Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Overreaction Monday: How much freakout is too much freakout after Vikings loss to Packers?

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

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The Silverado is all about grit. It's strong and dependable, exactly like playing tight end. Just like the incredible players we sit down with on the podcast, the Chevy Silverado is in a league of its own. Strong, advanced, and dependable. Download TE1 today wherever you listen Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me, my former radio co-host at Times and also former columnist in Pioneer Press, Brian Murphy. What is up, Brian? Just grinding away on a Monday, loving all this angst.

Can't get enough. I'm a civilian now. See, I just thought that you were perfect for this. I was going through my phone and thinking, like, who would be great to break down a game where the Vikings gave up 43 points and somehow made it look fairly close, but it really wasn't fairly close at all. And then, like, Brian Murphy would be the perfect guy for this so what I have done Brian is I have written down some statements and you have to tell me how you

respond to these statements and whether I am overreacting and these are not statements that I necessarily believe but they're definitely ones that I saw and thought of yesterday overreacting underreacting or or right on. So let's start off. And those are the only three choices. Those are the only three choices, but, you know, of course, expand. So I'm going to start right off with this. The Vikings defense is going to be absolutely terrible this year

and probably finish in the bottom five and be a really big problem for them that they cannot overcome. Is that too strong, right on, or not strong enough? and be a really big problem for them that they cannot overcome? Is that too strong right on or not strong enough? I'm going to go with too strong because it is only week one, and everybody loves to overreact at week one, right? I mean, last year, if you remember, they looked pretty vanilla on offense against Atlanta, but did come out with a win and then went to Lambeau and looked terrible on defense.

And at the end of the year, they got their offense in gear, at least before they went to San Francisco, and they took care of some of those problems. You know, let's give them the benefit of the doubt for this. And these are not built-in excuses. It's just the reality on the ground. Four new starters, two new cornerbacks, no preseason games, no preseason planning that was anything remotely normal. And you've got Aaron Rodgers in your building with nobody there to bother him in

the crowd. You can almost see a little bit of this coming, right? So now, not 43 points and not, you know, maybe not jumping off sides every third and short. That probably doesn't help a little bit keeping your defense fresh either. But I would say right now I'd say that's an overreaction. Now, I'll give them one more week. Let's see them go in Indianapolis. As you mentioned, they're not going to be too thrilled after laying an egg in Jacksonville. So what's Phillip Rivers going to do?

Now, they harassed him against the Chargers last year pretty good, but he put up some gaudy numbers there too. Maybe some of it was garbage time, if I remember correctly. I want to see how they respond. I want to see how a week of Zimmer grousing all week long, probably to them in the meeting rooms about how you're letting me down and making me look bad, how they respond to that, how the rookies respond to that. And, you know, maybe this first game performance was just a tweet.

Good one. I knew it. See, this is why you're here. This is why you're here, for the one-liners, for sure. By the way, I mentioned to you off the air that the Colts were going to be mad as hell. So just in case people are wondering why you said I mentioned something that I didn't mention. But the Colts game is going to be a big swing, and we'll talk about that for how we feel about the rest of the season. to say because Aaron Rodgers absolutely smoked you in week one that you cannot possibly get this defense together to have them be halfway decent and I was looking back at the game against the

Los Angeles Rams in 2018 where they gave up 38 points a perfect quarterback rating to Jared Goff and 556 yards in that game and after we did did the same thing, we went, oh, my gosh, has this defense washed? Is everybody done with? Has Zimmer lost his fastball and so forth? And then after that, they followed up with only giving up 400 yards once other time in the rest of the season. That was to Tom Brady.

And only two other games other than that went over 300 yards for the rest of the 2018 season. So they turned around the defense. It was very good the rest of the way after that one blip on the radar against the Rams. The difference, though, Brian, is I think that that game against the Rams was Sean McVay finding something schematically to beat Zimmer on one day and then Zimmer saying, oh, okay, so now everyone's going to copy this. Let me fix it. Let me tweak it around, and then we'll go forward, and that's what happened. This is not a little tweak, Brian. This is not a little tweak with this defense. This is you have a defensive line that can't pressure the quarterback,

and you have corners that we're not sure are going to get better. I mean, if Trey Wayans had a terrible game one week, you're like, well, he's an average corner. He'll probably be fine. But when you're talking about Cam Dantzler, we don't know. When you're talking about Holton Hill taking on a number one wide receiver, we don't really know if the little tweak is going to get healed. And there were some times where it was, it seems schematic against the Packers, but it was mostly just their receivers were beating your cornerbacks. So, you know, even though it would be an overreaction to say bottom five, I think it's not an overreaction to recalibrate what

your expectations were for this defense. And look at the quarterbacks they're going to be facing in the next several weeks as well. I mean, yeah, Rivers is, you know, old, but he did put up some numbers against them last year. And you've got Russell Wilson on the horizon. The kid down in Houston's on the horizon. You're going to be seeing Green Bay very soon again. Stafford looks like he's got his bearings again. And even Mitch Trubisky had an awakening yesterday. If Aaron Rodgers, you know, Aaron Rodgers is unique, but if he provides a roadmap, the Vikings could be in trouble. I think that the roadmap is probably do you have good wide receivers

and then how much can they do to stop that? And so I got a question on the website just about, hey, why didn't they blitz more? Looked at the pro football focus stats this morning. Zimmer blitzed 20 times out of 44 Rodgers dropbacks, which is a very high number for him against Aaron Rodgers, meaning he was desperately trying to find ways to pressure him, and they still pressured Rodgers only seven times. So even trying to blitz, they still weren't getting home because a big part of blitzing is your defensive line doing their job, and that was my biggest thing is the defensive line just did not do their job.

So here's my next potential overreaction. If Daniil Hunter does not come back in exactly three weeks, not, hey, it goes on to 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 with this neck injury, this defensive line is not going to pressure anyone, and they will be among the worst defensive lines in the NFL. I'm going to go spot on with that one, because the conspiracy theories are already taken root, are they not, about what is going on with Hunter?

Is it all about the neck? Is it disgruntlement about his salary because of his talent? He'll insist it's not. The Vikings will insist it's not. But when you practically, when you allow, when you create a vacuum of information like that, as Simmer and et al did throughout training camp with just the tweak narrative,

it allows the conspiracy theorists to fill that gap. And now when you're 0-1 and you got ragdolled by a Hall of Fame quarterback who looked awfully comfortable all day long yesterday, these are going to raise some serious questions. And if he isn't back in three weeks and you keep kicking the can down the road that it's, well, it's not really serious, but we're just being cautious and all that, yeah, I'd say that is a spot-on assessment that this could be a disastrous defensive line for the rest of the year. Here is the numbers for Aaron Rodgers when he was not pressured.

30 for 37, four touchdowns, 140 quarterback rating. On the few times he was pressured, he went two for seven. And so a pretty stark difference, as always, I mean, with most quarterbacks. But I mean, the numbers were just like this last year. In week two, when they didn't pressure Rodgers, he went 17 for 17. So like this, this is, you know, one of the best quarterbacks. But as you mentioned, these other guys they're going to face, it's maybe not quite to this level with Old Rivers. But I mean, Ryan Tannehill, when not pressured last year, completely lit teams up.

Deshaun Watson, if you don't pressure him, even sometimes when you do, he's still great. And when we go kind of across the defensive line here, you have guys who I'm not even sure are NFL players, not just even NFL starters, but like Jalen Holmes. I don't know if this guy's an NFL player. In 2018, he barely played. 2019, he barely played. And then all of a sudden, an injury puts him out there for about half the snaps with Yannick Ngakwe not fully ready to play the entire time. And still we're sitting here going, okay, this guy was a fourth round pick a few years ago,

hasn't flashed anything at any time, and now he's playing huge snap numbers against Aaron Rodgers. Same thing goes for Jaleel Johnson, another fourth-round pick who has not put a whole heck of a lot on tape through his first few years. He was one of their lowest-graded players yesterday. I mean, at least with Shamar Steffen, we know what he can do, but he's kind of in over his head with the job that they're asking him to do. That's why they went and got Michael Pierce, because they didn't want Shamar Steffen as their full-time nose tackle. And so you basically have one guy that you're sure

can handle the role, and that's Yannick Ngakwe. And if people think that Ngakwe is going to be Everson Griffin, I would just pump the brakes and say, it's not the same type of player. And Gakwe is much more of a guy, like a baseball player who hits 40 home runs and hits 220. Whereas Everson Griffin would be 30 home runs and hits 330. So I think it's, you know, you can't expect him every week to be dominant the same way Everson was. So I mean, if they don't get Hunter back, I just don't see a whole lot of improvement from what we saw yesterday. Well, with all the ink that's been spilled and bandwidth that's been burned up talking about Hunter, is it safe to say, or is it even smart to say that the Michael Pierce

opt-out is having more of a definitive effect, ripple effect on the entire line? Because clearly it's impacting the run defense, which is, you know, the Packers went to that when they needed to yesterday, and they obviously, in the December 23rd game, really went to the run game to open up the pass game, but the ripple effect of Pierce not being there, and them not expecting that to be an issue, I mean, they thought they had plugged that hole literally and figuratively really well. You tell me, Hunter's the glamorous loss, but Pierce might be the more pragmatic loss. I definitely think that Pierce makes a big difference there.

Because if you think about the way that they wanted it to be, they wanted it to be Hunter, Pierce, Shamar Steffen on early downs, and then mix in pass rushers on later downs, like a Fadi Adenabo, rather than having Adenabo start and play a bunch of snaps. I didn't mention him. He's an NFL player, but he's probably in over his head with the role, just like Shamar Steffen. And so that's kind of the way that they wanted it to be, assuming that they had traded for Ngakwe. That would be like your 2021 line with Michael Pierce back. That's a pretty darn good defensive line. That might go in the top 10 in the NFL, because Pierce is a Pro Bowl caliber talent for what his job is. And he even pressures the

quarterback a little bit more than some of the just big, giant, fat nose tackles. Now you have a nose tackle who was playing three technique last year and is a fill-in when this defense is at its best. You have a three technique who is nowhere close to the guys like Sheldon Richardson or Tom Johnson they've had in the past. You have, yeah, I mean, so now you're having other guys rotate in that you're not sure can even play either, like Hercules Mata'afa, who's done nothing in several years.

Armand Watts, who I like some of the things I saw, but he's not a guarantee to be a great player. So there is a huge domino effect with both of those guys. And I think going forward here, it's going to be a tough fix. I mean, I think that they can stuff the run to some extent, but when you talk about getting after the passer with those two interior players, they might just not have anybody to do it, and that's where you might ask, hey, why didn't you sign this guy or that guy or the other guy to come in here and try to rush the passer from inside?

So, you know, yeah, there's no, like, easy fix. It's just you need your really good players back, and when you don't have them, the drop-off from Hunter and Pierce to the next guys is really, really massive, and I don't know what the solution is. And that kind of ties into, you know, the not being an overstatement to say suddenly this defensive line is pretty incapable. Now, next potential overreaction, you tell me. Cam Dantzler and Jeff Gladney busts.

It didn't work out. No idea why they drafted them, et cetera. Okay, I might be going a little far on this, I'll admit. But Cam Dantzler had a tremendously bad day, and Jeff Gladney played nine snaps. Is that an overreaction to say what the hell? It's not an overreaction to say what the hell. It's an overreaction to think that what the hell is going to be exclaimed for 15 more weeks. These are young kids. They're young kids

being allegedly tutored, well, they are being tutored by allegedly the cornerback whisperer, right, and Mike Zimmer. Now, I don't know how much that reputation and that genius now is wearing off. I'm not willing to, look, a lot of people were on Xavier Rhodes as a rookie and on the back end. In between was pretty darn good. Trey Waynes had a rough go when he started out as well. Turned out to be a hell of a corner that they ended up letting go. But I don't, I would not give up on this yet, but the problem is they don't have a choice, and there's going to be an awful lot of growing pains, and every offensive coordinator now that has the Vikings on the schedule is probably licking their chops at this. I mean, this is a lot of red meat for a skilled quarterback and a crafty and aggressive offensive coordinator to

really target the Minnesota Vikings right now, and again,, we can't underemphasize the fact that anybody coming into U.S. Bank Stadium is not going to have to deal with the cauldron of noise that has usually been there. And that's going to allow quarterbacks, especially veteran quarterbacks, to just feel as comfortable as all hell and be able to do what they want to do when they want to do it, whether it's changing the call, changing their cadence, trying to keep these kids off balance, keep them guessing. Any veteran quarterback that sees rookies in the secondary

is going to find ways to exploit. How are these kids going to be able to come back? How are they going to be able to respond? Because now everybody knows they have a fire suit on, both in the public and in the rest of the NFL. How is Zimmer going to rebuild their confidence and transform them into viable NFL players like he has in the past? This is really on him right now. Cauldron of Noise is my fusion pop band from the 80s, by the way. Well, did the Superdome claim that? I think one NFL team does claim that phrase. I could be wrong.

Oh, really? Okay. Well, I do want to get to that. I don't know if it's been trademarked. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. They just launched their official collaboration with Bud Grant. Yes, Bud Grant. You can now get your official Bud Grant shirt and Man Cave art print.

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It's made for those who watch it. Pepsi made for football watching. I have a potential overreaction for that too, but let me just tell you about the numbers for the corners yesterday because, oh, my gosh. With Cam Dantzler, every pass thrown his way was completed, and Aaron Rodgers had 154 quarterback rating when targeting him. But he wasn't the worst on the team. That was Mike Hughes.

Every pass toward Mike Hughes was completed for a perfect quarterback rating. And when throwing at Holton Hill, 7 for 11 with 118 quarterback rating, that's not very good. And here is where I would say the concern should come. Not for Cam Dantzler and not for Jeff Gladney when he only played nine snaps because, as you said, Zimmer's history has been not throwing these guys into the fire, and they've all worked out in the end. Trey Wayne's being an average to a little bit above average corner is still a win.

That's very valuable to have someone who is decent at their job. Rhodes was elite at his best, and Mackenzie Alexander was a top 10, fringe top 10 nickel corner by the time he was done. When he started, he was a disaster too. He came in in some of those games in 2016 and had no idea what he was done when he started he was a disaster too he came in in some of those games in 2016 and had no idea what he was doing because the jump from college to the NFL no matter what program no matter what conference it is just way different the best receiver you'll ever face in college is nowhere close to Devante Adams I mean even Jamar Chase for LSU yeah he's good he's talented but

it's raw talent it's not defined know, 10 years in the NFL, knows how to run every single route and throw off, you know, even the elite corners like Devontae Adams. Where I would say the concern should be is not for the rookies, but for the guys who have played before. Holton Hill got smoked yesterday by Devontae Adams, absolutely destroyed by him. Holton Hill is in his third year in the NFL Holton Hill is in his third year in the NFL.

Mike Hughes is in his third year in the NFL. Like this should not be happening to those guys. They should be able to put on at least a halfway decent performance. And this, from that perspective, you really are going to get an opportunity to see if they can play at all. Because in week one, it didn't look like they could play at all. And if you end up with Hughes being a bust for a first rounder and Holton Hill not being a guy that works out,

even though you put expectations on him by starting him, then you're in a little bit of a now what type of situation with Gladney and Dantzler where you need them to succeed. So there's going to be kind of a learning process here. But in terms of whether you should be more upset that the rookies didn't play well or the other guys, you definitely have to say the other guys because all of them are young, but if you have some experience, that means you've played against Aaron Rodgers at least a little bit before, you've game planned for him before, you've been out there

in big situations in a game, and for Hughes and Hill to fall so short, that's the much more concerning thing, and even though it is only one week, you should also feel like, hey, guys, I mean, you've had a couple of years now to develop and be ready for this moment, and clearly you were not ready for this moment. And how much – how gaudier would Rodgers' numbers, which they were already gaudy that you just ticked off, had Marquez-Veldez – Scantling, sorry. Scantling not drop that long. They dropped at least three long passes that would have put him over 400 yards passing

and probably had him pushing 50 points. Yeah, right. Valdez Scantling had the third down one where he had room to run, and he just dropped it right in his face. And then the deep one which was probably I mean it was a perfect throw my gosh it was 45 50 yards in the air so yeah you're right I mean it would have been even worse and I think that that one was against Holton Hill and again what why are we talking about receivers running wide open against somebody who has shown potential and

someone that you believed was your number one starter from the very beginning of training camp and that's where these next few weeks are going to be huge for these guys because if this continues then you might feel like you don't even have another young corner to go along with like who are we going forward with are you going forward with hill maybe not if he continues to play like this are Are you going forward with Hughes? They have to decide whether to exercise his fifth year option at serious issue. Those were the guys that were supposed to kind of hold it down while you put one rookie into the mix. But as far as the rookies go, I agree that it would be an overreaction to say that they're busts or what were they thinking drafting it like.

Let's see in like two years the same time frame that the other guys got for Dantzler and Gladney. Now, to the point about the stadium, overreaction, they are going to lose every single game in U.S. Bank Stadium because there are no fans, and they are screwed on defense even more because of the fact that they can't get any home field advantage whatsoever. Overreaction or no? Yeah, that's an overreaction, mainly because I don't know exactly

how many stadiums and how many markets I haven't looked at this are going to be allowed to have fans I know Kansas City had what 17,000 the other day Jacksonville had like 13,000 yesterday and I'm not even sure going forward who's going to have what I don't look at I look at this as almost everybody kind of being in the same boat. Yes, Aaron Rodgers clearly took advantage of a quiet U.S. Bank Stadium, certainly with his cadence to draw three guys off sides on third and short. I mean, that was, you know, pure Aaron Rodgers veteran quarterback move. But I will say, I mean, if anything, it's made it almost a neutral site. That being said, the Vikings played so poorly yesterday that it's probably beneficial that there wasn't anybody

there. Because the boos that would have rained down, the deadness that would have been there because of their play anyway, I think kind of washes away a lot of this argument that somehow the Vikings are screwed because they don't have the U.S. Bank Stadium. Look, New Orleans didn't have any noise in the Superdome yesterday, and they handled Tampa Bay pretty well. Kansas City had, what, 18,000? Still came out with a win. I don't think it was that loud. Yeah, I don't even think it was that loud. Like it normally is. Yeah. So, look, you know, that's a convenient crutch, but their play yesterday was so poor that they would have been feeling the wrath. And I don't – look, they're NFL players. I don't think they're going to slink into the locker room all sheepishly.

Oh, my God, they're booing us. But that would not have been a nice greeting going into the halftime locker room yesterday from a obviously and usually inebriated 66,000 strong. So I think, if anything, it probably benefited them a little bit that they didn't have anybody, you know, dropping the rain of horror on them. But, yes, for a veteran quarterback like Aaron Rodgers to have been able to exploit that and take advantage of it, it is going to be a factor. But that's an overreaction to say the Vikings are somehow screwed or more vulnerable than other teams as we go forward in this pandemic era.

Okay, here's some stats for you on U.S. Bank Stadium. So in the – well, I guess since it opened, they have a point differential of plus 215. On the road, it's only plus 57 um that's kind of a big deal is that typical for an nfl team it is to some extent but i think that one is among the best in terms of your difference in point differential between home and away they're also 24 and 9 at home and 17 17 and 1 on the. Now that doesn't mean that these are necessarily home games, but I'll give you the biggest area of difference, and we saw this

yesterday. Third down percentage goes from 29% to 38% when they're on the road from home. Sacks goes from them being first since 2016 to being 20th, and yards allowed per game from first to sixth, which is an extra 50 yards a game just being on the road. So, you know, I mean, we can't exactly say it's a road game. For the Packers, though, I mean, they're just coming from the other state over there. It's not a long flight for the Packers. There's no time zones and all that stuff.

They're not coming from, you know, whatever, Florida or something. So we'll see if it has any, you know, impact on the teams that are still traveling here. But it was creepy, Murph. I mean, it was eerie. I can imagine. It was weird. It was dead.

And the way that I would describe the pumped-in crowd noise is, if you're in your house right now and someone drives by with their windows open playing music loud that's about how loud it was that's not messing with Aaron Rodgers at all and and where it really changes the game for opposing quarterbacks is when Zimmer's dialing up blitzes they can adjust their protections so many times we've seen Daniil Hunter end up on a tight end or something where you're like, I don't think that that was supposed to happen. I think there was some sort of miscommunication sack.

You're not going to see miscommunication sacks by these teams the same way that you would have before. So even though, yeah, it's an overreaction to go over the top and say, oh, my gosh, they have no chance because this home field advantage is missing. I think after yesterday, I really felt like, wow, it's a different ball game when you're a quarterback playing there now than it was before. Well, okay, and I'll say this too. The last time the Packers were in town, which was December 23rd, Monday night with the NFC North on the line, I was actually in the stadium doing some freelance work.

That place was rocking. That place was as loud as it's been even for a playoff game. And Aaron Rodgers had no problem whatsoever taking care of business. So let's call that a wash, too. And you were talking about the piped-in noise. I was going to – so is there actually some background noise in the stadium? Because I'll just say from a TV viewer standpoint, Fox had the sort of vanilla background noise that was okay, but occasionally you couldn't hear Chris Myers on the play-by-play, and it would only go up an octave or two, and it wasn't even timed right if it was a Vikings

positive play. Sometimes it wouldn't get loud, or if it was a Vikings negative play, it would get loud. I wasn't sure who was turning the dial. It was just a steady background noise. It was okay for viewership, but I'm just curious what it sounded like in the stadium. Get back to the conversation in just a second, but even though sports took a break, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that makes hiring more important than ever. Indeed is here

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Try Indeed with free $75 credit at Indeed.com slash BlueWire. This is their best offer anytime available anywhere go right now to indeed.com slash blue wire terms and conditions apply offer valid through september 30th well i can't say how it would sound exactly on the field for the players but from my seat usually at u.s bank stadium when it's going nuts on third down against the packers like you need something to cover your ears it's so loud i mean it's uh like in back to the future when he plays the guitar and then the speaker explodes like that's how you feel but um it was nothing i mean you could have an easy conversation with somebody right next to you when it was pumped up to its highest level. The NFL

basically just said, you're not going to be allowed to play games with the other team by jacking up the noise. And everything was muted. I mean, normally the sound system, when it comes to playing the intro music and stuff on the big board, it's all just super, super loud. And it was nothing. You could hear players' voices. You could hear Aaron Rodgers shout out the calls, and the press box is up there. And yet you could still hear things that were being said down on the field. So it is basically playing in a morgue.

And, yeah, I think it's a factor with this team. With some teams it might not be as much, but with this team it definitely is because they use it to their advantage specifically. Now, I agree with all the players who said that's not an excuse, but it is an explanation for why Rodgers was able to get them offside and also why I think Rodgers was just so comfortable at adjusting his protections and things like that when they tried to blitz. Do you know offhand which teams, which markets are going to be allowed to have fans? I believe, so there was a list that ESPN put out.

I believe that there's like 10 of them. And they're all like 25% capacity type deals? Yeah, and I don't know. I mean, the thing is, though, 25% of a stadium, and I think some might even be less than that, 25% of a stadium, though I think some might even be less than that, 25% of a stadium, though, could create a decent amount of noise in comparison to what it was yesterday. Certainly an indoor stadium.

Right. Is that going to change the formula at all for what it would have been yesterday? Probably not. And yesterday, the result was the Packers were going to win yesterday no matter what. It was not just because someone jumped off sides. If they hadn't jumped off sides, Rodgers probably completes a pass to Devontae Adams anyway, the way things were going. My question is, when you get Ryan Tannehill in here, who is a good quarterback but can

be messed with, the last time he was in U.S. Bank Stadium playing for the Dolphins, he looked like a deer in the headlights in that place. Is he going to be very comfortable coming in now? So maybe, you know, even a Gardner Minshew, a young quarterback played really well yesterday. Is he going to come in later in the season and be more comfortable? I think the answer is yes. And the other thing, Murph, through the years, tell me if you've noticed this too. Other teams seem to do some wacky stuff against the Vikings in that stadium. Like I'm thinking of Doug Peterson having his kicker throw a pass against the Vikings last year,

the Minneapolis Miracle where a guy dives at nothing. Just, you know, it's always seemed like other teams have kind of melted a little bit, and I wonder how much the three hours of raining down, head-p pounding noise on you has that type of impact. Yeah, I, I, it's no question in impact. I mean, they've created a sizable and definable home field advantage. But like I say, December 23rd was as loud as I've heard it in there for any postseason game

too. And Aaron Rogers, you you know and Devonta Adams and uh I'm losing my train of thought on the running back who ran through there. Aaron Jones went nuts. Aaron Jones had a day and they walked away with the NFC North title in their teeth so I don't know I mean it is one of I think it's one of the most interesting things to discuss just because it's so vastly different from any other time in NFL history but how much it impacts it trying to put a number on is um is very very now maybe you'll actually have a sample size this season that actually maybe we can come up with a stat for uh sequestered crowd noise or non-sequestered crowd noise that's right um okay so two more here one we've gone this long without talking about the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings or really even discussing their offense. I mean, so here's a few, just a few of them. And you can tell me if anyone strikes you as an overreaction. First, Kirk is the greatest garbage time quarterback in the history of the National Football League. That would be one. The other one, and I'm mostly, by the way, I'm taking these from Twitter responses and comment responses that I got. And the other one is Irv

Smith Jr. is just not going to be a big part of this offense or what? Because he had one target yesterday. So I guess that's the way I want to phrase the overreaction is I guess they're just not going to use him at all. and they overpaid Delvin Cook. So there's your overreactions. Tell me which ones are right. That's three. We'll go with Kirk Cousins is the greatest garbage time quarterback in the history of the NFL. I believe you texted me some stats breaking that down, and I'll tee that up for you,

because that was his reputation in Washington, right? Down by two scores. Kirk will get you between the 20s, maybe throw in the end zone when it doesn't matter. That clearly happened with his couple of throws to Thielen yesterday. I'm going to say, I don't know if it's true, if that's an actual ranking, but based on what his reputation was in Washington, I'd say that's spot on. I'll go spot on with that one. So here's the stat.

Since 2015, he has the third most yards being down by two scores, and the other two guys are Jameis Winston and Blake Bortles. That's not where you want to be. Yeah, remember that year where Bortles threw 30-something touchdowns and everyone said, oh, wow, look at him. It was mostly when they were losing. He does not have the best efficiency stats, which wouldn't surprise anyone, but he has a very high completion percentage and a very low yards per attempt,

which kind of tells you that long methodical drives that wind out the clock on himself happens a lot to Kirk Cousins. It didn't yesterday. I mean, he had some big completions downfield, but I think that when it comes to this, we're no longer in real discovery mode. Like you knew that if your defense doesn't give Cousins extra chances and he's not kind of on fire right from the outset, he made a good throw early on, good drive early on, but they also ran a bunch of times and got in the end zone and then just

looked a little skittish as he sometimes does. And the team is, you know, pointing fingers at each other. Well, we didn't have time of possession because of the defense. We didn't have time of possession because of the offense. But when you get a safety and then you get a three and out, like you're not going to hang onto the ball very long. Like you have to move the ball. And I wouldn't pin the safety on Kirk Cousins necessarily but it is one of those things that we've seen before but the defense gives him more chances to get you know four five six seven drives in the first half and start to get it going but that did not happen yesterday and then in terms of the reason I think that he's so good in the garbage time is because, and Zimmer said this yesterday about the Packers playing differently,

is when you give him time. They play softer. Don't defenses play softer with a bigger lead? Less risk? Right, and they don't rush the same. When you're up by 19 points in the third quarter, you just don't rush the same. And that's how they came back against Denver last year is Denver backed off.

They didn't pressure him. They didn't pressure him. They didn't show him unique looks. And he got them. And I thought even for a second yesterday he was going to surprise Green Bay with that. He did it in 2018 against Green Bay. They got way up. They started to play back.

He had this crazy second half and brought them back. So, you know, I think that he specifically has a skill set that destroys teams when they try to just play that prevent and hang back on him. But it doesn't really do you a whole heck of a lot of good when you're down 19 in the third quarter, which, you know, I guess, give me real quick a percentage of blame that you give for Kirk Cousins for them being in that position. How about 35 percent? And I just, what I look at is with Cousins, it always seems to be, too, that if the play isn't exactly right, if all 10 other guys

don't do exactly what they need to do, he struggles. I mean, and he's talked all offseason or all training camp about how he wants to be better on the fly, improvising this, that, and the other. You could make an argument that, especially on that safety, should he have picked that up? I mean, it was a blindside corner blitz, probably a good call at the right time, an aggressive call after a goal line stand. Should he have recognized that? Should he have been able to get rid of the ball? Should he have been able to evade that?

You could make an argument there, perhaps, that you could. Or you could just say it was a hell of a play call at the right time. Again, Cousins always has a little bit of wiggle room on that. Yes, yes. But I also say... No, actually, let me just say that that's the quintessential thing that happened to Kirk Cousins. Like I lean heavily toward great play call by the Packers on that because Cousins had a play action.

So he had his head down on the play action. He couldn't see that. But that is every Kirk Cousins thing. It's like a law and order trial. Like there's drama. There's litigation. There's, you know, sending people to the stand to testify whether they think something was Cousins' fault or not. And I just, I mean, maybe it's the nature of the game,

but I also think he specifically has so much of that of, like, how much was Cousins' fault? Jack McCoy is, I guess, you in this case, arguing that maybe it was more. Well, I'm going to get a grand jury subpoena and we we'll put him in there, and we'll sweat him a little bit. I will also say, too, that if you think about it, I wrote this down. So there were like five possessions in a span of 11 to 12 minutes in the second quarter after the goal line stand. Green Bay scored 20 points, and they scored it on the safety. They scored it off his really poor pass down the field

to Thielen that got picked off and that led to a touchdown as well so okay that's why I'm assigning 35 percent on him and that also contributed to the fact that they only had the ball for I guess a franchise record low 18 hits yeah I didn't realize that either that's pretty that's awful now each side's going to share a little of that. Defense couldn't get off the field on third down. Vikings couldn't pick up a first down. That's a recipe for disaster. But 18 minutes?

You're not going to make a lot of hay in 18 minutes in an NFL game. Right. Well, so maybe we could focus on this because the other two I was kind of joking about. Like, Irv Smith, I think it'll be fine. They'll throw to him. Yeah, well, Irv Smith, you know, how are you going to target the guy? I mean, I think Cousins had like three attempts in the first half practically. I mean, there was no opportunity to maybe work Smith into the game plan.

Right, and the Cook thing we have covered extensively here on the show. He'll be fine. Yeah, he's good at football also, and I don't think that's going to change. But, you know, staying with the Cousins thing, if Cousins is asked to win shootout games, do you think he can do it, is the question. Maybe. How's that for a cop-out?

Some of them. A few. Some of them. Okay, let me put it this way. Let me put it this way because I need exacts here. So let's say. We're not asking overreaction, underreaction. We're just asking for.

I'll frame it. I'll do like I got rid of my Jeopardy way of phrasing it. Instead of a form of a question, it's a form of a freak out. But, okay, I'll do it freak out. If the Vikings have 10 potential shootouts out of 16 games that they ask Kirk Cousins to win, he can only win two or three. That's the overreaction, or is that spot on? I think that's a bit of an overreaction, but, again,

I was going to just sell out and say he'd go five and five. Because that is so kirk cousins it is like down the middle vanilla you can nip at him you can blame him you can indict him but you can't convict him mccoy that's what you do you can you can get him in the courtroom but you're not going to convince 12 people of the same thing it's impossible and in this market at least according to twitter you'll never get 12 people to agree on kirk cousins yeah or many other things but uh that is what has made him entertaining to cover for sure but i am i am in total agreement with you i think if they need 10 shootouts that he'll win five and that they'll probably go eight and eight

and that was the final overreaction that i was going to say is not 8-8. And he'll look awful in the five losses. Right, right. But he'll look great in the five wins. And his statistics at the end of the year will look the same as they always look. But the overreaction is 6-10. Is that an overreaction or is that the bottom? Yeah, that's an overreaction.

Okay. So what's the right reaction if the overreaction is 6-10? 8-8. And I know that sounds so sellout, but I keep saying until he proves either way that he's an absolute walking disaster or that he can be the leader that they need him to be that can actually go out and win a game that they need to win, which he took the edge off in New Orleans. Then he had the built-in excuse about the offensive line play in San Francisco. So again, it's on one hand, on the other hand, you cannot get a definitive verdict on this guy yet. We have to just keep riding the roller coaster. Isn't that

what it's about right now? Yeah law and order went for 20 seasons so i mean this could go on and on and on well uh murph how fun is it to uh to talk about some some football and overreact man like it's back that's what we should all be happy about it's back and hey how about last night a terrible pass interference call cost the Dallas Cowboys a game like we are back we are fully back absolutely replays a disaster football is back well Murph uh you're always one of my favorites of all time to get together with and I will say that sometimes we miss you on the beat when somebody needs to hold Zimmer's uh feet to the fire a little bit more than we do so uh always great to catch up I hope those knives sharpened, folks.

That's right. That's right. I hope we can do it again very soon and talk about more overreactions, conspiracies, and so forth. So thanks, Murph. Really appreciate the time, man. Thanks for having me, Collar. The wait is finally over.

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