Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings play starters in Week 18? And take the New Vikings Coach Survey

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom talk about whether the Vikings should play starters in the Week 18 matchup with the Chicago Bears. Is there any benefit to seeing Kellen Mond? Is the risk of getting a key player hurt too much? Then Matthew gives Sam the New Coach Survey, in which Sam answers whether he wants the next coach to be offensive or defensive minded, experienced or not and several other important questions pertaining to a potential change at HC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome into another Purple Insider and bring me the news live stream. Matthew Collar along with Sam Ekstrom here. And Sam, we're going to do a hardcore preview of Vikings Bears. We're going to break down position by position. Who's going to out scheme? Who? Yeah, let's go. No, that's not all we're going to do at all. We're going to talk about the Minnesota Vikings future here.

And maybe we'll mention the game that they're playing. because I don't even know who's playing on the field. Well, let me ask you this question actually to start, because there is a question, a single question about Vikings Bears, which is, should they play the backups and the young players in this game? I think the argument for doing so, Sam, is that there are a lot of guys that need development and need reps to play in real football games that haven't gotten an opportunity yet. There are players that fans actually might want to see,

like just for example, Cam Bynum or, oh, I don't know, Kellen Moore. That caused quite the issue asking about kellen moore the other night but there's a case to play kellen moore especially since look at well kellen moore is is that a scoop do you have a scoop on the next coach all right oh my goodness i was thinking about breaking news yes i was thinking about coaching candidates kellen moore we'll get to that later that pertains to my game. I am sorry. Kellen Mond. No disrespect, Kellen Mond.

I'm not Mike Zimmer. I'm not disrespecting you. But so Kellen Mond, I apologize. Playing him, playing younger players. Amir Smith-Marset, Kene Wongwu. Guys who might matter for the future in some way could get a look. And they did this 2019. They played Alexander Hollins and Armand Watts,

who's had a pretty decent year, got his first look in that game. Ole Udo, who ended up being a starter, not a good starter, but he got his first experience in that game as well. I think there is a pretty good case to play the backups, but the best argument, Sam, might be the fact that if you're planning on trading Kirk Cousins, there is no reason to bring him off the COVID list and play him and risk any type of injury. And the same thing goes for Justin Jefferson. Why play Justin Jefferson or Delvin Cook or anybody that you're going to need for next year? Because if somebody tears an ACL in this game, then you're talking about not being

ready for the start of next year. And for what? Now they played the starters last year against Detroit. I didn't agree with it then, and I won't agree with it now, but give me your opinion on this. Well, my opinion is your opinion. They shouldn't. I mean, sure, you have to play some. You can't play all backups because you just don't have enough bodies. But the team's already said they're going to play the starters, and that probably means Kirk, assuming that he can come off the list. That probably means everybody. They do have, though, so many players on the COVID list right now

that I really can't keep track of who's available, who's not. The offensive line could be completely makeshift, which might even offer you a look at Wyatt Davis. But they should be playing Kellen Mond at minimum. I mean, I get that week 17, or in this case week 18, can often be misleading. Like that 2019 game you alluded to, where they appeared to draw meaningful conclusions about Drew Samia and Ole Udo and Armin Watts and they cited that game as evidence why they were good players and

I think that's kind of a bunch of hooey I mean to to judge one meaningless game and this is what the Vikings do though they they just handpick like a college game and say, that's why we drafted that player. Or they point to the Kirk Cousins against the Seahawks when they signed him. We loved what Kirk did in Seattle when he was a member of Washington. That's why we like they kind of get fixated on small sample sizes, which is just an unhealthy way to evaluate. So, I'm not that caught up in the rookie's need time, but what you said is relevant. Kirk Cousins can't afford to get hurt, and I know he's not the injury-prone type, but he probably shouldn't play. It probably is more valuable at the quarterback position especially to give them, to give that rookie a look. I'm not too concerned about really anywhere else. Do what you want. I mean, it doesn't matter either way to me that much. But at quarterback, just let Kellen Mond play. At least he gets to play against starters, which is better than preseason. And if he, like, Mike Zimmer doesn't seem to like Kellen Mond and doesn't think he's very good. So maybe Mike Zimmer

wants to make a point and actually show that he's not good and play him and make his point that way that, hey, this is what we were dealing with. I washed my hands of the whole Chicago or the whole Green Bay fiasco. But that's the only thing that would kind of make this game compelling, right? If Kellen Mond was playing, otherwise, what is there to get excited about? And that was going to be my other point was at least you would give people some reason to watch. I don't. And that was going to be my other point was at least you would give people some reason to watch. I don't think that anybody is going to show up to this game. In fact, if you have never been to US Bank Stadium and you're thinking about going to a game for the first time, when will we do it? I don't know. Well, don't pick week one next year. That'll be

really expensive. Pick this game because you're going to have preseason prices and you can see the stadium and there will be people in vikings jerseys playing a football game down below so this this is even better than the preseason because you're going to get the starters for the entire game and going to pay the same price uh but realistically um i mean i i don't know if i don't know if there's any case that you could actually make to Mike Zimmer, for example, that would be compelling to him. If you said, well, Mike, you know, the fans want to see Kellen Mond, even though look, Kellen Mond is not the long-term starting quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings period, end of sentence. There is a 0% chance that Kellen Mond becomes the franchise quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings. So you're not like giving a look to a

future starter star quarterback here, but you might be giving a look to a backup quarterback because Kellen Mond couldn't be a backup for this entire year, according to the coaching staff that they wanted Sean Mannion instead. And it's pretty cheap to have a third round backup quarterback if he has a little experience and plays halfway decently to look like maybe you could trust him in a real NFL game, which is about the bar that you set. I mean, you see how backups mostly look around the league. If you could at least trust them to possibly win a football game and game manage their way through it or make a few plays, then that's a good backup. Well, if you can have him as your cheap third round pick backup, who's getting paid, I don't know, $900,000, that just gives you a little more cap flexibility to put that money into other things,

as opposed to teams that have to spend like $10 million on a backup. I think Chicago is doing that with Andy Dalton. I think he's signed like a $10 million deal. It's worth it if you lose your starter and the $10 million guy comes in and wins a game or two, but you'd far prefer to have a young player in that position. So there is that, but I don't think you could talk Mike Zimmer into, Hey Mike, you know, the fans are kind of done or, Hey, you know, we're going to trade Kirk cousins in the offseason. I mean, what does he care? Everyone's talking about him getting fired at this point. So he doesn't want an L versus a W on his record. And remember last year how elated he seemed to have won the game against the Detroit Lions?

It was like, well, that was really good for us, you know, sort of going into next year. We need to have wins like that. And it's important to win that game. I remember the postgame press conference thinking to myself like what what am i being told here like what difference does it make seven nine versus six ten is nothing but i'm not the one that has a pro football reference page where they put the w's and l's and nobody asks if the games were meaningless or not so i totally understand it from zimmer's perspective and maybe this would have been part of the argument to move on from zimmer on Monday, as opposed to waiting out this thing until Black Monday at the end of the season.

Yeah. The word gaslit comes to mind with regard to last year's Detroit win. Congratulations. But Mike Zimmer is the, this is fine meme right now. He is in a burning building and has no idea. I mean, unless he's a really good bluffer, which he really isn't. He sat at the press conference yesterday and gave a totally normal opening statement, breaking down what happened on film in the Packers game. No acknowledgement of the playoff miss. No acknowledgement of the playoff miss, no acknowledgement of the bigger picture. He said he's too focused on Chicago to think about anything else. And he twice now has seemed

totally oblivious to any rumors of instability for his head coaching job. So all of that piece together, he just doesn't know any other way. And maybe this is like the problem kind of big picture with Zimmer is that he doesn't always see the big picture. He's too focused like day to day, week to week, misses maybe what's happening in the league, greater trends or patterns that that might be getting overlooked. Because this is a guy that doesn't know the day of the week. A lot of times he doesn't have a whole lot of other focus the day of the week a lot of times. He doesn't have a whole lot of other focus. He's kind of a tunnel vision coach.

And maybe there's something greater to take away from that. But I don't really see, like, if he is going to be axed after this game, which I assume the decision has been made. Like, I assume that the result here doesn't matter. I guess it would have made more sense to do it after the Green Bay game because you really do need to, and I think most teams would, turn an eye toward next year. And maybe in Mike Zimmer's mind, and I believe he said this too, when you end a season with a win in his opinion it like sets the table for the

next offseason I don't buy that like no not at all but I I legitimately believe that's a quote that he's used in the past and probably believes that and probably thinks there's going to be a greater stigma to go seven and ten than eight and nine. I think it's all a little misguided, but I'm just trying to put myself in his brain. And I think that's where he's at right now. All right. So I have something fun for us in just a minute where I want to give you a survey to decide which coaching candidates you want most. All right. So I have five questions and you have to give it a one through five and the way that that it works out will tell you which three coaching candidates you most want. So this is like a what kind of lover are you type of survey. All right. Do that in just a minute.

But yesterday for our humble sub stack. And this also went up at bring me the news dot com as well. If you want to read it, I wrote about how close the Vikings were to actually being a playoff team. And something that I've mentioned on the show and we've talked about a little bit is just the, Hey, we're a couple of games away from being 11 and four or whatever, 11 and five, which we kind of, you know, rolled our eyes at because there are a couple other games away from, you know, losing those close ones at carolina

and everything else but you know a lot of times the way the cookie crumbles in the nfl is weird there's bad luck there's penalties there's injuries there's randomness in football games and sometimes you can actually be a good team that ends up missing the playoffs and sometimes you could be a bad team that ends up making the playoffs. And sometimes you could be a bad team that ends up making the playoffs. And the way we could figure these types of things out is usually by looking at the broader statistics and what they say. And so Mike Zimmer was asked straight up yesterday, why are you guys not a playoff team? And that was his answer. We lost this game close. We lost this game close. We lost this game close. That was the whole answer. That was the entire explanation. There was no, I didn't coach well enough or anything like that. It was just, we lost a bunch of close games. That's why we're not in the playoffs. So I looked

this up, Sam, the Vikings have a minus 15 point differential right now. The lowest playoff team in the NFC is plus 59. The average one is plus 99. So they were 114 points off of being an average playoff team in the NFC this year. This team was not remotely close by any statistic. Their offense scored fewer points than any other offense that's in the playoffs. Their defense allowed more points than any other offense that's in the playoffs their defense allowed more points than any other team that's in the playoffs they in terms of yards per play on offense were worse than any other team that's in the playoffs in terms of pff grades for their offensive defense their offense graded slightly higher than arizona their defense graded worse than every other team i mean this and i even, well, what if I sort of flipped,

what if Kirk had played against green Bay and I flipped that one, the score and the Vikings blew out the Packers, you still would have been off by about 80 points for being a playoff team. I think that that right there, if we're talking about things that encapsulate Mike Zimmer, the, the preposterous excuses and talking around things and not just acknowledging what has gone wrong has become one of the biggest frustrations. I think for us as, um, carriers of truth purveyors of truth over the last few years, you mentioned gas lit. Like that's that to me is gas lit. Like that's gaslighting is you guys just don't understand that we lost some close games and that's why we're not in the playoffs when zero numbers point to this team being on the same level as a Dallas, Arizona, even a San Francisco. And I guess I just I needed to write about that because I've gotten so exhausted of hearing it.

And then you kind of hear it in other places. People say, well, that Vikings team was real close. There isn't anything to actually suggest that they were. Yeah. Let me just hit, hit Zimmer with a rebuttal. What if Greg Joseph doesn't make an absurd field goal against Detroit? What if you lose a coin toss against Carolina. What if Pat Fryermuth hangs on to a ball in the end zone? It can go both ways and you could be four and 12 by that logic. That's craziness. I mean, that just doesn't, it doesn't add up. There hasn't been accountability taken for the defense. And you know what? I think last year we gave the Vikings a little bit of an injury out and their roster was just bad, but we gave them a little bit of an injury out because

we said, well, the roster was razor thin and then they lost these guys. And man games lost would suggest that they did have pretty bad luck. I looked at their man games lost today, which is just for those that don't know, it takes into account the quality of the players you lose, how long you lose them for. The Vikings are right in the middle. I mean, it's not like they've had that bad of injury luck. And the quality of the players they've lost, while they did lose a very quality player in Daniil Hunter, overall, it's not that bad. And it's nowhere near Green Bay.

Like, the size of the Green Bay bubble in the man games chart is crazy they've lost a ton this year um and they still have 13 wins so it helps to have aaron rogers as your quarterback but the vikings can't really lean on like injury bad luck they can't lean on turnover bad luck and they can't even lean on the excuse Mike Zimmer is making, which is one possession lost luck because they've had plenty of it themselves. And the one possession game record is, you know, almost even six and eight. So at best, you know, you even that out to seven and seven and they're still below 500 or they're at 500. So it really is not a conversation that has any basis in truth or reality. And they're a well above average kicking team this year.

They had that excuse last year that Dan Bailey melted down and they were the worst kicking team in the league this year. They've been totally fine with Greg Joseph overall. Here's another way I looked at it. I tried to look at it every way I could to find any evidence that, that this take was legitimate. I even looked at the total yardage for all of the one score games, because think about it this way. Like if you are getting way more yards than another team and you lose the

game by one score by a field goal or something, then maybe it was just bad red zone luck, or it was a fumble or something else like that that went wrong. They'd be seven and seven by the yardage battle, which I think in a one score game usually tells you a pretty good story, except for maybe the Rams game. They had they out yardage the Rams because they were down two scores most of the game. But if we eliminate that one, because that was the one where it wasn't back and forth, they were way down and they were playing at the end and getting a bunch of yards. I mean, you're talking about six and eight the same way that is your record.

So even by that way of looking at it, the close games went 50-50 right down the middle. Some you won, some you lost. Now, here's another question off of my little research to try and figure out if there was anything to this. The Vikings defense by pro football focus grades overall 19th. They are 24th in point. Now, one way that you can try to figure out coaching versus roster is to look at how the individual players grade and how much they got out of them. So I'll give you an example is, uh, let's say a quarterback is throwing to wide open receivers by the PFF grades. They don't give the quarterback a ton of credit for throwing to say a screen that goes for 50

yards. Like that's where the box score gives it a ton of credit, but not the PFF grade. So if you are scheming up a bunch of great plays that are easily executed by the players, you would see a higher performance than the grade. So the grade is 19th for the Vikings defense. Their points allowed is either 24th or 25th. This may have changed last night. 25th.

Okay. So it's 25th. So they actually performed worse in terms of how many points they allowed versus what the performances were on the field by the PFF grades. And with the offense, it was dead on. It was 13th versus 14th. So they got exactly out of the performances, what you would expect in terms of the points. But I saw someone say something about how, you know, Mike Zimmer is still got it as a defensive schemer and coordinator and teacher. I just don't think that that's the case.

I don't think that over the last two years, he has gotten more out of it's either less or exactly on. And the reason that you have him is to get more than you have. And I don't think that they have done that. I would like your opinion. Yeah. I mean, just thinking of thinking of a player for player. Let's look at the acquisitions. Did Patrick Peterson go back to his all-pro form? No. Did Xavier Woods have any better luck here than in Dallas? No.

I think he was average, sometimes good, sometimes bad. He was a step late a lot of the time. Nick Vigil was about exactly as you expected. Good coverage guy, bad run stopper. The defensive tackles, and remember, they were very good in their previous places, and this year they've been good with the Vikings. Occasionally great, mostly good. I wouldn't say they were like Pro Bowl deserving. I mean, I looked all around and I see instances like that where people played sort of at or below the levels. Bashad Breeland was

below the level. And then some of the in-house talent, DJ Wanham did not get better. Eric Hendricks got worse, oddly. Anthony Barr was kind of in and out of the lineup. He was fine. But like who really had an Anthony Harris kind of season or an Eric Wilson kind of season where they were excellent out of nowhere, not really anyone. I mean, the best you can say is that James Lynch got a little better. Armin Watts got a little better, like, you know, fringe backups. So I'm, I'm in full agreement with you that, you know, if you look up and down this roster, there was very little overachieving. Um, the, and the talent is the talent is, in large measure, brought to you by Spielman. And it's your job to make it better. And they brought you bad talent and you didn't

get them better. So it's sort of a two-pronged failure there. The run defense was bad. The pass defense was bad whenever it mattered. There's not one area that you can point to and pat yourself on the back. I don't see it. And that's that's Zimmer's side of the ball. So great numbers by you to support the premise that this is very much a seven in 19. For all of your Minnesota sports inspired goods, use the promo code Purple Insider when you go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. You can get their North State beanie, their Adam Thielen autograph shirts, Marcus Foligno fan club design for all of you hockey fans out there, and the one I always mention because it's the best one,

the Randy Moss disgusting act. You can put that on a hoodie, shirt, or almost anything else. And plus, anything you want with skull on it sodastic has it again that's s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com perfect for gifts and you get that shipping free by using the code purple insider i think that um the the sacks and the third downs are kind of the oh it looks like, you know, scheming up pretty well there. But I also think that the quarterbacks that they played against have as much to do

with the sack numbers as anything else. Ben Roethlisberger, anybody watch last night? Oh my gosh. Like he's, I think he's worse than what Peyton Manning looked like at the end. I, Mike Tomlin, give him coach of the year for getting a plus 500 season out of that. That was gross. I think, I mean, there's gotta be quarterbacks

who are playing division three, who could throw 46 passes and get 120 yards in the NFL, right? I mean, they have good receivers. That's the crazy thing is that, you know, that's how bad Roethlisberger is at this point. They sacked him a bunch of times. They sacked Justin Fields. He's a rookie who takes a ton of sacks like Jared Goff. I think they sacked a few times. Well, that's Jared Goff. He always does that. Uh, so oftentimes the sack totals have to do with what quarterbacks you're facing as opposed to, um, how good you rush the passer, unless we're talking about individuals from, you know, like TJ water, something like that. Uh, I also let's, can we play a quick game before we go to this? The coaching game is just like, what happened to that dude is the game.

Mackenzie Alexander is a, what happened to that dude? Of all the Vikings who have played in football games this year for more than 200 snaps, Mackenzie Alexander is by far their lowest graded player, a 40 grade from pro football focus, which is an atrocity. He allowed 117 quarterback rating into his coverage, 73% completion percentage. His previous numbers in the NFL were totally fine. And when they signed him, we went like, oh, good.

Yeah, okay. Mackenzie Alexander's back that guy can play and he just was off the face of the earth and i had two theories on this the one would be that the teams they played use slot receivers a lot use motion a lot uh the rams the 49ers um things like that oh now you got to make a dog pun. Hello to captain the dog. All right. Like he didn't have many captains on that defense.

Oh, there you go. So, but Mackenzie Alexander was one of the worst corners in the entire NFL. He actually graded lower than Bashad Breland for this year. Like what happened? I mean, that's my theory is that teams started attacking him much more than they were before with motion they played those those types of offenses McVay Lafleur Shanahan this year a lot and those attack the slot all the time but wow I mean he was thought to be like a nice little cheap signing and it turned out to be a complete mess. Yeah, I mean, maybe he was a little insulated by a much better defense when he was here the first time.

That's one theory I would have, where the corners around you, Trey Waynes, Xavier Rhodes, are much better than the corners they had this year, and that's weird to say about Trey Waynes, but he probably would have been an upgrade. And the physicality wasn't there either. It seemed like he was a much more physical corner in the run game. Sometimes they brought him on blitzes before,

and they really didn't do any of that this year. And he was healthy. It's not like you can blame injuries either. So I don't know what, what happened with that other than, you know, if he was insulated by a better defense before, exposed by a bad defense, you know, and sometimes badness just begets badness where, you know, you get guys running downhill, you're trying to tackle them, and it's harder when you're facing that more often than usual. So he was exposed, and I think your theory about the slot receivers is very good as well there's so many big slots nowadays Devante Adams in the slot it's not fair like that that deep

fade that Rodgers threw in the first quarter the other night was just impossible to stop I think they had him against Cup a few times that's a complete mismatch and and you saw that a decent amount throughout the year so we said before the season that of the three corners you signed, two had to be like hits. And I think you had two whiffs and one like single in Patrick Peterson. Kendricks, you mentioned not having the same type of year. I just checked on PFF 23rd among linebackers, which is not where we generally expect Kendricks. We usually expect him to be all pro top five. And I look though, what's interesting about Eric Kendricks and this, when you talk about how defenses, every player is impacted by every other player.

This is a great example. I think his Kendricks was sixth in the NFL in PFF grade in coverage. So elite, as you would expect, those are things that he can control in coverage, but in terms of run defense, one of the worst in the entire league, 43rd out of 49 linebackers, Eric Kendricks that played, X number of snaps to be a full-time starter, or maybe I didn't search it enough, but you know, 43rd is not where you expect him at all in run defense. Cause he's a good tackler, but the fact that they could not stop anybody in the run game, I think there were a lot of guards coming at him full speed or tackles coming at him full speed that were not in the past when Linval Joseph was in there. And one thing I thought of was just how much to Neil Hunter and Everson Griffin impact the run game.

And we didn't think about that a lot. I mean, now this is not to excuse where they were at, but Eric Hendricks not performing to his level sort of makes your point that just everything had this domino effect this year. And not just off of Daniil Hunter, because they weren't playing well when Daniil Hunter was in there, but just off of everything. It was like there was this bleeding gash and what the head coach who's supposed to be great at adapting is supposed to do is put a tourniquet on it. And he just didn't. It just kept bleeding.

And I was thinking about, you know, the Kansas City Chiefs for this and Steve Spagnuolo. The Chiefs defense was a laughingstock early in the year and Spagnuolo flipped some switches. And then all of a sudden they've been solid. I mean, not against Joe Burrow the other day, but mostly solid for the rest of the year and won some games that maybe they shouldn't have even won the way their offense was playing. That's what you expect of the Zimmer defense. And it just did not happen at all. I I guess I don't have a good explanation but it's

two years in a row and this year the injury thing is a good point because I went through all the players in my article who played more than 10 games on defense and and it's almost everybody I mean Kendrick's Smith Tomlinson Barr Peterson, Wanham, Woods, all these guys played at least 10 games. So it was, I guess if you're talking about what would have been the last argument for Mike Zimmer, it would be like, well, the guy still got it as a defensive scheme. But I I'm not sure that he does. Yeah. It's, it's puzzling. Cause I, I think you mentioned some of the schemable downs where he was quite good, like third down, opportunities to get sacks, red zone. That was all okay. So maybe he still has a few bullets to fire.

But between the 20s, it got pretty messy because teams are no longer as predictable as they used to be. When Mike Zimmer was accustomed to stop the run on first, stop the run on second, send the blitzers on third down, have a big nose tackle. They'll run up the middle right at you and the guy will bear hug him. That's how it works. It doesn't work like that anymore. Teams were running to the edge. You pointed this out all year long. The ends and the corners who typically would snuff those out in years past couldn't do that because they were getting blocked by tight ends and the corners who typically would would snuff those out in years past couldn't do that because they were getting blocked by tight ends and wide receivers which exposed the linebackers more and eric kendricks was pretty abysmal at tackling this year and like in the

packers game he was missing some run fits and just kind of kind of looking really disjointed which is atypical and i think he was due for regression because it's almost impossible for a linebacker to play at that peak level for three consecutive years. It just doesn't happen. I mean, he was due to regress a little bit to the pack. And, you know, the defense's expected points in run defense dead last in the NFL, like not even close to the next worst team so there's some serious flaws on this defense and whether it's schematic or talent i think

there's probably you know it's a a venn diagram and there's some overlap there um and i think that has to be part of the evaluation when looking at this coaching staff that, hey, you kind of didn't really find ways to fix this. And in fact, it only got worse for a second straight year as it went on. And that has to be a part of the equation. Well, and for a long time, I had been saying throughout the season, look, I understand that Zimmer is getting a lot of the criticism and i'm pointing more toward the roster and i would still say that it's talent over everything all the time like it's aaron rogers's talent over everybody else all the time that's why they're 13 and 3 and you're not 13 and 3 end of story um but matt lafleur sure has gotten a lot out of aaron rogers

these last few years right and the thing with Zimmer that we would always look at is well you know look I mean there are some really bad coaches in the league who are total disasters look at this guy's meltdown look at how bad this team performs versus expectation everything else but that's them now they're not performing above expectations defensively or even above what their talent has done and this last set of press conferences is like oh yeah okay well this is this is joe judgey in or urban meyer in ish so you know like this recently this has looked like the disaster coaches in the league where early in the year it was okay they're fighting they're playing against this team and

winning or getting that green bay win and so forth but over the final run of the season which so often has been the case with this team 2016 2018 here we are again even 2020 where they have a chance to make the playoffs and then give up 52 points it's like there are so many times where they look like they're coached by urban Meyer as opposed to somebody who's supposed to be. I mean, somebody who is one of the longest tenured coaches in the league. And so that's where that defense that I had brought up throughout the year has disappeared. All right. So let's play this game. Are you ready? Yeah, here's here's what I've done. I have five questions.

You need to give me one through five and I'll give you the parameters to how to decide that. And then your answers, what they add up to, will give you three coaching candidates. And you can talk about whether you like those candidates or not for the Vikings head coaching job, which we'll see if it's available on Monday. So let's start off with the first question. How much experience would you like the Vikings new coach to have? Less experience would be one and more experience would be five. And of course you can pick anything in between there. How much experience for the new head coach? And you play along at home. Feel free to send your answers. Can I use decimal points, Matthew? No, you cannot. All right. Three. Also, how dare you? All right. The next one. Offensive or defensive minded coach. A one on that side is offensive. Five is defensive. One. All right. So you're all in between for that. Really? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that it's like, how much do you care about that is if you care, if you only want an offensive coach, it's one, if you only want a defensive coach, it's five. And if you're kind of

on, you know, in the middle, it's like two or three. So you know what I'm saying? You're going to stick with one. Okay. One. Uh, would you like your coach to have worked with an elite quarterback before? Uh, five is absolutely yes yes one is does not matter at all two okay uh do you want your coach to be from a legendary coaching tree or have worked directly underneath a coaching legend five is absolutely. Give me the legendary coaching tree. One is do not care about coaching trees. Three. Okay. And how enthusiastic would you like your coach to be? One is Mike Zimmer and five is, you know, I don't know, Sean McVay. Yeah. I was going to say McVay. Yeah, I hate saying three so much, but three. Okay, three.

So let's find out where we're at here. So we have three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. All right. So your coaching candidates, and I'll take you through all the different levels. Your coaching candidates are Byron Lefwich, Nate Hackett, and Kellen Moore. Now here's what you could have ended up with. A five through a nine was Patrick Graham, Matt Eberflus, or Brian Dable. You're 10 through 14, which is where you landed, Leftwich, Hackett, and Moore. 15 through 19 is Doug Peterson, Eric Biennemi, and Josh McDaniels. And 20 through 25 was Pete Carroll, Dan Quinn. And I threw in Gary Kubiak because you know, he may have been coaching the team anyway from Texas. I'm not really sure. Wow. That is elaborate. Yeah. Oh yeah. I spent some time on this and I was like doing a bunch

of practice ones. Like if I say this, then where it will be. So you ended up exactly where I ended up as well, which is in 10 through 14 left Leftwich, Hackett, and Kellen Moore. Leftwich is the guy that I've continually brought up because if you're handpicked to coach Tom Brady and then you win a Super Bowl with Tom Brady and you work under Bruce Arians, just one of the best, flat-out best coaches in the NFL, I'm impressed if you're handpicked by him. Nate Hackett, though, offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers, a guy who's been around. He was the offensive coordinator

when the Jags got Blake Bortles to the AFC Championship. He is a five out of five on the enthusiastic. I covered him in Buffalo when he worked with, was it with Doug Marone there? And then Kellen Moore, who you know. So how do you feel about your group of coaches versus the other groups? Yeah, I already forgot the first one. The enemy?

It's Leftwich, Hackett, and- Oh, Leftwich. No, Leftwich. I love Leftwich. Sorry. I think Leftwich is one of my favorite potential hires because number one, been around the block, you know, obviously like has kind of a player's mindset I think players will respect that um I love what Tampa Bay stands for offensively I just I think that they get it they get it with regard to like what you need to do to win what you need to do to be a Super Bowl team um that passing is everything and uh he's got an Arians influence which i think if there was going to be like a coach i'd want someone to learn under it would be arians um that that's

probably number one for me and maybe for you as well not sure where you stand hackett i respect the the portal success more than anything he's doing in Green Bay. And that's, that would also be my worry, I guess, with the enemy is that you can look so much better with a Hall of Fame quarterback and that it can really cover up a lot of flaws. And that's also kind of the risk of being with a legendary coach and coaching tree, which I was also a little hesitant about. But I do like that Hackett has been under some different schemes, and I think that was sort of the Kevin Stefanski benefit, is that he was with so many different coaches and learned from so many people. I think that's a good thing.

And I think that that's something that you can't necessarily have if you're super young like Kellen Moore, which would be my hesitancy on Moore. So if I were to rank those, I would go left, which then hack it then more. Yeah, I agree. I'm just usually impressed by Kellen Moore's scheme offensively. And that's the thing about a Byron left, which too, is that when people talk about, well, you know, look, he's got Tom Brady, the end of Tom Brady in new England was not putting up the type of numbers that you would have expected. And then he goes to Tampa Bay and their receivers are

definitely better. And their offensive line is definitely better than what New England had, but they have let Tom Brady dictate what he wants to do there. And they throw the ball all the time. They are number one in the NFL and expected points added through the pass. And that's, that's the ticket. Like once again, the top five and expected points added through the pass, which I, I melted our streams wifi by logging onto pro football reference real quick to check, but Oh yeah, they're all teams that you'd expect to win the super bowl this year. Like once again, that's going to happen. So if you, if you're hiring a head coach, who's been an offensive coordinator, I mean, that's the top thing you're looking at is how does this guy's passing scheme produce? Cause I don't care how his running scheme produces, honestly. It's how are you

going to work with a quarterback and mold what you do specific to them? And that is what they have done in Tampa Bay with Tom Brady brilliantly. But I also think that with Dak Prescott, Dak Prescott doesn't really run anymore. He's still a playmaker, but he's not mobile as he was. And he's been playing that through that calf thing. And yet they just continue to throw the ball so effectively. And I think a lot of it is good receivers, which the Vikings will have next year. And then scheming those receivers open, which Dallas has done really brilliantly. I think all of these guys, though, I do think one of the things that I like about them as the candidate list is they all, and everyone on this list mostly does, but they all have a lot of NFL experience, whether it's playing in the NFL

like Kellen Moore and Byron Lefkowitz did, and then transitioning over to the coaching or Nate Hackett, as you mentioned, who's been in a lot of different places, he was in Buffalo and then he was in, you know, Jacksonville and then, you know, onto green Bay. And again, if you're Matt Lafleur and you're picking someone to work with Aaron Rogers, like this matters to me that you're picking somebody who's got to work with the most temperamental and frustrating player, maybe in the NFL, not named Antonio Brown. And yet, you know, Nate Hackett has been able to

manage that. I mean, Mike Zimmer can't manage the Anthony Barr, who's the most like low key, soft-spoken player. And yet he found a way to manipulate him a few years ago. You can't have that anymore. You can't, you have to bring in someone who's going to work with the players and not be a player's coach as in like let them do anything they want but as a player's coach as in communicate with them work with them understand who they are what makes them tick i think that has been missing and we've seen it quickly impact the team more as we've gone along i think and not being able to get along with Kirk Cousins is just one of the biggest indictments. I know Kirk Cousins is frustrating.

My gosh. I mean, we watch him. He is frustrating to the receivers. He's frustrating to the linemen. He's frustrating to the coaches. But as the head coach, that's the goal, is to get the absolute most out of that guy. And that hasn't happened. So whether it's cousins or it's a younger quarterback, all of these guys left, which Hackett and more have pretty good cases to be able to get the most out of that player. What did you think of the next group though? The more experienced group was Peterson, B enemy and McDaniels. I am more hesitant on that group. I think Peterson is a very good coach. He won a Superbowl. The enemy has been around for a long time. I've always wondered why teams don't hire

him. I don't think it's just because he's black. I think that there's some things in his past that are concerning. I'm not sure that he also sort of exudes that head coachiness to him that maybe some others do. I'm not saying he shouldn't be hired. I just wonder like if there's a little bit more to it than just, um, Hey, the NFL likes hiring the same kind of Joe judge over and over again. Uh, but what do you think of that group? Yeah. Um, I think, I think you could get excited about any of the three and still have your hesitations too. I mean, McDaniels is the one who's got the flop with Denver and insisting upon Tim Tebow. And that obviously didn't work out. Some things came out. He had a weird head coaching style. So you're automatically a little nervous about him, I think. Biennium, which I alluded to before, it does make me nervous when Patrick Mahomes is the quarterback, and you really can't do a lot wrong because that doesn't translate.

Doug Peterson had a bad relationship with his quarterback. What happened there? So there are red flags with all of them, in my opinion I thought Peterson you know obviously winning a Super Bowl helps your credibility tremendously but then losing your job two years later like I mean most coaches that win the Super Bowl have like the endless leash um so what happened there how is that falling out that serious um so I I I question him too even though my gut says that he would be like the most, like kind of well-mannered and his, his resume is excellent, but I still can't get over that. So I, I'd probably be more willing to give the enemy a spin than any of the three, I think just because like, let's see what he can do.

And, uh, and Andy Reed, it's pretty good person to, to be under as well. So even though I'm nervous about the whole Mahomes dynamic and how it works when he doesn't have that, I think the enemy is my favorite of that group. Do you have an opinion there? No, I totally agree. Yeah. I mean, and realistically, like the enemy with what they've accomplished

should have a head coaching job. I said that a couple of years ago on Twitter. Somebody reached out to me and said, you know, there's this or that for why that hasn't happened. But I don't know that some of the things that happened in his past would necessarily preclude you from doing that. And I also think the way that they've adapted offensively this year has been really impressive because the early returns on their offense this season were pretty bad. And then they adjusted quickly to what defenses had adjusted to them and that's something that we've criticized the vikings for

not doing enough of so yeah i'm not like anti-b enemy i think that there are just some other guys that i like more mcdaniels is an absolute no for me definitely just definitely not i mean this this guy goes to a place and then says he's not going to coach there. But there's another point. There's another connection with Indy, too, with Tug Peterson. Frank Reich is like a top five coach in the league. And he was the offensive coordinator in Philly. And then he goes to Indy and has had consistent success even with messy quarterback situations. Even Carson Wentz has not been that good this year.

And they found a way to win a lot of games and overcome a bad start. So you wonder, like, how much was Tug Petersonerson how much was frank reich because reich is so good um so maybe john d filippo too maybe i don't know considering zimmer's relationship with osc's i don't know uh ron poses a question in the comments about kevin stefanski you know i don't think kevin stefanski has any chance of being fired in Cleveland. However, before we wrap up, give me your opinion on what happened there with him, because I follow some Cleveland Twitter, and it seems that they want him now heaved into Lake Erie like every other coach that they've ever had. But I think that is actually the thing about the Vikings in this year and why you should be so frustrated.

Because normally when you miss the playoffs and all your numbers are bad, it means your quarterback was bad. The Vikings quarterback was not bad. He was not Mahomes. He was not great. But Baker Mayfield was horrible this year, and they ended up with about the same point differential as the Vikings, by the way.

But that's what happens when your quarterback plays hurt and it's terrible and throws what did they have in the graphic last night the most interceptions since whatever year for Baker Mayfield like that usually makes coaches look pretty bad to have your quarterback in a lot of games play really good football for the Vikings and lose those games I mean I'm not saying that that means they should stick with Cousins, but it's just like, wow, that just sort of – the two teams with one quarterback playing pretty well and you still end up missing the playoffs and the other one being atrocious

and them trying to just find any way possible and couldn't do it with Baker. But I don't think that they should move on from Stefanski or anything else like that. I think that they should be looking to trade Baker Mayfield. Yeah, and the brilliance of Cleveland's situation is that they are not locked in. They didn't make a mistake with Mayfield. They haven't given him $160 million, so they're fine.

I think Stefanski's scheme when you're losing probably gets a little frustrating because it is on the conservative side and people like the passing offenses. And I think that with a better quarterback, I feel like Stefanski is flexible enough that he would adapt that. They had the Beckham stuff, their wide receivers were hurt constantly. I mean, it wasn't just that Mayfield was bad, but it felt like he never had anybody to throw to. Landry was in and out. Peoples-Jones was in and out. And obviously, Beckham really never played. So great running game, great offensive line. There's a foundation

there offensively. You just need to get the important positions figured out, which are wide receiver and quarterback. And that wasn't the case this year and they still they could make the mike zimmer excuse too of close games they lost and and we'd be a playoff team they're not that far away so i yeah i mean how quickly cleveland forgets where they used to be that's true yeah yeah uh so just yeah to put a bow on that i think um it tells you just how much changes in football in a year because because all of a sudden it was, hey, he's getting the most out of Baker. And then now it's Baker taking shots. It's the fans key in the postgame press conferences and things like that. And like, OK, Baker is definitely one to look to blame other people.

But hey, if they didn't blame each other all the time, maybe we'd have less fun covering the league. So I guess they could keep doing that. Sam, great stuff. Fun as always. And if you want to tweet me at Matthew Collar or at Purple Insider, if you go back and take the survey, I can give you the questions one more time. It's how much experience do you want your new head coach to have? Offensive or defensive minded? Worked with an elite QB? Do you want them from a legendary coaching tree and how enthusiastic do you want them to be? So if you want to send me those, it'd be fun.

And if you're watching us for the first time here and you haven't listened to our show, normally purple insider, wherever you get your podcast, just type it in and you will find us Apple, Spotify, all those things. And purple insider.substack.com is where you can find our daily newsletter and

just one more uh our work is also featured on bring me the news so thanks to bring me the news as always for hosting us and boy the next time we talk on this thing there's going to be a lot to discuss so thanks for your time sam and we'll catch y'all later thanks