Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings have learned anything about their coach search from the first round of the playoffs?

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about NFL Wild Card weekend, starting with the Dallas Cowboys' ridiculous ending to their loss against the San Francisco 49ers. Was the finish so bad that you would question Kellen Moore as a Minnesota Vikings head coaching candidate? How did the other potential candidates Brian Daboll and Byron Leftwich help their arguments? What were some of the craziest Vikings fan rationalizations from the weekend and the salt poured in their wounds by the broadcasts? Who's the best team if they play their best the rest of the way? Why do the Bills and Chiefs look like the Super Bowl comes down to next week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. insider Matthew Collar here and joining me as we're going to do every Monday throughout the offseason is Paul Hodowanek with some form of Hot Routes. If you watch us over on YouTube, Paul does his weekly Hot Routes episodes where he goes through five questions that are some very serious about the Vikings and some a little less serious, especially around Thanksgiving time. If I recall, there were player comparisons to people at the dinner table and all that sort of thing. So we will have our form of hot routes, but usually Paul, you are asking the questions to your guests, but we are going to ask each other

questions back and forth after a weekend of plastering ourselves to the couch and just watching football. But I have a very important question to start out with you for this episode, breaking down what we saw over the weekend, as well as what's going on with the Vikings and their coaching search is, is Kellen Moore off your list because of what happened at the end of the Dallas Cowboys game where Dak Prescott goes running and then runs the clock out on himself? That, you know, the joke I use all the time is sort of like coaches galaxy braining them, their selves out of wins. While both coaches tried super

hard to do that in the 49ers Cowboys game, but the Cowboys got the last laugh of totally mishandling the game. And, uh, now I would not be on the train of not hiring someone just because of that one play, but I got a lot of tweets from people who were, is that rational or not? I mean, I can see in the moment why, why you'd say that, uh, you, uh, if the, if that was the Vikings, it would be like Armageddon at this point of why they called that. So I can see you do not want that to happen. And so no, it would not stop me from interviewing him. It might be like the 23rd question I ask him just like, Hey, like, what were you, what were you doing there? Like what, what happened there? Like, I'd probably end up asking just like way. It's not one of the first

10, 15 questions I'd asked, but it's, it's something I'd maybe just check in on in the interview. Be like, uh, Kellen, was that like a mic thing? Was that a DAC thing? Like where, where, where was that at? Like what happened? Where was your thought process? And, but in general, I thought, I mean, to get them to that point, they had a couple like hook and ladder type plays that were nice that they tried. Like that was some innovative stuff that he's done. He's done some other innovative stuff throughout the season. That's been really enjoyable to watch. And so, yeah, just going through Twitter, searching through some of the Dallas fans are upset at Kellen Moore. And it seems like it hasn't just been this game. There's been some other things throughout the season that they haven't been happy with.

I mean, you're going to find any fan base that has lost a big game. They're going to turn on someone. And maybe it's Kellen Moore. Maybe it's Mike McCarthy. So, no, this doesn't take him off the list. But I'll ask about it. And it's something I guess you have to consider, but I mean, if you're making your head coaching decision off of one play call with 15 seconds left, like that's, that's probably not a sound way to do it. I can't imagine that's how the

Vikings are going to do it. Well, I think with Kellen Moore over the years in Dallas, they have had consistently very, very good offenses. So that would be more important to me than some play at the end of a playoff game. I totally agree that if Kirk cousins ran the clock out on himself while he was galloping, galloping in the middle of the field and then forgot that you have to hand the ball to the referee. It is an all time gaffe by Dak Prescott, but also here was actually a concern about this from a coaching perspective.

And that's why I haven't seen if McCarthy took responsibility or if he blamed it on the analytics guy, the analytics guy told him to do it. So no, yeah, or no, that might've been a fake clip. I'm not sure. People were, people were bamboozling all over, but like if they blame it on an analytics guy, that's, that's dumb. Okay. That would be insane. But, but here's a thought on this, to where it connects to coaching. So if you execute that perfectly, think about that every defender is on the sidelines or way back. And so you can get yourself 15 more yards and then run taking two shots at the end zone, I believe it was against Cleveland. Kirk Cousins threw like a six yard out to Tyler Conklin and all of us went like, why wouldn't you just take two shots to the end zone instead of one?

But if you can gain 15 yards from 40 to the 25, your odds might be better. Now it's still about 2% or something. It's not, that's one of the things that we focus on these one plays, but they're through the rest of the game. McCarthy punting a bunch of times when they shouldn't have and all sorts of other things and their offensive line, Tyron Smith is hurt in the game. And so he's struggling the entire game, just getting beaten by San Francisco's defensive line.

So San Francisco is doing the thing that they kind of do, which is beat up teams with their D line. And then Jimmy Garoppolo trying to throw it away. And then the referees getting involved. And then there's a respotting of the ball and jumping off sides. So this is a crazy game. There's all sorts of stuff going on that had more to do with the result than this last play. But if you call plays that if they're only, they only work if they're executed perfectly and that you don't even really consider the potential pitfalls. Like ideally on a Madden video game, you could do that and run for 15 yards and increase your odds to throw it in the end zone and get up there and spike it because on the video game, everything goes fine. But if you don't foresee that there could be a referee

running into Dak Prescott or Prescott forgetting to hand the ball to the ref, which if you remember, there was a famous play by Larry Fitzgerald where he sprinted the ball to the ref that ended up saving his team a second and they scored on a Hail Mary. So this is an awareness thing for everybody on Dallas, but specifically Dak Prescott who hands the ball to his teammate because he doesn't know what to do there, obviously. So it goes on him. But if you don't see that as a potential pitfall that he could take too many seconds or they wouldn't get lined up or

someone would be lined up wrong and they would have a penalty or anything else like that, that there's so many ways that that could go wrong then you're not really doing it right as a coach like you have to anticipate those things going wrong and then the everlasting image of the referee trying desperately the ref tried his best to get to the football and he runs into deck and it's just a mess at the end of the game but i think more than anything the whole game was an indictment on both of these coaches who just have something missing but are good coaches kyle shanahan like times where they're throwing the ball where you should just be running because they're running successfully for most of the game especially uh with debo

samuel and things like that like kyle shanahan has play called himself out of a couple of super bowls by doing stuff like that. And it's almost impossible to believe that they can win the Super Bowl with Kyle Shanahan, just freaking out in these big moments, even when they had a lead. And then, you know, Jimmy G throwing the interception. But, you know, yeah, it wouldn't take me out of a coach just for that. But I would say, what's your, what's your process there? Did you not consider that things could go terribly wrong? Cause there are a lot of coaches who think, well, if I draw it up, right. And we don't execute, well, that's not on me. Cause I drew it up,

right. And that's how people will tell you that Brad Childress was in a lot of ways. It's like, well, if your players can't execute it, if a receiver can't run that route, then why are you having him run the route if the chances of Dak Prescott screwing that up are high or anyone screwing it up anyone just lining up wrong gets a penalty there and the game is over well then you shouldn't do something that idiotic you should try to go to the end zone twice it didn't really matter but um you know the whole the whole thing was kind of a clown show and it really the whole weekend was not much of an endorsement for um having the extra seed play it was it was just a complete mess maybe one of the

worst first rounds of the playoffs that i can remember yeah uh this actually seamlessly takes me into one of my hot routes for you which is do we need to reimagine that seven seed or rethink that seven seed because rethink that seven seed? Because I'll take you through these last two years, what it's looked like. In 2020, that was a Saints-Bears matchup. The Bears were the seven seed. I remember it. It was horrible.

Yep, 21-9, the Saints win. I think that was the Nickelodeon game. Mitch Trubisky gets the MVP. So that's notable, of course. And then admittedly in 2020, there was the Bills over the Colts was a 27-24 game. So that was a close game. That's the one redeemable of the four because this year, obviously the Bucks and the Eagles, Eagles make that look a little bit closer on the scoreboard than it actually was. But that one was done basically at halftime. And we're recording this while the Chiefs-Steelers game is finishing up. But that one has looked like it could have been competitive through the first quarter.

And then the Chiefs just turned on the Jets. So now we're looking at three out of four non-competitive games. And I get it. The argument is, oh, you don't want more football? Like, is that you don't you don't want to watch football? Like, no, I'm going to watch it. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to watch it.

I'm probably going to enjoy it. But I kind of have an issue with it. It's kind of like basketball, the NBA, where they're now allowing like basically 10 teams into the playoffs. Now they're, you know, seven through 10 are going to fight for something to then get in the seating.

But even at eight teams, it was like the one seed versus the eight seed. It's always a sweep. Two, seven, it It's always a sweep. Two-seven, it's almost always a sweep there, too. So you're almost diminishing the playoff product when your first round, half the matchups are a joke. And that's kind of what today felt like. It's like this Eagles-Bucks game is kind of a joke.

This Steelers game is definitely a joke. That shouldn't be how you're coming into the playoffs. The playoffs should be the best teams going up against each other. And you want really good games. But it feels like now we're just waiting a week to get there. And we're just saying, we're just putting the playoff like logo on it and saying, here, here's playoff football. But it doesn't really feel like it.

Yeah. I was envisioning kind of a future where someday almost every team gets into the playoffs and then lots of coaches can go to their ownership and they can say, but we made the playoffs last year. Yeah, we were six and 11 or six and 12 when they go to 18 games, but we were in the post season. It's fine. I mean, isn't this kind of the Vikings history as a team is going into the playoffs is not a great seed. And then being like, well, we made the playoffs or we're in the playoff race. Like, okay. In 2019, they make it as a six seed.

They win the game as a six seed, but then go get pummeled by the 49ers. And it was, we were in the playoffs. It was such a great year. Was it though? Because I looked this up for something I was writing about what the new general manager of the Vikings is inheriting. And I found that the average Super Bowl team wins 12 games. Now that was in the 16 games. So I'm sure it'll be like 12, 13 in the future, but it'll stay like kind of around that range, 12, 13. So if you are a team that wins 10 games in the regular season,

you're really not that close to winning a Super Bowl if the average team is winning 12 games. That means your odds are very, very low of being able to beat the 12, 13, 14 win teams. And if you're the Vikings this year or last year arguing, hey, we were almost there. We only needed a field goal or whatever. No, you weren't. You were nowhere close. You won seven games that mattered this year, which means you almost needed to double your total

to be considered a legitimate Super Bowl contender. So there's this idea. There's so many teams that have this idea that they're close. The Eagles, well, they were nine and eight. Like we're not that far away. We had a slow start, whatever. But I'll give, I think it was Troy Aikman credit

for pointing out. They haven't played anybody the whole second half of the year, their schedule lined up for them to make this wild card game and good for you because you were supposed to be tanking, but also you're not actually good. You're a mediocre football team who comes to town to play a real team, a real Superbowl contender, and you just get your tail whooped. And then you can go tell your owners and everybody, your fans at least we made the playoff like congratulations um I didn't like it from the very start that they were adding a seven seed because I went back and looked at who would

have been the seven seed I went oh no these are bad teams folks but it's one of those things where you just have to go such is life. There's no fighting it. It's always going to be this way from now on. And I wouldn't be shocked if they expanded it. Every league keeps expanding it because it's more home revenues and more fan bases who get excited and more opportunities to pump up more games. And now they're, you know, they're moving the one to Monday night, which I didn't need in my life necessarily the Monday night game, but I'm going to be there.

That's probably, I mean, hopefully the best game of the weekend. Cause even the close games were not that good. They weren't played well, or they were a ref show like the Raiders and the Bengals, but I totally agree with you. I think from a logic perspective, you are right that there is no need to have this. Most of the time, it's a one seed, a two seed who wins the Super Bowl anyway, because shocker, those are the best football teams. But it's just not going to change. It's not going to go away. And the other thing that I don't mind is that only one team gets that first round by. I don't mind that because that really rewards one team for being the best in their entire

conference. And I think it's going to be a huge benefit to Green Bay. I'm sure Vikings fans are not thrilled about that, but I like that structure of it I think it's going to be a huge benefit to green Bay. I'm sure Vikings fans are not thrilled about that, but I like that structure of it. So it's sort of a give and take and it's like, I'm going to show up for it each week, no matter what.

But the only thing I think of is just that teams are going to make that seven seed and celebrate that they went to the playoffs. Like, but you weren't really close. Yeah. And I agree with you. I was just about to mention, I like the the what has come out of it which is that the only one seed gets a buy and then that really elevates it and there's

more fighting for that between the one and two more reason for you to be playing harder down the stretch so i do like that but part of me just thinks okay if we added a seventh and now we just added the 17th game like what's stopping them from doing something like the NBA where they're putting just so many more teams in like at some point if people are like oh the seventh game went or the 17th went fine okay now we're gonna add an eighth ninth like I don't know where it goes I mean there's only so many you can add and how far out you can extend the season so I think that limits it for where the other sports can kind of just add a little bit more freely but yeah if we're getting any further than seven it it's going to get dreary because the teams aren't very good. Even like the Raiders this

year, we're like the fourth worst point differential team to ever make the playoffs. And there are six seats. So they would have gotten in at any point, but it there's not usually six teams that are worthy of our Superbowl caliber in each conference, let alone seven. So then you get at least one or two, three of these clunkers every year. So give me give me your your next top row. Actually, I want you to ask me your first question that you had sent me, because I think that's a really good discussion. So do that.

Let's do it. I'm kind of tying back to the Kellen Moore thing, but I want to analyze some of the people that the Vikings and fans have on their minds for head coaching. Cause we saw a lot of them, their teams out there this week. So which perspective Vikings head coach candidate had the best weekend? I think the answer is far and away, Brian Dable of the Buffalo Bills. That is possibly the best offensive performance in the history of National Football League. Seven possessions, seven touchdowns, and their quarterback, look, he's very good. And Josh Allen's first touchdown, I couldn't help

myself. I had to tweet, imagine having a playmaking quarterback, but everybody was thinking it, like when you see this guy run over people like Dante Culpepper used to do. In fact, maybe that's the comparison for Josh Allen a little bit. Culpepper, I think was a more accurate thrower, but still like this, just this behemoth human being who could throw it crazy hard,

who has the confidence in his offense and his offensive system has been built for him by Brian Dable to do kind of whatever he wants to do out there, to throw it up to Diggs, imagine, to find guys at the back of the end zone where he's rolling out and buying time for himself. But their game plan against the Patriots, a good Patriots defense, just demolished them. They had open receivers. The play calling was tremendous. It wasn't just Allen making that one great play. There were lots of times where it was just receivers running wide open. They are playing the modernist of the modernist when it comes to offensive football. They don't even care about

their running back. He's just a guy that they got late in the draft somewhere and they've switched running backs in and out. They tried to draft Zach Moss, I think a couple of years ago, that was a mistake by them because they would never use them. They just throw all the time. They have amazing receivers. You know what they said when they had all the great receivers, we got Beasley, we got the Gabriel Davis guy. Who's good. He got digs. They were like, you know what? How about one more? Who wants another receiver? You giant quarterback. Sure. Let's give him a manual Sanders touchdown. like that's what they've done they built the whole thing around the quarterback and here's a guy who has empowered this quarterback

to play incredibly confidently but also has a lot of easy throws that are mixed into great wide receivers now the vikings have really good wide receivers to give somebody now you need a quarterback that can play like that but at very, even if the general manager wants to stick with Kirk Cousins, you'd be hiring someone who is willing to empower his quarterback, maybe not say undermine him or talk about running more outside zone and so forth. And you can build your whole structure around your quarterback. So I thought the day bowl had a great weekend. It's so funny about Byron Lefwich the tampa bay game plan was phenomenal they came out it was super windy there they found easy completions for brady they got him in a rhythm boom boom boom touchdown touchdown touchdown nobody cares about byron lefwich it's amazing

they haven't interviewed him yet i think that i'm sure that they will right but it's like oh brady you know brady but brady's throwing in the first half he's throwing the ball in less than two seconds it was all schemed up and they got people injured offensive line injured and he's throwing screen passes and everything else and they're getting big gains like yeah their offensive coordinator is pretty darn good they could do this um so those are the two that stood out the most to me i think i mean kellen moore doesn't just lose because of the last play. Kellen Moore also loses because they scored 17 points in a home playoff game. Not, not good, not good at all for him. But I think that those were by far and away Daybol and Leftwich, the two winners.

And I believe, I don't know if they've requested, the Vikings have requested either of them, but I would expect both of them to get interviews at some point, especially Daybol after the week he he just had you'd think that would garner some respect if you hadn't if you hadn't considered it maybe you're like oh we'll bring that guy in who just helped the uh have the best playoff game like ever from an offense you'd think he'd get both of them in there and with the wide net they're casting with gm i can't imagine that they're not going to interview both him and left which at some point um just just that table was kind of the obvious one for me left, which was also there just because they're down Ronald, Ronald Jones, Leonard Fournette, obviously Antonio Brown is no longer with the team. Chris Godwin is no longer

with the team. Then Tristan Wirfs goes out right away. Uh, their center was out for a little bit. I don't, I don't think he was out very long, but just for a little bit. Uh, and so they're scheming stuff, moving things around, presumably to fit that. And I mean, you didn't really, you couldn't really tell that those guys were gone. Tyler Johnson's filling in Keyshawn Vaughn is playing well. Like those guys are good players and they're probably like people that would play on most teams, but I think the Tampa did a good job of getting them ready. And that is on Brady. That's on Arians, but it's also on left which so he has to have a really good week and then this one is doesn't come close to the other two but uh jameco ryans for san fran played or their defense played really well without bosa in there he was gone for most of the second

half they're still applying pressure to dac doing some creative things with blitzes and that offense only scored 17 points. They normally score like 32. So I think his name needs to be mentioned. I don't think it can quite stack up to Dable, but I think he at least deserves a little bit of respect. Folks, we've got an even better offer to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code purpleinsPLEINSIDER, 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, and also Randy Moss a few more, including the Axe is Back for Minnesota football fans. You

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mistake that he made late in that game, but they have now built a consistent winner around Sean McDermott, who is not an offensive minded coach. He was actually this tremendously gifted defensive play caller with what Philly and Carolina. And then, you know, he's built, he's been more of a culture type of guy, which they clearly need with all the issues that they've had in recent weeks that we won't go over. But if you've been listening, you know what we're talking about. They need a complete revamp of culture, but also putting people in the right position, putting your offensive coordinator in the right position, being confident in your offensive coordinator, working with them, say, as opposed to working against every offensive coordinator you have almost, you know, these things that if there's, if it's D'Amico Ryan, who's like that, well,

then that might be a good pick. Cause I do think we see some defensive minded coaches that become more of culture coaches and they are the CEO that delegates everybody and then oversees the operation and works with the players and works with the game planning on the whole rather than just I call the defensive plays or I call the offensive plays and I've got tunnel vision and I have wondered about Kyle Shanahan about botching some of these games that he has throughout the years. He's unbelievably talented X's and O's guy. His play calling is fantastic most of the time, but you wonder about like seeing the bigger picture as opposed to being in that sort of tunnel, which I think is why Andy Reed at times in his career has moved away from

play calling. Also, you know, Eric, theemi has a good week all the time because of Patrick Mahomes. But going against a defense that's pretty talented and got off to a hot start and then just running them off the field, not bad. So I think that I'm not willing to say like, oh, Todd Bowles just shouldn't be considered or whatever. Like, no, they should interview a lot of these people. All right, let me ask you this one.

Or do you have another thought on that? Oh, I was just going to say, I think there's tons of angst within the Vikings fan base right now about the potential of taking a defensive coordinator. I think in the first round of who they requested, there were more defensive guys than there were offensive. And then for some that signaled, Oh my God, are we going that route? And all I would say is I'm very much on the side of hiring an offensive coach, but that's more of like, if all else are equal and you're getting an offensive guy, a defensive guy, and you're kind of stacking them up and you feel like they're even, then you go out the offensive guy. Cause he can provide stability. Then you're going to guarantee there's probably not going to be four coordinators in there in four years for

presumably a young quarterback that you're bringing in. Like that is very, very pivotal. Um, and I think you should be looking to offensive again, if all things are equal, presumably a young quarterback that you're bringing in. That is very, very pivotal. And I think you should be looking to offensive. Again, if all things are equal, like D'Amico Ryans and Kellen Moore are just equal in your mind, you like both of them, it's probably smarter to go with the offensive guy just for the stability that that could provide. But if there's a defensive guy that's clear in a way better, that's the way you should go.

There might not be a ton of defensive people as head coaches in the league right now, but that's more, I think, because a bad process for other teams rather than something the Vikings should follow. So just wanted to throw that back up there. Yeah. I mean, I think when you look around, you could find guys on both sides of the ball that have either really worked out or really not worked out. I mean, Matt Rule was supposed to be an offensive kind of guru and everything else. And that didn't work out at all. Joe judge really good offensive coordinator. Now, Matt, I don't know if you heard. Yeah, that's the problem. So they interviewed Clint Kubiak.

I don't know. I mean, I don't, I don't even know. I can't even judge offensive coordinators until they're away from Mike Zimmer, to be honest with you. But there was certain talk about instilling confidence. I don't think from the very start that Mike Zimmer did any of that for Clint Kubiak. But the point is just that some teams go chasing the next McVay and sometimes it works and sometimes it is a complete disaster. Joe Judge was a special teams coordinator, which you'd say, what were they doing? So was Jim Harbaugh or John Harbaugh, who might be the best coach in the league or a top five coach in the league. And Mike Tomlin was a defensive guy who was not all that experienced when he got the Steelers job, one of the best coaches in the

league and somehow got his team into the playoffs this year. So it's a super tricky beast, but I think that proven leadership is probably the thing that is over everything else. That's where you wonder, and I don't know a lot about the guy, but like Kellen Moore, is he that type? Like, does he have that proven leadership? I'm not sure. We know that Byron Lefkowitz, the type of player he was, he does. And then also, you know, he's got a Superbowl ring to go along with working closely with the best leader there is. So, you know, he's got a Super Bowl ring to go along with working closely with the best leader there is. So, you know, I like that part of it, but it's a very tricky thing just doing these interviews and figuring out who's going to be a leader. I would also say that for everybody who's all freaking out about that, why haven't they interviewed this guy?

They've interviewed that guy. Well, a lot of times it's the last person they interview. I mean, just that's how it works out. So, like, be patient. They don't have a GM yet. Take a deep breath. Yeah. You know,

the coach right now, because he's the only one that has gotten interviewed. Right. Right. So it's going to take some time. Uh, I only know a little bit about Nate Hackett and I know that he's a very, um,

very, very upbeat personality. They might like that, but if you're the first interview, not sure that you're going to necessarily get gig okay so uh it was a lot of fun and entertainment online during these games uh in part because there were two things that were going on one a lot of strays that the vikings were catching and what i mean by that is just random viking mentions and aside from the jalen regger was drafted before just the

jefferson one which everyone celebrated there was jerek mckinnon scoring a touchdown of course there's stefan diggs naturally uh there's daniel carlson right off the bat in the beginning of that game mike trico says the league leader in points daniel carlson and then uh you have a drew pearson mention that comes up in the Dallas Cowboys game. I mean, just Vikings fans. It's like,

like total straight. Right. Yeah. Right. Like one of those, this wasn't even strays. This was like one of those old mob movies where the guy gets shot by a Tommy gun.

His body just goes like that. That's how it was for Vikings fans watching these playoffs. So I want to know that, but I also, the other funny thing was I got a whole bunch of fan rationalizations about different things involving the Vikings this week. You know, earlier this week,

I had ones where people were saying that Zimmer having a toxic culture was actually good, which is like, no, you know, I really don't think it was. I don't think anybody else thought that either. We heard that from Adam Thielen and of course the Eric Hendricks stuff,

but Adam Thielen did his own podcast this weekend where he talked about, and he's not like taking shots, but he's saying like, they talk to ownership and they said they want to communicate her and they want to like, you know what I'm saying? Like, so there was a lot, a lot i tweeted about you know what adam thielen had to say so there's been a lot of those types of things but i'll give you the top five that were tweeted or emailed to me viking fan rationalizations over the weekend okay uh here's not number one i mean this is you i want you to tell me which is your favorite uh now that um now philly knows what it's like to be blown out in the playoffs like they did to the vikings in 2017 so the vikings get redemption because philly got blown out in the playoffs there's number one number two eli manning won

with the giants so the vikings can win with kirk uh number three daniel carlson being the best kicker in the league would not have happened if he stayed in Minnesota. Uh, number four is this is why they shouldn't have drafted Mac Jones. Number five is it's better that the Vikings didn't make the playoffs slash the Vikings would have done better in the playoffs. So those are kind of in the same category, but sort of different versions of the same thing. Which one of those is your favorite? Probably the Mac Jones one for me. Um, the, why didn't the rookie quarterback who is in the playoffs and Vikings aren't in the playoffs, FYI, the rookie quarterback that's in the playoffs, he has that one bad game. And then they say, okay, well, this isn't why this is why we shouldn't have drafted Mac Jones as if the Patriots are have been worse than the Vikings

and now the Vikings aren't in a situation where they're desperately trying to get rid of their quarterback or have massive quarterback questions like if the Vikings had Mac Jones right now there'd be a lot more stability probably in the organization and there's probably some excitement for whichever coach comes in uh so yeah basinging that off the playoff game was probably just hilarious in the fact that the Vikings are desperate for a quarterback of the future. And so now we're going to punt on one of the first round picks from last year because of one bad playoff game. And he's in the playoffs, unlike every other rookie quarterback.

So I think he's doing all right. Also, one of my favorites is just wanting the Eagles score to end up exactly like the score from 2017, just so they can feel what 38-7 feels like. That one's funny. I can get how when it's getting there, you're like, oh, this would just be funny. But if that is actually like, oh, we want them to feel like we did,

I don't think it feels quite the same losing 38 to seven in the first round of the playoffs against the greatest quarterback of all time. When your quarterback is Jalen Hurts and clearly have no path to the Superbowl. Whereas the Vikings very clearly had a path to the Superbowl at home and then let Nick Foles and the Eagles do that to them. So not quite similar, but those are probably my two favorite. What are yours? I think that the Daniel Carlson one is funny because that one is sort of evidence that there will always be this attempt

to work your way back around to the Vikings didn't do anything wrong or somehow they benefited from their huge mistake. That's that. I mean, that one is crazy. Like if there are so many kickers, I wrote about this after they cut Daniel Carlson. There are so many kickers who have had a bad day, who have had one bad day where they missed some field goals. And that was it. They also caused his own demise, I think, by crushing the kid's confidence in preseason with their bully

head coach. So that was a problem too. And that's part of the rationalization is like, well, he wouldn't have been able to kick with Zimmer. Greg Joseph was fine. Kai Forbath was fine. Dan Bailey was fine for a year. Blair Walsh was actually mostly fine. And then there's that one. I don't think that that's really a thing that you can't possibly kick with Mike Zimmer as your head coach. I think what your team did was it panicked because they were in Super Bowl or bust mode.

They also panicked. And here's your smoking gun trading a fifth rounder for a kicker slash punter two years ago because they thought, oh, Dan Bailey's not kicking so good in training camp. We have to trade a fifth round pick for a guy who's never actually kicked in real games. It just, to me was completely panicked. They had someone who was probably going to be, or on track to be a great NFL kicker as he's become. And your team just blew it as so often they have in the last couple of years when they're trying to make these desperate moves. And this is why getting a new general manager, a new head coach who could take a more broad approach. This is why you don't see teams stay stagnant

when it comes to coaches and GMs, I think in part, because the longer you're there, the more pressure there is to win. The more pressure there is to win, the more chance that you do something nutty, like cut a kicker in his second career game. And so, yeah, well, it's just classic Vikings. These turned out to be great.

I wouldn't have known or you wouldn't have known at the time, but they loved him so much that they spent a fifth round draft pick on him. And then they cut Kai Forbath for him, who had made the great field goal in the Minneapolis Miracle. And then you're just like, no, you're gone because you had this one bad day. I don't know. And then Mike Zimmer had to dunk on his face after the, in the next day's press conference, which didn't make any sense either.

So yeah, I think that one's a really tough one to rationalize, but I think my favorite is the Eli Manning bit because the attempt from some people to, it used to be Trent Dilfer, but apparently it's now it's Eli Manning or Joe Flacco. The attempt to like work your way into a ball where you're like, yes, a mediocre starting quarterback can win a Superbowl. An average quarterback can win a Superbowl. Eli's not your guy to use for that because I am not six years old. Okay. I watched football during that time. And here's the thing about his quarterback rating is football is a little different that they ran the ball a lot more quarterbacks took more risks. There were more interceptions. That's why Favre has seven gazillion interceptions

and Aaron Rogers has 80, which is because the quarterbacks took a lot more risks in the day playing quarterback was harder. It's gotten progressively easier every single year. So yeah, Eli Manning stats. Aren't that good? I get, I can promise you he was an elite quarterback during the prime of his career. The second half of his career is terrible, but the first half of his career, I checked this from 2005 to 2012. So that is an eight year period. The New York Giants had the fifth best offense in the NFL over that period all the other ones are like run by Peyton Manning and Brett Favre and so forth and the Chargers were up there to remember how great they were in Philip Rivers early years but that's it they had a top five offense during Eli's best years of his career which spanned eight years so to say oh well you know whatever i looked it up the vikings 2018 to present 13th best offense

in terms of points scored that won't get you very far top five correlates to winning super bowls uh 13th not as much uh eli was a tremendous tremendous quarterback who put together a run of big wins that kirk cousins can't even do in the regular season, going to Dallas, going to Green Bay and beating Aaron Rodgers, Lambeau Field, the playoff. These are things that have not even looked remotely possible for Kirk Cousins in his seven years as an NFL starting quarterback. That one is a real, that is the stretch of all stretches so that was my that was my favorite um they're all good is the point they're all they're all good but you know what's the nicest part paul is that you just you don't have to do this you don't have to do this because i think it's likely

they're going to make a trade and make a change at quarterback at least whether it's this year or next year but you also don't have to do it with a new regime coming in. You don't have to say, Oh, Zimmer and Spielman, they're fine. Like, no, they weren't. And so that's why they're gone. And now you have an opportunity for new ones. So there's, there's the whole fan rationalization. That could be a thing we do every week. Possibly there might be enough of them um quite the weekend yes uh give me your second one because i did two in a row okay um let's see um oh how about this did we learn anything about what the vikings need to do in the future by the the games this weekend or did we already know like did we already know what the best path is i think we we can all agree on like, or at least you and I,

there might be some disagreement among listeners, but I think that when you look at just the landscape of the league, getting a quarterback on a rookie contract and building around that quarterback, the way that the bills have and the, the chiefs have and the, you know, the other good teams, the Cincinnati's of the world who they're saying, Oh, Trey Hendrickson has a sack. You know, like, yeah, how'd they get him?

Oh, they had all the cap space from having Joe Burrow. Oh, why are they winning this football game? Because Joe Burrow keeps making unbelievable throws because he's a great quarterback. So anyway, who would have thought? I think we agree on that part. Was there anything else you watched and said, you know what? The good teams are doing blank. To be honest, that was the main thing. It's, it's the top five passing or at least top 10 passing.

And it's having a quarterback that is better than mediocre. I mean, if you look at every matchup, other than the Jimmy G Dak Prescott matchup, the better quarterback one, obviously much more went into all those games. There's much more than just the quarterbacks, but very simply, like if you had Josh Allen, you won. If you had Patrick Mahomes, you won. If you had Joe Burrow, you won. If you had Mac Jones, you lost. If you had Derek Carr, you lost. If you had Jalen Hurts, you lost. And sometimes we can oversimplify things. Sometimes we can overcomplicate things. Like in general, it's really, really good to have a really good quarterback. And so much matters.

It gets in the playoffs. Everything is, you know, there's so much more of a spotlight on every play. And it just highlights how much your quarterback needs to be able to make plays for you, make plays out of the pocket and create things when they're not there to do the Joe Burrow rolling out touchdown pass. Like before the whistle got blown, you have to be able to do that. Josh Allen is just running all over the place, doing plays just like that. Mahomes is doing things just like that. Uh, even Jimmy G is rolling out, doing some different things when he's not absolutely shooting themselves in the foot and throwing some good passes on third down,

some kind of high leverage spots, especially early. He was playing well. So that stuck out to me mostly. If you're putting up Kirk Cousins against any of the teams that won today, he's probably not better than any of them. Maybe better than Jimmy Garoppolo, but he's not better than any of the other ones. And so that becomes an issue for me. So were there things that you thought of other than those? Well, a couple, number one, I guess I looked at the Las Vegas Raiders and I think

that's kind of you Vikings, isn't it? I mean, their car, you mentioned it. They're close in that game and Derek Carr had a good season. Didn't have a great season. They went through a lot. Vikings went through a lot. The results are mostly the same with Derek Carr. They're kind of a fringe playoff team each year. If their defense isn't that good, like it wasn't this year, they don't win a ton of games. Some things go wrong. I mean, your coach having to resign over racist emails is a little extreme. And I, and it's just like with cousins where would you say Derek Carr is horrible? Like, no, of course not. I mean, he's a very good quarterback, but there are moments in the game

at the end of the game where there's an opportunity to go make a play. And he sort of stands there in the pocket a little too long. He kind of waits a little too long for a throw. And then they knock the ball down. And it's like, these are the small things that make the difference between a quarterback who's going to win that game and the one who's not. And there are lots of, like you said, lots of tiny moments during a game, but what someone like Derek Carr or Kirk Cousins, ultimately, this is the reason why they have very good stats and not necessarily the wins is that the guy on the other side is Joe Burrow, who's much more of a playmaker and much more. I loved Joe Burrow's post-game press conference, by the way, talk about act like you've been there. Like he absolutely acted like,

yeah, I expect to win playoff games. What did you guys think? Like, I mean, I love that demeanor from Joe Burrow. He was not overexcited at all. He was just like, yeah, this is what we're supposed to do. I'm the number one overall pick. I'm a baller. I'm a national championship ship winner. I mean, this is what's supposed to happen. So I thought that was, and that's from a franchise that hasn't won in 31 years. Like he's saying that with that, it would have been very easy for him to say, yeah, this feels great to get this for the city. Like, this is awesome. And he was like, yeah, I mean, we have, we're, I mean, we're playing next week, man. Like, well, this doesn't matter that much. Right. That was great. I thought that

was really interesting. So, you know, there's a little bit of like, look in the mirror and who's sort of like you, San Francisco is not like you because their roster is so much better and their coach is completely tied into the offense and he is the elite of the elite play caller offensive coaches so you you know want that guy but even then jimmy garoppolo he's like different than kirk because he's kind of a baller but also kind of an idiot so where you have with cousins who is just very timid and only throws when guys are open you have garoppolo who takes the shot to win the game and accidentally throws it over the guy and gives up an interception and still ends up finding a way to win. But he also made plays throughout that game that were tremendous on third downs where he converted and

he had a super high third down conversion rate this year at a super high two minute offense rate. So it's like kind of the opposite. So I don't look at him as actually really that comparable to cousins. I think it's Derek Carr. It's a conservative quarterback who gets a little bit shaky in the bigger moments and can sometimes be just a little slow and doesn't really have a running element or a playmaking element to his game, but is physically talented enough to throw the ball quite well. So that's kind of you. You know, they don't really have a coach now, and their front office isn't super strong.

The Vikings don't have a GM. Their roster has got a lot of holes in it. And what's the path for Las Vegas? So that's what we think about a different quarterback. What's the path for them, would you say? Do you have one? Do you have one on how they're going to compete in the AFC? You probably don't.

That's one thing. I think the other thing is I've given Mike Tom on a ton of credit for getting the Pittsburgh Steelers there and never falling off, but that organization, not forcing Ben Roethlisberger out, screwed them from a chance to win a Superbowl probably twice. They've got a good roster, good defensive players, good receivers. Their offensive line is spotty but like good coaching and everything else and you cannot stick with people too long moving on at the right time here's a game where alex smith was a fine quarterback and the chief said not good enough and the other team said let's stick with big ben because it's tradition to wear the steelers

there's your difference for why one team as we speak is up 42 to 14 on the other, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree. And it's why the Steelers should be looking for a upgraded quarterback this year because they have the roster and it shows they've done a really, really good job building a talented roster, uh, with an expensive quarterback. He took a cap hit or a like less money the last year or two, but they've had a competitive roster for a really, really long time. And so, yeah, I think there's probably a couple of players that that applies to for the Vikings. Don't have them overstay their welcome. If they have value right now, there might be, might be a good time to either trade them if they have that value or

if it's diminishing and it's just more of like a, you know, we love you. We want you to come back. Like you've been here a long time. If you're really interested in winning football games, it's probably not the way to go. All right. Your last question. Yes. So we saw the Bucs.

We saw the Bills basically play perfect games. The Bills even more so than the Bucs play absolutely perfectly. The Chiefs have now rebounded after a bad start. But I want to know from you, if all the teams play to their peak the rest of the way, who would win the Super Bowl? Like who just at their peak right now is the best? I think Kansas City is the answer because Tampa Bay is missing some really key pieces on offense. I mean, Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown not playing for them. I don't know that Leonard Fournette matters a lot, but he was certainly good in the Super Bowl last year and Tristan Wirth's being banged up. Even peak Tampa Bay has a lot to

overcome there. Patrick Mahomes and that offense playing the way that they've played for really like two months now after they hit that one skid in the middle of the season, my homes is just flying high. He's on the same page, Travis Kelsey, here's Jarek McKinnon coming in and make it plays. His receivers are starting to make plays. Their offense adjusted everything from how teams were playing them

defensively at, at the absolute best. There's nobody better than Patrick Mahomes in the NFL. In fact, his peak might be the best peak of anyone who's ever played quarterback in the NFL. You know, it's, it's that it's that dominant when he is playing at his absolute best and he looked super confident in this game. So I would say Kansas city is the team that, that if they play their best, the rest of the way wins the Super Bowl, but you know, Kansas city versus Buffalo AFC championship. Again, I mean, that is a number one defense, Buffalo, a great offense, Kansas city with the greatest

quarterback in the world. I mean, that could be such an incredible matchup and it kind of looks like they're going to be destined for that. I mean, I just don't think Cincinnati is a strong enough overall team. Um, you know, and that would be next week. Yeah. That would be the matchup next week. It could be Kansas city Buffalo. So that, Oh, it is. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I messed that up because that Tennessee is playing Cincinnati, right? Yes. So sorry about that. That won't be the AFC championship, but that game next week then is, is I think the team that wins the super bowl. Um, yeah, I don't know that there's anybody strong enough in the NFC outside of Tampa Bay, but I think that that's your answer is whoever wins next week ends up going to the

Super Bowl and winning. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I was going to make the case for Buffalo. Just based off what we saw from Josh Allen, I think you bake in the peaks and valleys of the Josh Allen experience, the so-called experience that he is. Um, and so if we're going off peak performance, which is that yesterday from Josh Allen, I'm not sure Kansas city is going to know how to stop him at, at any point. I mean, the, the Patriots aren't a slouch defense. I mean, Bill, you're still prepping against Bill Belichick, uh, Bill Belichick defense, and you did that to them.

And so we saw in this first quarter of this Chiefs game, like they were doing some weird things that just kind of got them off the field. And so they can't afford to do that with Buffalo. And so I think if everyone was, if Josh Allen ran it back and played like he did this last week, I think the Chiefs would have a really, really tough time beating the Bills. And they would be my team at this point. If Josh Allen's just going to do that, the things he can then do with his legs,

Mahomes can do some things, but Josh Allen can do so, so much with his legs, just barreling through people. And it really does look like they saved him for the playoffs in terms of not really running him much in the regular season. And that was kind of a talking point. Why isn't he running more?

He's not running more. So right now he can barrel through people and take them to the Super Bowl. And I think if we're just judging our peak performance, it might have to be the Bills. And part of me just wants to do this because the Chiefs feel like the answer we've had for a lot of years. And so now that we saw something from another team, I'm like, I'm going to jump on that. I'm going to jump on the Bills. And there's also the Packers who didn't play this week that got to sit home and get Zedaria

Smith back, Jair Alexander back, David Bakhtiari back. That's three-star players that they get to have healthy. And it's possible that the right answer ends up being Green Bay because not how you played in week one through three, but how you look when you get to the playoffs how healthy you are and everything else and the way rogers has been playing now there's a little toesy is a little more healthy as well uh that's something that i mean think about if it was talking about salt in the wounds if it was a digs versus rogers super bowl that would uh that'd be a tough watch, I think for Minnesota Vikings fans, but, um, it's, uh, after this, it's the divisional weekend championship weekend. These are the best in

sports. I mean, this is just every year is a phenomenal football championship weekend. I think is my favorite in all of sports because the games are usually so good. The talent is so good. Super bowl on the line. Once you've made the Superbowl, then it becomes kind of, you know, I'm not down on the Superbowl. I just, but once you've made the Superbowl, you've kind of won the season and then it's, well, let's see who plays this game and whatever else. But, uh, I've always argued that if the Vikings had gone to the Superbowl and still lost, I mean, it's just such a great accomplishment to have gotten there, uh, that, you know, sort of break the curse or whatever else to just even reach the super bowl. Um, some people don't see it that way, but I think you've, you've basically won the season.

If you get there, you're a team that was represented in the super bowl. That's why the championships are so, um, so big and usually classic games. So anyway, super fun, Paul conversation next week. I think we're into, you know, a lot more candidates and everything else names have come out, but interviews getting finished and we'll continue to take apart the season and talk about the playoff games and everything else. Um, but I don't think necessarily we'll get a GM or a head coach hire by next week. I think we're probably looking at the week after that, and that will coincide with lots of crazy playoff action. So it is a good time to be following football, Paul. So thank you for your time and good, good call. It was only like 21, seven, when you said, you know, I think

this game is over. We should just, we should just talk. We should just do the show. And now as we speak, it's 42 to 21. So anyway, thanks for your time. And you and I will be getting together regularly on Sundays to record for Monday throughout, and we'll do it in this format. So I'm looking forward to that. Thanks, man.