Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Kirk Cousins's first press conference since signing his extension

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom were in attendance at TCO Performance Center for Kirk Cousins's first press conference since signing his extension and it was...uncomfortable. Did Cousins have a message for fans or insight into what type of coach Kevin O'Connell will be? And Patrick Peterson called the defense "stacked" ...is that true? What could happen in the draft to create more drama around this team? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider from Inside TCO Performance Center, Matthew Collar and Sam Ekstrom. We just were sitting in press conferences for, what would you say, maybe... Two hours. Two hours total, but not of actual press conferences. There's a lot of waiting. Like a baseball game. Yeah. Oh yeah, right, right, right, right. A lot of strikeouts, not a lot of action. This is the one thing when people ask every once in a while, you know, like, what do people

not know about your job? Like how much we spend time just doing nothing, waiting for something to happen. And that was today. But we talked with Brian O'Neill, Patrick Peterson, Shannon Sullivan, Harrison Smith, and Kirk Cousins. And so I think let's not bury the lead and Kirk Cousins talking with us for the first time since everything. And, uh, if you were hoping for fireworks, there were no fireworks. If you were hoping for him to say he's the happiest man in the world because Kevin O'Connell

is here. He did not say that. If you were hoping for him to give details of what he wants for a new offense he did not talk about those uh if you were hoping for him to say the witch is dead thank god mike zimmer is gone we football that didn't happen either uh i thought kirk went out of his way to dance around anything and just sort of avoid giving any of his thoughts aside from saying that he wants to retire a Viking. Of course, you know, his contracts doesn't really suggest that signing a short-term contract, but he has continued to use that line and reiterate that he wants to stay with the Vikings, but you know, that's not a new line either. So, I mean, am I being too like flippant

about the Cousins press conference? Because I thought that there would at least be something to walk away from that would be indicative of how the man feels about anything that's happened. But in my mind, there just wasn't. I don't know if you caught on to more than I did. No, I mean, there's not a lot there to extrapolate. This is what happens when someone insulates themselves for four months is when you try to reflect, it's very easy for them to deflect. When you go back in time and say, how were you feeling in the moment Mike Zimmer was fired? He's very easily able to say, well, change happens in the NFL. And the whole thing kind of struck me the same way Kirk has approached coordinator changes in the past, saying, well, every year I have a new coordinator, so this is really no different, without a whole lot of superlatives for Kevin O'Connell. Now, I'm sure that he's pleased to be working with Kevin O'Connell. All reports indicate that they had a good relationship and that Kirk Cousins is probably

happy to be with him than he was his predecessor, but we didn't get anything audible about that from Kirk Cousins. And I thought he would go into more detail at least about Kevin. And if he didn't talk about Zim, that was my expectation. I didn't think there was going to be anything inflammatory there, but I didn't hear a lot about his relationship with Kevin O'Connell and I expected more. And I'm sure we've got myriad opportunities to get into that and talk about that with him. But it was really a lot of the same that we've heard over the years about what it's like to cultivate new relationships with new coaches and going you know, going about your business day by day in the off season. It's, it's kind of becoming a cliche machine at this point. Um, and if we

hoped that, you know, a fresh face as head coach was going to change the way Kirk approached these things, maybe we were wrong. Do you think that Kirk feels liked here? I mean, does this contract doesn't make it seem that way it's a one-year extension in which he did mention and acknowledge it creates cap space but i have heard that it was on the table to go multi-year and they went the shortest extension that they could to lower the cap space and also have a quarterback for kevin o'connell to work with and not end up with, say, Desmond Ritter or, you know, Sam Howell trying to adjust to the NFL right away and then more or less giving away your chances to be good. They probably would have ended up looking like the Bears did last year with Justin Fields in Kevin O'Connell's first season. So obviously, Kirk Cousins is giving you much better than that in terms of what your floor can be as a team.

And he gives you a chance to compete and make the playoffs. So the Vikings would want him for that reason. But they did not say, no, we believe in you for the next five years and we want you to retire a Viking. And, you know, like somebody get downtown and paint a Kirk mural. Like that's not what the Vikings did with this extension. And I guess as, as he was talking, that was more of my feeling than anything that I,

I just wonder if he feels like they made a very half measure investment in him and his future. And even though they got a coach that will be nicer to him and will not slam him as openly in the media as Mike Zimmer did I guess I just wonder like how he feels about a lot of these things I mean they they also didn't go out and get him a new right guard not a not one that's going to be great they didn't replace the center who has struggled year after year so pretty much bringing the same people back there there are no new wide receivers maybe that will change on draft night but this feels so much the same and i guess cousins makes

it really hard in the way he talks to ever like say i feel you bro like you know how certain players have this very relatable even though we're not having a lot in common like teddy bridgewater has a lot more money and he's from florida and he's way better at sports than any of us could ever dream of and yet he's just a good example but there are many players along the way who you feel justin jefferson is this way who you feel like you could say i feel you bro like with what you're talking about i just you get this kind of earnestness from them and cousins has always had the walls up so much that I can't really this long into covering him have a feel for how he feels about anything that's happened here. himself the CEO. And I think in some ways that comes through. If you are just the average employee looking at the CEO's corner office overlooking the skyline and the busy city streets,

you're probably not relating to that person quite as much if they're sitting in that corner office. And they probably don't understand your issues either. They're probably much richer than you are. And Cousins has made so much money in his career. And I don't know if he's blinded by money, if he feels like he's above people. I just think that he views himself sort of in this very exclusive club where maybe the issues of his teammates or sort of the day-to-day doesn't quite faze him as much. Maybe he's not as relatable. But he does speak about his process as if it's very, very important. Like, my day-to-day is this and that, and this is kind of the way that you have to approach it to be successful.

There's not a lot of self-deprecation there. I don't think there's a lot of acknowledgement about what's gone wrong in the past. He usually redirects things toward the future and what he has to do to theoretically get better with that process. But it's not a lot of honest reflection. It's very packaged reflection. And nothing that really makes you say as an observer, he gets it. He understands why people are frustrated. I'm not sure that he relates to that and he admits that he does try to disconnect and not really pay too much attention. I don't know how true is, or if you can truly avoid the noise as a much maligned quarterback.

I don't know if that's possible. I've never been in that position. Um, so I think there's some validity to that, Matthew, that he is tough to peg. And if he is feeling upset, he's probably not going to let on too much about it. He is going to sort of close off his emotions from us, and he's getting better and better at it, I think. Yeah, no, and this has gone on really since, I mean, day one of 2018 when they missed the playoffs,

and he comes out in his press conference after the final game and says, no, it'll be fine next year. We'll put in some hot routes and code words and all that, and yeah, it'll be fine next year we'll we'll put in some you know hot routes and code words and all that and uh yeah it'll be better next year and then of course you know everyone was really upset about that and certain people ranted on the radio about that and uh it got a bunch of views and people were upset with me about that but um but that's but that has been, I think, a fundamental part of Cousins and why I think he can't get that buy-in from not fans. I mean, fans are going to be mostly worried about wins and losses, but people around him. And I know that there are certain people who listen and say, oh, you're just being critical of his press conference.

He was just giving a typical quarterback press conference. But there are certain players who have a really good ability to understand what everyone around them is thinking and feeling and act accordingly. And with this, the previous coach and general manager who brought you in here got fired because you failed for four straight years. And there was no like, yeah, I mean, that was tough. Like that was tough like that was tough that was that was hard to see it's hard to see these big changes it's hard to be responsible for these big changes and it should be our goal to never have to do that again and never have to go through that again and I spent the offseason reflecting on all the ways that I could have been better to avoid our

coach and our general manager getting fired. And there's like none of that. And Hey, how about fans who followed this team and put their hearts and souls into it and filled up that stadium, even for meaningless games, the final game of the year, that place is packed to the brim. They weren't cheering, but they were there. And, uh, I, and there's no like, yeah, I mean, our fans have really gone through it these last few years. And with Kevin O'Connell, I'm hoping this and there's no like, yeah, I mean, our fans have really gone through it these last few years. And with Kevin O'Connell, I'm hoping this is, this is like me make up press conference

that would actually get people maybe behind him a little is like, I just see someone in Kevin O'Connell that could get the best out of me and support me in a way that I hadn't had in the past. And it's, it's my belief that we can make good on this whole thing of me being here. And they're like, man, would people be excited about that? And just like, not, this isn't from like selfish reporter perspective. I'm going to do the show either way. So it doesn't matter what he says. It's just that there's like that old book of like how to win friends and make people like you or whatever it is.

Like, well, I know who didn't read it. And it's just like, I don't know, giving this, putting up this brick wall again on this whole thing, on all of these changes just is like tone deaf on a whole different level. And I don't know how else you can really put it that he didn't like slam anybody or do anything egregious or talk about plexiglass or anything really crazy in this press conference just more it's just more of the same as if nothing had happened as if he had gone into a cocoon and heard nothing about the off season and showed up today and discovered a new coach and went like oh okay and and i i just it just feels like that misses the urgency of fans to have a really good team and it misses the misery of what everyone in the fan base went through

over the last group and it offered absolutely zero solutions to how to not repeat that and it didn't even offer a single i love kevin o''Connell and I'm having a great day because he's here. And I don't know, just, it just sounds like I'm piling on, but I think that all of these things are indicative of why he hasn't connected better, uh, with the fans and, and with, you know, the people in the building over the years. Yeah. Um, robot quarterback usually would come out more as the regular season would go on, but spring and summer Kirk was often more relaxed. I didn't even sense that today. You know, and oftentimes wrongly on his part, things he said that have been written about and reacted to that. I think he's kind of told himself, I'm just going to be robot quarterback all the time. And that's what I mean about the like, does he even feel liked or wanted? Like, because that that guy up there didn't feel like I own this franchise as the quarterback. It felt like a guy who was a little defensive.

Yeah, no, I think that's fair to say. I think he, you know, probably feels like he's taken unfair criticism. He would like to put more on the previous coaching staff and is afraid to say as much. He's afraid to even go down that road, perhaps for how it'll look. And I don't know if that's being a good teammate or if it's not being honest. I can't figure out where I fall personally, like what I would do if I were in those shoes. But by giving nothing to this fan base that has been much in battle, and a lot of it because of Kirk and his inconsistencies. And it does feel like he has other, he has other roles

besides just being a quarterback on Sundays. I mean, he is kind of this figurehead who makes more money than anyone else in the organization. Even though he's not the owner or, you know, the official CEO, he still does think of himself in that way. And I think you have to, you know, at least the CEO has to help craft the statement when there's like a problem at work and you've got to sign off on that at least. And he hasn't even done that. It's more about kind of burying his head in the sand about things that have gone wrong, his fault, not his fault. And that would be a refreshing change. But what I've noticed about Kirk Matthew in five years now, rarely does he ever circle back and say the right thing.

Next time if he came out and said all the things that you're suggesting, it would be so out of character for him. He just doesn't do that. There's never these I'm going gonna level with you kind of moments and you know i i think that that sort of approach if you do it all the time you can say too much and we've seen that from certain players or coaches mike zimmer who was always willing to level with us and uh alienated a lot of people because of it so it's a delicate dance and we're breaking down a press conference in april so bear with me here for

making you know this much out of it and this much conversation out of it it's just that for it's the first time you talk you didn't talk after receiving an extension which is weird it's very weird i don't know what other quarterback in the nfl after receiving a gigantic extension where you're getting millions and millions and millions of dollars and you're going to stay with your team doesn't come out and hold a zoom to say i'm happy to still be here and then i guess i half expected him to come to the podium and just go positive positive positive on guys I mean I cannot wait to be back I am super thrilled and whatever it seems like a guy who knows that he was almost

traded that's how that's how he came across today and that is an interesting storyline of going into I guess next year you know that Kirk is gonna do his job but there were a lot of times last year where we felt like he believed that he wasn't getting any support from the head coach and that made it very uncomfortable and now does he feel like he's not getting support from the general manager and from you know the team of where they want him to be even though he was given this short-term extension uh my day one read on it is well i guess he knows i guess i guess he knows that there were longer term contracts on the on the table that the team elected and went out of its way not to take so that's how i felt about it folks i've

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However you want to do it, go to SodaStick.com. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Use the promo code PurpleInsider for 15% off hats, hoodies, shirts, and of course, your prints. As far as other things go, some peterson quotes might be fun to go through throughout the year because while patrick is an unbelievably knowledgeable person super intelligent hall of fame career he deserves all all the accolades he gets there's no well actuallys or whatever to patrick peterson his answers sometimes can be just the best. I mean, like I'll give you a, I'll give you a one. Let's hear it. Hold on. You transcribed him.

So you've got transcribed him and I'll pull this back. Oh, I may have closed it. Well, anyway, he was talking about how there's no I or me in the building. And he was saying that, um, he, he only averaged two targets a year last year, but got 68 targets, which doesn't add up. And then he said pro football focus doesn't think he had a good year when actually their numbers say that he kind of did. And it's just a trip like Patrick Peterson. I'm glad he's back from a press conference perspective. It's just it's always kind of fun to track everything he says. Yeah. Get, getting like rational level-headed cornerbacks is like harder than you would think sometimes. So I don't know that we've ever had one. It is, it is nice to hear just sort of his

calmer demeanor and he will like go in, in depth on occasion about a topic that you actually care about. And, uh about. And I do appreciate those answers. I'd rather have it than the alternative. At the same time, some of the contradictions, like he, you know, basically you laid it out where, you know, not talking about sort of trying to move past personal accomplishment and come together as a team. But then he does get caught up on the PFF thing and he did several times last year. And he probably thinks that his PFF stats are a reason that he didn't get more money offered from the Bucks and the Colts and whoever else he flirted with in the off season. Um, but yeah, he, uh, he certainly considers himself to be an outstanding

leader and he enjoys telling us about it. I think it's probably true. I mean, like you can still be a good leader and, you know, let people know about it. I guess. I think that those two things don't have to be, you know, mutually, uh, exclusive, but he's, uh, he's going to give us some gold. You know, I don't know if it's always going to exclusive but he's uh he's gonna give us some gold you know i don't know if it's always gonna be it might be fool's gold at times but it's gonna be gold yeah well what i think he's not good at is giving cliches it's almost like he never memorized that part maybe maybe he's just always been so good he never had to and so when he tries to they kind of go sideways um okay Here's the one he said, we're stacked on each and every level, which is of course not the case. And now we just have to

go out there and prove it to ourselves. It's not about proving it to the naysayers. We have to go out and prove it to ourselves and have a belief that we can be anybody we line up against. If we take care of our business Monday through Saturday. Some of this stuff is great. So I'll just, I'll give you the other one. So this is like maybe the worst attempt to humble brag that I've seen. And I didn't think he played badly last year. I mean, I thought that overall he had a pretty good year and I don't think we were against bringing him back as far as assigning either a little bit of voidier stuff but not like

destructive to your team but he said uh i i asked him how well he played and he said i played to the best of my ability i thought i improved on my tackling which wasn't really true uh it's hard to get in a groove when you get two targets a game it's just hard you know when i was getting 80 or 90 targets a year it's much easier to get into a groove. You get a target in the first quarter, not another one until the third. It's kind of difficult. It's like the biggest humblebrag. Like, oh, they wouldn't throw at me.

It's just shutting those guys down, so it's a shame. For me, it's about staying mentally focused because I never knew when a play was going to happen. Last year, I had 68 targets or something. That's tough to make plays on 68 targets. Hopefully, I get more targets. Well, Brashad Breeland's not here, so you will get more targets. 68 when you play 13 games is not to a game,

but I'm just having fun with this because it's April and we had to cover press conferences. Yeah, you know, is the implication that because he was so good that he wasn't ready for the targets when they did come, he was so good that he prevented quarterbacks from throwing his way, but then he wasn't ready when they did. That's kind of what he's saying, I think.

But the math on PFF, which he seems to know the number of targets he got, I think it was actually 64, not 68 not 68 but five it's five a game wasn't two a game it was five a game um just like a clear mathematical uh error there by pat pete and uh he had an 89 quarterback rating against which is fine which is above league average and i don't think you would have any problem with that. He did mention his tackling, which he was one of the higher in the league with missed tackles. So maybe that was kind of if he knows all those stats, that was part of it to throw in there.

But he's just an entertaining person to have at the podium. And so I'm having a little fun with his bad math as if we've ever done bad math on the show. But that's that was the biggest takeaway from Peterson is that he's not good at cliches and can't add up how many targets he had. But I guess we should talk about the stacked on defense part and then we could get to some of the other things that we heard. But they have added these defensive pieces to fill the spots of people who left. But even Kirk Cousins made a comment about how he looked around the locker room and in previous years had thought about all the holes that they had.

Which you're like, which year, Kirk? Could it be the last two? But now he's not looking around and seeing that. And I guess I want to know which position is different. I mean, there's new faces, but this still has very much the same feel. And stacked is not how I would define it unless you guys know of more people in the building that we haven't heard of them signing yet. Yeah, so let's take inventory on defense. You have one fewer safety, a starting safety, than you did last year.

You have exchanged a pretty good linebacker for one who is i would say not as good i mean peak jordan hicks is not as good as peak anthony bar um you are you have your three cornerbacks deep now you've exchanged mckenzie alexander for chan and sullivan that might be an improvement default, but you still are short on body count of like capable corners. You've exchanged, um, well, I guess you've added Zedaria Smith. You've exchanged Phillips for Pierce. I'd say the defensive line is the only area where I could maybe say there's improvement adding a high end or like Zedaria Smith retaining Daniel Hunter, um, on offense, your, your offensive line is basically where you left

it. Receivers are where you left it. Tight ends, you lost your starter. So you asked it, and I'll ask you back, where is the actual improvement? I mean, even if you look at the PFF war numbers of off seasons, the Vikings are at zero that they just haven't really changed anything i mean you know part of that is zadarius smith wouldn't have any war from last year so maybe if they're factoring in the last couple of years of war uh adding it up the way that they're doing it i didn't ask of the whole process so zadarius is an upgrade but also everson griffin was really good last year for 10 games oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was more one for one than I remembered. No, I mean, and that's not to say that, like,

changing the faces and bodies around couldn't possibly elicit better results, but it's also not a guarantee. It could be the same. It could be worse. I mean, there really is a pretty wide range of outcomes. New scheme, different faces. I mean, there is going to be a learning curve, too, to all of this, and your depth isn't good.

So if you have good injury luck, yeah, I'll confess, that could have a big impact on the way this defense finishes. If you don't, it could be more of the same easily. So I guess here's the trouble that I'm running into today. We're listening. Brian O'Neill is talking about his offseason and you know, what, what he wants to see from the culture changing. And Harrison Smith is talking about whether he's still going to move around in the defensive secondary of which he does not know yet. And that's why these days are very hard. They always have been when we come

out and ask people like, it almost helps if someone was injured last year. So we can ask how their rehab is coming along. Like give us an guy um but i think more than anything this whole deal of today and us asking questions and getting answers it it's just short on it's short on drama and i think that this team right now has gone from one of the most dramatic teams just weeks ago of they're firing their coach they're firing their gm jim harbaugh is freaking in town potentially taking this job and it feels like john u bacon is one second away from breaking that news that jim harbaugh is the coach and we're losing our minds every day they're trying to trade k. There's rumors out there. The La Conforas and the Breers and everybody is saying, hearing all this stuff about Vikings trades and they could move out everybody.

Then when everyone comes back, the only thing that's kind of left as far as drama is just whether Kevin O'Connell can actually coach. I guess I'll see you all in september and i don't mean i mean i don't mean to express my frustration with it or anything but it just has uh because i i'm not but there's a lack of like tension now that has all disappeared very quickly once they kept the quarterback once they kept all the other players and zadarius smrius Smith coming in is good for them but it isn't like this life-changing event for them and neither is keeping Patrick Peterson there's no franchise shifting thing that happened so when we're here talking to these guys it

doesn't feel any different aside from hey this guy's new what's your story you ever seen snow like there's some of that and i guess here's what i'm maybe hoping for i don't like to use the word hope because i'm here either way so i don't really hope for anything but maybe the fan base would be hoping for is that the draft changes that because this last few weeks after everything was sort of settled and it became a reality that they weren't going to sign anybody who was going to change the way things were done i i think that there's a bit of like malaise that has settled and even you can feel it of us trying to interview these guys of well uh does anyone want to bring up how mad everyone was at Zimmer not really we kind of went through that all what does everyone think of

the new coach I don't know he just got here and uh so give me that what about the draft could make us be like whoa okay we're kind of back into that mode of this is crazy i i think it's only a high-end receiver or quarterback quarterback obviously because then you watch their progress and you you wonder okay this is maybe the future receiver would tell you this offense is going to try to be super explosive and that's going to be fun and it's going to be different other than that's going to be fun um and it's going to be different other than that i mean there's no defensive player in all likelihood that's going to come in you know unless it's like kyle hamilton like someone unlikely you're going to have a defensive player come in and just change the trajectory of this defense like very rarely does that happen

anyway um this offseason has suddenly become all all right, can they, like, we're going to write the stories about, all right, like, this is what a 3-4 defense is, and this is what, you know, we can learn about what we've seen from O'Connell's scheme in OTA practices. Like, we're going to write a lot about schematics because it is all on the coaches now, and they are now the variable. Like, roster, basically the same coach is different okay so let's focus on the thing that's different um how will they deploy these new players but that's commonplace like we talk we talk about that a lot and we've had plenty of experience talking about how coaches could change the trajectory especially on the offensive side how is Kubiak going to do

it differently than Stefanski how is his son going to do it differently than his father? And it all kind of came back to, well, same old Kirk, you know? Nice weapons, same old Kirk, bad offensive line. And it does feel like a lot of that is similar, and that circles back to where we started with Kirk. It just sounded a lot like him talking about transitioning to Gary Kubiak and then Clint Kubiak. And he's, he's kind of gotten those answers down pat. Like, this is how I'm going to respond when asked about change. Change happens in the NFL every year. Just got to learn to deal with it. Um, so what are we left with? We're left with, I think, just a lot of holding pattern. How is this going to translate to September when the expectation is to win versus, okay, I can see where this's going to be transformative at that point. It really is kind of about the here and now, and they can't prove what they are until we get into the win-loss portion

of the equation. You know, I guess with Kirk, he needs to come on the show and play Talk Me Into. And it's like, Kirk, talk me into you being happy with this talk me into you taking this team somewhere that you haven't and I would really love to hear that answer and that's what so often press conferences end up being is there's something there where the you know quarterback or coach or whoever will come out and say hey you know what you guys like the closest we got was Patrick Peterson talking about the naysayers. Here's the reality. There's no sayers. There's no sayers about anything with this team. There's not naysayers. No one thinks anything about this team. You know, like the, uh, the madmen where it's like, I don't think about you at all. That's the Vikings in the

NFL realm this off season. No one thinks about you at all. And how are you going to change that? You can change that by winning. Of course you can't do it today, but you can change that by winning. You could change that by making big moves that gets you sort of in the discussion for, Hey, what could this team be? Where's this team going to go? You could get it by drafting a quarterback you could have gotten it by tearing the roster apart and moving star players and taking a full new direction you could have done it by hacking some system of using analytics and signing a bunch of analytics players but that hasn't really happened so i guess that's what i think that's what everybody wanted out of this and the one last possibility of getting some energy jolted in

to this team and making anyone talk about them is if cousins would have come out today and said thank goodness we have what we have now because it's going to be better and i can't wait to go win with our offensive driven system from this guy who just won the super bowl yeah and done like a howard dean scream like that would that would have been really something and i i'm not criticizing him for not doing it so don't take it the wrong way like i get why people don't want to say anything because every time kirk does it ends up as a big storyline and everything else But there's just nothing there to even make you. If you watch that press conference as a Vikings fan, which some people do, I wouldn't recommend it better to just read the quotes.

But if you watch the press conference, it's not like you just like drove down here and bought five jerseys and your season tickets because there was like, yeah, I don't know change. It's all right. I guess it's the same as before and like oh well okay and i guess if it was talk me into feeling differently than how i felt he didn't do that no there was not a convincing sales pitch today um a lot of optimism about this this retool defense that we kind of picked apart a little bit.

That, to me, felt like it almost overrode any excitement Kirk or others had about this offensive coaching staff, which I think is probably the bigger story. The defense will be what the defense is, probably unspectacular. They just hope to be not awful. But it really is the offense where this team is going to butter its bread. And I didn't walk away feeling inspired about the direction. There's still time for that. We've only had one day of this. But it wasn't like a big kickoff company-wide party that sort of, you know, got you revved up for the next quarter at work. I mean, today was more milk toast, to use a $ dollar word than I think a lot of fans would have wanted Shannon Sullivan though seemed like he had some zest yeah I guess so he seemed excited to be here uh if I was Shannon Sullivan I would think it was really

cool to go play football with Patrick Peterson and it sounded sounded like he does that, that for a younger player has got to be pretty cool. Like when you go to play with someone who's a hall of famer. And I remember our buddy Sage telling me that the experience isn't always what you think of. And so, uh, I think it has been with Peterson from the younger players, uh, in their situations. And I do think, you know, Shannon Sullivan is a guy that maybe we don't think of much of his signing. This could go for Chris Reed. And ultimately, it ends up being something was there. And that's sort of interesting, I guess.

So we got to know what he looks like and do press conferences without masks. So they saw what we look like. Like that was today's biggest takeaway. And I don't know. I mean, I guess what I'm feeling is the frustration from the fans that I hear from on a consistent basis when I get messages or tweets or emails or fans only questions or everything else. I think that there was this real crazy kind of fall off the edge of the cliff of the energy of this offseason where it went from building and building and building to what is this going to be and then it was like wait what it's not going to

be anything different than what it was and and then to make to sort of pour salt in that wound we make the discovery more or less that there's these edicts of what they have to be from ownership and that they're really calling the shots on certain things. And that makes it, I think for fans feel even worse like, Oh, well, geez, we can't even get excited about all of Kwesi's brilliant wall street moves because he's not even being allowed to make them. And this may sound pretty, pretty, uh, pretty down for you, but I think you could feel it within them. That's how I was taking it today is it almost feels like they can feel it and Kirk can feel that also that this isn't really all that different except for the new coach. And I'm sure that it's going to be a nicer work

environment from what it was before with mike zimmer but i'm not sure how you could look at it and come in here and say guys we're a super bowl contender and that's that is what it like you'd sound ridiculous after your gm said competitive rebuild so i don't know well you know we'll go throughout the off season and we'll try to glean as much as we can and there will be a lot of interesting discussions that we can have along the way but the vibe of even how it feels here um it just doesn't it doesn't seem like i expected like you said you expect like the if you've seen the steve jobs video where they're like dancing and not it's him it's him and it's um the clippers owner clippers owner balmer balmer uh maybe

bill gates i don't know i don't know if that's the right people but there's just a bunch of nerds and khakis like dancing for a company hype thing and that's what i expected today and it didn't happen yeah like you know when you when you move from the third grade to the fourth grade you're kind of pumped to see like who's in your class every year i think the vikings showed up and they looked around and they said wait it's the same class as last year the teachers knew um but yeah we we were hoping for some cool new classmates maybe right normally what i try to do is sort of look ahead with everything of what's next and what's going to happen and for us it's really just the draft and how that could change the way we

view the entire offseason I was joking around with our friend Arif about how like you know I still don't know if that trade no trade clause kicks in until this year or next year with Kirk but you know I think he's going to be your quarterback so you know these things change a lot over the year you get to training camp and then that's a whole new feeling in itself. And then usually in training camp, we really get the sense for what the team is going to be, not in offseason workouts or anything like that. I guess it's just like it's like when you've run a race and you've given everything that you have and then you just sort of pass out and collapse. And that that's where they are uh right now vikings fans they just they went through it with a marathon and sort of have hit that wall but um i don't know i guess i i guess just today i i started really

sensing this from people i got a few notes and emails and things like that of people have said like i'm gonna listen to your show because i like to listen to the show but you know i can't get into whether it's derrick stingley jr or george kerlaftis i'm like man i am into that i want the greek freak but i don't need the greek freak i don't blame you though like i don't blame the people who can't get excited about a corner or a defensive end who's not going to play that much yeah it's the uh like they say it's the great resignation right now in the workplace it's kind of the great resignation of off seasons yeah no it absolutely is so uh maybe the draft will change that but we'll be back out here tomorrow and uh we'll hear

from justin jefferson and we'll hear from delvin cook and get their reactions to this off season and kind of go from there so i feel like I need to apologize at the end here for this general overall feeling, but I guess maybe I had set expectations that there would be some opening up from the quarterback about anything. And when there wasn't, I just went like, man, you're trying to ask everybody else to care, and you're kind of seeming like, you know trying to ask you're trying to ask everybody else to care and you're kind of seeming like you know what i mean like the the team wants everybody to get excited about the new coach and everything else but you're giving them absolutely nothing uh so i what am i supposed

to say anyway have a great day though the weather's going to be amazing it's gonna be like and then it's gonna get bad again right it's gonna be like 60 and then 30 and then there's probably a windstorm and uh that's how our friends that bring me the news have me panicked like is this gonna be like the winter storm to end all winter storms weren't we playing golf at this time last year yeah several times i think there's always that one last leg and then you know it's weird and this this is where we're at with this team right now we're talking about the weather but what's weird to me since i moved here is that there's always that one last leg. And then, you know, it's weird. And this, this is where we're at with this team right now is talking about the weather. But what's weird to me since I moved here is that there's no real spring or fall.

It just suddenly becomes whatever it is. It suddenly becomes summer or it suddenly becomes winter. You walk out to walk the dog one day and it's 80. And then it doesn't stop being 80 to a hundred for months. And then it's 40 and zero. Who did did this that's how we're ending the show sorry football