a bunch of them. There's no shortage of content for you guys to find out. No, that's why we end up doing this every day. When I started the podcast, like way back when I thought, oh, maybe I'll do like Monday, Wednesday, Friday kind of thing. And I quickly realized, no, no, I can't do that. Not if I'm covering all of this, I got, I gotta be doing this every day because this team gives us so much to talk about. And with this game alone against the Packers, there's a bunch of different angles that you can take. I mean, it all starts with kind of the offensive aggressiveness.

We can get into that a little bit, but I have an interesting stat for you that I think tells the story about what happens when you do push the ball to Justin Jefferson. So pro football focus graded Kirk Cousins yesterday, a 64.8. Now this is out of a hundred Murph. And if you look at his grades this year, that is the second lowest grade of the season. The only one lower was his game against Cleveland in which they scored only seven points. Now, naturally you might go, uh, what's a grade? Now, he threw two interceptions that didn't count. So that would be a big part of this. But I think what that tells you is if you push the ball to Justin Jefferson, even when he's not necessarily open, that even if you don't play a great game

and you don't just master every single throw, that it will make you right by doing that. And you can play not great and still put up points and still win because you're hitting on bigger plays. And we saw this, I think, from Case Keenum in 2017, where he wouldn't play the Joe Montana perfect game or something. It would be, I'm going to fling this ball up there and whoops, that one got picked, but who cares? The next one's going for a 50 yard touchdown.

And it's, there's a lot of variance involved in it, but it also can tell you that you could still put up 34 points when your quarterback doesn't even have some sort of masterful showing. Well, and it's, it goes to the old risk reward versus risk averse you know you're not going to be able to get great splash plays great downfield plays without throwing into tougher coverages and I think a lot of what you guys have been writing about throughout the season is how averse either Kubiak is to call the play or how averse Cousins has been at the line to execute it or instead just saying you know what I'm going to check down because I don't want to risk an interception right here it's hard to say which is more prudent in it you know in real time but you're right these

last two weeks um well even the game in Baltimore they pushed the ball downfield too so it's like they it it took 10 weeks to find a true identity, but I don't think there's any identity crisis right now with the club. And what you have is, I think most people knew Justin Jefferson was a superstar, right? I don't think this was anything new or that Adam Thielen is a fine receiver in his own right. So you have that in place. It just seemed to be that combination of maybe some Mike Zimmer stubbornness. We got to get the running game going. We got to get Delvin Cook. We got to run to set up the pass, whereas that's not necessarily where the NFL is anymore. You have Cousins, who probably doesn't want to get yelled at by Mike Zimmer every day,

even though he will, for making risky plays. You seem to have a certain level of freedom right now in the way that they're performing. And you have to stay with that at this point. I don't see how you can back down. I mean, the schedule is never, ever a cupcake in the NFL, as upsets galore yesterday proved. But it does soften from here on out. This was the toughest stretch that they had. So they are positioned at five and five with some confidence.

They're getting healthy. They are, you know, they could be a dangerous team. And, you know, you could sit around and look at the NFC and say, well, why not the Vikings? I mean, you could look at their 10 game track record and go, well, here's three reasons why it couldn't be them. But then you could look at 10 other things and say, well, why not? I mean, I, you know, Green Bay certainly looks vulnerable. Dallas looks vulnerable.

You know, the Rams look vulnerable. The Bucs are always the Bucs. But, you know, there's no clear no clear you know front runners here right now so you could make this argument either way which is kind of fun because in the day after they get a huge win against their biggest rival you could say look i mean it's it's all laid out for you go go get it i mean you can make this case that you could compete with anybody in the NFC. And then you think back to just a couple of weeks ago when you lost to Cooper Rush. And that was following a game that they had gone into the bye week against Carolina, where we talked about how they had found something on offense and they put up almost 600 yards.

And it's about carrying it over week after week. And not every team ever does that, right? Like the Tampa Bay has had a bad loss mixed in. Every team has. But the good teams have done it more than they have not done it. And this has been the coin flip team. And the order of operation sort of matters. Like against Baltimore, they pushed it down the field early

and then stopped doing it late in the game and lost because of it. Against Dallas, they never did it and lost because of it. And then two weeks later, they do it a couple of times. And so, OK, are you going to be able to continue to carry this forward as you go to San Francisco? The Lions won. I mean, that's got to be a win. But beyond that, you still have to play the Packers again. You still have to play the Rams.

And here comes Philly, who has a pretty easy schedule going forward. If you don't beat San Francisco, all of a sudden you feel like you're put back right to where you were before. And so it's amazing how quickly these things can change. How about we make the cases? You make the case that this is going to continue and this is going to work and they're going to go into the playoffs feeling like they could beat anybody. And then after you do that, I'll make the case against it. So go ahead. I'm glass half full guy. Yes, you are. Yes, you

are. As you've been known to be. That's a rarity. Okay. Let me, I get to say yes a lot. This will be fun. I think their confidence level is as high as it's been all year. I think the fact that we do seem to they do seem to have an identity. They seem to recognize that identity. I think they were being told what their identity should be for a long time. And now they seem to be embracing that they're getting healthier at a key time. I, I feel like and then again, the schedule and it's easy to say, well, it is the NFL and any given Sunday, which is absolutely true. And that's what brings us any given Sunday to the couch or to the stadium to watch.

But I do believe that they are positioned to, and I think they know this too, they'll never admit it, but I think they know they've gone through the meat grinder, both emotionally, physically, and schedule-wise know they've gone through the meat grinder, both emotionally, physically, and schedule wise. They've gone through that meat grinder and they've come out the other side. You know, five and five is just a number or just two numbers, but there's so many ways you can look five and five. They were dead at three and five. They looked pretty good at three and three. as you mentioned drop the opportunity you know the the prime time game at home to Dallas to a backup quarterback and they couldn't get it done

and they dragged that hang over to Baltimore so this is what brings us to the table and this is why I think everybody from week in and week out is going to watch and be unable to look away because it isn't certain. And I think what makes the difference is their true offensive identity has been discovered. Their confidence is sky high. They're getting healthier and the schedule softens. Okay. I think that you make a good case there. And that's the right case to make is that because there was so much pushing for this offense to play this way that it's finally come around and they're actually starting to do it uh and i would love to know the behind the scenes of a couple of weeks ago because delvin cook hinted at a team meeting where patrick

peterson talked and there was one day that i'm not saying exactly I know anything here but it was very mysterious where Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen both decided they weren't practicing because of injuries that we didn't see anything where they actually got hurt uh there was you know talk about Justin Jefferson being frustrated and Mike Zimmer going to him and saying I'm gonna make sure you get the football I'm gonna make sure you get the football. And you just have to wonder, even because we don't really ever hear from the Wilfs where they were on this. Like, was there a, if you guys can't figure out how to get it to Justin Jefferson, then somebody's getting thrown overboard here. I don't know. But I would love to know what the inside of that building was like and the behind

the scenes stuff a couple of weeks ago to get this to change as it did the last two weeks. And yes, I think if it carries over and you play like this offensively, like they have the last two weeks, then you are talking about not only a playoff team, but a dangerous playoff team. Now, let me circle back to the other side. Kirk Cousins this year has as many turnover-worthy plays as Matt Ryan, who has 10 interceptions. Kirk Cousins has two interceptions. They both have 11 turnover-worthy plays. Cousins has had every strip sack bounce back into his hands almost. He's had every interception dropped on the way down or overturned by a guy hitting him in the face. At some point, usually when you have these turnover worthy plays of which he is tied for the 12th most in the league.

So kind of middle of the pack. Usually, eventually the guy does catch the interception. And for Kirk Cousins to only have two picks right now is Tom Brady-esque. And that usually just doesn't stay that way. He's had a lot of things kind of bounce his way, and they did very much yesterday with those two interceptions that were overturned. So that's part of it is there's some regression here with the turnovers that Cousins has always been kind of prone to doing that, and that has not happened at all this year.

That's part of it. The other thing is the Vikings defense in terms of how often they're letting their opponents score. So opposing scoring percentage is now 20th in the league after yesterday. They have a worse defense than the Kansas City Chiefs at this point. They have just as bad of a defense in terms of allowing the other team to score as the Tennessee Titans. They could not pressure Aaron Rodgers at all. They could not throw him off rhythm at all. I saw a stat that when he was throwing in rhythm, which is between two and a half and four seconds, he was 16 for 19 yesterday. He was just picking them apart.

They don't have good cornerbacks. They don't have somebody who's on the way back. Like, oh, this guy will save us when he returns. This is your defense. And even though they're not playing a bunch of juggernauts, they are bad enough now on defense where any team can stay with them at any time. And I think that they are good enough to have really great weeks like they did last week, but also flawed enough to go out to San Francisco. And then all of a sudden, well, they can't stop Kyle Shanahan's offense and the deep ball isn't working because San Francisco has prepared for it. And I think there's, there's still going to be these rocky moments along the

way that leave you at the end of the season going are we making the playoffs or are we not making the playoffs and here comes Chicago to town to make the playoffs or not I mean it still has that feel to me even as great as it's looked the last two weeks I don't think anybody can logically or with a straight face say the Vikings are going to go to San Francisco and win I think I I, you can make a case for it, but to sit there and say, that's a lock. No way. As you said, the last time they were there, they looked awful. Now it was a playoff game, but I mean, coming off a dramatic overtime wildcard victory in New Orleans, a very difficult place to play. They go out there and basically didn't

show up. So yes, this is, this is what you get when, you know, and I hope they don't start playing the disrespect card because they haven't done that yet because they don't have the credibility to do it. They still don't have the credibility to do that. But if they do the old nobody's nobody gave us a chance is giving us a chance to win to go to San Francisco. And it's like, well, it's not that they're not giving you a chance. They're not convinced totally yet. So, you know, why don't you just take care of business, and we will follow along your lead. You mentioned Cousins, too. I wrote about this, too, the two golden horseshoes that he had around his neck. The red zone interception, he's very fortunate. Well, I don't know if fortunate is the right word.

He benefited from having a defensive lineman drill him in the face mask with a helmet to negate that with a roughing the passer. And then clearly trying to press late in the fourth quarter after Green Bay had come back with that long shot downfield that was badly underthrown. And the interception was overturned on replay which you know Fox boy they've had a rough year in some of their production stuff I mean you were at the stadium but everybody at home was sitting through a bunch of Black Friday ads while all of a sudden oh this changes the whole world this changes everything not only is it maybe going to be

overturned it's clearly should be overturned we saw none of that before going to break. We come back and it was like, you know, Lazarus rising from the dead. And suddenly, like, you know what, they're going to they're definitely going to win now. We're definitely going to win after that break. So and I said to in the column and I do believe this. I mean, he's going to need a third golden horseshoe. And that is to get through the covid minefield over the last seven weeks to get to the finish. Well, just get to the regular season finish line without a positive test. Cases are surging in the state. I'm feeling it in my household. It's going to be nip and tuck all the way through that. So there's so much, so many other shoes that are going to be dropping here in the next seven weeks.

Hey everybody, Minnesota football is in full swing, and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for Minnesota football tickets because TickPick, that is T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site. It's the only one you'll ever need as your go-to for football tickets. TickPick got rid of all those awful service fees that the other ticket sites charge, which allows them to guarantee the best prices on all of your

tickets. Don't believe it? If you can find better prices on the same seats on another site, TickPick will give you 110% of the difference. Now, we've had lots of exciting games at US Bank Stadium this year. There are still more to go, including Los Angeles coming here. It's always interesting when Chicago comes to town. So you're going to want to go to TickPick.com and check it out. And make sure it's TickPick.com slash insider because you can save $10 on your first order for Minnesota tickets. That's TickPick.com slash insider. Yeah, and the Vikings have had it in their building.

Harrison Smith had to miss the two weeks, and they've had other players who were vaccinated that have also had to sit out recently. And, you know, here we are, holding that breath every single week. I mean, even Ben rothlisberger in pittsburgh last night he i think is vaccinated but had covid and then had to kind of fly in at the last minute to even play in that football game was in bad shape with it too yeah yeah against the

los angeles chargers i mean the vikings had a player in the hospital dakota dozier who was vaccinated but of course it's still possible to get sick. And I think the NFL has actually done a poor job of readapting some of their COVID protocols based on what's happening in the world. They have, they still have it where, Hey, if you're unvaccinated, go, you know, go do whatever you want and have the masks off inside the building and everything else in the media room. We have them on still, the masks, but we're kind of like the only ones in the building who do. And so everybody else, I don't know.

I mean, it seems like it's easy enough to spread. I think they probably should have gone to more daily testing and had those other protocols mixed in, but, I mean, whatever. I mean, that is the risk that they're taking though and that they've been taking all season with their quarterback is you're walking that fine line of one test one close contact whatever it is and when you're a five and five type team that needs every single win you can't afford to have your quarterback have to miss a game or something like that and there's no control that anybody in the world has over it. I mean, not even that's the thing, like not even Cousins has control over

it. He can do everything right. And still it's, it's possible just by being around other human beings to end up with it. So that, that is certainly the fear. And when we talk about what could go right, what could go wrong over the rest of the season. I mean, that's certainly in the category. I also think this, Murph, that they have been so healthy on offense, as healthy on offense as I have ever seen a football team. I mean, the only time they've made a change is when, you know, Rashad Hill was benched to put in Christian Derrissaw, or when Garrett Bradbury got sick and Mason Cole comes in and

they decide to just stick with Mason Cole yesterday, which by the way, yeah, he got annihilated. His PFF grade was a 14. He was demolished by Kenny Clark. He was ragdolled a few times. They had some isolated cameras on him and it didn't look good. Yeah, because usually the backup is not better than the starter. That's why he's the backup. But anyway, I think that that's what makes this rest of the season so compelling is that there is a minefield. Any injury on defense makes them not only just like not good, which is where they are now,

but could be tremendously bad if Eric Hendricks gets banged up or, you know, they lost Harrison Smith for a couple of weeks, but if it's another cornerback or something like that, I mean, especially along the defensive line, Sheldon Richardson stepped up yesterday, but they have kind of nothing left on that defensive line outside of Everson Griffin and Delvin Tomlinson. So they are in a position where we believe they can overcome some things because of their offense, but also feels like they're playing with fire here the rest of the way. Well, and you think of Patrick

Peterson too. He's an older player, hamstring injuries. You think you got him figured out. You think you got him treated. You think you got him protected. And then bam, one push off, one long route that he has to defend and he's done for another three or four weeks. So that's something. I was going to ask you what, cause I haven't paid a ton of attention, but what's the latest with Michael Pierce? Is he crawling back to the lineup or is he, is that not happening? Yeah, we don't know. And, and Mike Zimmer, I,

you can usually tell when Mike Zimmer is sort of putting on because he's just not, and I give him credit for this. Like he's not a good liar. You know, this as well as anybody, He's not good at covering things up. So you can usually tell when he's sort of being straightforward about something. He seems to not know with Michael Pierce of when he's going to come back. And this was always the concern with Michael Pierce is like the guy hasn't played in a year. And then, you know, that position gets banged up a lot. You're playing, you know, nose tackle.

You know, you're doing a lot of things that offer yourself to getting hurt. So I don't know. They did do a good job yesterday against the run, surprisingly. But they couldn't pressure the quarterback at all. And I just don't see Murph how they pressure anyone. I mean, Everson Griffin, I think, has gotten exhausted and worn down. Did not have a good game yesterday. Not even close. If he's trying to cheat on every snap, it seems like now. Yeah. If he's not doing it, I don't think anybody is. So, and this is a major part of the argument

that they're kind of going to stay this way with the ups and downs, even with the easy part of schedule is if you don't pressure, even if they play Andy Dalton and you don't pressure him, he'll still make plays against you. NFL quarterbacks are going to complete passes if they have time and they're not feeling heat. That's just a fact. I mean, even marginal NFL quarterbacks will make plays. Cooper Rush made plays.

So I barely took a look at Tim Boyle yesterday in Cleveland with the Lions because I was thinking this can't end well. And, you know, Cleveland just basically said, we're going to blitz everybody. Good luck. And that's what happened. They couldn't you know, they couldn't complete a five yard pass. So, you know, average NFL quarterbacks can make plays with time and confidence that they're not going to get bulldozed. This is where the absence, of course, of Danielle Hunter, we don't even need to really harp on, but it's true. I mean, one of the premier pass rushers and athletic specimens in the game

to be gone again, this is where he could take over a game. When Everson Griffin is exhausted and Sheldon Richardson is exhausted, you can send Hunter around the edge and there'll be a strip sack or a major third down sack or disruption made that can change the tenor of a game. They don't have that. So you're right. The margin for error is thin there. I've been impressed with Harrison Smith coming back.

And again, my virgin eyes, I'm not following coverages. But he seemed to be missing in action most of the season. And now that he's come back from COVID, he seems to be in the middle of things again. He may still have lost a step, but he's been in there breaking up passes. He's involved a little bit more, making key stops. You hear his name called more. There were a couple of weeks there. I don't know if I ever heard Harrison Smith's name called for a period of time.

So that could be beneficial. You know, Brashad Breeland, boy, the kid seems to be in the right place at the right time. But I think you had tweeted this out. There's a reason cornerbacks aren't receivers. Because I don't know how many interceptions he's had in his hands that have not been interceptions. He's got to start making those kind of plays, too. And then, again, Peterson, you've got to watch for that wonky hamstring going down the stretch. Yeah. On Harrison Smith, his season by the PFF metrics has mostly been fine. Yesterday,

I think why he was most notable is that was the most he had rushed the passer all year. And he's going to have to become that guy where he's blitzing all the time because the Vikings just don't have anyone to get after the passer. Yesterday, Xavier Woods was the goat in the wrong way. He had the lowest grade by PFF, got smoked a few times. And this is the part about the defense that is so flawed is that you have a player like Breland who has been, I think, fine recently. And yet, you know, early early in the season it was really rough. And Xavier Woods, early in the season, is really good. And then this last week it was just awful.

But that's average players. That's how it goes. This week they're great. The next week they're not. Like no player just has – it's like a baseball player who hits 250. They don't go one for four every game. They have a hot streak. They have a cold streak.

And that's kind of how all these players work. And that's why on a week to week basis, you can't really trust this defense. And there's no, we saw this from last year. There's no level of scheming where you could say, Oh, Zimmer, we'll just dial up this, this, this, this, and this. Right. But if they can't get after the passer, it's not going to matter. And we saw that happen yesterday. So they're flawed enough that their offense is going to have to overcome, I think a lot to get anywhere. And I mean, anywhere as in winning playoff games or something like that. Let me ask you a big picture question though. Let's say that this season ends with the Vikings ranking seventh in points. And the other metrics say that they've had one of the better

offensive seasons in the league let's just say one of the more explosive passing games and so forth let's say that that's where they end does that change anything and let's say they go nine and eight exactly kind of where we would think that they go nine and eight and they don't win in the playoffs. Would it change anything for you as it pertains to Mike Zimmer that this mid-season change where there's a switch that has been flipped on what he's saying and how he wanted to adapt. And this is no longer a man even talking about the run. He's not even saying I want to run the ball. He's saying Jefferson ratio, baby. Does that change anything about how you think Vikings fans would feel about staying with the same coach as opposed to going to Kellen Moore or Byron Leftwich or whoever the young offensive mind is? Well, I think does that nine and eight mean a playoff berth or does it mean just being on the outside looking in?

That's question number one. Are we talking a playoff berth? Let's say a playoff berth, or does it mean just being on the outside looking in? That's question number one. Are we talking a playoff berth? Let's say a playoff berth, but they don't win. Yeah, and a quick exit. Optics are everything. Where are they going to go on that first playoff game? Are they going to go to Lambeau in the snow and cold again? Are they going to go to L.A.?

Are they going to go to Tampa? How bad are they going to look in that loss? Are the players still responding to them? I think that'll tell us a lot. It's always, I felt like, you know, I was in South Carolina for my birthday with my wife, but I did watch most of the Ravens game at a bar. And I really felt like as tough as that loss was, and there were a lot of bad things that happened, that team played its ass off for Mike Zimmer. 98 defensive snaps. I mean, they never gave up. They didn't quit on him. So, you know, if they had, I think that three and five would have made him more vulnerable. So I kind of use that logic going forward here. If it looks like the team

has tuned him out, if it looks like his motivational messages aren't working, if he reverts to his comfort level of conservative play calling, running the football, you know, you can almost see the writing on the wall. If they play at Lambeau, let's say for a playoff game and it's a snowy, cold day, it's going to be, well, we got to run the ball. We got to run the ball and we got to win on defense. Yes. Okay. That makes sense logically, but you at least need to let cousins in the offense, see if they can make plays in the snow. You know, teams have thrived in the snow and the wind and the cold. I mean, it happens. You can throw the ball. It may be difficult, but you can certainly do that. So I want to see how those dynamics play out to sit. You know, again, his decision making clock management hasn't reared its head.

He had a cuff, a rough couple of weeks where you're like, who's in charge here? So those kind of decisions may still be on the table, you know, at the end of a half or the end of a game or what, you know, when to take a timeout or not to take a timeout, when to take a shot down the field. You know, if those issues come up again, I think those are job security issues. I think it all comes down to optics. I don't think nine and eight is a hard number to say playoff or no playoff berth. Nine and eight, he's got to go. I think it's where is the team? Is the offense still progressing?

Is the offense thriving and growing, as you mentioned the stats? If they're a top 10 offensive team, which they rarely have been with him other than the Keenum here, is that enough to say, well, maybe he's seen the light and the guys are still playing for him? And what else are we going to do better? Who's going to be on the market? You know, these decisions are always made very quickly. So, so much of it is which way the wind's blowing. And I, and again, not knowing where ownership stands sometimes can be a good thing because I think they're deliberate, but it also could be, are they even plugged in? My guess is they're plugged in and being deliberate. So that's for, that's for the team to decide. For the fans, I don't know if the fans are ever satisfied here. I mean, like you said, I mean, there's probably fans that would be like, I can't handle this drama. I don't want to deal with it. Well, then I don't know why you're a fan. So, like, you're always, you know, conditioned to expect the worst here.

So, you know, there was a ton of complaints about Zimmer's coaching yesterday compared to Matt LaFleur. And it's like, yeah, well, LaFleur lost. So it all comes down to W still, and it all comes down to optics. So I don't think 9-8 necessarily ends the era for him, but it depends on what that 9-8 looks like. Sam Ekstrom here, wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report. In an unfortunate situation like that, it's good to have someone in your corner. That's where Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer Law can help you understand your rights

under Minnesota's workers' compensation laws. There's enough uncertainty in our lives nowadays that the last thing you want is to feel helpless if you wind up in a bad situation after a workplace injury. Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer will fight for you if there's been a wrongfully denied work comp claim so you can get the benefits you deserve. If your claim's been accepted, they help with rehabilitation disputes, medical disputes, help you get a second opinion, and ensure you're getting all the benefits you're entitled to on an accepted claim. Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer will provide you with dedicated and experienced disability attorneys that have secured their clients tens of millions of dollars. Our good friends Mike, Pat, and Evan will handle all that messy legalese

to and from the insurance company about your claim while you focus on what's important, your recovery. And there's no cost involved for reaching out to Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer. In fact, you don't pay a dime unless they successfully obtain your benefits. You get paid, then they get paid. It's that simple. The website is yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com, where you can find a phone number to get a free consultation. This is an attorney advertisement from Kemet,ford and Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. Well, there's, so there's different numbers that sort of point my arrow on how I feel about

different decisions, right? That I think are very important and very telling. One of those numbers is expected points added through the passing game, which means how did you perform versus the situation with the pass? Now I want to add in that it's important that they have not thrown interceptions because interceptions are EPA killers, as you might expect. So just add that in that if they throw more interceptions, this number could be impacted right now. They're third in the league in an EPA. Now, every team that has reached the Superbowl since the Peyton Manning Broncos has been in the top five and passing EPA. So that is like the place you have to be to win. If Mike Zimmer coach team can be in the top five in passing EPA and Kirk Cousins quarterback team can be in the top five passing EPA,

then you have something there that you can win with. You can actually win with. Now you have to go do it. They can't end up going seven and 10 and melting down twice against the bears. And then we're just talking about something totally different. But if you finish nine and eight with a top five passing offense in terms of expected points added, which I think is more telling than even like yards per pass or quarterback rating or anything else, because it's based on situation and performance. That to me would be, I don't think you need a coaching change.

If you can have an offense that's performing like that, then it's all right. You know, you're drafting some players on defense and reworking and things like that. Then it's all right. You know, you're drafting some players on defense and reworking and things like that. And, but I don't think you're talking about necessarily needing the complete overhaul. They have to get there in order for me to have that opinion, because right now I'm not entirely sold, but it has been a fascinating change to have Mike Zimmer talking like he's Sean McVay. I mean, you just do not expect that, right?

You expect him to sound like, I'm going to stay with the run and everything else, but is like, was a lesson learned from the Diggs thing? Was he told you have to do this? Is it his- Shame and insecurity are powerful motivators. Yeah, right. Or is it just his recognition

that Justin Jefferson is truly special? And he said, I'm not going down without that guy getting the ball a bunch of times. It's all, I really would love to know the exact conversations that happened there to make this work. then you don't need a different coach. If you are right up there with LA, Arizona, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and the Green Bay Packers in terms of the production of your passing offense, then that's going to drive the most possibility for you to actually go deep in the playoffs. Then I don't necessarily need to change. But I do agree with you that so far, we have not seen this team turn on Mike Zimmer.

If they do, because they start losing some games that are close like this or the interceptions start being caught, then it is a different conversation. So really, these last few weeks are probably going to shape how we see that. Yeah, and it was funny. I might have mentioned this before here, but I've talked to a couple people about it. You know, when Childress lost that 2010 team, it was at three and seven. And it was a home loss to the Green Bay Packers, a very ugly home loss, which happened to be on November 21st. So I kind of thought this might be fitting, you know, yesterday where this could go.

But I mean, you had 60,000 people yelling, chanting, fire Childress. I mean, it was untenable. The team had clearly quit on him. The market had quit on him. It was an obvious decision. No, we had not seen that yet. You know, 2010, Twitter wasn't really fired up that much yet. So you see the anxiety about Zimmer out there still. I think that if the case you just made that's hard hard facts hard numbers hard perspective clear history I mean that's a pretty compelling case to make to a jury right so if they can if he can do that then there's a chance but you still also if it's nine and eight and you go out in the first round or it's nine and eight, you don't make it despite where you may be offensively,

you still have to answer for the eight losses and the eight losses. Some of them were devastating and inexcusable. You can't forget that. You know, it's easy to forget because it was October or September, but bad clock management decisions, conservative play calling after the beginning of a game, giving up points, which they did again yesterday in the last two minutes of the first half. Those are things that have dogged them all season. Now they may be over to overcome that, but that's something he's going to have to answer for too. So it's not as simple as, well, I finally saw the light after seven and a half years, you know, and, and we were, you know, we were staring over the abyss at three and five and look at how I've turned

everything around. It's like, well, how did you end up in that position in the first place? You have to, you have to account for that too. Right. I always think about too, the order of operations and how it shapes what we think though. I mean, because if you had sort of a different order of one up, one down, rather than getting to three and five and feeling like this whole season could go over the side and that's how it played out. So that's how we should discuss it. But I think if you, if you had reshuffled the exact same wins and losses and you said, oh, well, you know, they had that one to Cooper rush that was really bad. And you had the oh, well, you know, they had that one to Cooper rush that was really bad. And you had the one to Cleveland that was really bad where you couldn't move the ball

at all. But the accumulation was one up, one down, as opposed to getting to three and five and then having to win. I mean, I wonder about how differently we would feel. I don't know if the answer is way differently, but maybe a little, because we did get to a point where after they went to three and five, it was trending on Twitter, fire Mike Zimmer. And I think that everyone was reasonable in looking at this going, well,

look, I mean, if you lose these next two games, it's gotta be over. Right. Or at least very much the season is over. And in very typical Mike Zimmer fashion, just like last year.

And like many other times before, when it seemed like it was over, he's able to drag them back. And maybe that's just some luck regression, which, you know, the penalties were eight to three yesterday and, you know, the dropped interceptions. And so some things really Mason Crosby missed the field goal. That was an easy chip shot field goal that makes that game 34, 34. Yeah. And any, any other season Mason Crosby has money. So they caught him at the right time as well. Right. So there's a lot of things that had to tip your way to get there, but still the final record is you were about to go over the edge and then you end up being able to pull it back. So I think that nine and eight would say this is overall kind of who you've been. But if you're going to continue with this philosophy,

Jefferson is not going anywhere. And this can actually work better with some corrections. I mean, that's where you get yourself after coming off a win against the Packers is the way that I see it. Yeah. And I think, again, it's very admirable the way Zimmer has been able to rally the troops when they've been in awful situations. And that's to be admired. That's not easy to do because it's hard to rally 53 grown men who are getting screamed at by, you you know, on a day-to-day basis. He's managed to do that, but he's also managed to put himself in a position to have to do that. And that sometimes seems inexcusable or also maddening. Like, why are you in this position to have to scramble? Scrambling's nice. And look, if they rip off, you know, five or six out of seven wins down the stretch and get hot in the playoffs, you may not even, I mean, Halloween night's an afterthought, you know, but it's, until you can get there, I mean, that's the position you've put yourself into. You've put yourself in a box that

basically says, not only do you have to make the playoffs, you have to make it as a top five, top 10 offensive team. You have to be trending in a way that means beyond this season, you are going to be a contender. And you have to quit shooting yourself in the foot along the way with, you know, time management issues. So that is yet to be seen. So that's what I kind of want to see is, again, how do they respond? They responded horribly after the buy. How are they going to respond after their signature victory? Yeah, I definitely could see nine and eight first round out. It's just not good enough.

And I, it would be hard to argue that like after doing that year after year after year, that that is just not enough. Last thing you've watched yourself, a lot of Vikings Packers games in your time, Mr. Murph, where's that one rank for sheer entertainment. It's right up there. I, you know, they kind of all blend together at times.

I always think of the children's game because of how awful it was and how I actually really felt sorry for the man. I mean, that was an awful vibe in that building that day. There has been a couple of games at Lambeau that were really, really good, really entertaining. You know what? The Randy Moss game in the rain in 2000 or 98 when he kind of emerged on the Monday night scene, that's got to be top five. The Antonio Freeman butt catch, that's probably in there as far as craziness goes. Even them going to Lambeau in 2004 for the wildcard playoff game and Moss mooning the crowd, they had no business winning that game, and they did.

Those are the ones that come to mind. But I think as far as sheer entertainment value and in the context of this Vikings season, it's going to be hard to argue with November 21st, 2021. Yeah, yep, I totally agree. Especially, I mean, you were, would you, I mean, any football fan would take, you saw an all-time great performance by the other quarterback and your team won. Right, and you may never see Aaron Rodgers in a Packers jersey there again,

or depending on where he goes, if he goes to the AFC, you might not see him again in that building. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy to think about Murph. Great stuff. As always, people should check out your article,

hang on tight Vikings fans, and we will do it again after whatever happens in San Francisco. Thanks Murph. All right. See ya.