Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's look for solutions for the Vikings after the debacle in Philly

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to do a solutions-oriented podcast, looking for ways inside the Vikings' loss to the Philadelphia Eagles that they can improve and correct some of the problems with the scheme as the Vikings return home to US Bank Stadium to play the Detroit Lions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

what's that sound you hear coming from the trenches it's former minnesota viking offensive lineman jeremiah searles it's time for the tuesday morning left guard show on purple insider they're too strong my dog you're too strong hello welcome to another episode of matthew Very Quietly because he's in a unique place traveling. This is the third straight whispering podcast. Maybe it's a new brand that I can develop. Actually, NPR, if you ever listen to them, they kind of talk very quietly. So maybe that's why they're so popular.

Anyway, Tuesday morning, left guard, Jeremiah searles on the phone returning from his hunting trip but jeremiah we will go to no lengths or or stop at no length to make this podcast happen what is up man hey all i can say is i'm two for two on actual tuesday mornings so that's impressive we're off to a hot start on that but i'm good you know i'm actually headed back up into the mountains now to finish my hunt out until friday um so far it's been a great good you know i'm actually headed back up into the mountains now to finish my hunt out until friday um so far it's been a great hunt you know a dad shot a bear my buddy shot a cow um which is a female elk for those that don't know and uh i'm going up to try and chase bugles for a couple more days okay i'm not gonna ask for any follow-ups on that or any details on

anything you just said um that's good an elk has to be very large though right i mean yeah the one he shot was about 700 pounds oh my god that's they're large they're really big anyway really big that yeah wow uh anyway so the loss for the vikings was also really really big am i right I right? Just slightly, slightly large. They have some, I hate that stadium. I hate it. I hate it so much. Yeah.

Why was there some bad memories there? You mean just horrible memories? You know, that one long touchdown past the beginning that Jalen hurts through just had Alshon Jeffrey memories just running through my brain as that Nick Foles just uncorked from about the 50. Well, there was no flea flickers, though. Thankfully, that is helpful. All right, well, here's what I want from you.

I think that on this show we try to be solution-oriented, all right? There are rants and there are complaints that we have, but I also think that we need to talk about how they can bounce back from this and what they can fix because the season is not over after two weeks so let's let's talk about that first the offense being so centralized around Justin Jefferson I think it should really be a concern that they were unable to get the ball to Thielen Delvin Cook doesn't look like he's got a lot of running lanes in the game or the juice to shake off tacklers as he once did. K.J. Osborne hasn't been a big part of this.

Irv Smith is still adapting. What needs to happen here as they go into Detroit to get everyone else involved? Because I think that that was a big problem, is that shutting down Justin Jefferson took out everybody. Yeah, it was strange to me you know Kirk has usually historically been pretty good about throwing the ball around right you know I think there was a couple really good shots to Irv Smith I mean that one dropped touchdown pass is going to come back to haunt him for sure but you know the biggest thing that I saw was Philly saw something in our offense where, I mean, historically,

and they talked about it on Monday Night Football or the crew, but historically, Philly's not a high-pressure defense because they have guys like Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham and guys that can get after the quarterback only rushing four. But they turned up the pressure on Kirk Cousins and this offense in a huge way last night, sending seven, sending six, I mean, on first and second down, not like it was third and long. And Kirk panicked because he had nothing to do, and he looked like he was playing 500 out there, just like find 18 and throw up a gift pack and see if he can go get it. And, I mean, if Darius Slay didn't have ten thumbs,

he'd have four interceptions. And, I mean, it was ridiculous. And so, yeah, I think the first thing we've got to to do is we got to have an answer to the blitz package because like anything in this league, it's a copycat league. If you put something on tape that it looked like that was really challenging for you to do, the next team's going to see if you fixed it during the week. So I think we're going to see a blitz package from Detroit, the same thing that's like, Hey, did they fix this? Did they fix their hots? Did they fix what they can do in protection?

Because there were some good blitz schemes, but there's also just some straight-up blown protection schemes by the offensive line and the back. So that's got to get figured out, and then you have to run the football in this league. You just have to. I mean, somehow you just have to, especially if you're paying your running back what he is

and as special as he is, they have to find a way to get the running game going or else this is gonna be a long season if they just continue to shut down 18 yeah and they had not having easy answers when things were going wrong or when there was pressure and so forth i mean there wasn't always pressure in the game i mean there were times where cousins had time to throw and just did not make a play or you know irv smith didn't create separation or he threw to a covered Irv Smith. I guess you can blame whoever you want. But they really didn't have easy answers in this game.

And I did wonder throughout training camp about longer developing routes and having Kirk Cousins sit back there, that when you have in Los Angeles, Andrew Whitworth and the best pass blocking the offensive line in the league last year by PFF in the Los Angeles Rams, it makes all of that a little bit easier than what the Vikings have. And I wonder if they looked at on tape and said, you know, there's a lot of downfield routes here. If we push Cousins, if we pressure him, he's either going to check it down, which he did a ton early in the game, or he's going to get sacked, which he eventually did and strip sack late in the game, or he's going going to check it down which he did a ton early in the game or he's going to get sacked which he eventually did and strip sack late in the game or he's going to throw interceptions

because he's under pressure he's traditionally been pretty good against the blitz but they seem to send it over and over and over again yeah i think you and i were texting next year in the game like man our quick passing game just isn't on rhythm you know and i don't know if that was something with like you're talking about the long field routes or if the first read on every quick pass is 18 you know it was almost like every time was like oh it's a quick passing game 18's not there and then he's trying to get to his second read and then it was panic mode and then just checked out you know and i think that that's something that if you're gonna have the quick passing game it's gotta get spread around it got to get dink and dunked right i mean for whatever reason i think that you look at like the

rams and stafford just throws it to cooper cup every time because he's open you know i don't think i think jefferson's very very good he's not cooper cup level yet you know i think that i mean reigning mvp's through all that stuff like but eventually i think he will get to that point but when you just take and so so focused on one receiver when you have good receivers else out there I mean Adam Thielen was a pro ball receiver I mean you have KJ Osborne had a great year you have to just get them the ball early and make the defense realize that you're willing to throw it to other people you know if you let the defense and those guys just get after it then and they just look at 18 like there's no threat of Thielen there's no threat of kj osborne and they can just hone in and send their ears back

yeah and i really didn't think that uh in these first two weeks that they've treated justin jefferson like cooper cup i haven't seen him in motion before like every play didn't see that last night he was in motion a bit in week one but not like cooper cup where it's it feels like it's almost every play. And he's not in the slot all the time. He's going down the field more often. He's not running just like quick slants. And Cooper Cup is an absolute freak when it comes to yards after catch and finding spaces in the defense.

I don't think those are exactly Jefferson's strengths. I think that downfield is more of his thing, which if you don't have time to throw it's very hard to get it to him but it is unusual to not see cousins finding these other wide receiving options and that's where it looked to me like it was just like a classic sort of something's not the way kirk expected it to be and when it's not laid out for him like like in the pregame where he knows or pre-snap exactly where he's going to go, that there's just this speeding up of things. And then it's like, where do I go with the football? Like these things happen with him as sort of a natural problem.

And I wonder if, I mean, what is the solution there? Like no offensive coordinator has ever really solved what we saw last night from kirk cousins but as far as like going into the next game i mean what can you correct to to get everybody involved to get him uh getting the ball out faster i i don't know like it just feels like we've we've kind of done this dance many times of well he had one of those games and now what right no i completely agree with you. The thing that's going to get interesting is as much as it's an advantage for the Vikings to have the new coaching staff with the new offense and the new defense and all that stuff, it could be as much as a disadvantage because when you're in a new offense

and things go so well week one, you just kind of go back to the well, and then you get challenged in week two by things that you weren't expecting, right? Like, I looked at the pressure the way they did. And that's when things, in my opinion, really went off the rails in the second half, you know? And so when you look at that, it's like, okay, now how do we fix that in the week of preparation? Like, I think that's where it gets fixed. You don't fix it on Sundays. You fix it in the week of preparation on Monday, on Wednesday and Thursday, and you're putting in third down packages, and you're putting in all those stuff. Having answers that you can go to

on the field is how you fix that. Now, like you said, this has happened before with Kirk, where he's been good at it sometimes, he's been bad at it sometimes, but I think that with this staff, and because Kevin O'Connell is so familiar with kirk that they'll be able to come up with a plan to fix this it's just going to be on kirk on sundays then implement that plan in real time well and they're facing a team that doesn't have a special defense uh by any means but does have some some pass rush now with aiden hutchinson and we can talk about detroit in a little bit but the offensive line is just going to be at the center of everything we talk about Detroit in a little bit, but the offensive line is just going to be at the center of everything we talk about until it's great, right?

And through these first two weeks, I don't have the pressure numbers yet. They're not out as of this moment to tell you, but it was probably a decent amount. And you mentioned if you're in these past situations all the time, this is why it's so hard to nail it, to nail that hot spot is because you want Kirk in favorable situations but you also want to be a pass first offense and if you fall behind what are your answers when the other team can can put the pressure on and the answer sometimes has to be that the offensive line steps up last night it didn't appear that that was the case it just seems like we're still in a spot with this offensive line where you can't say, go pass block 50 times, you guys will be fine.

Yeah, I mean, to be fair, though, I would say that 60% of the league's in that spot. Yeah. Like, that's not something that you're just built for. I mean, the pass rushers are getting more special. The defensive linemen are getting freakier and the offensive line men are getting more like you're starting to see a wave of exit of elder veteran offensive lining more of a new age of offensive linemen and the problem is these old linemen it takes years to develop you know i will give ed ingram credit i thought that he played pretty exceptionally last night against fletcher cox you know i've been watching young alignment around the league my rookie included he plays for the bangles he had

a very welcome to the nfl moment against cam hayward week one you know like and those are type of things we're going against these veterans where i thought he did okay you know i thought derisaw played okay but those are things that you're going to take your lumps when you're technically too i'm so derisaw my he's still a rookie until he gets all 17 games in you know until he gets that 17 game mark of starting he's still technically a rookie he gets all 17 games in. You know, until he gets that 17-game mark of starting, he's still technically a rookie in my mind. So you're still going to take your lumps with those young guys. But I thought they played all right.

You know, the guys that we're talking about are the Ezra Cleveland's and the Garrett Bradbury's and even O'Neal took his turn. Like, those are the guys that you really need when you talk about, hey, we fall behind, what happens? Those are the three guys that got to shoulder the load and be able to step up and be like okay this is how things go and have those young guys fall in line and you just didn't see that from a couple of those guys last night um they have to turn around here on a quick week and i think this will be a real challenge for kevin o'connell it's you know his first time as the head coach, first time being responsible and having his name next to a beat down like this one. And then you have to fly home, put together

a game plan for Detroit play on Sunday. What is that like a short week in the NFL? Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing is you're pretty lucky. The short week comes on week two and not like week 13 or week 13 is when it gets really tough like week 13 is when you're like oh my gosh i'm dying i need that extra day and everything but like they'll at least still have some good time to recover but you know biggest thing is getting that game plan installed so number one like you have to make the corrections still from this week you can't you can't just sit there all day like you do on a Monday. Normally go through the tape and every correction, watch every play.

Like you have to basically make a corrections tape as a coach and say, hey, here's all the things that we did really bad. And here's the things we have to get fixed. Here's let's watch it for an hour. And then we have to put this game to bed and immediately move on. You just don't have the extra time like you normally do so it's it's more of a how much time do you spend correcting versus preparing but after a game like philly there's going to be a lot to correct so you have to get those things corrected you just ignore it and move on that does no one any good so in your mind on the offensive side and then we'll talk about some of the things that happen defensively, how much is it correctable, or how much in your mind that went wrong is correctable,

and how much is like, this is who this team is going to be at times this year? You know, I think the correctable thing for me is the missed assignments. You know, I think that when I get the chance to actually watch the All-22, I could see missed assignments on run game and pass game from all involved. And that's what led to some early on pressure, right? If you have the right tackle who's squeezing down instead of blocking the defensive end and the two guys are going out and then you're leaving the end free, like that's just a missed assignment that goes down as a pressure. Those are the type of things that you just can't do. Those are correctable things. You know, I think trying to get our run

game established early, I know we want to be a pass first offense, that you just can't do. Those are correctable things. You know, I think trying to get our run game established early, I know we want to be a pass-first offense, but, like, you can't just live in that if you don't have, like you said, Rob Havenstein, Andrew Whitworth, and those guys on the edges, and we're working our way to that. You know, so I think there's a lot that is still correctable. Like you said, it's still early in the season. Some of these guys are still really developing, especially up front.

But, you know, I think the more and more we go throughout the season here, the more and more we have to find what our true identity on offense is. And I think right now it wants to be pass first, but I don't know if we can live in that for 17 weeks. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that. And I think that Eric Eager, who was on the show, put it well a few weeks ago. He said if Kirk Cousins is throwing fewer passes, it means you've gotten ahead and you're able to run the ball with Delvin Cook. But once that's been taken away in the past, I had this stat last night that Kirk is 0-7 when throwing more than like 40, whatever it is, 47 passes.

0-7 and 2, actually, as there was two times mixed in there because, of course, there were. Are you concerned at all about Adam Thielen not getting the football through two games? Yeah. You know, that's, that's interesting to me that I feel like that's been kind of Kirk's safety blanket, um, for a while, you know, he's kind of always that like old reliable over there, but I don't necessarily know if it's as much as the emergence of Jefferson or maybe Thielen getting a little older. You know, Thielen's getting up there and maybe he's not creating as much separation. But he's a guy that you have to get the ball to to take pressure off of Jefferson. You know, I think that that needs to be more of his role now.

And I think Thielen accepts the fact that, like, hey, I am with a superstar wide receiver. Like and so for my role might be to just hey let's make sure i get the ball early to take some pressure off him so he can go do his special things but that has to be between kirk and koc and feeling to get that plan put together because right now there's just there's a there's a missing link between those three and they can't live like that all season the only time i raised an eyebrow during kevin o'con's press conference, because I thought that he handled his first punch in the mouth very well, was when he said that they had some plans to get Thiel in the ball early and that it just like didn't happen. And it was like, are you saying what I think you're saying, like that the quarterback didn't deliver the ball where he was supposed to deliver it? Or did they take it away? Or, you know, what exactly happened there?

But it is interesting through two games things can change quickly but last year Thielen had he stayed healthy was on pace and I know on pace stats or whatever but like what does that stat mean I mean he was on pace for like 97 catches last year and so far and so far we just haven't seen that same connection between those two or between uh KJ. Osborne or the screen pass game really getting going. That first week was entirely dominated by Jefferson, and they couldn't repeat it. Now, on the other side of the ball, that first half was just miserable. They played a ton of off coverage.

They were trying to give up passes underneath, but Jalen Hurts was happy to take advantage of that they did not put a whole ton of pressure on Hurts he made some great plays they are not facing a mobile quarterback in Jared Koff next week but they do face some mobile quarterbacks this year Kyler Murray Josh Allen and their first test against the mobile quarterback Jalen Hurts just just ripped them up I I mean, to be fair, Philly's offensive line is one of the best in the NFL. You know, you talk about offensive lines that are extremely good. I mean, Jordan Malatoff, Lane Johnson, Kelsey in the middle. I mean, Isaac Salamalu. I mean, those dudes are good.

I mean, there's two or three pro bowlers on that offensive line. And so it really showed that, you know, you can't get to the quarterback with just rushing four and you have to dial up some pressure looks and you still can't get to the quarterback. Like, that's just a recipe for disaster. So, first of all, hats off to the Philly offensive line. Like, they played extremely well last night in both the run and the pass game. They had us on our heels.

But, you know, if I had to listen to Joe Buck draw shell coverage one more time on the on the simulcast i was gonna blow my head off but you know it's just one of those things that this is a new defense you know they're we're so used to seeing the mike zimmer up in your face press these guys don't let them get off the ball type of defense that this is kind of a shock for everybody including myself and i'm like this is just so weird to see i didn't get a chance to actually watch the packers game but like this was just so weird to see. I didn't get a chance to actually watch the Packers game. But, like, this was just so odd for me to see.

And so we definitely have to find a way that you can let up underneath coverage, but you can't let up underneath coverage for eight yards of carry. Like, they're eight yards in a temp. So I don't know how we necessarily fix that. But, you know, a lot of it I think they're really planning on just getting home with Daniil Hunter and Wanham and Z'Darrius Smith and all those guys. And when they didn't, that's when I felt like things really didn't go well. Right. No, I think that's exactly right, is that they lean so much on two guys.

And Wanham had a really nice pass rush in his sack yesterday. But they lean so much on two guys to create their pass rush. But then sometimes they're rotating them out of the game and they essentially have none at that point. With Patrick Jones and DJ Wanham, you have no one who's going to beat the Philadelphia offensive line on a consistent basis. And the interior pressure, that's where I think that

sometimes mobile quarterbacks can really be neutralized, is if you can pressure them straight up the middle because their first reaction is to run away but usually the defense is like staying upfield to not let them escape right so not not having that i i just don't know that there's an answer for that like they went with run stuffing defensive tackles and it's just like sometimes you have to give things uh if you're gonna you know if you unless you have this incredible defense like you you have to give things if you're going to, you know, if you're unless you have this incredible defense, like you have to give things up. And people were asking about the run game and the run defense last week after Green Bay. It's like they're just going to have to give some things up sometimes.

But if the other team is willing to be as patient as I feel like Jalen Hurts was and deliver on time, short passes. I think that that's going to be a real Achilles heel of this defense. You know, the other thing that I thought really gave us a lot of trouble last night that I don't ever really remember giving us trouble to pass was the RPO. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we really struggled to defend the RPO,

especially in the first half, you know, and it was just one of those things that's like, okay, is that assignment based? Is that, did we not plan well for that? Or is this just kind of figuring out how in a 3-4 shell system that we defend that because at times it was like the dn would crash and take the

the handoff guy and then jay will pull other times it was like the dn was playing kind of in the middle and wasn't real sure and then other times he would take the quarterback and they'd hand it like it just seemed like we didn't have a good answer for the rpo and you name some of these teams i mean arizona runs that the bills run that anyone that has semblance of a mobile quarterback is going to run that and we got to make sure that we have an answer for that that's a consistent answer because if you take away the rpo early in the game offensive coordinators don't like to go back to it they don't like to go back to something early in the game that got taken away but when you have early success like they did and just a 10 yard or

the eight yard pitch and catch to dallas goddard on that sideline every time like that's something that's just going to plague us forever so how much in your mind is growing pains of players adapting to a new defense and honestly some players getting more playing time than they're used to cam danzler mysteriously out of the game a little later on and a caleb evans came in and uh the answer from kevin o'connell was like oh we wanted to get a caleb some work it was like really because the game was not over so was there something else that you put into Caleb Evans for um and then Cam Bynum who you know as uh only played a few games in the NFL at safety and there was a miscommunication between those two hard to say exactly whose fault it was and so forth but either

way uh two players that have not been you know 100% starters making a huge mistake there in the Quez Watkins touchdown and everybody's adapting to a new defense so you're seeing very different offense between Green Bay and then Philadelphia the next week so is it that they're just going to have to adapt here or is it like they're they're hemorrhaging in a few positions on defense that we knew would be a problem and you have to just overcome it offensively. Yeah, it's, it's a little bit of both. It's kind of like I talked about the offensive line.

When you have players that are not Harrison Smith back there, like you're going to take lumps. That's just what the NFL is, is whenever you bring in new people or guys that are on younger sides, like I thought Kim dancer played fairly well initially. No, he thought he played pretty well against the run game. I thought he had a couple of good pass breakups, so that was strange to see. But, you know, Bynum made some serious mistakes in the pass game in the back end, and, you know, he had a couple of missed tackles, too, where you just can't do that.

I mean, I think he was the one that came in on Jalen Hurts to make the play, and then he cut right underneath him on the RPO and scored the touchdown, right? So those are things that, in real time real time he's just gonna have to see better um but you know on offense this isn't an offense this isn't the mike zimmer defense where you can score 17 or 21 and win right and we haven't had that in a few years you know i think this offense needs to be a race to 30 points you know it's got to be a race to 30 who can get there and you look around the offenses in the league anymore that's kind of what every team is you know if you don't have an offense that's scoring 30 plus a game it's gonna be hard

to win unless you're playing against like denver or something like that and they win nine to six or some terrible game but you know this the good teams in this league are gonna score 21 to 30 points a game right i'm less apt to look at the defense and say this is all your fault because this is nfl like the other team has a great offensive line awesome weapons a mobile quarterback who can clearly throw the ball better than people give him credit for because he threw it all over the place yesterday uh you knew they were going to score against you and if i told you that you were going to give up and and some of this is them running clock and so forth but if you were if i told you you're giving up 24 you would say we have a good chance to win right and they and the offense didn't give them a good chance to win also you're not going to keep a lot of teams under 24 with

this defense like they're going to score against you um you know i there's going to be a lot of weeks where you have to win shootouts and uh you know And if you have an offensive performance that from the word go to start this game, they just were not really ready, then you're going to end up with a lot of weeks like this. And I think that's the big concern is can you get offense consistently week to week to week and out game plan and get great performances from Jefferson week to week to week to week to overcome the natural shortcomings of the defense because I don't think any of us believed it was going to be perfect. Now, I need your opinion as someone who has seen many young players succeed and fail.

What we should make of Louis Seen's role on this team, which is barely existent. He did get a couple of snaps last night, but when Harrison Smith went out, Josh Metellus came in, which Metellus is a special teamer who's been around for a few years. It's clear that they don't really trust Louis Seen to play defense at this point. Is that red flag to you? Is that, hey, be patient with a rookie to you? How do you view it? It's a little red flaggy. You know, when you have a guy that you drafted to do that and he's not in there, you know, but it's hard for me to say because there are certain rookies that are excellent in college, but just it takes a little bit of time for them to adapt to the NFL. You know, it's not always good to just throw them in there and be like, oh, figure it out because that can actually ruin a player's confidence. That can ruin an entire career.

I mean, that's just how that works. I mean, you look at like what Buffalo, right? They drafted Elam in the first round and then that seventh round rookie beat him out and they're sitting Elam down and like, hey, you didn't win the job, like continue to develop and you're seeing to get more and more into it. You know, but for a guy that you went after, I really think that he needs to just start getting some more reps in games. You'd like to see him get some reps in games, even if it's just to spell Harrison or spell those guys for a little bit.

And so it's red flagging the fact that, okay, maybe he's not ready right away. But at the same time, I always like to give rookies a little bit of grace because that it's hard going from all yeah i think so too i i don't think that it's time to say like oh my gosh there are major major problems here it's not a laquan treadwell situation where it was very clear from that first year that there were some issues and with treadwell's personality it was a little problematic like he didn't seem to like admitting the problem is the first step and I think that scene is a bright kid but adapting to how quick things develop in the NFL is really difficult but I think what you saw from Cam Bynum is he should be a bar that a first round pick with that type of physical talent can clear

and at some point I think you want to see that throughout the season where they just say okay Bynum you're you're depth or you're a rotational player you're the backup nickel or whatever you are but you are not starting because this guy is more gifted um so I think that if we get to like week 10 unless Bynum has been really really good if we get to week 10 week 12 and we're still talking about this same role for lewis scene then i'm definitely starting to be concerned that something is wrong there because he's practicing on a daily basis and they still don't have confidence um on to uh the detroit lions jeremiah what do you make of uh the restoration of the roar in detroit i

mean i i think that this is a game under matt patricia we would have looked at and laughed hysterically and by the way hey matt patricia seems like dairy slays pretty good seems like dairy slays pretty good you might have missed that one i'm surprised that matt patricia would miss something really obvious like that but but I guess he did anyway. So the Lions are now like formidable, I think, but also they seem to have this mentality that they're going to like prove everybody wrong. And I know that everybody says that, but like with, with them, you kind of believe it. I, I, I actually think that this game is really big for the Vikings to take on a NFC North team that really wants to come and win this game. And also like kind of a rising team in the NFL that has way more talent than

the last time you saw them. Yeah. I mean, they embody their head coach. You see the whole team embodies the Dan Campbell white kneecaps on the way down mentality, right? Double-visted venti coffees mentality.

You watch it when they play. They are high energy throughout everything, right? Adversity hits. They're still rolling with high energy and all of it. So, you know, I think this is a very gritty team that is going to give you your best shot every single week because they have some young players, too, that don't know any different. You know, like when you build a team full of young players and there's some young, but they're also vets, and everyone buys into this mentality of what Dan Campbell's done.

Like they just kind of don't know any better and they don't know any right from wrong and they just kind of roll with it. So this is going to be a really big test for the Vikings. I mean, it always is as a divisional opponent too. Whenever you play a divisional opponent, it always ratchets it up a notch, especially with a team that really thinks they can come in and compete. You know, they're going to turn on this tape from Philly and go, yeah, we can compete with this team.

You know, versus last week, they turned on the Patriot Green Bay. It's like, holy crap, look what this team just did. So they're going to be a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde of which Vikings team are we going to get. You know, but they're just one that just rolls with the punches, and they're going to run the football with DeAndre Swift and try and not have Jared Goff back there and throw the ball. Cause he's a walking liability as always, but you know,

they're going to really try and test us up the middle, like with the run game on offense to see if they can control the clock. Yeah. I think they're going to score. I think that Detroit's offense now with especially a star receiver and a running game in DeAndre Swift that you mentioned, an offensive line that even when it plays backups is very good, I think that they're going to produce points. And this is one where it's the bounce back opportunity for the Vikings coming home and playing a team that's defense is still pretty darn questionable after giving up what three touchdown passes to Carson Wentz so to me it's like kind of the perfect opponent because it's not some horrendous team that you should just blow out and be like oh that didn't mean anything like I think now it means something if you can come back from what you just went through on a short week and get

through that to kind of learning how to do that through the rest of the season because there will be more of these types of moments where they have a down and then they have to to jump back at it quickly. Love to see it. Hate to see it, Jeremiah. I'm going to start out. Hate to see what happened with Trey Lance. I mean, just like before he basically even gets an opportunity to show he plays in a monsoon and then the very next week he's injured and the guy has played now like five football games in the last three years of his life and then next year i'm sure they're going to move on from garoppolo and he's going to be asked to be the franchise quarterback again he has just had it tough i mean from covid to joining a team with a quarterback

who went to the super bowl and now to an injury really hate to see that also like the big thing too is if and i hate saying this like the worst thing that could happen is jimmy g comes out here and lights the world on fire right and has an unreal year then i was gonna be like why are we sticking with trey lance right like there's just there's like a no-win situation unless jimmy g goes out and absolutely lays an egg which i don't see him doing because he's a competent quarterback yep so yeah i feel terrible for him you know my uh i hate to see it is i leave town for a week and my alma mater sets on fire um i come back into service they're like oh by the way scott frost is fired your defensive

coordinator's fired you guys got boat raced by oklahoma by 40 so that's uh it's a tough kid to be a corn husker right now. It's not, not ideal times. Look, um, it's just never going to be the same, man. I mean, they're talking about, they're talking about urban Meyer. There's people wearing urban Meyer shirts. Look, there's no guarantee that urban Meyer turns it around, man. Like less miles went to Kansas. And now Lance Leipold is the guy who's turning that around, right? Not Les Miles. Just because somebody had success before, I mean, he might kick a player. You really don't know. I don't think that's the right answer.

But, man, yeah, what a disaster. And, look, here's the thing about all of these things, and hate to see it like Matt Rule is still struggling because he's just a terrible NFL coach full stop uh but like if you think and there was a report that they're thinking about firing Matt Rule just like there was about Scott Frost it's like if you're thinking about firing someone just fire them you can't just be like like imagine if you got a girlfriend and you're like I'm thinking about breaking up with her it's like well then you just have to do it right you can't just like them all over that

right yeah if you just just cut the cord man if you're just gonna do it just just cut the cord which is what trev alberts did i mean trev alberts ate seven and a half million dollars not waiting three more weeks to fire scott frost wow his buyout would have gone down to seven million as of october 1st but he had seen enough and he's like you're gone and so scott got like 15 7 so scott's not not mad. Scott's rotten off down to Arizona and doing his thing. But you know, I agree. If it's going to be end of it, just cut it. Also, uh, hopefully they didn't cut the gymnastics program like Minnesota or something while you're giving buyouts like that. Uh, I don't, I don't, I am all for people getting paid. Just don't cut

from the gymnastics program in order to do it. That's my point. Let those people do what they do and be student athletes too. So love to see it, though. I mean, Stefan digs in Buffalo. It has just transformed their entire offense. And when you go back to the Siberia stuff and everything else, when the Vikings traded him.

The thing that frustrated me the most, and we talked about it at the time, but was like the accusations that were made towards Stefan Diggs. He was a cancer in the locker room. He was a bad teammate. He was this and this. A lot of people conflated his frustrations with the team and some of his sideline behavior of being a little over the top as being like a bad teammate or something. And it's just the guy has been right and he's been right many times. And I think what I like to see is when bad arguments go wrong.

So like when Lamar Jackson throws for 350 or something, you're like, yeah, that guy shouldn't have been a receiver. Or Jalen Hurts last night. Honestly, like the amount of criticism for Jalen Hurts throwing the football. it's like well and here he is leading a very good team like that's a bad argument oh you shouldn't draft him because of this or that like no like he should have been drafted higher because he was talented um so the same thing with with Diggs like they were bad arguments or bad justifications and he was painted in a really bad light unfairly I think when he left Minnesota. So as he's scoring his third touchdown and the Bills look like the runaway team in the NFL,

it's like, yeah, okay, you love to see that. You love to see bad arguments go wrong. Yeah, no, I'm 100% with you on there. I mean, anytime you can prove someone wrong, especially as a player, like I love to see guys have success. I'm not one to root for guys to not have success. So I'm with you there. You know, my love to see it has been the competitiveness of most games in the NFL.

Yeah. You know, I think that so many games have come down to the wire in overtimes and field goals at the buzzer and two-point conversions at the buzzer. Like, they've just been so fun to watch. Like, besides the two games last night, like, there really wasn't a ton of blowouts on sunday and you know i think that the talent gap in the nfl is closing ever slightly teams that were horrible the 0 and 16 teams aren't really there anymore you still have teams that aren't very good but you know everyone i feel like is inching closer and closer competitiveness wise which is just good for the entire sport which is good for the entire viewership and really just all around so i love the first two weeks of just the competitiveness wise which is just good for the entire sport which is good for the entire viewership and really just all around so i love the first two weeks of just the competitiveness

and the back and forth of what the nfl has been yes it has been a great start to the season although the sunday night into monday night uh justin fields throwing for 70 yards did make me want to gouge my eyes out so there was that was That was... That one, you talk about red flag. Like, I'm full red flag there. You can't throw for 70 yards. It's just like, this just can't happen. So I don't know. That's a hate to see it too.

Especially after a team that got dismantled the week before by the Vikings. Yeah, for sure. So we will carry on after Detroit. We'll be back on our regular schedule on Zoom calls. So it's the normal audio quality and not you fighting mooses or whatever you're doing. And I appreciate you taking the time, though. And I will also be able to speak in full volume the next time because I will be back in the Purple Insider studios as opposed to in a hotel, in an airport, in a press box and so forth. So we will have some fun then. Thank you for your time, Jeremiah. Absolutely. Talk to you guys next week. Okay. Before we wrap up the show, got quite a few fans only questions and I'll try to make an extra episode. And also I get a lot of these on a game day.

And if I missed yours, I apologize for that. I appreciate everybody who sends them. And sometimes they get lost a little bit in the mix during the game, trying to, you know, do all the things that I have to do for game day. And then I try to go back and look and see who sent fans only questions. I've tried to gather them, but if I missed yours, I apologize. So let me get into them and you can send them at purpleinsider.com to contact us or send me a DM at Matthew Collar or on Twitter. If you just tag it

fans only, then I'll put it in the file. So let's start out with Colton via email. Longtime listener here. First time writing a fan question from Houston, Texas. I appreciate that. The Philly game was a disappointment for sure, but I'm not so sure if it's something that we shouldn't have seen coming. And I actually picked Philly to win this football contest. A lot of cracks showed in this one week, secondary bad Kirk game, poor offensive line play, and couldn't establish the run. Things that we knew could and would be a problem this season showed up on Monday. So here's my question.

If you could plug in one position group or one player for the Philly game from another team to change the L to a W, what position group or player would you choose and why? And a fun question if you were playing DuckDuckGoose or DuckDuckGreyDuck if you are in Minnesota with the team, what Vikings player would you choose as the goose slash grey duck to give you the best odds to outrun them? Ah, Dan Chisna. Easy pick, Dan Chisna. I know he's a special teamer and he's not a named player,

but he's the fastest guy on the team. Or Kene Wongwu. Like those two guys, a name player, but he's the fastest guy in the team. Or Kenny Wongwu. Those two guys, one or two, either one, are the fastest dudes. Those are track guys who have different level speed. So I would pick them to have the quickness out of the gate and sustain as they ran around in circles in playing duck, duck, gray duck, if you're here in Minnesota. But to your question, really what it comes down to essentially what you're asking is what part of the team would have had to have been stronger. That is not the quarterback that you're plugging in for them to be better and to be able to compete with a team like Philadelphia that looks like it has just about the strongest roster in the entire

NFC? And the answer is probably Philadelphia's offensive line. I mean, the Vikings offensive line so far through two weeks, you're not going to be shocked at this ranked 24th in pass blocking and by PFF and in run blocking their 10th. So they've been okay in run blocking, but in pass blocking, they have not been any more successful so far through a very small sample size of two games by the numbers as they have been in the recent past. And with Kirk Cousins,

I don't think that it was just the pressure that was the problem, but we pointed out that there won't be too many weeks where Kirk Cousins gets pressured a lot and has success. I mean, that's just the fact of the matter for Kirk Cousins' career. It's who he is. And it's also most quarterbacks, but especially Cousins with his lack of ability to escape, that it's always going to be a problem. And in the game against Philadelphia, he was pressured

13 times, 16 total dropbacks. So he got sacked a couple of times. So 16 total dropbacks, he averaged 2.8 yards per pass attempt on five completions and had three turnover worthy plays and a quarterback rating of 32. So he went from having one of his best weeks under pressure, maybe that he's ever had against green Bay to immediate regression with a 32 quarterback rating and only five completions on 16 dropbacks under pressure. If he is not pressured in that game, uh, maybe he's got a better chance, even with a clean pocket. He wasn't very good I mean there's no statistic that's going to show you he was secretly good at anything during that game it was one of

the worst starts I think we've seen from Cousins overall he only averaged 5.6 yards per attempt when kept clean but when he was pressured it was really a disaster for Cousins and that is so often the case and it is for a lot of quarterbacks, but I think it's a little more extreme with him. And the other part is too, they seem to have no confidence running the ball. And I think that this offensive line does have the capability to be good in the run game, but it wasn't like they could do it when they got down, or at least that Kevin O'Connell felt like they could do it when they got down. If you had a phenomenal offensive line like Philadelphia has one of the best in the league, then maybe you've got a chance to not only keep cousins clean a little

bit more throughout the game and not allow some of those pressures that caused big issues for him, but also maybe create some run early in that game to feel like you could sustain drives. Because I felt like part of it was that the Vikings defense was on its heels right away. You give up a touchdown and then it's three and out. And here comes Philadelphia walking back on the field again. Like that's very tough. And that's how offense affects defense. Like we usually think of them as being separate, but I don't think of it that way.

I think that offense has a big impact on defense, whether it's the field position part of it. And that still is a factor. It sounds like an old cliche, but it does matter field position. Uh, the statistical chance you score from the 10 yard line versus from the 35 yard line when you start a drive is very different. Uh, so there's that part of it. There's also when the defense has to come right back on the field, they don't get a whole lot of time to look at what happened on the last drive and to make adjustments in the middle of the game because they're running right back out there after three and out.

And that has an impact on your defense as well. So I think that if the Vikings had an unbelievable offensive line, it helps them. I don't know if there's any position group that wins them that game, unless maybe you could take Aaron Donald that's possible. Um, but they already, I mean, they did get a good pass rush performance out of Zedaria Smith in this game and it just didn't matter that much because Jalen hurts made plays. And, uh, so yeah, I don't know if there's any position group that wins them that game, but certainly having a better offensive line would have helped. The other part of it, too, with the offensive line is when Kirk Cousins was blitzed last week,

he went four for 12, 1.8 yards per attempt, and three turnover-worthy plays. I'm sure some of it is carryover from under pressure and blitz. Philadelphia's blitz really worked and really got to Kirk Cousins. Throughout his career, he's been pretty good at diagnosing blitzes, but some of that is an offensive line stat as well. How the offensive line handles their assignments and picks up those blitzes coming at Kirk Cousins. Clearly they did not do that against Philly.

And, you know, the Detroit lions are a team that are going to be aggressive too, and probably copy a lot of these things with the blitzes and force Kirk cousins and the offensive line to find options and to pick those up and, and make Kevin O'Connell adjust that you can't just have these long developing routes. Like you have to have options and answers when the opposing team blitzes. So, yeah, I mean, I think offensive line always plays a big role in blitz pickup, uh, as well. Uh, all right. This question comes from, uh, let's, I'll just read the letters on Twitter. M Z I L K A Z I. Sorry. I don't know how to

pronounce that, but that's on Twitter, uh, from Australia. Let's see, has a consistent injury hidden that Irv Smith jr. Might be our next Troy Williamson, all the attributes on paper, but can't catch the ball. Uh, I think that there was a very notable drop in that game.

Very notable that, you know, may have changed, uh, the game a little bit, though. I think that no matter what happened, Philly was going to be the better team and they were getting the way better quarterback performance, better defensive performance overall. But I don't think that Irv Smith jr. Has had issues during his career with dropping the football. I'm looking

this up now. He only dropped one pass in 2020 and two in 2019. And I think that's very different from Troy Williamson who had serious issues. However, I would say to the Troy Williamson comparison, there always seems to be a reason why Irv Smith is going to be the next great thing. And so far he hasn't been. And when I look back at Troy Williamson, he started his career with 24 catches, then 37 the next year. And I don't even have to look this up.

I guarantee there were articles every offseason about why it was Troy Williamson's year to break out and take the next big step. And we have been saying that about Irv Smith, but there's always been plausible reasons why. I mean, because in 2019 and 2020, he was pretty effective. I mean, 2020, he had to come in and play the role of the top tight end toward the end of the season and performed very well. In fact, when Kirk Cousins in 2020 targeted Irv Smith Jr., he had 139.7 quarterback rating when he was targeting him on 41 targets. So it's a small

sample, but still he was successful. The problem is we're talking about a lot of injuries that have piled up on Irv Smith, Jr. In 2020, he got banged up. He misses the entire 2021. He misses almost all of training camp. It's very hard to get in the rhythm of playing in the NFL when you're not playing very much. And that goes for even squeezing the ball when it comes your way, right? Like how much confidence do you have if you've had a thumb injury and you've been out of the game for quite a while of making a big play and catching the ball? And the amount that Johnny Munt played in week one clearly did not mean Johnny Munt

was taking over as tight end one. Irv Smith, uh, you know, prove that with his snap count in this last game that, that he played a lot more and it looks like he's back to full strength. Uh, let's see, got, um, 34 plays in this game. No, 53. No, that's his total. I'm sorry. It was 34. 34 plays against Philadelphia. So they're ramping up his snap total. And I wouldn't declare it over at this point and declare him a bust at this point. But there's a difference between saying that I believe Irv Smith can be a good player in the league based on what we've seen from him in training camp and in small samples in games and having the production match the draft capital

that was spent because through this point in his career, that draft pick has not been successful. Uh, I mean, he was taken with the 50th overall pick in 2019. And during his career, let me call this back up. Uh, we're talking about a guy who's made 74 catches after being drafted in 2019. Like that's not enough. That's not enough production. It's not all his fault because of the injuries, but it's not enough production to say it's been a good draft pick so far. That said, I do think Irv Smith jr. Will get in the rhythm throughout the season. And you need to give him some time because I remember when Latavius Murray signed and he was dealing with an injury that he had had surgery coming off, uh, playing with the

Raiders and he started very slow. And I think people were asking, oh man, is this like a terrible signing? And does this guy just like have nothing back there? And then he became a huge player for the Vikings throughout 2017. As he worked back into playing. That means very hard to be in game shape when you miss almost the entire training camp. And so I think that we have to give Irv Smith a little more time. I don't think we can call him Troy Williamson level bust or that he can't catch the ball

yet. But there's, you know, there's 15 more games here to kind of justify that draft pick because otherwise it will look like it really was not worth the pick that they spent on it. And maybe, and maybe if they had not extended Kyle Rudolph and by the way, still paying for him on the salary cap, if they had not extended Kyle Rudolph and just given Irv Smith Jr. the job right from the outset, maybe we would be talking about him a little bit differently if he had gotten those opportunities to be their number one tight end. But it's an interesting thing to talk about his career because we've always believed that the talent is there and yet the production has not matched that as of this moment.

On to the next question. This comes from Alex. Hey, Matthew, I wrote you asking if you could convince me not to give up on the season prior to the Green Bay game. You did a great job of giving me reasons to stay invested. Now that we've seen two weeks of this team, I think I have a good idea of the middle

in which this team is mired. For me, it comes down to this. If the goal is truly to win a Super Bowl, this front office is gambling on the idea that Kirk Cousins is capable of winning four straight playoff games, assuming they aren't the number one seed. And I got to tell you, I just don't see it. So I'll try to stay on board, sort of like that cringing Larry David gif, most likely watching a topsy-turvy 9-8 or 10-7 season. But feeling like winning that many

playoff games with this quarterback and the lack of elite talent around him is never going to happen. My question would be for you is a nine or 10 win season with a quick playoff exit enough for Kirk to get another extension. How much longer must we be subjected to this mediocrity? Uh, yet, uh, uh, yeah, being told that we'll be different if they make a tweak here or there. Yeah, that's the hard thing about a game like Philadelphia, because you've all seen it many times. And if you come back and tell you, what's the, I mean, there's a lewd saying about this, like that ends with, and tell me it's raining. You know what I'm talking about? Like, don't do this and then tell me it's raining. Right. Uh, that's kind of like the Kirk cousins discourse, uh, or sales pitch every off season is, well, we're going to do this with him. So now he'll be different. No,

he won't be different. I mean, this is not going to be a different quarterback than he's ever been. And it's always been a difficult sell to talk about going through four playoff games to win a Superbowl. I completely agree with you there. And what we saw in 2019 was the exact roller coaster that everyone's gone through from week to week was week one and two, not like the first and second round of the playoffs in 2019, you get this great performance with a game-winning throw to Kyle Rudolph and everybody celebrates. And then the very next week you're averaging four and a half yards, a pass attempt, and just putting together the most meek possible performance

against the San Francisco 49ers, a team that had a very good defense, a great defensive line that shut down Delvin Cook in that game. New Orleans did not stop Delvin Cook in the game, and there was a passing game that followed. And I think from that perspective, Mike Zimmer always understood that the passing game does have to play off the running game. And there are numbers to suggest that teams were playing Delvin Cook differently then than they are now because of how dangerous he was then versus now. And, and, and you could see, um, and Eric eager, our friend of the show for a PFF.

And actually he's leaving for another company. We'll talk to him about that at some point soon. Uh, but you know, he did a study about linebackers and how linebackers moved more for Delvin cook and Derek Henry than other running backs and how that impacted the quarterback. So it's very interesting how, you know, we kind of thought, well, you can put anybody back there and that's true, but there was exceptions for a couple of running backs in the league that were legitimately helping their quarterback. And I don't see that now happening with the Vikings running game. I don't think it's scaring people enough.

So you would have to also, by the way, tying it into your question, you would have to be able to run the ball really effectively for three straight rounds of the playoffs to get into the Super Bowl. And that's very hard to do when you have great defensive lines that are going to make it deeper in the playoffs. It's extremely hard to do when you have great defensive lines that are going to make it deeper in the playoffs. Uh, it's extremely hard to see. I don't want to go there yet because there's a whole roller coaster to go on for the rest of the season. And I don't want to overreact to what we saw in Philly and say, well, look, it's over folks. This is going to be, this is going to be the O'Connell arrow with Kirk and that's that. Um, but I do believe, and this is

based a lot on the USA today comments from Kweisi Adafo Mensah, that they are not locked in for the future, that they will be looking very closely at this year's draft class with the quarterbacks. And I think they will be in a very big group of teams that are trying to draft one of those quarterbacks to eventually move on from Kirk cousinsousins. That could change. It could be a miraculous turnaround. It could be less of a roller coaster than it is before. They could figure some things out that they did wrong against Philadelphia, make all those corrections and have a great season. That's possible. But what you laid out is still the most likely scenario and always has been. Nine or ten wins, if that, and it would be hard to go deep into the playoffs. It feels to me like they are not going to lock in long term, but maybe they needed this

season to show to the owners, this is kind of the best anybody can do with this and we need more it kind of reminds me of the way that Sean McVay started running all these screen passes and short throws with Jared Goff maybe even to be able to go to their ownership and their management and say can we get Matt Stafford in here because he's going to be able to make these throws we need him to make and Jared Goff can't do it it feels like maybe there's some of that this season of saying like, there is a ceiling here with cousins and now it's time to make that change. Reminds me a little bit of, of Buffalo. And I've brought this, uh, brought this up before,

but in Buffalo, Tyra Taylor had some success and was highly debated there in Buffalo. Uh, you know, my friends there in Buffalo were on this side of the fence or other with Tyrod Taylor. Is he good enough? He just needs an offensive line. He just needs more receivers. He just needs a better offensive coach. All these things. They just need to rebuild their defense.

This, this, this. They get Josh Allen and then everything comes together, right? And I think that you can look around and find a lot of examples of similar things to that and that they have to be aware of that. Like the most well-researched team in the Minnesota Vikings has to be aware that, you know, Tua got drafted by Miami and all of a sudden looks good where they're able to fill out all these other positions. Right.

And that Jalen Hurts has developed with a team that has put a lot of money and a lot of investment and a lot of draft capital into a lot of different positions. Like there's a lot of examples of this that don't necessarily mean you have to tank like Miami did. Philadelphia never tanked, but they were able to reset things and rebuild and draft a quarterback and things like that.

So they've got to be aware of that. However, as I will continue to say early in the season, we're not having these conversations too in depth because there's a game to be played and there's a long way to go. I mean, we are months from really knowing how this team will feel about Kirk Cousins, what decisions they'll make in the future. And if they beat the heck out of the lions and win by 30, it's going to be like, oh, okay, well maybe Philly was a blip on the radar. Cause that's a decent lions team.

If they lose by 30 to the lions. Well, then I think we are having a little more discussion about what it all means to the quarterback position. So great email, Alex, really appreciate you listening and asking, asking really good questions. Okay. On to the next one here. This comes from at Ross I Lidman on Twitter, or maybe Rossy Lidman. I don't know which way it's pronounced. I don't know why I assumed it was a middle initial. It could be Ross Elidman. Anyway, not the point. Let's see. He says, why can't we even be competitive in primetime games?

Different coach, different players, still the same thing. Are we really cursed? I don't think you're cursed, and I will tell you why. Because you're always that one player away from not being cursed. I mean, the New Orleans Saints. I saw a little factoid the I mean, the new Orleans saints, I saw, I saw a little factoid the other day that the new Orleans saints, uh, are something like two and eight in their last 10 home games. It's like, Oh really? Let's see what happened over their last,

uh, 10 home games. Who didn't they have? They're playing quarterback. Let's see what, what that, that advantage of the super dome didn't really exist before a certain quarterback. And then that quarterback made them have a huge home field advantage and played amazing there. And then they didn't have it after. I just can't figure out the correlation. I mean, I, I think that there is a argument to be made that this organization, the Minnesota Vikings as a whole, has dealt with more close calls and more good seasons than would ever be statistically possible to not get back to the Super Bowl since the 70s or to not win one in the 70s considering those team strengths right uh the buffalo bills are a little bit of a different story where you know they had the four close calls but before and after they had really

just a barren wasteland of of decades of badness and then now they're back but again it kind of connects to that quarterback does it not they have jim kelly they're amazing they have no one they're terrible they have josh allen they're amazing amazing about that. Uh, what a connection, what a strange correlation that is anyway. Uh, yeah, I mean, I think, but as far as cursed goes, like, no, it's, it's flawed. It's just flawed. Like this group since Kirk cousins got here has just been flawed in 2017. They had a near flawless roster. And the idea was to bring it back in 2018. And you would say like, oh, okay. Uh, well now everyone's back, but everyone wasn't back. It wasn't exactly the same. They did make changes to that roster and people did get hurt and people did get a year older and they did change their offensive philosophy and things like that. Right? Like it wasn't exactly the same when you get a lot, a year where a lot of players have their best

possible outcome. And then you go into the next year and expect the same results. I think the Rams might see a little bit of this as well. Like you might not get them, right? You just might not get the best possible outcome from so many players at once. They went into 2018 after Terrence Newman and B Rob had had really good years. And then they, uh, both ended up out of the league. After that, there was some key role players that were not brought back because they didn't have the money, you know, things like that. And then some other guys got banged up or didn't perform quite as well. And you end up with a roster that wasn't as strong. And then by 2019, it's still a very, very good football team, but it's not quite at the level that it was. And, and by the time you get to hear this, this Eric Hendricks, this Harrison,

Harrison's still great, by the way, I'm not, I'm not taking away from Harrison 2017. He could have been the MVP on defense of the whole league. Like he had a really good case for it. I don't know that he's that player now. And, you know, even Daniil Hunter, like I think his first two weeks have been okay, but he's not rushing across Everson Griffin and he's a few injuries into his career. Like, are these the same types of players as they were before? You know, you have that in a lot of situations. Like Patrick Peterson is not the same player as several years ago.

No one would be. And you're kind of hoping that he's going to be even as good as last year, which you don't know because he's getting older. Like, so, um, yeah, I, I mean, I, I don't mean to kind of just like kind of go on and on about this, but it's not, it's not a curse. It's really a quarterback thing. And it's really a roster strength and timeline thing that the timeline was botched by this team. And I think timelines are everything in the, in all sports really

is picking your spot to really go for it. The Timberwolves are an example here of a team that sees a rising superstar and another star in his prime. And they said, we're going to go for this with Rudy Gobert and it might fail, but at least they got the timeline thing, right? Which is, this is the time to go for it. There's no better time to go for it than now. And that I think they're correct in with the Vikings. There was no better time to go for it than 2017 to go all in. And that, you know, they had a great team, so they didn't really need to do anything.

It had been developed over years, but they were going all in on that, you know, they had a great team, so they didn't really need to do anything. It had been developed over years, but they were going all in on like the Sam Bradford idea, right? Because they knew that that was their window with that strength of that roster. If they didn't think that they had a window to win, they wouldn't have traded a first for Sam Bradford. So even though that didn't work out and did not get them to the Super Bowl and Bradford got hurt, it was still a move that made sense because they had to take advantage of how good that roster was. And in 2020, they made moves like franchise tagging Anthony Harris and trading for Yanni and those things that were desperate moves as opposed to taking a step back and trying

to rebuild it and giving younger players opportunities, getting higher draft picks. As you see, Philadelphia has really worked the draft brilliantly. The Vikings didn't do that. They said, no, we extended Cousins. We have to be good again in 2020 and off we go. And what they could have done is just let Cousins play out that contract and let them hit free agency again and moved on if they had understood the timeline better. So it's not really cursed. I think it's a little bit of their own making in these recent years for why they haven't shown up on the primetime games, I think.

And I don't entirely connect it to Cousins because I've seen him play well in primetime. But usually what happens is you're playing a really good team in a prime time game. Like cousins played fine against Washington a few years ago and they got an easy win on prime time. Well, that's because Washington was horrible, right? I mean, Philadelphia is good and that's why they were there. Um, so I think that, I think that's what it usually is, is you're usually going up against a team that is either expected to be really good or has a ton of star talent that they're trying to put on television.

Like they've got Buck and Aikman now, right? So they're going to try to use those games to get the best possible matchups to get people to watch Buck and Aikman on Monday Night Football and reinvigorate Monday Night Football. So they put a really good Eagles team there. Uh, you know, all, all that's a part of it. And when this team has played against superior rosters and teams that are peaking in their timelines, they've lost just through the entire cousins era. They just haven't been strong enough. And your performance out of Kirk cousins is a reflection of your roster, like just period, right? That's what it's always been. It's Cousins is a reflection of the roster and the scheme. You will not get

out schemed and win a game with him. You won't get out manned on the offensive versus defensive line and win very many games. You won't give up a lot of points on defense and win very many games. It's just who he is as a quarterback and who they decided that they wanted to make their franchise quarterback and keep sticking with. So if you can't match up the timeline with a quarterback like him, with a roster that's peaking, like say Jimmy Garoppolo with the San Francisco 49ers, like Garoppolo is probably the same way is like a reflection of the roster, but their rosters are great and they're in their peak. They're like Vikings 2015 through 2017 over these last few years.

So I think that's it more than a curse, but there could also be a curse. Definitely could be a curse based on all the other things that have gone wrong. Uh, okay. Let's see, maybe one more and we'll do a whole fans only episode before, um, before the Detroit game. Let's see. Is it, uh, this one comes from seven, seven, nine, zero skull on Twitter. Is it too early to say perhaps maybe just a tiny bit.

Mike Zimmer understood that putting the fate of the team directly in cousins hands with empty sets and no threat of the run. Isn't the best recipe for success. Yes. Yep. Yep. That's right. That's right.

Mike Zimmer fully understood what Kirk Cousins needed to succeed. He was not nice to Kirk Cousins. He didn't believe in Kirk Cousins. He took passive aggressive shots at him and sometimes flat out aggressive. He did not make it a comfortable situation for Cousins to lead the team. He did not meet with Kirk cousins until Kirk asked for it in the final year of Zimmer being here. Um, but did he have the wrong idea? No, of course not. No, definitely not. And it, and it shows, you know, where it shows up is those play action stats. Like Mike knew that running with Delvin cook and running play action, he was obsessed with running with Delvin cook and running play action, he was obsessed with

running with Delvin cook. So he did it too much, but running play actions with Kirk was a really important factor. And when you're, when you've taken yourself out of the run game and we can look at those stats on play action, I'll call them up because it's great. I think it's great evidence of how Zimmer had it. Right. Was the way that they executed the play action with them and how good Kirk cousins was with it. And you have to play off the run. If you're going to execute and play action, uh, let's see here. Everybody

hang tight. If you made it this far, you're going to be patient for me to get this number. Okay. Uh, last year, Kirk cousins, 116 quarterback rating third best in the league in play action now let me pull up in 2020 and this is all pff stats here in 2020 kirk cousins fourth best in play action 2020 brady deshaun watson and rogers were the only guys better in play action than cousins in 2020 2019 hold tight it's loading it doesn't doesn't matter. You know, the answer, like he's one of the top, uh, in the NFL every single year in 2019, he had the most touchdown passes in the league on play action. And he had the fifth best quarterback rate. He's been a top five play action quarterback every year since they implemented or during the Kubiak style offense that clearly plays off of

the run game and Delvin cook and they knew it and they had it right. I mean, if they get in situations where they're down by three scores, they're not very likely to come back because you need that to be the case. Um, so yeah, I mean, if, if they take themselves out of that play action look and, and I'm sure the play action stats so far this year are not, um, yeah, he's only, he's only thrown 18 passes with play action, but guess what? Guess what? He's been amazing. Yeah, that's right. So far he's only thrown 18 passes in play action and ranks third in the league in quarterback rating, 149.1 rating with play action so far. Yep. That, that is the answer to get the most out of cousins, but the game and the way it plays out. And if you go three and out to start the game a couple of times and you don't get defensive stops, like they had the right formula for how to win with this quarterback, but it really requires circumstances. And that's kind of, that's kind of why it always dials back to, you know, do you pay that person that much? If it's all required to be about circumstances,

which it usually is. So anyway, look, they're playing the lions and they have to be able to run the ball early to make the lions, not blitz. And they have to be able to run the ball early to make the Lions not blitz. And they have to be able to run play actions with cousins because those will get receivers open down the field and he can make those throws. And if they do that, they'll win the game. They'll go to London and play a very flawed Saints team with a chance to have a good look coming back to play the Chicago Bears. If you get this win against Detroit, you've got an opportunity to reel off a couple of wins here and put Philadelphia in the rearview mirror.

If they don't do that and they lose to teams that are mediocre, like Detroit, like New Orleans, like, I mean, Chicago, they can always lose to Chicago, but I mean, that one needs to be a win. But if they lose two out of the next three, then we're talking about all the things you guys are asking about with the future. Did they make the right move with the way they handled the offseason? All that stuff. So this is a vital swing game for the Vikings this week.

And they need to run some boots. Run the play actions, man. It works. We'll talk to you guys later.