Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Pressure is on after Vikings lose a game they could have won vs. Browns

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic break down the Minnesota Vikings' 14-7 loss to the Cleveland Browns. They start by breaking down the Vikings' debauchery at the end of the game when they had two shots at a game-tying drive and then they discuss how the end of the first half was marred with miscues. Is this just who the Vikings are at this point? Why it's become frustrating to break down game after game of having any team with a defensive line simply overpower the Vikings and they talk about what Mike Zimmer said about them actually being a good team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD. Ready for you. oh welcome to the what exactly was that football game reaction from inside us bank stadium to the vikings losing 14 to 7 with many many things to discuss after the Vikings fall to 1-3. Matthew Collar with you here, and along with me, filling in for Sam Ekstrom, is professional Paul Hodwanek. Paul is in as Sam is calling his second hockey game with St. Thomas.

He is the play-by-play voice of St. Thomas hockey now, so he had to miss today, but he won't miss another game, and we'll be doing our usual stuff. But today he had to be out. So Paul, you are in and boy, you picked quite a contest to be in the press box for this was no Vikings Lions game, Paul. No, no, it wasn't. I was telling you for the Pioneer Press covered a couple of games a couple of years ago, and I had the Vikings game against the Green Bay Packers in 2019, the Sunday night game, the debacle that that game was. And then week 17, I believe against the Lions when nothing mattered and

Sean Mannion was starting. So I've been treated- Oh, Bears, yeah. Oh, Bears. Sorry. I've been treated to quite the games when I've been here, but excited to be back to break my Purple Insider hiatus. And we have a lot to talk about. Yeah. This one felt like many times last year where you and I were breaking down these close losses and that has been all of the close losses for the Vikings they lose in overtime in Cincinnati they miss a kick in Arizona and in this game let's start off by talking about the opportunities to win and then we could talk about why they did not succeed against the Cleveland Browns despite

giving up you know only 14 points and getting plenty of chances from Kevin Stefanski at the end of the game to lead a magical game tying drive to send this to overtime but that was not to be so I want to start out with the chances that they had to do something in this game and let's start at the very end Paul Paul, because that's the last thing everyone is going to remember. And then we'll jog your memory of all the other things that happened, but let's start at the end of this game. So the Vikings get the ball back with just over a minute left because Kevin Stefanski has decided that he is, I don't know, maybe over-analytics himself or something. Kevin Stefanski thoughts that he had Dan Marino or Patrick Mahomes as his quarterback,

and he actually had Baker Mayfield, who, by the way, if the Cleveland Browns extend Baker Mayfield and give him Josh Allen's contract, they are insane. So if they do a Mahomes 500 mil, they are out of their skulls after watching this today. But okay, well, let's get to the end of the game though. So the Vikings get the ball back because of a totally whack-a-doodle decision by Kevin Stefanski to take shots down the field when Baker Mayfield has done basically nothing for the entire game.

And the Vikings do the thing that they always do almost 100% of the time when they get a chance for a last minute drive and that's run the clock out on themselves they throw a short pass to KJ Osborne they get a couple of completions they get a pass interference penalty to keep the game alive and they throw a six yard pass to Tyler Conklin that runs three seconds off the clock, but it also disallowed any chance to take two shots at the end zone. And instead they only got one shot at the end zone. And I know this feels like nitpicking because it's hard to lead these drives and the defense is playing everyone back, but they had two shots at the end of the game for a drive to tie it. And neither one of them came through, and both had very strange decisions.

In the drive before that, Paul, they ran the ball a bunch of times. I mean, there wasn't a lot of time left on the clock, and the drive went, it started off with a handoff to Delvin Cook, which got 13 yards, okay, that's fine, but then two more handoffs to Delvin Cook that ran the clock from 345 all the way under

three minutes. The execution here of the half, the halftime, which we'll get to, and then the end of the game was so typical of this team that you thought, oh, I'm just watching a movie on repeat here with this team, close games, Kirk Cousins, running clock out on yourself, poor decisions at the end of the game, and here we are with a 14-7 loss, and they're going to say, oh, no, we were close. It was a one-score game and so forth. But if you cannot handle these situations and make big plays against a very good team and lead a drive with a minute left or lead a drive with less than three minutes left to tie the game, it's just hard to argue that you're a great team or that you're secretly

super good when you are one and three, when there was so many opportunities to tie this game, to take it to overtime and to potentially win it. Yeah. And after the post game or in the post game comments, the media sessions, Kirk Cousins was asked about, did you think you wasted too much time? And he said, no, the clock was never an issue really until the very end there. And I think that is a little bit not a great mindset to have and speaks to a little bit of what they were doing in that second to last drive when they're running the ball.

First three plays or runs, as you mentioned, and then they go to Jefferson for the 31-yard play, which was a nicely designed play. Had the guy motion across, saw it was in man, left Justin Jefferson alone on that right side. Kirk looked over to the left, and the safety couldn't get over to the right fast enough. And obviously, Justin Jefferson's going to get by his guy.

He was doing that all game again today, and he continually does that over and over and over again. But yeah, it was a little puzzling down the end. And again, yeah, I would have taken with, I think it was eight seconds, they threw that six-yard pass play to Conklin. I would have taken two shots at the end zone. I know Kirk said, well, we didn't want to give him the ball away. Well, at that point, do two, because maybe they're thinking you're going to go short on the first one. You catch them a little bit by surprise, or they're not knowing exactly where it needs to go. So yeah, I question the decision making on that one too.

But you're right. They had clock issues down the stretch. And the only reason they didn't is because Kevin Stefanski decided to throw that. Like the clock was an issue, and Kevin Stefanski decided to just basically wrong all your mistakes and give you a whole minute plus a timeout I think they had a timeout too to go down there so yeah they had a lot of time on that final drive only because of the Browns mess-ups and you can't just expect that to happen again especially with Kevin Stefanski and yeah there were some questionable calls down the stretch it feels like every week in the NFL a team gets the ball at the end of the game with

one minute left to go and a timeout and they're able to complete big passes because the other team is playing back and give themselves a legitimate chance to score at the end of the game and they were really nowhere close on this and if they don't get a pass interference call then we're really not even having this discussion because the game just ends at that point. So they got a nice little break there to give them another chance. And we've had this conversation with cousins many times, like running the clock out on yourself. I remember going back to 2018 against new Orleans. They were down two touchdowns and he's throwing sort of check downs and things like that. And against Arizona, they had to kick a 50 plus yard field goal at the end of the half because they handed off a couple of times and ran the clock out on themselves.

Like these things that happened to them are, I think, self-inflicted because of a mindset and talking about a turnover. I mean, who cares? You have to take shots at the end zone. Two is better than one. Like what are your odds of throwing a jump ball to the back of the end zone for Justin Jefferson or Adam Thielen? It's low. It's low for anybody because they're not going to call pass interference on that. So it's sort of every man for himself. But let me just do a little quick math here.

Two shots at the end zone is probably a little higher odds than one shot at the end zone. And yet you get the typical, well, I'm going to run the clock out on myself for six yards. And I think it was said by either Zimmer or Cousins when asked about that, well, you know, we needed to get ourselves closer for the Hail Mary. And it's like, Hail Mary, it's like 30 yards away. It's not, I mean, this isn't from the other 40 and this isn't like you're trying to throw it up to the rafters and it bounces off somebody's helmet. I mean, you can make a legitimate attempt at a throw. Russell Wilson almost did it last week.

He was this close to throwing a bomb, probably from even a little farther out that went into a receiver's hands and Harrison Smith knocked it out. But that's a play that happens around the league. And to just say, no, we're going to be conservative there. And before that, it was the check down to K.J. Osborne where you go, was the 11 yards worth it? Or let me pull up how many yards it was for K.J. Osborne. I mean, it was even shorter than that. It was three.

They got three yards and ran the clock. And this is mind-blowing. Three yards runs the clock from 54 seconds to 33. You ended the game. You would have been so much better off throwing it straight down in the dirt than you are throwing three yards to KJ Osborne and running the clock out on yourself. The Browns had to be thrilled. I bet your win probability went in the tank after throwing that pass. Otherwise you probably had a decent chance. So this circles back to the, you guys always kind of do this and it's hard to come out after a game as Mike Zimmer

did and be defiant and say, I know a good football team when I see one and guys, this is a good football team. When you consistently, as they have said, shoot yourself in the foot, but in the same ways repeatedly. And this brings me to the shooting in the foot of all foot shootings, which was the end of the first half. So the Vikings are up seven to nothing and Cleveland puts on this long drive. They get to the goal line. Eric Kendricks commits a penalty, which I didn't see it again closely. A lot of people were saying it was a phantom penalty. It looked like he got his hand on the guy and sort of spun him a little bit, which in fast motion might look bad, but either way, whether it's right or wrong, it's a penalty on fourth down at the goal line when you should have had a stop on a player who

wasn't involved in the play. So these go either way. Last week you got one against Seattle that I didn't think was an obvious penalty. Now you get this bad one. Okay, fine. So they score a touchdown. The Vikings come out. They go three and out. They only take 30 seconds off the clock. Amir Abdullah runs out of bounds for some ungodly reason.

And then it's third and 20. Cleveland looks like they're a total mess. They run for a 20-something yard on third and 20 for a first down and then they're able to kick a field goal and oh by the way i forgot that on a field goal sheldon richardson tried to call timeout when they didn't have one shout out chris weber and they end up kevin stefanski gets credit for this one they end up with a two-point conversion to put them in a position to be up eight to seven and then 11 to seven at the end of the half again this is these are things that just shape games and that seem to repeatedly happen to the

Minnesota Vikings and so there's all these discussions about analytics and game management and all these things and I thought I thought Zimmer was fine with the fourth downs that he went for. Analytics bot didn't like one of them, but I kind of did because Greg Joseph was on the injury report this week. And I thought 55 for a guy who might be dinged up a little bit is maybe a problem, but it's really not so much the decisions here as it is just what you do and who you are. And you would think that these things aren't really repeatable. Like, well, how can a team consistently sort of, you know, like I said, shoot yourself in the foot or not execute or make key mistakes.

But that's kind of what not great teams do, right? And so our sample size is, well, yeah, it was just a fumble. Well, yeah, it was just a fumble well yeah it was just a kick wide right well yeah it was just the end of that first half where our guy decided to call timeout for a whole who knows why but that sort of becomes an identity at this point in the game when you have now done it for three out of four games that you've played yeah they they had a defensive miscommunication there in the first quarter. I forget. I think it was two corners went after one receiver went left a guy wide open.

Again, that field goal tried. They just had too many guys on the field. That's one guy was trying to run off the field. Sheldon Richardson sees that guy running off the field. He's just instinctually going to call for a timeout because he doesn't want to get called for that 12 men on the field penalty. Probably would have been better to take that one if they had, because I don't know if that one then brings them from the two to the one, but them calling that timeout gets a delay a game. That gets them the ability to move up a little bit. So yeah, defensive miscommunications have been a topic the last couple of weeks, especially at the beginning of the season. We saw it pop up right away, and it just seems like it's not something that is going away particularly quickly I the run defense is something we're going to get into but that was something they

struggled with all game the offensive line was an issue as it was the first couple games it seemed like maybe they were riding the ship you talked to Jeremiah Searles last week and he seemed he felt positive about the way it had gone and I think even so much has said this offensive line is good and so maybe it is and they just went up against a really really good defensive front in Cleveland they can still be good and lose in bad situation or lose to really good teams that have really good lines but it seems like the same issues are popping up at one and three and it seems like this team is just

trying to buy themselves some time but now at one and three you don't have a lot of time that you can continue to buy yourself you got to get going now you have one against the lions which hopefully should be a win but who knows and yeah you're you're digging yourself in an early hole which is what they did last year and they just couldn't climb out of it and feels like we're getting there at this point. Well, and they haven't had a game where things go wrong in terms of like interceptions and fumbles. There was an interception today on a bomb. But, you know, I mean, that happens when you're going deep down the field. That's not one that you really criticize anyone for.

It's just sort of that happens and it's like a pseudo punt. But if there's one of those games where a ball bounces off somebody's helmet and gets picked off by the lions and run back for a touchdown or something like you can that's the thing is that you can lose a game to a bad team that now there is no margin for error and Carolina kind of showed themselves today by losing uh handily to the Dallas Cowboys but we're just talking about the small picture of before the bye week after the bye week you come right out of it with Dallas and their defense looks really good now all of a sudden under Dan Quinn with a few new players and Micah Parsons immediately being good and then you've got all good teams that you've got to face in the second half of the schedule both Los Angeles teams are

on your schedule Dallas San Francisco Green Bay. They look pretty good as we're watching them right now play against Pittsburgh, which means now that I said that they'll lose. But Pittsburgh, I think, is not good and Green Bay is. So your schedule is hard. There are more Browns-like teams than there are Lions-like teams. So even if you win next week, two and three, you have to play Carolina. You've got to go on the road it's like the margin for error is almost nil and when you consistently show that teams with a certain makeup can beat you and that makeup is now have a good defensive line have pass rushers that can get to the quarterback and run the ball which we didn't expect 184 yards on the ground from the Cleveland

Browns but this seems to be the thing that teams can beat the Vikings with, and I don't know what the solution is. The solution was sign Michael Pierce, sign Delvin Tomlinson. Well, there's nobody else to sign. You can't call Linval Joseph from 2017 and say, come back, man. Every week they're going to face a rushing attack now, and Detroit does have a good offensive line. And the other part of this too, I know we to face a rushing attack now, and Detroit does have a good offensive line.

And the other part of this, too, I know we bounce around a little bit here, but in terms of the regrets of this game, Baker Mayfield could not have been worse. 4.7 yards per attempt, 15 for 33, sacked three times, 59 quarterback rating rating just struggled the entire day he missed open wide receivers which by the way when you pat yourself on the back for all the success you had as a defense there were about five throws that Baker Mayfield just threw right over somebody wide open and you play well enough though to hold them to 14 points you get lucky enough to have Baker miss some shots and Odell Beckham gets two catches on seven targets. Like it was not a good day for them.

And even the rushing game, it didn't result in a bunch of touchdowns and it didn't result in a bunch of deep shots. So you sort of take that in a lot of ways, which I think is Mike Zimmer's point. You play that well and lose a game at home that you could win and would sort of, uh, you know, slingshot your season in a different direction. I mean, there's just so many so far in the season, plays that you can look at and big picture things you could look at where you're saying if you were just that much better. But I also feel like when you've won eight out of your last 21 football games,

it's hard to give any sort of yeah, but like if you're a good team and you're, let's say Kansas city last week against Los Angeles, Patrick Mahomes overthrows Travis Kelsey and gets picked off at the end of the game. And they lose the week before that Clyde Edwards, Hilaire fumbles at the end of the game and they lose. But you look at that team and go, come on, it's Kansas City. They've lost those two games in strange fashion, but they've got the best quarterback. This isn't who they are. They've been in back-to-back Super Bowls.

With this team, this is who you've been. Not every loss last year was a blowout. There were a lot of losses last year that were very close. You played very well against Tennessee and lost. You played very well against Dallas and lost, then against Chicago and lost. But it's the same sort of story here. Only Kirk cousins, of course, did not play well in this game and he played well in some other losses from last year, but it just doesn't feel that different. It's like NFL games are close. If you're going to go anywhere with your team,

you have to execute some of these things and you cannot let a defensive line that's very, very good. And oh my gosh, is Miles Garrett every bit as great as you think he is. And so is Jadavion Clowney, but 5.3 yards per pass attempt for a team that has Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen and a run that supposedly sets up the pass. And now KJ Osborne makes a great catch down the sideline and DD Westbrook comes up with a catch like these, these things can't happen. If you are going to be a good team, you can't be held to, I mean, per drop back, they gained 190 net yards. If you take away the sacks and drop back to pass 38 times, I don't know what that is math wise, but as bad is real bad. And this has always been a kryptonite for them is when the other team has a good defensive line. So we went into this game,

Paul saying, this is a test. Let us find out Jeremiah Searles. If this is right, Jeremiah was very high on what the offensive line did last week. Let's find out if this is right or if it was just Seattle. And the verdict is it was just Seattle and and kind of again if you can't really run Delvin Cook nine rushes for 34 yards Alexander Madison couldn't break through he only had 20 yards rushing they're not running the ball they're not in favorable situations a lot of third downs a lot of pass rush situations we sort of laid this out what is the model for this team to win games and what doesn't, this is what you end up with. Five for 16 on third downs and now one and three in the standings.

And I know Mike Zimmer said the media loves its stats. Well, eight wins in the last 21 games is a pretty damning stat for where this franchise is right now. Yeah. And say they had won this game and won it, you know, pretty convincingly, not on just some last second play or something like that. I think then you can go back and say, OK, you know what? Greg Joseph missed the kick against the Cardinals.

And we can feel like, OK, maybe they could have won that. Maybe they could have won the Bengals game. But you got to take care of the games that you should win for us to be able to for it to be legitimized that we can go back and question some of those bad games. And I mean, as we're speaking, Arizona's up on the Rams. That could change. But they look like they could be a good team. I don't think the Bengals are a good team. The Seahawks haven't been great this year.

And the Browns, like you mentioned, were not good today. Baker Mayfield, Kevin Stavansky's play calling might not have been as hot a topic as it was if Baker would have just hit like one of three open wide receivers. Oh, yeah. Coming down the stretch. The last one that gave the Vikings the ball back with a minute left,

he had Odell streaking wide open down the sideline and just straight up missed him. But yeah, this team is, is, is not in a good spot. They, they don't have the wiggle room to come back and,

or to, to have a blunder. Like the blunders have already happened and now they have to be perfect the rest of the way. And what we've seen from this team so far is they really can't be perfect for an entire game. They can be really, really good for stretches, but it's just not showing. And I think, you know, 14 points,

I think you can live with that on the defensive side of the ball. And they ran the ball and they ran it effectively. But in the NFL, if you're running the ball effectively and it's 4.8 yards i i'm letting baker mayfield try to beat me and so the run defense was bad today but i don't really think it was the reason they lost and it shouldn't be the biggest blame that anyone puts on this game it's the offense they had the great drive at the beginning i was ready to if that was the full game i was going to say look at clint kubiak go

like he is scheming up some really good stuff. He's changing the way that Kirk Cousins is playing. He's not prioritizing the deep ball and play action as much. He's much more short of the sticks. Let the guys scheme up some stuff yards after catch. But we saw the flip side of that coin today. Cousins, I think at one point his average depth of target was like 3.6 yards in the third quarter.

That's second lowest of his career. And he threw it like average, like five yards before the sticks. Every pass he was attempting till the very end when they had to throw it really deep. So we saw the flip side of that coin of playing a different style and it didn't work today. Fans are going back to stadiums,

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all out at sodastick.com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-C-K.com. Everything is screen printed here in Minnesota. And I can tell you that the shirts are comfortable and they last because half of my closet is now SodaStick at this point. Again, that's SodaStick.com. Minnesota sports inspired goods. And keep your eye out for our SodaStick giveaways. Sorry, I was just watching the Pittsburgh Steelers run back something a blocked kick oh there's a penalty flag okay sorry uh well you know isn't that the point is you can't expect the defense to ever in at least today's game be perfect. Mike Zimmer even said back in the day,

if you held the team to 17, you usually won. Now it's 20. The league averages about 25 points per game. And so even when you're good, the other team is going to score because that's the circumstances we play under. Now where the run game did affect them is that Cleveland had the ball for 35 minutes and the Vikings for 25 and that I mean that's exactly what they did to Seattle and so they did limit the number of opportunities the Vikings got because even on drives where they punted it was playing with the lead grind grind grind keep Kirk Cousins on the sideline don't give the Vikings extra chances so I think that that made a difference there. But in terms of opportunities that Cleveland swung the door open for you, I mean, they were a plenty, especially because Baker Mayfield was just

bad. I mean, just missing passes and looking flustered back there. I mean, he had one good run that set them up for, you know, I think a fourth and one or something. But aside from that, it wasn't like he was mobile or giving you problems in the same way that Russell Wilson or Kyler Murray did for the last couple of weeks. But it's still hard for a team to walk out and say we played well on defense when the other team had the ball for 35 minutes. Like the point total in this way is sort of misleading to how you actually played. So we can't expect that, oh yeah, they're just going to give up 14 points each week. If teams run this way, usually their quarterbacks are going to find people open and they're going to be able to score more than that. But I think that what it often comes down to here, and you

mentioned that first drive, what a marvelous first drive i mean they get jefferson the ball right away quick passing game wow okay like it's on and then a play action pass adam thielen open the throw to jefferson in the end zone what a tremendous route he sort of fakes a corner route slams on the brakes right in space timing is perfect and i am with you i felt the same way after the opening drive, oh, it's going to be that way today, huh? And then the Vikings get a stop in their red zone. And I'm thinking, shootout. This is going to be the battle of two of the most brilliant offensive minds in the league. And Kevin Stefanski and Clint Kubiak, they are going to fight it out over the next 60 minutes.

This is going to be 35 to 31. And what a day it's going to fight it out over the next 60 minutes. This is going to be 35 to 31 and what a day it's going to be. And then it was like they just flipped the switch on Cleveland's defense. And all of a sudden their defensive linemen started just plowing into the backfield. And this is where it truly does depend so much on the run for the Vikings, because when they didn't run the ball successfully they weren't getting first downs on the ground and then they were forcing Kirk Cousins to do everything and this is one of the fundamental criticisms of Kirk Cousins is that when the other team

muddies the pocket for him there isn't really an answer there and what we saw was enough inaccurate throws enough passes batted down. There was a play on a fourth down where I agreed with Mike Zimmer's decision to go for it, but the throw ends up coming in low because Miles Garrett got by Rashad Hill and just got enough of a hand on Kirk Cousins. And so it really stuck out to me when Delvin Cook said this week

that Kirk Cousins is the best quarterback in the game with a clean pocket. But the game is not played with a clean pocket. It's only played with a clean pocket, like six out of 10 plays in the NFL or seven out of 10 plays in the NFL. And when a team increases that number on the Vikings, they just entirely stifle their offense. And that's what we saw today. And I don't even look at it and say, and this is where I might change my thought process on the offensive line. I'm not sure that I look at the offensive line and say, oh my gosh, they're just bad because I think that they're capable. And I think that even today there were opportunities that they gave enough, but it's just, it's almost never enough

unless you have this phenomenal offensive line like we've said this before and I at the time I said it I probably felt good about it like man if they could get to average but the problem with an average offensive line is it gets beat by a great defensive line so it can't be an average offensive line it's got to be a great offensive line and it's not going to be a great offensive line Christian Derrissaw would have to be Orlando Pace in order for it to be a great offensive line. So when you play Dallas and their good defensive line, how's that going to go? When you play Baltimore and they blitz a bunch and throw a lot of different looks at you.

When you play a Bosa, another Bosa, TJ Watt, Aaron Donald, like how's this going to go the rest of the way? I think we're going to see a lot of games like this and we're going to see some other games where they play extremely well. And that's sort of been the story of the Vikings. What I think is so frustrating, Paul, about this game is if you blow the door in when they opened it a crack for you and you win here, and then you go to two and two, we can say, wow, everything that you said was validated. Everything you told us in the week leading up to this, validated. That you are better than one and two.

That you're a good football team. That you're a different football team than what happened at the end of those two games. Those were flukes. And we can handle the best teams in the league. It's just harder to say that now. I know they only lost by seven, but it just feels a lot worse than seven because I think they were so thoroughly outplayed in a seven point loss that, and Mike Zimmer said after the game, well, I don't look at just stats. I

watch the games and I've been in the league for a long time. Well, we've been watching these games for a long time too within the Kirk Cousins era since 2017, and we've seen a lot that look like this. And I also saw you get pretty beaten up in the trenches in this game. And it's just hard to convince me that all the money that you spent on the defensive line with Pierce and Tomlinson was worth it. It's hard to convince me that some of that money shouldn't have maybe

gone to the offensive line at, at, at guard or something. Now we'll see what the PFF scores say and all that sort of thing. But, um, I, I just, I don't know, like what, what is supposed to be different about this than all the other times that you've put yourself in a hole and then had to convince us that you could dig yourself out of it. That's the, that is the tough part for me where I believe we have reached the no excuses portion of the program where it's not any longer. Oh, Daniel Carlson missed that field goal. This team's good. Don't worry. That's how I felt in week two of the Packers game, 2018. I am, I'm just, I'm exhausted of that. I think that those discussions are over with and now it's, you have to win these next two games or it is a very serious conversation at the bye week

about people's jobs and where this thing is going to go. Yeah. I think where I get frustrated and struggle a little bit is when they say it's going to get better, just wait, just look, we're going to get better, is it's the same issues that are plaguing them over and over again. And so if it were new things and they're solving the offensive line and they're solving the kicking game and they're solving defensive woes, I would feel better. If it's new things popping up, I'd feel more confident that they're going to go in and solve it. But I mean, I've only been on this podcast maybe 20 times, and I'm tired of talking about the offensive line continually being bad.

And it's been like this for years under the Zimmer era. And the defense was bad last year, and they put in a ton of money to try to fix it, and it has still been bad. The run defense, they have Michael Pierce, they have Dalvin Tomlinson, we're convinced that it's gonna be better this year. It wasn't better today.

I know Pierce was hurt, but it wasn't great when he was in there either. And so that's what frustrates me and makes me not confident and makes me not wanna believe what they're saying is it's the same issues that have been repeated over and over and over again. And so at some point, you just either don't know how to fix them,

or you don't have the talent to fix them, or probably a little bit of both. And I'm sorry, that's usually what happens when people end up losing their jobs, is you repeatedly make the same mistakes. You try to address them, and those things don't work. You drafted two offensive linemen in the top three rounds. Neither of them have been on the field, one for an injury, one's just not ready. And maybe it's not fair to expect that they're going to be ready.

But it's things like that that we've seen year after year. And we're seeing this year with all the money being pumped in the defense and the defensive line and just try to stop the run game, and it just hasn't happened. Sorry, on that field goal that was blocked uh it looks like the packers tell me if you heard this one before got a good break because the steelers were called for offsides and they shouldn't have been so there's some salt in your wounds uh and so when we have the discussion about zimmer and job status um it's always tricky because do you think it's fair at this point to

to talk about that of course yeah of course last year you start one in five this year you start one in three the eight of the last 21 football games is just tough you go back to losing against san francisco then all of last year and think about like one of those wins is against detroit at the end of the year i mean yeesh like i guess i've got to count that because it happened but wow right uh so you then you count seven and nine, and then this year, one and three. It's like the same results over and over again, the same arguments over and over again, the same, I believe in this team. It's you guys who don't believe in us sort of message. I think last year that maybe you could buy into the idea that, well, you know, okay, this team is young and I think they've got a lot of fight in them. That sort of was sold last year. And they did show that for a

while and they didn't give up and go three and 13, though, maybe, you know, that would have been better for them in the long run because they would have drafted a top quarterback, but, um, you know, they didn't have that happen. So they fought and they played hard for Zimmer. And I don't think it's that they're not playing hard. I think it's just, they're not good enough to win these games and they have these same fundamental flaws. And I think you're exactly right to say that when it feels like it's gotten really redundant, that's when change tends to come. The question is, how patient do you want to be? And I think that the next two weeks will really tell us that because if you lose one of the next two games, how can you convince me that the second half of the schedule, which we

already went through, is going to be any different at all? And this is the day that I ran out of patience for if only whatever had happened, then we'd be something else. I mean, I grew up in Buffalo. If only Scott Norwood kicks the thing through the freaking gold pulse, then the Buffalo Bills would have a Super Bowl. If only Gary Anderson, like there's always these, every team has these, every team that loses and isn't terrible has these same exact discussions about, well, well you know we would have gone nine and seven instead of seven and nine it's like I mean hang a banner that says almost beat three different teams in the NFL this year and that's where I feel the frustration and I

tweeted out just what Zimmer said like I feel this is a good football team and the responses I think really show you how everyone is feeling right now about just the redundancy of what this team has become and I mean you could see it though right like you could see Detroit comes in here they beat the pants off Detroit Kirk throws for four touchdowns Carolina they play let's say they get a win they go to three and three and then what we sort of do the same roller coaster through the second half of the season. This team's got a good defensive end. You lose. This team has somebody key hurt.

You win. I guess that's the frustrating part of it, I'm sure, for Vikings fans is just having to deal with this same conversation over and over again. And what it's often been boiled down to is sort of like every game is a referendum on Kirk cousins. But I think that I, I want to even move past that part of it because we so much know who everybody is at this point. And there are things that are different. I think their line is better. Uh, I think that their third wide receiver is better, but you're going to have Michael Pierce get hurt one week. Or I thought Cam Dantzler played well,

good for him. Don't tweet after the game, Cam, about your play, but I thought that he played well today overall. But I mean, it's sort of like, okay, they've got a little defensive weakness and you just lose and you've got another team with a good defensive line and you just lose and you don't play perfect at the end of halves and you just lose. And you know, these, these things, I think they wear down everybody. And at some point, as I make this long winded point, but at some point, the people who are making the decisions from the very, very top will get worn down the most. That every time they get excited for a game and fly here, that they get disappointed. And I felt that after the 2016, no, I'm sorry, 2019 game you referenced against Green Bay. And they saved

themselves with that win against New Orleans. But I felt the same thing. It was national TV. Everybody talked about it. Big hype for that game. And they just had a defensive line blow up their offense. They lose and everybody walks out feeling the same way that they felt many, many times here with this team. So can they turn it around and can they have a good and competitive season? Could they still make the playoffs from here? Of course. I would not say that they can't. But I would say that these types of losses, they have really built up. And eventually, you collapse under the weight of just disappointment after disappointment. Yeah. I think the maddening thing about the Vikings is you can see that potential in them.

And you can see at one and three, you can see them doing really well. And today coming into this game at one and two, you could see it going a particular way where they're now two and two. They came off nice wins against Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks. Now you just beat the Cleveland Browns. You're about to take on Detroit.

Like, okay, we're gonna be above 500. Now it's really anyone's ball game. But the maddening thing is then they have a game like this today, and those can come at any point. And, I mean, you can tell with Mike Zimmer just in that press conference when he says, I still believe in this team. I'm sure he does, but that also sounds like he's stumping for a little bit more time here.

He's trying to get just more cracks at the apple to hopefully turn it around and is that out of the question no does it seem likely at this point not really and and that's the frustrating thing well and that's the part of it is when we talk about how likely it is it's really hard to say look guys they're just going to steamroll through these next opponents and they're not going to make these mistakes that they made today. They're not going to have, we wouldn't say what an uncharacteristic loss. We would say after this, this was a characteristic loss. This is, how would you explain the Vikings since 2018? The last two weeks, they get a win that is exciting

and they beat the pants off of a team with a very, very weak defense. And then they come out the next week and they play someone with a good defensive line and they can't move the football and they make a couple of mistakes. There's a penalty here or there that could go either way and they don't win. And that is who you have become and how you change that. Well, is it a coaching change at some point? I guess we'll find out. But I think that if they lose next week and go to one and four, it's just very hard to see it continue to go on. I mean, with Detroit, Detroit is an embarrassment. And last year, Atlanta came in here and beat the Vikings. And if that happens again, I just don't know if they can take another embarrassment.

None of their losses have been embarrassments this year. They've been, well, man, you just weren't good enough. But if you lose 31-21 to the Detroit Lions, I have a tough time saying, okay, yeah, just keep going forward with this. They'll turn it around. One in four is very, very different from where we stand right now. So, uh, a really what turned into a very dramatic and compelling football game, uh, but did not ultimately give people their money's worth at us bank stadium. And so 14 to seven, the Vikings lose one in three and it should be a long week and uh I I guess I today I'm just I'm feeling for the people who showed up here like you know how there's that Michael Scott thing like I'm ready to be heard again like they walk through the doors ready to be heard again and it was very loud and Baker Mayfield was completely thrown off by this place and Mike Zimmer's defenses and everything

else. And yet once again, they walk out just feeling like, Oh, it happened again. And, uh, that's, that's tough. And it's even tough to break down sometimes like as crazy as the game was. I wish that there was a feeling that, Oh man, what a crazy game it was. And here's how they barely lost. And they still played good at certain parts and did this, but there's just this snowballing effect of these losses to where everyone I think is tired. And so I'm sorry for that, that you have to listen to me break down this same loss that you've heard me break down a number of times. And I'm trying to think of different ways to say that your quarterback gets totally thrown off by defensive lines that get in his face and different ways to say that the team is not sharp enough to avoid a

key penalty that hurts them or that, you know, there's always going to be that third and 20 first down run because defenses are just not perfect. So that has felt like the case repeatedly, and we'll see if they can change it. The way I look at it is two weeks. You have two weeks to change it. You need two decided wins, and then it's sort of a new season. And so the pressure sort of just ramps up.

Paul, great job. Thank you for stopping by. Of course. Okay. Sam will be back next week And so the pressure sort of just ramps up. Paul, great job. Thank you for stopping by. Of course. Okay. Sam will be back next week because he just can't possibly miss a Lions game. Thanks, everybody.