Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should we criticize the Vikings' play calling vs. the Packers?

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

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It's strong and dependable, exactly like playing tight end. Just like the incredible players we sit down with on the podcast, the Chevy Silverado is in a league of its own. Strong, advanced, and dependable. Download TE1 today, wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me from The Athletic is Chad Graff. What is up, Chad? Doing well on this Monday afternoon after week one. How are things with you? You know what? I'm just basking in the afterglow of football that it actually happened and the world didn't collapse.

And by the way, I just saw the TV ratings for this weekend and it seems people are still watching a lot of football. So I don't think they're going to have any problems with that anytime soon, despite the number of Twitter bots who like to say that they'll never watch football again. But that's a separate topic. So we have a lot to get into. We were on Mike Zimmer's Zoom call, and I asked him, Mike, what happened on the safety? Because this has been one of the really fun, prevailing conversations on Twitter and with fans after a disastrous game, and it's one of my favorite things in the entire world, Chad, is when we debate whether a play call was a bad idea or if it was just a play that didn't work out.

So give me your take on the safety that Kirk Cousins takes. Is it a bad play call and what are you doing, Gary? Go back to Denver, Gary. Or is it just, hey, didn't work out and the other team made a good play which does happen in football without being facetious I legitimately enjoy these situations like there's 70 plays in a game and you know it's so rare that you get to actually dive in with coaches with players on one singular play and just talk about and learn about and hear about the complexities, what has to go right for the play to work, what little thing the defense can do to blow up everything before

you even have a chance as an offense for it to work. So I legitimately enjoy this stuff and this play perhaps more than most, both because it's crazy watching back the game this morning. That safety happens and it flips basically everything. I think the Packers would probably win the game this morning. That safety happens, and it flips basically everything. I think the Packers would probably win the game even without that. But when you go back and watch that, the safety, then the Packers, of course, get the ball. A tired Vikings defense has to go back on the field.

I think it's an eight-play drive after that that spans more than four minutes. Kick a field goal. Vikings get the ball. Three and out. Send the tired defense back onto the field. At that point, the defense is gassed. They don't have much of a shot. So, so much of what happened, I think, stems from that one play.

So when you zoom in on that one play, you know, just a few things off the top that we've learned. One, Yair Alexander admitted in his post-game press conference, which I didn't realize until this afternoon, that he read the play wrong, essentially. He was not supposed to blitz there off of the edge. He thought it was a run. Kirk Cousins, I guess you could say, is that good at selling play action, that he thought it was a run, and so he charged right into the backfield thinking he was going to go after Dalvin Cook, realizes it's play action

and just says, well, I'm here. Thielen's well behind me. I'm just going to sack her cousins. Now, even understanding that's the case, I do question the play call. You know, I don't question throwing it within your five, which some people would say never, ever do. I think you can do that. I question more, I guess, three aspects of it.

One, that it's play action, which just slows things down as is. I think conversely, you could point out Cousins is great on play action. It's where they often hit some of their big plays, but it does slow things down. Two, it wasn't just play action, but it was a nine-step drop for Cousins, which just takes a lot longer for everything to happen. You could argue it moves them further from the line of scrimmage, which is true, but it's worth noting that it at least slows things down. And three, I think this might be the biggest issue with the play call,

is Kirk Cousins had no options inside 10 yards or within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. All of the routes, at least that we can see from the TV broadcast, were beyond 10 yards. It sounds like Adam Thielen was running a go route. I'm not entirely sure what the other options were doing. But at least in the TV broadcast, there are no other options within 10 yards for him. So you would at least in a situation like that prefer to have maybe one short out route or a slant

or something just to give Cousins an option if everything goes awry as it did. So that's where I'm at with the play call. But I do think it's fascinating just to dive into all of this. And the fact that, like, Mike Patton on the sideline, I watched back the game and the broadcast, what a great call by Patton, just outstanding. And I probably thought the same thing. But, you know, he on the sideline watching the play was probably thinking,

mother effer, what are you doing? You're going rogue. You're leaving their best receiver wide open. So it's just fun to zoom in on one play, and that's essentially where I'm at with it. So here's how I break these down. I always think if your process made sense, it doesn't even have to be the smartest, most brilliant, most analytically confirmed of all time. It just had to make sense.

If it clears that bar, then I don't feel like I can really question it all that much. And I can make this one pretty easily clear that bar. Now I'll give you an example of the opposite. Remember when the Eagles had their kicker throw a pass against the Vikings? That does not clear the bar. Okay, even another one where Willie Sneed threw a pass in the Minneapolis Miracle game does not clear the bar. That is really stupid. You have one of the best quarterbacks of all time. Why are you throwing a pass with a wide receiver? Okay. So here's how I think it makes sense. First

of all, by the numbers passing, when you're backed up into your own end zone is actually good. There, I looked this up, the Vikings average 8.3 yards per attempt in passes backed up inside their own 10 since 2014, so the Zimmer era. They have, on 60 of those plays, had 22 first downs and been sacked only five times, and they have not turned the ball over any times in those situations. So it's probably not as risky of a play as people think. Also, Kirk Cousins only sacked nine times last year on play action the entire season, and they ran play action constantly. So as you mentioned, you're dropping him far back.

Usually you're keeping extra protection. Oftentimes play action is used to negate a pass rush. What happened on this was your play action worked so well, you fooled the hell out of the other team, not just Alexander, but several other linebackers too. All of the linebackers took three steps in. So if Alexander is even slightly redirected, not even picked up by Delvin Cook, you are talking about probably a huge play, potentially a massive play, because Alexander was so far out of position. So I look at this as a bad break for the Vikings, a great play, potentially a massive play, because Alexander was so far out of position. So I look at this as

a bad break for the Vikings, a great play, even if accidental, by Alexander. And I think that passing inside of your own 10, considering that Cousins throws, what, seven interceptions a year to 10 interceptions a year, he does have a tendency to get sacked at times, but also you just watch the other team march down the field easily on your defense twice. So if I'm Kubiak, I'm saying, boy, we got to get something going. You can't run three times and punt. And here's the other one. Now here's the galaxy brain one, Chad. Taking a safety is not that bad. And just leave that there for everybody. Just think about it for a second. It's not that bad. If you are backed up to your two, you run three times and you punt, they get the ball. Let's say they even get an average return, get seven or eight yards. They're at your 35 already

with one of the best quarterbacks ever who's been smoking your defense. Probably, I mean, got a good chance of scoring a touchdown or kicking a field goal. They're almost already in field goal position anyway. Taking a safety is not the worst thing in the world in that situation. Now, I do agree with you that ultimately it turned the game in the wrong direction, but I think the potential of starting off a big drive or at least getting yourself way out from the end zone to turn the field position makes sense for Kubiak to take a shot there. And that's why I say this is much more execution than it is on the, hey, Kubiak, why don't you quit, right? I mean, so even though I understand why it could be questioned because of the play action element and how long that takes to develop. Those are all fair points. I guess the one part that I still haven't fully, you know,

understood or grappled with, and perhaps this will be a moot point by the time the All-22 comes out on Tuesday. It's always a little bit frustrating that it doesn't come out earlier. But, hey, when it comes out Tuesday, I would think that there would be some sort of quick out for Kirk Cousins in that situation where, hey, if it's going poorly, if you fooled Yair Alexander so poorly that or so badly he's coming off the edge and blitzing here's your quick out then you have some sort of I don't know if it's a hot route where Thuyen is supposed to maybe you know if Alexander blitzes just run a quick out route or

something but I feel like you should have some sort of option there that if everything else blows up you've got a quick out. Now, since we're talking about play calls, I want to ask you about the other one that has gotten a lot of criticism today that I think is super worthwhile examining in on as well, which is fourth and three, end of the third quarter, Vikings are down 12 points. Based off how they've played, it probably should be a lot worse, and yet they score on this drive. It's a one point game touchdown. They're down by five points. And suddenly we've got a really tight game going into the fourth quarter. They call timeout. Gary Kubiak radios in on the headset to Mike Zimmer and says, hey, do you mind if I take a shot here? Fourth and three, Packers are probably

thinking it's going to go to Cook or maybe just a short route to Rudolph or Thielen. Mike Zimmer says, yep, goodbye me. You can take a shot here. So Kubiak dials up a play, three receivers, both Thielen and Tajay Sharp running go routes. I'll let, I'll get in, I guess, in a minute to what I think of everything that transpired there. But off the top, what were your thoughts on what happened there?

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Pepsi made for football watching. Okay, I wanted to check just about how much time they had left in the third quarter when they decided to run this play. 340-ish. Okay, 340-ish. All right, so that is, to me, much, much more questionable than what they did on the safety. And really, I mean, I might even push that needle all the way to kind of nutty to take a shot there. Because if you're down 22 to 10, I mean, let's do a little quick math here. Two touchdowns and you're good. You've got all sorts of time to come back from that type of

deficit. Now, yeah, you'll need eventually a stop from your defense, which they never got, and it might not have mattered anyway, because they were never getting that. But when you're only down by two scores, and you're on their side of the field, going for it on fourth and three at the 39 is 100% the right move. But like you said, Kyle Rudolph, when you throw him the ball under 10 yards, catches about 90% of those passes. And they've done this. I don't know how many times, even in fact, you go back to 2018, there's a play where I think it was a fourth down in short that they ran a

quick pass to Kyle Rudolph for a first down. And I think all of us said, why don't you do this all the time on third and fourth and short, just give it to this big giant dude who can always get four yards, even a handoff there. Delvin cook averages five yards a carry pretty much for his career so even if they're gearing up for it or how about a play action at that point if you're going to do something to take a shot a straight drop back

and launching it and then of course the execution to Tajay Sharp is nonsense I mean this is this is very much a Kirk Cousins style I'm going to throw it to Laquan Treadwell because it was my read against New Orleans or against New England in 2018 type of play. And I get it. All the safety's creeping over. Adam Thielen and Tajay Sharp, the difference between them is an ocean. One guy we weren't sure was going to make the team. The other guy is in the Pro Bowl every year. Throw it to Adam Thielen anyway, but I don't like any element of this play. I would much rather see them with that much time. If you go down the field and score there, and you make it 22-17, you're in good position. That's why I don't get taking that big of a risk

in that spot. I mostly agree with you. Definitely go for it on fourth down. You'll probably call something different. But, hey, I don't even hate the call. The Seahawks made it work, I think, on a very similar situation, similar down and distance, go route. Granted, theirs was to DK Metcalf and not Tajay Sharp, and perhaps that's why theirs led to a touchdown

and the Vikings turned the ball over on downs. But I actually have a bigger problem with Cousins' decision than Kubiak's decision there. And it stems, you know, this is what is the problem with Kirk Cousins. Yes, he is very good in a lot of areas. He's great on play action. His accuracy is insanely good. And he understands concepts. He knows,

you know, in this situation, if the safety is shading this way, I go to this guy on my right. And in this case, it happened to be Tajay Sharp. That is all fine and well on first and 10 or in the first quarter or in a tie game and basically any other scenario, except when it's the biggest play of the game, a chance to finally turn things around. You just have to have, I think, more situational awareness, more trust in your best players. It's something that we saw over and over again with Stefan Diggs. Let your best players make you look good.

This goes back all the way to 2017 when Jay Gruden, his former coach, said, I can't get guys 30 effing yards open for you. You got to just trust your best players sometime. You know, he did it later in the game. He threw a great ball to Adam Thielen in the back of the end zone. I think the expected catch percentage was like 22. It was one of the hardest catches to make of the entire NFL weekend. In those big moments, you have to, have to, have to give your best players a chance to

make you look good. And Kirk Cousins just, you know, it's not what his brain says. His brain says, hey, this guy is, you know, the safety shading that way. I have to look over here. It's one-on-one. It doesn't matter if it's Alexander Hollins in a playoff game in New Orleans or if it's Tajay Sharp fighting to make the roster, getting his one and only target on the biggest play of the game. It's just so frustrating to

watch all of the great throws he makes, and then to have it come down to throws like that. Great example with the Alexander Hollins thing. That's just not the guy to throw the ball to. And this was, from my understanding, Stephon Diggs did not hate Kirk Cousins, that he felt like they had good chemistry. But the thing that would drive him insane is when Cousins wouldn't just throw it up. Even in training camp, I remember one day where Diggs was infuriated when Cousins decided

to check it down to CJ Hamm. He's like, you've got to throw this ball to me because I'll make the play. And if anything, Case Keenum is the best example ever that we can go back to and say, look, if you just throw it up to these guys, they're probably going to make plays. And last night, now I know this went the other way, but the pass interference thing is another element of this, that if you throw it up to a guy who's a really good wide receiver and he takes a shot at going up to get it, there's a halfway decent chance you even get a flag.

So beyond the fact that Adam Thielen turns up the percentages to begin with, you also have the fact that the referees will sometimes help you out. And not even to mention, if you throw a pick, that's fine. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. It's fourth and three. A pick is better than an incompletion. Let him pick it off if that's what you're worried about right and then we also have to make this point too it's just not a good throw to Tajay Sharp it's like even if even if Tajay Sharp was Julio Jones he doesn't make the catch anyway so it's like there's the process being bad on multiple levels but then there's also you didn't really make that throw and here is what I want to talk about too with this performance by Kirk Cousins,

because I look at it as we are no longer really in the mode of let's break down every pass by Kirk Cousins and talk about what every pass means. They're going to have national TV games and some of them might go bad. And are we going to continue to make this, you know, big debate over can Kirk win on national TV? I mean, I think that you know what you have here, but it is, I'm sure, for Vikings fans, frustrating to watch when he played so well in that second half, throwing it all over the place. You wake up on Monday morning, his PFF grade comes out.

It's almost a 90 out of 100 his quarterback rating is spectacular and you're like but what did we really see here from Kirk Cousins that made a difference and I just think that this is always kind of going to be a thing that he my friend Eric Eager from PFF likes to say there's some quarterbacks who start the fire and then put it out and then get credit for putting it out. That's kind of Cousins here. And so I guess I wonder what, I asked Brian Murphy this, I'm curious about your opinion, like what percentage of that loss goes on Kirk Cousins taking a safety, there's some responsibility there, throwing the interception that was even more key than the safety, by the way,

throwing it to Tajay Sharp, but also, you know, overall, he ends up having a good day. Right, that's interesting, because it's certainly not all his fault, and even when we talk about blame on a play call, I also think Gary Kubiak's just got to know Kirk Cousins and what he's going to be thinking in those situations, that with a single high safety, they're probably going to shade not just the Thielen side, but Jefferson was also to that side. So it just makes sense for the safety to shade there. You've got to know as the play caller, as the offensive coordinator, hey, my quarterback is not going to force it to Adam Thielen.

Maybe I should make the opposite route a little easier for Tajay Sharp to come up with a completion and the first down. So I think Kirk Cousins is definitely to blame. And I think, you know, time possession is often talked about way too much. Mike Zimmer talks about it too much, looks at it too much. You know, it's often a tilted thing. But it was a very real thing in the first half that the Vikings basically never had the ball their second quarter went two plays safety next drive three plays punt

next drive two plays interception there were opportunities to at least slow things down the defense first and foremost they were the reason that the Vikings lost. They deserve the most blame. Mike Zimmer deserves a lot of blame. He thought that he could just, you know, lose all of these veterans, perhaps, you know, some of them overpaid, fine, fair, but plug in players like Cameron Dantzler, Holton Hill, Mike Hughes, and that everything would be perfectly fine. That may be the case in 16 weeks when Mike Zimmer has more time to work with them, but the defense deserves the most blame for this loss. That said, the offense could have made things so much easier for them with even just two sustained

drives in the first half. Say they get to the 40 and 40 and you know go forward on fourth and two and they call a bunch of go routes and it doesn't work at least then they would have kept the defense off the field a little bit longer um it's just so hard i think for the defense to be welcoming in all of these players be on the field for as long as they were and then the pass rush was just non-existent the vikings blitzed way more than they typically do with Mike Zimmer, and it still looks like they were occasionally rushing three people. It just made absolutely no difference. So I would definitely assign some blame to Kirk Cousins,

but first and foremost, I think it's got to go to the defense. So what's interesting about how these things play off of each other is that there were games last year that looked like this, but they didn't look like this on defense. So it really didn't make much this on defense. So it really didn't make much of a difference. And I'll give you an example is Washington. Against Washington early in that game, they really did not move the ball particularly well. I mean, for the whole night, they end up coming away with 19 points. Washington kind of kept everything in front of

them. I remember they played a lot of two deep safeties. Their D-line mauled the Vikings' offensive line earlier in that game, and it just didn't really matter. And because Washington couldn't move the ball themselves, then Case Keenum gets hurt. And so we come away with, oh, well, the Vikings kind of just kicked Washington's ass, and that was all there was to it. But if you were looking at this from if they had had even a decent offense and the Vikings struggled on defense,

that same offensive Vikings performance ends up being a problem. And I'll say the same thing for Detroit last year, the David Blau game, like their offense wasn't doing anything in that game for huge portions. And if you remember, Kirk Cousins threw it right into the groin of a linebacker right in front of him. Like one of the craziest throws that he's made since he's been here. It made no difference because David Blau was the other quarterback. I think that this year, we're not going to see any times where he gets away with, hey, there's four or five straight drives where nothing happens. How about I'll even go back to 2018 when they played the Lions at Detroit. The first half of that game, they do nothing on offense against a bad Detroit team, and it just didn't matter.

The defense shut them down, and they carried on and picked it up later on. So I guess I wonder what you think they're going to need to do in terms of an offense to be able to keep up, because I think what we saw yesterday was a very exaggerated version of what we're going to see a lot of other times this year. Sure. And first of all, that Washington game is the perfect comparison. I just went back and looked at it. It was 6-6 after Washington kicked a field goal of 157 left in the second quarter. The Vikings offense was doing nothing. And then, of course, just because this is how it always works, Kirk Cousins finished 23 of 26, 285 yards.

Looks like a very nice productive day for him. But something's got to change for the Vikings. It's either the defense has to drastically improve, to answer your question, or the offense has to be so much better than it was. And I just think it's hard to expect the offense to keep up with, you know, as bad as the defense looked when it's built the way that it is. The Vikings ran the ball more than any team in week one in neutral situations. This is just who they are. This is what Mike Zimmer wants them to be. He wants them to be one of the teams that

runs the ball more than anybody else. And, you know, in some situations, that's perfectly fine. The offensive line is better at run blocking than they are pass blocking. Dalvin Cook is one of the best running backs in the league. There's an argument for that. It's just not the right offense if you need to be winning games 40 to 35 or 35 to 30. So it's just hard to reconcile that the Vikings are going to be giving up probably a lot of passing yards and a lot of big plays on defense and then turn around and hand the ball to Dalvin Cook 25 times. He's a very special running back. He, I think, is one of the best in the league,

but this is not an offense built to keep pace with what the Packers did on Sunday. And so that makes me believe that the defense just has to 100% get a lot better than it is right now. Yeah. And so this is how I want to finish this off, Chad, is I want to go through the guys who had horrible games against the Packers, and I want you to tell me, will this change or will it not change? And you can use maybe some meter of whatever your choice is. But let's start with Holton Hill. Holton Hill was the lowest graded player by Pro Football Focus and really kind of avoided some of the, I don't know,

like getting destroyed by people on Twitter because Cam Dantzler, some of his mistakes were even worse than Holton Hill's, but on a play-to-play basis, it was a terrible day for Holton Hill. Will this get better for him, or should we be already talking about, hey, was it the right decision to start Holton Hill? For this one, I'll say I'm only slightly concerned. Holton Hill, I think, you know, you can make the argument that he was the best Vikings corner in training camp. His problem was way too physical, a little bit of Xavier Rhodes in him. You could see him picking up some really boneheaded defensive pass interferences throughout the season. So that gives me a little

bit of concern. It gives me a little bit of concern that the receptions he gave up, as you mentioned, were not like Dantzler, where he was in position, just didn't close the play. There was someone who was five yards away from Devontae Adams. And yes, Devontae Adams is one of the best route runners in the NFL, but you just have to be better than that. So for Holton Hill, I'll say slightly concerned, but not all the way there yet,

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Offer valid through september 30th i already want to turn this up on the like concern meter to maybe like a seven um because they have a lot of good receivers they're going to play a lot of good quarterbacks they're going to play and think about how tiny the sample size was of previous holton hill playing like Like it's what, I mean, maybe 30 targets. He got an interception against the Jets where Sam Darnold had no idea what he was doing. I mean, so we decided. And yet we all talk about him and write about him like he was the second

coming of 2017 Xavier Rhodes. Right. And then last year Mike Zimmer wouldn't play him at all, even when everything was in flames around him. So, you know, around Zimmer with the corners, I mean, and still he would not go to Holton Hill. So I think that the way that he got beaten so often just on, you know, Devontae Adams creating easy separation against him,

that could be a problem because he is on the taller side, but if you're facing quicker, smaller receivers, I think they're going to get open against Holton Hill. So unless, I mean, yes, of course he could turn it around. He could play much better. But already, I think we're saying, you know, oh, it's all the rookies, the young guys. But, I mean, here's somebody who hasn't been on the field a whole heck of a lot,

was not drafted, by the way. And that also says something, that even that even though you know he had his issues usually if you're great and you have issues you go like 27th and if you have a dog willing to shrug their shoulders if you're good enough right and if you have a ton of issues like Tyron Matthew did in the draft you go in the fourth round I mean if you're that talented so you know I guess I would turn that up probably a little higher than you would. I'm going to say, I think I know where you'll go with this, but how about Yannick Ngakwe with no help? If it's all on Yannick Ngakwe, because think about his best year is 2017, where the

Jaguars were as stacked as any team on the defensive line. Last year, the Jaguars take a few pieces away. All of a sudden, Ngakwe's not as good. Can he carry this thing, or are we looking at more of what we saw the other day? I just wrote down the exact same name because I wanted to get your thoughts on it because he played barely more than half of the game, didn't do basically anything for the Vikings. He hasn't practiced. I mean, September was the first month in 2020 that he was out of football practice.

It's going to take some time to, I think, learn everything in the system. It's going to take some time to get back into football shape. Part of, you know, what I think made it a good trade was that we all thought he was going to be paired opposite Danil Hunter, this dynamic duo of pass rushers. And now, you know, maybe Danil Hunter only misses three games, but until we actually see Danil Hunter practicing, I'm not super convinced that he's just going to return. He also has practiced like twice in all of 2020.

He didn't do anything in training camp. It's hard for me to imagine he's just going to show up one Wednesday and going to be plugged back into the lineup and dominating again. So I think this is higher than I ever would have guessed before the game. I would put this at a five or six maybe on the concern level, about the same as I am with Holton Hill, which I think is pretty high for a guy that you just traded thinking was going to come in.

And I thought for sure put up double-digit sacks. pretty high for a guy that you just traded thinking was going to come in and, you know, I thought for sure put up double digit sacks. And I've been just looking through Yannick Ngakwe's past and kind of how consistent he is with pressures. And, you know, I mean, every guy is going to have their ups and downs, but with Daniil Hunter, he consistently was five, six, seven to 10 pressures per game, rarely being shut down. And I look at Ngakwe, who is much more of a guy that on a week-to-week basis can be shut down. And then

other weeks he's going to dominate and shred the other team and get a few sacks and a strip sack and so forth. But not somebody who can really carry the load, but more of a complementary type of player. And I also think like the Jaguars are a mess. There's no doubt about that. One of the worst franchises in the league. At the same time, they didn't want to pay him a massive contract and the Vikings made sure that they could still franchise tag him. That means to me that they are not 1000%. This is our guy for long-term. So it is a little concerning. I don't know if I'd quite go to the same level because the guy does have a pretty impressive history overall of rushing the

passer. But I would say more like a four for me that he didn't play a whole lot and definitely didn't have an impact. And I think he was going up against a guy who usually plays guard who got moved over to tackle. So you saw that going in is, oh, this is going to be a guy who usually plays guard who got moved over to tackle so you you saw that going in is oh this is going to be a huge advantage for them and he gets one pressure it doesn't turn out to be an advantage at all I think maybe I wouldn't go quite as far as you but can this guy carry the load like an Everson Griffin would be able to I don't I don't quite know about that uh let me give you one more here, because there's other players that I think that we would just be like, yep, big problem, Jaleel Johnson. Like, I mean, he's just not a starting player, I think, in the NFL. He has a long way to go if that's going to be the case.

How about Irv Smith, though? One target on one catch after we spent months being like, dude, Irv, unreal in practice. Like, I don't know. Any concern there? Of these three, I think this one might be the least amount of concern for me. Just a weird, funky day for the offense. Couldn't really get anything going. I don't have a ton of concern with this one. I think Gary Kubiak does want to get him involved, especially, you know, outside of the red zone. We know, of course, that in short yardage situations, red zone,

they'll probably look to Rudolph more. But Irv Smith can be a bit more dynamic. I think without Stefan Diggs, he can be one of the players that you look to to create some sparks up the seam or down the middle. Only one target yesterday. That certainly was not what I expected for him in the first game. I think he definitely expected more. But his training camp was just so good that it's hard for me to think he could be making plays every day in training camp, and then when the season rolls around, does nothing. So still young.

The Vikings are going to use two tight end sets a ton. I think they used three more than I expected, even in week one. So I think he's going to get plenty of opportunities, and I think he's going to make plays. So I'm not too concerned about Irv Smith. Yep, I agree. But when, you know, the game's on the line, I think this is a guy that they have to look to and not Tajay Sharp.

So anyway, Chad Graff of The Athletic, you can follow him at Chad Graff. Or if you type in Chad Graff of The Athletic, his name will pop up. So any of those options will work. Chad, great stuff. Always great to catch up with you, man. Super fun to just have football back and we'll see what happens next time. I mean, you never know. So it's been a treat.

I guess I get to come on whenever the Vikings suffer a blowout loss or a record setting defeat after the opposition puts up more points in the Zimmer era than anybody else. So if that happens again, I promise you I'm right here on Monday. That maybe could be your brand is like to come on and break down every element of tremendously bad losses. And we'll see how many there are. Can you believe Cousins through this pass will just run it all back? Outraged Chad would be your new brand. So, well, I really appreciate it, man. And we will do it again maybe after a win perfect all

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