Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Semi-emergency Podcast: ESPN's Courtney Cronin breaks down hiring of Klint Kubiak as offensive coordinator

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin discuss the hiring of Klint Kubiak as the Vikings' OC. Will he be allowed to do everything the Vikings need to improve their offense or will Mike Zimmer still be calling the shots? Plus how far away are the Vikings from having a defense as good as Tampa Bay? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here, along with Courtney, our Draft Scout, Courtney Cronin. But today, Courtney, we are not talking about scouting. We will be doing that soon with our Scout Logistics scouting reports as we get fully into draft season but we have to talk about a new offensive coordinator in a what I want to call semi-emergency podcast this is not a full emergency because this is something that you and I and I think the rest of the entire universe expected from the minute Gary Kubiak retired that Clint Kubiak will be the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings.

Yep, all of that. There is little surprise, little intrigue. This was when Mike Zimmer talks about continuity and all that entails in running this offense. I mean, you had the guy who created this offense, this Kubiak-Shanahan scheme, come back to Minnesota to install it in 2019 and essentially end his coaching, his day-to-day coaching career, because I personally don't think Gary is done by any stretch, but end his play-calling career by putting the offense in place and then having his son conveniently there in the wings to be able to take over one day.

And that one day came two years after the crew, the two Kubiaks, Clint and Gary, Brian Periani, the tight ends coach, and Rick Dennison, the run game coordinator slash offensive line coach, since they all came together as a giant package deal in 2019, that day has come. And it should come to the surprise of absolutely no one that Clint Kubiak is in this position. It's not just nepotism. I know that that's the first thing that's going to come to mind. And, yeah, the Vikings are definitely perpetrators of it. I mean, you have multiple coaches' sons on staff, not just Clint Kubiak. Adam Zimmer's the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

A.C. Patterson, the son of co-defensive coordinator slash defensive line coach. Andre Patterson is also on staff. You know, previously it was Jerry Gray who was db's coach his son jeremy was was a scout pro scout for the vikings like the vikings aren't the only team that does this although you would think that just given what my twitter mentions are reading currently uh about this higher rather promotion but i i look at it you know beyond that because certainly nepotism is an issue in the nfl but that's a topic certainly for another day. I look at this as Mike Zimmer realizing how he can still kind of preside over the offense without having somebody challenge him, essentially. Clint Kubiak is 33 years old.

We have no clue his capabilities as a play caller, his offensive philosophy, none of it. Why? Because he's never done it. So we don't really know Clint Kubiak. Could he be an extension of Gary? Could he be better than Gary? Sure. Future is a great place. I'm excited to see what's in store for him. But he is indebted to Mike Zimmer. So do you think that this guy's going to be pushing the envelope and you know trying to like change the run pass ratio and the balance that they have I don't think so I think that Mike Zimmer saw this as a window to keep as much of that continuity going forward that's his buzzwords the last two years but what does that mean it

means that you're going to have a play action scheme that limits passing volume and a heavy emphasis on the run the exact same thing that gary came here to install you're carrying that forward to another season and you don't have to change the terminology the verbiage any of that because you are running the exact same scheme by somebody who is physically and biologically as close to the creator of it as humanly possible. So I know that you and your brother, when you were kids, that you got in trouble running around doing things. And my brother and I did too. And I'm sure at some point your parents said, I am not letting you two out of my sight. And I feel like it's the same way with Mike Zimmer in the offense.

Like after what happened with John DiFilippo in 2018, it's just like, I am not letting this offense out of my sight. And I am not giving up control of this offense to where it gets out of hand and they're doing things that I don't want them to do. I am going to make sure that I am still in command of that ship on that side of the ball. The last guy who had control over the offense was probably Pat Shermer, and I know Gary Kubiak is as proven as they come, but it still felt like Mike Zimmer was calling the shots

for how he wanted the offense to be. And even when we would hear Zimmer and Gary Kubiak talk, Zimmer would say things like, yeah, Gary asked me if we could take a shot there. And I know that it's a cumulative effort and that's how play calling works. It's not just one guy who's got the headset on is making the play calls, but even with the run pass ratio and how they approached it versus even years before with Gary Kubiak, when you compare some of the numbers, it really looks like this was Mike Zimmer's imprint on how he wanted the offense exactly and Gary Kubiak did his job as the offensive coordinator

and Clint Kubiak will do it again in my instant reaction piece for the website I just wrote down a bunch of questions that sort of came into my mind one being will Clint Kubiak have the freedom under Zimmer to throw more? Is he going to be able to modernize this thing? Will he be able to find other ways to use Delvin Cook in the passing game? And will the front office give him everything he needs, a la more weapons and some better guard play? And at least as I was writing them, I was going, no, probably not. Unlikely. Probably don't think so um can you convince me otherwise no because i mean that's why it's such an unsexy move because you don't anticipate somebody who's

doing this for the first time um one thing that clint kubiak does not have is experience i mean yeah he has a famous last name of a guy who invented the offense of Mike Shanahan. But he's not Kyle Shanahan, the son of Mike Shanahan. He's Clint Kubiak, the inexperienced, relatively speaking, offensive mind and younger son of Gary Kubiak. He hasn't risen to the status of play caller yet. This is his first go around with this. So I don't anticipate them wanting to be like, you can have carte blanche and do whatever you want, start calling the shots on offense.

The easiest transition here is using this almost as a stopgap to get him comfortable being like, all right. That's why I don't anticipate much changing at all with this offense. And it's not just a matter of, of oh Kirk's on to his fourth offensive coordinator since he got here in 2018 I think a lot of that has to do with keeping the play caller insulated which is also why I believe that Gary Kubiak's not going that far I mean yes you have Brian Periani and uh Denison on staff two trusted Kubiak confidants that will help insulate him and obviously you know Denison is called run plays before maybe this year he becomes the full-time run game um call and run

plays and then Clint's handling the passing game I don't know how that's going to work um I don't know how you can have co-ocs essentially or co-play callers and how any of that would work but nonetheless I have a feeling and I'm not saying anything about Clint Kubiak's football acumen or anything like that I just think you are going to inflate the hell out of this guy so he doesn't fail in his first year um Mike Zimmer's job I mean could very well be on the line by how this offense performs this season especially early on like don't don't make any mistake about it Like the Vikings were seven and nine last year. If they make, if they miss the playoffs next year,

I think everybody's getting fired. I really do. So this was probably the least risky move he could make, even though Clint Kubiak is not experienced and you're kind of hedging your bets on an unproven commodity um because he knows i just have a feeling that gary's going to be around that's kind of the vibe that i get from speaking with people that coobs will stay in some sort of behind the scenes advisor role he just doesn't want to be a play caller anymore like yeah why would he did it for like 25 years like you know he he's he's had plenty of experience doing it as a head

coach and offensive coordinator he's a man of roses let him chill but even gary kind of hinted at like i don't want to leave football completely i miss the guys like he said that when he was from 17 to 18 when he was in denver rather he was at the ranch working with denver um in personnel he missed the camaraderie he missed missed the BSing. He missed the coaching meetings and all that stuff. This is his chance. I firmly believe that when he came back in 19, it wasn't just because he had the itch to truly just for him to get back. I mean, that was part of it. I think that was his way of setting his son up and helping him using the leverage he has. I I mean if you have kids

you want to do right by them you want to put them in the best position to succeed what what better position do you have than getting back into it helping your son get his feet under him and then pushing him on the bike and letting him go not saying the training wheels are off maybe you got one that's what my parents used to do they took one off and then put it back on and the other one off just like you've kind of got like one wobbly side and one steady side. Like, I don't think it's going to be like, you know, floor the car to 100 miles an hour and let him go. But he has the keys to this machine,

and he's going to get to drive it with hands at 10 and 2 and carefully maintain this offense so it can look as closely as possible to the version it was last year. I love your metaphor. I think it's so good. I thought it was a good one. I was really impressed by that one. I really do.

I think it's so perfect to say that this is sort of like in driver's ed when you've got the teacher and they've got the brake on their side and they can push it whenever they want. It feels exactly that way for Clint Kubiak. You are the offensive coordinator, but Mike Zimmer is going to have things his way. Gary is still maybe going to be around. If not, you still have Rick Dennison, who is the offensive coordinator for Gary for a long time. As you mentioned, Brian Periani, the tight ends coach. He's been around Gary Kubiak for a long time. Like this is, hey, kind of just do what your dad did and don't crash the car.

As long as you stop at the stoplights, drive when you're supposed to drive, and go the speed limit, then we'll all get through this with the 11th best offense in the league again. Here's the thing I think about, though. And this, again, is not to speak to what Clint Kubiak wants to do. It's what he's going to be allowed to do or what he's capable of doing. We don't know that yet because he's never been an offensive coordinator before. And, you know, the fact that he's close with Kevin Stefanski would kind of make me think, I bet this guy knows some modern things that they could do.

Are they going to let him do those things would be my question, right? I mean, is he going to get any leeway to say, hey, this is my offense. I am implementing more motion. We are not running on second down and eight anymore. I mean, I doubt it. I just have a really tough time thinking that those decisions are going to be made by anybody except for Mike Zimmer. And this is kind of a scary proposition for Vikings fans because I have a stat for you that's kind of crazy. And I just ran across it the other day working on a piece. The Minnesota Vikings were happy with their offense last year. Mike Zimmer said he was thrilled.

It was the most explosive offense he's ever had. And, you know, it's not super true. But, like, true, but anyway, that's what he said. He was very happy. They had a below average point production by the standard of the playoff teams. So take all the playoff teams and average playoff offense. Their offense was below that in terms of how many points they scored. So it has to get better. Do they realize it has to get better? Or not even they. Does Mike Zimmer, does the front office, are they saying to themselves, this has to get better? Or did they watch the Super Bowl and say, you know what, it's all about defense, brother.

I mean, that's what's going on. Probably, sadly. If it was the top four scoring teams in the NFL in the Final Four. But that's kind of where my mind goes is, are you going to let Clint put in things that I am convinced that he would know are the modern way of doing it as a younger coach? Yeah, I mean, he's 33 years old. Like, yes, he grew up in Gary's offense essentially I mean he

spent a number of years um coaching he was he was in Minnesota long time ago um back when you know when he and Stefanski knew each other I mean that was kind of like a thing a big reason why um you know the Kubiaks came and working with Stefanski, but he was there from 2013 to 14. You know, was at A&M before that. Conveniently, his dad was also at A&M at one point and went to A&M, a big alum. He was at Kansas in 15, and then he began his NFL career, like in true began his NFL career, you know, Denver in 16 through 18 where he's an offensive

assistant and quarterbacks coach and then he becomes a full-time you know coach here but he was an assistant wide receivers coach 13 14 and QC uh for offense in Minnesota but then I think but the years that he was with Gary 16 and I mean Gary was there but wasn't there, 17 and 18, but he was in his father's offense. He knows how Gary's mind works. He knows the philosophy. And here's the thing about this offense. The Shanahan-Kubiak scheme, which was cultivated 25 years ago when those guys were out in San Francisco. It's, of course, like what are the basic principles of this?

Like, you know, a splitback system, you know, short, quick passes, play action offense that limits passing volumes, wide zone, outside zone, running scheme, all of that. There are a lot of teams that run this. Kyle Shanahan runs it. Sean McVay runs a version of it. Kevin Stefanski runs a version of it. Matt LaFleur runs a version of it. But the terminology factor is huge.

And there are so many intricacies. I've been researching this the last couple weeks in anticipation of this, like well why can't you just go get somebody that you know ran like kind of the the pros and cons of hire clint or go hire somebody who's kind of been in the same system but it's not been directly under kubiak like the terminology for footwork alone on three five and seven step drops so like just insane like how long that takes quarterbacks to learn that and how detailed and how intricate it is and that's why I think they're like it's not just Clint Kubiak it's they're worried about Kirk having to deviate from what he's been doing the last two years because you know with Gary um even with Stefanski, Kyle Rudolph said that's on that podcast a couple weeks ago that the terminology and the verbiage did not change whatsoever from the 19 season going into last offseason.

They didn't have to relearn anything. It was literally Gary's offense the whole time. So if you wanted any confirmation that Kevin Stefanski was running Gary's offense, there you have it. And I think you can modernize this thing why because those four coaches i mentioned uh who are running basically the the base principles of this are their core principles they've done that in in a number of different ways well will clint kubiak get that same sort of freedom it comes down to the f word freedom i don't think so because i'm with you I think that Mike Zimmer sees this as an opportunity and really his last chance because yeah the three-year extension kicks in in 2021 but beyond that like you know going

big time changes on offense for him probably doesn't yield um you know another year or two here i really don't believe it which i know we've talked about it and it's kind of been the buzzworthy thing recently about should they consider trading kirk cousins the answer is yes like if you're trying to save your job like it's not in my mind they might view it differently but in my mind it's not admitting fault that Kirk didn't work out. It's, hey, let's get out from under this contract. It's an anchor. Let's do it.

And, you know, in the process, let's bring somebody in for Clint to coach, you know, clean slate for both guys running the same offense. And, yeah, I mean, you are teaching somebody new at that point. So it is kind of a pick your poison. But shoot, I mean, when we talk about aggressive moves and things that they can do to actually get better, are teaching somebody new at that point so it is kind of a pick your poison but shoot i mean when we talk about aggressive moves and things that they can do to actually get better the kubiak move doesn't do that for me right away because it's unproven there's other ways to do it but they are trying to go the most conservative route as possible beats in their mind that's how they keep the jobs hey i want to take a second to tell you about our friends at scout logistics and i really

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I 100% agree on the freedom point is when you look at how this offense has expanded in different people's systems, like Matt LaFleur, like Kyle Shanahan, like Sean McVay. I mean, this thing works. Play action works. Running the wide zone and play actions off it and crossing routes and all those things work. But last year we saw Sean McVay have to adapt and use a lot more screens and quick passes to get the most out of Jared Goff because he was struggling

without the offensive line that had helped him a couple of years before. And we've seen Kyle Shanahan put in all sorts of different stuff in the running game, using the fullback as sort of this, you know, player that's all over the field and this different creativity to it that goes beyond just, you know, kind of the base principles of what Gary Kubiak does. And I think that Kevin Stefanski did a good job of implementing some of those in 2019 that I felt like we saw less of in 2020. And you would like to see those come back if you're going to get more out of this offense and also be given, Clint Kubiak, be given some more players. I mean, like, it's funny how all of a sudden Sean McVay says,

oh, it must be the quarterback who's the problem when the supporting cast on the offensive side was not giving Jared Goff what he needed. And then it's not me, the play caller. I mean, a lot of times it's the players that you have. the supporting cast on the offensive side was not giving Jared Goff what he needed. And then it's not me, the play caller. I mean, a lot of times it's the players that you have. And with the Vikings, they have some good players. Of course they do. And that's why they had a good offense last year.

But if you're going to go forward with Cousins, then you have to have great players all around him. You have to improve at the guard. You have to improve with the playmakers. And that's where I wonder, are they going to do that and my snark about the defensive line is not to say they don't need help we'll get to that they do they of course they do need a ton of help on the defensive line it's just that you know with this offense as it pertains to clint kubiak are we going to still be having the same conversations about the shortcomings because he's dealing with the same things on the shortcomings because he's dealing with

the same things on the offensive line with the shortage of wide receivers that Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak dealt with the last couple years and I tend to think the answer is yes but it's very much we'll see and I am with you on nothing should be considered if you're making the smarter move admitting faults. Don't even think about that type of thing. It's just what do we do now? Is that sunk cost? Like sunk cost is you extended him when maybe you shouldn't have.

Oh, well, it's like anybody who plays chess or watched the Queen's Gambit. If you lose a player, you just move on and make the next move. You don't cry about it or worry about it. You have to just make the next move. And the same thing would go for if Kirk Cousins' value on the trade market is crazy high. Yeah. Right? Don't worry how it looks. Right.

And not even be like, well, we kept Clint around for Kirk. We could have done, you know, differently here. No. Kirk we could have done you know differently here no like the order of things happening here really should not affect you at least um you know at least you know beyond what it is right now if you can get good value for Kirk you could get Jimmy Garoppolo in a second round pick you do it because why you don't have a second round pick and Jimmy Garoppolo is a lot cheaper than Kirk Cousins and you don't have to necessarily extend him. You can draft a quarterback. You can start moving in a different direction.

He may be enough to get you by. That's actually kind of like the Mike Zimmer philosophy right there is with somebody like Jimmy G, you know, a non top 15 quarterback in my opinion, but cheaper than what you'd be spending on cousins these next few years um and you're essentially like you know getting somebody for a fraction of the cost not like backup level um but you can you know an average quarterback at 25 million and you could just pour all that money into your defense like if that's what you want to do because you know

looking at this game plan from last night and and what the bucks did and how good they were um that defense is elite they also had a really good offense but i'm not sure you know you know maybe that maybe some people think that you don't need that that you can have an average offense and a really really good defense um i don't know if that's truly how you win football games i don't believe it is in my personal opinion i think you need both um but the freedom created and yes there is dead cap associate like 20 million associated with cousins if you do move on from him via a trade but hell if you get back a cheaper quarterback in the 25

million dollar range that garoppolo is and you also get like a nice high draft pick, which you currently don't have a second round pick, why wouldn't you do it? I think the big thing is this week we're going to all be waiting to see what's going on with Carson Wentz. If a team really gives up two firsts for him, my God, like what could you get for Kirk Cousins? Like if I'm the Vikings, i'm foaming at the mouth at that point being like all right game on we were we were you know just kind of laying low

for a little bit um shoot i mean you're houston texans and you see it super two first for deshaun watson or for carson wentz you may never trade deshaun watson at this point so the team gives you like ownership rights yeah right right they have to give you the whole draft and the whole roster um in order to get Deshaun Watson and then ironically uh a team will have given up so much for Deshaun Watson that like the Texans they can't build a good roster anymore which is always a problem nice little catch-22 there. I will be interested if there's any legitimate sources that say Kirk Cousins is at all on the block. Because so far we're 0 for that. It's sort of rumor here, rumor there, but nothing where you would even say there's fire where there's smoke.

No, I just think it's something you need to consider. Like, more than, like, because a couple weeks ago adam shepter tweeted out this graphic and i was looking at it and it's like damn there could be 18 quarterbacks on the move and some of those are the likes of deshaun watson while others are the likes of andy dalton or marcus mariotta right or um any of those guys but like the vikings right now are the only only team in the NFC North that hasn't dealt with um an ounce of quarterback instability this offseason I mean the Lions already traded their guy and got a new one the Bears are an inch away from potentially getting Carson Wentz um they can't afford Deshaun Watson that's obvious um the Packers are you know they say that Aaron Rodgers

is going to stay there I think think he is. I think he was just pouting. I don't think that was anything super serious. But it's time to do content. Yeah, it's kind of wild that the Vikings are the one team in the NFC North that's not having any questions, which leads me to believe that they're absolutely

questions and that you should get involved. Now, literally, this is a gift. This is an absolute gift of a window to get out from under this contract, because other than that, you're probably going to have to restructure him, which is crazy, because you know that base salary becomes, we've talked about this, it becomes guaranteed on the third day of this league year, which I believe is March 19th. So how are you gonna I mean and I know we're talking about Clint Kubiak here but like Kirk is the is the crux of all this

because he's got a 31 million dollar cap hit this year his base salary for next year which is guaranteed third day of this league year 35 million his cap hit for next year is 45 million don't you have to restructure him going into this league year if you're going to keep him like because of the cat I mean it stresses me out I don't know I don't know what to do like if I'm like thinking about this because it's like how could you not entertain the possibility of moving on from him at that rate alone yep yep it's entirely about the contract and where you stand as a roster which is the last point that I wanted to get your opinion on, is how far away the Vikings are to the Tampa Bay Bucs in other stuff not named Tom Brady.

Like, look, you don't have even 43-year-old Tom Brady. The Bucs still had a top three offense in scoring this year. Brady was still a top three quarterback by pro football focus. That's not going to happen, whether you trade cousins, whether you keep them, whether you name Bill Walsh, the offensive court is not happening. However, there are other players on this team that played a very key role in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being the Super Bowl champions. But I was looking at their roster and who played in that Super Bowl.

And right now they have two defensive ends that are outstanding, a nose tackle who's one of the best in the league, another defensive tackle who dominated last night's game in Damakensou, and they used all over the place. So they have four top-notch defensive linemen, a couple of rotational players. They have a good secondary of which they invested quite a bit. Austin Gale had this list and I'm just going to take a second here and I'm going to call it up on my old computer because I want to read it to you. This was not just a defensive line. So they have Carlton Davis second round pick, Jordan Whitehead fourth round pick, Sean Murphy Bunting second round pick, Jamel Dean third, Mike Edwards third,

and Antoine Winfield junior. second so that's over the last three years the Bucs have invested a ton in the secondary so the Vikings right now have if Hunter comes back and Pierce comes back they have two good defensive linemen they need a lot more there if even Jeff Gladney and Cam Dantzler work out and Harrison Smith you still need a safety you still need another um cornerback and at least for now you're set at the linebacker position like tampa bay had a great performance from their linebackers so that to me puts them five or six healthy players away from being a defense like tampa bay and and all of those players being somewhere between good and great. That's a lot to do this offseason.

That's why I think we've talked about this, that the rebuild they're in, that's the phrase that I use with purpose, they're rebuilding on defense. That's not a one- or two-year process. That's usually anywhere from two to three to four years. And I firmly believe that that's what they're in. And they're going to keep, you know, you know, kind of keep going about that. So what does that mean? Well, it means that how do you how do you quantify what the most pressing need for yourself is in free agency and the draft? Like, which order are you going to do things in um personally i think

that if you think that your windows now which i i don't i just think the defense is a little further away from that then you spend money in free agency on a defensive tackle on somebody who's available in my dress sure well what's the problem with that you don't got no money right now to do it so what do you do like you know you know you the problem with being like oh look at all these draft picks they have in the top 100 what three like it's one first and two thirds um that's not that's just like you can't expect to spend all three of those picks on defense and those guys can come in and contribute right away and your defense is back to where it was like yeah it's just not realistic so i look at it and i say yikes like this is they've got a couple other holes like that they need to fill um the offense

i mean has outside of you know left guard which is the most pressing need, assuming you're going to keep Reef at left tackle and Ezra Cleveland at right guard, you're in a position there that you don't have to spend as much of your draft capital on offense. But even if you do spend all of it on defense, let's just say hypothetically, does that automatically mean you're going to have a great team? No. You have inexperienced guys playing starters roles what they have this year inexperienced guys playing starters roles yeah and look at what happened right and so i think what tampa bay should show you is now they won the super bowl okay there's lots of teams in the playoffs that were competitive green bay was competitive but what their shows you, if you want to compare to who was the best, is just how strong you have to be in order to get there. And in 2017, the Vikings had that.

They had strength at every position, it felt like, except with Case Keenum, a quarterback, there were question marks. But they had good receivers, good running backs, a capable offensive line. It wasn't great, but it was decent that year. And on the defensive side, great defensive line, great linebackers, great secondary. And you have to be a complete roster to get there. And I guess my question is, unless someone is coming out of nowhere with their development, how do you get there with the assets that you have for 2021?

Which to me says, adjust your expectations for what you want to see. I just don't know if that's going to happen. I'm not saying that they should go seven to nine again. They should look for improvement. But when you consider the timeline, which is a piece I'm putting out on Tuesday on the timeline, there's a big, big, big gain that is needed just in terms of roster quality. And I don't know how that happens unless there is some real true wizardry or a Kirk cousins trade.

And then that probably sets, sets you back in your timeline anyway, is, I mean, if you get Jimmy G, maybe it doesn't, but otherwise if you trade them to Indy for two draft picks, well, then who's your quarterback. Right. So.

It'll be very interesting to see how these balls get juggled over the next couple of months with the salary cap and the draft capital, which there are a lot of picks, but as you mentioned, not a lot of picks that in 2021 are going to make an impact no and that's the thing where I think you do the cousins move if you have the window to do it because yeah it may give you a step back right now it might not but like it gives you a step back in the in the short term for, you know, 2021. But I can't see them – I mean, it helps you long term. It helps you 2022 and beyond.

And I just can't see the front office. I mean, I think that it's a ballsy move and it's risky. But to me, if I'm, like, trying to prove to ownership, hey, don't fire me after this year, it's, hey, look at what I just pulled off. Can I get three claps for Courtney here? I just pulled this off. We got out from under Kirk's contract.

Hallelujah, he's gone. That's what you would sell it as if you were Mike Zimmer or Rick Spielman. Not like, oh, shoot, we just admitted failure. Here's our pink slip. I don't see it that way. But thenman, not like, oh, shoot, we just admitted failure. Here's our pink slip. I don't see it that way. But then again, you know, maybe I'm feeling that they see it differently because they

had multiple chances, at least, you know, previously. They didn't have to extend him when they did. You know, they priced themselves out of, you know, in just the way that they they structured his contract rather um they kind of set themselves up for failure anyways this year they knew they'd be having to like adjust this in a year or two anyways he's a 45 million dollar cap it in two years you have to restructure that there's no way even with the cap expected to go back up and it didn't drop as far as we thought it would supposed to go anywhere from like 180 to like 185 instead of being all the way down the floor um of 175 but nonetheless you still are

gonna have to like move some pieces and do some things creatively and everything else but shoot i don't know like i think that you be as aggressive as you can because you can't half-ass the aggression. They tried to do some of that last year. Like aggressive was Rick taking 15 draft picks, you know, half-assing aggression is not using any of those like bottom picks or packaging stuff to move up and get players that could have actually helped you right away. And I use that term lightly helped right away because certainly Justin Jefferson was a star that's that's you know and Ezra Cleveland helped you right away the two cornerbacks helped

you because you had no other choice but to get guys that would actually come in and be you know you know if you wanted another first round pick or a second round pick like you had all that draft capital to do it it's like you have to go all in on being aggressive you can't just do this one foot in one foot out thing because that's the situation you get yourself in last year where you tear your defense in half and then you go effectively all in on offense with dalvin's extension and kirk's extension doesn't work like that you gotta make sure it's all done at once hey everyone we're in the full swing of winter now, and SodaStick has you covered. If you're a hockey fan, check out the North State Icon shirts or the Mick Goldenlight snowmobile designs,

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Original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINS Insider for free shipping. A lot, a lot to be balanced here this offseason and what makes it so interesting. Before we wrap up, what do you think the next move is? So, Clint Kubiak's the offensive coordinator. What do we got to find out next um so we know that andrew ginoco is going to be moving the quarterbacks coach keenan mccardell is going to be the wide receivers coach i'm excited about i mean somebody's played in the league um you know gonna be coaching justin

jefferson that's gonna be good uh we know special teams. I think Pete Sammel reported Carl Scott's going to be the DBs coach. Uh, so that's, uh, that's interesting. Um, as far as the next move, you know, coaching staff looks like it's done. Right. Uh, I think looking towards free agency, you've got to start cutting people. You've got to start creating that cap space. And, yeah, they did that last year, like, right up against it, that Friday that they cut Linville and they cut Rhodes to create a bunch,

like, $10 million in cap space or whatever it was, and then, you know, all those dominoes. But I do think that they have to start getting super cut heavy with rudolph um maybe restructuring harrison smith and extending him um figuring out what you're going to do with reef so he doesn't tell you to buzz off um by approaching him with an extension you've got to get clever um and figuring out what you're going to do with guys like anthony bar i mean his number's too high and it would be a nice way to get some financial stability if you could lower that number any way possible yeah i i just can't remember in my brain like when these things start

to happen if it's closer to free it's usually with this team. They wait till the final hour of absolutely. Yeah. I mean, shoot, they extended Kirk the morning of, you know, the one day before free agency right up against the franchise tag deadline. So. Right. Right. After we did a podcast saying, you know, Kirk doesn't have to sign an extension anytime soon. I recall. So anyway, Courtney, great stuff.

I'm glad we could do this semi-emergency podcast, and there will be plenty more to come. And next time, a draft sim. A draft sim is required. Always about the draft sim. I'm ready. All right. Talk to you later. Thank you.