Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Kirk Cousins different this year? (A Fan's Only pod)

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Viking fan questions, from whether the Cousins debates are similar to the Vikings' team strength debates to whether Cousins is different this year, whether Cam Dantzler will play over Duke Shelley and if the Packers deserve to be favored. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here as always, and this is a fans-only episode. But first, we'll just take a quick look at what's going on. Vikings Packers with the injury report. Garrett Bradbury, James Lynch are the only ones that are out. Ezra Cleveland, who was on the injury report this week with a shoulder injury did participate fully in practice on Friday so he is going to play

and I have a question later about Cam Dantzler so we'll talk about that but he practiced in full all week with his ankle injury so that will be interesting to see how they handle it and on the Packers side Christian Watson did not practice on Wednesday and Thursday but he was limited in Friday and that makes you wonder is he going to have a chance to play or not because usually if a guy does not practice in full at all in an entire week that the chances are not great of him playing and that is a massive factor for this game because you look at some of the receivers who have had good days against the Vikings, including a couple guys last week that maybe you hadn't heard of before Vikings and Giants. I mean, if you take

Christian Watson off the field, then you're looking around and what, Alan Lazard, like, are you scared of anyone that Aaron Rodgers could throw the ball to but Watson has proven to be a big play wide receiver if he's slowed a little bit maybe that helps the Vikings if he's not playing though total game changer so that will be one of those things we're watching for right before game time with Vikings and Packers and could I'm not trying to be over dramatic but really could determine how the Vikings defense plays in this game, whether they have to face an up and coming super fast wide receiver or if it's just kind of a bunch of guys. not on the injury report at all. So I assume that he's going to start at left tackle and that battle between Z'Darrius Smith and David Bakhtiari. I mean, you guys saw it for many years with Everson Griffin and Bakhtiari going at it.

And the organization of their offensive line now will probably have to shift around. But that could be a very good break for the Packers to have their star left tackle, who has not played a whole lot in the last few years but when he did was one of the truly elite players at his position so that kind of sets the stage a little bit for where we're at with the rosters and we can get into your questions so we'll start with Luke here says fans only question is the debate over whether the Vikings are actually good this year, similar to the Kirk Cousins debates over his career. There are some stats that make Cousins

look like an elite quarterback and others look pretty bad, but using the eye test, we know he is a good and not great quarterback. Similarly, the Vikings record is quite good this year, but there are other stats that are very concerning. After watching the season unfold, it feels like the team is almost the mirror image of the Kirk Cousins conversations that have happened over the years. Yeah, that's a really interesting observation. And I think just like with this, the discussion over the team, the discussion over Kirk Cousins was always blown up on both sides of it, where you would have super freak fans that thought that he could do absolutely nothing wrong. And you would also have people who every time he did something well, would not give

him any credit for it or would say, you know, it doesn't matter or whatever else. And, you know, I think that when we looked at cousins from so many different angles over the years, which we've had a lot of time to do this, I mean, you really find a very nuanced type of thing about what it takes to win in the NFL for a quarterback, right? And so before the season, I wrote an article about ranking quarterbacks and how we always kind of do it wrong, where we rank them usually based on just what we think of their talent and then what they most recently did is those two things. So, you know, a lot of times you'd see quarterbacks that weren't at the top fluctuating from year to year. Well, this year, Eli Manning is the eighth best quarterback, but the next year he's the 16th, even though nothing really changed. But maybe he didn't have a great season the year before. When I always look at it as if you're ranking quarterbacks going into a season, maybe you

should rank them for who has the best chance to have a good year this year. I mean, Jalen Hurts, I have a ton of respect for Jalen Hurts' talent. I think he's very, very good. I bet if you go back and look at the quarterback rankings, he would have been ranked as maybe the 20th best quarterback by a lot of people going into the season because recently, the year before, he was so-so and he had a bad playoff game against Tampa Bay. So that's stuck in people's minds. And then they thought, well, this guy can't really throw the ball that effectively because that was some of the criticism of him coming out of the draft and therefore 20th best quarterback in the league. But if you looked at his circumstances plus talent

plus the possibility of development, but especially circumstances plus talent, they have an elite offensive line. They acquired A.J. Brown. They clearly had a good coach who got a lot out of him the year before a good running game good running back miles sanders who could catch the ball out of the backfield and his running ability that goes along with this that kind of raises the floor of a quarterback's play that you see a lot of times even if a quarterback is not perfect at throwing the ball their ability to run can kind of even the playing field a little bit so So add all those things together. Would you have said that he'd be in the MVP discussion? Like maybe not, but could you have ranked him as a top

five performing quarterback for the following season based on the fact that he was surrounded by such excellence with that team? Like, absolutely. And you know, the thing with Kirk Cousins where you might say like, okay, well, he is the 14th most talented quarterback or the 10th most talented quarterback. But how can those things be pushed one way or another by what's around him is always been sort of the discussion. And then that connected to the contract, which has always restricted this team and the amount of things they could do. A good example just would be like some of their depth on defense or, you know, getting a right guard in free agency, which maybe would have been a better idea than playing a rookie and things like that, where Philadelphia was able to more stack their roster with a huge move to get AJ Brown and the Vikings are not able to do something like that.

But the Vikings have even that playing field even more. And I'm going down this rabbit hole, I guess, for somewhat of a reason here. But they've evened that playing field by having a $20 to $30 million wide receiver and a $20 million left tackle who are both on rookie contracts, which is what has to happen around a superstar quarterback who's expensive. And we saw this from Drew Brees when they drafted Michael Thomas and Marshawn Lattimore, Alvin Kamara. They had these superstar players, Ryan Ramchick, who were on rookie deals.

And of course, Brees kind of got out of town and retired before some of those things blew up in New Orleans face. And they, you know, they circumvented the cap similarly to the way a lot of other teams do, but that was one of the reasons Breeze had a couple of average seasons. And then they hit on those guys with rookie contracts. They were still able to spend some money around his contract and so forth. So it's very, it's very complicated, right? To look at Kirk Cousins and whether he can have a 12-win season. And I think the idea always was they would need a lot of things to go right. And when we started adding up those things that they would need to go right, we said, well, Z'Darrius Smith

and Daniil Hunter both have to be healthy and amazing. Well, they have been. Patrick Peterson has to have a great year into his 30s. He has. The offensive mind that they're hiring, Kevin O'Connell, cannot turn out to be Nate Hackett. He has to turn out to be some sort of version of McVay. And I don't know if it's quite there to that level, but he's certainly put out a successful offense this year on the whole, even if some of the statistics are, you know, more toward mediocre average, still at the end of the day, you're in the top 10 as far as your scoring production. And that's where you needed it to be in order for this to be a good team. So the discussion about cousins is very similar to the discussion about the team was it was all surrounding. What

does it take to win when they made their decisions to get Zedaria Smith to bring back Patrick Peterson the the logic in questioning that was always just like with Cousins how much needs to happen and how likely is that and this has been one of the most unlikely seasons ever with a team the way that they've won all the one score games and everything else which I think some people get offended by like oh what, what do you mean? Like we didn't earn it. No, I mean, that's not what it means. It doesn't mean you didn't win those games. It doesn't mean you didn't win that, that the giants game with the final field goal or the Buffalo game with the interception at the end or anything like that. It means that it's crazy. Of course, I guess because it had to be. And it also makes you wonder, can it continue?

Which is the same thing with Kirk Cousins, where you always wonder with his skill set, with the strengths and weaknesses, is it going to be enough to take you all the way to the Super Bowl? That's the question with this team. That's the question with Cousins. And until Matt Stafford threw the final touchdown pass to Cooper Cup and Aaron Donald got that sack, I don't know that I believed that Matt Stafford could win a Super Bowl.

And when some of you asked in the offseason, hey, can this be like Stafford last year? I always kind of went, like, I don't know. I mean, that's a pretty unique situation to have dropped into that team and had that happen and they were the four seed dropped into that team and had that happen. And they were the four seed. And that's usually not that likely. But I mean, that's football for you, right?

So I think that if you look at it the way that Vegas does, the Vikings are fourth in terms of their odds to reach the Super Bowl in the NFC. I think we all think that's fair. And if you started looking at Cousins and said that he is a top 10 to top 14 quarterback who can win you a lot of games under the right circumstances, I think that's fair too. And so anything outside of that discussion is probably just looking for attention or being like way too aggressive about it, you know, calling them frauds or saying that Cousins is terrible

or that Cousins is unbelievable. Like all those things, you know, every year we get the, he's going to win the MVP. Like, no, probably not. It's not going to win the MVP. That's going to be Mahomes or Allen. But that doesn't mean that just like with this team, it doesn't mean that they're garbage to say

that these things have gone right for them. And't mean that they're garbage to say that these things have gone right for them. Uh, and also that maybe they're not as strong on paper as other teams. Um, so I think that a lot of times it is the inkblot test where people sort of hear what they want to hear or see what they want to see. Um, it's like, if you bring up that some things were random for the way that they won, you get a lot of, oh, like how dare you? You're being negative. Like, no, it's just a fact. Like you watch the games, right?

I mean, we all watch the games. That doesn't mean they can't win because football is weird like that sometimes. It's not like basketball. It's not like college football where the basketball, you have so many plays that randomness is kind of taken out of it. It's who plays better. And college football, one team is usually just way stronger than everyone else. But in the NFL, I mean, the Houston Texans could beat you any week. So, you know, that's just the gap is so small,

and the margins are so small that you don't know if, I mean, the fourth team going into, the fourth strongest team by the Vegas odds going into the Super Bowl or the playoffs means you have a pretty good chance at the Super Bowl. Does it mean you have an amazing chance? No. Just like, does it mean that Kirk Cousins is the best quarterback in the world that he won eight comeback games? No, but it certainly doesn't happen to bad quarterbacks that they have eight

game winning drives. So yeah, it's, it's a nuanced discussion and it gets pretty wild, but it wouldn't be the NFL. If it wasn't like that, it wouldn't be this popular and, and people wouldn't be this intense about it. And it wouldn't have so many podcasts and TV programs and everything else if it wasn't the most debatable sports. And if people did not get this deep into it, like they have with this. So, you know, I, I tend to think with this whole discussion about the point differential and everything else, you know, we're, we're just, once you make the playoffs and then you're waiting around to see what happens, people get kind of bored and then they just got to find like everything to debate. It's kind of like July in football, early July. What can we debate? How can we yell at each other? What ridiculous prediction can we make? Same thing just before the draft. When everyone's given all their takes, we've looked at every scouting report we can look at and it's like, we just need this thing to happen. We just need the playoffs to happen. All right, next question. With San Francisco having a virtual lock

of winning their last two games and Minnesota conceivably losing one of their final two, it's not a huge stretch to see the Vikings in the playoffs as the number three seed. How does that shape their playoff path versus potential matchups being the number two seed? Yeah, I mean, San Francisco, Hey, you want to talk about getting a good break for San Francisco and you know, they've lost two quarterbacks,

so they've had a tough, and that's why, uh, by the way, I would, you know, Kevin O'Connell is deserving of coach of the year, the way that his team has played, but I would probably give it to Kyle Shanahan when you lose two quarterbacks and you still have a chance to be the number two seed, it's pretty incredible. Um, but yeah, San Francisco is going to face Jared Stidham and David Blau in their final two games. So, you know, crazier things have happened, but they should win those games. Um, so if they go to an O and the Vikings lose one of these last two and do not count out Chicago, it's a bad team, but it's soldier field and you absolutely never know what could happen there. So if the Vikings do lose one of these two games and they end up with the number three seed, that means it's very, very likely that

they'll end up playing the New York giants at home. And I don't think that's a terrible matchup for the Vikings. I mean, they played them close. I thought it's a terrible matchup for the Vikings. They played them close. I thought it was a mostly even game between the Vikings and Giants. They had a fumble and an interception that cost them. They moved the ball quite a bit. They did cause the Vikings some problems with their interior pass rush because they have some beasts there. But they're also not a great pass defense.

They're probably a mediocre pass defense. They're probably a mediocre pass defense. They're not a scary passing game, generally speaking. With Daniel Jones, I thought he played probably in the 95th percentile of the way that Daniel Jones can play. And the Vikings defense then got an entire look at Daniel Jones for that game and can game plan against him maybe a little better next time. I would be a little concerned about Saquon Barkley and I think you know it's probably a fairly good matchup overall just as far as you know how the game quality would work out but I think the as far as would it be good for the Vikings to face the Giants out of all the teams you'd probably pick Washington first for which team you want to go against and then the Giants out of all the teams, you'd probably pick Washington first for which team you want to

go against. And then the Giants or Seattle second. So, you know, it's, that's probably who they end up with. If they get the two seed and they win these final two games, which is very plausible, they definitely could. Then you're talking about not the Packers because you'll have to win that game. So Seattle or Detroit or Washington. And what's weird with Washington is they're bringing back Carson Wentz. And I mean, is it scary that they're bringing back Carson Wentz? Of course not. But I do think he's a more talented quarterback than Taylor Heineke. And you saw it like Heineke was the one quarterback who looked awful against the Vikings this year. So that might be a little bit of a bad break that they're bringing back someone who's more

talented than Heineke. And Wentz has generally been a boomer bus player since his first year. So he's had really great games along the way. If you look at his indie last year, he had some really big games for them and then had some terrible games. And even at the beginning of Washington, it wasn't all just completely horrendous. So that would be like a weird matchup. And I do think that Washington's defense is quite good.

Seattle's the team that you want to face. Like Geno Smith is turning into a pumpkin. Their defense is horrible. Their running game isn't as good as it was before. Like, I think that Seattle's just a bad team that was kind of masquerading as a good team. The only thing that's scary about them is DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. I think that Seattle is just a bad team that was kind of masquerading as a good team. The only thing that's scary about them is DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.

That's a little scary for sure against the Vikings. But I don't think that Seattle is very good. If they come in here with their defense that's as poor as it is, I feel like the Vikings put up 400 yards passing on them and win that game. Folks, we had some friends over this holiday, and my wife and I cracked open some liquid deaths at 9 in the morning. And let me tell you, that drew some strange looks, but it was also delicious and refreshing. The liquid death mountain water and sparkling water comes in a Tallboy beer can,

and that'll have people asking some questions sometimes, but it's also saving the environment. Liquid death gives 10% of profits to bring an end to plastic bottles so every time you're drinking from the can you're doing a little bit of good in the world so go to liquiddeath.com slash insider to find out more or get liquid death at target hy-vee 7-eleven or whole foods again liquiddeath.com slash insider. Uh, Detroit's the one that, that is the most scary still. I know what Detroit did last week against Carolina having that complete meltdown, but Jared Goff has been in us bank stadium a

bunch of times. I don't think it intimidates him the same way as maybe another quarterback that it would. And they're just very, very familiar with the Vikings. The Vikings can clearly move the ball on them, can clearly score on them, but they know the Vikings defense really well. They know the personnel extremely well. I don't think you want to face a division team. So if they get the three, they'll probably face the Giants. I don't think that's a bad matchup for them at all. But if they get the two, it really is dependent because I think I'd rather go against the Giants than the Lions. Familiarity from playing one game versus playing them for years and now several games against Dan Campbell. And they've always done

well. I mean, Detroit has played every game well against the Vikings, even when they were horrible last year. It took a game-winning field goal in the first game, and then in the second game in Detroit they won, and then these last two have been super close. I think you'd rather play a very flawed, and probably if you're calling an NFC playoff team fraudulent, the Giants deserve that more than the Vikings.

So that's kind of how this ends up playing out. But if the Vikings do end up with the three seed, it really becomes about the second round and the collision course potentially with the San Francisco 49ers. And that's why more likely than not, they will play their starters and try to win against Chicago. Even if they get a win here against Green Bay, that they'll try to hold off the 49ers because of that potential second round where they're going to play. We've kind of been over that a little bit, but, you know, I think that as far as how I have viewed this about the playing starters, don't playing starters, that kind of thing, where it makes it

a very justifiable decision for me to play starters all the way through is you would so much rather have Brock Purdy have to come to your building. That if it was another team, I might say that the health is more important. Don't get guys banged up. Don't wear down your defense by chasing around Justin Fields all day or whatever. Don't have a random injury. But the idea that the second round could be that particular situation, plus how they've performed in San Francisco the last couple of

times they've gone out there, you know, it just has not gone very well. And it's the same coach who has seen these players and seen this team in that place. It's on grass versus being at your friendly, you know, turf confines. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think that there's a justification for that. If they were to sit some starters, if they were to sit Justin Jefferson, sit Kirk Cousins week 18 and just sort of leave it to fate and whatever. Again, I don't think that's going to happen based on the way Kevin O'Connell has talked. If they did that, I would defend it though, because you need a healthy Vikings team to go anywhere in the playoffs. Um, so, but that's

kind of, that's kind of how things play out though. If you end up with the number two seed, it still looks like you're ultimately going to face San Francisco, but there's always, there's always upset possibilities. And this is why you really don't want the Packers in the playoffs, because there's always upset possibilities. And, you know, you just, you don't want that team out. You don't want any chance to face them at any point, even though if they do get in, the chances of the Vikings facing them aren't very good. You still, you just don't want them around.

But there are, there's always upsets though. I mean, so if San Francisco were to get the number two and get upset by say, you know, Washington or Detroit, like what a crazy divisional round matchup that would be if the Vikings were playing Detroit at home in the divisional round. So yeah, I mean, interesting stuff with the way it could play out, but it kind of seems like it's going in that direction where they'll play the Giants if they end up with that number three seed and Washington, Seattle, or Detroit, if they're the two. All right, next question comes from MadMC45. Is Adam Thielen playing hurt, lost a step, sacrificing or overlooked because of JJ? What happens to him this offseason? I think that he has been playing

banged up all season long. Early in the year, there were a couple times where he was slow to get up, and Kevin O'Connell did mention somewhat of a knee thing, which is one of the reasons that I think they're going to limit some of his snap counts, and they're going to use more of Johnny Munt and the multiple tight ends and the bigger sets to get him off the field a little bit and have just K.J. Osborne and Justin Jefferson on the field, that they will implement that. And I also think that's really effective to get a look at, but they'll try to limit him a little bit down the stretch here.

And if there's one guy that maybe just should sit in Week 18 who's been playing through something, maybe it is him. Although if they're going to play all the other starters, he's not going to sit. But just, you know, limit the snap count a little bit. Play two-thirds of the snaps instead of all of them. That's one thing. The other thing is, yeah, I mean, sacrificing for Justin Jefferson, of course. I mean, look at the numbers Justin Jefferson has put up.

He is the preeminent wide receiver in the league. Is that the right predominant? Whatever it is, he's the best receiver in the NFL. Hands down. No question about it. You're going to throw in the ball. Like we knew when a Rams influenced offensive coordinator was hired to be the head coach that Justin Jefferson was going to be at the center of everything they did. Uh, I did not quite expect it to be at the center of everything they did. I did not quite expect it to go to the level of threatening the record because I thought they'd spread the ball out a little bit more, but there is no problem with that. I mean, that is a proven method for having a top-notch offense,

whether it was Aaron Rodgers and Devontae Adams, where Rodgers wins two MVPs, or if it's Joe Montana throwing to Jerry Rice. When you have an elite receiver who can't be stopped, Josh Allen throwing to Stephon Diggs, just keep throwing to that man and things will work out. But that leaves Adam Thielen as the clear number two quite a bit behind him. But I also think that's okay.

When you look at his numbers, and I was trying to figure out what Adam Thielen would have been worth for this season based on the numbers he's put up. And I looked at other receivers that are making 10 to $12 million. He's at a better season than a lot of them, than a lot of the guys, uh, this off season who made that much money or whose contracts were in that ballpark. So like maybe this year, his contract is a little too much for what he's gotten. But if you are to say that a number two wide receiver behind the best receiver in football ends up with 70 catches for 790 yards or something like that, like, is that a bad season for

a number two wide receiver in a very effective passing game? Like, of course not. So I think overall he's been effective. He just hasn't had any huge games. When you look at his stat lines, it's always six catches for 60 yards or five catches for 45 yards. But you know, those catches matter.

He hasn't been in the red zone catching touchdowns as much. So if you're a fantasy player, I think you look at him as having a pretty tough season, but where he fits in this offense has been, it's been good. I think he's been a good player for them. It's just that, you know, in the past, he was one of the elite receivers in the NFL in 2017, 2018, and he was banged up in 2019. But before that, and that's just not what someone is going to be in the latter half of their career, especially if they weren't running a 4-3 at their peak. That, yeah, I mean, a player is going to slow down a little bit and become a possession receiver.

It's very much like what Larry Fitzgerald was in Arizona. I looked at Fitzgerald's stats over his final couple of seasons, and they were similar, other than his last year, where he averaged like seven yards to catch, but they were similar to where he was averaging about 10 yards per reception. And, you know, he was a good contributor to the offense, but not like the Larry Fitzgerald, who was a hall of fame player that he was earlier in his career. As far as what happens to him is off season. I think what they'll do is restructure his deal. And I messed around with this a little bit that if they restructure his deal and they convert some money, he can have, I believe an around $11 million cap

hit. And, you know, maybe there's some total cap expert freaks that we'll talk to in the off season, like Brad Spielberger from PFF about the details of that and everything else. But that was just sort of me fiddling around. Um, that's what I came up with. If his cap hit is $11 million next year and he puts together the same season, that's, that's good. That's good. I do think it's probably time to add a receiver in the draft. Um, but, and they'll probably do that, but he could still be a very effective possession receiver for them. And I think that's what he's been all season long.

All right. This comes from at Hutchimal. Did KOC unlock a new Kirk or is Kirk just Kirk and he plays how he is coached? Yeah. I mean, I think that if, and you, I mean, we have, if you ask Kirk Cousins, are you different? Are you playing different football? What is different about you? Every time this question has come up, he said, there isn't really anything different about

me. And I heard Patrick Peterson say this to Kevin Seifert the other day. He was talking to him for an interview and I was just kind of standing near. So make sure you read Kevin's article that will soon be coming out on Kirk cousins, but you know, just, he was talking with him about how, like, he really isn't different than he was last year, the year before 2019. Um, I think that they have leaned into him as we, you know, mentioned so many times on this show. Like I always wondered like, what would it happen if someone leaned into the passing game and just threw it to Justin Jefferson all the time? And here's your answer here.

We have gotten that answer. The answer is it's a roller coaster where some games you're like, what is going on? And other games or other times during games, you're like, they cannot be stopped. And that's always been who Kirk Cousins is. But the thing is that they have hit the high point of the roller coaster at so many big moments this year. And I think it would be foolish to ignore the element of confidence and belief. Kirk Cousins, I mean, and this always happens when you're winning, but talking at the podium each week, talking after games each week is a much less defensive version of Kirk Cousins, a much less guarded version that we've gotten this year in terms of talking with him.

And, you know, you could really see the tension last year and every year almost with Mike Zimmer because everybody knew where Mike Zimmer stood with Kirk Cousins. And I know there were times where Zimmer defended him and said, you know, hey, like, we believe in Kirk and so forth. But there weren't too many times where he said that. It seemed like he was always just waiting for the other shoe to drop with Cousins, even when he would have good games. And whenever he would make mistakes, you know, there would be a subtle way of bringing it up or mentioning it or whatever else. So, you know, I think that having a coach that you can communicate with, having a coach that really by design has everything around that number one wide receiver, as opposed to kind of the run

first and play action and let's kind of protect the quarterback and build walls around the quarterback instead of just, hey, like put him in command of everything, which is why, you know, Justin Jefferson was talking about the other day, just how much Kirk Cousins has had to put on his shoulders this year. And a lot of times I think that has resulted in some of the numbers not being as good

and some of the inconsistency of the offense is based on that, but also the high points are also based on that. And that was always the thing, right? Like if you're talking about a roller coaster, when it hits its high points, it's really, really good, and that's how it's been this year. So I think that it's like two different philosophies and then also confidence, belief, the team galvanizing around him, allowing him to take

more of a leadership role and feel like every time he's got the ball at the end of a game, I can do this. Not, Hey, no, no one thinks that I could do this, but I really think that when a quarterback can go to the sideline and talk to his head coach and his head coach can say, here's what we're seeing. Here's what we need to do. Here's our plan. Be ready for it. The more prepared Kirk Cousins is, the better he is. And I just think that there's something to that connection of a former quarterback who's the head coach. It's not just, hey, you know, Cousins is off on the other side with the offensive coordinator who, you know, look, it was Clint Kubiak, who is probably a fine football

mind, but was very inexperienced, was not in command. He wasn't the one in charge. It was Mike Zimmer who was always in charge. I don't think that you could say that meant nothing. I think that has been meaningful. I don't think he's playing differently. He didn't all of a sudden outside of that one run that was amazing, he didn't become Kirk Vick. He hasn't done crazy things off schedule or anything like that. He's taken a lot of sacks like he did the last time that they kind of put everything on his plate in 2018. But he's gotten the ball to his number one receiver, which he's always been incredibly good at. If you look at the performance of his top receivers over the years, he's been very accurate. Um, he is that one play at a time thing, I think has

always been good for him that, you know, there are lots of other games where they were down a lot of points and he just sort of took it one play at a time and gave them a chance at the end and it didn't work out, but he gave them a chance, uh year, it just has. He's gotten that one more pass or the one more play. So, yeah, I mean, I really, I truly do not believe that someone at his age just flips any sort of switch. But how you handle him, what's around him, the circumstances, the situations, and then that confidence and belief. Like, I think that's all played in to this and how he's performed so far this season. And I think that the rollercoaster element is why on paper, it looks like his worst season, even though I think that his best moments have been extremely,

extremely good because the down moments have been when you have some of those games that he just didn't perform well at all. And also, you know, there's another part of it too, that the previous offense, and this is just looking at the statistics, it really wanted him to hit on big plays and be super efficient. So when they were throwing the ball, it was trying to go down the field and making big plays. And this offense just asked him to throw a lot more. So you're going to get a lot more short passes and seven yards per attempt versus, you know, maybe eight and a half yards per attempt. But you know who else went through this was Matthew Stafford, where I remember when they

hired one of the offensive coordinators, the whole idea was they were going to have him throw a lot of quick passes to Golden Tate. And all of a sudden his average depth of target and stuff, it it all went way down even though he had the best arm right so it's like all these things play into how someone performs overall even if they're not different if that makes sense uh all right last question here this comes from at sm mccall of five with dancler looking like he might return and Shelly earning his snaps. Does it appear we might get more of a cornerback rotation? If so, do these rotations start to give away tendencies that the other team can key off? Um, I mean, I don't think that it

gives up any tendencies of theirs that opponents can key off. I mean, these teams, they have so much data and so much film, any tendency the other team is going to know already. I don't think that you're going to give them more information by rotating corners, but I also don't think there's any point in rotating the corners. I just think that Duke Shelley is a better fit with this defense, which is so weird to say because earlier this year, it seemed like Cam Dantzler was starting to come along and he had a couple of good games that game he played against new orleans was extremely good had a couple of big plays there but i think we've seen just too many coverage busts too

much too much confusion and maybe he's just not the best fit for being this like play way off play in in deep zones and things like that, where, what I see from Duke Shelley is this decisiveness where, I mean, he just reads routes well, but then explodes toward the ball. Like he has this incredible quickness to make plays on the ball or to lay some big hits right after the receiver makes the catch to make a tackle. So there's no yards after catch. He just seems to be a good fit for this defense. And it was unexpected. I mean, he came in the first week of the season as just a depth guy that we never thought twice about. And, you know, we've talked about this with Kyrus Tonga, who plays a lot and I'm working on a piece about Tonga, just about, you know,

his really interesting background story and stuff. And, you know, Duke Shelley's kind of been well chronicled since he got here and has started to make plays that he was a guy that was told to go play D3 when he was in high school because they just thought he was going to be too small. And here he is. But look, if there's any fan base that understands that the height of the corner shouldn't be anything. It's this one with Antoine Winfield and his history. So, you know, I just think that they have to go with the guy who's been playing well, and they have to go with the guy who is the best fit rather than this was our starter from day one. This is the former draft pick. And maybe Dantzler in terms of raw talent is more talented than Duke Shelley. And he certainly has that height advantage and the wingspan and all that. And he's a good, I think he's a good man-to-man corner.

So if he ends up somewhere else next year, you can look back and say, hey, like, you know, if he plays well, well, he wasn't a great fit for what they wanted to do, but he was a good fit for a man-to-man type of team. But yeah, I mean, I think you just have to play the better guy, though. And Dantzler has always frustrated his coaches. He frustrated Mike Zimmer. He's frustrated Ed Donatel and their coaching staff. So, you know, they haven't had that with Duke Shelley.

It's weird. But, you know, I always think, though, you need this to happen. In order to be a good team. You always need someone to show up that you didn't expect and have that guy play very well. Um, here's an example. When the Vikings started out 2017, we thought that Mackenzie Alexander was going to be the nickel corner and they moved Terrence Newman into the nickel. And of course we knew Terrence Newman was a good player, but that was one of the biggest questions. This guy had never played nickel corner ever before. It's a totally different position. How's he going to perform? And he was absolutely phenomenal in

that nickel corner position. And that that's what it takes. It often takes someone who's kind of unexpected to step up to the challenge. And even though their defense still struggles, I think you're more confident with Duke Shelley in that position. So anyway, uh, the last question I got, where is the name? Hold on. Was about the Packers and I'm going to scroll and just give me one second. And I'm okay. This from a TA at T A H M N 56 Vegas has green Bay favored. Do you agree? Uh, this is the first time I don't, this is the first time I don't, uh, when they went to Detroit, I understood it the way Detroit had been playing and the Vikings, you know, they just coming off of the game, they were coming off like, okay, I get it.

I get it. Um, but, uh, with, and the Dallas one, I understood as well. Like, yeah, Dallas doesn't have as good of a record, but that's not always a thing that really determines these things. So, um, but with this one, I think that a team winning a couple of games in a row, the way that the Packers did, and it's just been in kind of underwhelming fashion outside of their one really good game against Dallas, which still I think went to overtime. I look at it as the Vikings are a decidedly better team than the Packers, even on paper,

even expected win loss, things like that. They're a better team than the Packers. And the way that they match up is actually just really favorable in my mind. It is Lambeau. It is Rodgers. It is desperation for that team, which is probably playing into why the Packers are favored. But in my mind, it comes down to can the Packers really slow down this passing game? And when you look at Kirk Cousins history against

the Packers, he's just been very comfortable against them. A lot of times, uh, he played a really poor game, I think early 2019 against green Bay. And aside from that, I mean, the 2018, both games were phenomenal. Uh, he played a bet. Yeah. In 2019, he had two bad games against them and all the rest against Green Bay. I think he's played very well. So I think you have to have a good amount of trust in Cousins. He's been to Lambeau before he's, you know, he's, he's handled that environment and had good games there.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that this is one where maybe they're missing the mark, but I also saw that if you look at this came from somebody. I'm sorry. I just there's so many tweets that you see. I don't remember who I saw from that. There's more money on the Vikings than almost any other team as far as gambling goes this week. So even though the Vikings are underdogs, the gamblers are looking at it saying this is a really good one to pick because they believe more that the Vikings will cover and potentially beat Green Bay.

So yeah, that's one. But I don't know. Any single game. This is why those of you who bet on football, I'm sure know this, that no matter how much research you do, no matter how hard you try, it could still just come up and surprise you. And just sometimes you just never know how something's going to go. I mean, if we thought that football was predictable, and this is why I am not, I'm not judgy about gambling. I mean, it's a, it's really fun to talk about for what you bet on this team or that team. And as long as you're doing it in a responsible way, like good for you that, you know, that adds a lot of extra fun, I think to a season, but it's the reason that I wouldn't gamble on sports, especially football, because the Vikings got down 33 to the Colts and then

came back and won. I mean, if you had that one predicted you know, then you are football Nostradamus because I mean, it's just, it's so, so unpredictable from week to week. Who would have thought that Detroit would shut down Delvin cook and then give up 300 yards to two running backs that are just guys, you know? I mean, so it's a weird league. It's crazy sport. Um, and that's why, again, if you're calling a 12 win team frauds or something, it's like, well, you're kind of underestimating how crazy the sport is, you know? Right. Like could, could they win?

Of course they could. Um, so yeah, anyway, that's a little bit of a tangent there, but I will be there at Lambeau and I never take it for granted. Um, at any time when we get to go there for a game that means a lot. So it'll be, uh, interesting and we'll another show, of course, right after the game. So keep an eye out for that. And thanks for all the questions this week. We'll talk to you later.