Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How the loss to the Packers will impact the Vikings' future decisions

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about how the Vikings' future, especially at quarterback, will be impacted by losing to Green Bay. Will they feel the need to bring back Kirk Cousins or will the Vikings think they are farther away than we thought? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar and Brian Murphy here on a beautiful New Year's Day in which I am looking forward to watching all of the college football and maybe, Brian, maybe, maybe, maybe just watching from the perspective of which quarterbacks I like for whatever reason. Last night, not exactly the game that anybody was looking for. Although if people like you were at a New Year's Eve party, then you didn't have to watch past the first half of the game. You already got the gist of it and didn't need to see anything else. How are you feeling this morning, Murph? How are you doing? I've made better decisions after midnight in my life

than I did last night with a bunch of St. Paul hockey parents who we were promised to party, kind of a low-key, you know, three or four couples turned into a 50-plus kind of rager mashup of various sports parents and neighbors and hangers-ons and this one couple who seems to be sort of the social directors for all of us. We had a really good time, and it was just a weird – it was an interesting backdrop to have this game on, you know, large screen in the living room in the entertainment area, sound down, but to just kind of casually glance at everybody's – you know, it was probably 90% Vikings fans,

a couple of Packers fans there, but mostly just resignation. Every time they would look up and see Jaron Hall running around as a deer in the headlights, it just became obvious that this was going to end badly. How badly was it going to be? It was pretty unsightly to watch. I'm kind of glad I didn't have to sit there and actually chronicle that from the stadium, and I can only imagine not only the collective blood alcohol content

of that building on New Year's Eve with Packers and Vikings fans at night, but sort of the collective angst of those in purple who thought, you know, here's Kirk and his son Cooper. He's our sort of, you know, our savior in absentia, blowing the gala horn, trying to, they're pulling every lever they can to maybe get one magical win to keep the hope alive. They just ran out of time. They ran out of time. They ran out of obvious arms.

You can scrutinize, you know, we'll get into this as well. I know Kevin O'Connell keeps plunging on his sword, saying he needs to take a total reassessment of everything in the building and how we failed and how we didn't get a game play. Look, it was never going to work with these guys. I mean, they, they, they squeezed enough out of Josh Dobbs to make things interesting, but it was never really, you can't sustain eight to nine weeks with four different quarterback options and expect to really come through when you need to. And I know we've said that the defense, you know,

we were liking what we had seen a few weeks ago. They ran into a wall as well. You can't be on the field for 35 minutes a game. You can't deal with the injuries that they've dealt with and you can't take the chances or, you know, maybe not being able to take the chances with with undrafted rookies and hybrid players uh to blitz all the time so I I just feel like that they ran into a wall several weeks ago this was a long time coming the fact that on January 1st they even have a whisper of a playoff chance is really, you know, a testament to just how they've gotten here. But it was so unsightly yesterday. There's so much to unpack and so much to kind of reassess.

But I think the picture, and we can get into this, has become so much clearer at this quarterback position. I think it's going to be interesting to see what motivations, what financial, emotional, and practical motivations dictate what they do in the next few months because it seems like kirk cousins is getting more and more galvanized as coming back oh we could talk about that but let's circle back to the decision in general to start jaron hall and uh you know, I'm not going to go back on thinking that it was the right move because in the previous week we had watched Nick Mullins throw away a game and it was very obvious that Mullins was not going to be able to take them

anywhere unless the other team dropped all the interceptions and wasn't able to strip sack him as even the pretty mediocre Detroit Lions defense was able to do. And the other part of that is there's really no point to playing Nick Mullins. You're not trying to find anything out about him. He was never going to be the quarterback of the future. He was never even really going to be the backup quarterback of the future considering the way he played when he was asked to come in. So you might as well find out about Jaron Hall. But in over his head. And I counted about five different instances where they could have kept running and instead said, no, Jaron Hall, you're going to throw this football. And it came back to bite him. At the same time, our friend Kevin Seifert from ESPN posted some screen grabs of wide open receivers running over the middle of the field and Jaron Hall just not finding them. I think what we learned about Jaron Hall is that it is possible someday that he could be a backup quarterback in the league. But on this night, he was so far in over his head

that there was no chance that they were going to win. He was simply not ready to play in the NFL. And honestly, it wouldn't have mattered. But when you're at the end of the half, down 17-3, and you've seen what Jaron Hall is doing, and you're still saying, like, well, let's see if we can have him throw a few more passes, and then you get strip sacked. That was kind of the moment it was like, all right, well, this thing is over for now.

That doesn't mean cut him. It doesn't mean get him off the roster. It just means that at this point in his career, he's not capable of playing in an NFL game. No, he's a fifth-round pick out of BYU. He was in over his head, even despite how impressive he may have looked on that opening drive in Atlanta many moons ago. He still made a decision to pull the ball down and run and exposed himself to a wicked NFL hit that landed him in concussion protocol

and out of the mix. And it's easy to think of, well, he was 5 of 6 and he was moving the team and he looked confident. Well, the Falcons, as we've seen them play out the rest of the season, have a dead coach walking in, are not that formidable of an opponent. And it's a small sample size. He still would have had three and a half quarters to play in that game. All kinds of opportunities for more shenanigans, more messiness,

more deer in the headlights moments. So, you know, I think you mentioned it too. I mean, BYU doesn't play anybody. So he's a fifth-round pick who is just not accustomed to week 17 in the NFL when you've got two teams desperately playing for their playoff lives. That's not a scenario he's ever had to deal with before, and he had a handful of days to get ready. As you mentioned, I didn't see the Seifert clips, but I had sort of heard on some of the broadcasts that there were

players available downfield on the crossing routes and the inner routes where Mullins, when he's been able to at least find the open man may have delivered some ugly ducks to get there but he was seemed like he was able to find those receivers more Hall couldn't even find these guys so and that the pocket collapsed Green Bay smelled blood in the water you could see it coming from very early on that this was going to be an awfully difficult process and you know if if the defense was able to do what it had been doing earlier, or maybe even the middle of the season, and made Jordan Love's life uncomfortable and challenging and made him uncertain, kind of like he looked back in

October at Lambeau Field. But Love is not that quarterback anymore. He seems to have found his rhythm. He seems to have found his confidence, and things are clicking for him. And, I mean, it might have been his finest performance in the NFL yesterday, I mean, at least in terms of the stakes, being on the road, being as efficient as he was. I mean, the Packers had some monster drives, and they also had answers for every mistake uh that jaron made too so it's just it's almost like i hate to use the cliche the perfect storm but everything really did come home to roost the last couple of weeks and i don't think anybody should be surprised i think what it what it

illustrated is that you can't patch it together on the fly with unprepared uh inexperienced quarterbacks who are going to have their moments, especially if they're like Josh Dobbs where they're a physical and intellectual specimen. But there's a shelf life to that. And, you know, maybe you can coach these guys up for three or four solid weeks and some placeholder roles, but it doesn't appear that Mullins, Hall, or Dobbs are going to be in any position in the next three to five years to someday be a Spartan. I don't see a Jake Browning amongst this group, and I also don't see the Vikings were not in a position when they lost Hawkinson and they lost

some key defensive players to really keep it all together so that they could create just a couple of opportunities for these guys to make plays and escape with the classic 3-0 win in Vegas, 16-13 ugly wins on the road. They ended up getting into shootouts, it felt like, with Cincinnati, Detroit, and Green Bay, and they just weren't able to maintain pace. Yeah, with Jake Browning is actually a good example

for Jaron Hall to look at because Jake Browning felt the same way a couple years ago when he had to go into even preseason games. Remember, Denver played a lot of their starters, and Browning had to start the preseason game, and the game looked too fast for him. He looked in over his head, and over a lot of their starters and Browning had to start the preseason game and the game looked too fast for him. He looked in over his head and over a couple of years as a practice squad guy, as a backup, he was able to develop into someone who could come into a game for Cincinnati and give them a chance to win against good teams. But that's what happens in the NFL when you play

like Browning did. What was it? Was it Washington? I think he played for and had some moments there. And you're talking about Jaron Hall playing for BYU. That's even a big level down from Washington. And the step up, I compared it in my article to asking a high schooler to bat against Jorge Lopez. Even if it's the Packers defense, they have Rashawn Gary, they have Preston Smith, they have Kenny Clark. They have guys who have been to pro bowls, who are monster beast football players. And if you don't get rid of the ball in two and a half seconds, you will get sacked. And when they had three guys sack them at the same time, that was the moment you're like, all right, this is too fast for you right now. And someday you might be able to play in the league, but that day is not now.

And it's probably not going to be soon. So they should keep him on the roster, continue to develop him. But I don't think that he's even ready for a QB two role next year. That's what we found out on this night. But that doesn't make me second guess the decision because when you go into that game your odds of making the playoffs are already very low like you need things to go right for you but mostly you just need to win back-to-back games against two division opponents and one of those opponents is going to be pretty teed off i think after what happened on saturday night for detroit

and i can't see dan campbell being like oh let's rest all the starters like that's just not who he is not that now that the Eagles have lost you know they there's still some things in play right right and even if they hadn't even if they were playing for nothing I think they would have played to keep the Vikings out of the playoffs anyway so if you're making that decision all right we've got Dobbs who can't figure out the offense Mullins who's going to throw the game away pretty much no matter what, because that's his whole history of starting. And I, and what is he won like five out of 18 games that he's ever been in and Hey, the unknown. So let's, let's roll the dice and let's go with the unknown, but rolling the dice came up snake

eyes as it so often does with, as you said, guys who are fifth round draft picks for a reason is not the most physically gifted that he could just sort of run around and make something happen or whatever, but put it, put them on the same track as a Taylor Heineke, as a Jake Browning, as somebody who can develop it and see if they can make something out of themselves in the league. But this was not going to be the savior, the quarterback of the future. And it just went badly. And I felt bad for Jaron Hall after the game, the guy looked like he had been run over by a Mack truck. I mean, he just did not know what hit him playing in the NFL is extremely, extremely hard, but you mentioned at the start, the quarterback decision, and I will continue to bang the drum as I did last week on

the show with you that what we have seen here with Hall, Mullins, and Dobbs should have zero impact on what happens with Kirk Cousins. But what we also know is the Wilfs don't listen to this show because if they did, they would have done some different things along the way. Murph, what do you think? I mean mean did what you saw there against the Packers change anything for you as far as the feeling with Kirk in the future I feel like that that you're right I do feel like that there are those and you're closer to it than I am but just there's a sense uh why did they ask Kirk and his son Cooper to go up and blow the Gala horn? Is it because they're making sort of an appeal or sort of an ostensible way to say, look, Kirk, they love you here in

Minnesota. And you know why they love you here in Minnesota? It's because you put the chains over your shirtless body. It's because you allow your neighbor to shovel the walk. It's because now you did go on to quarterback on Netflix and sort of peel back the curtain on sort of the benevolent, humble teammate that you are. You hear Justin Jefferson last week saying, desperately trying not to fire Nick Mullins under the bus, but with one foot shoving him under the bus and one hand stroking

Kirk Cousins' ego, saying that there's really, you know, you just sense that they're probably putting it together. It may not work financially, and we can dive into that as well. You know, Jefferson is at least in love of a facsimile of Kirk Cousins and not the three-headed monster they've been rolling out the last few weeks. But I also feel like there's a sense that maybe they can, what are they going to go? 15 to 20 now it looks like, somewhere in the draft order. I mean, you tell me where they're likely to pick right now. You can get an arm there. We'll be higher than that if they lose against Detroit. So it could be like somewhere from 10 to 12. Okay. So you're going to get a

viable arm, but that viable arm is not going to be ready to perform right away. Do you have a mentoring role? Kirk seems like the kind of guy that wouldn't be an Aaron Rodgers and shun your, your protege. I think he would maybe embrace that role a little bit. The locker room seems to love him, but what we're ignoring here is the fact that Kirk holds all the cards and Kirk has had maximum leverage for several years now especially over the Vikings I don't know what kind of discount the Achilles injury is going to account for but when you take a look at the totality of what he did last year what he was doing through eight weeks this year and you look at and you don't want this to be measured against the disaster of the last week but it's impossible not to measure measured against the disaster of the last week,

but it's impossible not to measure what he has done in the last year and a half on the field, off the field, to endear himself to the fan base and to the higher-ups. I think it's really going to probably come down to more of a question of finances than anything else. I think philosophically, they may be locked into bringing him back for two years, develop your draft choice, hand it over. It always sounds convenient. It sounds less messy than that can obviously become. And again, he holds a lot of cards from a negotiation standpoint that he may want three to four years.

He may want the highest number. And that might not work for the Vikings, who have so many other holes to fill, especially defensively now, which we know that they need to fortify that with some more talent. We know they have a huge decision with Jefferson, a huge decision with Daniil Hunter. So I'm just saying emotionally and philosophically, it feels like they're ready to run it back with Kirk again. So I think that what happened last night actually may end up playing very much toward the not bringing back Kirk cousins, because if they, that was a farewell,

that was more of his farewell. Well, I don't think that has anything to do with anything. The in-game entertainment people are not signing contracts like that's not how it works oh but you know the higher-ups approved that that wasn't just kind of pulled out at the last moment i mean there was there's there's some uh there's some strategy behind him going up there looking as he did with his son folks i hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prizepicks.com and it is simple. You pick either

more or less between two and six players stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing. So if it's X number of yards for a quarterback, you just decide, are they going to throw for more or less than that number of yards? But it works with lots of different options, receiving yards, touchdowns, even field goals, all sorts of sports as well. PrizePicks.com slash purple. Go there, use the code purple for the first deposit match up to $100. One of the reasons I like PrizePicks, it is very simple to use. You'd see how we do it on the show real quick and easy.

And then we talk about our picks and also not expensive either. You can turn $10 into 250 by nailing just a couple of picks. So go to prize picks.com slash purple, the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy. I don't think so at all I don't I don't think that Kirk Cousins waving to the crowd and blowing the gale horn has anything to do with anything for his future contracts or anything else like that I think it was a way to get the crowd hyped up and probably something that Kirk wanted to do to show his appreciation for the Vikings fans or what whatever it might be to have a little fun. He clearly doesn't mind poking fun at himself, taking off the shirt and everything else and

playing to the crowd. But yes, someone gave a thumbs up on that. But the Vikings and in-game entertainment people are the best in the business and they know what they're doing as well to get the crowd hyped up before the game. So I give them their credit, but I'm not connecting that to Kirk Cousins' future because that is on paper. That is an accounting problem, less than it is when it comes to the feelings. The feelings may be at an all-time high for Kirk Cousins, but when we take an accounting of what they've accomplished with Kirk Cousins and how much Kirk Cousins costs, it becomes much more difficult. And what I mean from last night's perspective is what was on display is how many holes there are in the roster to fill. Because

when you lose by a last second field goal in overtime to the Bengals, when you lose on an interception at the end to Detroit, you could talk yourself into, hey, you know, we were just a couple of plays away from these games. And if only Kirk was here, then maybe we would have won that game. But when you get blasted and receivers are open everywhere and they're running the ball easily because you had two guys on defense get hurt. It shows how paper thin this always was on defense and how much Brian Flores was squeezing every ounce of blood out of the stone. And also, you lose your tight end on offense, and you can't function anymore.

And then it all looks like, wait a minute, let's go to that free agent list. Oh, wait, Hunter's a free agent. Oh, wait, Dalton Reisner's a free agent. So are the receivers, number three and four. Now you could go through that whole list. Oh, wait, Hunter's a free agent. Oh, wait, Dalton Reisner's a free agent. So are the receivers, number three and four. Now you could go through that whole list. Wait, how many impact players does a defense need to be great? Let's look at Cleveland. Let's look at Baltimore. Let's look at San Francisco. Pro bowlers, all pros everywhere. Who are those guys for the Vikings? Harrison Smith may not return and is not that guy anymore because age comes for everybody. Still a great player, but not in the same way that he used to be in 2017 or

something. Who else is the difference maker? The Roquan Smith that picks off a pass with one hand, the Jadeveon Clowney, who's getting the key strip sack or something, the Nick Bosa, they just don't have those players and how are you going to find them when you pay Kirk Cousins as much as they do so I think as much as the vibes are still pushing toward Kirk Cousins that if you're walking out of that stadium as the Wilfs instead of saying boy we were a Kirk away you should be saying we're a lot away we are a lot away and you're not going to be able to just be mediocre to win the NFC North in the future. Not the way that these other teams are

being built. They're being built to be juggernauts. So I am still standing on this, that I think that they will move on from Kirk cousins, even after all that has happened here and everything else, that it just doesn't make sense from a dollars and cents type of perspective that they would bring him back. And I think if they do, they're pretty much signing their death wish for the next few years because they won't be able to build the type of roster that you need to have for Kirk Cousins to win. All of which makes practical sense.

And you've been pounding that drum. You started doing it last year, looking that far ahead. I completely agree with the practical aspect of it. I just don't know if that's driving it. I think it's finances, as you mentioned, more than anything, even more than emotion and even more so than practicality. I think it's just going to be accounting. And, you know, it's worth mentioning, too.

I'm not saying Brian Flores won't get, you know, some looks maybe this offseason, but I think his status has come down a bit. It doesn't seem like he's got both feet out the door this offseason. There may be a way to bridge together a competitive rebuild a little bit more defensively. I mean, if you do draft, you get rid of Kirk and you draft and you develop, are you going to maybe pour a few more resources into your defense? Maybe there is a path forward for, again, maybe preserving 20 to 17 type wins, the running game, which they have abandoned essentially this season. And again, I'm talking about 1985 football anyway, so this is not obviously a long-term solution to build a playoff team on the backs of a strong running game

and a good defense. But I look at what Pittsburgh did yesterday in Seattle. They didn't abandon their running game. In fact, they doubled and tripled down on it. The Vikings don't necessarily have the running backs on their roster to match Pittsburgh's power right now, but it was an interesting way that they decided they had no quarterback. They got a superstar receiver and a parade of clowns at quarterback right now. And that they've been able to stitch together a nine and seven season. They walk into Seattle and essentially win a game because of their, their strong running attack and their strong playmaking defense.

Is that a path forward? Do you pour some money? Do you invest in Hunter? Do you give him another, a beast on the other end of that line? Do you fortify the, the, the secondary and then say, Hey, you know, chef Flores, you've got all these great ingredients now in the kitchen, go make an amazing meal that could allow you to buy some time, take some pressure off a young rookie quarterback and allow him to develop, but you're also going to have to realize that you're looking at eight and nine, nine and eight for the next couple of years, which is what you've

been predicting for the last couple of years anyway, saying lean into that. So I'd be curious what they want to package, how they want to sell it. If Kirk does walk, I think they've got a compelling case to make financially that it's the right thing to do. There's just so much extraneous noise and momentum building to, again, bridge it in some capacity. But if you're doing that, you're ignoring your defense. You're putting your fate in the hands of a 36-year-old great regular season quarterback with one playoff victory who's also coming off major surgery. So is that worth $40 million for the next two years?

Probably not. But I could see that decision being made because it sort of keeps the culture and that sense of we're the Vikings. We don't lay down. We're always there. But you mentioned, too, the division. I mean, you've got Detroit. They're not ascending anymore. They are at the top, and they're getting a ton of scar tissue

with all the national exposure that they've gotten and the big moments that they've had. They got a couple more years out of golf. Looks like Jordan Love is here to stay and is ascending now, and that's a young team in Green Bay that's going to be formidable going forward. And it even looks like Fields and Chicago, they finished the season strong or are finishing the season strong.

That didn't look like as much of a dumpster fire as it did three or four weeks ago. So the Vikings could be very well staring up at three different franchises starting next offseason. What are they philosophically going to do? A quarterback? What are they going to do defensively? Are they going to retool and redefine themselves in the interim going forward before maybe rejoining the 21st century in a couple of years with a fully developed prospect, that quarterback. It's something we have to keep in mind as they make this decision is that there were a lot of free wins against Chicago and against Detroit in recent years with Kirk Cousins. I mean, nobody abused the Matt Patricia Detroit Lions like Kirk Cousins, and he even dispelled

the curse of Soldier Field, which actually the tanking bears sort of did that for him, but got a lot of wins against those two teams as they were going down to the bottom and they are no longer there. And when you look across at the Chicago bears and they have the same number of wins as you, and you go, which direction are both these rosters going? And their direction is very much up. Is that the same? Exactly. Not only the number one pick, but also the number 10 pick. As we speak today, I saw a mock this morning that had them taking Marvin Harrison Jr., the best receiver prospect since Julio Jones, and Kool-Aid McKinstry, who has an amazing name, but is also a great

cornerback for Alabama. That would be quite the blow up for them to go along with DJ Moore, who is a legitimate superstar. Montez Sweat, who is a star that they've acquired. They've drafted offensive linemen. They have a team. They're probably going to bring back Jalen Johnson now. He's a star. Brisker, their safety. He's a good player. They have a team. And to have the same number of wins at this point in the season, when your rosters look like one of them is going to be under construction and the other one is ready to take that next step to be great. It's just different. It's a different landscape. It's changing all the time. And the idea that, oh, well, the NFC is weak and whatever that's gone, that existed for,

that existed for a year that's gone San Francisco is not going anywhere Dallas isn't going anywhere Philly's not going anywhere the Rams are strong now and then you got these other teams in the NFC North and by the way the Atlanta Falcons are a quarterback away from being a legitimate team there's now a lot of talent in the NFC that you're going to have to think about so I I asked you last year, I remember after the Vikings lost to the Giants in the playoffs, I said, Murph, was it worth it? And you said, not really. No, not really.

It was a fun ride, but it wasn't really worth it last year when they won 13 games. Let me ask you that again about this year. Was it worth it? When we consider everything that they did before the season, the decisions that were made, everything that we've gone through, is it going to be worth a season that ended up being a competitive rebuild, just as they told us at the beginning of the year? I don't think so, because I think there's fatigue setting in now, too. I think last year would have been worth all the high moments if they had defeated an inferior

opponent at home. But I think if you're now able to look back now in the last year, and it seems obvious that a lot of the cracks that had certainly were there defensively, we all know Ed Donatel's problems, but it felt like something was lost. I mean, a little bit of the bloom came off the rose with that ugly home loss against the Giants. They weren't really able to shake that a bit. I mean, considering where they started, 0-3, sloppy losses at home and, you know, to Tampa and the Chargers, who the Chargers are such an abomination right now that that, I think it was week three, right, three or four that they had lost that game.

I think that sent them to 0-3. I mean, that loss is as damaging as any other in retrospect. And their 2-6 home record, which is now 2-7 if you extend it back to the Giants game. I mean, you can talk all you want about that being a daunting place to play, and there's no question that it is, and it's a great home atmosphere. It was completely underserved and uh you know was not leveraged as it should have been uh throughout the season especially last night in a game that you had to have a game against chicago you had to have uh these are

you know these are so i i don't feel like this season was worth what they ended up doing you know you you, you had mentioned early on that it would have been better to end up in a complete top 10 situation, but they're probably going to end up losing next week in Detroit. So they are putting themselves in a decent draft position. And I don't blame O'Connell at all. You're talking about the coaching decisions, you know,

was he too ambitious with his game plan? Was he expecting too much from the journeyman, from the rookie, from the forgotten rocket scientist to actually not only execute, but also lead, not only execute a game plan that they had been downfield passing game that they had been successful with, withousins but actually lead overcome adversity make the smart decisions at the right time make the big plays at the big moments I don't think he could have expected any of these guys to do anything more I think he put all of them in maybe the best position to win as they could you can make an argument that they could have done more with the run game yes could have done a better job at picking up pressure yes but ultimately I don't coaching-wise there's anything more O'Connell could have done. I think he made the decisions to bench players during the week, bench quarterbacks during games that were the right decisions at the time, just desperately grasping at levers. You can't put an

NFL coach in the position of having to start four different NFL quarterbacks or to have five different quarterbacks in your last six weeks, just having to come in in various stages. You can't expect sustained success with that. So I think if anything, he's afforded himself well by keeping it together as much as he has. O'Connell is going to have an interesting offseason because I think he's gonna look at his career and go I had every magical break I could have happened to me as a rookie I failed in the playoffs I rallied an 0-3 and 1-14 and stitched it together with a bunch of leftovers at quarterback lost my superstar receiver for half the season, lost my game-breaking tight end,

fell apart on defense despite everything Brian Flores was able to do with bailing wire for so many weeks as well. And yet they're still relevant going into Week 18. I think it's a pretty impressive coaching job. Strategically, would it have been better if they pulled the pin subtly on October 29th in Green Bay and decided, you know, we're going to go for a five-win season and see where the top five pick comes, whether it comes to us or not? Yeah. Yeah, that's easy to say. A little harder to execute.

Impossible to sell. And interesting in the environment, that front office, that ownership group and that coaching staff operates in and the veterans in that locker room. I don't know how you put that all together and make that work as subtly and as successfully as you could have wanted to. They're going to end up – they're probably going to lose next week, and they're going to end up with a pick that's going to obviously position themselves at the positioning quarterback to build. They didn't – they're not going to price themselves out with a desperation wildcard bid here, it looks like. And that's probably the best-case scenario, as we were mentioning. Everything that they've exposed, everything – or everything that has been exposed,

not just on offense but on defense as well don't overlook uh how much money you do need to invest in that since the pendulum swung back to the offense and the kevin o'connell coaching decision from the zimmer era they have to keep they have to mind their defensive store because no matter what you have at the quarterback position the way that they have been given up big plays and had teams looking pretty comfortable, including inexperienced or unprepared quarterbacks like Browning or Love or even Fields, those guys were able to gash them in critical moments. So I think, if anything, it's revealed a lot about this club and it revealed its shortcomings. And if they end up getting a 10 to 15 pick,

I don't think that's as bad as it could have come out if they finished 9 and 8 and get rolled in the wild card again. Exactly what I was going to say is that if we go through the range of outcomes from the beginning of the season the best possible outcome was that they completely fell apart after i guess we really have to go to the beginning of the season and then after kirk gets hurt because the best possible outcome after you start oh and three is that you end up with a high draft pick. Just look at the history of 0-3. There's a reason for that.

Lots of teams have had little bursts and little runs and have gotten themselves back in the conversation, but there's only like three teams since I was born who have gone 0-3 to make the playoffs. This is because it's hard. It's very hard to start in that hole. It means nothing else can go wrong the rest of the way. So the best outcome there at even one in four is still picking in the top five.

The best outcome after Kirk Cousins gets hurt is picking in the top five. But the second best is this. The worst would have been grinding your way into the playoffs and losing in the first round. And look, I respect the absolute hell out of Mike Tomlin, but they have landed themselves and Seattle and the same thing for Pete Carroll. I think those are great organizations, great coaches, but both of those teams have stuck themselves in the middle and year after year, they're where are they going? How is Pittsburgh

save for getting Kyler Murray or something like how, how is Pittsburgh taking the next step? How is Seattle taking the next step? These are going to be road cones for the real teams that are competing for years to come. And good for you. You got in at nine and eight and everyone's going to say great job, but then they'll forget about you after you lose on wildcard weekend and move on to the teams that are really contending. And so the Vikings not being a speed bump for real contenders in the playoffs is a good outcome. As you mentioned, they are within shouting distance

of trading up for a quarterback. That is a good outcome. And that's why when it came to the competitive rebuild, it was like, all right, this is not something that I fully endorse because I fully endorse living in the true reality that if you can't win, you should take the longer, longer term approach. But that was not on the table with this ownership.

So they had to do this. And as my thing is, though, it'll only be a success based on what happens next. Right. So if you take this season and you turn it into a quarterback of the future in the draft and you trade up remember carolina traded up to get bryce young hasn't worked out for them but had they picked cj stroud maybe we'd be talking about something else right now right so they were within shouting distance of being able to trade up if you take this year and say you know what we weren't actually that close we've got a ton of work to do. Let's get the quarterback. Let's continue this slower build. Let's get the right people signed to contract extensions.

Let's figure out how we're going to find difference makers on the defensive side and go forward and look at 2024 as another transition year into when you can be a Super Bowl contender. Then you will have made the most of this and it will have been a successful year despite how painful it was. I would also say with Kevin O'Connell, he has to understand that when your quarterback is not capable of doing something, you can't keep asking him to do it. So there's a learning process and a self-evaluation

that has to be done there with Kevin O'Connell. Although again, the larger picture is it was fine. There's a lot of people who are going to be upset with him because you didn't win. And I get it. The larger picture, as you mentioned, it was fine. It didn't melt down. Nobody freaked out. Nobody lost their minds.

He tried all the things he could try and it didn't work. From the microscopic view, we can nitpick. But from the larger view, you're fine at head coach. But if they look at this and go, we just need, we just need an expensive quarterback back here, and then we'll be fine. And then we're right there. And then we're going to win. Then they will have learned nothing. And this was for nothing. That that's, that's how I look at it is if you turn it into something, if you take advantage of it as like, say the Buffalo bills did once upon a time when Tyrod Taylor took them to a nine and seven season that got them in the playoffs, they lost in the first round and they drafted Josh Allen. If you do that, then okay, then your competitive rebuild was an absolute success. If you don't, and you think, oh, no, actually, we were very close and you lie to yourself again for the how many a time that it was not that. That's how I will end up viewing the season is I can't decide right now.

Well, it's finally going to be the offseason of Kwasi Adolfo Mensah as well. I mean, this is where he's going to earn his salary. He's going to really put his mark on this team because obviously he's going to have his best draft choice to deal with he's got three major decisions with long-term contracts coming up whether to bring back cousins or not how much to bring back jefferson how to make him happy and whether to keep investing in daniel hunter so he's got those decisions coming i'm going to see i'm going to be impressed i'm going to be interested to see intrigued to see how he handles, handles the hype going into March and the April draft. And also what kind of signature or fingerprints is he going to leave on this

franchise? And it barriers asking as well, they may never reveal this, but how top down are the Wilts going to be on these, on this decision with cousins? Cause it does seem like they have an emotional investment with the guy they paid the guy they paid the guy they paid the most money to since they've owned this team. So they're going to have a decision to make. And it's going to be interesting to see how the power brokers decide that, how it's packaged and sold as well. You mentioned O'Connell. I really do believe this has been a positive experience for him. It's been, I'm sure, nauseating and at

times maddening. But I think some critical, critical moments that he's been able to learn, not just in game management, but as you said, expectations. Just because you design a game plan that one quarterback can seem to execute pretty well, as you mentioned, doesn't mean the next guy, the next guy, or the next guy is going to be able to do that. They're going to be able to see the open man. They're going to be able to recognize things that you can design and scheme up against certain matchups.

I think that maybe did hamper him a little bit. I think he felt like it just seemed like he felt like if he could just get the right guy to make the right decision at the right moment, what we've prepared them to do sets him up for success. But the real speed of the NFL doesn't allow that. And I think that, you know, he built up some scar tissue this year that I think is going to be valuable going forward. I don't know any fans that think O'Connell's in over his head or that a new regime would do any better. I don't see that. I don't see any validity to that. I mean, you don't have a situation where you have in Denver

where you've got Sean Payton losing his mind and screaming at, you know, an all-world type quarterback who's on the backside. You've got drama going there. You've got all kinds of tension with other front offices and coaching staffs and star quarterbacks. I think, if anything, O'Connell should be credited for keeping the locker room together despite all of the adversity, despite some of the injury adversity, but also just some of the really ugly, ugly performances that were really thrown on the backs of a quarterback.

It's easy for a locker room to fall apart because they know the captain of the ship is incompetent. But it never felt that way. You never saw any sideline blowups. I mean, you were at more games than I were. The cameras certainly didn't catch them. You listen to the postgame remarks. You listen to him during his news conferences. He seems like he's taking it all in and probably absorbing this more than deflecting and scapegoating. And that's I think that's a positive sign. He seems to be as accountable as and realize, you know, I'm only as successful as the tools I have in front of me. And I can't pound that square peg into a round hole all the time.

That may end up helping him down the road as well. And then just dealing with a season that really started with adversity, a really bad, ugly loss at home to Tampa. 0-3, 1-4, lose Kirk, lose Jefferson, the carousel of quarterbacks, and yet you're still game planning for a potential playoff berth in Week 18. We all know it's unrealistic. But I just feel like that that is, if anything, he's been able – and even listening to the postgame comments from Dalton Reisner and some of the other defensive players. I mean, it just sounds like they're still bought in

and they're still invested in their pride, their chances, and their success. So if anything, I think O'Connell, he's had the best and the worst of an NFL experience really in two seasons, and that's valuable education for especially a very young coach like him. I think when it comes to O'Connell, we could talk about the forest and the trees, that we could talk about the bigger picture, which is exactly what you said. My number one goal for him when Kirk went down, I remember we laid this out, was don't lose your mind.

Don't start going crazy on players. Don't start throwing people under the bus. Don't start blaming everybody else but yourself he has not done that don't lose the locker room don't go like matt patricia joe judge whatever start abusing people because you're frustrated at losing we've seen that in the past that does not go very well i agree i've met many many dozens and dozens of fired coaches have lost their minds when there are struggles. And I think that he is calmly guided the ship with a positive nature overall and done the best from the leadership perspective that he could, but I have no problem listening to some critiques about the way that they have leaned way too heavily on the backup quarterbacks

to try to win these games as if they were Kirk Cousins in a lot of ways. And that's just not really a winning strategy, especially if you look at kind of the way that you mentioned Pittsburgh sort of running first and playing off of that or the way that Cincinnati focused on the quick and short passing game and so forth. So I think you can do both. And we have learned a lot. We have learned that when you're going forward here with him,

you have to find the perfect fit quarterback for him because the offense is going to be the offense. So you're right. A lot to have learned, and it only matters if you actually learn the lesson. If you get on the bicycle and fall off, it doesn't help if you just get on do the same thing and fall off again you have to learn why you fell so that should be uh what we take away uh Murph it's all it's been super fun and we're going to do one more of these and we'll

see what we have to break down it would only be the Vikings way to beat Detroit and have everything go right and somehow make the playoffs uh only if they can leverage that three percent odds and get into the postseason it would be very Viking-esque it definitely would so we will talk again on next Monday appreciate everybody watching slash listening and we will catch