Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should we be talking about who is going to be with the Vikings long term or the playoffs?

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom start off talking about whether Everson Griffen's absence or Dalvin Cook's injury will be more impactful to the Minnesota Vikings down the stretch. Is there a chance Dalvin Cook isn't part of the Vikings' future because of his injuries and lesser production? Will the final stretch determine the future of Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman and Kirk Cousins? Let's play the comparison game, comparing Cousins, Zimmer and the 2021 Vikings season to different things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back to Collar and Pam Ekstrom here on Bring Me The News social media channels. And lots going on, as always, Sam, with the Minnesota Vikings. I have a question for you to start out the show, as I so often do. All right. I want you to tell me what injury that has befallen the Minnesota Vikings will be the most costly to them down the stretch of this season as in the final six games they'll probably need four to guarantee themselves a playoff spot or to not have potential week 18 sadness yeah so is everything an injury like

COVID is an injury Everson Griffin is an injury, like absent player. I should have said absence, yes. Because, yeah, because it's messy. It's not all injuries like of the physical kind. I think that Everson Griffin's absence might be the most significant considering like that he may not be back at all and you've got no pass rush. And he was the only thing kind of holding it all together.

You lose Daniil Hunter, you're already saying, well, you know, Wanham didn't work out, Hunter's hurt. Griffin is the only thing left that we have on the edge. And now with his situation, I think it would be optimistic to assume that he'll play again this year. And I think, you know, a lot of people would say Dalvin Cook. It's obviously Dalvin Cook. I'm not going to go there.

I don't think that from what I've observed in the league that you are doomed by losing a running back. I don't think it needs to be that way. Mike Zimmer pointed this out. They were not running the ball well with him of late. And that might've been because of his previous injuries. Zimmer wouldn't admit to that, but I think that it might be a factor. So I think it's, it's the guy who really has no replacement, Everson Griffin. Yeah. I think that Everson is probably the right answer. If we put, you know, Daniel Hunter aside, obviously. aside obviously i guess yeah i didn't think about daniel which was kind of a given but um oh well i i think that the that's the right answer because

everson griffin is not only a great pass rusher for you but he's also a heartbeat of the team kind of guy where when you're struggling he's somebody who comes up with a huge sack and changes the game he's the guy who is giving so much to the team all the time so much energy he's just bringing a different force that i think was felt early in the season when he came back on board it's like oh okay now this defensive line actually scares tackles and if you're the opposing tackle and you've got to go up against everson griffin all day that is a long for you. Like even this version of Everson Griffin is going to make a long day for you because you know, he's got lots of different moves, never ending energy.

And even in the third quarter, if you've slowed him down to some extent, third, fourth, third, fourth quarter, like he can break through and make a big play. And that one play can change the entire game. Now they don't really have guys that scare you like that. Now it's some players who have not been here before and who you have to look up their numbers on the roster. Number 73 is to Sean Bauer for everyone. TJ Smith is number 50. If anybody was looking up that information, like these defensive linemen don't scare you.

And even though Armond Watts, I think, has made some serious progress this year, had six pressures against Jimmy Garoppolo and got to the quarterback. And the same thing with Sheldon Richardson. These are kind of week to week type of players where one week you could say, wow, oh, he really shined. And then we do the film study and we all look and go, oh, it might be something there. And then the next week there's nothing there because like, that's how average players work. And Sheldon Richardson at this point in his career, it's probably more of an average player. And he was good against green Bay and good against San Francisco, but that's no guarantee that he's going to be good against Detroit who actually kind of has a decent offensive line. And the fact that they also cannot stop the run

and there's no answer to how they're going to stop the run opens the door for if you have any amount of time where your offense doesn't click, you're going to just give up these long drives and give up points even to potentially really poor teams like Chicago, like the Detroit Lions. And these are the games that we're circling and saying, oh, you should win this one, this one, this one, this one. But without somebody who can make a game changing play like a sack,

Everson Griffin, and without the ability to stop the run, everything is kind of up in the air now. And I think that's very different because you mentioned Delvin Cook. I think that's very different from a running back where the running back often depends a lot on how his offensive line is blocking. And I saw a chart today because it's the internet and there's always charts about, I think it was something to do with running backs who create explosive plays or who have a higher expected yards or something like that. And Delvin Cook was sort of in the middle of that. And if you look at their expected points added on the ground, they have been a poor running team by how much they have produced on the ground as opposed to previous seasons.

So I think missing Delvin Cook is problematic because he can always break something big. But we just haven't seen a lot of that this year. And we definitely haven't seen it consistently. So if Kenny Wongwu gets work along with Alexander Madison, I don't think you lose anywhere as much as you lose from the heart of your defensive line, excuse me, which is gone now. Yeah, I mean, 27th in rush success rate, right? I mean, Dalvin Cook, I think, is grading 44th out of 62 running backs. That's

not very good. He's been top 10 the previous two years. Something's different about this offensive line. I don't know if the scheme changed at all, losing their offensive line coach, changing offensive coordinators, but the run blocking has not been as good this year for whatever reason. I know that you changed some personnel too that might not be as gifted in that area. So that's very curious how that has actually regressed to the point where maybe that's even contributed to Mike Zimmer's emphasis on the pass, that suddenly the run game is not getting it done. And I could see this defense kind of conversely getting worn down by the run

because while their back end is maybe sturdy enough to not give up a bunch of big plays we could see other games that look like San Francisco where it's just kind of an offense plods along and gets first down after first down and runs like 75 plays against you and controls the clock and just does Vikings ball against the Vikings and kind of wins the game that way. I think that's got to be the concern because the Vikings are still good at recording an occasional sack with pressure. You can manufacture sacks. But what have we heard so many times is that consistent pressure is more correlating to winning. And the Vikings probably are not going to do that with this front four and they're not going to tackle running backs and you know flashy wide receivers like Debo Samuel

with this front four so the the lack of defensive line depth is is super problematic right now and frankly I'm I'm super excited to see what Kenny Wong Wu could bring as a as a running back and maybe it won't be glorious, but I at least want to tap into that and play that card and see if anything comes of it. I think he single-handedly is making Vikings fans interested in what happens down the stretch because after that loss to San Francisco, now you've put yourself in a position where the Vikings are a coin flip to make the playoffs, but guess what? So is Washington. And Taylor Heine all of a sudden after a big win against the Seattle Seahawks is almost equal neck and neck with the Vikings. And it's kind of a two-man race between Washington and Philadelphia.

And I went to 538 and started typing in the playoff scenarios. And if the Vikings and Washington win, and I think maybe Philly too, I can't remember what I put in exactly, but there's a scenario where even if the Vikings win against Detroit, which they should, that they drop a little bit behind in terms of playoff probability if Washington also wins. And now it's like you've kind of got a race on your hands because Washington has a strong football team. I mean, they have a good defense. They have some playmakers on that offense. And Taylor Heineke is playing good enough football to keep them in a lot of games.

And there is a side point to be made. I'm going to ask you a question about Delvin Cook, but there's a side point to be made here about your team had expectations of competing with the best of the best. And instead, you're trying to hold off Taylor Heineke, who is a backup quarterback. You're trying to hold off Taylor Heineke, who is a backup quarterback. You're trying to hold off Jalen Hurts,

who was a second round pick, who was kind of supposed to tank this year. So Philly could draft somebody else. That was the goal. Gardner Minshew might have to play for them because Jalen Hurts is banged up. This was not where you expect it to be at this point in the season,

trying to hold off teams who are now going to start Taysom Hill, it looks looks like for the New Orleans Saints instead of Trevor Simeon those are the problems that your competition has as opposed to the Tom Brady's the Kyler Murray's the the best teams in the NFC but anyway uh maybe that was just an unfair side swipe but when I was watching Taylor Heineke I was like this is this is, this is who you're battling with. This is where you are in your franchise's history at this moment. Delvin cook though, heard again, off field we'll just call it issues. Cause we don't really know how that's going to play out.

So we'll just go with issues. Is he going to be on the Vikings next year? If there are major changes, like you think that he would be included especially with and I know the guys run the ball like two times but Kenny Wong was very exciting Alexander Madison is totally capable you're hitting that point where running backs start to slide a little it's not the same this year there are other issues if a new general manager was brought in does he look

at that situation and go oh great i have an elite running back or does he go that's a guy we have to move on from because this is going to continue to be who he is as it's been with someone like christian mccaffrey who's out for the season yeah so wow at the question that that like it's even being asked because who would have assumed that, you know, when we started the year? I think the off-field stuff is more likely to derail Dalvin Cook than sort of his injury proneness and his positional value because I look at the contract and next year is mostly a sunk cost. I mean, the dead money is not that far off from the actual cap hit. I don't think there's any reason to cut ties from a football management standpoint next year.

I think he's on the club. I think you get into 2023, the dead cap sinks down to $6 million, and suddenly you've got some options there. And then you're kind of going year to year. You're saying, is he still productive? Is he healthy i mean the guy has dealt with myriad now lower body and upper body injuries he's kind of susceptible everywhere it's not like a you know a troublesome foot or a knee that needs surgical repair every year it's kind of everywhere with him. At some point, is the brunt of all of his

injuries going to mount? And is it going to just reduce his effectiveness overall? Because every year this happens, where the injury happens, he's tough and fights back to play, but the performance is not as good at that point. And this year, the injury happened in week two, the first one, the ankle. And since then, it has not quite been the same Dalvin Cook with a couple of good flashes in there, but overall it hasn't been very good. I think the new GM, you know, if that happens, steps in, probably says, all right, you know, you overspent here, but we've got him. So we may as well use him as as long as he's effective i would be surprised unless there's additional information with the off-field issues um if there was a move

made on dalvin cook before 2023 at the earliest i would be surprised also and i guess it doesn't have to be new gm i just thought like you know the current one would be loyal to the contract he signed and wouldn't want it to look bad unless we're talking about the off field issue bubbling up and having more to it, which is very possible, by the way. But see, this is how the Vikings are, though. They seem to be a year behind just about everything, like things that you could have predicted would go a certain way. They learn a little bit later like it's the hey guys uh shouldn't you get some pass blocking guards you know bigger guys who can maybe block for the interior pressure and they figure that out later and then try to move a bunch of

tackles to guard and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but you know the anthony barr contract when it was signed i think all of us thought the same thing. This is pretty risky. That's a lot of money to spend for that guy. And then these injury issues crop up and it's just completely dusted that contract. You could have let it on fire. I mean, it's just been one of the worst contracts in the NFL as much as I respect Anthony Barr, but the guy's got to play in order for the contract to make sense. And he was a linebacker takes a lot of punishment into, you know, a guy who's

humongous also, which I think plays a role in just how much punishment he's asked to take. And that position for someone like him, when you already have an Eric Hendricks is not that hard to replace. It's the same thing with Harrison Smith and his contract where right now you can already look two years in the future and go, uh, yeah, that's probably not going to work out two years from now. Kyle Rudolph, same way. They signed him to the extension. Two years from now, that's not going to be good. So I imagine what they'll do with Cook is they'll wait again, barring off field, but they'll wait. And then next year he'll be even less effective and more injured. And then they'll finally move on, but it will have hurt the team as it has this year.

Him being out and not that good. And I think that run blocking is a part of it for sure, but not being that good has been problematic for them. It's hurt them. And that could have been foreseen with the amount of usage that they gave for him last year. And this is why people don't sign running backs to big contracts because they get hurt all the time. And so anyway, it was just, I think an

interesting thing to think about that if you were looking at this with fresh eyes and not through the, Hey, remember how great he was in 2019 and 2020. And just to say, what is he right now? That's somebody that I don't think you sign up for 15 or 16 games out of a 17 game season next year. Like, what is it going to be? Maybe 12? Is it going to be five and a half yards to carry? Probably not.

It'll probably be about four because that's the general trajectory of these players. And I think that this latest injury leaves them with some things to think about if it's the same regime making the decisions. Yeah, you know, as we speak, I'm trying to find something I wrote, I believe in January, that looked at all the running backs who have touched the ball as much as Dalvin Cook did last year and what they did the following year. And it's basically player for player. They either get hurt or they're incredibly unproductive. Maurice Jones drew, Arian Foster, Doug Martin, Adrian Peterson with the Vikings in 2013,

LaShawn McCoy, DeMarco Murray, Le'Veon Bell. They all broke down. I mean, so this was forecastable. And I apologize, did I ignore a question of yours? Because I was looking that up and I wanted to make sure I got that. No, you did not. I was just ranting about this decision with running backs and how, I mean, they were handing off to him for his 30th carry against Jacksonville in overtime last year. And you're sort of looking around going, Mike, I know you want to win with Delvin cook, but you are wearing this man down to nothing in a seven and nine

season. And here we are again, uh, kind of exactly where we thought we were going to be less effective beat up. And that's where we're at. So I think because of that, weirdly, he's not the answer to who's hurt and who could be an issue. The Derrissaw thing, as we speak, we don't know what his injury status is. He could just be back next week or not. We did not get an update on that as we so often do not from the Vikings, but Derrissaw's injury would be, I think, concerning on two levels. The first level being that he's out and Rashad Hill is not as good as him. And that's just obvious. But the other part of it is that would be two injuries in his first year.

That would concern you right off the bat that he had the groin issue and whatever happened. And again, we don't know how serious it is, but that one would have more ramifications for me because it would sort of throw up a red flag. Oh, is this going to be a thing where you're dealing with injuries all the time with this very talented player who I think has done a great job this year considering his rookie status yeah unquestionably I mean he's he's stepped in and he's maybe not been quite Brian O'Neill as a rookie but he's been close like he came in about the same time in the year as O'Neal did when he was a rookie and he's been excellent and I know that Nick Bosa got a sack in the game that's what people remember

but Nick Bosa had his worst PFF performance of the year which means he was not getting close to Kirk Cousins basically any other time excellent job by Derrissaw a little bit of excellence on on Rashad Hill's part but for the most part Derrissaw, a little bit of excellence on Rashad Hill's part. But for the most part, Derrissaw has been really good. Maybe one clunker mixed in there, but for the most part, excellent. And if you could count on having bookend tackles for the foreseeable future, what a coup. What a coup going forward for your future coach, quarterback, GM, or whoever it might be, some combination. And if Derrissaw is going to have sort of the Matt Khalil-itis where it's something every year,

yeah, that's a game changer. So you cross your fingers a little bit if you're the Vikings, and you probably worry about it this offseason and hope it's okay. So give me this percentage mix for you through the rest of the season here. How much of you is focused on, and I guess we should say how much of fans should feel this way, how much should be focused on the guys who will matter for the future? Meaning, can I Wong Wu? Can Cameron Bynum get back on the field? Do we see any more of him? Christian Derrissaw, his health situation and and younger players who are going to be here.

Because there's a pretty big contingent that's not. But even Michael Pierce's health, he's under contract for next year. Delvin Tomlinson, how he plays down the stretch. How much of it is assessing those guys and where they stand with a complete season and what they mean to the future and the building blocks that the Vikings have. and how much of it is just straight make the playoffs. Give me like a, it's not really a pie chart, but it's just like a 60-40, 70-30. Like, how are you feeling about that? I think you're still 80 to 90% trying to make the playoffs this week. There are a few players that hit me as guys that like, not only do they need to be evaluated,

but they're probably not a downgrade. Like, for instance, I think Xavier Woods has been pretty good this year, save for the awful Packers game. He's been good. At one point, he was a top 10 safety on PFF. I've also, I also want to see Cameron Bynum, but I'm not going to bench a good safety just to see Bynum when you have playoff chances. Now, Cameron Dantzler, I think, needs to be evaluated more than anybody on this roster.

I mean, he is a blue chip pick at a vital position and is almost guaranteed to start next year. I mean, you're probably not going to have two of three, Peterson, Alexander, Breland. So Dantzler has to be in your future, and I think he's arguably better than Breland. So that's a play that I would have made a while ago. I know Dantzler got COVID, and that sort of shook things up. But I think there does need to be a little bit of eye to that where you say okay is our future piece as talented as the current piece and if the current piece is expiring contract and the future piece is going to be around yeah that's a move that I make um but otherwise no I I don't think there's a ton of I mean you're

getting plenty of defensive line evaluation by default right on the offensive line the only card that you haven't really played is Wyatt Davis and I think I trust their evaluation on him I don't think I need to to have them trot him out if they don't think he's ready um and Wong you know Wong was obviously going to be part of this mix going forward I I guess I'm I'm only about 15 to 20 percent concerned about that if they lose two in a row here, then yeah, then that percentage goes up. So I meant like really just even from your interest with the team. I mean, maybe that's how you answered it.

But I mean, I don't think it's a time for them. I do agree with you on Cam Dantzler. Like if it's 50 cents or a half dollar for how the guy plays, like why are you not playing the younger guy? Because clearly your coach doesn't really like him very much. And okay, Zimmer usually has a reason, but we've also seen decent players end up in the doghouse and just stay there with Zimmer.

J. Ron Kurtz kind of comes to mind. He's been playing a lot for Dallas. But I mean, even just for the interest from fans with the team, because Kenny Wongwu, I think, has caught the interest of vikings fans because he shows some really exciting talent and there's not that many other guys that i can think of that come to mind yeah who's right or drifted right right you know there's not not that many right not that many but but i think about like the building blocks in general though like you mentioned xavier woods is he going to get a contract extension and you could even stretch this point out to be about Dalvin Cook to be about Kirk Cousins like maybe I should

have phrased it as in is the conversation about who's gonna be here more interesting than who they're going to play if they make the playoffs as the sevens yeah I like the way you rephrased it. Um, I, I think that I'm, I am still intrigued in the playoff race personally. Um, I, I like to reserve future talk for the future and I feel like I kind of know already, right? Like I've seen enough from Patrick Peterson to say, okay, I wouldn't mind that guy on my team going forward. I've seen enough from Rashad Breeland to know I don't want it. I've seen enough from Cameron Bynum to say, hey, Woods is fine, but we've got you on a rookie contract. You're going to be the guy. I can already tell you that that should be the decision, and you shouldn't invest heavily in two safeties. That's a no-brainer to me.

I think you're going to have it out with Daniil Hunter at the negotiation table. I think Everson Griffin is, I don't know, maybe untouchable going forward. I feel I've got a pretty good read on these guys anyway. So I may as well like see what they can do, you know, with this group deeper into the season and then we'll learn more. But I've kind of made up my mind already,

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bikes.com. Check them out today. Have you made up your mind already on coach GM quarterback? And do you think that if you had to guess, because the Wilfs don't talk a lot, it's not Jerry Jones doing his weekly radio hit where he says, yeah, we're actually going to give the ball to Ezekiel Elliott a lot this week. Like, oh, okay. But if you, if you had to guess, has the mind been made up on those people on the, the, the key triumvirate of power here in Minnesota? Yeah, so I think the exception would be, I would say, I would lean toward yes. I would lean toward there's going to be a change, with the exception being if you sneak in the playoffs and have a 1987-esque run where you win multiple playoff games. So getting to the conference title game,

here's my crystal ball. Here's what I'm seeing in the future. Coach and GM probably parting ways with the team. Kirk Cousins, and this is a great compromise for the Wilfs who don't really love the idea of tanking. Kirk Cousins, the ultimate bridge quarterback, lame duck, you know, what, what, call him what you want, but you eat the contract in 2022, which is sort of a subtle way of tanking. If you're saying that we're going to devote that much money to your quarterback, you don't have any resources, but you don't force it. You don't try to, you know, spend every dollar of the cap. You see, if you can luck into like a 10 win season because you might i mean with kirk and a different coach in a in a contract year maybe he's super motivated

and maybe you you luck into 10 games if you capture good kirk enough times um meanwhile that contract comes off the books in 2023 45 millions worth and suddenly you've got like you're you're just rolling the dice like the Patriots last year with all that cash. You can build the team with your new coach and GM, and probably you've drafted a quarterback probably at that point already. So I think that that's a logical, realistic play is that Kirk just plays this thing out. Or if there's a suitor for him, maybe you trade him before that. But I'm leaning toward change at this point.

Well, there will definitely be suitors. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I mean, if you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, they're totally lost at quarterback at this moment. They don't know what they're doing for the future. Roethlisberger is completely dusted. And that is a franchise that is in no place to rebuild pretty much ever and has never been below 500 with Mike Tomlin. It's an incredible statistic that even as Roethlisberger has fallen off,

they have still found ways to stay 500 or better, but they can't continue to do that with Roethlisberger even if he wants to continue to play. So even they come to mind, New Orleans comes to mind, there's probably six, eight other teams that will be desperate for a quarterback that would trade for cousins and that's where i i wonder have they made the decision yet of well look even if they win the rest of the games or go five and one you're still not talking about the season that we wanted i mean the rest of the games 11 and six would actually be pretty good but 10 and 7 9 and 8 8 9 these things are not what we wanted. And these close games that they don't come through and so forth are sort of just, I mean, you don't get bonus points for that, right? Like Mike Zimmer said, there's no consolation prize.

He's exactly right. It doesn't matter to me if you lost by seven or 14 or 32, it's like you still lost and you're five and six. So as you go down the stretch here, if it ends the way everyone thinks it's going to end, where you go nine and eight losing the first round, then I think that that path should be drawn up in stone right now. Major changes are coming after that because that really solidifies. You can't form a plan that works with these people. And so somebody has got to be thrown over the boat in order to make this change, or maybe all of them. I think if it's worse than nine and eight,

then it sort of guarantees it. And if they do somehow go eight and nine and go deep in the playoffs, well, okay then, right? I guess that then I don't know what the heck you're supposed to do because the playoffs can be so random that you could go seven and 10 and have Washington only win another game and Philly fall apart and everything else and make the playoffs at seven and 10 is just miserable. And then Brady gets COVID or something, right? I mean, these things can happen and then you win the game and everyone celebrates it. But that, you know, this is what the, uh, theans did a few years ago with mike malarkey where they won a playoff game in which marcus mariotta had to catch his own pass that

bounced off someone and run it for a touchdown it's a super random win they fell apart the next week and they fired him and everyone went well you just won in the playoffs like i don't know super random win doesn't matter we need a better coach and we need a different quarterback and that's what they ended up doing and they've been more competitive since for it i think that's kind of what the vikings are looking at but that to me is a one on the front page the second page is here's the playoff race the front page is can these people do enough? Can Mike Zimmer coach around the issues that they have? And can Kirk Cousins perform at a high enough level through this section of the schedule, which is a little lighter for them?

I think Football Outsiders has as a top five easiest schedule the rest of the way now. So can you take full advantage of that and win the games you're supposed to win and then get into the playoffs? I think, of course, that they should have made the decision a long time ago, before even this year, and said, we're sticking to it unless we make the Super Bowl and that's what we're going to do. We're either sticking with them or we're moving on. But I think we know that this ownership is not going to operate this way.

They're going to wait to see what happens and then they're going to decide. So that, to me, is the biggest story of the rest of the season. So let me just ask you then when, when it comes to that, assuming ownership hasn't made up its mind, let's say that they, they bring Zimmer in to rehash the season and Zimmer laments the injuries. man games lost you see where we rank in our man games lost other teams didn't have to deal with this uh you see where we rank in like close losses look how close we were so you're ziggy what do you what do you say back to that i guess i would say mike it's not you it's me it's really not that you're not a good coach. And I actually think that the recent games where they have, he keeps saying we've continued to fight. It's true. They really have. I mean, they have not mailed in any game.

I think they got their tails whipped in San Francisco more than the final score indicated, but they continue to play hard all the way down and had the ball with a chance to go tie the game at the end against a good San Francisco team that played really hard. And okay, so Mike has kept them on the tracks. I think he's schemed fairly well defensively. The decisions have been spotty as they are almost every year. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not. But I still think that Mike Zimmer is a really far above average football coach that there are so many guys in this league that have no idea what they're doing, that Zimmer is

like on a completely different plane than those guys. On any given weekend, he can go coach against Kyle Shanahan or Matt LaFleur or any other of the best coaches in the NFL. And he's not getting his tail whipped by those coaches, schematically, decisions, all those things, most of the time. It's just that how could you argue that he's the right coach for this team going forward if it looks the way it looks? If this didn't work, where we said,

Mike, let's go to free agency and get you all the players you need around this gigantic quarterback contract, and it didn't work where we said, Mike, let's go to free agency and get you all the players you need around this gigantic quarterback contract and it didn't work. Is that what you're going to do again and ask him to just coach a bunch of new players again? And oh, this draft pick will fill that spot. And like, are we is that the way to go? So it's not that he can't coach. It's really that it's just not the right fit it seems to me you need a fit that's going to be like a three to five year plan to get you back to an nfc championship and nobody wants that

like the wilfs don't want that that's been clear for years uh fans don't want that that's why a lot of fans want to stick with kirk cousins for the rest of eternity so they can just be in the seven seed until we all die but like at some point you have to decide that this just this simulation we live in just doesn't really work and you have to be realistic with yourself so i guess that's what i would say is like mike i agree with everything you're saying you played a lot of close games you were still good on third downs where you could coach up the x's and o's the injuries injuries, the Hunter, the Griffin, the whatever, all these other things that you went through COVID, but that's not really the point, right?

That's how I would think of it. Yeah. I like your point. And I talked with Paul about this on Hot Routes today about how we are looking at if Zimmer is here or not another complete defensive revamp you probably keep your staples Kendrick Smith and I assume Hunter but other than that most of them are going to be gone it's going to be another entirely new defense the only way to sort of recreate what Zimmer once had is to have you know some really good drafting a lot of cap space to keep guys together for a while. And you can't just create that overnight. There's never going to be that level of synergy unless you have time. And to create the resources to have that time, you kind of need to start the clock over with someone else and wipe your books clean and just build it up again.

And that's usually best done with somebody who, you know, it's not fun for the same coach to climb up the mountain, climb all the way back, like avalanche, oh, all the way back down and then trudge back to the top again. That's just hard on everybody, honestly. Like don't even, like as a favor to Mike Zimmer, don't let Zimmer have to go through that again because that's, I think, what's required here. Sam Ekstrom here wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report.

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around with decent players that just is getting bad coaching about jacksonville after urban meyer eventually goes back to college because that's where the real money is or when urban meyer has you know maybe some stomach acid problem that he has to walk away because he was not capable of coaching in the NFL. I mean, that's a good position to be in. If you're Zimmer or team on the rise, that's young, that needs to be coached the right way by an actual NFL coach and not a con artist, that would be a good idea for them. Right. So yeah, I mean, I think even for his sake, it's like if they had traded him after 2019 to Dallas, a team that had the quarterback and was needed to get their defense together, that would have been like a better fit for a team that was tearing its defense all the way down. And then saying, Mike, just, you know, just coach up like Jeff Gladney.

You know what he's doing? No, of course not. You deal with that. Right. I mean, that's kind of what they've asked him to do. And then this year it was, here's a bunch of new players who other teams didn't want go get him tiger and a couple of them got hurt a couple of them were not good i'm not saying he's not responsible it's just that is it a fit where he is right now and of course this can all change if you win all the rest of

your games and you beat the rams and you beat the Packers and you blow out these other teams and you go into the playoffs at 10 and seven and then go to the NFC championship game. It's just, if we're putting odds on how these things play out, that's probably not at the top of the list. And I think that's how they might feel when they get to that conversation. So I got a game for our last few minutes of the show here called the comparison game, because it's one of the fun things that we do in football is we say, here's this up and coming quarterback. He's like a young whoever, but in my game, I have five of them. You can compare these to anything. I mean, other NFL players, inanimate objects, television, movies, society, whatever

you want. You can compare them to anything. So I have five of them. So let's start right out with Kirk Cousins is like blank. What would you compare Kirk Cousins too, Sam. Kirk Cousins is like your old high school buddy that you see once a year on Thanksgiving. And you realize every year that you're just, you don't have as much in common, right? Like he was kind of awesome in high school. And you're like, man, like you're going to go places. I can tell. And then every year you touch base and you think, man, is it going to be different this year? And you meet up at your favorite watering hole and, and, uh, and he orders like some weird, you know, foreign tap.

And you're like, ah, you're kind of an odd guy. I don't know if we're like the same anymore. Um, I don't know if I'm, I don't know if I'm going to keep texting you and being your buddy. That's Kirk Cousins to me. I don't know if like he ages very well. I guess I was thinking where you were maybe headed with it was that he always has some reason why like his business hasn't gotten going yet. It's like, well, you know, the drought that's last year, whatever, you know, that kind of thing. That was it. I compared Kirk Cousins to a Honda Civic, which is not coincidentally the car that I drive. My Honda Civic gets good gas mileage, very efficient. It is effective. It drives me where I need to go. Good gas mileage. It's comfortable.

And it does the job. And I would endorse it for anyone. In fact, Honda, if you want, feel free to contact us. But it's a good car. It's good. And I have nothing bad to say about my car. However, if I go past 70 miles an hour, you know, things get a little shaky. There are other people who drive Maseratis, Corvettes, Jaguars, the sexy cars, the Mahomes, and you know, these other players, these other quarterbacks, the Aaron Rodgers, the Tom Brady's. And if we're, if we're just cruising along and I need to get to point A to point B and everything's going all right for me, we're fine. If I pull up to a light and there's a moderate Maserati next to me, they blow right by me. And I feel like there's kind of the same

thing there as, so you have all these people who want to defend cousins with different statistics and everything else. It's sort of become an online personality to tweet out Cousins statistics and all that. But the reality of what we've seen here is that he can operate what you ask him to do as long as it's only so much to a very effective level, just like the Honda Civic. It can operate driving me from here to Chicago at 70 miles an hour super effectively. But if I were racing to Chicago at 70 miles an hour, super effectively. But if I were racing to Chicago with somebody else who has a Corvette, I'm going to lose by a lot. And that's where it feels like we are. Or, or how about this? If we hit really bad weather, my neighbor, who's got like the suburban, we'll be able to plow through that. Like Josh Allen,

Kirk cousins, maybe not so much. So I went with Honda Civic. Mike Zimmer is like. My push mower, you know, it's been getting the job done for many years. It is still effective. I could turn it in for a new model, but, you know, it it mulches up the leaves and it goes right over the sticks. And sometimes it'll spit a rock out or something. It'll ding up the inside, and the inner workings will get dented. And it's not in the best shape. It's not going to last forever. I'm probably just going to use it until it dies and never wakes up but i uh i'm gonna stick with it because it is familiar and it

has a baseline level of of productivity and efficiency uh cutting my grass i like that yeah very solid uh a grinder if you will i went with a boxer in the ninth round i mean mike zimmer is over with mick in the corner and Mick saying, keep fighting Zimmer. Yeah, I know you can't see out of one eye, but I'll cut you. And, you know, like I'm going to go out there and he's going to keep swinging and he's going to keep giving as much as he can because you know this about Zimmer. You have to give him credit for this, that he is a live or die football person

who is going to give every ounce of his soul to try to win these football games uh in fact like he was still watching the film after the thing with his eye happened which was like mike should you not do that or like isn't this serious but he didn't care he said he'd rather lose the eye than stop watching film football uh i think he's like the boxer in the ninth round because it's almost over and he's bleeding from every part of his body and he's been knocked down about 15 times and does he have that one swing at the end where he hits apollo creed or does he just get you know knocked down at the end of the match like by ivanvonne Drago, like what happened to Apollo Creed in Rocky IV. Justin Jefferson is like?

Justin Jefferson is the girlfriend that you happen to have and maybe feel like you don't deserve, but you should probably treat her better so she doesn't leave you. Right? Like, you know that movie that that rom-com you're out of my league it's kind of like that you're like wow we stumbled upon this incredible uh partner and now we're kind of ignoring her sometimes and we're not texting her back even though she's really cool why are we do Why are we self-destructing our relationship like

this? We just had one just like this that we didn't learn our lesson from. Make sure that you make a nice dinner for Justin Jefferson. Wine and dine him. If one great girl dumps you, okay, maybe she had some issues. If two great girls dump you, it's you. Now, I originally said Karl-Anthony Towns, but I might change my answer to Anthony Edwards because I was thinking about when you were talking. Anthony Edwards is the most exciting player in Minnesota sports. Justin Jefferson probably tied.

But Anthony Edwards could touch the ball way more times per game. So what you get in value of watching and it doesn't depend on another guy uh but with the Anthony Edwards compare also I'll go both for different reasons Anthony Edwards is don't you mess this up Minnesota that's that's that's why I would say Anthony Edwards because you look at and go are you going to do the thing where the guy ends up winning a championship for Memphis or something like five years from now? With Carl Anthony Towns, though, Carl Anthony Towns is a tremendous, tremendous player, but there's only so much that a center or a big man can do to drive their team's success. They need a lot of help. They need

penetration scores. They need the right matchups. They need the right system. And that goes for almost anybody. If you're not, I mean, even Tim Duncan had the right system. If you're not Hakeem Olajuwon, you're probably going to be kind of reliant on other things around you to whether your team wins. If you're a big man, even though you are great, that's where I would put Justin Jefferson. How about this? The 2021 Vikings are like. They are like a group of spring breakers who said, we're going to go down to South Padre Island for two weeks and we're not going to take one break. We're going to go out every night. We're not going to take any nights off to recoup. We're just going to go out every night. We're not going to take any nights off to recoup.

We're just going to go hard every night, stay till bar close, shut the place down. I don't care if we're sick. I don't care if we're hurt. We are literally not going to take a break. That's the Vikings every week. There are no nights off. There are no weeks off. It is like all the way to the finish every single week. And at some point there's a price to pay. I'm sorry, but you know, after those two weeks down in South Padre, you're going to have a massive hangover. And I feel like it's coming for the Vikings at some point. I don't know if it's like after the season or maybe against the Lions, but at some point it's going to catch up to them. And there will be a price to pay the next morning with a pretty bad headache. Screams Soldier Field. It just right.

Just that they go to Soldier Field and that's where it all breaks, because that's where it usually does break. I went with the 2021 Vikings are like a 90s blockbuster movie because there have been a lot of fireworks on a week to week basis. The games are nuts. The storylines are crazy. Totally unpredictable stuff happens. You got things blown up over here, characters being killed off, all sorts of crazy stuff. Right. But at the end, you go, was it a great story, though? I mean, like, was I really satisfied or was it just a bunch of Michael Bay stuff moving around and exploding?

And then the story wasn't really all that satisfying. And that would be your eight and nine record or your nine and eight record. Or I'm ultimately not super moved by what happened in the end, but I did see a lot of crazy bleep along the way, right? I think that that's why I think that they're like a nineties blockbuster and we just, well, it was a late eighties. We just watched the untouchables the other day. I don't know if you've seen that one,

but a classic late eighties blockbuster with Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, like the whole thing. Last one for you. The rest of this Viking season will be alike. The rest of this Viking season will be like the end of a NASCAR race, except not for the winner, not for like second place, but it'll be the clump of cars that are all crossing the finish line at the same time for like sixth, seventh, and eighth place. Oh, sure. Because there's literally a log jam. There's like four or six teams within half a game in the middle of the NFC.

And I don't know if anybody cares who comes in seventh in a NASCAR race. You're not kind of trying to pick through the screen. Oh, that guy got seventh. No one cares. But the guy who got seventh might care a little bit. Maybe the prize money is better. I don't know how NASCAR works. But it's going to kind of look like that, where they're kind of just like no one else

is really focused on them nationally. No one is looking in that spot. But the Vikings know they're in that spot. And gosh darn it, they're going to try to be the best of the rest in that race. Yeah. And if you finish seventh in nascar your team is excited yay but like they don't give out any trophies for that uh is rusty wallace still around um i literally don't know been a while uh so i went with the rest of the season is like going home

for the holidays because you kind of hold your breath when you know that you're doing this. Like you're going, I hope this goes OK, because there's a lot of potential pitfalls to going home for the holidays. You could have some bad moments. You get cornered by your uncle who's got a lot of political takes and wants to lecture you about. I won't even say what I was thinking, but that kind of thing. And what you hope for is that it just goes okay and you survive it and you get through it and you have some nice moments. So you hope that you get, say, Kenny Wong will returns another kick for a touchdown or a nice i'm not an eggnog fan but a nice glass of eggnog by the fire and you have a good conversation with uh your cousin kirk cousins

right you hope for just it not to completely blow up and end up with someone throwing a turkey at somebody else and have some big family implosion. That's what you're kind of thinking about the rest of the season. And if it turns out that you have a great time going home for the holidays, the food was great. Everybody was nice. The person that you hate in your family didn't show up. Well, then you go, okay, we kind of got out of this much better than we thought we were going to home for the holidays. And also one more thing about home for the holidays is how at home do Vikings fans feel with this situation right here? Oh, you have to go to Chicago. Oh, there's another team chasing you down. You're a 500 football team who needs to watch the in the hunt graphic. Nothing feels like home to Vikings fans,

like talking about how the washington football team's backup quarterback could chase them down you nailed it is that too cynical i mean that's my whole twitter these days yeah no it's it's true it's happening and while you can't convince me that taylor heineke is good He very well may derail the Minnesota Vikings. He's a case Keenum Ming at the moment, I think is what they should call it anyway. Well, this was fun,

Sam. I think you did a great job with the comparison game and we'll definitely bring that back. And if you're listening and you made it this far, well, first of all, thank you. And I guess a happy home for the holidays trips to everybody for

Thanksgiving and Christmas. But also if you're watching us for the holidays trips to everybody for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But also, if you're watching us for the first time, Purple Insider is the podcast. Go there, listen to it every day. We do shows, lots of awesome guests and everything else. So I appreciate that. And also feel free to tweet me or send me your comparisons also for those things that I named off. I would love to have them.

So thanks a lot to Bring Me the News for hosting us here as they always do. And we will be back next Tuesday. Thanks for watching everybody.