Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How the 2017 Vikings were built vs. how the future Vikings will be built with PFF's Eric Eager

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Matthew Coller and Dr. Eric Eager of the PFF Forecast podcast talk about Matthew's book announcement and how the 2017 Vikings were built in comparison to what they have to build around going forward. Do the Vikings have the brightest future in the NFC? And what will their final record end up? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Pro Football Focus's Eric Eager and Eric I have to take a second to make an announcement before we get into our conversation on where the Vikings stand right now that I, me, have published a book that I am very proud of. It is called Making of a Miracle the Story Behind the Minnesota Vikings improbable 2017 season. And you can get it on Amazon or you can get your Kindle version there. You can get your paperback version and they will send it right to your house. And if you want to buy it for somebody for the holiday, then please feel free. So go to Amazon, type it in, Making of a Miracle, and you will find my book that I spent writing about the 2017 season.

Eric, I'll tell you how I did it. I pulled out all the notes from 2017. I gathered them up, and I wrote them down with a bunch of fun little what-ifs and vignettes about players and things like that. So I think that people will really enjoy it. And I know that you are already a book holder. You have already purchased your copy. Yeah, I already bought one. I'm excited to read it when, you know, the inevitable free time happens.

Maybe, you know, who knows when we'll get the free time. But, yeah, I'm still looking forward to it. It was one of the more fun seasons following the team. Yeah, no, it certainly was. And you and I had a really good conversation on a podcast maybe six months ago just about how the 2017 season really impacted the Vikings to land where they are now. And that's something that I was not writing about really in the book. I mean, the book is about starting with training camp and then all the way through all the things that had to build up to the Minneapolis miracle,

all the coincidences, the serendipity, the what ifs, the if this had happened, then you don't get there and all those sorts of things. And then the players who made it great. And I did want to start with kind of a thought, though, about 2017 versus where the Vikings stand now. And I think that the biggest difference between that team and the teams that followed were the people that they had inside the locker room. And I don't just mean the players. And we've talked about the depth and the Jarius Wrights and Jeremiah Searles is of how, you know, they played important roles by just being good players that filled spots, but also Teddy Bridgewater as the Vikings go to play him this week. His impact on the 2017 season, despite the fact that he barely played, was really

remarkable. And other guys like Terrence Newman, for example, Case Keenum's personality, all those things, they really impacted each other. The way the other players kind of galvanized to help Daniil Hunter become the best player that he could be. And that's something that I feel like in a league of independent contractors that sort of show up when they're supposed to show up, to galvanize like that. It was part of the reason that I wanted to write the book, because it was really special. Yeah, they were great. And you think about some of the fabric of the early Zimmer years, you know, Terrence Newman was one of them, right?

I mean, he was a guy that they brought in, you know, to make as an insurance policy for Trey Waynes. And then in that 2017 season, he became an insurance policy for McKenzie Alexander in the nickel. And, you know, that was – he was a guy that, you know, was inspirational. And since losing him, obviously, they haven't been the same. And then you look at another guy, I know a player that you really liked watching

and was a good contributor, Tom Johnson, right, a player that the Vikings probably could really use right about now. He was a great role player and a glue guy in that locker room. And then, of course, they had the Joe Burgers of the world. They had some really good glue players that maybe don't exist anymore, in addition to going with their stars, which Kendrick, Sparr, Diggs, Thielen, guys like that. You know, Dalvin Cook even was a part of that team for a brief period of time.

And then you had the fun, you know, Sam Bradford really finding himself early in the season, ingratiating himself to the locker room and Mike Zimmer, you know, being one of the rare quarterbacks that Zimmer actually likes. And then, you know, running bad with injuries and then giving way to Case Keenum for, you know, for a magical season like that. So there were so many things that were fun about that team, you know, and then there weren't the scandals that, you know, that the Vikings traditionally have either.

So what a great year. Yeah, you're right about that, that there was nobody that was on any boats or anything like that uh no stuffed animals no stuffed animals nobody hung from any roofs or anything uh in in that category that now 2016 would be a different kind of book that um pulls less at the heartstrings and kind of goes into how dramatic could you have an nfl season be here it is um we also did the 2010 thing on here with you know Judd and Murph and those guys and that was really fun too so I love going back and looking at history and how it impacted other things how we got to those places and I

guess I was thinking about the comparison between how they built the 2017 team to be as good as it is and how they plan to build the next team because I think that what you had there was a philosophy shaped by the 32nd ranked defense in 2013 and hiring a defensive head coach to pour a lot of your assets almost all of your assets into the defensive side of the ball a ton ton of draft picks, as you mentioned, the Trey Waynes, even before Zimmer got here, Harrison Smith, Xavier Rhodes, first and second round draft picks, and a lot of them hit. And then they had to kind of fall backwards into a lot of those other players too. You mentioned Tom Johnson.

He played 60% of plays in 2017 as a former CFL guy and was good. Like, that doesn't happen all that often. Mankato State players don't usually show up and go to the Pro Bowl. Neither do fifth-round picks from Maryland. And I wonder if at times since then they based a little bit too much of their philosophy in terms of drafting and things like that on, hey, you know what worked when we built the 2017 team was we drafted late round receivers. So we need to draft Stacy Coley and KJ Osborne and

Rodney Adams and BC Johnson and all these guys that just Dylan Mitchell, because we'll just take swings on late round receivers and that will work. We'll just get lanky, fast defensive ends and they'll become daniel hunter which just doesn't really happen um but i wonder in this next build if they'll do it again where they pour a lot of their assets into the defensive side or if they will say at some point you know what would be good is like a number three wide receiver that would probably help or maybe you know like a dominant guard that could probably you know help us out with protecting Kirk Cousins I wonder what you think sort of in comparison to how they did it and how it should be done yeah I mean I think it's tough I mean I think the issue is you know sort of

overreacting to some of the luck that they've had, right? I mean, when you look at that 2015 draft, there's a lot. Obviously, all those players ended up being at least pretty good other than TJ Clemmings. And I think that the Vikings are consistently planning as though another one of those is going to happen. Because if one does, then how they built this team is probably good enough to compete, especially in an NFC where you look at the teams and there really isn't a dominant team aside from New Orleans, and New Orleans is probably going to retire their quarterback

at some point. It's not that bleak for Minnesota if you assume a priori that one of these drafts is going to turn out like 2015. The problem is that that's not necessarily how to win, and it's how we've seen some really poor decisions being made by teams like Green Bay and so on and so forth who have historically run really well in the draft and then struggled in doing so and wonder after they've come up for air why they haven't won as many championships as they think and that's a bit of the comparison to Cincinnati and how they fell off which was they hit on a bunch of draft picks

over two or three years they built them all around Andy Dalton uh now that's the guy who beat the Vikings Andy Dalton but you know then all of sudden, Andy Dalton doesn't have all those receivers that he had before, the offensive line that he had before Andrew Whitworth leaves, and suddenly he's just a mediocre journeyman-type quarterback. And they kept throwing different draft picks at it, but their luck ran out. And I think we see that all the time, and there are very few franchises that can ever work around that. Where the Vikings are in really good position is in the future to have a receiver of that level. But I also think that it should change their philosophy. I mean, you go back to the Garrett Bradbury draft pick and you look at the receivers who were picked after and you go, wow, A.J. Brown,

D.K. Metcalf, Terry McLaurin, like there's probably more that I'm missing there. Debo Samuel, they all turned out to be good. And you instead said, no, we need to get a zone-blocking center. And I think that this team has just ignored that number three position, wide receiver position, for a really long time now. And you'd like to see them say there's no shortage of weapons that you can have. I mean, it's not like there's a rule that says once you get to two good receivers, you have to stop and have Chad Beebe play. I mean, that, that would be, I don't think they're going to do this as long as Zimmer and Spielman are in charge. I think they're drafting defensive

backs. I think they're drafting, you know, defensive linemen in this next draft in the first round, unless things go really bad. And then we're talking quarterback, but I just think that what it should tell you even this year is you've been in a lot of games and won some with a horrible defense like keep keep doing that like keep building that not keep having a horrible defense but keep going in that direction where offense can keep you in games and win games even when your defense plays poorly absolutely and that's that's the hard part i know you know we've had this discourse for enough for a long time but it's like you know a lot of people the other day said well the vikings defense let

them down and i agree they did but what are your expectations your expectation like you look at kansas city and and you know it's obviously unfair to always compare you know teams to kansas city but kansas city's defense repeatedly let them down the other night against the Raiders, and, you know, ultimately, it's just like, well, just give Patrick Mahomes enough time, and he'll score enough points, and, you know, Kirk did. He came back and took the lead for the Vikings twice in that game, but the third time, he couldn't do it, and in many ways, because when the game gets that deep, they're no longer, they're playing left-handed, you know, they're no longer playing, you know, the type of game that they want to, which is being able to run the football, being able to run play action, and, you know, when the other team knows that they have to

throw, they all of a sudden become, you know, relatively ordinary, and unfortunately, that's kind of, you know, the way that this thing has worked, right? And, you know, we saw it with San Francisco, too, a team, I think, if you're a Vikings fan, is sort of the model for where you want to go. You know, last season, San Francisco had Kansas City on the ropes in the Super Bowl, but, you know, because they couldn't score when the other team knew that they had to pass, they lost the game. They lost ultimately to a team that can, you know,

their base offense is the offense that they're going to run when they're behind. And that's, you know, I think that that's a product of how they built the team and the circumstances that they maybe don't foresee all the time. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports inspired goods. There are many great designs.

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I think early there was a fumble and a field goal, and the Saints went up, and then the rest of the way they're playing from ahead. They're running Delvin Cook all the time. They're running play actions and pretty much trying to have long and slow drives and kill clock and everything else, which they're quite good at, even though New Orleans came back in that game. That's the thing they're good at, and then they got the ball first and finished that off. But just thinking of Vikings' wins over the years, it's almost always,

they got up early and then they can crush teams when they get up early, especially bad teams. But when they're having to play from behind, it ends up being problematic. Now against Dallas, I don't think it's a good game to really make broad statements off because there were the 32nd ranked defense in points against so yeah you could do some things against them offensively that you might not be able to do otherwise now we have talked about kirk cousins for really the entirety you and i have had these conversations from the entirety of the time that he got here until present. He is Pro Football Focus's sixth-ranked quarterback this year,

and he's had the classic Kirk meltdowns, Indianapolis and Atlanta. The rest of the time, I would say that Green Bay also goes into that week one, but I mean it's week one. I don't know. There was no preseason, whatever. But the rest of the time, he has often put them in position to win, including four times this year, giving them late leads in the fourth quarter with, with drives. His statistics are once again, good. His grades are once again, good. Um, I think the Vikings stick with Kirk Cousins now. I mean, after the Atlanta game, I may have said that I felt

differently. I think they stick with him. And my question is, can you win with Kirk Cousins? Do you think that they could, going forward, build a team around Kirk Cousins in 2021-2022 that is reflective of the 2017 team we're talking about, and maybe even more explosive offensively because of their deep threat in Justin Jefferson, and be a Super Bowl caliber team at some point with him as their quarterback? They can. I don't think I'll ever place a bet on it, though, you know, just because it's going to, as I talked about earlier,

it's going to require them to get lucky on some of the decisions that they make. And, you know, it's just really difficult to do that in the NFL when you're dealing with, you know, when you have a contract, you know, that Kirk signs. I mean, again, you know, you think about when, you know, teams have had players on rookie deals, right? The Rams, when they had golf on a rookie deal, they could sign Robert Woods, right? They could sign Aaron Donald to a huge deal. They could sign Eric Weddle.

They could sign Aqib Talib, all these guys. And, you know, one of the reasons the Rams are still good, even though Goff has the contract he has, is that they've gotten lucky, right? And they've gotten coaching that I think is above board. I mean, the defensive backs like i don't know any other like jordan jordan uh philip i can't remember who they the the 200th pick in the draft the two interceptions the other night like that's not something you can bank on um you know the the darius philips the guys that they have on the outside are not guys that have

any pedigree right and like do you want to make that bet i don't know like i'd rather make the bet of um you know i'd rather make the bet of saying okay well let's let's think about the two true edges that teams have in the nfl what are they they're having an elite quarterback that basically every contract that you pay an elite quarterback is a bargain uh patrick holmes is a bargain aaron rogers a pay an elite quarterback is a bargain. Patrick Holmes is a bargain. Aaron Rodgers is a bargain. Tom Brady is a bargain. Peyton Manning, when he played, was a bargain. That's one tried and true way. And for the most part, the only way to get there is the other true edge, which is to have a young quarterback on a rookie deal. The Chiefs

can sign Sammy Watkins to $16 million a year when mahomes you know was on his rookie deal and he can mostly be a failure but come up big in big games because you have that extra slack uh you can sign tyra matthew you can trade for frank clark you can do all those things when a quarterback is on a rookie deal um you can't do that if you if you're paying your quarterback as much as they're paying kirk so I think the Vikings obviously will be competitive with Kirk the next two years, for sure, especially if they have moderate success with the drafts they've had, especially the last year. But can they compete for a Super Bowl? I don't know, man.

I just can't see it. And unfortunately, that's always kind of the rub. And you have to ask yourself, what are your expectations? And as somebody who's watched the Vikings his entire life and has seen them be pretty good, you know, basically the whole time, they have one of the best records in the NFL during my lifetime, but have really only competed for the Super Bowl in these random lucky years. I think that the approach has to be a little bit different. Yeah, it feels like it is always kind of a game of whack-a-mole when you have a quarterback like Kirk where you fill one problem, but then another problem crops up because somebody else leaves

or you can't afford to fill a spot. I guess I was thinking about recently Andrew Norwell, who is like the best and only good Jaguar at the moment, and how he was a free agent at one point and instead of Andrew Norwell or Roger Saffold they end up with you know Tom Compton and whoever played Pat Elfline playing left guard and even though left guard is probably the least position that PFF would look at and say you have to pay that guy 12 million bucks you mentioned the luxury things that you can do when you have a cheap quarterback which is you can pay people more money than they're worth

like Sammy Watkins I think he had 40 catches but is anybody mad that they signed Sammy Watkins I mean it's a great example and the same thing would be like you could say left guard isn't that valuable until you've got that guy and you're watching him plow the hell out of people and then you go yeah well I like him though like it certainly helps it's a it's a big jump from uh Tom Compton to Andrew Norwell in terms of a lot of things that you can do with your offensive line and how often your quarterback gets pressured and how that plays into everything and with the salary cap inevitably going down, that would be my main focus of now you've got to hit on the development projects. Now you've got to have everything click.

Like Jeff Gladney had another tough game the other day. Like Jeff Gladney has to be great. He can't just be like a mediocre or bad. I think he has to be a really, really good player for this team to ultimately be a Super Bowl contender. And that's a hard thing to thread. It's a hard needle to thread of like, you better hit, you better hit. And when you go back over the last bunch of first-round draft picks since 2015,

it's Laquan Treadwell, bust, gone. Traded to Philadelphia, that kind of goes bust because Bradford got hurt in 2017. 2018 is Mike Hughes, that's officially a bust. 2019 is Garrett Bradbury. He's not that valuable above a replacement level center. Like these things can't happen in order for you to be in a position. But let me give you the other side of this. I want you to tell me NFC teams 2021. Give me the top three or four teams that have the brightest future. And this is after I watched Taysom Hill play quarterback for the Saints.

There's their future. You know they're going to buy into him. And I watched Tom Brady throw the worst interceptions I maybe have ever seen since I covered, you know, J.P. Lossman. I don't think I covered J.P. Lossman. But I was growing up in Buffalo, and J.P. Lossman was the quarterback. Everybody felt like they did because of how bad he was, right? Yeah, right.

But in terms of brightest future, it's like we're making the argument of how tough it is, but I think I have to have the Vikings in the top five in the NFC for like 2021. Well, that was always my take when I was doing predictions this year where people were overreacting to the draft, you know, and they were picking the Vikings. The Vikings were Vegas favorites to win the NFC North over Green Bay this year where people were overreacting to the draft, you know, and they were picking the Vikings. The Vikings were Vegas favorites to win the NFC North over Green Bay this year. And I think a lot of it was because Green Bay had such a horrendous draft and the Vikings had what I think many would say is a good draft. But obviously that doesn't materialize as quickly as we think,

especially in a season like this. But you're absolutely right. I mean, okay, if I look at these teams, I think New Orleans still is – New Orleans still has a chance. You look at that team, and they are stacked. And they have a ton of ramifications and stuff. But it's really hard for me to see a team who has as much talent as they do losing all that – dropping below a team quarterback quarterback by Kirk Cousins as a result.

And Peyton's still really good. I think he's still really motivated. And, you know, I don't know about Taysom Hill. I don't know about Jameis Winston. But I do think they'll make the right decision at the quarterback position for what it's worth. So New Orleans is a team that I think probably long-term is still better than Minnesota.

Green Bay is off the list for me because they drafted Jordan Love, and at some point they're going to have to play him, and the rest of that team is soft. So I agree that Green Bay, Chicago is in a similar straight, and Detroit's in a similar straight because at some point, you know, Stafford and Patricia are going to be, you know, gone. Tampa, similarly, I think Brady will play for a little bit longer, and that team is pretty stacked.

So I'm going to put them right on the border. Seattle is above Minnesota because they have Wilson. Arizona is as well because their young quarterback and coach combination is pretty, I think, formidable. San Francisco as well. I think, you know, San Francisco, even with Jimmy G, I think is a better team than Minnesota will be in the future. So that's five for me.

No team in the East. No, God, no. Although, you know, Washington, if they get Zach Wilson or something, then all of a sudden they – Right, yeah, Washington has a really good defense. They've invested a ton in it. Kendall Fuller from the Kansas City Chiefs. Here's another one that's sneaky, Carolina.

And we'll see them this week. Matt Rule, and if Joe Brady stays along for more than just the one year, Matt Rule I think is a terrific head coach. And whether they go with Bridgewater into the future or go with you know a young quarterback I think that team has it figured out more than the Vikings do so yeah the Vikings are in the top half-ish of the NFC for sure I don't and yeah it you know a couple good bounces here and there and they're and they're right back into the thick of things, I think. What do you think about Teddy in the long term in Carolina?

I mean, they're playing him this week. I think he wasn't practicing in full as we're recording this podcast, so that makes me wonder, is he going to be ready? But he's got a couple days still to get his knee back healed. That would be quite the gut punch. Everyone's going to write there, Teddy returns. And then here comes P.J. Walker, who we love and we're right about. I'm just saying, P.J. Walker, XFL, return in 2022, XFL with The Rock.

Funny how Blaine Gabbert gets 20 chances and P.J. Walker gets one. You wonder about these things. I do wonder about these things. You do wonder about these things. But anybody who watched the Houston Roughnecks knew that P.J. Walker is great. But, you know, I asked someone from Carolina a couple of weeks ago, a friend who covers the Panthers, just about, you know, do they think he's the long-term quarterback? And his answer was he thinks yes,

that they probably will not draft a quarterback this year, even if they have a high pick, that they want to continue to build up a beastly defense they've got a couple of weapons that i think maybe people didn't realize were as good as they are anybody on the jets trade for them they're probably better than you think like they're the worst like terror this is this is like a total aside but it is a money ball thing to look at terribly coached teams and trade for their players because they're probably better than their bad coaches are making them. So take that advice, Vikings. So you think defenders on the Detroit Lions are probably value right now?

Yes. Yes, I do. I would trade for people on the Lions because they're probably better than Matt Patricia's making them. Anyway, circling all the way back, like what do you think about Teddy's long-term in Carolina? Well, the hardest part is for, I think, quarterbacks on that fringe, and Kirk, I think, is all but the elite of the elite are on this fringe. The coach matters a lot, right?

If John DeFilippo is Kirk's coordinator, he looks like crap. If he's not, you coordinator, he looks like crap. If he's not, you know, then Kirk looks great. I think if Joe Brady stays in Carolina for another year, then Bridgewater is going to continue to have success. Anderson, Moore, Samuel, McCaffrey, Davis, they're all good football players. And the thing that Teddy does, you know, better than most players is he's extremely accurate. And, you know, I think this season he's at 7.7 yards for pass attempt, which is terrific. Better than anything we've seen.

He's probably going to throw his 14th touchdown pass against the Vikings, which all the haters are going to have to, you know, eat their words then. But he's also 72% completion. He's thrown a few more interceptions than we're used to him throwing. But this is the first bad team that Teddy's been on. So it's sort of understandable that maybe he's throwing more, he's taking more chances. But you're looking at the same guy.

His quarterback, his QBR is 72.2, meaning that if he's playing for an average team, his play gives him a 72% chance to win every game. That's pretty damn good, you know. So, yeah, he's played his way into, I think, a spot where they have to consider him as the future. That doesn't mean they won't draft somebody, you know, middle. Like, let's say, you know, Trey Lance falls or something like that. Or let's say Brock Purdy falls to them in round two or something like that.

They have to consider it. But Bridgewater has done, I think, better than anybody could have expected him to do. 2020 has already reshaped how we work and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be the most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. Indeed is the number one job site in the world with more total visits than any other job site,

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Don't forget to use promo code BLUEWIRE at betonline.ag. That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. Yeah, I mean, I had no idea what to expect. He did go 5-0 for the Saints, and by the time he was done as the starter for the Saints, it actually looked pretty good. I mean, the game that he played against Chicago for New Orleans in 2019, he was really slinging it. But at the beginning, it was like four yards per attempt. Basically, he looked a little bit uneasy as the starter,

but now he's looked comfortable and he's kept them in a lot of games. And that team, though we mentioned they have some weapons, they're awful. Like their offensive line is pathetic, and their defense outside of when playing the Detroit Lions is very sad for the most part and has been lit up, and yet they're a couple points away from beating Kansas City. A 67-yard field goal that had the distance away from beating Kansas City. They were right in the game against Vegas early in the season. So, yeah, I think that they have a lot to build on there. And I also, I wonder what you think about this for team building

about like Cleveland decided to build a lot of the other parts first. And Carolina obviously is starting to do that just now by tearing it all apart, moving on from Cam, starting to rebuild. I don't hate the idea of teams who build up all the other parts first, unless Trevor Lawrence is your quarterback, because the jets are kind of an example here of, Hey, we'll just draft this guy out of USC. It looks pretty good. Throw them in there. It doesn't matter what garbage is around him,

how bad the coaching is just like get after it. Young friend, just take over the franchise. And I think in today's league, there's not too many quarterbacks who are able to do that with supporting casts really making a huge difference of who wins and who doesn't yeah john ellis by the way teddy bridgewater was a full participant today oh he was okay good yeah which is excellent i i can't imagine um there was no reason yeah yeah this will be great so um no i agree with you i mean i think the the one time the Browns did it, right,

where they failed at it was, you know, in the Sashi regime, right, where they went with, like, Deshaun Kaiser and stuff. Like, there's some value in it as long as the quarterback is good enough so you can evaluate the players, right? Alex Smith was that way. You know, when Alex Smith was the quarterback of Kansas City, he was good enough for you to identify Travis Kelsey as one of the best tight ends in football, or Tyreek Hill could be a number one receiver. And like, there's some, there's some value in that.

But the really tricky thing becomes how expensive even those players are, right? Bridgewater makes $10 million per year more than Joe Burrow does, you know? And that's really the hard – that's like the hardest part of this entire thing is everybody's like – you know, the people who are like, well, Kirk had to cost that much are wrong, but they're also right, you know, because if you do get a veteran quarterback like that, you do have to pay him that much money. And that's always the difficulty there. With Carolina, you know,

I really liked the way they approached it. I mean, they drafted all defense in the draft, but they acquired offense in a cheap way in free agency, Mike Davis, Robbie Anderson. So it's coming together really well where they're getting to evaluate not only their players, but also Joe Brady as an offensive coordinator. So I'm, I'm a big fan of the direction they're going. And I think they match up really well with the Vikings this week. And your point about Joe Brady, the one thing that's good there for them that they have going for him,

that is always a stumbling block for the Vikings is that when Joe Brady is good and someone hires him as a head coach, Matt rule is still an offensive head coach. That doesn't change. Like, he knows what he's doing offensively, right? I mean, his Baylor teams were putting up like seven gazillion yards and all that, and that's why people wanted to hire him as the head coach. So with the Vikings, this has been an issue where Kevin Stefanski is great

and then someone else says, oh, we should make him our head coach, and then he has to leave. And now you have Gary Kubiak, which, as an aside, I would be curious of what the PFF numbers say about Kubiak this year. Because I keep going sort of back and forth. They have a really explosive passing game, but they also kind of find ways not to maximize some of their talent. With Justin Jefferson, I may have gone slightly over the top the other day and suggested that if

Jefferson doesn't get more than five targets, that someone be imprisoned. Maybe that was excessive. Probably not. But, you know, I wonder what you think of like evaluating offensive minds and offensive coordinators and how that pertains to Kubes. I think my numbers would suggest that Kubiak's getting less out of the talent on the team than he should.

That would be my statement. Now, some of that is play calling. Some of that is what I consider basic strategy. So, like, basic strategy is do you go for some fourth downs? Do you throw on early downs? And I think that the Vikings fail at that a little bit. They're always going to be a little bit weaker just because their strategy is a little bit suboptimal. So, like, a team like, you know, and Brady was better once McCaffrey left

because they were able to sort of, like, run the offense in a sort of agnostic way. So, yeah. Do you think you're going to be right about 6-10? You were infuriating the fan base early before the season by selecting 6-10 as your Vikings standings pick. It's kind of looking that way. I mean, it's very possible. They have to finish 2-4. Yeah, they probably can't go 6-10.

It's probably going to be 7-9. They've got to play at New Orleans, at Tampa, and even if Tom Brady throws a couple picks, Tampa's really strong still. Too good of a receiver is probably... Yeah, I think under 9 wins is probably a safe bet still for the Vikings, right? But then, look, it's really tough to go through this, especially the Vikings schedule and be like win, win, win.

Yeah, right, right. Because we did that with Dallas. We did that this past week against a 2-7 team quarterback by Andy Dalton. But I think they probably at least get to 7-9. Yeah, they'll show. I think the Green Bay game was the leak, right? Like if they lose to Green Bay, then I think 6-10 is probably their final record. But since they lost to Green Bay, Detroit's weaker than I thought

that they were, although they have to go to Detroit. Who knows? You know, Patricia always – somehow that team's won six games, or four games. I have no clue how. The Bears will be another one where, you know, they probably split those two games, and so it really does depend on whether they can beat Carolina this week. So I'll say 7-9. split those two games.

It really does depend on whether they can beat Carolina this week. I'll say 7-9. I think 7-9 is probably the ending record for them. You know who picked 7-9 on this very podcast was your co-host, George Chihury. If he ends up being right on the money, I could see him giving you a hard time on your podcast, which is PFF Forecast, and people should go find it. I listen to it every episode. You guys put out two a week. You're doing really cool interviews and things like that.

So you had a great breakdown if people go find it with Bruce Gradkowski, who's been on this show before, about the rookie quarterbacks. And so I love the conversations that you guys have on that podcast. And I always appreciate your support for new author me. Thank you for that. And for your time, which you are very generous with here on the show. Thank you, Eric. No problem, man.

Have a happy Thanksgiving and stay safe.