Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer breaks down Brian Flores's gameplan for Kirk Cousins

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Matthew Coller and Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer deep dive on the Vikings defense vs. Kirk Cousins and much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Andrew Kramer of the Minnesota Star Tribune inside TCO Performance Center for another hardcore preview of a Vikings game. The 10-2 Vikings, Andrew, against the 6-6 Atlanta Falcons. But I had something happen to me that I have to reveal to you in the audience that is maybe concerning. So I was driving out here today,

just my usual come along, you know, and I got the radio on, and they're playing a little Guns N' Roses, and I'm like, you know, all right, great, great, great, and that little Nirvana, just the old school stuff, and then the next song pops up. And it was Creed. And I got concerned.

Is this a sign, Andrew, that the Vikings should be concerned about facing Kirk Cousins after I heard Creed on the way coming here? Like after all the, yes, yes, you should be concerned. I'll just, that was an excellent setup. I loved every part of that. You should be concerned.

And the Vikings, I think, are at least talking themselves into being concerned because they know Kirk Cousins can do the comeback from the dead act. He's done that before. And as we talk about Sam Darnold being so resilient, it kind of conjures up thoughts of how Kirk kind of went through his career, especially early on with Mike Zimmer and some of the ups and downs in those seasons that they had. And then obviously in that 2022 season with Kevin O'Connell, where they won 11 one score games, that remains a record. So yeah, you should be worried this guy, even though he might look

dead, he can pull the undertaker and just pop up out of the coffin like he's done before. Because somehow between week one, when everybody wrote him off in this past week, when everyone's writing him off in the middle of that, he had a 500 yard game and primetime. So he's still got something. He can pull it out every now and then. And I think coming back to Minnesota, why not for him? I think this is going to be a game he's been looking forward to and had circled for some time. And they did have a run of four wins in five weeks that got them to this spot. And some of them were a little wonky as it always is with Kirk Cousins, including one where the game was over against Philadelphia. They found a way to come back. Philadelphia just decided it was over

and opened the door. And we know thatirk is capable of any comeback which the vikings will have to keep in mind here but my thing with their offense is they could have allow me receivers wide open oh god oh god over the middle am i right i mean it's look they they they have good weapons. And here's what we've seen. When Brian Flores' defense this year, the 2024 unit, plays against a veteran quarterback, throws short passes to good weapons who can break tackles and make plays.

They could stay on the field for a long time, and then at the end of the night, Kevin O'Connell's talking about, yeah, we only had 50 plays out there because the other team had the ball all day long. If I'm Atlanta, that's what I'm trying to game plan against the Vikings. How can we stay on the field for really long drives? Because Arizona did it to him and then one fumble. And all of a sudden, you're not seeing the football for a whole half. Yeah. And I think Bijan Robinson is where that starts, right? You mentioned the talent Atlanta's got. To me, it starts with him. You look at how James Conner was used by Arizona and how he got things going against this Vikings defense. I think Ivan Pace being out was something that once Stephon Gilmore went out, it was easy to forget. They were also missing one of their best run defenders in the middle of the field. And so if you're Atlanta, you're coming off a bad Kirk game. This is going to be a little bit of what Kirk was used to in Minnesota. Let's run the ball. Let's get back to more of the basics,

get him under center if he can with that Achilles and get him moving in the boots as we often talked about. So this Vikings run defense needs to play better than they did against Arizona. Jerry Tillery got targeted. The weak side linebacker, whether it was Metellus or Grugier Hill got targeted. They went after the backsides of the formations quite often against this Vikings defense. Arizona did. So Atlanta's going to see that. And Bijan is a much better running back, even with James Conner being as solid as he is. So that's the concern if you're the Vikings, is stop the run, force Kirk to beat you. And yeah, you're right. You've seen some quarterbacks have success against this team. The catch and run types, forced Kirk to beat you. And yeah, you're right. You've seen some quarterbacks have success against this team.

The catch and run types, the tunnel screen type offenses. I think the Vikings tried to play more man to man last week against Arizona in an effort to combat that. But then they also ended up chasing guys down the field all game. And Stephon Gilmore strains his hamstring. So it's a give and take for this defense and the age that they're carrying right now, Matt. But I do think that stopping Bijon's got to be the number one priority. Well, and as far as the just concerns go, yet Bijan is having a great year. He's becoming the running back that people thought he could when he was drafted high.

The other thing is, can you take my snap counts higher? Do-do-do-do-do-do. You can do this all podcast. guys are out there playing all game 82 snaps for some players last week that's a lot they chased around caleb williams into overtime they chased around kyler murray in a high stress environment and had to come up with big plays it's amazing what jonathan grenard did chasing him down but also and had to come up with big plays. It's amazing what Jonathan Grenard did chasing him down, but also he had to chase him down. Like there's a lot of effort that has gone into these last few games defensively. And you mentioned the man to man Shaq Griffin

playing one of his highest snap counts of the year last year, playing against these wide receivers, Fabian Moreau had not played and then had to come in and play some really high leverage, high difficulty reps. And now you've got a running back who's tough. You've got Drake London, who's good after the catch. And Kyle Pitts may show up in a football game at some point this year. But I think that the way that Atlanta is being talked about as if like, oh, Kirk's just going to throw four picks and you just pull them out and then we don't have to ever

think about this again. I just don't see it going that way because of some of the smaller edges that Atlanta has, like the fact that the Vikings had high stress games recently on defense. Yeah, that's a good point. It is a good point because this is an older defense when they are, I think statistically the fifth oldest roster in the league. Much of that is defensively because their core on offense is pretty young. But defensively, you've got pretty in their prime or past their prime with Harrison Smith. And when Gilmore's in there, it's going to be Fabian Moreau is a 30 year old. Also not somebody who's in his prime at this point.

So they're an older defense. I do think that wear and tear matters quite a bit. And you've got O'Connell talking this week about Grenard saying, we've got to be mindful of this guy's workload. They've got him and Van Ginkle at 81% for the season. Grenard's 640 snaps are already more than he ever played for the Texans in a single year. And we've got five games to go. So that just shows kind of what he's going through right now. And he was sick last week. He was gotten through that at the end. So it shows what he's capable of doing, but you don't need to ask too, too much of him in a game where it's going to be a pocket passer.

And that's the point I want to get to. If this Vikings team's got an edge on defense, it's getting after quarterbacks who can't move around very often. They've been beaten by guys who are more mobile, even spurts in games, whether it was the second half of Jordan Love, certainly the Matthew Stafford game where he was able to spin out of the pocket and throw a dart. The way Stafford got around from Grenard, that one touchdown he threw was just ridiculous. I don't think Kirk is doing that. I don't think he's capable of doing that at this point. The Vikings have more of a sitting duck target,

which for Flores' pressure schemes and for guys like Grenard, that's a lot better than Kyler, where you need to worry about taking the wrong false step because you might open a lane for a 30-yard run. Isn't it crazy how many first overall picks the Vikings have played against that quarterback this year? I mean, Kyler Murray last week, and he showed every bit of that talent throughout that game. Caleb Williams, the same thing. Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford. They've played some very physically skilled quarterbacks that have given them problems and that is the difference is that not only is Kirk the least mobile

quarterback in the league but also probably has the worst arm strength at this point because he clearly cannot drive off of his legs in the same way that he used to be able to do you know how many rushing yards Kirk Cousins has this year i do not don't you take yes oh um four zero ah i'm still wrong not a one now some of it might be victory formation a couple of kneel downs but still you might add a four yard run on there not a one so i don't think they're gonna have to rush from wide and make sure to keep stay in your rush lanes this week boys he might do nothing uh here's where i think the advantage is so we talk about the disadvantage of him being able to get the ball out quickly he's getting it out quicker than ever before in his career and that might be because they run zero play action also but uh where the vikings advantage

is is you know exactly where he's going to be standing when he throws the ball. They also understand from years of him being here that up the middle rushes cause him the most problems. And this team sends its blitzes up the middle. Blake Cashman, Josh Metellus, they will miss Ivan Pace. He was their best up the middle rusher. But Jamin Davis ran a couple times at Kyler murray in that game they could use him a little bit more they know the disadvantages of that quarterback they know the weaknesses of that quarterback and if you are trying to defend the short underneath stuff because he can't throw it deep down the field like he used to i think that they can use some of those looks where they drop

people back that you don't expect into short zones this seems like an andrew van ginkle interception type of game doesn't it where they just kind of need to trick him on a blitz once or twice and can cause a turnover van ginkle's due too it's been a minute it's been almost two months now why don't you try andrew what have you been doing what have you been up to getting sacks uh getting pro bowl votes um i i do think that this this seems like a game where they could get into Kirk's head. Certainly, they know how to do that. Flores practiced against him for an entire summer and throughout last year. So, yeah, there's a lot of familiarity.

And I think Kevin O'Connell, being inside Kirk's head for those two years together, running this offense, also has a lot to offer his defensive coach. So I think that's part of it. I think when you look at Kirk and that inability to push the ball downfield, that kind of plays into the Vikings hands a little bit because they've played with such a cushion back because again, they're an older secondary. They don't want to bump and run. They don't want to be chasing guys downfield a ton. If they don't have to worry about that as much, they might get lulled into sleep a little bit, but if they don't

have to worry about that, they might be able to jump some more passes, make some of those more plays on the ball that you're talking about. If this is truly going to be a Falcons offense that wants to dink and dunk, not run as much play action. I haven't looked at the numbers. So I remember at the beginning of the year, they weren't doing that. You're saying they're still not doing that throughout this year. No, correct. Yeah. I believe that overall they have the lowest play action percentage because it just requires him to move so much on a leg that obviously doesn't work right anymore. I mean, we've seen him and it's not that Kirk was ever mobile, but he could move himself on those bootlegs. You look at when he would roll out and he could throw on the run to his left. He was good at that. Yeah, He was legitimately good at that. Now he can't do it at all. I do wonder, are they actually going to blitz him or is this the game where Brian Flores says, you know what? We're blitzing. Never. We're just going to play coverage and we're going to say, you know what, Kirk, you're going to get the ball out fast either way because you don't want to get hit. So we're going to have more people back there because if they blitz a lot, he was

throughout his career, good at picking apart blitz a lot, he was throughout his career good at picking apart blitzes and they would know that. So is it going to be more just about deception and then dropping people and forcing him to work his way through progressions and stay in the pocket and not get nervous that he's going to get hit? I think that would be maybe some of my strategy would be to show a lot of blitzes and try to get him to get rid of the ball quickly, but then really be throwing into coverage. Absolutely. Yeah, I could see that happening because with a four man rush, you're not worried about those guys breaking contain. You're not worried about him breaking loose. As you mentioned, I do know one thing. Flores is not going to do all

one thing or all the other. This guy is going to it's variety is going to be the spice of everything he does. They are going to throw some blitzes at him. They're also going to sit back and drop eight and just rush three. Then they'll rush four. Then they'll do a zone blitz with four. And then they'll rush five. It'll just be this different change every single time. And that's what he's always won with, which is these off-speed pitches that quarterbacks aren't expecting. So I think overall, though, you're saying the arcing strategy could be to sit back there and let Kirk try to decipher it.

And also maybe just run those zone fire blitzes you're talking about where you're not knowing is it Van Ginkle dropping is it Grenard is it going to be Cashman in the middle and then where am I going to throw hot here trying to get the ball out against this pressure that could be the strategy that they seem to take against guys like Aaron Rodgers another aging quarterback coming off an Achilles tear. If you're a very smart football brain, you say simulated pressures. Sorry, sim pressures. Oh, yeah.

Well, that's even if you're even smarter. I try to speak English for fans. Sim pressures. I suppose jargon makes you sound cooler. They do have a lot of those, though, in the bag where they're actually sending four. But where those four are coming from is hard to decipher. And that actually got Sam Darnold a couple times last week.

Those are really hard to go against. And I think that we're going to see a ton of them from Brian Flores this week. Now, on the other side of things, OK, it was a tough first half for Sam Darnold, tough first half for the Vikings offense. Second half, Darnold looks like a star quarterback overall over three weeks. There are a few players in the NFL played better than Sam Darnold in these last three weeks. Does it continue? Do you think there's a Darnold coaster? Because with Kirk cousins, the experience we always had was if he just had his best game, you're going to be shocked that the next game is going to be his worst. If he just had his worst game, his best game is right around the

corner. I don't know that that's true for this version of Sam Darnold. I would have guessed it was before the season, but it just hasn't been. He has been one of the most consistent quarterbacks in the NFL this year. Yes. I know you can all point to a game that he played bad, two games, Jets and Jaguars, but how many quarterbacks in the NFL can say they have a hundred quarterback rating or better and have been graded well by PFF on 90% of their games this year? Is that who Sam Darnold really is, or is there a regression on the way? No, I think we're seeing who Sam Darnold really is, or certainly who he can be when he's playing at his best. And as you mentioned, every quarterback goes through lulls. Every player will go through bottom points in a season where they're not playing their best for Joe Burrow at September

every month. For Sam, it seemed to be just that little October stretch. For Kirk, he plays best in October. So it's just different for everybody. But with Sam, we're seeing this three-game stretch that to me has shown that this guy is capable of coming out of that doldrum in Jacksonville like he did and has really been able to string together his three best games as a Viking. When you put together just what is the three best sample size of games he's put together, this is it. And he's capable of it. And I think everybody can fall apart on any given Sunday. But this is the backing, the wind beneath his wings, the consistency, the foundation, whatever word you want to use. He has never had this kind of

standing in the NFL where getting knocked down allows him to bounce back so quickly. He's never had it before. It was some other phase of the game, the defense, the run game, the receivers will let him down, the coaching. When it was in New York or Carolina, he's always had something to kind of aid his failure. This is a situation where he's got so many things working for him and so many areas of his team playing well, including the talent around him on offense, that that is going to continue to allow him to play like this. I will say Raheem Morris scares me. The Falcons defense scares me. They played really well against the Chargers last week. Jesse Bates is one of the best safeties in football.

Matthew Judon is better than any rusher at Arizona just tried to throw at you. And Raheem Morris is one of the best defensive coaches in football. Just like you would respect Jonathan Gannon with Arizona is one of the better defensive minds in the game right now. So this to me is a tougher challenge in the Falcons defense for Sam Darnold. And if he isn't playing as well as he played on Sunday, especially in the last quarter and a half where he won them that game, then they might lose this game. And we might be talking about, was that another Sam Darnold letdown? There is an interesting stat with Sam Darnold, and I don't know if it means anything or not, but his statistics in December for his career have been by far better than any other month.

I don't know if there's anything to that or not. Sam Sember? Yeah, sure. That works. But it's crazy the difference, how much better. Now, he had a good run with the Jets in December and then 2022, which was a part of the Vikings signing him. He had that good run at the end of that season, and those played into it.

But I don't think he is a quarterback that peters out as he goes late into the season. Some of that's probably physical. He's just very physically talented. He's not someone who's going to get tired of throwing the old pigskin or whatever, running around or taking hits. He is built for this, for a guy who can play the whole season. He's had some injuries in his career, but he has that physical build. And it really comes down to what I've wondered about the most is he's never been here before. He's never been in a situation where he's on a winning team with a ton of pressure and a ton of expectations. And last week when he got the ball with the chance to go score, thank you, Jonathan Gannon for allowing that to happen. But when he got the ball, it's like, I'm not going to judge everything on

one drive. Things could go wrong. You know, somebody could sack him or a ball could get tipped or something. But I just wanted to see like, how does he respond? How does he look out there? It's at home. It's a good team. Arizona's good. The crowd is kind of on the edge of their seats and everything, and you know if they come up short, then it's going to be, well, Darnold had that bad game, and they're not that good. And he was absolutely nails.

And you did a piece on that, looking at every play from that drive. The last two weeks, the big-time drive was so impressive from Sam Darnold. That's where when we talk about, is he going to regress? Is he going to lose confidence? And then we ask him about it and he's like, yeah, just having fun. And it kind of looks like that. It doesn't look like there's any bit of a rattle to Sam Darnold. These guys have to become such robots.

And we say that in a negative sense when it comes to a guy like Kirk Cousins, who we'll see on Sunday in terms of, oh, he's so methodical, robotic. He's not instinctual as a quarterback, and that's a bad thing. But with Sam, this roboticness that they're trying to put into him, robotics, whatever you want to say. Roboticism. Roboticism. They're trying to make him just kind of think of just the play, just the play. Do not think of the situation. Do not think of all this stuff. And Kevin O'Connell directly drew a comparison or illustrated that line of thinking into one play of his. And I believe it was the second and 14 throw for 30 yards to Justin Jefferson on one of those scoring drives in which O'Connell talked about as a quarterback, you're thinking, let's just get to a manageable third down. Let's not try to force

anything. And he said, Darnold wasn't thinking about, I mean, you're aware of the situation, but he wasn't worried about it and firing a pass into a tight window for a 30 yard gain. It was an 18 yard pass that went for 12 yards after the catch. That's the kind of throw that, that showed O'Connell that this guy is not too over-consumed or overwhelmed by the moment. And that's, that shows you that he's not, that in those little sample sizes, those little tiny plays, that he's not thinking, we're down three scores, we've got to come back. We're down two scores, we've got to come back. And that's the kind of mindset you have to have in the physical build of a third overall pick and the talent he's got

to fully unlock all this. Because it was the mind with Sam that was missing. That was the piece that they needed to kind of align to get the most out of this quarterback whether you were the Jets the Panthers the Niners are now the Vikings and the Vikings are doing it and credit O'Connell credit Darnold for not being a broken mental guy by the time he got here by the time he's here at this point now 13 weeks into the season he's got that that resiliency that we keep saying that shows it. And it's those individual plays that bear it out. When he strings that together for three straight drives to end with three scores to win that game, that's why we're talking about this guy as a true NFL quarterback

and why we're not going to be shocked here come March when he signs somewhere for $40-plus million probably. Okay, let's go down that road in a minute so we can continue to talk about this game and then we'll get to that but i've been asking people this week for a story i'm working on about his arm talent and what it means not just what it is we all see what it is and talk about confidence his confidence is clearly growing in not just throwing it he always loves to throw it but it's when and where and the right

decisions to throw it. When is it that I can make that tight window throw and the throw to Addison? I watched it back probably 15 times from three different angles because it was one of the best throws I've ever seen in my life, especially from our angle in the press box where we could see where that defender was when he was making that decision. And even Wes Phillips said, they're all going, ah, oh yes. Great throw. Good job. But it was intentional. He talked about how in practice they've played that coverage against that route. And he knows in the space of where to throw it, he was throwing to a spot, not just seeing something and say, oh, let me, let me whip it here. He was executing what he's supposed to do. It just turned out to be a crazy great throw because the defender played it

well, getting depth and getting back there. Normally I'm, I think that the plan is to have that underneath defender sitting 10 yards away and you just throw it right over him. But he sensed where the play was going and Darnold still was able to fit that in. And he made a joke like, I don't think the guy's got a 50 inch vertical, so why not get it there? But he talked about making that throw over Harrison Smith in practice over Josh Metellus. Yeah, you're right. But him understanding since that Jacksonville game, when I'm supposed to do that and whip it into a spot. And there's been a couple other plays that have been in the red zone where he's just thrown it out of the back of the end zone. You go, that's a great job there. And I

think that's the progression of him. And if he doesn't go back to that, I got to force it in. I got to make a play. I'm on the move. Watch this. And one other thing about that is his clutchness and so forth. This was part of his reputation coming out. This was part of the reason why he was such a highly regarded prospect is because when he was at USC, he would be having the worst game. They would be beating him up and everything. And then he'd lead a game winning drive. And I went back and just reviewed some old scouting reports.

All of them say that about him. So this is what he was supposed to be. What we're seeing is what he was supposed to be. So I guess we can transition to the other part of the conversation. That's what makes it tough. If it was Case Keenum, if it was some journeyman who's just having a great year, we would say, hey, congratulations to you for having this great year. Now on to the next thing. But the fact that you go back and read every scouting report of what type of quarterback he was projected as, we're seeing it in front of us this year. Yeah, we are.

We are, and it makes it tough for the projection of, is this guy going to continue to do this? Was this lightning in a bottle? You have a one-year sample size now of him doing this. And as you mentioned before, he hasn't been in these totally high-stress December playoff caliber into what he will be eventually playing in real playoff games coming up here. Has done it yet and if he continues this level of play through that you as a front officer any GM around the league still has to sit there and say okay that was one year we still want

to look at his whole body of work he still had 60 starts before that what did he do in those and so that's gonna you know it's gonna confuse and confound the evaluation for a guy like Sam when the Vikings are the ones who are here. They see, they understand every little bit that he did and didn't have involvement with this 10 and two record currently and whatever it ends up being. So they're the team that's going to know best whether or not to extend him, keep him. I still don't think that's going to be the case. I think they have a financial outlook for a rookie quarterback contract. They put all the work into JJ McCarthy for a reason. They're not going to move off of it because of two knee operations at this

point, although not ideal. And I think Sam would have to win the Super Bowl for them to truly consider or maybe even be forced at that point to keep him, which would be, as Quasey likes to say, champagne problems. I know that's not a Creed uh, a creed lyric. Um, but I do think that Sam has shown the league that he's worthy of this. And it's just a question for the Vikings of how, you know, what's that threshold that he has to reach before they go, well, we can't move on from this. Yeah. The, the chiefs Viking super bowls, when you make the Taylor Swift, uh, reference, uh, because I don't think people will be talking about Len Dawson versus Joe cap or whatever at that point. But this decision is being made harder every week by Sam Darnold.

And we have five games left and that's a third of a season almost to look at how he performs down the stretch in the biggest moments and the biggest games because great quarterbacks that are worth 45, $50 million usually play. Maybe some in the league don't always play this well, but, uh, usually play out of a 17 game season, 13, 14, really good games that give you a chance to win. Uh, that's why paying Kirk that much was a bad idea for the Atlanta Falcons because he was never a complete season quarterback. It was always a good month here, a down month there, a big game win there, a big game loss there. It has to be consistent from Darnold. And it doesn't mean I need five straight phenomenal Joe Montana games, but you got to win maybe what three out of the next five

play well enough to win in those games. Play well in a game right here. Your team is a little bit more banged up than usual. They've had to grind like crazy to get a five game win streak. It's been high stress. Go out there and play a big game and send Kirk back home with a message that they made the right decision, right? Like this is one of those games that you kind of hinge on a little bit. Green Bay at the end of the year. That's one that I've had circled the whole time. How do you play in that game?

Because you know how big that's going to be to the standings, to the belief in the team, to belief in you as a quarterback. These are the type of games that forge that not necessarily against Tennessee on the road, but more of this type of game. And if he continues to do that, then that discussion becomes harder and harder. And it is a good problem to have because half the teams in the league don't have a single quarterback, but we can equate it to Baker Mayfield and Gino Smith. He's been better than those guys. Like the only similarity is just, they were all high picks who had to go somewhere else. But if we compare it, you could see with Baker, ah, what's the ceiling. You can even see with with Baker, ah, what's the ceiling?

You can even see with Geno, ah, what's the ceiling? The ceiling right now is that they have one of the 10 best passing games in the league and a 10 and two record. So I don't know. I just think he's making it really hard on him.

Yeah, unequivocally, Sam Darnold has to do more for his team than Geno or Baker have to. Those two don't have the best running games, but they have running backs, whether it's Bucky Irving or Ken Walker, that those teams want to lean into a little bit more than the Vikings want to lean in to Aaron Jones.

Aaron Jones has 1,100 yards from scrimmage, but he's also a big part of their passing game. They ask Sam Darnold to obviously feed him as much as they feed Jefferson at times or Hawkinson or all these other guys. So they ask Darnold, though, to score, too, and that's the biggest difference to me is that Sam Darnold though to score too. And that's the biggest difference to me is that Sam Darnold has to be a red zone surgeon for this offense in

a way that other quarterbacks don't have to at that similar rate. They don't rush for a lot of touchdowns that puts more on the quarterback. Um, that, that to me increases how impressive this has been. It increases the difficulty level that Sam has had to achieve here in Minnesota. Whereas some people might look at it as, Oh, well, he's got a bunch of weapons. That's really has been. It increases the difficulty level that Sam has had to achieve here in Minnesota, whereas some people might look at it as, oh, well, he's got a bunch of weapons. That's really an easy thing. I've used the phrase of he's driving a Ferrari really well. He is. It's a lot of good skill talent, but they're also asking a lot of him in it. It's not a simple offense. It's not just a run the ball and then play action shot deep downfield type offense. Arguably,

what Sam's doing here right now for the Vikings is harder than what Kirk had to do initially when he came into the Vikings, at least under the Kubiak. The Dave Filippo thing was a mess. But under Kubiak, they made it really easy for him. Mike Zimmer wanted it to. They didn't want to put a lot on him, and they didn't. Now this Sam first year, Kevin O'Connell said, you know what? I got a way of doing things. We still can't run the ball. Let's continue to lean on that quarterback. And Sam has answered the bell. So yeah, when you compare him to these other guys, these other retreads that have emerged on other teams, he's been more of the guy. And now each of these games is going to get more important. When you look at into December and obviously into January, the Vikings have two NFC losses. The Eagles have two NFC losses. If you are of

the most optimistic viewpoint as a Vikings fan and you want that number one seed, you still also got to ward off the Eagles in some event that you get on top of Detroit. You need to win these NFC games and most of them are NFC games. All of them are from here on out. Correct. Yeah. And when we talk about him versus Ginoino or baker i just look at those guys for this last couple years where they've emerged as still being pretty inconsistent they're seven and five and six and six like they're kind of 500 quarterbacks and i know it's complicated and a lot of things go into that but that's just who they are one week gino smith can be unbelievable then the next week you don't know what you're getting.

Darnold's consistency has set him apart through this year. It's not his whole career. It certainly isn't. But through this year, it set him apart from those guys to be leading a 10-win team. When it comes to that old run game, Aaron Jones' mom is yelling at him. Everybody's mad that Aaron Jones fumbled, including him. His mom. His mom.

Yeah, that was in his press conference yesterday. Talked about how his mom said he deserved to be benched. And well, who could argue with that? The run game in general, though, at least it still exists. They were able to get an explosive run from Cam Akers. Overall in the game, Aaron Jones didn't carry the ball much, but got four and a half yards of carry. I don't think they should be afraid to use it a little bit more against the Atlanta Falcons

and try to have longer drives against Atlanta because you know that the other team strategy is going to be run the ball, throw short, stay on the field forever. You might have to fight fire with fire a little bit there and stay patient with the run game, which has always been a struggle for Kevin O'Connell, but you may need it in this game. Also, Kevin's got to be a head coach and help the defense. Exactly.

When you're talking about 80 snaps against the Carls, the Carls just kind of did that. They went into that game against the Vikings and said, we're going to dink and dunk, run the ball, we'll take some first downs, and just try to – at one point they had the ball for like 30 of the 46 minutes or whatever it was. It was some insane amount to start that game.

That defense was exhausted, and the head coach has to realize that, has to understand that how he calls the offense, and he understands this, affects the entire team. And this is the point in December when you might want to maybe pivot a little bit and lean more into that ground game. Aaron seems somewhat healthy. He's not on the injury report. The ribs haven't been on there for two weeks. He's never blamed that for the fumbling issues. He's instead said it's weird body placements and getting the ball punched out in quote unquote weird body placements, which just means that as he's falling to the ground, he's had it punched out and been

unlucky. So I think overall, that's not a huge concern. So give him the ball, feed him, lean into him, let ask Sam to do a little less as I was just talking about how much you're asking him to do. And then, yeah, I do think longer drives are going to help this defense get more out of them because it's been remarkable how they've been closers all year. I think it's 14 takeaways in the fourth quarter or overtime, most in the NFL. Only the Steelers have double digits, so they're way far ahead of the rest of the NFL other than Pittsburgh. They're still able to do that,

even though I'm sure if you looked at their average plays per week, it's got to be pretty high. Oh, yeah. No, for sure. And I was thinking about simulated running game. So we talk about the simulated pressures. How about simulated running game? So we talk about the simulated pressures. How about simulated running game? It's called TJ Hawkinson.

It's called the receiver screens. We're seeing teams do it to the Vikings where they're running tunnel screens and stuff like that. They did it to Justin Jefferson and got what, like a nine yard gain or something. A nine yard gain is good. I mean, that's a positive, successful play. I, and Kevin O'Connell so often wants to hit the big play, but if it's not there, and this is what they did, I think better in the second half against Arizona was get the ball in the hands of Jefferson,

get the ball in the hands of Addison, especially TJ Hawkinson underneath. And you're just moving sticks. Those plays are 90% completion percentage. If you throw a little five yard into TJ Hockinson and he sits down between the linebackers, it gets eight yards. What does that get completed? 90% of the time, the same with a little bubble screen to Jordan Addison, who's very shifty and can get seven, eight yards. I mean, how about the one in Chicago? They threw it out to him. It wasn't even a good pass. He just dodged a guy, got some yards. Like he's good yards after catch. I think they need to focus a little bit more on some of that than just always looking for those big 25 yard deep in route to Justin Jefferson. And that's, that's the cat and mouse game that they play,

right? Cause when I think of that comeback and breaking it down play by play, Kevin O'Connell talked about a repeated play call he had made in there where one of them was a 26 yarder to Jordan Addison I think it would have been on the field goal drive late in the game and they had run that play earlier in the game and it was a dig route with Jefferson instead of Addison they had missed an opportunity though the first time they ran it I guarantee they saw it on the little tablets on the sideline which is why they ran that play back where those linebackers crept up on the underneath stuff that you're talking about, where Hawkinson just did his little hitch route, was right there at the sticks. Those linebackers jumped up, left the dig wide open. The play blows up because of protection.

Darnold has to scramble, does not get the ball off. So they go back to it. And the Cardinals played it similarly where they jumped up on the underneath stuff, because I think Darnold had been taking that throughout courses of the game. So it's just that cat and mouse game what is the defense giving you are they sinking onto those dig routes are they jumping on the underneath stuff and then how does Darnold play off of that he's capable of doing all of it and this offense is so well schemed by especially in the passing game by Kevin O'Connell Phillips Angelico all their coaches they know how to create those those open running wide receivers through these zones and Darnold has found them and so I do think the underneath stuff though

the quick stuff is more what I agree with you on like they hadn't done a ton of that until like midway through the year of like let's just get Addison in catch and run scenarios let's do more of the jet sweep type stuff which don't always work But if you don't turn it into a double sweep trick play, it can work. I do think you can learn a little bit from your across the St. Croix border friends and Matt LaFleur and the Packers. They are very good at that. They're very good at not only running the ball, but then doing all the little extra stuff that the horizontal kind of run plays and schemes that they can do. The Vikings don't have seemingly a super deep bag of that. I'd like to see a little bit more of it to just add to the really explosive downfield passing game they've got and just take some load off Darnold. You're going to be, you've asked him

to do so much to this point that there's no reason why it can't be a little bit easier on him against some of these opponents. Is it weird that I would like to make a Jordan Addison Cooper cup type of comparison for some of the things they could do with him? Because I'm thinking about it is weird. Well, but I'm thinking about a short area quickness feet, like getting open, creating separation It was always in the slot and it was a lot of choice routes. It was a lot of running up to linebackers and making a quick move and getting open short passes. And then occasionally breaking out from that. I think Cooper cup is stronger as a slot receiver. And so it's harder to slow down, but that quickness and separation ability is something that Jordan Addison has in his bag. And I just don't think that they always have to go deep to him.

That's the point is the underneath stuff. He can do that. He can do the chop in the feet, go left or right, that kind of thing. Just like that. If you're watching on video, chop in the feet. Before we talk about whether you think they're going to win the game or not, how good do you think the Vikings are just as a big picture thing? Because each week in the Friday mailbag on the written side, I get messages from people saying, how dare you say this team is good?

Like that they want to talk about close games, one score games. The one score game thing has just made my brain want to explode because a lot of games are separated by one score in the NFL. And so you're 10 and two, you've won a lot of them, but I don't think it's been random or lucky that they've won a lot of them this year. 2022 happened. People can't let it go. If something happened in the past, even if all the players are different, everything is different. It must be happening currently, right? Like that's our logic, I suppose. Uh, so I've been a little frustrated by that at times, but I am curious about your opinion of just like,

what is their strength? How strong are they really? Yeah, I think this team, they could beat anybody in any given week, especially in the NFC. That's where I, one game sample size against any roster in the NFC, I would pick them as potentially,

I'll give them a chance is what I'm trying to say. I'll give them a chance to win. I do not think that's the case if they, you said, drop them into a one game sample against the Bills, the Chiefs, the Ravens. It just, to me, it comes down to the quarterback. And I do, as much as I praise Sam Darnold over these 35 minutes here, I think when it comes to those high pressure pack scenarios, I need to see him block out that noise. I know he's done it in regular season games. He did it in the second half against the car. I need to see him do it in the playoffs to be like, yep, he can do it much like, uh, Josh Allen or my homes or whomever. Um, but against the NFC, it seems kind of wide open. It seems like I don't love Jalen hurts in a passing situation to have to win you the game in the playoffs. I don't love

a beat up Lions defense right now. They are just a mash unit. So I think the NFC seems pretty wide open. I think Vikings fans should try to enjoy this. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. Try to enjoy this. Your team is 10 and 2. Stop looking for reasons to fall apart and hate it and reasons why you're going to lose. Only one team wins in the end it and reasons why you're going to lose. Only one team wins in the end. Chances are you are going to lose at the end. But let's see how far this can go. I think this is one of the most talented rosters in the NFC, even without Christian Derrissaw,

which is amazing that we're still talking about their relevancy without him. You see how Sam's been playing. He's done it for three straight games. The three best games he's put together in a row in the NFL. Keep rolling. Keep riding with it. And I think this team with, and the big thing is, is coaching. We see it with the Cardinals.

Their roster is kind of a mess up and down. Like, I think they got talent, but they kind of don't. But their coaching is solid and they can be in any game. The Vikings have the talent and they've also got the coaching on both sides of the ball, which you want to compare it to 2022. That wasn't the case. They did not have coaching on both sides of the ball. The defenses are just so far apart. The Vikings are second in defensive expected points added this year. Second in the whole NFL. They were 26th in 2022. Every metric you had, they were at the absolute bottom of that. And not only that in the biggest moments,

Sam Darnold throws it down the field, not necessarily checking down. Now he might take a sack to end a season. I don't know, but, uh, or throw a pick, but at least he'll throw it anyway. Uh, so I just, when I go through, think about this, Tom Brady and the NFC won the Super Bowl in 2020, who has gone to the Super Bowl and the NFC since? Matthew Stafford, who we thought was a good quarterback, but not necessarily of that level of Tom Brady. Then after that, it is what? 2022 is Jalen Hurts, really good quarterback, much respect,

but is he Tom Brady? No. And then last year, you got Brock Purdy the Superbowl. I don't know, go back even a little farther and you get Jimmy Garoppolo, you get Nick Foles. You got, I don't know. Good teams make it just period good teams. And you're just not in an era where you have Manning and Brady and Roethlisberger in a conference or something. And then nobody has a chance. That's the other conference. And it's really two guys at this point. It's two guys. And maybe Stroud can put his name in there.

Lamar. I like Lamar. Yeah. Okay. Three guys. Sorry. Three guys. So anyway, you think they're going to win?

I do. I do just because I think I don't trust Kirk Cousins. I think I don't trust Kirk as a sentence. I just said, yeah, I just, I'm going to pick for all four as I'm going to pick Flores at home. I'm going to pick Kirk being two in his head at back at US Bank Stadium where he's got so many memories where he won and lost so many games. I don't think he'll be able to get out of his own head and go full, you know, tunnel vision Kirko chains mode. I just I don't think that's going to happen.

I think he's going to have some bad moments. And especially if they are early in this game, I like the Vikings chances of keeping him down in this one. It's a talented team Atlanta has. That defense, especially with the coaching of Raheem Morris, worries me. Bijan Robinson worries me more than Kirk Cousins does. But I will take Flores against a pocket passer and a 35-year-old immobile one at that. Yeah, I mean, the creed really threw me off for some reason i just feel like this one

on paper should be because when you look at atlanta's defense overall it has not been great they don't pressure the quarterback very well it should be like 35 to 21 or something like that vikings they should score a lot of points but it just feels to me more like it's going to be a 20 to 16 or something 20 to 17 and someone will kick a game-winning field goal we don't know yet if it's will reichardt or parker romo maybe that's parker romo's walk-off his last play as a viking is a 61 yard field goal and he just does the chop and then walks off all right see you guys later parker out that's it take that kirk and then he gets signed by them the next week hi kirk anyway this has gone off the rails and we got to go up to the locker room so

thanks everybody for watching slash listening we'll see what happens vikings and falcons thank you very much with arms wide open if i knew other songs i would have layered in a lot more that's just not for me football football