Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - O'Connell isn't a wizard but the Vikings are 3-1

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

The Minnesota Vikings got their second wonky win in a row and a Star Tribune columnist called out Kevin O'Connell for not taking the Vikings' offense to the next level. Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about a crazy stat regarding Justin Jefferson, how we're thinking about a 3-1 start that hasn't included a great passing offense and why Murphy is inclined to ride the wave.  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Brian Murphy for a Monday morning Murph and the Vikings wake up today. Well, I don't know when they're waking up because they

were flying back and who knows the sports science schedule for them. Hard to say, but the state of Minnesota is waking up to a three and one football team. Murph, give me your reaction to the Vikings winning three of their first four games. Well, they're playing with house money. I don't think anybody denies that. It's not exactly. I haven't been,

you know, they, they've survived a decent, an unconventional tough stretch to start a season. You're breaking in a new coach. You know, you're taking on green Bay. You're taking on Philadelphia,

which seems to be the class of the NFC right now on the road. You're traveling to London. You're finding ways to win. You're finding ways to look bad. But you're finding ways to win. You're discovering a little bit of resilience. And it's an ugly three-in-one. But again, style points mean nothing in the NFL. And as things get rougher next, the next few weeks, they got the Bears at home.

Obviously, that should be easy. Nothing's easy, but it should be. But then you're in Miami and then, you know, you've got Buffalo and Dallas staring at you in November. I think if they can build up some confidence and get away with some things early on, you know, things tend to take on a life of their own as you get going in a season. So they may be doing this with smoke and mirrors for a while. And at the very least, it's entertaining. And at the very least, there's a little bit of hope. So I look at it as three in one. I don't think anybody thought that that would have been, uh, a certainty and the way

they've done it, you know, that's probably what people would think it would be a little bit of a scramble. And I don't know if I'm a Vikings fan, I got to feel pretty good at the very least. Are you not entertained? Well, there's no way that you could feel bad about being three in one. So, you know, when I see certain things of people being like really upset and saying, you know, whatever, this team is bad or whatever else you're like, okay, well look, the record is the record. Um, and you don't have to go back. And just like last year where we said the opposite, where it was like, well, you don't get bonus points for coming close. Well, you don't have to give anybody bonus points away, um, for, you know, almost blowing or losing to, uh, the Detroit lions and the new Orleans saints to very middling for

different reasons, teams in the NFC. But I also think that the Vikings are showing that they are in that category of middling teams in the NFC. And then the question is, but whom is not? I mean, okay. So Dallas, I think is not, um, Cooper rush has been fine, but when they get Dak Prescott back, that team looks pretty legit. The Philadelphia Eagles are the best team in the NFL. But after that, I mean, Bailey Zappy almost got it done against the green Bay Packers yesterday. So they have plenty of reason, although I don't know that they think this way, but they have like in green Bay, they just are different.

They think that that win just means they're going to win a championship. But here's, here's something that, that I noticed though on the old internet was Jim Suhan of the strip wrote his column. And the headline is this Vikings are three in one, but where's Kevin O'Connell's wizardry? Wizardry. Is that fair, Murph?

Yeah, I think it's fair because we were told that this was going to be the guy that was going to unlock, or thought was going to be at least one of the solutions to unlock the great Kirk Cousins enigma. But, you know, Jefferson, I think it was refreshing to see Jefferson involved as he was yesterday. What I thought was a little bit telling, too, was I don't know where I read it, but there were some postgame quotes to the effect of where, you know, Kevin O'Connell'sgame quotes to the effect of where, you know, Kevin O'Connell's been talking to Jefferson the last couple of weeks about staying patient, staying a leader. Don't Stefan Diggs me here.

Don't create don't become a cancer or at least a quiet cancer that spreads and then forces me to have to move on and start over. Or don't make this about you. Don't make this about a drama. We're going to get you the ball. We're going to get you your numbers. We're going to get you your production. He's buying in so far. We haven't seen any temper tantrums yet.

And I think it was important to get him involved more yesterday. Obviously, the Saints decided we're not going to double team Jefferson like the Lions did as much. We're going to put Marshawn Lattimore on him and take our chances. You know, it was a hell of a battle going most of the day. When it mattered most, Kirk Cousins threw his best pass probably of the season in that 30-some yard completion to Jefferson over Lattimore to set up Joseph's eventual game-winning field goal. I would say that I think we still don't know what Delvin Cook can do.

We're still not sure if Irv Smith is fully recovered. We're still not sure if K.J. Osborne is going to emerge as something more than an occasional headline in the red zone. But I think those are legitimate questions that that o'connell is going to have to answer i think i i did read that uh suham column and i thought he made a great point and that you know o'connell's had his whole life to prepare his whole coaching life to prepare for his first nfl game and then he had six months to do it with the Vikings and he looked great against Green Bay. And then now you got to do it 16 more times. And that's where he's learning

and that's where he's growing. And I look, the team yet last year would probably be one in three right now and in disarray. And we know why, because there just wasn't a leadership element there that was holding forth. And whenever there was adversity, the Vikings seemed to find a way to fall apart. In fact, I think they were two and five last year. I wrote this down. Two and five last year in games decided by four points or less. Well, they're three and one now and a couple of nail biters. So again, this is all house money. We'll see where it plays out in November and December. But I think fans should demand more of O'Connell, but I think they should also be appreciative of what they've gotten so far.

Well, when it comes to the close game thing, I mean, it's, this is a long proven NFL thing that close games go either way, unless you're Tom Brady or something like, like over year over year, you can't count on winning all of the close games. If you have one of the great quarterbacks, you probably will. And if you look at like one score games for Tom Brady, he's going to win a lot more than the other team. But when you talk about average teams, it's usually just the randomness of the game. And so that's why I don't buy the last year's team would have been one in three. I think last year's team, who knows? I mean, because the ball double doinked,

if it only doinks once it goes in and that's the same case that everybody was making last year against Cincinnati. Like, oh, well, if they hadn't ruled that a fumble against Delvin cook, when Delvin looked like he was down, then the Vikings beat the Cincinnati Bengals in week one. There was a, oh, this small thing happened that ended up causing their close losses every single time, just in the same way that these small things, including the referees who gave them a huge boost. I don't want to hear for maybe half a season, anybody complained about the refs screwing the Vikings because they were doubled up in penalties yesterday, including one that was very questionable on the balloon that Kirk Cousins threw up to Adam Thielen. And both guys were pushing back and forth. Thielen got a handful of face masks. They didn't call that. The other guy gets a pass interference and it's a 30 yard gain for the Vikings when they

were not moving the ball offensively at all. I don't think that vibes or resilience or high fives or conversations with Justin Jefferson or belief in Kirk Cousins or any of that caused them to win these last two close games. I think it was Dan Campbell and I think it was a double doink and penalties against the New Orleans Saints that opened the door for the Vikings and an all-world play by Justin Jefferson that caused that. But I think that there is a reasonable criticism for O'Connell for it not being better than it is because when you look at Kirk Cousins' numbers and expected points added, he currently ranks 18th.

In ESPN's QBR. He's 20th. His numbers have not been what you would have expected, especially after that first week, but just what you would have expected in general to start the season. And it's certainly small sample size, but right now he's playing some of the worst football of his career by his numbers. I mean, he has an 84 overall traditional quarterback rating. He's averaging 6.6 yards per pass attempt. I mean, that's just not what anybody saw coming through these first four games. And by the way, the Detroit defense that they struggled against gave up 48 points to Gino Smith. I mean, I, but here's my question though. How much of this is on Kevin O'Connell when it

looks like Kirk cousins is not comfortable. And that was the whole thing, right? Is we're going to do everything for Kirk, but it also looks like they don't have much of a running game and they don't have the secondary receivers that it sounds like on paper. So I don't know how much I'm supposed to say this is coaching versus a tight end. Who's coming off a major injury, another tight end who just dropped a one yard pass. Like, what are you doing Johnny Munn? And, uh, then Thielen who is not for now two years, been able to pick up big gains and KJ Osborne, who was more likely than not to be the occasional number three wide receiver. It's kind of what he is. And the irony is that I think the offensive line has played fairly well.

But I guess how much are we, are we talking about it being coaching that the numbers are what they are with this team's passing game? Well, he's the new element. I mean, he was the one that was supposed to, you know, as you said, make Kirk feel good about himself, make Kirk feel confident, you know, get the bully out of the room, let him flourish. It hasn't happened. You know, one stat I wrote down, too, is I think they're 28th, 30th, something like that, very, very far below third down conversions.

You know, they are not sustaining many drives. They're getting a handful of big plays here and there, but they're not systematically putting the hammer down on a team. And that was a game yesterday where the Saints were vulnerable for obvious reasons. I mean, they're without Jameis Winston, they're without Alvin Kamara, they're without Michael Thomas, three, and I think a starting lineman, too, on the offense. I mean, they were ripe to be picked, and they're not a good team. The Saints are not a good team. They're not the Saints that we've been used to seeing in the last 10 to 12 years over, have been used to seeing with Sean Payton.

I want to know where the Vikings are going to prove themselves to be a team that can take control of a game and slowly snuff out an opponent. They haven't been able to do that yet. They've let them linger. I mean, five field goals by Joseph, very productive, but how many drives did they need? Seven instead of three. And this game would have been over at halftime. I mean, you could have actually stopped drinking at 9 a.m. and actually gone out and done something productive with your day. But of course, they don't make it that easy. How much is on O'Connell? A lot of it's on O'Connell. He's the one that came in and was kind of billed a bit as the savior, the quarterback whisperer. We're not seeing all of that yet. But as we've said for three years, Kirk is who he is. So how much is O'Connell going to be able to do

to direct him into a confident place where he can take down opponents, where he can take over a game and actually feel like, okay, it's the third quarter. The Vikings are going to, they're up by 10. This one's over. They're going to take care of it with the ball. They're going to take care of it with Dalvin Cook. They're going to take care of it with the ball. They're going to take care of it with Dalvin Cook. They're going to take care of it because they can take care of the football. That's another thing. I wrote last week that Cousins needs to be a little bit more aggressive and not worry about taking risks, throwing into tight windows to make things happen for Jefferson, especially if he's double teamed.

Well, he got picked a couple times, and I don't know if he's uncomfortable because he doesn't feel like he's playing well or if he's uncomfortable because Kevin O'Connell and the coaching staff are putting him into uncomfortable positions that he's not accustomed to. That's a lot more psychology, but I'd be curious to see how he advances here because he's not going to have the greatest numbers that he's had in the past, but the only one that really matters is the W column. And if he can find a way to translate this a little bit more of an aggressive philosophy,

then maybe he'll feel more comfortable. I don't know yet. I don't see it happening, but I do see him, and I'm speaking specifically of Cousins, I do see him and I'm speaking specifically of cousins. I do see him trying to adjust to a, a new system that's asking him to do more and step out of his comfort zone. Is Kirk cousins capable of doing that? Yeah, I think that we've already seen Kevin O'Connell like really dial it back from what he initially wanted to run after what happened in Philadelphia, because we're seeing a lot more I formation CJ hams out there. They're running bootlegs. They started doing it against Detroit and then they were doing it in, in this game against the saints as well. And when they were trying to get cousins going, there were a lot of short passes. Like they are

not pushing the ball down the field really at all. Uh, unless Justin Jefferson is one-on-one or wide open. And that's, that's what it's kind of come to at this point. Murph is it's essentially the Justin Jefferson offense. And I've got an absolutely crazy stat and this, I know everyone like knows that it's four games. So I don't have to keep saying small sample size, small sample size, but this is nuts. In plays involving Justin Jefferson, the Vikings average 9.9 yards per play. Now I understand that if you throw it to Justin Jefferson, you didn't get sacks. So like that has to be considered, but everything else that's not a throw to Justin Jefferson averages 3.9 yards per play. So when they throw

to Jefferson, they're an unbelievable team as you'd expect. And that's not uncommon for it to be about 10 yards per target. And it's a really good number, but when it comes to anything else, they're not even gaining four yards of play. And I think that's exactly what it's looked like for these last few weeks. There's some short completions against the Lions. It's to the tight end. But in this game, I mean, there wasn't really anybody else. There was a lot of short throws to Adam Thielen. But other than that, there was not a lot of explosiveness from anyone else. In fact, the two longest plays, of course, went to Jefferson. Then the next longest was a 15 15 yard catch by Thielen.

And then there was the touchdown from Alexander Madison on a screen pass in the red zone, which just tells you about the trust level for the quarterback when you're throwing a screen pass on third down and long in the red zone. But it worked. It was a good play call. But the next longest pass after that was by the punter. So, I mean, so they just are not moving the ball down the field at all. And Cousins numbers, you know, he's always had these huge

quarterback ratings and quarterback rating is a very flawed statistic. We know that, but his quarterback rating right now is lower than Matt Ryan's, which is not what anyone would have expected the way that Matt Ryan has played in Indianapolis. And that's where you could get to a point where you'd say, okay, I thought this was going to be different because of the coaching. But I also think that Kevin O'Connell thought this was going to be different because of the quarterback he was inheriting. And so what we're seeing is now O'Connell having to adapt to what he has. So I don't, I don't know that I have ever

really fully bought into, Oh, it's the scheme. Oh, it's this coach or it's this offensive coordinator. It's usually the players. And I think, you know, Chicago, they're going to play next. They're finding that out. Oh, they hired this guy. He's going to run the boots with Justin Fields and Justin Fields is still bad folks. So, uh, yeah, I mean, Matt rule all, we're going to trade for Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield and I'll make them better. No, you won't. Cause that's not how this works. So I guess I think that O'Connell designed an offense with a certain thing in mind.

And then once they started playing, he's realized that that's not the thing that he has. And he is in the process of having to adapt. But that process has included some pretty rocky moments that really opened the door for the New Orleans Saints to potentially win that game. Well, one thing that really reared its ugly head again was time management, clock management. I mean, it is the holy grail for head coaches, is it not? I mean, to find a way to know how to manage your timeouts, to manage your play calls, to steal points, to steal a couple possessions,

especially at the end of that first half. The Vikings had all three timeouts left, and yet somehow in the final minute ended up only burning one of them with three seconds left to set up Greg Joseph for another field goal where they had time in that final minute to use the entire field, to work the ball downfield, to maybe get a little bit more than three. But again, it was sort of a, they were caught in between. It looked like they were, O'Connell in particular was caught in between. It looked like O'Connell in particular was caught in between. What do I do with the amount of time I have? Can I get greedy and keep my timeouts and be a little bit more,

open up the playbook a little bit more? And he ended up just grinding everything down to a nub. And that's a lot of what people were complaining about last year with Zimmer. It's what everybody complains about in every market is that there's not a head. I mean, just ask anybody in Denver right now. There's not a head coach that can seem to crack that nut of figuring out how to best utilize your timeouts, how to best steal yards, steal plays, all kinds of different plays in the final minute while you have all three timeouts. I don't understand how that, that happened again yesterday, but it, it, as you said, it kind of kept the saints engaged.

It kept them sniffing around. I had, you know, I had a sense that maybe this would be another Andy Dalton, another backup quarterback takes down the Vikings again, storyline. It was certainly close to that. Even in that last drive, how did you end up letting them get down to midfield again? You knew Lutz had a big leg he just made from 60 to force your hand at the end there. And yet again, it was soft there towards the end. Clock management, last couple of minutes of a half, last couple of minutes of a game.

I don't know if anybody's figured this thing out yet, no matter how many coaches, coordinators, or analytics folks you're going to find. It still comes down to gut feeling. It still comes down to managing a chaotic situation. Kevin O'Connell's 37. He's just starting at this. He's got a long way to go. Mike Zimmer was 65.

He hadn't figured it out yet either. I feel like that is always going to be the pursuit of any head coach is how to figure those things out. But Kevin O'Connell, he's got a lot on his plate right now. And at the end of the day, we've been nitpicking here for a half hour. They are three and one. Folks, maybe you've been a little confused when you're in the water section of the grocery store and you see what looks like tall boy beer cans well that is water and it's called liquid death which coincidentally is not only not deadly but also delicious and comes in mountain spring style or sparkling in three different flavors why is water called liquid

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there are metrics to analyze coaches and how much expected points and win probability and things like that, that their decisions theoretically should add or take away because the results can be difficult. And John Harbaugh with the Ravens is a good example about the results were horrendous for them yesterday, but I totally agreed with his decision. If you kick a field goal and you give the ball back to Josh Allen, he's going to go score a touchdown, and especially the way the Ravens' defense has been playing. And also the idea was if you miss that, that you're going to try to make him go 98 yards in the slop. But Lamar Jackson threw an interception,

and then that's something you didn't know. And if you score there with one of the greatest quarterbacks on earth needing two yards, if you score there, then there is no lose. Like you're either being tied at the end of the game or you're winning. You're not losing. Like that takes, that result is gone if you end up scoring. So it's usually if it goes wrong, then people criticize the coach. But I think we're getting smarter at that, not criticizing coaches when they have the right process. I don't think we've seen the right process from Kevin O'Connell all the time, yet they have somebody who's supposed to be helping him or is helping him on game day to make these calls. But what these guys often don't realize is how chaotic things are and how easy it is to accidentally let some time go off the clock or to make the wrong time

out because everything has to happen so fast. And the coach is also trying to get play calls in and everything else. And I think that O'Connell likes that he can make that decision quick and then get a play call in and things like that. But I don't think that the game management has been super sharp and I haven't seen the analysis yet on all the decisions that have been made. But I think the question is when you bring up three and one is, I mean, Vikings fans have been through this many times, right? You're always asking. That's the big NFL question through every week of the season is, is what we just saw

what it's going to be. And that's the one I have the most trouble answering here, Murph, because I think what we just saw is who the Minnesota Vikings are going to be. But I don't think that that means they're going to have a bad season here after starting three and one. I mean, unless they have some injuries, which we know can be problematic, but there just aren't that many teams that are much different from the new Orleans saints and the Detroit lions as we go forward. And I think that at the end of the season, you probably, you know, split a lot of these close games,

win a couple that you should against horrible teams that you're facing along the way. And all of a sudden you've got yourself a pretty darn good season. And so we can look back and go like, yeah, there's a lot of imperfections to this thing, but the goal was to reach the playoffs. The goal was not necessarily to put yourself in position for the future or anything else like that. It's just make the playoffs and give yourself a chance. And I think that as long as they're able to improve the statistics where they are in the passing game, which would be the thing I'm concerned about,

I mean, yeah, they can end up having a very good season despite a lot of warts. Well, things are set up well for them in the sense that, as we mentioned last week too, I mean, the AFC is obviously the dominant conference. It's where the star power is. It's where the experience is. It's where probably the Superbowl winner is going to emerge. Other than the Philadelphia Eagles, it's pretty wide open right now in the NFC and certainly in the division as

well. I mean, I think the Vikings already have a home victory over Green Bay. They're going to have to go there in January. That's probably going to determine their season as it usually does. But this team is not going to be the same team in January that it is today, the one that we're nitpicking today. You mentioned injuries, but there's also a team that gets battle scars throughout September and October and even into November builds up that scar tissue for the tougher moments in December and into early January. So I think, if anything, the Vikings are learning, but they're learning while they're winning. And that allows you to cover up for a multitude of sins that may surface later. But in the meantime, you can learn how to play despite maybe not having your best quarterback play,

despite not having great production from Dalvin Cook, despite not really having much of a downfield threat unless Jefferson is maybe singled and they take advantage of those occasional moments where he does get open and make a play. I mean, like I said, that if, if, if Cousins doesn't drop that dime in the final couple of minutes to Jefferson, I don't think they win that game. I mean, because obviously that set up Joseph's field goal, but it also, it was a moment, you know, it's one of the Cousins

has always been, always has moments. It's when you line up those moments and when do they matter and when do they affect a game the most, you can never tell with him. I mean, sometimes his moment might be on the first drive. The Vikings are very good at putting up points on their first drive, whether they're scripted or mostly scripted with a couple of unscripted moments. You always feel pretty good about where things are at with Cousins, where things are at with the offense. And then it just kind of, it goes on ice for a long period of time. But then out of nowhere, he'll have a moment and you'll be like,

if he could do that for 60 minutes, but we're going to, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole because we could go down that rabbit hole every week and say, if only Cousins X, Y, he is this is what they have they're going to have to find a way to harness those moments leverage them for as much as they can and get things done elsewhere and we haven't even talked about special teams or defense right now which i mean i i know people aren't enthralled with special teams but i you could make an argument right now that Matt Daniels' unit has as much of an impact on why the Vikings are 3-1 as anything Kevin O'Connell and the offense have done

because not only is Joseph, granted, he missed an extra point to make things interesting, but not only has Joseph been and emerged as a pretty uns you know unscathed confident guy who can get the job done when you need him but look what the punting game has done look what the the creativity they've done look what they've been able to do to kind of extend drives give give them give the team a chance to do something different and also just it doesn't have to come down to cousins and your offensive stars there's a lot of different things in games that they've done

where you're like those two or three things are probably as much responsible on defense a particular stop a particular play or special teams that have carried this team as much as we thought the offense might the this is a matt dans podcast. I mean, you know what people wanted in the past? And I thought Ryan Ficken did a good job last year, but they wanted a little creativity and creativity is a very tricky thing. It's like a common sort of cliche when something doesn't go right. You're like, well, why aren't you more creative? You know? Right. And it's like, well, there's a reason why you have to do all these things the way they do, because if you don't, uh, then you will fail. Like you can't go too far outside the lines. It's like,

I like to make chess comparisons on the show. Um, they have proven openings and things like that in chess. And if you try to do something different against someone who's really good, you just lose instantly. But the idea to pop the ball up on the kickoffs and then tackle the guy kind of like in the corner has worked for them a bunch of times. Like opposing teams are getting the ball. It seems like routinely at the 18 yard line to start drives after the Vikings score. And that does make a difference. I mean, that's a whole other first down that they have to get if they're going to go the whole length of the field. The play call on the fake was great. The guy ends up wide open, even if he hadn't made the throw, it's still a

great play call kick returning. We knew it was going to be good. They've had a few nice pot returns, but I mean, all of that is sort of like the window dressing to, to the whole thing. And I guess that's where, when you look at the picture of the team where you have to kind of be conflicted is the record versus what the defense has looked like versus how many points the defense has given up. Like the defense has looked much worse than their point total and versus the fact that passing games are the NFL. That's what's going to drive you. That's what's going to get you to the end.

And every year I've had this stat a million times on the show, Murph, but I don't know if I mentioned it to you that every year since Peyton broken Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl, the team that has won the Super Bowl has been in the top five and expected points added passing. And the Vikings right now are 18th. Like that's, or Kirk Cousins is. That's just not where you need to be. And so I guess the question is,

how much can you improve the things that are ailing them to make sure you sustain this winning? Because I don't think that if you play another game like that against Chicago, another game like that against Miami, against Arizona, I don't think it's going to be much different than coming down to the very end and hoping for some sort of bounce that goes your way. So the question is just how much you believe that Kevin O'Connell can, can, you know, change these things or the players can change these things, which kind of circles back to my original question, by the way, is like, I think it's way too early to be calling out Kevin

O'Connell for not being enough of a wizard. Like, I just think like we're four games in, like, I don't know. I mean, what the same thing with, with the special teams, it's like creativity. Yes. But there's only so much you can do. There's only so many things that you can change around. I've got my nitpicks as well but i just think it's too early for that folks a reminder to go to soda stick.com it is almost hockey and basketball season i am partial to the dunking wolf but they have all sorts of great designs on hats hoodies and t-shirts if you want 15 off your to SodaStick.com and use the promo code PurpleInsider. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, promo code PurpleInsider.

Yeah, it's too early because it's only four games, but it's never too early to demand more, to expect more. No, I'm not going to define Kevin O'Connell by September, October, even November. I'm not even going to define him by this season. I mean, you've made a long-term commitment to a 37-year-old head coach. You're going to let him grow into this. You're going to have to, he's, this, Kirk Cousins is very unlikely to be his quarterback much beyond this season either. I mean, he's probably sitting there thinking, all right, this is what I have. This is what I'm going to have to try to get away with with him, but we're going to move forward either in the draft or in the offseason with somebody else. So let's call it what it is. This is very likely Kirk Cousins' lame duck season in Minnesota.

So it doesn't have to be a long-term marriage here. So it's kind of like, what are you going to get out of this relationship in one season? I'm not going to hold O'Connell accountable for sort of the hiccups right now that we're all seeing, but I am in the broad scheme going to hold him accountable for trying. He has specific players that seem like individually could be huge difference makers but they can't seem to be cohesive all at once they haven't played a complete game I don't know what that complete game is like you said the modern NFL demands high passing production but the Vikings still have Dalvin Cook so is he is he a shell of himself because of his nagging shoulder injury? Are the games unfolding where they were able to establish the run a bit against Detroit,

but not much yesterday? What's dictating how these stars are not getting certain productions at certain times? Is Adam Thielen, I don't want to say washed up, but is he on the downslope of a bonus NFL career anyway? He came up limping again a bit yesterday. He always seems to have those ankle issues. Is KJ Osborne just, you know, a momentary guy? Is he something that can be a secondary threat?

Is Cousins going to be, you know, we never seen Cousins get kind of pissy and agitated and, and maybe a little bit prima donna-ish, but what's he going to be like if, if, if things aren't set up well for him to, to put up the numbers he's accustomed to putting up, even though they are having more success. These are the things that I'm going to be watching him manage because he's never had to manage, you know, a 53 man roster in general, but he's never had to, to, to manage one in particularly as thorny as the Vikings is, especially on offense, because we're not sure that Kirk Cousins is going to be the captain of this ship much longer. I wanted to ask you about that when you talk about player management and your thought on Kevin O'Connell sort of making it clear to the public that he does not want Justin Jefferson

throwing any fits. And the broadcast definitely went there on that red zone trip, the frustrated receiver story, which I think, you know, has come up so many times. It's a, it's a routine thing around the league, but with this team, it's like, everybody's got their binoculars on looking for receivers, throwing their hands up. And cousins even admitted that Jefferson was right. Like he had him in the back of the end zone and he should have made that throw, but cousins cannot react quickly because he does not have the arm strength to react quickly. I saw Josh Allen at the end of this Ravens game yesterday where everyone surrounded him and he was pressured and he wasn't even like set at all and just went boop and threw it like 25 yards down the field.

Like, yeah, that can't happen here. What Patrick Mahomes did last night, like that can't happen here. So you're going to have a lot of those moments where receivers go, you should be able to hit me there. And it's like, I don't think that he can, because he really has to throw with anticipation, but I just think it's an interesting approach. And, and Zimmer did this last year too, by the way, he went to Jefferson and he said, look, just, just hold tight. We're going to get you a big game against the chargers. And they did. And they won that game because Jefferson was amazing.

And it's the same sort of thing a little bit with O'Connell saying like, Jefferson, please, please do not throw your helmet on the sideline, throw your arms up and, and call out your quarterback and everything else. Like, please don't do this. Please don't do this when you're frustrated. And I guess I just think that that's interesting because Jefferson is in a place where he's got a contract extension coming up. He has made the declaration that he wants to be the best receiver in the league. And we all know the reasons to be frustrated, but I think he's going to have to really test that patience throughout the year.

And also he's really going to have to drive the whole offense because I don't know that those things are changing that you brought up like Adam Thielen and Delvin cook are just not getting younger. The only thing that could change, I think is Irv Smith improving. But other than that, I don't know. I think you, I think what you have is what you have. And that's what I think makes this intriguing to watch. And this is why I think the NFL is,

again, the greatest form of unscripted entertainment, because now what you're looking at is you're looking at a very static type team. You're looking at a team that didn't have a lot of question marks coming into it. As far as the roster was concerned, it was all about Kevin O'Connell. It was all about the regime change. So the fact that he was very proactive in trying to massage Jefferson's ego and doing it publicly says he understands the stakes, but it also says he's also the modern coach that knows that you do have to coddle these guys and that you do have to, it's preventative maintenance in a lot of ways because he knows, O'Connell's smart enough to know what happened with Stephon Diggs here. He's smart enough to know what happens with any

prima donna receiver in the NFL. If they're not getting fed, they're like any infant. They're going to pound the high chair table and demand more. And that's where we are. So I want to see where this goes. I also want to see, you know, he hasn't had, you know, a major off field incident. He hasn't had, you know, a, a crisis of a real, you know, a relocated game. He hasn't had, you know, he hasn't had all the things that come up in the NFL head coaching realm, crisis management. He hasn't had any major fires to put out. He's four games in. So I want to see what happens when, you know, a storm comes through and somebody's stadium isn't available and they have to relocate or they have to, you know, they got a major injury now. Obviously, it was not pleasant to see Lewis Sine go off the field after that replay. I think he

said all the right things, too, about closing ranks about him. I mean, the kid hadn't really had much of a chance on defense, but his career now is in jeopardy. And I think he showed the right amount of empathy there as well to basically say we're going to put our arms around him collectively and make sure he gets through this. I mean, that's an important thing to say, too, and I think those things resonate in the locker room.

Again, he's four games in. He's probably going to have a long career, whether it's in Minnesota or in the NFL in general. What? We've got, help me out here with the math, four games in, we got another 13 to play. I mean, I think there's so many things that are going to happen to test Kevin O'Connell and test the cohesion of that locker room. I'm looking forward to it. You should be looking forward to it because all it does is says there's going to be drama. So strap yourself in. Well, I also think that you make a good point of just this has to be a different feeling than it was at the end of Zimmer because it was so clearly the end. It was just so clearly like, okay, this isn't working. And everybody knew that at the very beginning of the season and the rest was a slog. And this is not that same feeling.

This is let's find out a lot of things as opposed to, oh man, we already know all the answers to the test here. And now it's just a academic to play it out. So let me wrap on this question then, Murph. How many of those 13 games do you think the Minnesota Vikings win? I don't want to put a number on it yet because I want to see how they perform against. What?

This is a podcast, Murph. This is our show. This is what you do. It's football football you make predictions I will not move off my nine game win prediction from the preseason okay okay so I did put a number on it a month or so ago I will not move off that until I see them perform against Miami and Buffalo on the road and Dallas at home so So I'd say by Thanksgiving, I'd feel pretty confident where this club is. Okay.

Because we haven't even talked about the Bears because the Bears are such a disaster. Everybody's just assuming this is going to be an easy win. I think there's going to be a moment on Sunday at home against the Bears where everybody's going to realize this isn't going to be an easy win. This is going to be another slog. It may come down to the very end again, and it may be another ugly win. I don't think you're going to see a lot of, other than week one against Green Bay, I don't think you're going to see a lot of victories with bows on them. I think you're going to see a lot of victories with asterisks and chink marks,

and it's just not going to be a pleasant, you know, it's going to be a grind of a season if they do win nine to 10 games. But I haven't seen them really be challenged on the field, off the field with a high quality opponent yet. So, I mean, obviously, Philadelphia took care of them when they were challenged. So that's that's what I want to see. I want to see what they do against these clubs. I'm going to stick with nine, maybe nine point five after. OK, I went with 10 before the season and i have no reason to change that either uh at the moment so murph great stuff uh every monday monday morning murph um sometimes it comes out in the afternoon though but uh and

your column as well purpleinsider.com so great stuff great to get together with you this was a fun conversation and uh and you seem excited you seem excited to find out what happens here it's just something fresh it's something new you know it got so stale uh in the Zimmer area and like you said it was a the death march became clear in October and this isn't anything like that at all what a great way to end the show thanks Murph all right guys