Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Jim Harbaugh not coming to Minnesota and Kevin O'Connell getting the Vikings job

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic react to the Vikings not hiring Jim Harbaugh and instead picking Kevin O'Connell as their next head coach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Jim Harbaugh is not coming here emergency podcast, Matthew Collar, Paul Hodowanek, by the way is launching his own skull searching column now at purpleinsider.substack.com our newsletter so good for you Paul where you're going to be scouring the draft earth and we're going to find out who the coach is going to be first to understand what comes next but your column is very good we're launching that so people should look for that but let's dive right into it. Jim Harbaugh told Michigan, I'm coming back. I will not be a Minnesota Viking. Adam Schefter drops the news around 630 tonight. And I got to say, Paul, throughout the whole week, I was in the camp of being skeptical of this. I used that word probably too many times.

I wondered about how he might get along with Kwezi Adafo Mensah. I wondered if he would come and take the franchise completely by storm. I wondered if this was something that they really wanted to do. And it turns out that it was something that either Harbaugh didn't actually want to do, or they could not get on the same page about who would have the power, how long the contract would be. There were so many potential potholes on the route to getting Jim Harbaugh that apparently one of them fell through.

And I guess we'll all wait for the John U. Bacon report to find out exactly what happened. But Harbaugh has informed Michigan he's coming back. And now the finalists are Kevin O'Connell, the offensive coordinator from the Rams, Patrick Graham, the defensive coordinator from the Giants, and the defensive coordinator from the Rams, Raheem Morris. Paul, give me your thoughts. Jim Harbaugh, not the Vikings coach. I mean, we're recording this maybe 10 minutes after the news broke. So I'm still a little bit in shock. I mean, the last three days we've basically operated under the assumption that Jim Harbaugh is going to be the coach. So now it's kind of a reset and you kind

of have to reevaluate this whole thing and try to understand where it went wrong. I'm sure Schefter will let us know. Our guy, John will let us know if something happens, our Lord and Savior, this time around in the coaching cycle. But for me, I think nationally this may be perceived as, is this another Vikings blunder? They almost signed Poles, then they let him out the door. Now this Harbaugh thing is getting weird. The one thing I'll say is if this came down to him wanting more control than comfortable giving him, if you wanted too much money, longer contract,

they weren't comfortable giving him the years that maybe he wanted a John Gruden-type deal or something like that. So if this was just a, you know, you wanted control of the roster, we don't see eye-to-eye on the Kirk Cousins decision, then it's, you're probably like dodging a bullet here. If it just happened to be that you laid everything out on the table and Harbaugh said, nope, yeah, actually I'm good. Like I'm going to stick with Michigan. That's, that's not great.

But at this point, we don't know which side turned down, which just because Harbaugh told Michigan doesn't mean he was the one to pull out it might have been the Vikings saying no we're not going to do that and now he's just informing his team he's coming back so at this point we we really don't know if it is a just a general disagreement and how the team was going to be put together or if this does look bad on the Vikings but I think just overall you kind of have to be in wait and see mode until those details leak out, really feel some type of way about it

because we just really don't know at this point. I think that if the Vikings laid out, here's the way we're going to do this if we're going to do this. And Jim Harbaugh said, this doesn't work for me. Then that's totally fine. Then this is a situation where you just want to be, have to be on the same page with all

of those important things, what you want to do at quarterback, what you want to do in terms of building a roster, how much power everybody's going to have and how long everybody is going to be here. Because Kwasi Adafil Mensah's contract is for four years. You make a really good point about if I'm Jim Harbaugh and I have a team that seems to really want me and I go there and they say, well, look, how do you feel about a four-year deal? I'd be like, no, I mean, a four-year deal. Matt Rule got seven and he didn't have any record like me. I'm 44-19-1, baby. I think then you go, well, this doesn't really match up then because we can't have a general manager on a four-year contract

and Jim Harbaugh on a seven-year contract or a 10-year contract that locks our franchise into being the Harbaugh Vikings for a very long time. And if I'm the general manager, I can't have my coach that I'm hiring outlast me or have more power than me. Whoever has the longer contract has more power. This was one of the reasons that the Vikings put Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer on the same contracts. So they were always on at least the same track.

And even though it came down to, it seems the very last days of Zimmer and Spielman of them, you know, maybe going different directions, whereas it looked like Zimmer would be fired and Spielman was going to stay. Ultimately they were on the same track with those contracts and they're going to get paid not to work for the same amount of time.

And so if I'm the Wilfs and if I'm crazy, track with those contracts and they're going to get paid not to work for the same amount of time. And so if I'm the Wilfs and if I'm Quasi Adapo Mensa, I would not want to sign Jim Harbaugh to longer than a four-year deal. If I'm Jim Harbaugh, I could say I need more assurances than just that, that I'm going to be here for a very long time, or you're going to have to pay me to not be here, which is, hey, that's the college coach way, right? Like how many college coaches are getting paid not to be here? But we won't know until, like you said, there's more reporting exactly what it was that went wrong. But here's what I want to say.

I know that a lot of people wanted this. People were changing their Twitter avatars to pictures of Jim Harbaugh that looked very strange and they were getting very excited. There were people who became a little Harbaugh army online and went around arguing with everybody they knew. I got text messages from people who listened to the show that I know and, and other people that are just Vikings fans that I know that are saying, Oh no,

I can't believe we didn't get Harbaugh pull back for just a second and look at it this way. I wrote about this a little bit today. The three candidates that they have as finalists. We didn't get Harbaugh pull back for just a second and look at it this way. I wrote about this a little bit today. The three candidates that they have as finalists. Can we just talk about their resumes real quick? I mean, Patrick Graham, I know works for the giants, but has been considered a riser in the business for some time, an assistant coach with the New York giants, somebody that, um, the articles that you read about them is very bright, very analytical.

And maybe one of the only things the New York Giants have to be proud of, right? Like over the last couple of years is that their defense was pretty strong. So there's a solid candidate. They interviewed him for nine hours. They were clearly interested. Raheem Morris has been a head coach before. He has been on the offensive side. He's been on the defensive side, right? And so he's leading a team's defense into the Superbowl right now. And on the offensive side, Kevin O'Connell is coming from the McVay tree, which has had a ton of success that also

kind of extends out to that Shanahan. These guys work for Mike Shanahan. You got Matt LaFleur is a part of this, like there is a ton of success at using this style of offense to succeed and maximize quarterbacks. Like you are not going from a guaranteed rock solid championship coach to a bunch of dweebs that don't know what they're doing. I've always felt like it was probably the more savvy play sort of the, uh, I sort of compared it to the tortoise to the hare, where you kind of take the longer, slower approach beyond the same page with quasi Adapo Menzo with one of these people, rather than going for the, the flaming hot, you know, it, it either works or it blows up in your face, Harbaugh.

So I don't think that anybody should feel today as they listen to this, like, wow, Vikings just blew it. Like it was right there and they let it slip. Like I joked about the Andrew Luck thing where they could have sucked for luck and maybe they should have paid Les Frazier or was he the coach then? They should have paid, yeah, Les Frazier $100,000 a loss. That's what they should have paid less Frazier or was he the coach then uh they should have paid yeah less Frazier a hundred thousand dollars a loss that's what they should have done but um anyway the point just being I don't look at this at all like this is devastating once upon a time Mike Zimmer was not the sexy hire in fact go through the league Kevin Stefanski's not a

successful hire Sean McDermott or I'm sorry not a sexy hire Sean McDermott is not a successful hire. Sean McDermott, or I'm sorry, not a sexy hire. Sean McDermott is not a sexy hire. Like there's a lot of coaches that have worked out really well. Frank Reich was a second choice. Right, right. Yes, exactly. And so there's a lot of examples of it working where it's not like the biggest thing. And there's a lot of examples where Tampa Bay hires Lovey Smith or something, and that blows up in their face. So I guess I just wanted to say that if you're really upset about it and freaking out, I just wouldn't be. I wouldn't be. I think that the Harbaugh way had many more bombs that you could step on and have it blow up

than Kwezi Adafo-Menta getting on the same page with whoever he hires and going forth together. Yeah. And Harbaugh's the big name and those guys always draw consideration at the, at the coaching. So when there's coaching searches up, that was John Gruden. He was the hot commodity and then that didn't work out. So you never really know what these things. And so I'm, I'm kind of in that agreement too. It's just a wait and see they now, this is why they cast a wide net. This is why in their GM search, they had two finalists because if one that maybe they wanted more, maybe they didn't, goes another route, you have another option you feel really, really good about. The Vikings have already done second interviews for three other candidates. They already

have that. I would guess they're going to have a pretty good idea of where they're going to go now after this. We haven't interviewed anyone else. This isn't like a Jag situation for where weeks, it feels like it's going to be Byron left, which then that gets cold. And now they're starting from scratch again. And you know, they, the Jags want to interview Kevin O'Connell, but they can't cause they didn't get it in early. Like this search was methodical and they continue to have candidates that they can go to extremely qualified candidates were far along in a cycle normally how we'd be in the calendar year, but there are still five jobs open, which means there's still tons and tons of quality

candidates for them to go after. And from the pool that they interviewed from, most of those guys are still there. They didn't, it's not where all of them are getting plucked up. Like they interviewed Hackett. He got a job, but they didn't interview Dable. They didn't interview Aberfloos or McDaniels. So most of the people that they had had on their initial list are still here. But it is surprising.

It is shocking because everything pointed towards Harbaugh. And so now that's not the case. And for years, it's going to be, would Harbaugh have done this differently? Is this changing? Like, that's a narrative that isn't going to be escaped because it was so close. It seemed like it was going to happen. I don't know if it was on the general manager side, if it was the Vikings balking. I don't know if it was Kwesi. It sounded like he liked him a lot. Maybe it was the ownership. We had heard a little bit of reporting that there could be some, you know, some squabbles within the ownership of whether they wanted him or not, or the people they were listening to. But while it may not be a disaster for the Vikings, it's at least going to be something that now we monitor for the next few years. And if Harbaugh comes into the league in a year or two, it's going to be like, why did he want this job over the Vikings job? It's going to be a talking point. So I'll read you what Kevin Seifert from ESPN friend of the show, uh,

said just now on Twitter, he said, uh, this was a random development and flimsy connection, a great coach, but didn't in any way fit the profile of what they have said they were building. I agree with that part. The second part, especially about how it just didn't seem to really fit with what they were building. And here's the key part to me, Kwezi Adafo Mensah, look, I don't know better than anybody else, whether he will do all the brilliant analytical things or whether the job will be too much for him or anything else, right? Like, I don't know. It could, it could go either way. But I think based on the guy's history and his intelligence and his value-based decision-making data research and all that stuff, that what you want is to have him be commanding the ship,

I think, and working with a coach closely in building what you want to build over a number of years and not try to just have this like quick rebuild and try to win next year to make the Wilfs happy. And just like, that's it, right? I think that that's a smarter play is to have Adolfo Mensah form his front office the way he wants to form it and build a team around a coach's vision that he can work closely with rather than somebody who's going to want things to be their way or that's it. And I don't know better than anybody else, all the details of Harbaugh versus Trent Bulkey in San Francisco.

But I do know when Harbaugh showed up in San Francisco, they were ready to win right there at that moment. And I know that there's a thought that the Vikings were pretty close last year, but just because you were in close games last year doesn't mean that you're right there now. And actually, after we're done talking about this, people will hear an interview I did with Drew Dinsick where we talked about this, where we talked about the NFC North and whether you's got Mahomes. Nobody's got, I mean,

somebody might trade for Deshaun Watson, but nobody's got elite quarterbacks other than Dak Prescott, which is probably a little fringy. I would not put him in the same category as a Joe Burrow or a Josh Allen or a Patrick Mahomes. That's going to dominate the AFC forever, which to me says, do you want to be in a pack of a bunch of people who are kind of fumbling around trying to get ahead in that rat race? Or do you want to be the team that gets way ahead? And shockingly, Paul, you're never going to believe this. You're never going to believe it. Just hold your breath here because it's going to shock you. People at the senior bowl are saying that these quarterbacks look really good. Can you believe it? I thought they were all terrible.

I thought that they were going to just couldn't take the snap and just would fumble and fall down all the draft pick prospects. That's what I thought. I thought Kenny Pickett's hands were so small that a Whopper burger looks huge in his hands. If you've seen that commercial, um, turns out, no, they're starting to look good and catch people's eyes. I am totally stunned. Anyway, the point just being that if you get it right, there's a lot of teams that are getting it wrong or that don't know what

they're doing or where they're going. And so if you get your direction, right, if you rebuild your secondary through the draft, if you rebuild your pass rushers through the draft or through good signings or through developing players, this is something that can exist for a number of years. And the Vikings are actually an example of this. They hired Zimmer. They built through drafting players in 2014-15 and then built their roster around that. It wasn't a, let's hire the biggest name out there and try to win after coming off a bad season in 2013. And they eventually peaked three years after they had hired Zimmer,

which might have to be the direction that you take. Yeah, I don't mean to just cut into your point, but Tom Pelissero just tweeted. This is the beauty of doing this live. He just tweeted the Vikings are zeroing in on Rams offensive coordinator, Kevin O'Connell as their head coach sources tell me and rap sheet, the deal can't be finalized until after the Superbowl. So that appears to be the next leading candidate. Once upon a time that was Harbaugh,

but that is the tweet that just came through. Schefter just reported it from ESPN. Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell has emerged as the favorite per Dan Graziano and Schefter. So now we're at for the biggest insiders just right now that have confirmed the Vikings are going after Kevin O'Connell, which makes a lot of sense that they would have the option ready right after. That they, if they weren't going to choose Harbaugh, they had a pivot. So this podcast may have just turned into the emergency. Where did Harbaugh go? And it's now the emergency. We have a new head coach podcast. So that's perfect. What do we think of Kevin O'Connell,

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for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts. That's hellofresh.com slash insider16 for up to 16 meals free and three free gifts. Again, HelloFresh.com. I like it. You're always going to have the questions of, we don't know what he looks like calling plays. I think that isn't as big of a deal as people may make it out to be, but it is a thing. He still hasn't. So you don't have that proving ground. But from everything you read, he has a big influence in how they craft plays, in how they script out their games, in everything, as you would expect an offensive

coordinator to do. And he has had interest from a lot of other teams. And he's part of that Sean McVay tree. And I think that can't be overlooked because I was looking at it. I mean, it was a joke for a long time. Anyone that Sean McVay has had a cup of coffee with gets a head coaching job. Well, they were kind of deserving of it, apparently, because who we thought was the worst one,

Zach Taylor, is in the Super Bowl right now. And the other one is in the division, just leading 13 and three seasons over and over and over again. And then you have Brandon Staley, who had a really promising year with the Chargers. So if that is the way it's going, and as we're just refreshing Twitter over and over, that appears to be what they're going to do. I'm a fan of it. I'm a fan of going with an offensive guy and having that stability, hopefully, or you'd assume with a new quarterback coming in, uh, to kind of have that stability going forward. Um, so yeah, I, I, I think it's a good hire. What are, what are your initial thoughts?

Okay. So this is happening. Um, Dan Graziano says the Vikings have called other candidates to inform them that they're out of the running. So a deal with O'Connell is going to be finalized after the Super Bowl. So we have a head coach. It's going to be Kevin O'Connell. So let's go through. Let's go through Kevin O'Connell's Wikipedia, shall we? All right. So Kevin O'Connell was a player in the NFL, not somebody that got a lot of playing time, if any. But it was like a practice squad type of quarterback in the NFL for a couple of years. He got into two games through four passes, went four for six. 66% completion percentage, Paul. That's not bad.

23 yards. I'm just joking. So he was around in the NFL from 08 to 2012 on practice squads and as a backup quarterback. And then he started out as Cleveland's quarterbacks coach in 2015, worked in San Francisco in 2016, so would have actually been there with Kwezi Adafo-Mensa as well. I don't think we made a lot of that connection.

And then he was with Washington as a quarterbacks coach in 2017. Kirk connection. That's Kirk's worst year, by the way. And not necessarily his fault. Deshaun Watson and Pierre Garcon left that year. But yeah, the red flags, Kevin O'Connell, you know, trying to figure out whether that means he would get rid of cousins or keep them is another conversation we're going to have in a second, but, uh, then worked as Washington's quarterbacks coach passing coordinator in 2018, offensive coordinator

in 2019, when that team was very bad. Uh, and this, and this speaks to the connections that they have, right. And also how we evaluate these guys, because we go back and go, oh man, that 2019 Washington team, they had no talent. They were awful. And then, uh, all of a sudden he goes to the Rams and they're working with Matt Stafford and he's kind of the direct guy working with Matt Stafford and they take Stafford to a Superbowl. So, um, kind of like here we are. Uh, and I, you know, I think the biggest thing is O'Connell quarterback and you pair those together. This is a former quarterback, quarterback guy. You mentioned Frank Reich. I think you like that type of thing is like,

here is, here is Frank Reich. Here's a quarterback that they haven't been able to find in Indianapolis. But here's a backup quarterback who becomes a very good quarterback whisper, if you will. That's kind of what you're looking for here. Because nothing else really matters except for what you end up doing at this position. And out of the guys who they were considering, you had two defensive minds. And then you have the one guy who you could have more confidence in bringing a similar type of offense from Los Angeles to work with whatever quarterback they decide to go with. Yeah, I, again, I, I hear, I heard the arguments of you want to hire the best, best coach overall.

And I wholeheartedly agree with that. If some defensive coordinator was just so much better, if Patrick Graham just blew Kevin O'Connell out of the water in the interviews and what you thought of him, then he should have been the hire. But if it comes down to any sort of tiebreak, I like going with the stability of the offensive head coach. But it also means he's going to be directly tied to not only the Kirk decision and it's going to be deemed O'Connell does not want Kirk or O'Connell does want Kirk. So that's immediate pressure he puts on. And then if you draft the guy, it's, this is his handpick guy that he wants to work with. Uh, it is not an offensive coordinator. Like the pressure goes on

O'Connell now to find that quarterback. But I think that's the way that you should be doing it in an ideal world in a vacuum. You're taking that offensive guy who can help you just mature that offense, hopefully potentially get a new quarterback in there and see where it goes. But there's still a lot of holes to be filled on the defensive side. So figuring out how he's going to put together his staff is going to be really interesting. He has some experience, but he isn't, he's not, he doesn't have years and years. He was at the Browns for a year. Then he goes to San Francisco for a year. He's at Washington for two, doesn't get retained when Jay Gruden gets fired. And then one year with the Rams. So he, you know, he's, he's youthful, which I think people liked about

D'Amico Ryans and hopefully he brings that energy. Uh, but it's going to be really, really interesting to see what he wants to do with the quarterback position. And he just had Stafford for a year. So he just had the mold of a Kirk cousins. I would think Stafford's better than him, um, in most respects, but he's had a quarterback like that. He saw their transition from Jared Goff. So he has been in the inside for all that. And I'm sure he has a view on how he wants to approach that moving forward because he has seen that middle ground of quarterback. So he's either going to feel like he's comfortable with that, or he's going to be like, we, this is not sustainable

and we need to move on. That's a good point that, you know, Stafford and Cousins have very similar statistics over a number of years. And we've talked about it and written about it and everything else. But the difference between them is arm strength and size. I mean, Stafford is a huge guy who went number one overall and Cousins is limited in his physical ability. And I think that that might be a separating factor for someone like Kevin O'Connell who worked up close with Kirk Cousins and understand some of the limitations there versus somebody with a big giant arm. And that's where we're talking about the senior bowl that people are raving over Malik Willis's arm. And there's going to be other guys

too, that we hear about Sam Howell has a big arm and Matt Corral does as well. So, you know, that's gotta be a part of it, but I don't know, because he may have formed the closest relationship ever with cousins and that's what they like. I don't know about that though, because I feel like if you were working with Sean McVay and Kevin O'Connell has been there since 2020. So you're working with Sean McVay and you've got Jared Goff there, who, by the way, is a good quarterback. And I respect Jared Goff, but limited in his physical capabilities.

And you go from him to the next guy who is more physically gifted and go to a Super Bowl. It's hard to not connect those two things and say, how could this guy not think that? But I don't know, because it might be part of the whole conversation that they had of, look, our numbers say we could win with Cousins if you just X, Y, and Z. But at least this opens the door to that, where one of the issues from the last few years has just been that Mike Zimmer refused to buy in to Kirk Cousins

and build his offense around a passing game. And what the Los Angeles Rams did with Stafford, not that Detroit didn't do this necessarily. Not that Stafford didn't have Detroit build around the passing game, but build around McVay's passing game is different. And they were one of the best in the entire NFL. Stafford was third in terms of total passing yards. He threw over 600 passing attempts. I mean, yards per pass attempt were the highest of his career. I mean, we're talking about all these things, you know, being like you could connect to, could you take, take Kirk Cousins and do the same thing thing but also would you like to pick your own quarterback you've

worked with cousins before you didn't win in 2017 when you did what we haven't won since then would you like your own would you like to pick your guy to develop and that's where that's where i feel like this franchise has an opportunity to pick a quarterback and build around that quarterback with the cap space, but also look at the offensive line of the Rams. Like this is important to bring up too, that the offensive line is a huge part of what they do. They also said, oh, we had a receiver hurt, get another one. Not we had a receiver hurt. Hopefully BCc johnson can do it right these are the things that you can correct the sins of the past that along the offensive side whether it's cousins or someone else you have an opportunity with o'connell to focus it on the area of the game that matters the most

as we go into the super bowl by the way i to, sorry if my internet blows up using pro football reference to check this, but every year it's almost always teams that score the most. In fact, almost every single year it is. The Rams this year were 15th in points allowed. My computer's freezing as I scroll down to find Cincinnati. Where were they? Where is Cincinnati? Do I need to keep scrolling?

They did not have a great defense. 17th. So we have the 15th and 17th best defense. You can't be 30th. No. But you could be 15th or 17th. What you need, though, both of these teams are top 10 offenses, and that's what they need.

So I think of all the candidates, it's funny because we had trepidation about too many defensive guys coming in. Todd Bowles was a conversation briefly. We had trepidation about Jim Harbaugh and what he's going to want. And is he going to be moderate enough and everything else? And they go with the offensive coordinators in the Superbowl. It's like, I think, I think everybody can get on board with this. I think. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because it now, if they're circling on O'Connell every word, every minute we're getting another reporter confirming it. So that is the going to be the

head coach. But if it was between Harbaugh and O'Connell, you have to imagine they probably had different views of where they wanted the franchise to go. And the Vikings may have been picking. Do we want Harbaugh's view for the future? Do we want O'Connell's view for the future? How do we think these coaches fit into what we want? And if I were to guess between Harbaugh and O'Connell, which one was more apt to want to keep Kirk Cousins and win right away, I would probably point towards Jim Harbaugh. And that was the thing with Harbaugh. I think everyone who loved him was still having to convince themselves a little bit of something of, oh, he's going to be more patient than he was in the past. Oh, he's going to be better with

the front office than he was in the past. It appears they went with the more patient option, the guy who probably was in it more long-term with how this was going to go. And I think that's the right move for where this franchise needs to be and needs to go. So I think O'Connell fits in that respect really, really well. You just hope he's learned from Sean McVay. We're hoping he forgot to learn just the clock management. That's the only thing. We're hoping Kevin O'Connell can bring everything Sean McVay brought in terms of an offensive

mindset that is forward thinking with the pass and using the run effectively to set it up. We're just hoping he can use his timeouts just a little bit better probably. Folks, we've got an even better offer to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER, one word, you can get 15% off your purchase. That's right. At SodaStick.com, your place for Minnesota sports-inspired apparel. You can get 15% off just by using the code PURPLEINSIDER. I've told you about all the great football designs, but they've added a few more, including the Axe is Back for Minnesota football fans. You can get that on a shirt, on a hat.

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there will be part two, three, four, all coming flooding into your podcast feed. Um, we'll get together with Sam Ekstrom soon and, you know, go forth from there,

but, uh, you know, so real quick, what do you think that the, the fan, um, maybe sentiment is going to be on this? I think fans will always get behind the coach that they pick. So I think I expect probably a couple more hours of shock.

And then everyone talks themselves in to Kevin O'Connell is how I would expect this. I think a lot of it's going to come down to the reports we get out of if this was Harbaugh's decision, if this was the Vikings decision. I think if it was the Vikings decision, then it immediately becomes, all right, we're on to Kevin O'Connell. That's who Kweisi wanted. That's who had the better plan for the future for them. I mean, I think it's going to be a talking point.

I don't think it couldn't be i think you'd be naive to think that harbaugh is not now going to come up because of how close it seemed so i think there's probably going to be a little bit of initial disappointment just because from my timeline it seemed like so many people were excited about this possibility but over time i think you know all fans are going to go for their head coach. So I don't think it's going to last too long. I don't think this is going to year one, they're two and four and it's, well, Harbaugh could have done better. I don't necessarily think that's where we're going, but I think he'll still be something

you think about and something you talk about for a long time. You don't meet with him for nine hours. You don't go through all this pageantry with a guy, you know, is going to get all these headlines if it isn't someone you are deeply considering. So something happened over the last day that made them decide they weren't going to do it. And that's okay. That happens during the interview process. Uh, but it's going to get talked about. Oh, for sure. Yeah, no, I, I totally agree that, uh, I can't really wait to find out what details end up getting leaked out, whether it was something the Vikings didn't like or not. I mean, sometimes with the Vikings, their ownership does not put stuff out there.

So it's possible that we don't really know. But Harbaugh's side seems to be in tune with the media and letting them know where they stand. So at some point we might get some insight on that. I guess I would say that what Vikings fans are going to need here for at least the first year with a coach like this is probably some patience and telling people who have been through so many losses that you need to be patient. I think this was the part of Harbaugh that got people excited was, okay, I don't have to be patient. I can have this now. I can have this person who's going to get us there now, who's going to take us to an NFC championship like he did in San Francisco. And that's where I just, I felt that that'm not sure that that really, um, quite connects because I don't think that he can wave a magic wand and get you to the NFC championship next year, even though the NFC is

wide open. So instead you are probably going to have to be patient, whether they stay with cousins or not to rebuild the rest of this roster. And like you said, you make a good point to bring up the clock management of McVay, but these are things that have to be learned. Like you, you have to learn how to manage a clock. You have to learn how to manage a locker room. How about this? There are there are articles from Zach Taylor or about Zach Taylor talking about how he was losing the veteran players. And this is of course, when they're losing and, and, you know, getting down to the bottom to get the number one pick, but there are articles about how, Oh, he didn't treat Carlos Dunlap the right way and different things like this that I don't doubt are true. It probably takes time for someone like Zach Taylor, who is not a previous head coach or

anything like that. If you were Raheem Morris, I might've said, well, all right, he's, he's going to know how to manage players right away. He's going to know how to, you know, do these other things. But in this case, it will take time just like quasi Adafo Menta. But I think that if you're okay with understanding, there will be bumps along the road with both of these guys. There will be some mistakes that get made in route to doing something like what Cincinnati is doing or, you know, other rising teams that have been only down for a short time. It doesn't have to mean you tank or that you lose a ton of games next year. Don't compete. Cause if Rogers gets traded to now there's a rumor about Tennessee, if Rogers gets traded to Tennessee, well, okay. Maybe Tannehill ends up in the Green Bay or something but okay well that's not I mean

that's not a a huge like setback or something that you have to lose all your games you could still be competitive but there will be times where they're going to have to learn on the job in order to get to the place you want to go and nobody likes that nobody likes being told that but I also think that judging and you were in the stands for the final game, judging by the way fans felt in that final game at us bank stadium, I think people are ready for this. And I guess that would be my last comment, Paul, and you can react, but I, I think that if hardball had never been a part of this and that hadn't been sort of flashed in front of everybody's face, that Kevin O'Connell getting hired to be the head coach of this team would have been what everybody was looking for. Young quarterback guy, who's not going to like openly walk out into a press conference and slam his quarterback. You know, that kind of thing to

work together with Adolfo Mensah, like that. I think that's what everybody was looking for when they were raining booze down at the end of the game at week 18. Yeah, this is the reset. You hire Jim Harbaugh. It's a half reset. You're keeping a coach with a very similar personality in how intense he is in maybe the struggling to get along with the front office. That move was not a full reset. That was not a full reset in how you view the team. This is, so that's fresh. And that's what fans have been asking. And this off season, the rest of this off season is, is going to be really pivotal in

how much they lean into that reset. Because in a few months, this team could look a lot different. And I think people will like that if it's a lot different because they've seen for four years now that it hasn't yielded a lot different. And I think people will like that if it's a lot different because they've seen for four years now that it hasn't yielded a lot. And so I think the Kevin O'Connell hire signals things are going to change. And you saw the first of that with Kweisi coming in in his mindset and how that would differ. And now with Kevin O'Connell instead of Jim Harbaugh, you're really going to see that reset. And so it's exciting, I think, to have that unknown and have that hope. When you have Zimmer and you have Cousins, you kind of know what's going to happen.

So you can't really get super excited because you know the floor, you know the limited ceiling. Right now, we don't know that and things could be really, really good. And I think that's what fans wanted out of this whole thing was hope. And I think you have it at this point. Right. I mean, bottom line is that today is sort of the first day of the rest of your life following a very, very different franchise than it was three weeks ago. And that right there, at least the possibilities are,

I think for a lot of Vikings fans or should be just as exciting as it would have been with Harbaugh. And for a lot of people, maybe more so because of the longer term vision that this suggests, I'm not guaranteeing it, but what this suggests. So Paul, thanks for jumping on here for the emergency pod. And I expected it to be kind of a short reaction to Harbaugh not coming. And then all of a sudden here we are with Kevin O'Connell right in the middle of the show. So always fun. Um, and one more detail to just flip in there from our friend, John Krasinski. He says for what it's worth, I'm told the Vikings did not make an offer to Jim Harbaugh before he left town. Interesting. Well, this was the thing, right? This was the thing. It was

Jim Harbaugh wants this job do the vikings want jim harbaugh that was my understanding and that was kind of the john you bacon reporting which i know sounds like i'm saying a fake person there's a real person named john you bacon i'm not like making up this fake reporter um though there were some fake people saying that it was a done deal so what are you you going to do? But, uh, you know, that, that I think is, was always the thing like Harbaugh wants back in the NFL. Will the Vikings get on the same page with him? And if they didn't, then, then, you know what, they were at least, um, I think smart enough to say, this doesn't fit. We're not going to force it, which I think is a good idea. So

that's my, my final thought. And, uh, I'll be getting together with Sam Ekstrom soon as well. So look for a second emergency podcast, reacting more to Kevin O'Connell. And I appreciate your time, Paul. And all of you who have followed this saga, poor Jeremiah Searles. Jeremiah Searles was doing a fake press conference as Jim Harbaugh earlier today.

And now here we are. Sorry, Jeremiah. And it's forever there though. So it is. Yeah, he did a great job. They could have hired Jeremiah. All right. Thanks, Paul.

Yep.