Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kirk Cousins vs. Aaron Rodgers vs. Matt Stafford

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

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Finally, my expertise comes to the fore. Well, I'll say this, and this is all I really want to say about it because I'm not an epidemiologist either, and I don't know a whole lot about how Kirk Cousins' line of logic exactly works after even talking to him as a follow-up to his Kyle Brandt interview because I just couldn't quite put together the pieces of what he was trying to say, but he wears a mask even though he's not that personally afraid of COVID. So you all should do the same. There you go. If you're not that afraid of COVID, wear a mask anyway because it might impact someone else. That's what Cousins said and that's all I got for you. Other than not being surprised at all that Cousins would say something that could be misconstrued because this happens all the time. Last year, he broke down his rookie center's butt sweat for the media. Like that's something you do in the locker room, not in front of the entire media, because you know it's going to end up on ESPN, or at least most people do, not Kirk Cousins.

Yeah, the two silver linings, I guess, are one, at least he was saying at the end of it all, I still wear a mask because, you know, other one, at least he was saying at the end of it all, I still wear a mask because, you know, other people aren't as cavalier about it as I am. So fair play, right? If you're going to have that kind of opinion, at least recognize that it isn't all about you, which he did. The second silver lining is that Kirk Cousins basically used the same line as Ivan Drago did. And that's probably the only two times or the only time those two guys are ever going to be comparable in their entire lives. So it was worth it just to make, just to be able to be compared to Ivan Drago at any point in your life, that's worth doing. You know, that's a great point. And with Cousins, he has always struggled with this. I think he

always will struggle with this of how he phrases things, how he answers questions. And sometimes I think that his mouth works a little bit faster than his brain. And I found this even with press conferences that he's done with us, post-game press conferences. And I think it's just part of who he is that he struggles with this. And there are other people, you know, Aaron Rodgers did a two-hour interview the same way with Kyle Brandt. And there are other people, you know, Aaron Rodgers did a two hour interview the same way with Kyle Brandt. And Rodgers just handles those types of things so well and so calmly and just eases his way through them. And he'll make some headlines, but it won't even really matter. And with Cousins, I think part of it too is his reputation that everyone sees him as a little bit aloof and

things like that. So it just kind of confirms what they already think of Cousins, and then it blows up. So at the end of the day, he's wearing a mask. He's going through the protocols, and he's going to try to stay on the field. I shrug my shoulders at the rest. Now, the reason that you are on is because you wrote about Cousins, and you guys did a great preview on your podcast, Sam, about the NFC North, in which you said the Bears are obviously winning because they have the best quarterback situation. I'm just kidding, but you leaving the door open for that was questionable, Sam, for the Chicago Bears to

win the division. Yeah, and I was just listening to our colleagues on the forecast there, Eric and George, and they kind of made a similar point, which is if you put Matthew Stafford on the Bears, they would be by far the favorites for the division. Their problem has been quarterback. And I think, look, I'm not sold that Nick Foles is a dramatic upgrade over Trubisky, but I think the difference between the two of them

is that you're probably going to get good Nick Foles for a stretch. The baseline might not be much different, but good Nick Foles for a stretch, right? It might not, the baseline might not be much different, but good Nick Foles is incredible. Bad Nick Foles is abysmal, but you're already getting abysmal with Mitch Trubisky. So you might as well shoot for the upside and hope that you can ride the good Nick Foles for a period. Then the other thing I think that's worth noting about Foles is that, look,

he's all over the map in terms of what you're going to get out of him on a week-to-week performance, but he does have a pretty consistent track record of excelling within quarterback-friendly systems, right? So systems that have a track record of making life easier for their quarterbacks and generally making them look better than they are, Foles seems to be particularly susceptible to being manipulated by those offenses. I think fundamentally the Chicago Bears offense with Matt Nagy is that offense. Like they've had to dumb it down to try and rescue Trubisky and it hasn't

worked. In fact, if anything, I think it's compounded the problems and just meant that not only do you now have a bad quarterback, you have a bad system backing him up. But I think the basis of that system is still sound and could theoretically make Foles look a lot better than we traditionally expect him to look. So, yeah, I think if the Bears dramatically take a step forward at quarterback, they're going to be way better than we're anticipating them being because the roster is pretty good.

Yeah, and how many teams in bears history have come short of their uh talent for the whole roster just because they had some schmuck at quarterback i was just watching the other day uh one of the mid-90s nfl films recaps in which dave craig and eric kramer spit split the snaps i mean, just think about where you're at with old Dave Craig and Eric Kramer, and they had a bunch of other good players, like Curtis Conway was good, a bunch of good guys on defense, as they always have, and they went 7-9, and that's kind of where I would expect them. But I wanted to compare and contrast Aaron Rodgers, Kirk Cousins,

and Matt Stafford with you, Sam, because I love the question, which one of these three guys would you take for the next five years? Maybe we could start there, Stafford, Rodgers, or Cousins. So I've been, yeah, I've written about each one of these guys relatively recently. I've kind of been thinking more deeply about what they are as quarterbacks because of that. And I think it's kind of fascinating because, so Matthew Stafford, I think everyone's really high on him right now because the last thing we saw

from him was phenomenal, right? But last year, I think what we saw from him was unsustainable in terms of what we're going to see in 2020 and beyond. He had, for half a season, he had basically the highest average depth to target. If he sustained that for a whole season, it would be the highest average depth to target if he if he'd sustained that for a whole season it would be the highest figure we've ever seen at bff right so that's going to come down um but the other thing is not only was it incredibly high but

he was insanely productive while he was doing that it was like that 2015 carson palmer season in arizona where again he was right up there in terms of average at the target, and for some reason was just absurdly efficient doing that at the intermediate level. I don't know that we've ever seen that before, and Stafford was at that kind of level before he got hurt and got put on the shelf. So I don't think that either of those two things will end up in the same area as they were going forward. You sort of have to temper your expectation with Stafford a bit more to what you're used to seeing.

With Rodgers, the question is, well, look, Rodgers at his best is a transcendent Patrick Mahomes type of talent. That's how he was being talked about back in 2010, 11, 2014 even. But I think everyone accepts that guy isn't there anymore. But what is there what can you get out of the current Aaron Rodgers and why has he declined to the level he is because the physical tools are all still kind of there like he can still move around his arm is still insane like why is he not that guy anymore um I think honestly the reason he's he's just sort of developed

some bad habits and and got in a rut. And, you know, if you've been doing the same bad habit for five years, it's hard to just snap out of that and change. And the bad habits that he has were always a sort of element of his game. They were just – it didn't matter when he was playing as well as he was, right? He always had a tendency to take more sacks and offset interceptions with sacks and take some sort of hidden negative plays between sacks and throwaways. But when you were playing as well as he was at his best, it didn't matter.

It was just a feature of his play. But now you know that there's some missing meat on the bone, so now maybe it's an issue, right? It's, well, okay okay we're trying to find this missing um percentage of play from rogers well here's a here's a percentage we could get right it's those negative plays that he was making before um so i think really we're still left wondering with rogers how far back can towards his old self can he get and how much is his fault and then cousins the conversation is really interesting

because i've been sort of pondering the term intangibles recently right and intangibles i think in my head was this term that you know old football guys like them like the moneyball movie the scouts who were talking about bad face and that kind of thing it's a term that they would use right and it's not it's it's a it's a cop-out term for something that you can't really figure out how to measure. And I think there's some truth in that, but I think what it is is that it's possible to measure it. It's just you need to dive deeper and find the ways in which it manifests.

And between doing our Joe Montana versus Steve Young podcast and then diving into Kirk Cousins and Derek Carr as well, you watch Derek Carr and you watch Kirk Cousins and it's clear there's just something missing, right? There's something between them and being great quarterbacks, even when, like if you toss out week two, the Green Bay game last year, Kirk Cousins I think was our number one graded quarterback in the NFL.

Like he was playing as well as anybody for almost all of the season. But again, overall, when you look at him play, everyone knows. You still know there's something not there that is there with a Patrick Mahomes or a Russell Wilson or whatever it is. And when I started to dive into the numbers, you know, I don't have a clear grasp of what it is. But what I can tell you is that Kirk Cousins from a clean pocket when the situation is good, he's not under pressure, is probably as good as any quarterback in the NFL putting the ball where it needs to go. But the more disadvantageous you make the situation for him, the worse he plays.

So whether it's the fourth quarter where the pressure is building, whether it's third downs, whether it's play under pressure, you know, any of these things where it's a harder thing for the quarterback to play, he gets progressively worse step by step. And, you know, part of this, the stuff you were talking about, it's not inconsequential, this idea that he might be a phenomenal X's and O's brain. And you remember, I don't know if you saw this, but he did like an online only, I think, TV series with quarterback prospects,

and he was sort of walking these guys through X's and O's. And I was incredibly impressed by the processing that he had and the grasp of plays and you know he asked Kurt Benkert maybe was the guy and he asked this guy what's your favorite play in college and he draws it up on the whiteboard and he goes yeah you see that's what we call he named it in like two or three different offenses in the NFL that's what they call it in Washington then in Minnesota we call it this and then he starts coaching him through like you know in the college you're just viewing this guy.

But in the NFL, you have to look two guys further down the line because that's what's going to determine who's breaking on that football. So from an X's and O's standpoint, he's as good as anybody. But again, there's something missing, right? And I think there's a few different ways of mentally processing things. There's that football intelligence, but there's sort of there's a few different ways of mentally processing things there's there's that football intelligence but there's also something that I've never really understood how to articulate it but it's being able to just react really quickly without when things go against you without having to think about it make the right decision all the time and I relate it to soccer

a lot that there's guys that they always have time you know particularly in the middle of the field where guys are coming and pressuring them there are certain guys where it just doesn't make any difference they just know how to turn away from you how to make a little subtle movement and they're never really under pressure and there's other guys where when you pressure them they go to hell and it's they panic and they make bad decisions and it all goes south I think quarterback play involves a lot of whatever that type of brain is. And I think one of the biggest sort of missing or one of the most difficult things to evaluate in quarterback play is that it's very hard to quantify that.

And it's why, you know, they've tried with the Wonderlake, they try and get them up on the whiteboard. They try all these things to try and sort of simulate that thought process in quarterbacks. But ultimately, I don't know if you're ever able to figure it out until you throw them out on a field for 1,000 snaps and see how it pans out. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods.

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Code Purple Insider for free shipping. You know, I'll put it this way. It's kind of like students in school where you have the one student who does all the homework and works extremely hard and ends up with straight A's. That's Kirk Cousins. And then your other student can't really stick with the structure of school very well, but you put them in an art class and then they draw something brilliantly. Like I think there are different types of brains that people have.

Now maybe Patrick Mahomes is like the perfect, and that's when you have Joe Montana, Patrick Mahomes, Steve Young, is when those two things come together. But I think Kirk is missing creativity in his game. And so we do equate it to other things. And he's certainly not the best leader I've ever been around. But that's probably overstated in some ways. I think it really comes down to, do you have that creativity in you? Do you have the athleticism to be creative?

That's another part of it too, because I don't think that he generally does. If you're talking about like basketball players, there are some basketball players who on the fly can just, you know, no look pass or do a dribble move that you've never seen before or bend so close to the ground to dribble by somebody where you're mind blown. And a lot of that is creativity and athleticism coming together. I think he's short on that. He is very high on footwork, detail, X's and O's. But the other part of it too is when the other team throws him a coverage that he didn't

expect, and this happened in New England in 2018, he got this coverage from Belichick where he's like, uh, what do I do here? Everyone's walking around before the play. They're daring us to run and I don't know where the coverage is going you saw him kind of seize up a little bit and so I think that with the difference between Stafford Rogers and Cousins is the other two have an answer when the other team does what hurts them but Cousins does not have an answer so so that's the thing is I don't I get what you're saying about creativity,

but I think there's a, there's another element to as well. It's not just the ability to improvise and to get creative and to do something outside of the box. It's the ability to do it quickly on the fly when what you thought was going to happen is not happening. Or when suddenly there's a new variable that you weren't prepared for. I think one of the reasons that I'm kind of aware where I think about this more than a lot of people is I know for a fact I'm in the Kirk Cousins side of that bracket, right? From my very limited, modest sporting history,

I know full well that when things unfold the way I was expecting them to in my brain, I'm five times better than they did when suddenly stuff goes, something, a curveball is thrown at you and you have to adjust what you were expecting to happen on the fly. I know I'm bad times better than they did when suddenly stuff goes something curveball was thrown at you and you have to adjust what you were expecting to happen on the fly I know I'm bad at that but if if I don't have to go to that I'm a hell of a lot better and there I've seen people where the reverse is true right there are people that I know when you know when they get put in those pressure situations you can't even notice it doesn't phase them at all. But I think that's the thing that cousins is missing. It's really hard to identify where that shows up in numbers and in

situations and in statistics and all these kinds of things. But I think that's what we see when we look at the film and you go, there's just something missing for this guy. There's a reason, like even if his pff grade ranks him in the top five over a full 16 game slate we all know that that's not the guy you want in the super bowl in the fourth quarter when the pressure's on and i think that's what it is that we're seeing whereas with rogers we see in the past he does have that with stafford i think he

has it as well it's maybe a little bit less consistent, but then I think Stafford in general is a little bit less consistent, but definitely those two guys certainly have that. Well, I wanted to ask you about Stafford because we've talked on this show a lot about Aaron Rodgers because he is interesting and the biggest nemesis of the franchise for a long time. Stafford, I think that people just all kind of agree like, yeah, he's good, but he does have, now, you know, maybe analytics will hate this, but he does have a below 500 record during his career. He has done less winning in the playoffs than Kirk Cousins, but he sort of has more of a perception of a guy that should be a winner, I think, when people talk about him. And I wonder what you think that gap is. Like, is it entirely the Lions organization?

Because I could be sold on that. I mean, they are right down at the bottom with Jacksonville, Washington team name here, and, you know, I don't know, like the Jets. I mean, they are among the bottom franchises. But I wonder how many years of that same excuse we can give to Matt Stafford without acknowledging there are holes in the guy's game. Yeah, I don't think you can put it all down to the Lions, but I think it's definitely worth making the point that, hey, it's the Lions. You know, there's a reason that they are one of the

butts of the joke franchises. You know, you articulated them, the Browns, the Lions, these are the teams that people joke about, and that's for a reason. So Stafford has been working against that for most of his career. On the other hand, when you look at the tools that he has, right, if you were building a quarterback prospect in a lab, you know, Stafford would be right up there in terms of all the things you're looking for, a cannon for an arm. He's mobile enough to get things done when it breaks down. He's got everything you want, but for some reason,

he's never been able to put it all together and be the player that people expect him to be. And I think because you see flashes of it so consistently, it's easy for people to think that that's what he always is. So when we see really good Matthew Stafford, and that's part of the other thing is he's always had those games where he does put it all together and it's like, wow, this guy's amazing. If you catch enough of those, you could easily be convinced

that Matthew Stafford is a lot better than he is. But he's never been able to weed out that inconsistency from his game. It's just – it leaves me anyway frustrated because you look at him and you say, why are you not able to do this every week? Because it's not like you only get those games against the worst teams in the NFL. You know, there's no rhyme or reason as to which teams he decides to show up for and look like the player that we think he can be, but it just doesn't happen week in, week out. And so you're left with this idea of, you know, perpetually that this guy should be better than he is.

He should be a top five quarterback and he can be when we see stretches of it, but it just never lasts. And that's, that's kind of why, you know, there's a lot of people, the forecast guys are there in terms of the Lions are a really good value bet for the NFC North this year because Stafford was playing so well and there's enough around him that if he does pick up in 2020 the way he left off in 2019, the Lions are going to be hard to beat. And you're like, yeah, but I've been bitten so many times by this, expecting Stafford to continue,

and it always regresses back into something less than what you're thinking so I I'm until I see it I'm always going to take the default of yeah I mean it does rely on Stafford doing that and therefore it's probably not going to happen so I'm always trying to think of different ways to sort of categorize quarterbacks and then you know do a little mind experiment and see how it plays out and one thing I was thinking about actually watching some basketball is certain players give you a chance to go so far and give you like X percentage of games where they'll win for you. I think that quarterbacks are kind of that way. Like Patrick Mahomes in a season will give you 14 games that you can win and only two that maybe he doesn't play that well. And even then you might still win, right? Whereas Cousins, he'll probably give you 10 shots to win that many games.

And if everything else goes good, you play defense, you make your field goals, he doesn't get a fumble return for touchdown, you win 10. And I think of the same thing with Stafford. It's like he probably gives you 10 or 11 chances to win, but his team is usually trash, so they get seven or they get eight or they get six, right? And so a couple of years, he's given you 10 shots and they've gotten 10 wins and gone to the playoffs. But then there's usually on the other side, a guy who gives you 13 shots or 14 shots that you're not going to match up that well against or a great defense.

And I've always felt that both of those guys, Cousins and Stafford, what's different from Rodgers is if you have a great defense, you can stop them, whereas Rodgers, you might have a great defense and he'll beat you anyway. Yeah, I mean, there's almost two numbers to look at, right? There's how many games a season is the quarterback going to win on his own for you? Like how many games is that guy capable of taking the team on his shoulders

and balling out, and it almost doesn't matter what anybody else does. You're winning. And then the other question is, okay, and then how many games is he going to lose for you because he doesn't show up at all? Like what is his baseline? How many games are you going to win just because he's your quarterback and he's going to play at a sufficiently high level that you're probably going to

beat a lot of teams? So that's where I come. Like I don't know that the answer to the first question for a guy like Gardner Minshew, right? I don't know that he has a single win in him in terms of being able to carry a team when all else has gone to hell around him. On the other hand, I think he might get you to like five or six just by having a baseline high enough that you're going to be in all those games.

So like his first number would be, like, zero, but his second number would be pretty high, and he almost is like a tank-proof quarterback because I don't think his baseline is low enough that you're going to lose enough games to get the number one overall pick. Cousins would be like, you know, a Minshew

plus. His first number is probably not actually that high, but his second number, I think think is really high. Like he is going to – he's not going to be the reason that you lose, like what, 12, 13, 14 games? Like you're going to be in pretty much every game where Kirk Cousins is your quarterback. The question is going to be like how many can he win

when everything goes to hell around him? And I think you're talking about a low single-digit figure for him. And how good – I think of this too. How good would the team around you have to be in order for him to get to a Super Bowl is always a question too, because if you run into a team that's better, you're probably not going to win. And that's been the case really throughout his whole career. All right, so why don't you finish where we started? Because you didn't exactly answer the question.

Next five years rank them and you you know what throw in Trubisky slash Foles if you want to I'm not well Trubisky is last because like you know they're still playing this pretense that that's a quarterback competition if it is you might as well just pack up and go home this year because okay let me add this then throw in Jordan Love to this so rank them for the next five years and you get to throw in Jordan Love five years so I do think that we've reached this point of inevitable decline for Rodgers we might see a bounce back 2020 but his arrow is on the way down this might be a blip back up but it's it's heading backwards now his starting position was so high

that even heading that backwards he's pretty high right so ah next five years i i honestly might lean kurt cousins number one scary as that is um i think he might be the most dependent of all the quarterbacks in terms of supporting cast and situation um but i think if you give him those things he might have the highest baseline and a reasonably high ceiling so i think i would lean with cousins stafford for five years let's lean with rogers over stafford i don't i haven't seen enough in jordan love to believe that he's in the conversation to be in that discussion. I mean, he needs to, A, last, and, B, you know, get a shot to even be in the discussion. You're not going to – like those three guys in five years' time

are still going to be viable. We don't even know if Jordan Love is viable at any point in his NFL career yet. I think I would go Rodgers first, even if I know the last three years might be awful. Because he, if I give him the last three years might be awful because he, if I give him the right team could give me a shot. And I, and I don't think the Packers are any longer the right team for him.

So I mean, Rodgers this year, if I'm right in terms of this year as a bounce back for him and he shows like one last glimpse of why he was so special a few years ago, that on its own could be worth taking him to number one, right? Like Rodgers this year could be the quarterback that drags you to a Super Bowl, and I don't think you're ever going to see that from Cousins or Stafford.

Like, Stafford at least has the potential that maybe he could put it all together one year. Cousins, I don't even think in an ideal scenario, you know, if everything aligns, just has that in him. I don't think he's going to be a quarterback ever that drags a team to a Super Bowl that it doesn't deserve to be there anyway. And I don't think we're going to see – this is maybe a hot take. I'm not even sure we ever see Jordan Love start a game.

I think he might turn into Brian Brom part two for the Packers. So Sam Monson, always great. Your guys' podcast, you and Steve Palazzolo, terrific. And I highly advise people to go find your article on Kirk Cousins if you want a little excitement for the season or maybe to not read what he thinks about COVID. Those would be two things you could do. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's definitely a way to spend an afternoon discussing the Kirk Cousins COVID debacle. Yeah, I'd prefer not. All right, Sam, great stuff. You already know on Twitter, PFF underscore Sam. And we'll do it again soon, man. This is great. Absolutely. Sounds good. Get back to the conversation in just a minute. But first, you've always counted on restaurants, and now they're counting on you. And while their dining rooms may be closed, they're still open for delivery with DoorDash.

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Peter Carline for the Daily Mail in the Queen's country. What do you call it? What do you call England? What's some nicknames for England? Land of Hope and Glory. Really? Okay. I don't know.

England's Green and Pleasant Land. There you go. Okay, yeah, all right. So the second biggest Vikings fan in England's Pleasant Green Land. Yeah. Something like that. Maybe, maybe. Yeah.

You're a top ten at least well it's got to be got anyway but i i want to know your your big picture thought here on the vikings peter because um it's quite the change for this year you go from a team that had all the same players year in and year out you knew everybody's number and background information and everything that happened and then all of a sudden you kind of flip a switch and there's a lot of new faces. So I want to start there with what your take is on where we should have expectations for this year with so many new people in such a weird

circumstance. Well, we've got, we've got continuity, a head coach and general manager so Mike Zimmer as we all know has seen it all in his tenure as Vikings coach, he's had eye surgeries and Teddy Bridgewaters and all the rest of it so this is just another kind of regular year for him

in many kind of ways I understand why they couldn't keep Stefan Diggs. He wanted to leave, and they seem to have replaced him. You're not going to replace Diggs. Him and Thielen together were so good. Losing him is going to hurt,

but the perfectly understandable decision of michael pierce was a must have been a massive kick in the teeth to the kicking teeth perhaps the wrong place a real body blow because you've you've let limbaugh go who you know is just he's great wasn't he was just a just an incredible human being and such a fixture of the Vikings. And then you say, okay, we've got a ready replacement here. And then, oh, interior of the defensive line now. There's a bit of a problem there. Teams might be able to run against this lot

because they've always seemed to be able to, you know. And then there's the revolving door of the offensive line as well, which, you know, for all the complications of the game and the nuances, it pretty much boils down to, if you've got, it's one in the trenches, isn't it? You need a good offensive line, you need a good defensive line. And they're my red flags with the Vikings. But the defensive line, you've thought, okay,

there's no Everson there as well. You're losing a massive personality. All right, he had his off year, but he came back for the first 12 games of the last year. He was brilliant. He's gone too. So, yeah, there are a lot of changes, and they're not ones that are going to seem to be easily solvable.

The offensive line not easily solvable ever for the Minnesota Vikings, it seems. And that's kind of where I wanted to go with this because, you know, I think it's fair to look at these holes and say, how is that going to work out? How's it going to play out if it's the left guard, if it's the nose tackle, that's not the same. And there are these kind of percentage points that you lose by not having Michael Pierce as much as the team wants to tell us Shamar Stephan is, you know, I don't know, a Pro Bowl talent, but he's not Michael Pierce. You paid Michael Pierce for a reason. And he was an impact player for the Baltimore Ravens. I would have suspected he would have been here. And now you're moving a guy, a he was an impact player for the Baltimore Ravens. I would have suspected he would have been here, and now you're moving a guy a position who was playing three technique

last year to the nose tackle in Shamar Stephan to play there. But, you know, if they give up a few more runs that go for five to seven yards, I don't think that that's killing you. But if they get the same performance from the interior of the offensive line as they did last year, that's killing you. And my question for you is, on Kirk Cousins, I mean, what's sort of your feeling on what's fair to expect from him when you haven't changed the fundamental thing that has gotten him, his kryptonite, the interior of the offensive line, and you take away his best receiver?

As much as I like some of the other players who are mixed in here, Alexander Hollins, Tajay Sharp, Chad Beebe, there's all things to like about each one of them. But, you know, if you're expecting Justin Jefferson to be Stephon Diggs right away, that is probably setting the bar way too high. But I also think you extended Kirk Cousins because you thought you could keep winning with Kirk Cousins, so we shouldn't lower the bar for him and say, well, you know,

they traded Diggs so he can have a down year here. Yeah. This time last year, he pretty much had everything he wanted, he needed to function at his highest level. You know, Dalvin Cook, Diggs, and again, we've taken, I mean, the Dalvin Cook thing, we'll come to that, I'm sure. Yeah, the offensive line, it's a worry, because Cousins, he isn't the most mobile of fellows, is he? Particularly when they come at him straight through the middle.

So, yeah, it's a course for concern, I'd say. I mean, you know, he's not a twinkle toes, I think. But he is playing tennis, I hear. Perhaps his forehands and his backhands will help him evade some pressure. Probably not. Probably not, no. Probably not. I love the

pained manner in which you talk about Kirk Cousins. It's one of my favorite things. It's like, well, you know, he can't really move and will frustrate you at times. I mean. But he's capable of some really good things.

But it's a touch of the sublime to the ridiculous, isn't it? It seems he can do all the hard stuff. It's the basics that he just, and he's just so hittable. You want an elusive quarterback, he's not your guy. But he's capable of some great throws. And I think that that's what makes him one of the most frustrating, is that you know that at any given week he is capable, but you could also just have that Kirk Coaster type of moment where it goes right back down and you get Chicago. And we know the teams

that are going to beat the Vikings, like the types of teams who have those guys. And that's why you said, all right, why not get a bigger offensive lineman to start right away? Get someone at the free agent market or start Ezra Cleveland, but it doesn't look like he's going to start. And you're going to end up at least to start the season with just about the same level of offensive line, unless Garrett Bradbury takes a huge step forward, which, you know, I mean, should we expect him to be better? Yes, but probably not worlds better in terms of pass block.

And Riley Reif defies old father time as well, which, you know, I'm not a gambling man, but I wouldn't be putting any money on that either. They were playing Cleveland at guard, weren't they? Left guard. Correct. And still are, but with the third team in practice now, which kind of suggests he's not in the mix for a starting job. And Elfline's at right guard. Yes, which everyone's thrilled about. Including him. Yeah, my Twitter mentions and the comments on the website are not exactly glowing when it comes to him playing the right guard.

Let's talk about the Delvin Cook thing, though. The longer this goes, the more you think there's a chance that he just plays into the season without a contract extension, which would be kind of shocking considering that the Vikings go out of their way to pay everyone that they like all the time. But I wonder, though, if things have changed a little bit with the way that they feel about this, because there isn't the desperation that they felt after 2017. We've got to keep all our players. We're going back to the Super Bowl.

That's why we're going to go back to the NFC Championship. So we've got to keep everybody, pay everybody. And I wonder if they just feel like this is more of a transition year and they don't have to jump at the first type of contract that his side wants. I was very surprised that in their 27 draft picks they didn't pick a running back. Matt, you know, the first two are great. Boone, he's okay and then you've got

Abdullah but there were a lot of decent running backs in that draft and you could have got you could have had a really strong stable and if Cook gets injured which by the law of averages he will this season Mattis, yeah great, play him more

but then what are you dealing with? You know, we're already looking at the offensive line, which was, they were arguably better at run blocking than, you know, than the past. But, you know, if Cook, anyway, yeah, I mean, it's all ifs and buts anyway, isn't it? If Cousins gets injured, they're screwed. But if, you know, I don't know.

I think that running backs have such a – they're just cannon fodder, aren't they? I mean, you get them, you pick them up, you chew them up, you use them. Is there any – he had a great year last year, but is he going to be motivated to do that again this year? And if he has that, you know, if he has that injury, which he always does, is he going to play through it? And it's such a tricky one when you have a player like that, that you know is so important to you, but also is going to take up so much of your cap. Would you pay him?

My inclination would be no. But I would have drafted a running back certainly in the third or the fourth round, even the fifth. I mean, you know, I do wonder if they thought that this would get taken care of. Like if they were thinking, well, he's going to be our long-term guy. So in the drafting, Alexander Madison was a little bit of maybe he's the guy who, you know, not this year, but in 2019, you know,

maybe he's the guy that takes over if there's any issues with Delvin Cook. But it's a hard spot to be in when you look forward with the salary cap and think, okay, there is going to be some movement here. Maybe you cut Riley Reif after next year as Cleveland starts at left tackle. More likely than not, that happens. And you can restructure deals and so forth. But now when you have a salary cap that's going down you have more reason if you're the Vikings to say is it really prudent like do we have this cap space to throw around when there will be other deals especially Daniil Hunter's that I think that need to be

readdressed by the team because he is vastly underpaid. So, and, you know, cannon fodder is a great way to describe running backs. You just, you know, they bring them in two, three years. All right, get out of here, move them on. And I'm not even sure that that's the wrong approach because teams that have paid running backs have had so many problems with doing it later down the road. Yeah. And wouldn't you, because of that, it's like cornerbacks. You can never have enough of them, surely. Why would you not draft one?

Why not get one on a rookie comp? You know, it just, anyway, perhaps I'm too critical. But, you know, it seems like a no-brainer to pick up a guy that, you know, you can use like Madison last year or a little less than Madison because they're always going to get injured, aren't they, your pawns? Yep, almost every single time. But, you know, maybe they like Mike Boone. He's been in the system a couple of years.

I don't know what to make of Mike Boone. It's funny when you look at his football reference and he averaged over five yards a carry. Like, when was that? We week 17 is kind of what it was against the Chicago team that had just kind of, and had enough. I wonder what you think about, about that, about the NFC North because I love talking about the division.

Detroit is a fascinating team because their coach is bad, but their players are good, and their offense was really good last year at the beginning of the season, and then they add a bunch of talent on the defensive side. They have all the year marks of a team that takes a big jump, but yet it's just the Detroit Lions, and I have a really tough time. You know, it would be almost like someone sent me a weather analogy. If it was, you know, sunny 50 days in a row you

would guess the 51st it wouldn't rain right I mean it's possible that it does but you know if you're the Detroit Lions and you're terrible for years and years and years and years and you have a schmuck coach like am I supposed to believe that all of a sudden you flip on the switch and they're a 10 and 6 11 to 5 team that that's really hard for me yeah and and and the bears the way that they fell off a cliff last year all right they lost hicks but that nagy didn't exactly cover himself with glory for a lot of last season i know that he's sort of the the he's got their hex over zimmer and they'll probably beat us beat the vikings twice again this year because that's just what they seem to do. But then you've got Green Bay with their interesting quarterback situation and their lack of receivers, but their pretty strong defensive front,

which certainly when you line them up against the Vikings offensive line, that could be a painful opener. Yeah, and without fans in the stands to impact the game in any way. What did you think of, because we haven't caught up and talked football in such a long time, what did you think of what the Packers did in the draft and whether they can be a really good team again? They're not going to be 13-3, but whether they can win the division again. They can, but because they've got Rodgers.

Probably head and shoulders, is that fair? The best quarterback in that division. I really like Stafford. He's so tough, Stafford. I think Rodgers used to be, but has come back to the past. He's coming back down, but he's still... If you had a game where you had to win a million dollars and you could only pick one of the nfc north quarterbacks to win isn't it

there's no question who you pick to win the game yeah yeah and he can't do it forever a very strange decision i thought i think that whole draft was was unusual i mean let's let's let's annoy aaron rogers it would seem to be what let's not give him any receivers, and let's draft your replacement. Let's repeat what we did 15 years ago with Favre. Very, very strange. And that 13-3, they weren't a 13-3 team. They were, what, 11-5 team? They got lucky in a couple of, you know.

Yes, there were a lot of instances you could point to where he said, should they really, even the game against the Vikings, like should you really have won that game? If they hand off to Delvin Cook, they probably don't win that game. And if Kirk doesn't decide to throw it, you know, into the back of the end zone for an interception, then you probably come away with a huge blown lead for the Green Bay Packers in that game rather than a win. And they got a bunch of other

breaks along the way. So they didn't have a lot of the, I guess, the statistical points that you would see from other 13-3 teams in terms of their point differential, how much they beat teams by, things like that. The quality of their wins was not super impressive, but you mentioned that they have the kryptonite. They have exactly what hurts the Vikings the most, which is Z'Darrius Smith and Kenny Clark and Preston Smith, and those three guys, they won both games for the Packers last year, so you can't just say, oh, well, the Vikings can beat them out. Do you have the Vikings as the division winner, though? Because I think it's a hard question.

I'm not sure that I do. Okay, so it starts off with, hopefully, a week one win. Then they'll play the Colts, who are the Xavier Rhodes game. I really like Frank Reich, but the Colts have made some really surprising signings. So all things being well, 2-0. Now the Titans impressed me last year, so I think that's a loss, I'm afraid to say. Oh, then lovely old Bill O'Brien gifts the Vikings a win. That's 3-1. Sean Watson is still their quarterback, even if he was not given any help. I'm just saying. He is, but Bill

O'Brien is still their head coach, and the idiocy of that man outweighs the genius of the other. Seahawks, that's a loss, I'm afraid. Falcons, hmm. I love that you just decided to start picking the schedule. That is a consistent bid on the show, as you know.

So what have you got them at now, since we're doing this? I've got 4-2. They always beat Atlanta, so apart from when it matters. Packers after the bye. I think that's a loss, 4-3. Home to Detroit, 5-3.

At Chicago Bears, 5-4. You can't ever win at Chicago. Sorry? You can't ever win at Chicago Bears, 5-4. Oh, the Everson Griffin game. You can't ever win at Chicago. Sorry? You can't ever win at Chicago. You can never put a W there. If they do it, I mean, it's not impossible.

Case Keenum did. Yeah, he did. But he got a little help from Mitch Trubisky in that one. He certainly did. I think 5-5, loss to the Cowboys. Oh, and then there's Bridgewater. Week 12 comes back to town. This is an emotional season for Mike Zimmer.

All these old favorites coming back to him. Carolina, McCaffrey. I think Carolina are going to win that. I've lost where I am. You should be at Jacksonville at five and six. So, you know, this is one of my favorite games to talk about already is the game against Carolina because it's just like classic Vikings to lose to Teddy Bridgewater.

They get rid of him because they think his knee doesn't work anymore and that he'll never recover, and then he does and he comes back and beats you. It just has – this is one thing that you are a master of. Like you have such great command of the minnesota viking way of looking at everything and i respect that well the carolina panthers seem to be the uh the vikings reserve team don't they the the norv turner the uh jarius right the captain manolin who was arrested for writing bad checks. It does happen.

There's countless former Vikings that seem to join the Panthers. I've lost where I am. So you're 5-6 against Jacksonville. It's got to be a win. That's a win, yeah. And then it's Brady. That's a loss.

And then the Bears at home. They might win that. Oh God, it's New Orleans oh god it's new orleans what so it's basically seven and nine isn't it i'm thinking something like that there have been a lot of different opinions on where this will end up uh our friends at pro football focus who are you are well aware of they have it more in the seven and nine type of range and yeah but others uh courtney cronin bill barnwell who was on the show thinking more in the 10 and 6 range in part because the division well interesting is not super compelling

like if you were in the nfc south or if the nfc west you might be looking at it right yeah that you would you would be looking at seven and9. But can you beat Nick Foles? Probably with the Bears, not so much with the Eagles, but with the Bears you can. Can you beat Detroit? They usually do. They usually do, yeah. I've been harsh, so let's up it.

Let's go 8-8. Yeah, yeah, I think. Let's split the Lions games. The part about going 8-8 this year is that they are going to let seven teams into the playoffs now. So you could go 8-8 and end up making the playoffs. What a terrible decision that is. Yes, I'd forgotten about that.

I mean, I like more football. So it's going to have – we're going to have more football. But it lowers the – it lowers – just keep it as it is. They did it with soccer in the European Championships. There was 16 teams, and then it went up to 24, and it's never been as good. Yeah, and the 2018 Vikings that went 8-7-1 would have made the playoffs in the current system,

which that was not particularly a playoff team. So you've got them in 8-8. It was there, yeah. I won't have you pick the other team's schedules, but 8-8 puts them where? You think it puts them second, third in the division? Second or third, yeah. I mean, the Bears aren't any good.

I mean, well, they are, but they've just got a hopeless quarterback and a coach who is McVay light, isn't he? We've all seen what happened to McVay. Yeah, you could say that, or a wannabe Andy Reid, or I don't know. I mean, I wonder how much is the coach and how much is the quarterback, because if you gave – But if you've got both of them, you're screwed. Right, yeah.

I just think if you gave Bill Walsh Mitch Trubisky, it just wouldn't matter because he can't throw accurately and is bad at football so yeah i'm not sure how much it is but i also think that they didn't put trubisky in the best situations he had one of the lowest rates of play action in the nfl which is very weird since play action pumps up every quarterback including kirk cousins so that's not good coaching to take a bad quarterback and then make his job even harder to straight drop back pass, which our buddy Sage Rosenfels talks about as the hardest thing to do as a quarterback. Here's another question for you. How did you end up being a Vikings fan? Okay. So when I was, when I went to university in my

first year after, in my first year of university, there was a scheme that you could take part in, which was it was called BUNAC. And you could get a short term work visa in America. So you paid 400 pounds, which would have been, I don't know, probably about two hundred and fifty dollars. And that included your flights out, one night's accommodation in new york your flights back and this visa i went out to minneapolis and i worked in this company and we were that unoriginal that we we because there were loads of people that would go in like holiday camps and get paid like three dollars an hour and get abused by rich american children and go this

was the best time ever cooking marshmallows but absolute not a chance in hell i'm going to do that so we ended up working for this company called skyway event services and they paid us sod all money we lasted a day because i nearly died the it was dismantling a marquee and there's a big metal structure in the marquee six of them and the fifth one slipped everyone got out of the way and it landed on the stake with me underneath it and we said we're not doing this anymore so then we ended up working downtown in Minneapolis for rust consulting uh informing people who had been lit um it was a class action lawsuit and we were talking to loads of people from Alabama and Louisiana and they couldn't understand us, and we couldn't understand them on the phone. But it was working 10 to 6 for $14.50 an hour, which was a hell of a lot of money when your rent was $150 a month.

Yeah. Great. How long did it go on for? How long did you do that? It was May until September. And so you picked up being a vikings fan then yeah i i sort of became friends with a group of friends who i'm still friends with to this day i'm just gonna say the word friends a lot yeah it's okay it's a good show in america and yeah

yeah um and i'm uh i'm I came back when was it I've been more times than I could possibly and they've come here my first game was a 2003 pre-season game against the Cleveland Browns there you go and I've stuck it out since then

how about that so there you go that's a long version. And you got to see them in a majestic game against the Sean Kaiser in 2017, which I'm sure was always your dream. And the Browns, I mean, full circle. Yeah, it is. And I think I've said before that that's what really screwed up that year

because Everson Griffin played a plane. Yeah, that's right. Why he was out there on the last play of the game, I don't know. I love that I asked. I'm so glad that I asked because that was a lot in that story of how you became a Vikings fan. I never knew. We met in 2016 when you came over to write something for, I want to say, Pro Football Focus magazine, which probably doesn't exist anymore.

It was. It didn't last very long, yeah. And also Gridiron, a UK magazine which is still going, neither of which I still write for. But, yeah, it was pretty much – it wasn't four years ago to the day, but four weeks and three – anyway, almost four years ago, yeah. Well, Peter, it's always great to catch up with you. You can follow him on Twitter, at Peter Carline, if you're interested in things happening in England

and the occasional Vikings tweet. Basically, yeah. Yeah, basically. All right, so we'll catch up again throughout the season, and we will get your very reasoned takes and often self-deprecating takes on what's going on with the Vikings. So appreciate you all listening to whatever just happened there on Purple Insider. Hi, my name is Bobby Peters, and I've recently written a book titled

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