Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How will we remember the Zimmer and Cousins era?

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Brian Murphy, Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom get together to eulogize the Mike Zimmer era. How does it compare to Mike Tice and Daunte Culpepper's run together? How will it be remembered in 15 years? Get your NFL tickets at TickPick.com/Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hello, welcome to the very first Monday Morning Murph Roundtable. Matthew Collar, Sam Ekstrom in Wisconsin still as we wake up on Monday morning. Brian Murphy apparently is in Florida where he watched Vikings and Packers from last night. Well, you know what, Brian? When Sam and I got out of the car last night to walk into Lambeau, it was 18 degrees, which is basically like being in Florida.

So how are you, Murph? Yeah, not quite. It's about 82 degrees here, or at least it was yesterday. It's now the morning. It might be in the 70s. Yeah, I'm hanging out with my buddy here in Miami, killing time before I start my new job, my new real job next Monday. So it was kind of a fitting place to sit out, watch the palm trees sway,

watch the Vikings' inevitable, watch the Vikings inevitable demise on the frozen tundra. Well, as we record this, Mike Zimmer still has his job and I don't know if that will continue. It's 9 a.m. and that might change before the afternoon. But Murph, why don't you just give me your feeling watching last night as they did so many things that they've always done, but it was an exaggerated version of those since Sean Mannion was playing and not Kirk Cousins. I don't, I mean, did anybody see anything differently coming? I mean, you know, 37-10 could have been 28-0, 41-13. I mean, I don't think we saw anything that was surprising other than, you know,

Garrett Bradbury becoming Frank O'Harris all of a sudden with an immaculate reception, Mach 2, which I guess was the second longest play from scrimmage of the night, which was fitting. You know, I was very interested, and I know you guys wrote about this. I know you did, Matt. Zimmer's post-game press conference was about as resigned as could be. I mean, you know he's already, in his mind, cracked his first Coors Light. He's got his shotgun loaded for the ranch, start muskrat hunting.

He's done, and I think he knows he's done, and he wasn't even going to willingly engage on the notion that, hey, maybe we should take a look at this rookie quarterback if not last night maybe against the bears when there's really nothing at stake and he pretty much said no i'm not really interested in that which is either i'm not part of the future so leave me alone or he's so bad this jackass gm what he just drafted i'm not going to have my fingerprints on it either. Either way, that's a dead coach walking and he knows it.

You know, when Leslie Frazier exited in 2013, there was this big sendoff. He took reporters out to dinner and he was so beloved, like he would do conference calls when the Vikings would play his teams after that. And people are even floating his name, hey, hire Leslie again. That's how well he aged because of his graceful exit, despite coaching some horrific Vikings teams. If this is the end for Mike Zimmer, do you think this is going to be a complete bridge burning?

Do you think he will feel to be a complete bridge burning? Do you think he will feel indignant about the circumstances? Will he want to take it to Minnesota going forward? We know that he can be a bit of a grudge holder if he feels betrayed. I mean, I guess, how do you, like, how big will the flames be if there is an exit impending? I don't know how, you know, I think it'll be a slow burn if you want to take that metaphor farther. I think during the offseason, in my heart, I mean, Mike Zimmer's 65. I think in his heart, he believes he can still coach in the league.

And I think the league may validate that. I think he could get another head coaching job. He can certainly get another defensive coordinator job if he wanted. I think he could also be a valid candidate in the right set of circumstances to be an NFL coach. But I think he's been pointing the finger and sort of vilifying or scapegoating along the way all season. And if you haven't been, I mean, it's been subtle as a hammer to the face and sometimes, and I,

I think there will be an inevitable airing of all the grievances in Minnesota, whether it's the roster he was handed or the quarterback he was forced to, to get in bed with, or the off-field issues, or the unvaccination issues. There's plenty of things for him to point at. There's a lot of stuff he could look at in the mirror and try to account for, too. And I think if he doesn't do that and only find scapegoats for his demise here in Minnesota, then I think that may hamper him if he can't have

a full accounting going forward. I don't view it like the day after he gets fired, he's going to sit down with fill in the blank on NFL Network and cut open a vein. I think he's going to probably quietly reflect. I don't think he wants to necessarily burn every bridge he may have in the NFL. Because if you remember, part of the reason it took him so long to get a head coaching job is I think some owners were a little bit put off by his bluntness and a little bit put off by his surliness. So it prevented him from getting a job. As long as it it did it may prevent him from getting uh a reboot if he if he decides to take a very defiant angry it was everyone's fault but me tone going into um his pending unemployment of course this is the guy that had um some earnest things to say about bobby petrino

after that situation went down so uh, you know, like you said, the subtlety of his jabs at Rick Spielman throughout the year on the roster, yeah, that was not so subtle. Starting with even preseason, if we have anybody go down, we're in big trouble and then looks around, you know who I'm talking about, everyone? Am I right? But ultimately, I mean, he was right about, I think, everything with everything.

I mean, he was right that the quarterback couldn't get it done. And he was at odds with Kirk Cousins for, it seems, years. He was right that their depth wasn't good enough. He was looking at the defense saying, if anyone goes down, we're in big trouble. And they were when anyone went down. I saw a handful of people last night on Twitter saying, well, they've had a lot of big injuries and things like that on defense. Not really.

I mean, yeah. I mean, Hunter is a big injury for sure. But the rest was, okay, this guy missed a couple games. This guy missed a couple games. And for the most part, they go into last night with a lot of the players that they started with. But the depth players are so poor. Chris Boyd, DJ Wanham, guys like that, so poor that it's very hard to hold it all together with unlike maybe the depth players of the past. But I wanted to ask you that question, Murph, because I saw the notion that the Vikings had

the talent to be farther than this. And I would say they certainly had the talent to be the seven seed. But I don't buy that they had much more talent than that on the roster. And that's not to say that Mike Zimmer is not to blame here because the pie chart of blame says everyone a hundred percent. But I just don't buy the notion that they had the roster to be this highly competitive team in the NFC. When you compare the other rosters, I just don't see it. I think that is pinning way too much on the coach and not enough on the roster building. Well, I don't think they were – no, they weren't going to gonna i don't think they should have been considered an elite team but um they're better than a seven and nine team i think right now uh and you know if

they end up seven and seven and ten or eight nine i they left too much on the table um again i don't know how far they were going they were destined to be the number seven playoff seed at best, basically for the last two or three months. I don't think anybody after their own two, one and three, lurching around two games under 500 most of the season, I don't think anybody entertained an NFC North title. But they never grasped I think the momentum and sort of the purpose of the season. It always seemed to be just out of their reach.

A lot of it self-inflicted, a lot of it poor decision-making, poor coaching, untimely injuries. You can go down the list, some bad officiating, but for one field goal miss, one last possession. But as far as the roster goes, because it is such a veteran team that's highly compensated, they should be better than they are. It doesn't mean they were going to go far, but we should not be talking about their obituary which we have been

for weeks we shouldn't be finalizing it in week 17 they should have had a chance to compete for a playoff spot all the way to the end it just felt like this one this campaign ended really it really ended with that loss to detroit and now we have the seemingly biannual meaningless chicago game in the final week of the season the schedule makers they get it right every time they set this up for us and it always delivers and we get people hanging from the rafters brian you remember that one well i don't know will there be i mean this would be a perfect opportunity for protesters to show up for whatever cause because really the action on the field is inconsequential. So, you know, maybe the Dakota Pipeline protesters are scheming another attack.

You know, I don't know which team is going to clean house faster Sunday. I mean, there may be press releases already handed out, just like Mike Tice was summarily dismissed in 2006. Because I don't know which team is looking to get rid of their coach and GM faster, the Bears or the Vikings. It is going to end quickly. I think it's obvious with Zimmer, but, you know, I keep reading here in speculation that, you know that if Spielman maybe is taken down from GM,

he somehow maybe survives and sticks with the organization. I don't understand the point of that. He's had 15-plus years, but he certainly does not. He's not earned the opportunity to fire another head coach and hire a new one. So I think we're going to see this house cleaning pretty early next Monday morning, January 10th. Well, and that's the other piece of this is that, you know, the Vikings have to play a home game where if they've still got the coach intact, there could be an insurrection at U.S. Bank Stadium. I mean, it's going to be crazy.

But my question for you was, is there a point in your mind where this started down the wrong path and wasn't correctable with this regime? Some people would point toward day one of signing Kirk Cousins. Others would point toward extending Kirk Cousins after the 2019 season. In your mind, was there a day or a point in time where they went down a path where there was really no going back or no reviving the circumstances? I don't know if there was one incident. I think the cousin's signing, it seemed obvious that Zimmer was never giving that the warm embrace.

Now, that could just be because he was just an old, crusty defensive coach who didn't want to be bothered. But you always got the sense in their public words that these guys were not seeing each other eye to eye. There was not a synergy. There was not a, you know, the hand in his eyes through the scheme of a 1980-type coach where we're going to establish the run, we're going to out-physical a team, and if we can complete some passes downfield and keep the chains moving, that's great. But you don't pay a quarterback $30 million a year to keep the chains moving, that's great. But you don't pay a quarterback $30 million a year to keep the chains moving.

You pay a quarterback $30 million and all that guaranteed money to win championships. I don't think those two ever, they were never compatible. And I think it, you know, pardon me as the airplanes fly over here, I think it really burst out into the open in training camp when the vaccination status became a story because that laid bare all of the disagreements, all of the distrust, and all of the notion that these guys aren't compatible because you had Zimmer very openly questioning why certain players,

particularly his quarterback, chose not to do everything they possibly could to stay healthy and stay available. Look, Zimmer tries to couch it as, I just wanted them to stay healthy for their families. I'm sure you do believe that, but it's also about being available. And he knew that the only way to keep your star players, including Harrison Smith and Dalvin Cook, who also missed action in critical losses because they were on the reserve list, he knew that the best way to guarantee his success, i.e. Zimmer, was to have his quarterback, even though he didn't maybe appreciate him or like him as much, he knew he gave him the best chance to win.

And his worst fears came through Friday when it was announced that Cousins had tested positive for COVID and wasn't going to play Sunday. Look, I think Green Bay would have beaten him that Cousins had tested positive for COVID and wasn't going to play Sunday. Look, I think Green Bay would have beaten them with Cousins anyway, but it was clear they had no chance. It was over. And the exact scenario that Zimmer painted in August came to fruition when it mattered most. Kirk Cousins did everything on the field except lead and win when it mattered most. And that's going to be the code to his career in Minnesota, even was extremely honest with us and said, you know, if we bring back Teddy Bridgewater, his knee might fall apart. If we bring back Case, it might be a one-year thing.

And if we sign an expensive free agent quarterback, it might make it so we can't afford our defense. And I think from the minute they made that decision, Mike Zimmer decided we're in trouble because we're not going to be able to afford my defense anymore because we paid Kirk Cousins. Now that's not exactly true. I mean, for 2018 and 2019, they sustained the roster and it was really some serious shortcomings at other positions, wide receiver depth, offensive line, any injury on the defensive side ended up becoming problematic for them because they couldn't get depth veteran players or keep depth veteran players. But for the most part,

the 2018 and 2019 defenses were good and they were all the same guys that were the number one in 2017. But yet it always seemed like that existed to him and he could not move on from that. And that he always resented Kirk cousins. And the other thing was too, that Kirk's first impression to Zimmer is throwing a pick sixes. I think he led the league in pick sixes in 2018, turning the ball over, not being able to handle the John D Filippo, let's spread it all out type of offense. And then from there on Zimmer talked about, well, we've got to run bootlegs and play actions and everything else, which is a wink, wink, nod, nod. We need to run the ball, wink,

wink. You know, I don't want Kirk to be in charge of everything in this offense. Uh, not so subtle again from Mike Zimmer. And it, it was just never a fit between those two guys the entire time. However, I don't think if it was a fit, it would have mattered over these last four years. Maybe you end up in the playoffs one other year, but not this year, I don't think. I think they were just too weak as a team. They had far too many weaknesses to overcome. When we say they had the talent, one thing that you have to consider is that cornerback is one of the most important positions in the NFL, and they're as bad as you could possibly get roster-wise.

And if your next defensive lineman up past Daniil Hunter gets steamrolled every single time the other team runs the ball his way or can't create pressure has one of the worst pressure rates in the NFL I mean there's not a whole lot you can do there to just scheme around that and I think that if we're giving Mike Zimmer some credit the fact that they led the league in sacks means that he schemed up a lot of sacks and he schemed up that they still have a good you know percentage on third down that he schemed up a lot of sacks and he schemed up that they still have a good, you know, percentage on third down that he schemed up a lot of third downs. He did sort of all the Zimmer things, but very similarly Murph to Kirk cousins. It seems that Mike Zimmer

gets out of a team exactly what the team is and not a percentage point more. And there are certainly way worse coaches in the league, but there are way better coaches in the league. And as it's gone along, I think that the coaches adopting analytics this year was by far the most fourth downs in the NFL ever that coaches went for, that he slipped farther behind, and that there are scheme things that offenses are doing that seem to work every single week against the Vikings, that he slipped a little farther behind. And that's how I think I'll kind of remember this is that it wasn't like one moment where it all just sort of cracked and shattered and all the pieces hit the ground. just this slow slide down the mountain of relevancy for them that, that he couldn't stop that. He didn't have a button to push to stop his quarterback.

Couldn't stop it for him. Like, I don't think Cincinnati's coach is real good, but his quarterback is really, really, really good. And, you know,

and the GM didn't help him by making efficient moves. They drafted a center in the first round, a center in the first round. I mean, just like the, the, the him by making efficient moves. They drafted a center in the first round, a center in the first round. I mean, just like the lowest paid position. And they draft a center in the first round, and he's not even good. I mean, there are so many things that kind of go round and round of whose fault this was. But I think ultimately, being a coach that does not improve your team's chances beyond what you have as a roster, this is kind of what it gets you.

You're a seven and nine roster. You, you have that type of talent. You played like it. And that's what your coach got out of it. And, and then burned bridges along the way and made it uncomfortable along the way for his quarterback.

Well, he almost, and it's just, it's almost comical how reflexive it is sometimes for him to say after a loss, we got away from running the ball. We didn't run the ball enough. I wish we'd have run the ball enough. We needed to run the ball more. I don't know if that's just, I don't want to be bothered answering questions. So I just pulled this out of the bag because it's so convenient. I think he really believes that you can make an argument that they weren't going to win a downfield passing contest

against Aaron Rodgers with Sean Mannion. But I don't think you were going to win it by handing the ball to Delvin Cook 30 times either. This isn't 1980. And I don't understand the sense that as soon as it looks like we're not going to get much done in the passing game, we just have to automatically get back to running the ball more because that's going to cover up all the other sins that we have on either side of the ball. We can go down the litany of reasons that the offensive line hasn't meshed, poor designs, bad depth, bad draft choices, injuries. But that's where it begins in so many ways is that it started in Cincinnati with a laundry list of penalties and miscues.

They've had their moments where they've been okay and patched it together, but the offensive line has been the biggest rot that's been in the Vikings infrastructure on the field for five or six years. And that is all on Rick Spielman. Their play calling, which we've pounded on all season long offensively. I don't know what Clint Kubiak, I don't know what his identity is. I don't know what he wants. I don't know what he's being told to do. But Justin Jefferson goes AWOL way too many

times. He even came out and said that last week. And again, he had Sean Mannion. So maybe you're never going to get the ball more than five or six times to Justin Jefferson anyway. But there are plenty of times where he just vanishes. I don't know. Ty Conklin is an awfully strange hill to die on, but that seemed to be what they wanted to die on in the first half yesterday to try to establish anything. As you mentioned defensively, you can't underestimate the loss to Daniil Hunter, but you've also rewarded a lot of veterans and a lot of people in that defense with a lot of hefty salaries. It's not as if Cousins robbed the team of an ability to have a defense. If anything, they threw too much money at aging defense. And then you got, you know, guys again,

like Dalvin Cook and Harrison Smith who don't, who weren't vaccinated and had to miss games on the COVID reserve list that turned out to be critical losses as well. You're right. There's no shortage of blame. We could go over it all the way through, but it's a top-down problem that ownership has to recognize and respond to. And the fan base is watching, and they're going to be watching and paying attention with their wallets too, because I think they're just wrung out at this point and they don't need a change for change sake they need to change because they deserve better hey everybody Minnesota football is in full swing and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for Minnesota football tickets because TickPick that is T-I-C-K P-I-C-K-P-I-C-K is the original no-fee ticket site.

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to go to TickPick.com and check it out and make sure it's TickPick.com. TickPick.com slash insider because you can save $10 on your first order for Minnesota tickets. That's TickPick.com slash insider. Yeah, and if you thought there was bad energy in the building for the Rams game, I mean, it's going to be worse for the Bears game too. And you know what? I think an important point to make also is that there was concern before Kellen Mond whether Mike Zimmer was the right coach to oversee the next iteration of the Vikings offense, which may have included the next quarterback, whether you want Zimmer, you know, using his all-knowing offensive wisdom to shape that young individual. And I think in light of his comments last night, I think that doubles respond to a quarterback who, let's admit,

might legitimately be not very good. But what if it's something in between that? What if the next guy is not Joe Burrow, but he's also much better than Kellen Mond, but he has some rookie warts and he goes through growing pains? I mean, is Mike Zimmer going to bury him just because he's young? Just because he didn't, quote unquote, earn his opportunity? Because that seems to hold a whole lot of weight in Mike Zimmer's eyes and not as much just the talent of a certain player. He likes to reward veterans because they've been around and they've earned this equity. And he doesn't love to do that with rookies because they don't know the system.

They don't understand the technique that we're teaching here. And I think that sort of philosophy has gotten them into a little bit of trouble. So I'm just furthering your point there that they've kind of invested in the wrong places. And I want to toss this out at you too, Murph. How do you think in 15 years, we will look back at the Zimmer era slash Cousins era? Because I would like a little bit Dante and Tice where I think there was a bunch of discontent at the end there they had teams that you know started hot and ended 500 kind of similar to what we've seen a little bit here in Minnesota um they won I think Dante won two playoff games and I think only one of those was with Tice and yet yet here we are 15 years later. And I think people look back extremely fondly at both of them.

I mean, I think people kind of would, you know, maybe they just like thinking about the Randy Moss days, but they love talking about the Culpepper connection. They like talking about sort of those fun offenses that Mike Tice oversaw. So how will this age down the road? I mean, you can speak about them individually or as a tandem, but kind of Cousins and Zimmer looking back in 2035. Well, I don't think, I think Mike Tice was certainly more beloved, almost like a kind of a pal next door, maybe more so than Zimmer.

I mean, Tice knew how to play the media game. Tice also had an everyman quality to him and an aw shucks personality that I think people related to and gravitated to her. Whereas Zimmer has just been a porcupine for years, both with the media and just, I think, any general disdain of joy, if there is any joy in pro football. And I think there's value to that, to being the crusty old guy that speaks hard truths and doesn't take BS. But I think it can be off-putting at times, too, because it's kind of stumbled into him being a cliche now um uh Dante Culpepper

was not nearly as polarizing as Kirk Cousins just from a personality standpoint or from his haphazard production I mean Culpepper had some great moments MVP type season and then had a devastating knee injury as well I think people wondered if he could be that, you know, galvanizing force in a locker room to kind of take a team farther than its talent could. I don't think he was able to deliver that. I think they do think fondly back to those days, mainly because it was still sort of the,

the Moss magic from 98 was still kind of lingering a bit the possibility was always there um and then you know you could always say that mike tice got screwed because red mccombs was too cheap to hire anybody to supplement his coaching staff or go out and spend money on contracts because he was slimming it down to sell the team so that's just my immediate thought to that uh i don't think cousins and and the cousinsZimmer era is going to be looked at as anything but a wasted opportunity in many ways. Because, you know, but for the Minneapolis Miracle, Zimmer's tenure is a complete failure. I mean, you can say, yeah, Blair Wall screwed him by missing from 27 yards away in the Arctic. But for the miracle, he's not going to the NFC Championship game with Case Keenum.

And then what do they do? They go lose by 30 points, which is – that kind of wipes away that. You've got the Cousins delivering the overtime victory in New Orleans in the wild card game where you thought that was going to be the moment that he distinguished himself and took his career to another level. They go out to San Francisco the next week, lay an egg, and they haven't been the same since. So I think if anything, I think people may look back wistfully at the Tice Culpepper era as, you know, but for Red McCombs and that knee injury, maybe they could have done

something more. I don't think they're going to look back on the Zimmer-Cousins era and think, but for a few happier twists of fate or one player here or one non-injury there, it would have made a difference. I think it was a forced shotgun marriage that failed miserably, and it's going to come to a very messy and costly divorce here very soon. I don't think you're going to see a lot of wistful thinking going back. Now, I could be wrong, but it just seems like missed opportunity, acrimony, and misery is what's going to define the Cousins-Zimmer era more so than any of the what-might-have-beens of the Culpepper-Tice era. Doesn't it feel like a band who has some really good albums and then falls off pretty bad and just

wastes your money buying their spotify's or cds or whatever from back in the day or uh records or cassette tapes uh that's kind of what the zimmer era feels like to me, where you get to 2017, and I think if he, just like how Nirvana ends after their third album, if Mike Zimmer's tenure ends after 2017, I think people would have said, like, what a great coach. And wow, he really turned this franchise around from how down they were in 2014. The thing that Zimmer did was he set the bar and then couldn't reach it. They set the bar by getting to the NFC championship game by having a number one defense. And then everything was kind of exposed the weaknesses of his coaching.

Also the luck that went into 2017, I wrote an entire book about it, but I mean, Minneapolis miracle is pretty lucky. And also Aaron Rogers getting hurt on basically the first drive or second drive of the game against the Vikings is pretty lucky. Uh, and that year was a terrible year for quarterback play in the NFL. The Viking schedule kind of lined up for them that year. Like every, everything worked, everyone stayed healthy on the entire defense for the entire season.

That almost never happens, and yet that happened to them in 2017. But we would have looked at it and said, wow, what a turnaround. That's incredible. Instead, because of the Cousins era and how it went, where the defense got older, fell apart, got expensive, which is a great point you make there, Murph, that in 2017, Daniil Hunter, Stephon Diggs, and Eric Hendricks are on rookie contracts. That became quickly not the case. When you win, you have to pay people. And when you have to pay people, you have to hit on draft picks. And when you don't hit on draft picks, you're seven and nine two years in a row.

It's kind of like that in the NFL. So I guess I'll, I'll kind of think of it as this very clear line in the sand of when the band fell off and how tough that was for fans. Because I mean, it goes this way with music too, where when you have an artist that's pretty popular, you think, oh, well, you know, their last album was a little down, but they're coming back album was a little down but they're coming back everybody they they're coming back with the next strong album and that's the way i'll remember this is that every off season was this big like oh this is going to be different this year and here's what we're going to do and everything else and it always fell short year after year we're going to solve the problem because i and i think with the Zimmer era it's

it's finger pointing too that I'll remember of it's John D Filippo's fault no it's Stefan Diggs's fault no it's you know now we get to somehow it's Kellen Mond's fault like I just think we've we've gotten so far down finger pointing we've gotten to the third round backup quarterback and so I guess I'll remember it for that. My answer to Sam's question is 15 years from now, no one will remember it at all. That's the way I look at it. And that might be the best way I could put it,

is no one will care at all about what happened between 2018 and 2021. By next year, no one will have cared because it just was so mediocre. Well, hopefully, you know, like they found that 50-year-old footage of the Beatles falling apart and coming together. Maybe there's somebody that filmed the documentary at Vikings.com that's going to put it in a vault over the last three years,

and we'll understand that. Ah, yes, they had to go with the concept album and Cousins. That's why the band fell apart. They should have played small clubs with Case Keenum, and they could have been successful for a lot longer. But no, they had to go out and get the big producer with the big name and come up with the concept album. And they didn't tour anymore, and they didn't connect with their fans anymore.

And they just became this bunch of corporate bitter rockers i'm really trying hard to extrapolate the uh the music uh metaphor but no i i agree i don't think collar i don't think anybody's going to look back in 15 years and really say much about this other than it was a very expensive waste of time and energy oh and you remember that 2021 season where, you know, everybody was hitting the bottle in the therapy couch after every game. That might be about it. The entertainment value of weeks one through 16 was pretty good. But I think once they lost to Detroit, I think the inevitability, the bitterness, you know, it was all fun and games until you lose to Detroit on the last play of the game. Then it's not fun and entertaining anymore.

Now it's just a root canal. And I think that's what everybody is. And we've been saying for weeks, this is inevitably going to happen. They're going to lurch. They're going to win a game here. They're going to be competitive there. They won in Chicago. They're hanging around. But they're not going to be competitive there. They won in Chicago. They're hanging around,

but they're not going to run the table against these opponents. They were not going to beat the Rams and Green Bay even once, let alone both of them. I guess the perfect scenario we were dreaming up with that, Mannion would have had the game of his life last night, setting up a quarterback controversy. Zimmer looks and goes, Mannion's my guy for the must win against Chicago. And then they would have lost at home to Chicago. That would have been about the only other more entertaining, fitting end to this inevitable season of them not advancing anyway.

But alas, Mannion did what Mannion's going to do. And the Vikings lose miserably on a cold night against their bitter rivals. And here we are. Folks, it's that time again where you're doing your online shopping for the holidays. And look, if you want free shipping, I can help you out with that. For all of your Minnesota sports-inspired goods, use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER when you go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.COM.

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And you can get that shipping free by using the code PURPLEINSIDER. And as unpredictable as the Vikings seem to be all year, they really were pretty predictable. They have now six consecutive times. They've either won two, lost two, won two, lost two. From the time they were one and three, it's been two up, two down like clockwork. And now we've again reached the two down portion of the equation where we talk about all of the bloodletting and the exodus and all of that. And I know that we've treated this episode very much

like a postmortem, but you alluded to this earlier in the show, Brian, there is a chance that Kirk Cousins is back next year because he's under contract. I think waking up today, we all agree that it seems far more likely that the coach and the GM are relieved. And then someone else has to make the decision on Cousins. Who's got a ginormous cap hit, and you can't fathom him being extended. But you could fathom the Vikings just eating the cap hit and trying to capitalize maybe on an offensive roster that is still somewhat stacked with talent. So play out a scenario, Brian, where Cousins returns. What is the best possible scenario if that happens? Because I've told Matthew, if Kirk Cousins could play for 100 years, about one in 10, I think you might

actually capture like a 12 win season just because of sort of the streakiness of his nature. You might be able to catch lightning in a bottle once in a while. Is there anything good that could come of a Cousins revamp in 2022? I don't know if there's much of a revamp. I think what you're going to find is his contract is so prohibitive that even a new general manager and a new head coach, as loathe as they may be to inherit a quarterback whose identity is completely baked

in. We know who Kirk Cousins is on the field. We know who he is as a leader. We know what his capabilities are. It's going to be awfully tough, and it's going to be a tough hunt for management or ownership to come up with the right mix of GM who brings in the right coach to inherit an expensive quarterback who's frankly a lame duck. That being said, what are your alternatives? Assuming the money isn't a problem, which it is a big problem. What is, I don't know this, I'm asking rhetorically, what is the free agent market? What is the draft class we know is weak on quarterbacks. Is there a better alternative for one season to plug the gap

before you completely rebuild with a franchise quarterback? I don't know the answer to that. You guys might. But even if that is possible, it might be so prohibitive financially it's still not worth doing. You may just have to ring out the last year of Cousins' contract because he's your best option in a bad situation. I think he could be traded easily.

If Carson Wentz can be traded for a first-round pick, then Kirk Cousins can be traded for a first-round pick. Carson Wentz was the worst quarterback in football. He's been okay, but it's not like he's been unbelievable in Indianapolis. Cousins has been a solid quarterback for them as frustrating as he can be. If you're the Steelers, if you're the Saints, I mean, you're making that phone call on an instant saying we, we need to get to 10 wins, right? Or we've got, just like the Vikings talked themselves into it, we've got the roster.

We just need a quarterback better than Ben Roethlisberger, and we'll have 10 or 11 wins. I think there's a lot of teams that will talk themselves into it. The thing about the Cousins one-year thing is when you look at the state of the defense at this moment and still the state of the offensive line, it's really hard to convince me that you could run back Cousins and even be any different than you are this year with a new coach and everything else.

I think there's a notion that this team, if it had a different coach or a play caller, would have been vastly better, and I just don't agree with that. I mean, not when Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon are just plowing them over for the whatever number of straight week where they can't stop the run. Not when receivers are wide open when they can't stop the pass because of their corners. They don't need one or two players on defense.

They need like seven players on defense. You are far away, I think, from being a Super Bowl competitive team, which why not get started now then with a couple of first round picks or whatever other you can get and get a corner and go. And I totally reject the idea that it's a weak quarterback draft

because I've just heard this before so many times. Ah, this quarterback draft, it's just not that impressive. Okay, Well, here's Deshaun Watson. Like, you know, that they, that's the one I'm going to keep going back to the 2017 draft. All the analysts said, no, sorry, no good quarterbacks here. Um, the Jared, Jared Goff draft, like, oh, Goff Wentz, you know, they're not that good at prospects. Well, both of their teams went to the Superbowl in the following years after that. Um, so anyway, I mean, that's something to get into in the future. But I guess I do wonder from you, Murph, just as we wrap up here, not the final Monday morning, Murph.

You are going to have to watch the Bears game. This is what you agreed to. I've already paid you. So you have actually obligated. Correct. Yes. you so you have actually obligated correct yes i i get i guess i just i just want to want to put a bow on the entire thing by wondering if you feel like last night was good for them in the long term even though it was brutal for everyone to watch?

I mean, it was inevitable. Yes. I mean, it would have been false hope if they had somehow pulled out a win and taken care of Chicago next week, and then they still need help because you're literally limping into a first-round matchup back at Lambeau, down in Tampa, out in L.A., in Dallas, where you're going to have no chance. So, yes, you ripped the band off pretty cleanly last night. Good for them. Not good for the brand, but not good for the optics of ignoring a draft pick quarterback that might have given you a better chance than an afterthought journeyman,

not good optics that your head coach is, you know, refusing to take any responsibility after the game and doing his typical martyr, woe is me, it's everyone else's fault routine because he knows he's gone. Doesn't look good. But it, it, it doesn't pump up any false hope that may have been out there. And again, I, you know,

we don't, you can debate the data all you want. I got COVID despite being double vaxxed and boosted. Kirk Cousins certainly could have gotten COVID last week had he been vaccinated, but the fact that he chose not to, and defiantly so, says he didn't do everything as an NFL quarterback earning $30 million to be available to his team.

And he has to own that. That's part of being a leader, is being a little bit above what's in your own best interest. And that's what fans and ownership and coaches and general managers and teammates expect. So he's got to wear that. And I think it, I think it exposed the leadership void, both him, Harrison Smith, Dalvin Cook, Tomlinson. It's a, it's a locker room of individuals. It's not a team and it's time for a of individuals. It's not a team.

And it's time for a clean change. So if anything, yeah, the last few weeks but the last few days have been good for the franchise in that it needs to be cleansed. Yep. And I think just the final thing I want to say is that when you go back through everything they said about themselves, it was pretty much all wrong, except for when Mike Zimmer was honest about them not having any depth. When Mike Zimmer said this team fights, we did not see that until the end of the season. We saw a letdown in Detroit, a letdown in San Francisco, a letdown against the Rams that was really a no-show, and then a complete no-show. That's not a team that fought for their coach all the way to the end.

And a lasting image of last night will be Patrick Peterson really trying not to throw Mike Zimmer under the bus for not letting him shadow Devontae Adams, where he was trying to be political about it. But you could tell he was very frustrated by that decision. You know, that we were told that the cap genius that they have, Rob Brzezinski, who's very, very good at his job, could just magically wave a wand and save all their problems. Oh, we've got the best cap guy in the world. He'll just do this, this, this, and this, and the cap will never hurt us. They have 19 million in dead cap as we speak at this moment. So all the things that they tried to sort of sell eventually came not to be true. Like when you're watching QVC late at night and they say, well, this soap will change your life. And it doesn't.

That's what the Vikings were. So Murph, enjoy your nice weather there in Miami for the rest of the days before you start your new job, which you will continue to make appearances on the show. It won't be every single Monday in June, but we'll be in contact. And we'll be playing golf in June together. I will be available. You will be available. Sounds good.

So thanks for your time and for all of your great analysis. And we will find something fun to do next week after the game, I promise. So thanks, Murph. And you muted yourself at the very end. Way to go. I had another plane going over it. All right, guys, travel safe. We'll talk soon.

Thanks, Murph.