Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Cam Dantzler good now? Why are the Vikings so healthy this year? (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions, from whether Cam Dantzler has proven to be a quality NFL corner yet or if we should wait a little longer? Why have the Vikings been so healthy this year, is it their use of sports science? Is Danielle Hunter getting back to the old Danielle? Has Kevin O'Connell been saving the good plays?  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And as promised, this is part two of the double album of fans-only podcasts.

It's really just me doing two in the same day but that makes it sound more exciting right this is our bi-week bonanza folks that's exactly what i meant and i didn't even really sing all week so bi-week bonanza okay well it ends on wednesday but for now we've got plenty of time to have fun and there will be some good guests coming up this week kevin cole from pff a big numbers guy and alex clancy who covers the arizona cardinals so lots to look forward to there our usual tomfoolery with jeremiah searles with will raggetts and so forth so lots for you to look forward to here on the show but let's dive right back into the questions almost like we never stopped after the last episode let's start with at orange suds on twitter cam dansler has really

stepped up his game is his performance a trend or a mirage or too early to tell i want to say that it is true that he has stepped up his, but let's wait a little bit longer before we anoint him the next great Minnesota Viking corner. But I think that what you've seen is a much more confident Cam Dantzler. And this is really a huge deal if it continues, because Dantzler was a guy that we were really unsure about coming into the season. I mean, he had put together some good games last year and throughout his first two seasons, but it was not consistent enough. And especially in some of the big moments to believe that Dantzler was that guy who could be your starting every single down plays 16 games takes on quality competition type of cornerback.

And I think there were even still questions about that during training camp, where every time we would ask Ed Donatel, what do you think about Dantzler, the way he's coming along, and every time he would kind of dodge the question. And I would say that kept happening even through the last couple of weeks, that he still, we kind of had to pin him into saying like no actually cam dantzler is playing pretty well i think that this system really works for cam dantzler because it does not ask him and the same goes for patrick peterson it does not ask him to have one-on-one coverage on an island very often with a safety over the top and it

rarely asks him to even play press coverage which would require him to be like right up on the wide receiver where he could potentially be beaten with speed and i think that dansler is faster than his 40 time at the nfl combine maybe not as fast as the fake video that his agency put out before the draft claiming he ran a 4-3. Like, that's not the truth either. It's somewhere in the middle. But I think they know he's not a blazing runs a 4-3 type of speedster. So you do want to give him some help.

I was impressed, though, earlier this year when he ran foot for foot, leg for leg, whatever they call it, step for step with Chris Alave down the sideline and broke up a pass. I mean, that said to me, his NFL speed is good enough to cover guys one-on-one, but they're still giving him a lot of help. Overall, though, the sample size of Cam Dantzler, what we have is 1,600 snaps. I have PFF up here, 1600 snaps. He is never in a season, whether it was 2020, 2021, or this year, never had a PFF coverage grade below 65, which is about average. His lowest is 67. His highest is this year at 70.6. He's never had an overall grade under 70 and his sample size now in terms of targets he's been

targeted 162 times and an opposing quarterback rating of 88.5 i mean we're getting to a pretty decent size sample and also here's a crazy stat that really speaks well of cam dantzler he has been penalized two times in 1,600 snaps. That is really good. I mean, that is much better than, say, like Xavier Rhodes, who did have a much more difficult assignment, but also got penalized kind of a lot. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, Trey Waynes did as well,

at least from time to time, a decent number of penalties. So to not be flagged very often and to have good coverage grades and good statistics into coverage overall through three years to me says he's a starting corner in the league and probably a quality starting corner and well his coaches may get frustrated at times over this technique or that technique the results kind of speak for themselves there that overall he's been very good so i don't think it's a mirage i think that our sample size over this technique or that technique, the results kind of speak for themselves there that overall he's been very good. So I don't think it's a mirage.

I think that our sample size is growing for him to be just a solid player and a really good find in the third round. And this is why it's so hard to evaluate draft classes. And there's kind of the joke of like, oh, you can't evaluate a draft class for three years. Well, we have to do it the next day because what? We can't just sit around for three years.

But when we look back at a draft class that potentially produced the starting corner there, along with Justin Jefferson, it's starting to maybe look a little bit better with DJ Wanham starting to play better. And this is why development matters and sample size matters and giving time to players to improve their game. So even though, you know, he's sort of credited the coaching staff and things like that, it could be also part of just getting better and improving as a player. Corner is one of those hard positions that does take a couple of years.

And I think we're seeing that come to fruition. Now, here's where I put the asterisk on it a little bit. There are some very, very good wide receivers on the way and how the vikings handled those receivers will tell us maybe a little more about cam dantzler because you have terry mclaurin deandre hopkins not in that order stefan diggs cd lamb like there's some dudes on the way so the tests are really coming for cam dantzler but i think the results in a fairly big sample size now say that he is just a quality starting corner in the league uh next question from at cdn vike fan hey caller what's going on with daniel hunter is he getting the pressures and just not hitting the flash plays should we expect him to

improve in the second half yeah I mean so early in the season the pressures weren't exactly there in the same way that they were before but you know as much as there is this adjustment period needed for Daniel Hunter his PFF grade now after the Miami game is 79.7. Last year it was 80.8. And all other years of his career, except for 2019, are all in this ballpark. The pressure numbers still aren't quite what you would expect them to be. But his pass rush grade has gone up in recent weeks. And he's got a couple of sacks to speak of. It's just not the insane number of sacks that he's had in the past.

But that might come. I think it really depends on the competition that he's facing and maybe the opportunity and whether they can make some adjustments. But this last game was a big step forward. Just to tell you kind of how different it was, the last game against Miami. He had not had a game with more than three pressures all season long and then got six against miami to go along with a sack two of those were quarterback hits which he hadn't had a single quarterback hit all season and that's just kind of how pass

rushing works sometimes that it's a little boom or bust and when hunter started out the season slow there's a natural conversation there and of course we've had it on the show as well and we've kind of come to some conclusions about the fit in donatel's scheme but you know i think that it also is you kind of have to wait and see because nobody ever has five pressures per game every game it's kind of you know seven pressures one game three pressures another game but i am curious and i'll look right now about his consistency because this year it's been mostly down and then a huge game up let me go back to 2019 the best season of his career i mean there

were very few downs wow okay oh wow um his 2019 season was mind-blowing. He had three games where he had 10 pressures, three separate games of 10 pressures. And let's see, three games and not even the same ones where he graded at least a 90 by PFF in the individual games. And not even all of those were the 10 pressure games. I mean, he had two more, three more, seven pressure games. So if you're thinking that it hasn't quite been the same, you're right. You're absolutely right. So the question for me is,

was Miami the start of something where we're going to see the 10 pressure Daniil Hunter performances of the future? Or is it just going to be some weeks? He's going to get one like he had against new Orleans. Some weeks he's going to get six. The sack numbers aren't quite the same. The PFF grades are decent, but they're not unbelievable that, and I mean, that might be where we end up. And if that's the case and Hunter ends up with a solid number of sack, yeah, solid number of sacks, let's say he gets nine, 10. Okay.

And he ends up with 50 something pressures. His best season was 97. But before that, he was always in the fifties and sixties of pressures. Well, that's a pretty darn good season. It's not quite what you expected it's also not quite worth what a massive contract extension uh he's going to want in the offseason so that makes it a little interesting if he continues to play like this but there's also the possibility that we could see daniel hunter start to really get in a groove here and take off. We have to remember with him and Irv Smith Jr.,

just how little football these guys have played and how hard it is to get in a groove. And I've talked to people before about edge rushers and defensive line in general about, like, there's no real practicing that. I mean, because you can't just have your buddy come by and you roast him in pass protection, right? Like, hey, Todd, the left tackle, why don't you stop by the home and I will demolish you for two straight hours on pass rush moves.

Like you can only usually really use the pass rush dummies and then training camp. And that's about it. There's only so many reps to kind of go around so he might just be getting back into the groove or this might be the version of daniel hunter that we see in the future i'm not really sure which if i were to guess i would lean more toward this is kind of who he's going to be in this system more boom or bust than he was in terms of uh being consistent and that i i don't still think that it's a great fit despite the great game against Miami.

But I wouldn't be shocked based on the guy. Also knowing Daniil Hunter and following his entire career, how hard he works, how much he cares. I mean, he puts in everything he's got into this game and fought super hard to come back and everything else. So, I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if we see a version of the old Daniil, but I would expect more to be like this, where some weeks you go, did he play today? And other weeks you're like, oh, wow, the old Daniil is back. That might be what you have. That's my guess, but I don't know

for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised at all. If we do get some huge games coming up from Daniel Hunter. All right. This next question comes from at B mole three, one, one, three. Hey Matt, with the meat of the schedule coming up after we play Washington in week nine, do you think the offensive and defensive playbook becomes expanded during that time against better teams?

Do you think it's possible? O'Connell and Donatello are saving certain plays and schemes for that time to not give anything away against lesser teams that we've been able to win with more basic packages on both sides of the ball? Feel free to tell me straight up. If I'm looking too far into this series theory, you are looking too far into this theory. Yeah.

They don't save the good plays. Nope. Sorry. That's not a thing that happens. Now, I do think that they probably keep some ideas in their back pocket that maybe we don't want to bring this out just yet. But I don't think that they're like, oh, let's get the second book of good plays out after the first book of bad plays. And I don't mean to like misrepresent what you're saying i mean i what you're saying is did they start off with the more basic stuff and it's going to get more and more advanced and i think that what it has to do is it has to morph

that it doesn't change in the way that they planned it to bring out the better plays later against the harder teams. I mean, you really needed to go 5-1. You really needed to have this great start. You needed to win every game and do everything you can. But there's two things at play for the future. I mean, one is simply the fact that they now have a better sense for what everyone does well. And that is really valuable to now understand

their personnel they understand their quarterback better they understand on defense daniel hunter better cam dansler better the the safeties so they're all getting this feeling out process through the start of the year which could be one of the reasons why it has been so rocky at times but there's another part of this too that that's very important. The more you put on tape and gosh, if there isn't better evidence than their opponent that's coming up of this, the best evidence ever, Cliff Kingsbury has always struggled to advance his offense as the season went along. And that's where someone like Andy Reid is such a genius because once the defenses think

they've found something on Kansas City and it helps to have the best quarterback in the league, but this has always been Andy Reid. He makes a change in the middle of the season. And instead, you're not throwing out everything. You're advancing it. You're updating it. And I remember Gary Kubiak talking about this throughout a season where it can be the smallest things but the details matter so much that even your rules for how wide receivers read certain

defenses they're going to start picking up on all that as the season goes along and they're going to understand what you do offensively so you have to make little tweaks in how you do it but also not go too far away from the things that have been working. It's a big challenge for NFL coaches. They don't save the good stuff for later. No, because they're trying to win every week desperately, but they are game planning from team to team, defense to defense.

There might be things that they still haven't brought out yet. I don't think they looked at New Orleans in in london or miami and said you know what this team should be easy to beat let's just pull out half of our plays no it's not that way it's that now miami has shown some of their weaknesses and i think opposing teams are going to try to exploit some of those weaknesses and other teams have as well i mean detroit kind of laid out a potential path for other teams to double Justin Jefferson. And then Miami tried this thing

with rushing five guys more often, sending a lot of pressure and getting to Kirk Cousins up the middle. Like every team's going to have a new answer on a week to week basis. And how you adjust and adapt to that is whether you continue to have a good offense through the season.

I think it's a great question about how that works. I don't think your theory is quite correct, but I think that it's a really good question and a huge challenge for Kevin O'Connell and a first year coach, a first year play caller. How do you make it different while also learning about everyone who's on your team and playing to their strengths and getting everyone in the right spot. It is a very, very difficult thing in the NFL. And there's a reason why there's only a handful of these guys who stand out as great play callers and great offensive minds, because it isn't easy with the other team spending so much time and having so much detail on everything you do now, it's not a surprise. It's not like week one where they came out and seemed to really surprise the Green Bay Packers with how they were going to play. Now everybody has it all on tape.

And how they react to that may determine, do they end up having a really good offense at the end of the year? Or is it just the same old roller coaster through the entire season? It's 100 something to watch folks i'm seeing that liquid death is starting to catch on some of you have even sent me tweets of displays in the store but for those of you who do not understand why there are tall boy cans in the water aisle allow me to introduce you to liquid Death Water. It's a new brand of mountain water, and they also have sparkling water options as well. You guys would not think that anything could knock me off my diet soda at the top,

but the sparkling lime from Liquid Death is delicious. And here's the thing. Liquid Death may have a crazy name and crazy logos, but it's really about quenching your thirst in a way that does not include a plastic bottle. The death part is about using aluminum and killing the use of plastic, which is not as recyclable as you would think. Most of the plastic that you try to recycle ends up just being garbage. So liquid death is donating 10% of its profits to improve the environment and get rid of plastic forever. Here's my other thing too.

Aluminum cans just get colder faster. So give Liquid Death a try and you can always mess with your co-workers or friends because it looks like a beer. It's prank season in October anyway, so have your kids drink a Liquid Death at the Halloween party or something. Go get Liquid Death at your local Target, Walmart, 7-Eleven, or find a Liquid Death retailer near you with their store locator tool at liquiddeath.com slash insider.

That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. This one comes from Shane through the email. Taking all the information from this past off season. Now, new GM, new coach, competitive rebuild, keeping all the veterans starting five and one. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what constitutes a successful season. Is it winning the division enough, or do they need to win multiple playoff games, Superbowl or bust? I would never put Super Super Bowl on a team because of how weird stuff is. And you don't have to look much farther than last year.

And I know for some of you who have been watching this team for so long, that that is your only standard is win a Super Bowl or you wasted my time all season long. I mean, from a fairness perspective, not a you've watched this team lose for many years or disappoint you many times. And so you don't want to give your heart to them until they really prove it. Now, I understand that entirely,

but if we're evaluating, did it work or did it not? I think that's a little tough only because of how much can go wrong. And the Vikings are the best evidence of this ever, right? Like the 98 team, you can't say that 98 failed because I mean, 98 was a massive, massive success. They just missed a field goal that they needed to make at the end of the game and things went sideways.

I mean, who could ever predict a lot of the things that happened in these playoff games the the craziness of last year i mean think about san francisco is in command against the rams for the entire game they are controlling that game and then all of a sudden a guy drops an interception that would have sealed it the rams drive they score jimmy g can't move the ball kyle shanahan gets scared won't go for a fourth down right like all these things sort of unraveled and i don't remember the exact order of operations there so maybe i i have some of them out of place but all those things went wrong for san francisco when they were on the doorstep. How about the Packers?

I mean, I know none of you have any sympathy for the Packers, but how many times have they had Superbowl caliber teams only to fail at the goal line against Tampa Bay, have a punt blocked, not recover an onside kick back in the day against Seattle. I mean, so many things have gone wrong for the Packers.

Their 13 win seasons were not failures in my mind because they were right there on the doorstep to be considered a Super Bowl caliber team and they had one thing go wrong. I mean, it's a failure, yes, when you win 13 and you think we should go win the Super Bowl and it doesn't happen. It's extremely disappointing,

but there is randomness to this game in small samples. go win the Superbowl and it doesn't happen. It's, it's extremely disappointing, but it's, there is randomness to this game in small samples. And so if the Vikings were to win the division and have a home playoff game and win, I mean, you can't lose that one. That's one that I don't care about randomness. Like last year with the Cowboys,

they had a successful season ranked first in scoring, put themselves in a spot to win, but lost in that first round. You're going to get slammed if that happens. And I think that you'd probably deserve it because if they lost in the first round, we would kind of go, oh, so it was just a lucky season then. And it really didn't matter. I think it is to win a playoff game and then whatever happens from there, don't get crushed like they did in San Francisco. I guess what I'm saying is even if you lose, don't lose in a way, and this is very oddly specific, but don't lose in a way that makes us go, you were never a contender in the first

place because that's the whole thing. Oh, it was don't, don't have anything happen in the playoffs that allows us to say, and your fans, ah, we shouldn't have ever believed in you anyway, make everyone believe in you. I don't even care if it's 11 and six or 10 and seven, but if the numbers are there that say you're a real contender, the wins are there against some good teams and the performance of the playoffs is there to say that you're a real contender. What happens on a last kick or a fumble or a penalty or whatever in the playoffs? How about like Cincinnati? The era of Andy Dalton was successful in Cincinnati, but and it was AJ McCarron had to play in their best season.

Dalton got hurt. McCarron had to play. And was it Giovanni Bernard? Who was it? Somebody fumbles at the end of the game when they're just running the clock out against Pittsburgh. They should have won. I mean that like that,

are you going to say that season was a failure? That team was a failure. Of course not. They just had something bad and random happen at the end of the game. But they played toe-to-toe with Pittsburgh, had a great regular season, had an argument to be a legitimate contender. I think that is how we constitute a successful season here, is were you in a position to actually go to the Super Bowl

and then whatever happens, happens. That's in the hands of randomness. And, you know, of course you want your team to blow somebody out, but the playoff games are often very close. They're often very close matchups. Hard to say. But you want to walk away saying they made the right choice. They were right there when they brought everybody back.

All these players, they were right there. They hired the right coach. That's another big thing, too. A successful season is not just how many wins. It's also, do you get to the end of the year and say, you got yourselves a coach? I mean, I think right now you got yourselves a coach, but it's early. It's five and one. Nothing has really happened yet.

They've had one arrest. Holy Udo, what are you doing? And I guess that's going to be another test for Kevin O'Connell, how he handles it. I don't see a whole lot of reason to keep only Udo on the team, but after getting arrested, but maybe they will. I don't, I don't know. Hard to say, but you know, my point just being, there's a lot of tests to still be passed. And if they pass them and then one thing goes wrong, oh, well, all right. You know, that's, that's Vikings football, right? But if you come away feeling like you have a very solid foundation of a team with players who have emerged this year, like Derrissaw,

like Dantzler. You have a coach who can put his offense in a position to be a legit Super Bowl contender. I think all of that would constitute success. So it's not even necessarily about this number or that number of wins. And if you're the person who says it's not a success, unless they reach the Super Bowl, I cool with that i'm i'm cool with that like i'm not going to criticize you for saying that i can't quite go that far but but i feel you if that's where you're going all right this comes from at matt verrick on twitter bye week bonanza bye week bonanza fans only question for you do you attribute the overall health of the vikings team so far to the new staff or attribute the overall health of the Vikings team so far

to the new staff or is it a roll of the dice year where everything is working out? Also seems odd how many teams on the Viking schedule are having the opposite injury luck. Oh yeah. Yeah, no, that's definitely weird. And this is, this is a common question. I know this was asked a version of this on the last podcast as well, kind of toward the end. And it's a very hard thing to figure out. But I just think that, let me spin it this way. When we're talking about whether you got yourself a coach or not, like how do we evaluate that? Part of it to me is understanding data because every coach in the NFL has to understand data.

It is the year 2022. You cannot be just guessing. You can't be guessing with whether to push somebody back out on the field. You can't be guessing on fourth down. You can't be guessing on what coverage you're going to play against the opposite team because they have data on all of this every team knows how often the other team runs play action inside the 20 to the right and which player they Target they've got data on all that so they also know every player's health down to a T

it's probably in a dashboard that they can call up where you've got all sorts of different information about every single player. And you know where every single one of them stands and you have all sorts of science that has been developed over many years and all sorts of technology to maximize how much your players are on that field, how often they're on that field and how to deal with every different type of injury. And if you're not using it, you're negligent, and I'm sure that there are teams that are falling behind. And the Vikings have wanted to be cutting edge.

This was a very important thing in hiring Kevin O'Connell, is wanting to be cutting edge in these ways. Not just tracking the data, but understanding what it means and how to use it. And look, you know, there were some folks, not many, but some who wondered, Hey, are they just making this, you know, a resort spa and training camp? And like, yeah, you know what? Two a days were probably horrible for the players. Two-a-days were probably stupid. Like, right? I mean, especially the way these guys have made it their whole profession, but they were probably just hurting themselves. And instead, giving veteran days,

taking reps off, rotating defensive linemen, though I do question it at times uh you know things like that all of these things play into can you be five percent better than other teams when it comes to your health and so far it's worked out whether it works out in the second half of the season i don't know last year they lost daniel hunter to a torn peck who would have ever guessed that wasn't something mike zimmer's regime did right that was just a random event same with you know anthony bar's injury two years ago it was a torn peck same thing a random event so random stuff can happen adam thielen's been a little banged up. That's an ankle thing. Random stuff can happen. So I wouldn't bet on them just always being the healthiest team, but I think that you can show, can you be a little bit better than the rest because you're taking this

approach? I believe that they are. And I think that it also plays into player happiness because one thing that's underrated is if the players can trust the people involved with their health, you are so much more comfortable in the environment just by the fact that you believe that the people have your health in the best hands. I mean, think about what happened with Miami. How can any player trust Miami after what happened with Tua, right?

And there were situations like that in Minnesota that I believe that players did not fully trust in the way that the team was handling their health. And I think it played into the work environment, which has now turned out to be much better. So there's a lot to it. There's a lot to it. There's a lot of luck, but there's deeper meanings to all these things that's how i would put it folks i know you've heard me talk about soda stick for a long time now but i'm telling you you have to start following them on social media for new fresh gear they are releasing all the time of course they have the classics like the moss moon design and the metrodome shirts and hoodies but as the local teams go along in their seasons

soda stick is constantly putting out new stuff whether it's the new horn state gear or the vicodontist rex shirts lots and lots more from all the minnesota clubs go to sodastick.com and follow them at sodastick on twitter that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i- I C K.com on Twitter and use the code purple insider to get 15% off your purchase. Uh, this one comes from at Adam six zero three eight one seven three three. I'm never not amazed at how often we get great questions from Adam or whoever name and a bunch of numbers. Either the Russian bots are really, really good these days, or a lot of people just made accounts that way because they didn't take it all that serious and they get lumped with

Russian bots. So too bad for that. But anyway, Adam and a bunch of numbers has a good question here. And they get lumped with Russian bots. So too bad for that. But anyway, Adam in a bunch of numbers has a good question here. Do you see any similarities between the Vikings team and the 2019 Packers? It was LeFleur's first year, and it took a while for the offense to get going. They won a lot of close, ugly games against bad and mediocre teams. And we all knew that they were not a 13-win team. Well, I mean, for starters, they were a team with aaron rogers so that right there kind of eliminates everything right off the

bat i mean in some ways because no matter what happened as far as rockiness goes, you still had a guy who could make a play at a time at any time in any game and win any way possible because he was that good. And I say was because he isn't right now, but you never know, but he was that good. And I know that his numbers were just like, okay, for that season, it wasn't his highest QBR. It wasn't his highest qbr it wasn't his highest quarterback rating but it still is a guy with otherworldly talent which the vikings do not have as a quarterback they have a good quarterback but not an otherworldly talent who can bail you out almost any time now did they have an easy schedule i would have to look through what these teams were like then but it doesn't look like it to me like they had a super easy schedule to I would have to look through what these teams were like then, but it doesn't look

like it to me. Like they had a super easy schedule to start. They had the bears who were very good in 2018, the Vikings who were a solid borderline playoff team. Denver, I think was rough. Philly was coming off the super bowl. Dallas, I believe was very competitive. Detroit of course was terrible. Oakland was not so good. Kansas city was a very good very competitive. Detroit, of course, was terrible. Oakland was not so good. Kansas City was a very good team. So yeah, those were the teams that they started the season with. And I think that, you know, from that perspective, like it was a decently hard schedule and they had some very, very good games. I mean, they had a game against Philly that they lost where they put up 491 yards. I mean, they were over game against Philly that they lost where they put up 491 yards.

I mean, they were over, they really hit their stride pretty early. I mean, they were terrible on offense for the first three weeks of the season and went three and oh, so I think that's what you're referring to. But after that 491, 447, 481, they got into a groove as the season went along. But I don't want to, I don't want to dismiss that. I mean, those are the reasons why I would say it's a little different because they had some high-end offensive performances that the Vikings have not had against bad competition yet. But the similarity might be that there is an adjustment period. But what am I supposed to really do with that exactly? And you're right that they were not a 13-win team. their uh expected win loss was 10 and 6 for that year so they were not really

as strong as they appeared um I don't know what I really do with that information though I mean there's lots of teams that have had new coaches that start off either hot or cold and where it goes from there it really determines their fate. I mean, I think that your point is just that when you make an offensive adjustment, that it takes time. And I think that that's true, but it sort of doesn't guarantee future results, right? That's what I mean is, I mean, does a slow start for O'Connell guarantee that they hit their stride soon? No. Does it guarantee that next year, Kirk Cousins is MVP? Someone will definitely pick them for MVP because they always do. But of course

it doesn't mean that. Um, so I don't really know what to make of that comparison other than to say that yes, a new coach benefited from the bad luck of before swinging wildly back to the other side i assume with with that team because they did outperform their expected win loss and it made it look a little better than it was but also helped matt lafleur establish himself as the packers coach and belief in his system and everything else, which may also be the case. I mean, you definitely see a Kirk Cousins outside of the playing field appearing more comfortable, press conferences, on the sideline talking with his head coach. It's just that on the field, he's never seemed less comfortable

with what they're doing. And if that doesn't change, you're going to end up being pretty mediocre and not really going anywhere. So how they adapt and if they can get in that groove, like the Packers did in 2019, we'll make a difference. The Packers also in 2019 at the ninth best defense in the league in terms of points against,

I don't know if the Vikings pull that off with some of the upcoming opponents, but it's a, it's an interesting comparison. It is because it kind of started off with that like, oh, this team won 10 to 3 on opening day. Like, are they really good? I don't know. And then they kind of got better as they went along. But we're not really a Super Bowl caliber team despite 13 wins.

All right. Next question comes from Shane says, after six games, Kirk Cousins has zero 300-yard passing games. I don't think that's correct. I think he did throw for over 300 against Chicago. Is that right? Let me check. I think he did clear 300 for one of these games. Let me make sure, though.

Before I well actually you, I want to make sure you got it right. I just thought he did have 300 for one of the games. man no you're right you are right oh you know what they had over 300 yard passing as a team but justin jefferson got them over 300 so you are right so as a team they have one 300 yard passing game kousins only had 296. Okay. Not the point. Not the point. But you're right, Shane. Let's see.

Delvin has zero 100-yard rushing games. Cause for concern or who cares, the team is 5-1. Other random stat, Delvin has not carried the ball more than 20 times in any game this season. In your opinion, is that by design to save wear and tear or just the way the games have played out? I think it's more the way the games have played out that they haven't had a consistently excellent running game because when you do you want to keep going back to it you want to keep just pushing and pushing and force the other team to show they can stop you and they really haven't done that there has not been a consistent game where top to bottom running they were very good they've had small sections of games but not that like games of the past of delvin cook where it was six seven twelve fourteen five seven

it's been much more like zero zero oh fourteen zero zero fifty three uh it's been the famine famine feasts much more um so I think that's played into him not having quite as many carries overall. There's no real reason to be concerned that Kirk Cousins hasn't thrown for over 300 yards. Here's where I would be concerned. He has only had a quarterback rating over a hundred twice this season. And in one of those games uh it was against miami where he threw for 175 yards and and quarterback rating is not a great statistic there's no question about it but uh usually kirk does have better numbers than this and you have to wonder like when those are going to show up now usually they do with him usually right around the corner. And man,

if he's hitting his stride at the biggest time of the year, which is coming up, not necessarily the next two weeks, but after that, well then, you know, if the hot version of Kirk cousins, and I mean his performance is, uh, around the corner, as it's been always hot and cold with him, then, I mean, that's the best case scenario to go five and one with the bad version but as far as the thing that is also concerning it's not just his rating but also his pff grades and this stat which is very unusual for him he has more turnover worthy throws than big time plays and that ratio the only other times in his career, it has happened, but 2015, his first year starting, and 2017, his worst year starting, were the only time those numbers were really close.

Last year it was 30-18. So there have not been a lot of big-time throws from Cousins, and I think your eyes would match up with that. 6.6 yards per pass attempt, which is in Daniel Jones' territory. That's not very good like there are concerning numbers about what he's done so far i don't think 300 yard passing games is one of them but i think on paper that this was not the expectation of how they would start and what it really depends on is how do they make the adjustments or make the adjustments to the idea that Kirk might not be quite as strong as he was even a year ago? I mean, Matt Ryan fell off the edge of the earth.

Russell Wilson fell off the edge of the earth. And Cousins has not looked like that. He hasn't looked lost and he's not getting sacked or throwing interceptions all the time like Matt Ryan. But if there's even a little less confidence in the fastball, it might result in more of the short throws, which may just require an adaptation to run more quick slants, more underneath stuff, more of those tunnel or bubble screens that they've used to, to get a little more creative in the short game,

as opposed to trying to run double moves with Justin Jefferson all the time, because it just seems like very few of those have really hit for him so far. So there's definitely things that are concerning with the statistics and which direction it goes is, is really going to be the difference. Their defense, I don't think is getting way stronger than it is now. And so it all really depends.

Can you be a better version of what you've been so far offensively, which connects to, of course, getting more out of the quarterback? And if you can, then the Super Bowl contention we talked about, putting yourself in that situation, is possible. If not, if it's just this week after week after week, where Cousins has a 70 quarterback rating. I'm sorry, 70 PFF grade and an 85 quarterback rating and averages six yards a pass. Like that's not going to get you all that far.

And that's the biggest yet to be determined for the rest of the season. All right. One or two more here. This from at robin derp on twitter it seems to be that our coverage issues are more about the slot corner and linebackers who are bottom 10 percent in pff coverage grades than the outside corners who are both in the top 30 or 40 percent do you think we'll see more of brian asamoah and Troy Dye and three safety looks after the bye? No.

On two of those things, and yes, on one of those things. I do think we're going to see more of Brian Asamoah, that they're going to start working him in more and more often as we go along. And I think that the coverage from the linebackers both has been concerning. Even Eric Hendricks, who has been actually really close on a few plays to getting a deflection or something like that that has resulted in a completion but still like that's the the minuscule difference between being good at one time and being great and the other part that's very hard on the linebackers is that when you create the shell, there's so much space in that bubble. Like if you play everybody uptight, right?

So you play the nickel in the slot right up man to man with this guy and the outside corners like that. That really tightens up how much space there is to work in the middle of the field. And I think that was always Zimmer's feeling, is it would make it easier on the linebackers if you had everybody uptight and then you played your safeties over the top and did a lot of creative things with Harrison Smith. They now are creating this big bubble which leaves space in the middle, and that's where most of the completions have come.

And when you're asking Shandon Sullivan to play in space and you're asking Jordan Hicks to play in space, and you're asking Jordan Hicks to play in space, and even this year it's not been great for Kendricks, that's just difficult. That's just, I think, tough for anybody to do. And it really shows you about something like the PFF grades, where context really matters. Where circumstances, your situation, how you're used,

who you're playing against, the scheme that you're playing. It makes a big difference. That's why you can see a player who has really good PFF grades and somebody pays them a lot of money and they'll tell you, oh no, it was our own grading system. But look, I mean, they're doing similar grading to PFF. If it's not your player, you don't know the plays either, right? So if they're watching and grading and everything else and, oh, this player graded great, but then he goes to this other team and doesn't play as well. Well, what happened? Was the guy a bust?

Did he get lazy? Whatever. Sometimes it's just that it's a different scheme or a situation that doesn't fit as well. And the performance is different. That's never been more true than with Jordan Hicks, who's been great at times and not great at times in his career. But to your question, the three safety thing is probably out the window with Lewis seen injured.

Maybe Metellus gets on the field. I suppose that's possible. We haven't seen any of that three safety stuff, though. I think that every team tells reporters in training camp, we're doing three safeties, so other teams have to think about them doing three safeties. I have seen it in games. It's just that not a lot of teams are actually doing it. Um, but Asamoah might be an option to see more of not Troy die. I don't think we're going to see much of Troy die. Um, okay. So this one comes from Chuck by email, little fans,

only question for you have a theory about the injuries and curious to know oh this is this is my guy this is chuck aoki hopefully he's listening hopefully he's made it this far into the podcast chuck is a three-time medalist in fact paralympian and a great guy a big uh purple insider fan and a great follow on Twitter. Follow him at Aoki5Chuck. Follow his journey there. It's quite impressive. So anyway, that's too much praising of Chuck. Let's move on to his actual question. Okay. Have a theory for you about injuries and curious to know what you think. Could one of the secondary benefits of less defensive emphasis on stopping the run be fewer injuries my thinking

is that stacking boxes to stop running plays might lead to more injuries for defensive players as you have more people in a smaller amount of space leading to more collisions piles of people i started thinking about this with the rams having such good injury luck and while maybe most of it is luck and randomness and strategic decisions throughout the year, they do run the Fangio scheme. There might be something to that, Chuck. I don't know for sure. I mean, what you're saying stands to reason that if you're loading the box and you're smashing into people and everything else, that there's a distinct possibility somebody

falls on your ankle or something like that. And I mean, playing like a super aggressive form of defense probably does result in injuries. Now I think of this actually for the secondary more, if you are playing man to man with your receiver, very physical up on that guy, every single play that you are getting banged up more than if you are playing way off of him and reacting and

then tackling as opposed to constantly smashing into that guy jabbing him with your hands and fingers running you know step for step and those things with him that there's a lot more chance of hurting a hamstring turning an ankle that there might be something to that i don't know if it really exists with stopping the run because you have guys running downhill into that same pile. And you would think that that could hurt them as well, but maybe for the secondary and the Vikings seem to always have this with Xavier Rhodes,

Trey Waynes, where it seemed like they were banged up a lot, uh, 2020, the corners were banged up a ton. It's probably more random than anything but there might be something to keeping the secondary healthy with the way that they play i don't know and maybe i'll ask somebody that to see if they have a thought if there if there's some correlation

to a style of play that can be less injury prone. Cause I was thinking about San Francisco and how San Francisco plays the super aggressive load, the box go after everybody. And they do seem to have injuries all the time. So I don't know what exactly the connection there is, but, um, good question. And, uh, I appreciate you, Chuck, big, big, uh, supporter from day one. Thanks very much for that. All right, let's see here. This last one comes from Jason via email. Is this one of the most perplexing teams that you've had to cover in your time in Minnesota? They're 5-1 but look so bad in doing so.

As a fan, I've struggled with what to think of this team. They can't keep winning like this. Correct. Perplexing might not be the right way. I would put it, but I think your statement is right. Your statement is correct. They cannot keep playing this way and expect to be a real competitive team.

That is a fact. You cannot have the 26th best offense or whatever it is now after Sunday in yardage. You cannot have the 14th best scoring or whatever it is now per game after Sunday. You cannot be this mediocre on offensive defense and really compete. You just can't, you can make the playoffs, but you can't really compete doing this. So that's right. You can keep winning like this for a season, but you can't be a real team that has an actual chance to go all the way by being middling. You gotta be great at something if you're going to do that. So I do think that's right, but I think that I know what

this team is. What I don't know is what this coach entirely can do. And I'm really interested to see that. I know all these players, like it's not really perplexing because i mean all of these players i've mostly covered a huge chunk of their careers and i'm really certain about what they can do but some of them aren't doing it as well as they have in the past one of them be cousins adam thielen kj osborne irv smith like all of those guys and then on the defensive side can you use harrison smith a little bit more aggressively is is probably a big question here can you get daniel hunter going like there's opportunities and so whether they can maximize those opportunities or not i don't now that i do not know and i'm very interested to find out what would be the most perplexing team that I've covered since I've been here? What year would be the most perplexing? Would it be 2019? I think, I think maybe 2018 because it was shocking that

they missed the playoffs. I mean, it really was look at the roster, look at all the players they brought back, look at the talent they had to miss the playoffs that you know what that was it it has to be 2018 because they played a buffalo team that i know they had josh allen but he was not this version of josh allen buffalo had been destroyed the first few weeks of the season and they completely no-showed i mean they were losing the game and i thought, no, they should still come back against this team and just no showed. And then what? It was the next week they scored 31 against the Rams in one of the most impressive offensive performances of the entire time.

Kirk Cousins has been here like that team on any given week could look phenomenal and then look totally lost. I mean, that was a very strange year. I mean, they got a tie. That was weird enough. But the fact that they could not get it together was really so confusing. And certainly the quarterback plays into it. The offensive line played into it.

The offensive coordinator played into it. The head coach for sure. Delvin Cook's constant injuries that year. He was very rarely a hundred percent and he was the engine of their offense still at that time or should have been, but John D Filippo didn't want him to be. And so all those things likely played into why they didn't make that work. But at the time it was just like, what is going on? And you know, that even goes into the end of that season where they beat the tar out

of, I think Miami and then Detroit, they won pretty handily. And we were like, oh, okay. Kevin Stefanski's got it all figured out. They come back home against the Chicago team that didn't even really need to try and just no showed and were yelling at each other on the sideline is like, I don't get what happened here. I watched every minute of it and I still kind of can't believe they couldn't even make the postseason with that roster, with so many of the players who had come back from the

year before. So that was the most perplexing. This one, I think I have a good sense for what they can do but will they be able to do it in a more consistent way to get to a next level that's my question so but hey look it's the vikings they can always surprise and that is why it's so interesting to cover them another phenomenal episode i still have more questions in the queue and I am sorry for that. So there will be more to come from the fans only realm. I promise. But I have tried to work my way through many of your questions and I appreciate all of you taking the time to send them

a purple insider.com, the website, go there, contact us questions, go right to me or send me a DM at Matthew collar on Twitter. And, um, it's been, it's been a while since I've talked for almost two hours in a day. Normally I'm like a one hour guy. I used to be on the air for two hours, at least every day, but usually three. And, uh, and I I've just fallen out of shape. I feel like I'm going horse a little bit here. So I know it's tough world out there for me. Just kidding. Thank you all for your questions and we will talk soon. Be a fun week.