Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Andrew Krammer plays a game of who's going to be here with the Vikings

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Matthew Coller and Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune talks about how the Vikings' matchup against the Dallas Cowboys is the most hyped matchup since the 2019 playoffs. They also play "The Magic Johnson Game," looking at which Vikings personnel is most likely to be in Minnesota in 2022. Why Andrew thinks Kirk Cousins is playing his way into staying and why the coaching staff remains at the most risk going into a tricky part of the schedule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar and the Star Tribune's Andrew Kramer inside TCO Performance Center. How are you, Andrew? Doing well. Always good to be out with you, man. We are back from the bye week. It's not back to school for us. Like Mike Zimmer said of his players, we got here and we were at 100%

covering a Sunday night football game mode. There was no messing around in the media room. Not with us. We're focused. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there was no kind of rust to knock off. It was funny. I like Mike Zimmer talking about that and saying that it sounded like Grandpa Zim a little bit. I had to rein him in. I had to kind of bang the ruler on the desk table or whatever and say, hey, pay attention, Christian Derusaw. Kids these days in their bi-weeks and the internet. Right.

Their streaming devices. It is always funny because you'll hear this all the time. Like, they had two weeks to prepare. And you're like, what did you guys do in the bye? Like, well, I went on vacation. I watched a Netflix show, played with my dog. You know what I mean? Like, I think the reason teams play better off the bye is because they're healthy.

And think about it. Dak Prescott might not have even played if this game was last week they get Lyle Collins back I don't know if Michael Gallup status but I think they're elevating him off IR at some point here and and this Vikings team is largely healthy going into this game yeah and one of the best signs they had from their last game was the way Dalvin Cook looked and and Dalvin said it himself today. He said, if we had to play after that game, I would have been fine. I didn't feel that bad after the game. That is the biggest thing, is when this offense has a healthy Dalvin Cook, and then you give him that extra week on top of it to rest.

It's great news for them. And you're right. When you look across this team, outside of Patrick Peterson and obviously Irv Smith at the beginning of the year, they're not missing too many pieces right now. And if you can get Michael Pierce back for this game against Ezekiel Elliott, that's going to be huge. Yeah, we'll find out later today when we go out there for practice if he's out there. And I would guess that his status is still kind of going to be up in the air, but they didn't IR him.

So that means that it is possible. So I've got a game for you to play, but I want to ask you first before we get into this, and I'm very excited about it. As soon as I came up with the idea, I was like, Andrew, Andrew has to come on to play this game because it's a question I get all the time. So I'll break it down in just a second. But let me ask you first so I don't forget to ask you at the end. Do you think the Vikings are going to win this football game against the Cowboys?

I don't. And I don't. I'm pessimistic because of everything we've seen in this team. And it's as perplexing to us in the media core as I think it is to fans sometimes. There's a lot of reaction from fans of like, what is this team? Are they 5-1 or are they 1-5? And it's like, well, they're obviously neither. They're a 500 team.

I think they're a collection of strong talent that's not a good team right now mike zimmer talks about it with the offensive penalties the holding calls um you can just see them in critical moments one phase lets them down and i need to you would have liked to have seen them through that what seemed like an easier stretch of their schedule the detroit carolina stretch specifically you'd like to have seen them put together complete games and they didn't do it they had to scratch and claw against those bad teams so I think this team is talented enough to be in all of these games that we look at but do I say do I have confidence in the critical moments that they're going to win them no I don't and I think that Dallas defense is playing too good right now that Dallas offense is the same as it's always been which is phenomenal and now

they're number one in the league and like everything um no i don't so i i've gone back and forth on this even so much as to predict different things on different shows i like that that's how it goes you just throw them all out there and then you know what whichever one happens you point back and go hey i called it sorry i don't cover the nfl on Twitter, Andrew. Hey, yo. But really, I have gone back and forth. One of the reasons that I think that they can win is because Dallas likes to play a single high defense. And I think that when the Vikings are going, and especially what they did against Carolina playing single high

in the second half when they were running bootlegs and moving the pocket, it just works. It's always worked when teams if they are playing single high and they're not stopping delvin cook still we saw this in 2019 you get one-on-one matchups on the outside and kirk cousins and justin jefferson can take advantage and the bootlegs they can find these deep developing routes and we saw in the second half of the carolina game was they were doing a lot more of the play action rollouts. It was like Gary showed up and called the second half.

I mean, it really was. It looked very much like a traditional Gary Kubiak offense after the blocked punt. Like Zimmer called up to the booth and said, get Gary on the phone. He's calling these plays. But I think that that might work. And I think that Dallas, too, has relied so much on turnovers that I'm not convinced that on a play-to-play basis they are going to stop this offense but I mean your points are all valid and that's why I think this is a tight one and a hard one to predict yeah you're right and I am very interested to see how how does their play action game with those deep crossers that work seem to work so well against cover three schemes Dan Quinn being in Dallas all that I'm very

interested to see how that plays out we've seen this team though I think Cincinnati was a very man-heavy team right and and like to play like that and the Vikings should have won that game but they didn't and that's that's just the theme of this team is like I believe they'll be in this game but do I have the confidence that they're going to pull it out right now I just don't yeah the thing that I go back the other way on is Zeke Elliott Tony Pollard in that offensive line that even if Michael Pierce is in there, when he was in there, opponents were still running really effectively against them. And Dallas is averaging, what, like 180 yards rushing a game?

And this is one of the poorest run defenses in the league. In fact, if Carolina had just run the ball more early in the game, instead of having Sam Darnold throw interceptions and fumble all over the place, Carolina might have done the same thing even without Christian McCaffrey because they were still getting four or five yards to carry. That is the part where I think, gosh, are they even going to let the Vikings on the field throughout this game with their offense? Yeah, and a lot of the attention might go to, well, you've got Cameron Dancer

replacing Patrick Peterson, but really as you're talking about, they paid to stop an opponent like ezekiel elliott tony pollard in that offensive line they paid michael pierce they paid they kept anthony bar they paid dalvin tomlinson like this is what you paid for was to go up and force dak prescott into third and long and at least make it easier on cameron dancer and if they don't do that yeah it's going to be a long day yeah and that's the other thing about dak prescott too is their whole strategy like the zimmer belief on defense which is ironic because they do this to themselves on offense all the time is if we get you in third down and long

we're going to win more often than you will and just statistically speaking like it's usually like three out of ten for the opposing offense that they convert in those situations Dak Prescott just changes that formula though and their receivers change that formula like they're good enough to where you could get them in third and long all day, and they might convert it because they're that good. And he's a playmaker, so even if you fool him off of the initial read, which Zimmer's defenses do all the time, it might not matter. And I think that the imperfections have been covered up by bad quarterback play, and they might be revealed again because burrow played well and kyler murray played really well and made a couple of mistakes that that game could have been a blowout if not for murray mistakes yeah i think we're both feeling like this could be like one

of those 40 to 35 games like it's just it's just high scoring regardless even though it's at u.s bank stadium because i don't have a ton of confidence and dancer being out there and then yeah there's there's fair questions about this front and whether or not they can stop that running game. Okay, before we play our game, this is the most exciting game since what? Most exciting game for the Vikings since, oh, man. I think opening last year in 2020 because you just didn't know what it was going to look like. Now, by the time that game got going, by halftime, really, when Cameron Dancer got beat by MVS on a 40-yard touchdown, you realized, oh, okay, this is going to be Rogers throwing all over.

But I guess 2019 playoff game in New Orleans, this is because you know that this Vikings team is talented enough to be in this game. It's just a question of like that New Orleans game, can they do it? And in that game they did. And I don't, I'm not going to sit here and put my money on them doing it in this game because of how talented dallas is but this is going to be fun because u.s bank this is what that stadium was really built for when it's at its best is when it's a nationally televised night game um yeah i just this is going to be one of the best atmospheres of the whole season i was going to say san francisco in part because there was like a black cloud hanging over that new orleans game that everyone could francisco in part because there was like a black cloud hanging

over that new orleans game that everyone could be fired sure and so there was more like anxiety than excitement about it you know what i mean for a playoff game of going there and hearing from people in the stadium of like you know this this could be big changes if this doesn't work out like then they went to san francisco and i really thought they could do this against san francisco and of course you know i was very wrong about that but i i really thought like man this is again another single high team and jimmy garoppolo i don't really trust him um but you know that was another one and this is always your fear about that is if the defensive line dominates your offensive line the vikings do not have any answer to that and i don't know i don't know if dallas's defensive line is that good if they can do that so yeah brandy gregory and what they got going on can do it i don't know either san

francisco's a great point you're right i did kind of forget that vibe going into the new orleans game and i guess i'd written them off in san francisco and wasn't too shocked by that that that situation but um yeah that team that team I just think that team 2019 was better than this team and and I think the defense and special teams is a big part of that yeah the defense outside of really Xavier Rhodes who struggled all that year uh was better than what we've seen so far uh okay now here's the game every week Friday mailbag people ask me's going to be here next year? Is Cousins going to be here?

Is it Zimmer? Is it Spielman? Would they change coaches but not front office? Would they change quarterbacks but not coaches? And it's a very common question. So I have created what I want to call the Magic Johnson game. If you've ever seen, uh, the magic Johnson GIF on Twitter, where he says, I ain't going to be here. Um, magic Johnson just randomly quit the

Los Angeles Lakers walked out in front of the media without telling anyone else in the organization and said, I ain't going to be here. And so this is called who's going to be here, the magic Johnson game. All right. So I have 10 names and we are going to count them down where we vote people on to the 2022 island. So this is not Survivor where we vote them off. We vote them on to the island in attempts to answer this question of who's gonna be here. So let me give you the list and you can play along at home.

Okay. We have Mike Zimmer, Kirk Cousins, Rick Spielman, of course, Patrick Peterson, Daniil Hunter, Anthony Barr, Delvin Cook, Garrett Bradbury, Clint Kubiak, and Adam Thielen. This is the list. I went through the roster and thought like, who would have a possibility? Now, of course, there are people who are very likely to be here 2022 but that's the game so i'm going to let's see if i take the first pick does that give you the last pick um is that how that works yes yeah okay it should add it up so i'll take the first pick of voting who will be here in the year 2022 and i will take delvin cook delvin cook will be here in the year 2022

he is voted on to he's safe 2022 island what's this the noise like yeah okay so after every pick we'll do that we need like the draft like you know like when you make a draft pick oh yeah that kind of like little jingle so we've action is in we've added them onto our island um that's a good one and and i guess the only one i would have put ahead of him and the one i'm going to take here is daniel hunter just because i think whichever coach is making that decision or gm for that instance like let's say this goes south and i don't want to ruin who might or might not be on the island but these two guys certainly seem like the most coach or gm

proof like you're going to want them on your team regardless of who you are, whether or not you are the one who signed him to that deal. So, Daniel Hunter, number two. Okay, I will take – Adam Thielen will be on this football team in 2022. The only reason I might have picked Thielen ahead of Hunter is that Hunter has been marvelous. But there's a contract situation, and there's also a neck.

And at any time, tweaks may happen. And so, you know, the fact that Thielen is playing terrific and he doesn't have any long-term injuries or anything that could unravel this that we know of, I probably would have picked him ahead of Hunter. But you're right that whoever is in charge, and i guess we'll determine that as we go forward here whomever is in charge will be keeping uh daniel hunters so on to your pick of voting people on to the 2022 island um i would have to go because you bring up contracts, certainly with Daniil. For that reason, I think Kirk Cousins almost has to be here. Wow. Already? Almost has to.

I know you've been on the record. I'm shocked by this. I know you've been on the record and I've seen it. You're on the record as saying that. I believe this is you I've seen on Twitter being out there and saying, look, somebody would take Kirk's contract, would take him. If you really pushed it out there and said, hey, we're going to move on from this guy.

I just don't think the Vikings are going to do that. And part of me is because I think Spielman is also coming on this island with him. I don't know about Mike, but if I had to pick one of the leadership positions to be there, I think it's Rick, which is why I think the guy whom he signed to two big contract extensions will still be here next year. I don't know if it's on a new deal, but I know it's at least on the last year of this old deal where it's so much guaranteed money in such a big cap hit that I don't know

how they move on from it. And I don't know who would take a one-year rental of Kirk at that rate. I really don't. I think this is a stunning pick in part because the whole game is designed for it to come down to the final three and you have blown up this game early on. No, Bradbury's not here. Oh, okay. All right. Well, we'll get there. We'll get there. Uh, but let me just address this shocking pick. I mean, this is, this is like when they would have bars here either when they would have, um, a Survivor postgame show and they would talk about like, oh, I was so stunned when Richard did this. This was this is my stunning moment. They would be doing like the one shot on me and I'd be like, I just I what what was Andrew doing? though is when you look around the league and you look at the shortage of quarterback uh safe teams if you will that are set to talk about have their own 2022 island i mean there's

a lot like what are the houston texans doing a quarterback going forward i have no idea how about the pittsburgh steelers this are the steelers not like a classic kirk team to play defense roethlisberger retires because he can't move or throw or do stuff I mean that's just like two examples that come to the top of my head the Philadelphia Eagles I mean if this draft is as weak as people say it is I think there will be a lot of attention on cousins now that could be part of your argument as well yeah why would the Vikings say let's join that sweepstakes of having nowhere to go because they will have gone seven and ten if that happens if they go seven and ten and they fall apart in this next set of games and they struggle then then there will be teams out there who say trade him to

us we'll give him a three-year contract extension because we're ready to win now and here's how i know this the vikings did it coming off of Kirk's worst year I mean Carson Wentz has been fine in Indianapolis but he was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL last year I leave this I leave this door open that if they don't win more than nine games or eight or nine or nine plus and are in the playoffs or if they win eight and they win in the play if they don't win in the playoffs I I think they'll say different direction. And just to be clear, these are the guys who I put below Kirk on my confidence rankings of putting on the Island.

It is left on your list. Zimmer, Spielman, Patrick Peterson, Barr, Bradbury, and Clint Kuby. There's a long way to go here.

So those six, like those, I feel like those six though, you don't know because if they, if they can, I put cousins before Rick just because of the contract. And my, I guess our, where we differ the most is the belief that any team is just going to raise their hand and say yeah we'll give you what you want for kirk i just don't think that's

going to happen uh you know i i mean even look at washington trading for alex smith where alex smith was sort of a better version of kirk right? And they still did that. Maybe. And gave him an extension. I argue that Kirk's playing better right now than Alex Smith. I know Alex Smith came off a really great year in Kansas City where they're 13-3 or something like that, and they eventually moved on from him,

or maybe it was the year before he got traded that they were 13-3. But either way, I guess my thing is that Kirk is also playing very well for them right now, and if that stays that way, you're certainly not going to be looking to move on and kind of jump into that abyss of quarterback-less. And that's why the discussion is so interesting, because if he plays like this, he's on that island. But if he doesn't play like this, I don't know that he can be. Yeah, maybe he's not the fourth.

What are we on, number four? Maybe he's not number four out of ten if, yeah, we're in December and he's kind of self-destructed, as people fear. Okay, I'll make my next pick because now it gets tricky. So I will say that now Garrett Bradbury was picked in 2019, so he has one year left on his contract. At this moment, he's not playing like a starter in the NFL. He's playing like a replacement level center but i think that his draft status will just hold him over for one more

year and he'll be on the 2022 island now there's a part of me that watched mason cole play sixth offensive lineman that thought like hey does he can he do a thing uh it's been a rough rough ride maybe even worse than last year. There has not been the progress that they hoped. So we'll see where that goes. But I still feel like rookie contract players are going to just stay because they were drafted in the first round. And everyone's always going to say, well, you know, all we need to do is this and this until the very end. So I'll vote Bradbury onto the 2022 Island.

I'm surprised you're putting Bradbury on there before Rick Spielman. I think that if they go seven and 10, it will be very Detroit lions ish from last year. New coach, new GM, new quarterback in 2022. And you're, and you're betting that on a,

it'd be a fifth year option for Bradbury, right at that point, which is, I don't think he's guaranteed yet. So it'd be like $10year option for Bradbury, right, at that point, which I don't think he's guaranteed yet. So it'd be like $10 million, I think. Or no, is it his fourth year? He would be playing on the fourth year, and they would have to make the decision.

They would not pick up his fifth-year option. I'm certain of that. Okay, maybe I would have taken Bradbury fourth then. I'd assume that it was an unguaranteed $10 million for him next year. But you're right. That's not until 2023. That's the year after. You're right.

Yep. So I'll take him there. I put some guys on to be like, okay, I think, 2023 that's the year after yeah you're right yep yeah so i'll take him there i i put you know i put some guys on to be like okay i think but maybe there's a chance that it's not so now your next pick it's really tough oh that is really tough because yeah we're looking at spielman patrick peterson zimmer and clint kubiak and that's it right. Barr. Boy, because I don't think Barr's back, regardless of who's here, who's not. And if Clint's here, that probably means Zimmer's here. And I have much less confidence about this coaching staff.

I have to pick Rick. I have to pick Rick because I think Patrick Peterson's stance on this team is tied to this coaching staff. Yeah. If you're a new coach coming in, why are you signing a 32-year-old corner who just got hurt for the first time in his career? So to me, I think it's Rick, I guess, because I think Barr, I think we kind of get the vibe that this is Barr's last year here,

and that Barr's kind of giving that off a little bit of like, I wanted my last run to not be what happened last year. So there might be more money for Anthony out there elsewhere. Yeah, I have to say Rick because I think it's more likely that if they make a change and it's only one of the two that it's going to be the coaching staff that gets cleaned out. I think you've hit the right order because the quarterback has the most chance to be here,

even if they moved on from the GM and coach, if they decided they didn't want to trade him or if the next gm and coach said hey let's let's get a look at him for a year i don't know what they can do with this contract i haven't looked into it yet we'll do that in the off season but probably not much in terms of this big cap hit but a new general manager and coach might come in and say oh no we we want to play with him he He's a top 10 quarterback. Similar to, I hate to bring this guy up, but John Gruden with Derek Carr, where it was like, no, I want this guy. I know he could be a top 10 quarterback.

I know we can win with him. Give me a chance and sign him to an extension. And then we're going to open it up offensively or whatever. You're hiring Kellen Moore for his new head coach. I think that's the right order, that Zimmer would be the first one to not be here. And we'll see where he, I think I have to just vote him maybe next, but we'll see. But I think that order is right.

That Zimmer has the highest chance to have the other two here and him gone because a lot of the fingers will be pointed at Zimmer if Cousins plays extremely well, but the offense seems to still be held back. I mean, of the three, Spielman's roster has been pretty strong that they put together this year and Cousins has played very well. I would say the coaching has been the weakest point of those three so far, which I didn't necessarily expect, but that's how I would feel about it at this moment.

Yeah, I was just describing this team as a talented one that's just not playing well together. And that certainly would point toward being more on coaching and that's though that goes back to the debates you and i and many people have had for years now about whether you want rick making some certain key decisions like offensive line and quarterback uh yeah that uh although you know we'll see how christian derisaw plays out if he gets two tackles right in the draft then we might have to change that take a little. But the next pick is, I think it is Zimmer for the next pick. Because I don't think there's a huge gap between the chances that the general manager and coach are here in 2022.

If they win, they will be. And if they don't, they won't be. That's kind of the way that I look at it. And I've always seen them as tied together at the hip. The chances are slightly higher that they make a coaching change that maybe, I don't know, late in the season or something to try to make it look like it was all Zimmer's fault. Spielman could say like, let's blow them out in week 14 or something. But I don't, i think the way they've structured their contracts always together with the same number of years that says to me you're either making full regime change

with both of those guys out totally new brass or you're sticking with them if it worked if you run through and you go three and one in this next section of games you make the playoffs at 11 and six or even 10 and seven you're probably saying is working, we're going to stay with it. What's interesting is you might have more, like if you're Rick, you might have more job security if you lose in a way where the offense looks good. Because he's made major decisions in the first round, offensive line, quarterback, all that, the receivers. I just think he's got a lot more invested in that side of the ball.

And yeah, you would point to Mikeimmer if things went south defensively so you go spielman zimmer we got three more left with bar peterson and clint i guess in that order i would have to go with my next pick number eight on the island would have to be clint to follow in that kind of order because i think if zimmer's here it's obviously clint's still here he's 34 years old he's the third youngest coordinator I think in football he's not going to get a head coaching gig no matter how good this offense does in his first year so if you're Mike and you're still here you're going to want to keep that continuity with what Kirk does well all that I think Clint's the obvious one outside of Peterson and Barr left off the island yeah I agree that one good year in your first year as an offensive coordinator,

it worked for Stefanski, but I think he had a really great reputation that had been long built from the sort of day one thing of building himself up with this franchise. We do see that around the league sometimes. Somebody becomes the hot coordinator. I don't know if people would look at Clint Kubiak and say, that's him unless this offense goes nuts so that's possible but i also see isn't it crazy that there seems to be equal

chance and this is why clint i was on the list i thought this is a hard one to pick because there's equal chance that clint struggles in the second half of the season and is not the offensive coordinator by week 16 as there is sure getting head coaching buzz because their offense has been great the whole rest of the way yep and then we know we we know i think i think internally they push back on the notion well mike doesn't micromanage the offense that's unfair to zimmer but we've heard from enough coordinators who used to work for him what it's like working for him and we certainly know that mike has a clear vision of what he wants this offense to be and every time we talk to Clint he's saying something about how Zimmer

helps him or Zimmer's influential in this way or another it's just another way to say that he's got his fingers in this offense and if it doesn't look the way he wants it to I yeah I wouldn't be shocked if that were the case either because let's not forget these first six weeks before he had a good game in Carolina those first five weeks I should. It was pretty rocky for the offense and going through that Cleveland game, for instance, and then the end of the Detroit game. I mean, think about this. If they didn't go nuts in the second half of that game in Carolina, I mean, we are talking about could Rick Dennison get the jab

and show up here and start calling plays. I mean, right? That is a very realistic possibility. I think that Zimmer was very upset about how they performed offensively against Detroit. Well, well now, Matthew, I think it's more likely that, you know, I coached a guy by Terrell Davis that I think it's more likely Gary would have showed up at that point. Well, you know, I'm just back here trying to do a good job. I remember I had this quarterback, you know, by the name of John Elway and uh you know that's a good question that uh you know we we uh roommates we were together and uh we had a great time there in Denver but you know I'm just trying to call the right plays and uh you know the players the players make the plays that's what it is so Zim would have gotten Clint with a little like apple watch that was

connected to Gary at all times like Gary what would you call on this play i don't know when i made this like when it hit me about like gary um and his offense sort of showing up i was just looking at looking for something specific in that carolina game last night and i was just like the boots the boots the boots are back where did they come from he was even doing them out of the shotgun you know you don't see i don't think we even saw gary do that uh all too much which i like that tendency breaker a little bit it's not the uh typical because offense, at least with the Vikings, has been around for three years now or three iterations from Gary to Kevin to Clint. And it's like it was about time somebody threw a different wrinkle in there

a little bit than what they'd been doing. And isn't that the part about Kubiak, Clint, that you're like, what happens there, man, sometimes? Because in Arizona, I watched that game back and went, wow, obiak clint that you're like what what happens there man sometimes because in arizona i watched that game back and went wow yeah they got themselves a baller here play caller i mean they were creative there was a lot of different things they were doing they were even mixing up some play actions off gap scheme and they were spreading it out and they were doing different stuff uh and then all of a sudden it just like went ice cold And you're like, what went on here in the second half of these games?

And then this one, the second half, they go nuts. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like he's very difficult to put a finger on whether he'll be here, and I think it's right to at least open the door that he get fired like two weeks from now. Yeah, yeah. Because he's an offensive coordinator for the Vikings. You're right.

I feel like the odds set should be the same for, yeah, fired or also on fire next stock coordinator, next coach of the Washington football team or whatever. Yeah, right. Anything is possible, as KG said. Okay, so we only have Peterson and Anthony Barr here left, and I am going to say Patrick Peterson? Yeah, that's the direction I would go. I think Peterson might actually have a better chance

just because if he plays well and he likes it here and Zimmer's here, I think he could stay. I mean, I think he's played all right, and there's some value in having him here with other players in his leadership, but he hasn't looked decrepit to me. And if he's going to age gracefully, they'll try to keep him around. Yeah, I think Patrick's been kind ofpit to me uh and if he's going to age gracefully they'll try to keep him around

yeah i think patrick's been kind of to me anyway and and coaches have said this a little bit about he seemed like he's been as advertised in the sense of great physical cover corner but you know when when the cardinals defensive coordinator i can remember who it is vans joseph maybe said something leading up to that game of like, now we have corners that can tackle. I see what he was talking about because Patrick's not the most physical tackling corner. You see teams throw up Bashab Rielan, but they run at Patrick Peterson. And I think that stands out a little bit.

But at the same time, Mike Zimmer's not going to kick a great cover corner to the curb. If Patrick comes back from this injury, plays well, Zimmer's still here. I absolutely see Patrick staying to his word of I could see myself continuing the second half my career under Mike Zimmer and I just think it's much more likely that happens than Anthony Barr turns around and says all right I'll take whatever you want to give me from Minnesota someone somewhere and this is my belief with cousins it's my belief with Anthony Barr that someone

somewhere will say Anthony will pay you a lot more than they're going to pay you yeah the only way Barr is here I think is not only if Zimmer is here but if he takes a serious pay reduction and we've seen the there's always the end of the road for everybody right if there was an end of the road for Linval Joseph and Xavier Rhodes then there's an end to the road for Anthony Barr with this team, and I think that probably comes at the end of this year. The other thing is the knee. Even though he's been able to play these last couple of weeks and he gets a bye week to get healthy,

it seems like this is a thing that's going to be a problem, maybe for the rest of his career. Yeah, and I had heard, and I don't know how much you can put into this, it's just guys talking, but I'd heard from people close to him that there's a thought that maybe he might not play that much longer like just in general because of the knee stuff right and that's not necessarily coming we haven't heard anthony come out and say that but it's just that thought of like if it is chronic knee tendonitis or something like that like why do you want to keep fighting through that when you've

you know had a good career four-time pro bowl or all that kind of stuff i know he's not even 30 yet but yeah there's just that thought of it too, with his health. And, and it, the way I see him coming back is if it's one of those things like with Griffin or some of these other guys were like the Vikings just know you best. And so it's where you're comfortable. And if you get out there and you see the offers, aren't what you thought they were going to be, maybe he ends up back, but you're right. I think he's a little too young at this point.

There's going to be a team like the jets, for instance, who might want to throw some money at him like they did last time. It feels, and I haven't heard anything like totally fatalistic about the knee. It's just, you know, the signs, right? I mean, it's a big giant guy and he's one week it's working in the next week. It's not kind not kind of thing like this is not a good sign for your future it almost feels bradfordish as in like can you grind it out for this year probably but maybe you sign a contract somewhere else and like i don't know you play eight games for them and retire like that that's kind of what what this feels like you get old fast in the game when i thought it was a telling answer i think it might might've been Courtney would asked him when we talked to him a couple of weeks ago of like,

just the direct question, like, is this tendonitis? And he said, I don't think that's important or something like that. And it's like, that's, that's about as a confirmation as you can get without confirming.

I don't know. We're reading between the lines, but I just thought that said a lot about where that situation's at. Magic Johnson game. This will not be the last time we play because you know what? If like six weeks from now we could play with the same list and see how different we feel about it. You shocked the world with an early Kirk Cousins pick. Um, and we'll see if you feel that way six weeks from

now. I think it's that contract I do. And yeah, we'll see that things can change quickly with Kirk as we found out. Uh, Andrew, thank you for your time. I'm glad that you came through in the game. Stunning picks, excellent commentary. And I look forward to covering this game. Uh, so thanks for coming on, man.

Should be a good one. Thanks for having me on.