Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune Vikings reporter Ben Goessling looks into his crystal ball to predict the team's near future

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

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Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collin here and joining me on the show today from the Star Tribune, Ben Gessling, a throwback to our old podcast that we used to do, the original Purple podcast. In my first year, which was 2016, Ben, we spent many a day in that little lounge or restaurant. Carter's Cafe or whatever it was. And there were loud TVs and strange things happening at all times,

both on the field and in that cafe. So we're in a little quieter environment now, and I thank you for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. We have certainly leveled up in terms of our surroundings. Crazy things still happening. So we've got a little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. So I wanted to create a game just specifically for you that i get the

guys crappy quarterbacks um well it doesn't take that long to name all of them um so that won't make for a full podcast you can if you like but i created this game specifically with you in mind because i thought you'd like it because i believe it was 2017 that mike zimmer when asked about whether sam bradford would be returning said that he did not have a crystal ball yes okay yeah i think that came back a couple times that year uh-huh and stuff about was there a jinx on the team as i got into the playoffs too so yeah i believe also that a local what do you call them future teller uh sent a crystal ball to mike psychic psychic something is that what they are um so anyway i want to play the crystal ball game with you okay all right so this is going to work two ways i may ask you to look into your crystal ball or i may look into

mine okay and then we're going to explain how we're seeing the things we're seeing all right so let's start off with this one if i look look into my crystal ball and I see Andre Patterson coaching the Minnesota Vikings as the head coach, when am I looking to? I think you could be looking as soon as later this month, possibly, if you look at if they lose to Baltimore on Sunday, they lose to the Chargers, and then you would lose to the Packers at home. You are then 3-7, which effectively, though maybe not mathematically, eliminates you and would have the added embarrassment of you've just lost to your rival at home,

which was the juncture that the Vikings decided they needed to fire Brad Childress in the middle of the season. So it's possible you're looking that soon. There may be the comeback at that point of, well, it gets a little easier with the 49ers and the Lions and the Steelers. But the embarrassment, if that's enough for the Wilfs to finally say, you know what, this is enough, I think it's possible you're looking to the week of Thanksgiving. Yeah, I think losing three in a row here to make it four in a row

and having it start with Cooper Rush beating you on national television. And ending with Jordan Love? Maybe. We'll see. Maybe something about Rodgers will be in this crystal ball as well. Or maybe it's lying to us just like Rodgers lied to the media about his vaccination status. Maybe it's lying to us and then is going to come back and tell us that we got it wrong because it didn't say vaccinated,

it said immunized. Yeah. Because that's going to happen. Oh, for sure. Yeah, when he comes back, he'll be like, well, you guys just took it however you guys wanted to take it because Rogers, while very good at football, is one of the most obnoxious human beings walking around the planet.

That's like not a criminal. Yeah, very sensitive, very... Arrogant, I think, would also be another way to put it. Wanting to make things, keep things in a construct where he's always right. There's a lot of it, I think. Yeah, there's a lot of that in the NFL in general. Yeah, there is. Okay, whoa, the crystal ball is doing something, Ben.

It's making crazy noises, and it's shooting out smoke, and it's now showing that the Vikings have won the next two games, and now it's showing me Mike Zimmer is saying, quote, you guys doubted us. What is happening here? what had to have happened well they went into Baltimore and figured out a way to stop Lamar Jackson somehow as I look here on Wednesday I'm not sure I see how that happens but they Mike Zimmer reached into his bag of tricks came up with a game plan that did not allow Lamar

Jackson to run wild forced him to play in the pocket. They stopped some of the run plays. Michael Pierce came back that vaunted middle of the defense that they were trying to create with Pierce and Tomlinson held up. Pierce played well against his former team. They won the game. Then they went out to the West Coast. They took advantage of a young quarterback that may be able to get fooled by some things, likes to take some chances. They got a couple of picks. Bashaud Breland came back, had his best game of the season, got a couple of picks, handled it very graciously, and they won the game.

And now they're coming back home to face the Packers at 5-4. Playoff hopes very much alive. All you naysayers are eating crow at this point. Now, I think that these two things, maybe the reason the crystal ball is malfunctioning, is because they're almost equally possible. Yes, that's this team. That's the 2021 Vikings. You could sit there and say, and they did for the first few weeks of the season.

Wow. We're a couple of plays from being three and one or four and over or whatever. And you could also say there are a couple of plays from having one win. So yeah, they're both certainly plausible that this happens. I mean, it's,

it's the rollercoaster nature of being mediocre that we've been riding forever. And I was just writing something where I sort of said, like every time this team starts to feel like the icy cold reality that this someday will end, then all of a sudden they get a win where they can go, ah, see, we're actually good. It's just been exactly what has happened every year.

I mean, even when you think about 2018, where they were playing Miami and Detroit at the end of the season after they fired John DeFilippo. And we were thinking, oh man, you lose one of these two games and all of a sudden there's going to be people in big trouble. And then they win them just enough to get themselves that last chance. And even last year, boy, if you lose to Jacksonvilleville and carolina i mean this could be big changes and then they get wins in overtime and a last second field goal is missed but this is a different back against the wall i think because it's not jacksonville and it's not carolina and in 2019 it was the giants and it was detroit like the schedule makers said, not this time. The number of outs they have, to use a poker term,

are not as high against these teams, I don't think. And they haven't been very good at going on the road and playing consistently and winning these types of games. The fact that four of the next five are on the road, I mean, San Francisco is kind of, they're is kind of goofy and it's kind of a mess. It's hard to know what to make of that. At the beginning of the season, I thought as a game, they're not going to go out there and win that

because I thought the 49ers were going to be better than they've been. I thought the travel after the end of that stretch was going to be awfully difficult. It may still be that way, but maybe that one's a little easier than it has looked. But these next three may put you in enough trouble with the teams that you're going to have to beat. They just aren't going to make the types of mistakes that let you off the mat to the level that the Panthers did or the

Jaguars did, or even some of the teams we've seen, whether it's the Lions or the Panthers in recent weeks. We're not dealing with those types of teams here. So if they are able to make a run, they will have probably earned at least a little bit of the right to do the I told you so thing, which leads me to my crystal ball appears to be making some noise, making some chatter over here. It's taking us forward to March of 2022. We are sitting in the building through 2025,

I suppose it would be, ripping up the last year of next year's deal. How did we get there? Okay, so this means that what happened, what your crystal ball is showing us, is that the Vikings, let's even say they win two of the next three. They lose to LA, but they beat Baltimore, which I think is not crazy to think about. Baltimore has just had a lot of body blows this year to their roster. They have no running backs left.

Like Latavius Murray was showing up there. Do they have Le'Veon Bell on their team? They might have. I swear Le'Veon Bell is on this football team. Yeah, I think that's true. So it's been really weird with them. They've had Ronnie Stanley get hurt, offensive lineman. They've had some COVID issues as well. So they've got everything's a mess.

Let's say they go there, they beat them, and then they go out to L.A., lose, come back, they beat Green Bay. I think that's possible. And all of a sudden, that's the, okay, now season back on. And they fight through the rest of the year. We get some wins. We get some losses. Split with Chicago.

Maybe Green Bay wins the other one. the nfc is so bad trevor simeon falls apart in new orleans atlanta atlanta's really hard um san francisco never quite gets it back jimmy g gets hurt again and the vikings make the seven seed or the six seed at nine and eight. Yep. And then they say, you know, guys, if not for those first two games, which we should have won, we would have been 11 and six. And you guys doubted us, but Kirk proved that as soon as he was doubted by you guys, he fought back. Now, my question, though, for the crystal ball is, is his head coach the same, though Like who's introducing him the last time

Zimmer introduced a cousins for a contract was pretty funny. He's terrific in the boots. Yeah. Uh, but, um, who's the coach introducing him? Uh, it's Mike Zimmer in that scenario, I think, uh, because I don't think that if everything gets blown up that you're going to have a new GM come in here and say, we are extending Cousins. I would think that would either be something where you try to trade him and say, well, we'll eat the $10 million and start over, or you play it out and he becomes the bridge quarterback

to whatever is coming after that. So I think if the crystal ball is showing us the future that we are about to live in, it's that they have won enough games. They've gone to the playoffs and they've decided let's run it back. Let's keep everybody. If we put this all together, one of these years,

it's all going to hit. Okay. Let me ask the crystal ball then. Is there any way Mr mr crystal ball that cousins is the only one of the three that stays if cousins played well enough for them to say you're still our guy whoever the new general manager and head coach came in and they said no no we we like cousins and we want to have a franchise quarterback. We just believe that this team needs a better offensive line and a more offense-friendly head coach who's going to find ways to be aggressive

and who will go for it on fourth down. I mean, I think most general managers want to pick their quarterback, but I don't think that's crazy unrealistic that that could happen. Yeah, I think there's a possibility of that, especially if the next coach is from the Shanahan-Kubiak tree, kind of the one you've been in, but maybe somebody who is head coach material. How good of standing do we feel like Kyle Shanahan is in in san francisco because that would be a scenario

that i could it's a little bit of a stretch because i think you'd be more likely to go with the joe brady type or brian dable or you know somebody that's a little younger maybe coming through at the first time but shanahan has been to a super bowl if he was on the market i think you'd at least take a look at it. I think so, too. Kellen Moore certainly came to mind after the other night. I mean, we have to give him credit for a terrific game plan against the Vikings with Cooper Rush.

They didn't produce a ton of points, but they found ways to get the ball to their number one and two wide receivers, which can help you win some games sometimes. Sometimes. I might go ask Justin Jefferson, you know anybody you want to be your head coach? Because you're the guy who's going to be the most important to this thing. Now, wait a minute.

The crystal ball is changing a little bit here. It's changing. Yeah, it is changing. And it's showing me a trade of Kirk Cousins. Is there something wrong with it? Or is that a possibility, you think? I think your crystal ball, I don't think it's malfunctioning. I think there's a possibility that that happens. I think the scenario where we would see that is somebody says, okay,

we can restructure your deal. And Kirk says, yeah, I'll do that because I'm getting a fresh start. I don't want to have this be a one-year rental the Vikings only have to eat 10 million dollars they get all that cap space back it's probably a scenario where they're picking high enough it's not a great quarterback draft but they're picking high enough to say we can take somebody and develop them or we get the bridge guy and we do that a year from now we go go find our guy, and we take the cap space, and we try to retool the roster with that. And we've seen so many bad quarterbacks, whether it's Baker Mayfield,

probably not to quite that degree, but Jared Goff, Sam Darnold, and some of these are cautionary tales about you better get it right when you draft one up top. But I think they also are something of a reminder that Kirk Cousins is better than a lot of quarterbacks we see on a weekend, week out basis in the league. So there would be somebody, I think, especially if they can redo the deal, that would say, yeah, we'll take a flyer on that i i think it'd be somebody that is in this type of a scheme and would probably be happy to keep him for a year two three something like that so yeah i think your crystal ball could be right on that i think if you're a team that is horrific kirk cousins can get you to relevant yeah i think that's probably true and that's important i mean that really like if you're the hou Texans or the New York Giants,

the New York Giants, I mean, there was that graphic ESPN show the other night about through seven or eight games or whatever it was, and they've either had one or two wins every year going back. Yeah. And it was like they need an eight, nine-win season to get back to relevance and maybe, you know, in the future, I don't know if that's your franchise quarterback forever, but you need to play football games that matter at some point.

So your fans don't just completely give up on you. And there's like five franchises like that. I've also sort of circled New Orleans and Pittsburgh as two winning franchises that say we can't fall off. We can't drop back. We can't draft quarterbacks and then sit back for a couple of years because that's not how our franchises operate. Yeah. But that's funny, though, because the Vikings don't operate that way. Yeah, they certainly haven't. Right. They've had chances to drop back and they have said, no, we're not going to do it. And right now it's organically happening, which here's a question for you that's not exactly crystal ball.

But the two scenarios we laid out to start, the one where they get back in the race and they've got a chance to make the playoffs, and the one where everything falls apart. If we were to do a poll right now of all Vikings fans, let's say there's 2 million Vikings fans in Minnesota. I don't know what the real number is. How many are voting for they hope it falls apart i tend to think i mean that number probably from what we see on twitter we would think it's quite high yeah uh because that's

certainly the reaction we see on twitter is it's over just blow it up get everybody out of here let's start over i don't think in reminding ourselves and everyone else that twitter is not real life sure i think if you look beyond that i don't think the number would be as high as perhaps it should be i think there are still a fair number of fans especially casual ones that would say i just want my team to be relevant. If it means that we're in the playoffs and we have a chance, especially if the Packers are not as much of a juggernaut as we thought, and the Packers' playoff history in recent years certainly would suggest they're beatable even if they are that good,

I think there would be probably a fair number of fans who would say, yeah, I'll take a chance on that, and we'll worry about the rest of it later. Right. I think a lot of people would say, yeah, I'll take a chance on that. And you know, we'll worry about the rest of it later. Right. I think a lot of people would say, if you can get me to the playoffs, then get me to the playoffs. The way that I wonder,

give me eight and nine. Right. That doesn't do any good. Yeah. And we've seen that before. Eight, seven and one, eight and eight.

We've seen that. I guess that the thing that I think about is at some point, I remember saying you should make a decision on what you're going to do on these things and then stick with it no matter what. And not last year, I probably said that like the head coach, the quarterback, the general manager make a decision and don't be influenced by what happens

in green Bay, Carolina, Jacksonville, whatever. And clearly they were to stick with the same plan to not draft Mac Jones, to not make a legitimate effort to draft justin field to trade up for him and instead try to solve the left tackle problem through the draft uh clear that they sort of let seven and nine make that decision as opposed to

what they could have ended up being after going one and five uh i look at it the same way here because i think if you were going to tell me that they go nine and eight make the playoffs but you're still planning all the things you would have been planning anyway because you just can't keep being mediocre forever yeah I would I would endorse that because you always have a chance in the playoffs but if you're going to do the thing that it seems the Wilfs have been doing which is riding the wave week to week on whether they make a decision to change or not. I think that's how you end up just like being stuck in the middle and never being able to pull that trigger.

Yeah, especially given the number of teams in this league that are kind of right in the middle. And that's where the Vikings are right now that can beat you in a given week or get beat in a given week. You are going to win a fair number of games simply by showing up and having representative talent, which the Vikings still have enough of, I think, to beat teams like certainly the Lions, Pittsburgh. I think you probably beat the Bears once, if not twice. So that's seven right there.

And then maybe you pick one off against the Packers. And now you're talking about all we need is one more and we're in. So it's not that hard to get to eight or nine wins, even where this thing stands. I think you can craft a plausible scenario where you do that. The question is, if you do that, where are you really? Are you in a spot where you can take that thing from where you are to contending in a year's time? I'm not sure that they are, but it's also a question of how much that matters. Because if you stay in it, if you stay relevant, the brand is still going to be strong. They're still going to sell out the stadium. They're still going to do big ratings on TV. Training camp will have fans here. People will be spending money. All that stuff is still in the mix.

And I wonder how much they'd want to upset that if that's the scenario. I think the right thing to do is probably to say, let's look at it for what it is and let's move on. But, yeah, I do think that ability to say we are relevant has been the biggest thing that Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer have had going for them. The worst they've ever been is 7-9. They haven't gone through 2011 where it's three wins

and everybody's just embarrassed and everybody's tuning out. They've at least pretty much every year been able to go into December saying, yeah, it's not a great chance, but you turn on the playoff machine scenario thing and you flip a couple levers and change a couple games here and there and we're in the playoffs. Sam Ekstrom here, wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report. In an unfortunate situation like that, it's good to have someone in your corner. That's where Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer Law can help you understand your rights under Minnesota's workers' compensation laws.

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from Kemet, Sanford & Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. The one thing that we know about this, now this is where I differ from someone like Courtney who feels like the fans' undying support for them is in part a cause. I don't look at it that way. I mean, I think that fans will always get excited about the draft, free agency. They'll make big moves.

They'll be convinced that next year's our year because that's what every fan in the NFL does. I mean, you could go through all 32 teams before the season starts and make a case for 27 of them that everything they did in the offseason will work. And it's exciting. And by the way, football season is short and it's in winter and like look i'm not ever going to blame any fan for getting excited or wanting to come to their game or for loving their team i don't think that's that is not an excuse for the ownership to say we're okay with this mediocrity of going

eight nine nine and eight eight and eight nine and seven seven and nine all that stuff like that like you're not causing that if you go to games because everyone watches games in the nfl yeah everyone goes to games and all the money is shared through all the teams it's not like the twins for example who need the gate yep um so i think it's uh i i think that thinking is a little flawed like what i I'm saying, listener, is it's not your fault. Yeah, it's their fault. But you're right about the guarantee on the box to quote. What is that? It's a Tommy boy. Yeah. The guarantee on the box is if you stick with these people, you will event. I mean, you'll eventually end up sort of in the middle. My question is, though, if you're looking in the crystal ball and you see that they're no longer able to do that, I don't see any way you can stick with it

because that's been the calling card is we're always competitive. And I think these next few weeks could say to them, but not anymore. And then you end up with a Falcons, Dan Quinn type of thing where it's like, whatever you're doing, it's not working and tell me what you felt felt about the vibe around here this week well it it certainly seems like that loss has a different weight a different tenor than if you had lost to Dak Prescott I think if you lose to Dak Prescott you're saying okay we're three and four still in it. The 7th seed in the NFC is wide open. We're still right in the thick of that race. But the fact that you lost to a quarterback that had never started a game, that had thrown three passes in the NFL before Sunday night,

has a different feel. And Daniil Hunter being out, I think you look at what's coming and say, how in the world are we going to stop any of these quarterbacks without this guy? Because we saw it last year when they had no pass rush. They're not going to be that bad because I think Everson Griffin helps, but when people aren't focusing on Daniil Hunter anymore, how much does that change? I feel like between Monday and today, there is a surliness.

There is a little bit of a defensiveness that is different than what we have seen and probably would have seen had they just lost to Dak Prescott. I also think there's a feeling of, I don't know if it's being resigned to the fate, but it's like the fate becomes real. Yeah. You know? When you're 3-3, it feels like season is on and you could beat anybody you just caught a good break beat dallas okay now now we're going but

then when it's everything everyone said about us has been right yeah you know what i mean yeah then there's this if we don't win these next few it's over it's over for a lot of people here and it's over for this team's playoff chances and think about like the comparison of where we are to where they thought they were going to be at the beginning of the year I think there is a huge gap between what they thought about this team and what Mike Zimmer said at the very beginning of camp and what we have ended up with at three and four yeah or what he said in week four in terms of i've done this for 27 years i know good football teams this is a good football team uh the stats don't show it my experience

shows it all that stuff that we heard and really we've seen this two years in a row because we heard mike zimmer say at the beginning of last year we can win with this team i've never had a bad defense all that stuff and then after the season it was this is the best coaching job we've ever done. If we win seven, eight games with this team, it's going to be – I can't remember the words he used with Mark Craig, but something along the lines of we should get Coach of the Year votes. It's a miracle or something like that. So we've heard it now two years in a row, and the moves that they made,

signing Dalvin Tomlinson, signing Patrick Peterson, signing Xavier Woods, signing Nick Vigil, would suggest that they felt like we can win with this team this year or it's we have to win or we're going to lose our jobs. But nobody said, hey, the corners we have last year didn't work out. Let's try that again. Let's tear this thing down and try to rebuild and just play for three or four years from now. It was let's patch as many holes as we can quickly to try to win right now,

and they haven't been able to do it. And even Mike Zimmer's confidence level in training camp, he was in a great mood for a lot of training camp, and a lot of that seemed to be based on the fact that i have all these veterans that know what they're doing and this defense is going to be a lot better right and the defense of course has been better 12th is not that good and not only that but you've had a 31st i guess it is but you've had a very nice run of quarterbacks also true baker mayfield playing hurt jared goff being Jared Goff with no receivers, by the way.

His receivers got hurt in that game. And then Sam Darnold, who got benched the next week. And receivers that looked like they were allergic to the ball. Right. And then Cooper Rush. So now you face three. At least two of them are certified elite. The other one looks like he's on the track to be very, very good.

I'm assuming the one that's certified elite is uh certified covid free by then i suppose yeah i will right immunized they do this yeah this is a quite a stretch of unvaccinated quarterbacks that we're going to see here um but um oh what something as weird is happening now with the crystal ball you you're inside it what how did i get inside the crystal ball that's that's you knocking i don't know how that's gonna come out help me i'm inside the crystal ball now now i'm asking you how does this go how does this play out dear ben inside the crystal ball you can see it all now how does it happen how does it actually go what goes down the rest of the season i think they lose two of the next three i think they somehow beat the packers just to keep the

hope flickering enough so that puts them four and six they win a couple to get to six and six and then december january comes calling and what they have typically done in december and january has been to lose games where the defense looks worn out and they just haven't been able to close so I think they lose a couple they certainly lose to the Rams they lose one of the Bears probably they shouldn't because they tend to do that every year and they lose to the Packers in Lambeau Field so that puts you at eight and nine out of the playoffs. And I think that means the end for the brain trust. And you and I could have been in the same crystal ball because it's exactly

how I view it is they lose two of the next three. Yep. I mean, this team just has not beaten good teams in general. No, they haven't. They'll get one somewhere here, but lose two out of the next three, fight, fight, fight to the end come up just one game short of the playoff seven and ten eight nine uh some good moments along the way some bad moments along the way someone hangs from a truss in the final home game you know something like that something crazy happens along the way and we ultimately end up with a complete change of general manager and head coach and i don't know a quarterback i just i'm not seeing it's very cloudy but i think that a new general

manager there's a realistic possibility that a new general manager would say let's let him play out the last year of his contract and then i'll decide what we want to do from there yeah especially if you don't like the quarterback class and if if you're 8-9, it means that you're picking 16th, 15th, I don't know where. Not in a spot that you're going to go get somebody that's going to make a huge difference. So, yeah, you probably say in that scenario, I could see a scenario where you say, yeah, we'll ride it for a year, and then we get ourselves to a spot where we go take somebody after that. And there's going to have to be a lot of overhauling for whoever is running the team because of all the one-year contracts, and that's sort of what they set themselves up for.

And that's why you should always judge this as a win-now season and not a, well, hey, they're building for the future. Let's evaluate Kenny Willekes. That's not what this was meant to be. There's nothing about how this was built that would suggest this is built for the future. Nothing they did had the tenor of anything other than we need to win right now and we need to fix this defense because we don't have the talent on this roster to fix it. From what I have been told, they looked at their defensive line.

In their defensive meeting room this year, the depth chart had two guys that they believed were starting caliber players, Michael Pierce and Daniil Hunter. So all of the stuff about some of these younger players, maybe they develop on the fly, but they did not view these guys at the beginning of the season as starting caliber players in the NFL, which is why they had to go get Dalvin Tomlinson. They had to go get Patrick Peterson, all these guys. So yeah, this was built for this year. This was built to save face. And if it doesn't happen, you have to ask some pretty big questions about where you go from here. Did you enjoy the crystal ball game? I did.

I'm waiting for you. Yeah. It's a nice twist on guess the crappy i mean there's only so many crappy quarterbacks that we can guess so the crystal ball is an is a nice uh variation for the our game show loving portion of the audience which i assume is most of them anybody right anybody who listened to us back in the day we would end all the shows before games by having you guess the crappy quarterbacks from the opposing team so i just want to say say Kyle Bowler. Elvis Kerr back. Perfect. Perfect way to end it. So thanks for your time, Ben.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. We'll do it again soon. Sounds good. Folks, football season is in full swing, but we've got basketball and hockey getting rolling as well, and Soda Stick has got you covered. You have to see the Moose t-shirt designs for Marcus Foligno. You can also get your hands on the very

popular dollar bill Kirill shirts as well. On the basketball side, the design with three wolves howling at the moon, perfect for the spooky fall season. And the design with the wolf carved into the state of the Minnesota is just awesome. It's very cool stuff. And hey, for you college football fans, check out the Tanner Morgan t-shirts as well. SodaStick has tons of hats and hoodies with all their great designs on them. You will love it. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S O T A S T I C K. Check that out today. Use the promo code purple insider for free shipping and also follow myself and SodaStick on Twitter for our giveaways. All right, everybody, before we wrap up the show, I want to start something new here,

and I'm going to try to stick with this on a daily basis. And I apologize if I get off it. I know that sometimes I start bits and then forget that I was doing them, but we'll stick with this one. This is going to be called the final drive because there's so much madness around the NFL and we're so focused on the Vikings. I feel like I can't always get to the things that I want to share thoughts on. And so I want to go through these about two minutes,

each final drive, two minutes, get it right. Uh, and I promise not to botch the timeout situation or blame anybody else and say it was their fault that uh they didn't use the timeouts for the final drive and when we have some other guests we'll try it right where we give five opinions on things going on around the league and we'll do it in two minutes each so let's start here we we go. All right. First take is Aaron Rodgers lying about his vaccination status, or let's just say using extreme semantics about his vaccination status. It really seems impossible. And it is being proven more and more as we speak that the Green Bay Packers were breaking COVID protocols. And I guess what I wonder about this, as Aaron Rodgers is now set to miss a game against the Kansas City Chiefs,

which looks very winnable for the Packers normally since the Chiefs have played so poorly and they struggled to even get away with a couple of point win over the New York Giants. But now all of the sudden, the Packers may end up losing a game with Jordan Love because Aaron Rodgers decided not to get vaccinated and instead immunized himself, whatever that means. The other part of it, too, is that Aaron Rodgers always seems to have so much to say all the

time. He goes on the Pat McAfee show and he makes little cute videos when he's at odds with the team and stuff and goes on interviews and take shots at them. And yet for the first day after he tested positive for COVID, we have heard nothing from Rogers about why he lied about his vaccination status. And I'm sorry, using the word immunized is it's a lie. OK, if you're intentionally misleading, it's a lie. Now, here's the thing. I wonder, of course, about his health status and whether this could have a long term impact on him.

It certainly seemed to with Cam Newton last year. So he's sort of put their season, you know, maybe in jeopardy a little bit in terms of how he comes back from this. If he is symptomatic again, we haven't heard anything. And just before the clock runs out, let me say that the Vikings have also violated some of the same rules as the Green Bay Packers. And we'll see if there's any fallout there when it comes to players and their mask wearing. So there's, all right, there's our first take onto our second one. Odell Beckham is not going to play for the Cleveland Browns again this year, it seems. And I think Odell Beckham and his dad sending out videos of Baker Mayfield missing him on throws, uh, of course has handled this entire situation poorly. But I think this is what happens when you have somebody who is on a hall of fame track and becomes one of the biggest

superstars in the NFL and then falls off the face of the earth, whether it's due to injury situation or the league just figured out how to stop the guy better than they did early in his career. It's probably some combination of all of those that the offensive system is not necessarily built to throw to a number one wide receiver all the time. It's a lot of tight ends. It's a lot of crossing routes to whoever is open. And clearly there's some issue with Baker Mayfield getting on the same page as Odell Beckham. Even against the Vikings, we saw Baker Mayfield miss on the same page as Odell Beckham even against the Vikings we saw Baker Mayfield miss Beckham open several times but it also speaks to just how difficult longevity is

and have some appreciation for your Stefan Diggs and your Adam Thielens of the world because if you go back through NFL history you can find all sorts of Odell Beckhams, guys who had three, four great years and they reached superstardom level. And then they fell off for whatever reason. Guy who comes to mind is Andre Rison. Um, he had kind of a late career resurgence, but he was really hot for a few years and then slipped off kind of the face of the earth. Uh, Herman Moore had a few really great years and couldn't keep it up for a super long period of time. Those are some 90s throwbacks ones, but I'm sure that we could come up with tons of other

examples. Was David Boston one of these guys who had a couple of great years and then quickly fell off? I mean, that's what it says about the all-time greats, is that it's super, super hard to stay at the top. And then when a player falls off, it always gets ugly, and that's what's going on with Odell Beckham. All right, that was just over two minutes, so I ran out of time, and we couldn't run the field goal team onto the field because of me there.

All right, next take here. You can always tell when a team is lying when they use words before false so when they're denying something they'll say unequivocally or absolutely false that is the case of the miami dolphins uh when they were asked about potential trades for Deshaun Watson, their GM, Chris Greer said unequivocally, absolutely indubitably, whatever, whatever. Uh, it's pretty clear that the Miami dolphins were trying to trade for Deshaun Watson and very likely looking into the idea that he could pay off the 22 women who have accused him of sexual assault. And then when his hand was caught in the cookie jar, of course, and they couldn't work out a trade,

then now he has to look at his own quarterback, Tua, and say, no, unequivocally, absolutely. The Miami Dolphins have gone from a team that looked like it was on the rise, doing all the right things, drafting a young quarterback, trading for more draft picks, tearing it down, building it back up to a complete circus in the snap of the fingers. All of a sudden, they looked like a smart GM, a great head coach who was bucking the

trend of the Belichick assistant and how quickly it can all fall apart. And I don't know how they can look at their quarterback now, who, by the way, is only in his second season and has not been horrendous. I mean, you would think that Tua had been Josh Rosen, but I don't blame teams for looking for an elite quarterback to trade for. I do blame them for looking to a trade for a quarterback that has, like I said, 22 women accusing him of sexual assault. It doesn't

get worse than that. And I think that we'll have probably a regime change soon in Miami. All right. The New Orleans Saints on the trade deadline day did not make a deal. They had no cap space left, but did not try to make a deal. It seems for another quarterback. I don't understand why new Orleans does not have cam Newton on their roster at this moment. Now look, cam Newton last year for the new England Patriots was not great. He started off the season pretty good and he got them to seven and nine, seven and eight, I think when he was starting games. So a 500 quarterback on a bad new England Patriots team last year that had no weapons and a bunch of players sitting out due to COVID concerns.

And he still kind of grinded them to being in the playoff race. Well, the New Orleans saints are already starting off with a good record here and they're choosing to go with trevor simeon and tasem hill when he returns tasem hill he who is basically a special teamer slash tight end slash running back slash quarterback uh that didn't work really for cordell stewart in pittsburgh outside of maybe one or two years uh and he has no cordell Stewart, of course, Taysom Hill, uh, unless he's playing against the Vikings. And then you drew usually he is, but Cam Newton, you would think if they signed him, brought him in for three or four weeks and

did not play him, got him acclimated to the offense. This is a guy who's been around a long time that was Sean Payton as his head coach, they could come up with a pretty good offense that would at least keep them competitive. I don't see why Trevor Simeon is considered a better decision here than Cam Newton. Our team's really that afraid of Cam being a distraction. I mean, I mean, yes, he's kind of a a celebrity but i don't know what he's ever done that has put him on the map as somebody you just can't have on your team or that's toxic uh i think the new orleans saints are making a mistake there and that mistake could benefit the vikings assuming the vikings stick around in the playoff race all right Our final opinion on the final drive.

Let's quickly discuss Henry Ruggs. And he is probably out of the league for now, if not for a really long time, if not forever. He is facing some very serious jail time after a horrific accident that killed another person where he was going over 150 miles per hour, well drinking with a loaded gun in the car. And, you know, of all the things that have happened in NFL history, I'm sure you can think of many of them that have been tragic from, you know, Jerome Brown to, um, gosh, Lawrence Phillips. You can go through these guys. Dante Stallworth had a similar drinking and driving incident. I mean, this is life, right? That the NFL reflects society where people have problems with drinking and we have a very serious drinking and driving problem. But this might be one of the saddest because it was a guy who was emerging in his

career and was in such a dark place in his life that he was driving 150 miles an hour well way way over the legal limit and Derek Carr I think spoke eloquently about this saying that he just wished that Henry Ruggs felt like he could call him at three o'clock in the morning. And no matter how much NFL teams try to invest in help, uh, in mental health and things like that to assist their players, there's sometimes nothing you can do. Uh, and Henry rugs seems to be, I don't know the evidence of that, that he just felt like he was in such a, such a terrible, terrible place in his life, uh, that that's how he wanted to act. And it ended up costing someone else and not him. Uh, this is to me, one of the all time worst tragedies in NFL history is what's happened to Henry rugs. Who's again, his career might be over. And, uh,

that one, you know, some days you wake up and you look at Twitter and you see the seven worst things that you've ever read. Um, man, this one even hit different for Henry rugs because, uh,

the direction it seemed his career was going. And now who knows if he'll ever, uh, be on an NFL field, who knows how long he could go to jail for this. And it will be, of course, deserved. So there you go. The final drive where we will put together five straight opinions, two minutes each. And we'll do that hopefully at the end of every show, add a little extra element to the show. So thanks so much for listening and we will catch you next time.