Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How high should we set the bar for the 2022 Vikings? (A Fan's Only podcast)

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions, from whether Any Given Sunday holds up to how high the bar is for the Vikings to justify their offseason direction to their future at quarterback to whether the offensive line is better this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is indeed another fans-only podcast. Tons of questions to continue to get to here, and there will be more episodes next week

because you guys have sent all sorts of interesting and great stuff that i cannot wait to answer and just the usual reminder purpleinsider.com the contact us or you can go to my twitter at matthew collar send me a dm say hey it's fans only or you can send me a regular app mention and i will put it in the file and do my best to answer everybody who sends their inquiries. If I missed yours, send it again. But I'm a little bit backlogged just by the sheer number of people who have sent awesome questions that usually I end up talking far too long about one topic and not get to enough. So I'm going to do my best in the next few of these to speed up the pace a little bit and know when I should stop

Rambling along on one topic, but let's dive right in here So the first question comes from Chris via email Says I thought I'd go for a more light-hearted Fans only question during the bye week as part of your Miami pop culture quiz for Will Raggett's last week. By the way, Will's responses indicate that he might spend a little too much time grinding tape. I agree. He was way off with the movies. He had no idea what he was doing. Anyway, Chris says, you mentioned the movie Any Given Sunday. Just curious on your take on it. I would say I still enjoy watching it, but it hasn't aged particularly well.

I do feel it did a great job of conveying the frenzied, hyperkinetic feel of football action, especially in 1999. I don't love the role of Coach D'Amato, despite the great Al Pacino playing at the first locker room speech. Sounds like an attempt to force as many football-y words as possible. I'm surprised they didn't sneak oily hips in there. In the end, it's a bit cliched and over the top, but I still enjoy watching parts of it. There's something that you always have to remember when going back and watching 90s movies. And this happened recently during the pandemic with my wife and I, we were trying to think about things to do that weren't going out to eat or whatever else. And one of the things we came up with is like, let's watch some old block came to movies. And a lot of times my wife would say, and she hadn't seen a ton of these earlier nineties movies just based on her age.

It's not that she's way younger than me, but like my parents rented movies constantly when I was growing up and they loved blockbusters. So I had seen a lot of these and she said like, a lot of them are just all these movie cliches. It's like, yeah, where do you think the movie cliches came from? You know, in the eighties, late eighties and nineties, they did all these over the top action films. Uh, I mean, even into the mid eighties for sure. And they were big blockbuster hits and movie stars were movie stars, as opposed to, we know some of the people in movies, Netflix, YouTubers, influencers, like it's so much more spread out. It used to be, there's like five gigantic actors that are in every single movie

and stuff is blowing up everywhere. And it's the craziest thing. It's like a motorcycle jumping from building to building and all these different nutty things that they would do that you see, I think, kind of less of because the stunts, everybody knows it's CGI. There's also just better content out there. And I think that people go looking for things more specific to themselves

rather than those wide audience. Everybody can kind of enjoy stuff blowing up and Arnold Schwarzenegger fighting an entire army of people or something. And the point that I'm getting to is that any given Sunday is like that. Like sports movies really in the 90s kind of took on a bit of that personality where it was just over the top. Even the replacements is another football movie where it's, it's supposed to be campy. It's supposed to be a comedy slash drama. But when you go back and watch it, there's a lot of things that do not hold up very well. I mean, first of all, the football in general is ridiculous. It's so absurdly over the top, the guy with the stick them on his hands

and you know, you have every other shot is to the cheerleaders at one point in the replacements, the cheerleaders start doing like a strip tease and the other team has a delay of game penalty. Like that's, that is how absurd some of the stuff was and not really made to be accurate, but more of to be kind of over the top in a cartoonish version, which is kind of how I think of any given Sunday. It's not Friday Night Lights where it really is kind of true to life and is based on the book and everything. So there are movies from that era that have that. But even what's the other varsity blues is every high school cliche for sports movies, the crazy coach who's like trying to, I don't know, shoot up players that is going to hurt them in the long run or whatever, like just all,

all these things, all these things, they're all kind of over the top. They're all cliches. And I think that if you recognize that you can put it aside and still enjoy it, still enjoy the characters. Um, but yeah, I mean, the other thing too is we also have so much more access and have in recent years to what a real coach speech is actually like, right. And NFL films would have brought you some of that stuff, but unless you went out looking for it, um, you were not really going to get it. So you, you got this movie here and that's how the writers thought that coaches gave their football speeches. And that's probably how the audience thought that football coaches gave their speeches as well. So it's pretty Epic. It's pretty intense at the time. And yeah, I like it from

that perspective, but I don't think that it's really a reflection of the NFL or football as, as much as it is sort of an, an exaggerated version, but I, I still enjoy movies like that. I think I enjoy movies like that more than I do based on a true story stuff where they just get details wrong, like Hoosiers. I mean, the Hoosiers team was super dominant, the real team that it was based on. And they made it seem like every game came down to the last second, things like that. Like I would much rather watch something campy or blown up or ridiculous. Uh, that's fictional than I would watch something that's based on a true story in sports. And I would just watch the documentary instead. So anyway, that's something that's based on a true story in sports and I would just watch the

documentary instead. So anyway, that's, that's fun question. Appreciate it, Chris. Uh, onto the next one. This comes from at writer Churchill. She says, I am finally resigned to the fact that this team is still learning a new coach, new system, wildly inconsistent games. We need to give it a season or two fine, but I feel like the changes we have now are ones that should have happened two years ago and with two years younger players, because in a year or two, when we get fully consistent four quarters of football, our already aging vets will be two years older. Anything we've gained at that point, we lose from their bodies that are two years older. Seems like mismatched timing to me preaching to the choir.

I know, but thoughts. Uh, yeah, I mean, I definitely think that there's something to the whole idea of the winning window was probably shut and they tried very hard with this team to stick their fingers down in the crevice and drag that window open. And what's happened is they've gotten a strong gust of wind, which is the schedule, the opposing quarterback injuries and the landscape that has helped them actually reopen that window. Um, but you have certainly seen that there's been a lot of bumps to get there, that it has not been a smooth ride. It hasn't been this team looking like, as you said, four quarters of strong football.

It hasn't looked like they understand fully the offense or the defense at this point. And that learning curve, I think, is real. And we've seen it play out. The question that I would have now with, you know, knowing what their record is in comparing how they've dealt with the timeline is like, can they fix those things this year, this week with the bi-week? How much can they do as a coaching staff and as a roster to get on the same page to the point where you feel like they are a legitimate contender? And when I was looking the other day to the numbers of your typical Super Bowl team, I

mean, normally you're talking about top five offenses. We've talked about that many times, but also defenses that hold opposing quarterbacks under a 95 quarterback rating on defense. And that's, you know, the Vikings are just a little bit under that, but they're also giving up tons of yards. Most of the time, you know, defenses that go to the Superbowl hold opposing teams below 4,000 yards passing in a season. Now that's going to change a little with 17 games but they're usually pretty good passing defenses they're usually elite offenses and right now I don't think the Vikings are either one of those things so they have to improve those things to be a

legitimate contender to justify what they decided to do because I agree with you that by the time Kwesi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell have fully become in command and they aren't just the new guys implementing the new systems and they've played this kind of style of defense several years and they've really got it by the time we get there I mean you're talking about a lot of different people on the roster so how can you ever get consistency which I think was a big problem at the end of Zimmer, where they had the same guys from 2015 to 2019. Every player who started the 2019 playoff game in New Orleans was on the team in 2015.

Like those guys understood the system, but then they bring in all these new players in 2020 and 2021 and Zimmer's trying to teach them all the same things that the other guys had fully ingrained. They could have woken up in the middle of summer and played a defensive game and done all right. But then the new guys, I mean, they were just trying to understand what they were supposed to do. And we saw enough coverage busts and things like that to be problematic. So can they get up to speed, stay healthy enough to have consistency in chemistry, make enough adjustments on offense to justify what they did in the off season? I think we're a little ways away from that. I don't think a five and one start says, Hey, you absolutely nailed it. I think that it's a 12 and five finish that would say you

nailed it rather than a five and one start. So can they make that happen? And I think it won't happen unless some adjustments are made, but if they do, it will certainly say a lot about the coach that they have, right? If they can go from being the 14th best offense to hitting their stride, as they face some tougher teams, pull some upsets, win some games they're not supposed to win or that are 50-50 coin flips, get into the top 10 as an offense. They would go into the playoffs with a legitimate chance. And that was the bar that I think was reasonable to set at the beginning of the season was

can you get to the point where you enter the playoffs as a legitimate contender for the Super Bowl? And if they accomplish that, then I would say, yeah, it worked to kind of go all in on this year. And as far as down the road goes though, yeah, I mean, there's going to be a lot of parts to this, a lot of key players that two years from now, when Kevin O'Connell presumably is fully immersed, that aren't here, including probably the quarterback. So that will be an interesting thing to watch play out is how do they reset the roster after this season when you already are having some signs of like, yeah, maybe this guy is slowing down and maybe that guy's not going to be a part of this

long-term. That is a question we're kind of constantly assessing as we go along. Is Daniel Hunter going to be here long-term? How much longer is Adam Thielen a Minnesota Viking? Things like that, uh, that are kind of in the back of your mind as we do the week to week to week, but in the immediate to justify what they did, I think that they have to be better than they've been to get to five and one, to get to the point where they're going into the playoffs as a scary team for the rest of the NFC. And if they get there, then that will fully justify what they decided to do this off season. And I don't think that bar is too high. By the way, you start five and one,

you've got a ton of star talent. You've got an offensive mind as a coach, like all the things you wanted, your culture's good. Like go do it. Right. Uh, you got a punter who came down from the heavens.

Come on. You should be able to do this thing. Uh, all right. Next question. This comes from at Pat, the Pingu on Twitter. Fans only question for you.

I was at Vikings Bears for my first ever NFL experience. Awesome. And it was an incredible experience. US Bank Stadium blew my mind. I couldn't have asked for a better game to watch. Leads to my question. What is the best game you have ever seen live? My answer to this is not an off the radar one. It's a pretty straightforward one.

It's the Minneapolis miracle. I mean, not only was it a great play at the end by Stefan Diggs, just one of the most shocking moments in NFL history. The whole game is great. The entire game from start to finish, the Vikings get up early, the Saints fight back. There's twists and turns. There's the Saints trying to throw a pass with a receiver that costs them. There's a fourth down that drew breeze converts. That's absolutely unbelievable to set them up in position to go ahead in that game. There's Sean Payton doing the skull clap. I mean, there was so much going on all at once that, yeah, I mean, I could say you could write a book on it, but I already did. So I mean, there's just, that game was incredible. The energy there's a, there's a level that us bank stadium hits of noise and energy where it feels like you are just being shaken. Uh, and it's so loud that it's sort of reverberates up against itself and starts going back and forth

and in and out, like, like, wow, wow, wow. Kind of that's the best way I could describe it. And people who have been there for the big games know what I mean, but the Minneapolis miracle is the loudest that place has ever been and so you add that the play at the end the locker room at the end which was just you know guys are in tears and I mean everybody was so emotional after that game it's one of the most incredible things that I've ever seen so that that has to go at the top and I'm kind of trying to look and see if there was any other games that I thought were just really great. And in the last two years, unfortunately, um, you, uh, folks have not been treated to that. I would say the playoff

game that the Vikings won in the Superdome, you talk about noise, the Superdome takes it to even a different level than us bank stadium by a little bit. Um, I think it's a little bit louder and that place, like what an atmosphere, it's kind of a dump. It's been around forever. Uh, the fans are insane there. And that game was great too. Cause it was back and forth the whole way. Um, how about here's, here's one that's maybe some bad memories for you guys, but what, what a time was in several weeks in a row, 2018, the Packers tie was wild. I mean, that was walking out and the whole place is dead silent. Now, normally if you're walking out of a Vikings Packers game and, and in green Bay, you walk outside to go to the locker room. So you walk over the fans who are exiting, uh, kind of like on this, I don't

know, like a, a path that goes to where the locker room is. And normally if the Vikings win, you can hear a bunch of Vikings fans doing skull chants. And there's, you know, some, maybe some arguing with fans and things like that. If the Packers win, it's really loud and raucous. And this was just dead silent, just dead silent. That was super weird. And then the game in Los Angeles, 38-31, the rapper YG jumps out of the stands and daps up Robert Woods, the way the game ended, how back and forth it was. And the cool part about that was that the Coliseum was undergoing construction. So we were just like jammed in a trailer in the middle of the stadium, but we had almost the view that you would get if any of you have been to high school games,

I'm sure you have, where you are in the stands at the height from the field in a high school game is where we were in an NFL game. And I've never been that close to an actual, to actual NFL action to see it that closely. And that was really something. And then like, what a game. I know that they came up short and they tied the two that I'm talking about, but just what a crazy atmosphere, so much better than the new stadium in terms of atmosphere, tons of, uh, you know, Vikings fans went out though. It was, yeah, it was really something. And that place is just spooky. Like the Coliseum in general, like all the history of that place and the construction just had this really haunting feel to it. So those are a couple that stick out to me. All right. Uh, great question though. Glad you enjoyed your

first game. It is, I mean, it is quite the place. I have to say us bank stadium for us up there in the press box, but, uh, it, it is one of the nicest in the league, but for you guys in the fans, my family came and went to a preseason game a couple of years back. Absolutely loved it. Just love the atmosphere, how comfortable it was, how well you can see everything, the noise that goes along with it. It's everything you're looking for in football. Folks, those who know me well are aware that I'm not a big drinker, but when my neighbors recently dropped by, they were surprised to see a bunch of Tallboy cans laying around.

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because we're not likely smart enough to take lamar in the draft well okay so you take the absolute best option and the one that I wanted at the time off the table for me, it was, there was two ways of looking at it. There was the case Keenum, Teddy Bridgewater, both come back and you draft a quarterback option because there were five projected first round quarterbacks that year. And three of them have been at least good. Two of them have been unbelievable and two of them have been terrible. So, and I'm, I guess I'm giving Mayfield a little too much credit there, but he got his team to 11 wins. So that's more than the Vikings have had at any point in the Kirk era. So let's just say right. That, um, Mayfield would

have worked out too. If he was the guy who dropped. It would have required probably, because they didn't know that Lamar was going to drop to 32. It would have required a trade up more likely than not. And who knows how that would impact the future and everything else. That was one of the two options that I thought were the most favorable, which was to bring back Case, possibly Case and Teddy, and have them battle it out and draft a quarterback to sit for a year and then decide at the end.

If Case Keenum takes you back to the NFC Championship, well, then that man is your quarterback, right? But if he didn't, and also keep in mind too, that they would have been able to give extra cap space to other players to bolster the roster had they brought back Case Keenum, because I think he signed like a $20 million a year deal in Denver or something like that. It was way less than Kirk.

So at least they might've been able to add some extra things to the roster. And so if Keenum was wildly successful again and he did the same exact thing okay great you keep him as your quarterback and develop the other guy but maybe trade the other guy if you know if Keenum's leading you the Super Bowl or something crazy but more likely your option would be to plan to hand the ball over to the next quarterback in 2019 while you're still in the window. So you'd have case start for a year, your rookie sit rookie comes in. That was one option that I thought was favorable. And the other one was trading for Alex Smith. And so I think you might say, well, Alex Smith, it's not that good, right? Like, you know, whatever he's kind of talked

about as the, the best, you know, the worst, best quarterback or, or however you want to phrase it. But I just want to point something out about Alex Smith. And I know I've probably brought this up when this comes up. Otherwise Alex Smith in Kansas city went 50 and 26 as a starter and he never threw more than 10 interceptions. I mean, the guy just sort of found a way to be very efficient. He was not throwing for 5,000 yards. He was not throwing for 50 touchdowns. But considering the running game that they had with Delvin Cook in 2019, 2020, 2018 was a little more banged up, but still, coming back,

I think that Alex Smith would have been a better fit, especially for Mike Zimmer. Like a guy who just kind of keeps the train on the tracks, is a really, really excellent leader, high character guy, and can win a lot of regular season games by just demolishing the turnover ratio. The guy just never turned the ball over. And when you look at his total statistics, like he peaked at leading the league in quarterback rating, which this actually tells you how much the league has changed that he led the league with 104.7 quarterback rating, which, you know, I think in the recent years that would be pretty low, but, um, was, was good for the time. So he was the ultimate kind of Zimmer quarterback. Alex Smith is what Teddy Bridgewater would have become if he never got hurt, right?

Like Smith could run a little and make some plays a little bit. That wasn't really his thing, but he was a decent athlete who could run if he needed to. Yeah, I think that that would have been a great fit for how they wanted to play and consider that they still had pretty darn good defenses in 2018 and 2019. That's the type of guy that I think they should have been going for. And Alex Smith, when you look at it too, I mean, he really never had great receivers. And then he gets to the end with Tyreek Hill and has a big season.

So it's possible that some of these numbers when he was in Kansas City, where they were mostly throwing the tight ends and stuff that they would have gone up a little bit, but he was just like the Zimmeriest Zimmer quarterback that has ever been a Zimmer quarterback outside of Teddy. I think that those two options probably would have been better. Uh, the Kirk door is not shut entirely, but the Kirk Zimmer combination, uh, failed because Zimmer got fired and they made the playoffs one time. It did not succeed. And I think it was foreseeable at the time to know that their roster was

going to slip and that Zimmer's defense wasn't going to be as dominant and that Kirk really wasn't quite what they wanted him to be in 2018. They wanted him to air it out in 2019. They had him play like case Keenum. So if in 2019. They had him play like case Keenum. So if you're going to have him play like case Keenum, why not keep case Keenum? Right. So, uh, and now Kevin O'Connell years later, as maybe we don't have the same exact version of cousins per his physical talent, uh, Kevin O'Connell is asking him to kind of do what he was asked to do in 2018. And we're seeing some of the same Rocky moments where sometimes it's really great and sometimes it looks like a struggle.

So now they'll have to adapt to that. But it's one of those moments in Vikings history that I think people will go back to for a very long time. And that includes if it goes the right way, like if this year they end up going to the Superbowl, then we will say, man, it took a while, but that thing was finally justified. All the money that they put down for this quarterback was finally justified. But just like the bar is high to say that they handled the off season correctly. The bar is extremely high for Kirk because when he originally got here, the goal was to legitimately compete for a Superbowl. And in my mind, that means have a plus 100 point differential. That means have a

top five to seven offense. That means like be there in the playoffs as a top three seat, top four seat even, because those are the teams that usually end up going to the super bowl and they haven't achieved those things if they do then we can re-litigate how we feel about the signing of cousins uh from the first place so always always interesting to go back to that and talk about it okay next question this one comes from at justin siebert. Hey man, got another question for fans only. So it's not really a secret we're getting destroyed in the third quarter through five games. Obviously this was before the game in Miami. I believe we're getting outscored 6-33 in that quarter. Do you think that's because it's harder to make adjustments during halftime

to a game plan that's generally worked fairly well through the first four out of five games, especially since you don't know what adjustments they're going to make, or is Kevin O'Connell not very good at halftime adjustments? And then in parentheses, he says, yet. I do think that the idea of halftime adjustments is overratedrated that in general, um, teams pretty much have an idea of what they're going to need to do and what the adjustments are depending on how the other team plays. So for example, let's say Chicago came out and played a single high safety against the Vikings and got shredded by all the play action stuff. And then they switched to playing defense differently and started to slow down the Vikings.

I would guess that their coaching staff said, we want to come out and be aggressive against stopping the run. But if they start to throw the play action stuff, if they start to succeed against us, we're going to switch to something else. So I think that teams usually have another option or another answer. If X isn't working, then they can go to Y. I don't know that there's enough time in NFL games to go into halftime and then just like start drawing up plays and making big changes to

the game plan. I think that they go in with a bunch of answers. Let's say they go in with, I don't know how this works with every team, like how many plays, but let's say 50, 60 plays. It's probably more than that. It's probably a hundred. I don't know what it is, but let's just say, let's just say it's 50 plays. So you go in there, you got 50 play ideas and you have to throw out half of them because it's not working what you initially planned. But the other 25 are for the response to how the other team is playing defense. So for example, if the Vikings came out and ran a bunch of play actions and bootlegs, and the other team was just shutting those down because the defensive line was dominating, or they were sending a

defensive end up field and meeting you in the bootleg or the play action or whatever, you know, then you might switch to go into the shotgun stuff. I mean, you kind of saw that against the Dolphins where some of what they were doing early on wasn't working. They had to switch to a lot of those quick passes, even the kind of tunnel screen or bubble screen kind of thing to Justin Jefferson for a big gain. So, yeah, I mean, I think that the third quarter thing is just it's just random. I don't know that it has anything to do with how they're adjusting or how their game planning or whatever it might be. As the season goes along, we'll see that even out. And by the end of the year, probably all four quarters will have a close point differential

to who the team really is. However, I would say, I mean, if they were getting handily outplayed in the second half of games for an entire season, which it hasn't really been the case because in the fourth quarter, they've bounced back in a lot of these games. But if there was a massive differential between the first and second half, I think I would want to look into that and start asking questions. What's going on here? Why are they either starting games slow or why can't they finish games in the second half? But just that one quarter, I mean, I think that throughout the season,

they'll probably score more in the third quarter. Could be just one game kind of shifted that, or maybe they've been kicking off to the other team to start the third quarter often. Kind of a random thing. But how Kevin O'Connell adapts and adjusts the offense is just a discussion and something to watch for the entire season is I think so far that in games they've done a pretty good job of trying to adapt maybe the Philadelphia game is the exception of that and they've gotten to some fourth quarters and had to find answers in the biggest moments and they've gotten to some fourth quarters and had to find answers in the biggest moments

and they've gotten drives that are successful. It's just four quarters of complete football and either coming out and having success right away or adjusting quicker than maybe they were able to adjust against Miami. That probably has to happen. So specifically to the third quarter statistic, there's probably nothing there. But as far as this team playing four quarters of strong offensive football, we really are yet to see that in any of their games. And I know that's the nature of the beast, but at some point they will have to have four consistent quarters of playing strong

offensively. And they're going to have to beat someone by two scores at some point to prove that they are more than just a team. That's going to be a roller coaster. And some games they're good in third quarters and some games they're good at the start and some, right. I mean, cause that's kind of who they are right now folks i know you've heard me talk about soda stick for a long time now but i'm telling you you have to start following them on social media for new fresh gear they are releasing all the time of course they have the classics like the moss moon design and the metrodome shirts and hoodies but as the local teams go along in their seasons soda stick is

constantly putting out new stuff whether it's the new horn state gear or the vicodontist rex shirts lots and lots more from all the minnesota clubs go to sodastick.com and follow them at soda stick on twitter that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com on Twitter and use the code purple insider to get 15% off your purchase. All right. This is from bill via email says looking into the future. How can the Vikings get a quarterback of the future? If they remain nine to 11 wins in the next few years, this year appears to be a five to seven first or second round level quarterbacks is next year's draft. The time to pull the trigger on a young quarterback. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is difficult because if you look at just their situation in general,

they have an older quarterback who is very expensive and who has been mostly in the middle of the NFL for his entire career, right? As a starter anyway, that he's at any given time been between the 10th and 15th best quarterback. And that is not going to get better as he gets older with age. He will not get cheaper as he continues to put up numbers or if they win 11 games and so forth. So he's going to be up for another extension after this year. It's not a situation you look at and say, oh yeah, lock Kirk Cousins in for the next five years. This is the exact type of situation you say, it's time to draft a quarterback, possibly sit the guy for a year and move on.

Kind of like what Atlanta did with Matt Ryan they move on from Ryan they get a bridge quarterback they draft a quarterback in the third round and we'll see if Desmond Ritter becomes anything but that's something you don't necessarily want to do is you don't want to be picking third round quarterbacks and hoping which is kind of what the Vikings did with Kellen Mahn. Maybe we'll pick this third-rounder, and he'll develop three years from now, and then he'll be our future. That's not really a good model.

You kind of have to go all-in or not. And the only times that teams have done the kind of half-measure and gotten away with it, one of them was with Kirk Cousins where they drafted him in the fourth round and he ended up playing well for Washington, Russell Wilson in Seattle, Dak Prescott in Dallas, but there are very, very few examples otherwise. So you have to go with the first rounder. If you're going to do it, maybe you can stretch that to the second round, but even in the second round, there's not that many guys. Historically, you can look at and say that, oh yeah, they turned into a franchise QB.

So there's two approaches though for the Vikings. If they are going to look for another quarterback to either sit behind Cousins or potentially trade Cousins away and make that rookie their starter, which kind of depends on how this plays out. I mean, if they win 11, 12 games, I think you have to bring cousins back on the final year of his deal, but you also have to look toward the future of not wanting to sign him to another deal and rather having the future, uh, you know, in the quarterback room as a first round pick. So you could trade up for that first round quarterback and maybe potentially have to go from the 25th pick to 15th or something

like that to get the fifth or sixth quarterback. So there's one way to do it. The other way is just to see if somebody drops, which has worked. I mean, Lamar Jackson is the most notable, but heck, I mean, the Vikings in 2016 and 2017 would have had a cheap Teddy Bridgewater with a healthy knee, the mobile version, the confident version, not the one that we saw the other day that couldn't juke anybody out.

I mean, Teddy, I thought, still put in a pretty good effort considering how his offensive line played against the Vikings. But that guy can't move anymore. And let's say that he had been healthy, though, back in the day, 2015, 2016, 2017. That team has a chance to win a Super Bowl with that level of quarterback who dropped too late in the first round. And in recent years, it's just been less of a pattern of when you were drafted in the first round as far as who turns out to be the good quarterbacks.

I mean, Lamar Jackson was the last pick in the first round. Josh Allen was not the first guy picked. Patrick Mahomes was not the first guy picked. So I'm less confident that teams know what they're doing as far as picking the right quarterbacks in the right order. It's always fun to rank them, but we're almost always completely wrong with who turns out and who doesn't turn out, which makes me think that it's a good idea to just wait and see who drops. And then you take that guy. The only thing is that, as you mentioned, with the current landscape,

where this is hard is there's so many teams that have a good argument for drafting a quarterback who did not draft one this year. See, if there had been five first-rounders this year, a lot of teams would have taken them, but there simply weren't. Malik Willis, third-rounder or Kenny Pickett is the only guy taken in the first round. Like that impacts the next draft for how many teams will be looking to take first round quarterbacks. And I don't know if, how many times, if I've done it yet or, or not. I know on hot routes, we looked at it, but the draft order presently has probably five out of the first 10 teams that have a good

argument to draft a quarterback. It does become tough from that perspective. Another way they could approach it is to run it to the end of Kirk Cousins. If they win 11 games, run it back, try this again, and then draft a quarterback after next year. But you just seem to be kicking that ball down the road and kicking it down the road further and further when the answer for the long-term in the franchise

has to be draft a quarterback, hope the guy is great on his rookie deal, profit. Like that really should be the future. It should be a consideration. But here's where it gets tricky is if you win 11 games then you're going to go into the next draft going you know we really need another receiver though right and then you start talking yourself into immediate needs and filling immediate needs to try to win now again and then we all do this dance again i mean we are a long way from finding out where they finish, which will

really dictate what they're going to do. If they come apart, Kirk Cousins ends the season with an 82 quarterback rating. I mean, then it becomes a guarantee they are drafting a quarterback. If the most likely scenario plays out here and they're a division winner and Cousins, let's say has a 97 quarterback rating because you know, he's going to have his good games down the stretch. I mean, that becomes harder to justify. Oh, let's draft the next quarterback when you feel like you were on the doorstep. So that will be a very, very tricky thing. And then trying to manage all the other teams that are trying to draft quarterbacks as well. Yeah. It's,

it's interesting because so many teams went, ah, you know, we're going to wait till next year, which is great. But then everyone else is also waiting till next year. And eventually someone is just left out of the party. Right. And, uh, that may end up being the Vikings. I'm not sure we are a long way to go, but it's, it goes under that same category of like, well, you brought him back and now what, uh, you have to win this year because you brought him back. But what does that mean for your long-term future? And, you know, the other thing is there could be other quarterbacks that end up on the market. There, there could be a Derek Carr. If they win four games,

there could be a Jimmy Garoppolo. If they're still going to stick with the Trey Lance idea. I mean, you never know which quarterbacks could come available and maybe everyone's scared off by that idea after Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson, but that kind of adds intrigue is that we've seen so much more quarterback movement in the past. So the future at that position, I think, is extremely unclear at this moment. Okay, our next question comes from at Clandestorm on Twitter. It seems like the offensive line's improvement includes reduced penalties from what we saw last year. Is that an accurate perception? If so, credit to improvement while learning to execute a

new offense. It is, they are way less penalized than they were last year. And that's mostly due to only Udo. I mean, it's just pretty much only Udo was a holding machine because he was put in a very difficult position, playing a spot that he did not know how to play. And if we go back and look at the debauchery of how this team has handled the offensive line outside of the tackle position. So the, to the guards in the center for, I don't know how many years, they still don't have it completely right because of what we saw in Miami. That was pretty good evidence that the weakness still is the weakness. And I may have mentioned this, but Ed Ingram is leading the NFL in pressures allowed. So even though

they have not been holding as much as they were last year, when only Udo led the league in holding their right guard is still leading the league in pressures allowed. And the thing that blows my mind with this team is that no one seems to realize that Kirk Cousins is specifically as a quarterback, the way he plays prone to pressure up the middle more than an average quarterback. I, it just, you know, they, I know that they have a two second rounds and a first round pick there, but they didn't replace Bradbury with a better pass blocking center. They didn't get a free agent guard that could actually compete for that position and instead are relying on a rookie who was playing left guard last year for LSU. And then they asked him to play a new position and no surprise, he's been beaten quite a bit in pass protection.

Ezra Cleveland, again, is a guy who changed positions. So even with these high draft picks, you've got two guys playing in different positions from where they played in college. And another guy who put three years on tape of not being a very good pass blocker and they ran it out there again. It's like, okay, you would have thought that that right guard position, maybe instead of linebacker or something like that, that they would have wanted to put some cap space into that spot.

And instead they kind of went all in on this idea. And now it almost looks like if Ingram doesn't improve his pass blocking, they have to consider at least Chris Reed, the veteran on the bench, if it is going this way, but then are they going to be stubborn about this? If they lose some games and the right guard position is getting blown up, that might be a thing that we see is a conversation about whether to start Chris Reed or not. Uh, so drafting a guy to fill an immediate need. We talk about that every year at draft time, don't draft for immediate need because rookies struggle. And here we are with a rookie who's actually been very good in run blocking, but just struggling in pass protection.

And there you go. And so even though it's an improved offensive line and Christian Derrissaw has taken a phenomenal next step. And I think overall Garrett Bradbury has been better. Not so much in a game or two. You're still talking about a line that does not cover the biggest weakness your quarterback has. And I just, I don't, they get them in 2018 and they run Tom Compton at guard, Pat Alfline. I mean, they just get smashed in the middle and then do the same thing over and over again. And here we are. Not that I thought they should move on from Cleveland because I think he still has potential, but as far as center and right guard, giving up a lot of pressures, who could have seen it coming other than everyone and if they do that against superior opponents down the stretch and they end up with 10 punts because they're getting

pressured all the time i mean cousins does not move in the pocket and has never moved he's been starting since 2015 and even when washington had a very good offensive line i looked this up the majority of the pressure was still coming through the guards and center in Washington. They had Brandon Sheriff and yet still they were giving up most of the pressure through the guards and center and not through the tackles. And part of it was Trent Williams. And part of this is Derrissaw and O'Neal. So the players make a difference.

But even when Rashad Hill was out there, I mean, I felt like they could find ways to avoid giving up sacks from the edge rushers because cousins was always in the same spot and didn't run himself into sacks in the same way that like Lamar Jackson does or Kyler Murray guys who escaped the pocket, or even like Teddy, who's always had that tendency to go outside at times when he's trying to scramble. So that is, it's been a narrative early on that they've been better. Will it continue? Or are we going to see a lot more games like we saw against the Dolphins is a big, big question for me. All right, let's see.

This comes from at DTPKLL on Twitter. In recent NFL history, how rare or common is the run it back approach that the Vikings are attempting to pull off this year? Oh, extremely, extremely. I think 90% of teams are running it back most of the time. 90% of teams are not making huge changes where they take big risks and big swings. Most of them try to stay on a path and then hope things go their way. We've seen a change in that recently with the Rams trading for Stafford or Indianapolis trading for Wentz, then trading Wentz away and then trading for Matt Ryan.

But when you look at that roster and Indy, I mean, they didn't blow it up. It's mostly the same as it has been. Uh, and they've tried to run it back and run it back. And some injuries have made things harder for them now on the offensive line and they've lost some guys. So yeah, I think that most teams are trying to run it back. Most teams every year will fire their coach instead of making major roster changes and things like that. They try to desperately sign free agents. There's only a handful of teams every year that are really trying to win the Super Bowl. That's the reality. Everyone else is trying to talk their fans into believing that they're trying to win the Super

Bowl and trying to talk ownership into the idea that they're trying to win the Super Bowl and trying to talk ownership into the idea that they're trying to win the Super Bowl and then being prepared with excuses or reasons why they didn't do it. That's most teams. You know, whether it's an all-in approach or whether it was draft a quarterback and stack the roster around them like Cincinnati, there's only a handful every year

that are really going for it. And most teams are doing the run it back bit. Now the question really is, does it ever work? And I think the answer is sometimes, yeah, sometimes it does. But if you separate either having a legendary quarterback where every single year you can win the Super Bowl, so take those out. If you have Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady, you're out of this conversation. Take the teams out of the conversation who have rookie quarterback contracts,

who stack up their roster around the rookie quarterback contract. Take those out. Now tell me how many teams you've seen win. It's not many. It's not many. You could say, it really depends on where you put Matt Ryan. I think he's got a chance at the Hall of Fame. So it's hard to say, well, hey, Atlanta did it with Matt Ryan because he's got a pretty darn good career. One of the elite quarterbacks in his prime and won the MVP. So you can't really say, well, you know, Matt Ryan was that middling quarterback.

Maybe Baltimore with Joe Flacco. You got to go back a ways. Eli Manning is another one that you could bring up, but you know, that's another one where it's borderline. Like Eli Manning in his prime was a much, much better quarterback than he was, um, you know, at the end. So let me just, I mean, I'm just going to pull up teams that even just like went to the Superbowl and see if we could find how many of these teams sort of decided to just hang around and then had it end up going their way. I mean, Los Angeles

made the big swing for Matthew Stafford. So I don't think that they count as a team that just sort of stuck around. And also they reached the other Super Bowl with Jared Goff with a rookie quarterback contract. So they don't count. Not Cincinnati. Definitely not Tampa Bay who took the Tom Brady swing or Kansas City. San Francisco with Jimmy Garoppolo is interesting.

But I don't know that they were sort of running it back as in it was the first time that Garoppolo was really healthy for a full season. And he was very, very cheap at that time. They had traded for him from New England. And I think he had a really cheap contract at that moment in relative terms with his salary cap hit. So you got, let's see, Philadelphia,

Carson Wentz on the rookie contract, new England, Atlanta. That's two guys who, you know, could both end up in the hall of fame, Denver going for it with Peyton Manning. Carolina was, was Cam Newton on the rookie quarterback contract in 2016 may have been just

off of it. At the time he's an elite quarterback, though. It didn't last, but at the time he was. Seattle, Seattle, rookie quarterback contracts, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady. Are you sensing a trend, though, right? And that doesn't mean that only reaching the Super Bowl is a success as far as a full season goes, but the point is just that you can put those into categories and almost every Super Bowl representative has either one of those things, either the legend or the rookie quarterback

contract. And the Vikings don't have either one of those things right now. And most teams that run it back without them do not end up being rewarded. But this year is a unique year. It does kind of remind me of a Joe Flacco Ravens type of situation, and maybe it will play out that way. It's just, it is rare. It is rare, which is why we talked about it this off season a lot, because you just don't see it too much. And maybe we will, because this is a very strange year. All right, Last one from a Dr. Mr. E on Twitter. Would you rather have prime Jared Allen or prime to Neil Hunter? I'm going to go Jared Allen on this one. I think Jared Allen is one of the great sack men, one of the great pass rushers ever,

and one of the quickest and most explosive players I have ever seen. And that is the difference for me as much as Daniil Hunter could get 14 sacks and is a phenomenal player and has my complete respect. So not a knock on him. Allen is kind of in that category of like a bigger Vaughn Miller with, I mean, you go back and watch those games and the explosion he was getting off the edge and the fact that he could have one of the greatest pass rushing seasons of all time. Whereas Hunter has been very, very good, but Hunter was also, and again, this is not disrespect, a Robin to Everson Griffin's Batman. Whereas Jared Allen, though he had help, was the guy in Kansas City and the guy in Minnesota. So I think that Jared Allen probably gets the slight edge there,

and I believe that he will end up wearing a gold jacket eventually. So great questions, guys. Great questions. Really enjoyed the show. Just love how thoughtful you guys are with all of these things. I know I've mentioned that every show, but I'm always just impressed by the different angles you guys take the fun stuff, the big picture stuff, the minutia. It's all, it's all great.

It's all so much fun. So thanks so much for playing along here on another fans only episode. We will carry these on. I will get through your questions. I will get to your questions. I will get to your questions. I should say, I don't want to make it sound like it's hard. I will get to all of your questions the best that I can as we go forward. And we'll talk to you all soon.