Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Patrick Reusse ranks all-time Vikings coaches

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

Matthew Coller and Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse to rank the all-time Vikings coaches. Why Reusse gives so much credit to Denny Green and doesn't have Mike Zimmer as high as many. He also talks about why Jerry Burns is underrated and tells classic Mike Tice stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a very special episode. Two gentlemen, kindred spirits, who are sipping on diet sodas. You got the Pepsi, though, man. What's wrong with you, man? The store was out of Diet Dr. Pepper, so I had to settle for Pepsi, unfortunately. But Patrick Royce, Star Tribune.

Patrick, I am so glad to have you here. And I just sent you a text the other day, and I i need you on to talk about zimmer's era and i thought what what better idea than to have you give us some historical perspective and rank head coaches but can i just get can i just get your take on the decision first um on the the vikings decision to move on from Spielman and Zimmer? I really, I was very apprehensive that it was going to, they weren't going to get them both. And this idea that Spielman was going to be moved up somewhere nebulous and, and be lurking over this guy. If you're going to blow out Zim and it's basically a p it's a in addition to

being a football decision it's also a pr decision you're just going to get if you keep Spielman around you're just going to get bashed by the same you know you don't make the traditional uh pr uh triumph that you're going to get now by blowing both of them out of there, because I think Spielman was just as big a problem as, as, as him was. And I,

I'm just looking forward to a general manager who, instead of drafting a guy with a chance to be a difference maker in the third round, we'll trade down to get six, seventh round rounders, which to me are the same as undrafted free agents. So Spielman, the plaudits that he received for trading down and getting 15 draft choices drove me insane. I want five choices. And then if some retro bait like Beckham gets cut, sign him, right? I mean, do the Rams thing. But so I'm all in on this now.

It is interesting. Let me put it this way. I don't know who's helping the Wilfs here, maybe Brzezinski, but I would rather have anybody that they have, a couple of fans helping me than Bill Pullian, like they have in, where is it, Chicago, that they have Bill Pullian helping them. You know, Bill, the ship has sailed. You're a babbling idiot. Let's get, you know, how'd that football league years ago, Bill? How much did that cost people? So when I see that and think that they're making some stride forward, like, you know, this is a guy in a league where the,

you think he's going to recommend some 38 year old coach to the, the bears? No, this is the Vikings are going to recommend some 38 year old coach to the uh the bears no this is the vikings are going to hire i think if they can hire kellen more they will i think they're in on the they're going to go really young really positive and as we all say matthew you do the opposite when you hire a new coach you do the opposite and in this generation it's's the, you know, it's going to be the young guy with the positive spin. It's going to be the closest thing they can have to Phil Fleck, who isn't completely full of BS when he speaks. You know, there's somebody who actually speaks fairly straight, but not, never in a negative fashion. Right. That's what we're going to get. We're going to get a, we're going to get a spin doctor who isn't spinning

to make your head explode. So that's my theory. Well, you know, I think that, um, you know, part of the conversation about, you know, being players, coaches and things like that, being more positive. I think about how, you pete carroll is the oldest coach in the league and john harbaugh is way older than you think he is and those are kind of two of the bigger rah-rah type of coaches and yes even guys who were like zimmer dick vermeil back in his day like way back in the day he said he had to change tom coughlin he had to change when he was with the new york giants and i think that zimmer's refusal i think it was a modest change yeah let me say in coughlin's case i think it was a very modest change but considering his successes uh when he took over a club down

there and started bad mouthing everybody but uh yeah i mean it is it's uh it is – the most damning thing to me is when Eric Kendricks comes out and takes a shot in. I mean, Eric Kendricks is, to me, the epitome of a high-class NFL football player. He's – you know, he's not the most gifted guy physically. He's their best player, in my opinion, on both sides of the ball when he's healthy. And to have him come out and take that shot was wow. That was just, you know, I can't believe. Now, let me say this. I can't believe that Eric Kendricks feared Mike Zimmer.

I don't think that he probably feared him. But I think he just used fear as yelling at people. Right. I mean, that's just kind of a euphemism for yelling at people. I don't think he was like, you know, a terrorist or anything out there on the football field. But, you know, the day of the day of getting away with that is over, even in the NFL, which is the toughest, nastiest game in the world. Well, I think when everybody has analyzed this over years is that if you have players with confidence that can play like they're not afraid of being yelled at or embarrassed or things like that, Jeremiah Searles told the story on the show a few weeks ago about how, you know, Zimmer would put up on the, on the video board in the, you know, in the meetings and say like, here's the worst play of the week or whatever,

and show somebody, you know, things like that. I mean, Matt Patricia was doing that to people in Detroit where you're just embarrassing people and just going off on people all the time. And I think that that really wears you down. If you're winning a ton of games, maybe you could kind of put it on the back burner and say, Hey, we're winning anyway, but when things are tough and it can go one way or the other, this whole thing, while we were close, we were close, right? Well, you lost an edge there probably by having everybody play afraid.

And every time it was a clutch situation, their defense didn't do the right things. It was like, well, you're either teaching them wrong or they're afraid to make a mistake. So that's why they're giving up these plays. And I think that you can root that back to Mike Zimmer's culture and atmosphere that he created. I would also like to say they were just as close to being forced at 13 as they were 10 and seven. So, you know, that's,

that is the modern NFL every game is decided in the last three minutes. I said when they lost those first two, this is a disaster because they're going to be 12 games there this year that are you're going to win or you're going to lose. And you don't have any idea what three minutes left and to start off oh and two in those games instead of at least one and one to get yourself in a two loss hole of those games that are going to be there every week who could have guessed two of them would be against the lions but uh you know i mean no the lions we lost a heartbreaker with the lions well you also want to want to out of nowhere game you didn't deserve to win against the lions they were just as i said again it was close to four wins as they were 10 so this nonsense of being close is unbelievable i well i gotta say i was uh

you know even though it was zoomy uh mark wilf was surprisingly candid, I thought, and it was made a pretty impressive showing. I miss the Zig Monster doing those things because it's it's like watching Harpo Marx when he tries to say something. He got he got chilly off to a horrible start by, you know, he was the first, it was his first opportunity to address people on him on a big change. And he was a doorknob of okay all time. And then Chilly came along. So anyway, so yeah, Mark Wilf, I thought he's, he's definitely, definitely a good decision to let Ziggy handle the real estate out there and let Mark Wilf be your spokesman. I would hope we get a general manager, Matt, that talks more than draft day, preseason,

and the bye week. A general manager that would have some accessibility to people to explain their conduct, who isn't just leaking stuff to his three guys in the national media and is actually talking to people who cover the team would be a real benefit. I really did think that Spielman would be good enough at backstabbing to keep his job, but obviously wasn't somebody saw through him so good for them i mean i totally agree with you when i was in buffalo the general manager did a weekly radio show and regular press conferences and actually we sort of got tired of hearing from him because it was the same questions over and over but you know with the kellen mon thing or wyatt davis or whatever you know different free agent signings. Rashad Breland just gets

cut in the middle of the season after having a fight with the entire team. And look, we never got a chance to ever speak with the man about what happened and what went wrong with that signing. And it's really, I think it's just a disservice to the fans. Cause I know that some people hear that go, Oh, you media guys like, no, I'd love to give you better answers. Like when you ask me about Wyatt Davis, I can only tell you what Mike said and to leave Zimmer to answer all the questions about everything. I thought totally, that's totally unfair. A draft pick goes bust. Well, Mike can answer all those questions. And then he would say, well, I've got to defer it to Rick. Cause I think he got tired of having

to answer for every roster thing. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. I, I, I, I knew it was going to be on zoom, but I was going to make a rare appearance on a zoom because I wanted to ask Rick, Rick, I want to ask you a question that people always ask me. Why are you still here? I hear it all the time, Rick. Why, what do you think? Why are you still here? So I congratulations to the wealth for blowing it. We'll spoil it him out. Zim knew from when Zim looked to me like on the sideline, he knew it from the time he walked off the field in Cincinnati,

that if, if he didn't win a playoff game, he was not going to be back. I think that the minute cousinsousins went on the COVID list, he was like, this is going to get me at some point. I think the Lions lost. Where it became official, you can't really turn this around, was the Lions lost because they had to thread a really tough needle. They had to beat good teams. They had to have people stay healthy and everything else, and that just wasn't going to happen. And then that's when they had some of the COVID

absences, but they had all season to set themselves up. And that's the one thing that drives me crazy. Patrick is, you know, like eight wins or seven wins or 10 wins. Like these aren't really close numbers to championship level of wins. So what difference does it make when they talk about, we were close or we weren't close? Like, look, you lost to the Detroit Lions in a must win game. Like, what do you want? What do you want anybody to say? I think that was the moment where they went, OK, now you're a national embarrassment.

The Wilfs, I know, watch NFL Network and ESPN. And the next day after that was, can you believe Jared Goff wins player of the week? Just dunking on them. I think that was the moment where he knew like, this isn't going to go in a good place. This was absolutely a redo of 2010, except the coach didn't get fired in the middle of the season like Chile did. But we went to training camp in 2010.

They'd been to the, you know, they'd been with a heartbeat of going to the Super Bowl. And then Favre was either trying to make up his mind or not to come back. And Percy Harbin's grandmother dies for the sixth or seventh time, and he takes off for two weeks. And Sidney Rice says, if you don't pay me, I'm going to not play. I'm going to have surgery. And the whole thing, just before they ever got out'm gonna have surgery and the whole thing just before they ever got out of mankato the thing was just chaos and this year i was out there on that first

wednesday and zim was giddy he thought he had his defense now he had dalvin healthy and and uh he was bar was gonna come back he was sure sure and uh and on friday the quarterback goes into quarantine and the big story comes how why do you have the lowest vaccination he's supposed to answer that question too why do you have the lowest vaccination one of the lowest in the nfl and them should be stuck with those questions. I I'll, I'll say that from somebody else, you know, that's what Spielman's got to come down and say, we're disappointed, you know, doesn't he. Okay.

Before we get into talking about ranking the all-time coaching eras for the Vikings with you, which is the plan here. I just want to tell you a quick, funny story. So we're at training camp one day, very, very beginning, first couple of days. And Bob Hagen, who does the PR comes over and says, Hey guys, hang on for a second. Rick is going to come down. Rick's be almost going to come down. He's got something he wants to talk to you guys about.

And we're like, Oh, okay. Is this about, yeah. Like what what's going on? Is there a big trade? Is there like something happening? Rick comes down. So we're all gathered. We're all like on edge here. What's going to go on? And he says, guys,

I just want to apologize to everybody. We had said we were going to be in pads today, but we're actually not going to be in pads because of some rule or whatever. So it's going to be tomorrow is the first day of pad practice. Well, why did he bother to do that? Right. And then we're like, and then, and then what you traded someone or that was he just taunting you guys to make you walk all the way over there again well we were already there we were already there but yeah but then he just you know they just went back to his office like

okay well i guess that's our last availability with him for months but it was just funny how like oh there's this is there some big announcement coming rick is actually going to talk and then it's like no no he's just telling us they're not going to be in the past. Let's get a coach young enough to walk over to the press room to do his press conferences. If they're not going to be, you know, there's nothing wrong with being over there when practice is starting. But why do they build that big press room there if nobody's ever going to? I think Zim just did that to be a jerk, too. When it's cold out, Zimmer does come down.

Oh, that'd be nice of him. Yeah, that is nice of him. So anyway, let's start the ranking. There are nine coaches. There are nine coaches. You requested to start at the top rather than starting at the bottom. Yes, because I don't want to. And this is, I told you this before, requested to start at the top rather than starting at the bottom because i don't want to you know and

this is i told you this before i'm often accused of just being a bleep disturber right but i tried to give you my legitimate feeling as to who the how the coaches rank one through nine and as evidence of that will be number two. There's a feeling that the media did not get along with this guy. But obviously, Bud Grant is number one. He coached 17 years that and then just came back for the money and, uh, and the, and the guaranteed contract to bail Mike Lynn out from the less neckled disaster. So bud two would be right down there at the bottom, but bud one, obviously a hall of famer. And, uh, you know,

people keep saying, Oh, and for the Super Bowls and later generations kind of hold that over his head. Well, let's I always say in his defense, Kansas City Chiefs, that was a big upset. But when you look at the Kansas City Chiefs, that was not a big upset. They got eight Hall of Famers and that doesn't include Jim Tyree, who was the left tackle who ended up, unfortunately, going goofy and murdering his wife when he was 40 or 41. But the people, the left tackle from Ohio State, they say he was the best player on that team. And what he did knocking around Jim Marshall that day is one of the big

reasons Jim Marshall's not in the Hall of Fame, because the old AFL guys never give him credit. So that team was great. Right. They were great. The Vikings didn't show up, but they were great. And then Pittsburgh. I mean, Miami was, you know, that wasn't the unbeaten team, but it might as well been. They just ran it down their throat. And that Pittsburgh team that they lost to at Tulane Stadium, that was their best chance to win a game because that team wasn't fully formed as yet. But allegedly

Tarkington had a bad arm that game. I'm not sure, but they got absolutely devoured by the steel curtain that wasn't fully the steel curtain yet. And then the Oakland Raiders. By then, the Vikings were going downhill, and thatland raiders team was was good i mean look at the afl afl dash afc in the 70s i think it's the best conference there's ever been and the vikings the vikings would have been a lot better

off if they were playing the buffalo bills all those times right later on like the other teams were so anyway bud bud number one obviously uh danny danny green number two he lasted a decade he made the playoffs eight out of nine times and he came in with a team you know 91 they were not good they were six six and 10. They were, they were in decline. They'd made the Herschel Walker trade and they didn't have the draft choices and, uh, and, uh, they were going to the tank and, uh, you know, he came in and, um, the new sheriff came to town and there's this, there's this feeling that, uh, that we were all ripping Denny from the beginning. Uh, not true. Uh, for three years, he was the new sheriff.

And then he lost a playoff game to the Bears with backup quarterback Steve Walsh in the Metrodome. They looked awful doing that. And that's probably the first time any shots were taken at Denny in the local media. And he didn't take it well. And then, of course, the scandal occurred a month later and it turned into, it turned into general ugliness, but you can't deny the,

the fact that, uh, uh, you know, that he was, he made the playoffs eight or nine years. And then in 2001, as soon as he went in the tank they fired him but uh he's you know he's number two and you know what if if he didn't have roger hedrick as his boss once but lynn left because lynn actually coaches loved him you know the coaches loved him Hedrick thought he you know would put a whistle on and walk around the field like he was a you know he was a dummy but uh he was gonna you know he would have definitely drafted Warren Sapp and they wouldn't let him draft Warren Sapp and they had to draft Derek Alexander unless if you would have drafted Warren Sapp I think a year before Randy Boss

he would have been pretty good on both sides of the ball considering i think so considering him john randall was still holding on then too so i mean they that was a front office decision that what was it what warren was smoking pot before the that's you know 15 teams how stupid was the nfl back then 15 teams passed warren sap because he had some marijuana in his blood when he went to the combine what a bunch of morons and i think that there was even a thing that it was a rumor started by somebody on purpose like i don't doubt that warren may have been indulging in some things at the university of Miami that this was possible. But yeah, I think that there were teams out there sort of like,

if you remember the Kobe Bryant story where they purposefully leaked that he was going to go play in Europe, if he was drafted by certain teams just to force him to the Lakers. And I think it was the same thing with Warren Sapp and the Vikings were just one of the teams that bought into it. But imagine that random boss on one side and Warren Sapp on the other. Yeah. So Danny could have, you know, if you had Warren Sapp in 1998,

you go to the Superbowl, right? Nothing could have Gary Anderson could have missed four field goals and it wouldn't have, it wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been that bad. But the other thing about daddy is he did it with all kinds of different quarterbacks. You know, I mean, the fact that Cunningham has to come in and, and become his quarterback when the other guy who was, I can't remember who, but they didn't bring him in to be the starter. Didn't somebody get hurt? Yeah. Brad, Brad Johnson was the starter didn't somebody get hurt yeah brad brad johnson oh brad

was the starter in 98 yeah well you know and think about this too the nfc at that time had just the monsters i mean they had the the cowboys and the san francisco 49ers during denny's time were just so dominant through that entire time and it it feels like there was so much talent and then not even to mention the packers with Brett Favre. So you had these monsters, and they were right there all the time, almost every single year with Denny. And I think that that's one of the most impressive parts of it is they did not have Aikman, Young, or Favre,

and they were always there at the end. And that helpless Falcons team that came in here and beat them was 14-2, by the way. Oh, it's not like it's not like the and Chris Chandler played the best game of visiting quarterback has ever played without having a false start. No game with that crowd going nuts. And the Metrodome was twice as loud as this place. So, yeah, I have to put Danny to now. This is a surprising choice because I number three, I kicked it around for a long time. And the guy was goofy. But Van Brocklin, I have Van Brocklin, number three, Norm Van Brocklin.

He was the original coach. He comes in and you got to remember this. The Gophers went to the Rose Bowl tonight. The Gophers were kings. Gopher football was king. Win or lose throughout the, at least after World War II, nine Saturdays a year, all anybody in Minnesota worried about was Gopher football. And Murray Wormath had been 3-15 and 58-59, and we're going to run him out. Then they go to the Rose bowl in 60 and 61 when the vikings are getting started the the vikings superior the gopher's superior position to the

vikings in 1961 is similar to the vikings and the gophers today i mean the gophers were kings and the vikings yeah it's pro football we don't know they're playing out at met stadium and this baseball park and uh you know it was not you know first of all they were still finishing met stadium then and i think it only held 30 some thousand for the vikings and and it was there was really minimal minimal appreciation or you know they started off their first ever game they beat the Bears when uh you know 30 what is that score you look back 37 to six or something I mean their first ever game targeting and running around the field and we all talked about that but we cared a lot more about the Gophers,

whether they were going to beat Iowa or not. And by 64, they were pretty good. You know, he had this slapstick teams. They used to like the established clubs would trade, you know, Jim Marshall and five other guys for, for just like the Browns just had to get rid of bodies right because of the roster so we'd get six Browns and they'd get one of your good players and a draft choice right and uh and it was slight in 64 it looked like they were going somewhere and uh by

you know competitiveness and we were interested in them by the Vikings where the gophers were slipping a little and, and Van Brocklin, the public, the public didn't know he was a mean drunk that he would get, that he would get loaded. Uh, uh, and my favorite Van Brocklin story is it had a lot to do with my journalism career. I was a copy boy at the star tribune in 65 and uh charlie johnson was the executive sports editor he was the man and sid was the tribune sports editor and van brapman quit you know he got full of booze one night and he said after a disappointing loss in the middle of the season and decided i can't take this team any further. And Monday morning, he announced he quit. And I was sitting in copy boy on a corner there and Charlie and Sid were calling Norm Van Brocklin, every filthy name in the book.

They couldn't stand the guy. Then they both wrote columns the next day, begging him to come back. I said, if I ever end up doing this, I'm not. stand the guy then they both wrote columns the next day begging him to come back so i said i said if i ever end up doing this i'm not i'm not telling what i think is the truth anyway uh van brocklin did come back but when he came back it was all over for him but by establishing the vikings in town because he the general manager was a guy named burt rose and he was very in the background norm van brocklin made all the personnel decisions and burt rose was like a former pr guy with the rams i think or something like that so so van brocklin i would put number three folks we've

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And SodaStick has you covered there as well go to soda stick that.com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com and use the code purple insider for 15 off well i think it's interesting that that you include him there so high uh in part because he's not a guy that's talked about a whole lot i mean yes it goes back a long time so you could see how it would kind of be forgotten, but establishing the franchise to get them going and then onto the Bud Grant era is probably not given enough credit. I think it's a good choice

because for me, what immediately came to mind, and I'm sure we'll get to this next, is Zimmer versus Jerry Burns for who you're going to put at number three. So I was surprised that you wanted to put Van Brock on there, but I think that your logic makes a lot of sense. And when do you think the next time we're going to have an NFL MVP quarterback quit to become a coach the next season, head coach the next season?

He was 34. He was washed up. You know, he won this. He beat the Packers and Van Lombardi in the in the title game which it was the eagles uh last title you know 1960 before they uh won the super bowl here but i have jerry burns forth and mostly based on a the you know bud came back for one year, but they were still bad when he took over in 65. And he was really a sharp offensive guy. And just because of the playoff run they made in 87, you got to remember that that team was really good, but they had the strike. They made no effort to put together a strike team.

They had the worst scab team in the history of mankind. They were 0-3. So they ended up 8-7, and they backed into the playoffs, but they were actually 8-4, and they were 8-2 at one time and then lost their last two games. They were good. But that playoff run in 87, because I was talking with Jed about this yesterday, we refer to NFL playoff runs as if you don't have to play in the division,

you know, if you win one game, it's a playoff run. Well, that team had an actual playoff run because they went to New Orleans, first year ever in the playoffs, really fired up, and it looked like a good team. And they went down and beat them bloody with Bobby A. Baer as the quarterback. And then they went out to San Francisco

and got Joe Montana booed off the field at halftime. And then they went to Washington and got beat on the last play of the game, basically. That would have been the greatest playoff run in NFL history, wouldn't it? At New Orleans, at San Francisco, and at that Washington team with Joe Gibbs and those guys. in a little prejudice here because you haven't lived as a journalist until Bernsie's called you a dumb MF-er. Until you've been in that little room that they used to have at Winter Park that was the auxiliary press room and there's six guys in there on the day after they uh it looks like they're going to back into the playoffs in 87 and sent because they lost on saturday and this is sunday morning and they needed i think

they needed a bad cowboys team to beat the cardinal st louis and uh and and uh you know there's the famous burnsy tirade with schnelker. But this one was Bob Sansevier was a Trib, a Star Trib, the Trib beat writer then. And asked, said something about his team not having a killer instinct. And he went on a killer instinct. Nobody had a tape recorder, which is unfortunate because his killer instinct tirade was better than his Schnellner tirade. And, you know, a really smart, smart coach. And and the players cared about him. And, you know, I just put him forth.

I got him forth. Yeah, I like I mean, when you add in what he did as the offensive coordinator. Yeah, yeah. There's no doubt about it. Well, I like, I mean, when you add in what he did as the offensive coordinator to the mix. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. And got snubbed and had them hire Les Steckle instead of him, you know, when Birdsy, when Bud quit the first time, which was a kick in the shins. But not much different than today because the Zimmer wanted, I mean, not Zimmer, Mike Lynn wanted to go younger and, you know, replay, you know, wanted to do the opposite of, but didn't have this young, brilliant young mind. Let's tackle come in there.

Sorry, just with one more note on Jerry Burns. I just think that he was one of the great offensive minds really in NFL history and just doesn't really get that much credit for it. And then you look at how they operated their offenses. And one of my favorite things about that era is just Wade Wilson, Tommy Kramer, Wade Wilson, Tommy Kramer going back and forth whenever Tommy's injured or when they just, he wasn't playing well or something. So it wasn't like he had Joe Montana and just threw him out there and yet found a lot of ways to create offense and be an explosive offensive team without having that elite quarterback,

which of course is always the history of the Minnesota Vikings. But I think that he goes underappreciated because he wasn't the Bill Walsh who, you know, had Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and all those guys. He absolutely loved Kramer, but Kramer put him through hell, man. Kramer was, you know, Kramer with his exploits were, you know, Burns, he didn't have the whole period, but he had quite a bit of the period when they had 13 DWIs in 18 months, which was, and Tommy was,

and Tommy made his famous call to the Chicago radio station. I mean, it had been arranged for him to be on the big Chicago sports station then, which is probably the Scornow or whatever it is down there. But, and at 7.45 in the morning, Tommy was hammered. It was unbelievable. And Birdsy had to put up with that. But he loved Kramer. And it was the hardest thing he ever did when he switched to Wade Wilson there. He didn't, you know, but it wasn't easy to do. I really got a problem with five,

six or seven here. I'm going to go with Mike Tyson, number five underrated underrated he comes in after the 5 and 11 disaster with denny uh he's got some of denny's guys there he's got no team at all he went the year he got fired now i'm not worried about the love boat, which I think is funny. And one of the great, if they didn't have glad Gladys Kravitz, the Snoop out there seeing somebody urinate behind a tree, we would have never found out about it. Right. And, and, and the scalping tickets was a little shaky. I'll say that for Mike, but what the hell that's kind of guy is, but he went nine and seven is last year. He got, when they fired him 20 minutes,

every game after cult member got hurt and Brad Johnson was his quarterback. They went on this big winning streak and they, uh, they went nine and seven and that was when red was being so cheap. He took away his offensive coordinator. He didn't, he had Steve Loney. Who's a nice guy, mediocre offensive line coach, who's now his offensive coordinator because Brad wouldn't play Scott Linehan, who was really Culpepper's brains. I mean, he would read defenses in the headset for Culpepper as long as you could back then.

And, I mean, Scott Linehan was the maestro for Culpepper, and they let him go to, I think, Dallas, right? Did he go to Dallas? Because Red wouldn't pay him, you know? And so Tice had to put up with that. And plus, you've got to like a guy who has a – they've got a sign in the parking lot at Bunny's out on Excelsior Boulevard, this spot reserved for Mike Price, right, his primo spot.

But he was a – you know, he never got another coaching job, really. He was an offensive line coach, never got a shot as a head coach. I always thought he would have been a great college coach at Maryland or something, his alumni –. But, uh, uh, there's a little prejudice on that too, cause he was such a, we loved him so much. Uh, one of my favorite stories, Matt, is, uh, he's got a game, I think in 04 and in green Bay, they go over at green Bay and they're, they're not very good.

Maybe it was 03. They're not very good. Maybe it was 03. They're not very good. And they end up playing them tough in the middle of late December, and it's a lousy day. And there's an incredible number of bad calls against them. And Ticey going crazy after the game. Well, he gets a letter from the league on tuesday admitting that there were eight bad calls in the game right but these are private communications right so we're in the racquetball

court there that was the press room at winter park later on in life and he i happened to be out there that day on tuesday wednesday probably and he comes and he's waving this letter look at this bleeping thing and he's showing it letter. Look at this bleeping thing. And he's showing it to Seifert was covering and Billy Williamson was covering and all these guys that were his. He used to walk around the practice field with those guys at lunchtime.

But he said, look at this, Mace, and bleeping, bleeping guys. And he showed everybody the letter and the next day's newspapers. Mike Tice refused comments on the letter exposing the NFL, but, uh, but he was a better coach and people thought they played hard. They, uh, you know, they were, he was a really good offensive line coach. And, uh, I think he's a really good investor now too, cause he's just out in seattle and he's

not doing anything so and and their defenses were an atrocity during that time i mean if they even put together halfway decent defenses with the way that call pepper was playing i remember going back i wrote kind of an appreciation for call pepper article and pointed out that like numbers wise the only guy that stands way above Culpepper for the, for that section of time where he was healthy to speak is Peyton Manning. And yet you looked at the defenses that they had, they were so bad. And you know, not only that, but like one of Culpepper's great years, Randy Moss has kind of banged up. He's not at a hundred percent for the entire season.

And there's a game where he goes toe to toe with Peyton Manning. I think they lose at the very end of the game. It was like that's what they were capable of as an offense at that time. And they would just, you know, the Randy ratio is legendary. Just throw it up with Dante Culpepper. At very least, even though some of those teams were just, you know, 500-type teams, they were incredibly fun. Like I thought about the last few years for Vikings fans watching these teams,

they just weren't entertaining. It was just, it was just dreadful sometimes go into big games or just no show and get down by two scores and then start playing like the Culpepper and Tice era is dramatic and crazy and fun. I think I'm sure it was frustrating to not get as far as they wanted to, but even a trip to the NFC championship game, I think puts them, puts the Tice era for entertainment value a little bit ahead. So give me, give me why Mike Zimmer is where he is. Cause I assume he's next on your list. Yeah, but just barely Zimmer's six and chili seven chili underrated came in. But Zim,

I just think that he peaked in season 4 and he got four more years. I think one of the great, we talked about this the other day, one of the great disasters, just BS in our changing text,

one of the very underrated disaster is their no-show in Philadelphia, the NFC title game, after they get the miracle, and the Super Bowl's going to be played here, and that Philadelphia team, the week before, had 15

points against the Giants in one of the worst games ever. It was the Giants, right? 15 to 10, the Falcons. In a horrible game and i plus they humiliated me i was on some espn show kuiper called whatever show kuiper was on with some other guy and they had me on as a guest and they they raised the possibility the eagles winning the game and i scoffed at them i thought thought they were idiots. You know, this is going to be the Vikings by two touchdowns. And Nick Foles, are you kidding me?

Now the Eagles turned out to be a lot better than I thought. But I don't know. Jim, he gets – he let these preoccupations get in his brain, that whole kicker thing. I mean, the Daniel Carlson thing is just – I mean, not just because he went to Oakland and then Vegas and made all his kicks. It's how can Rick Spielman, when this guy –

when he drafts his kid fifth, which is high for a kicker, and Zim comes to him after losing the second game of the season and agreed, are tying, right? Did they tie it? Because he didn't make a field goal. 29-29, yep. And why doesn't Spielman say, get the bleep out of here? What are they doing?

At least keep him on the roster and let him kick off. I mean, Zim going nuts about kickers and then going nuts about running the ball more often. If you watched that Green Bay game two weeks ago and can say we should have run the ball more, I think your brains are gone. I think you're like borderline psychotic. And, you know, he had better talent here than certainly Tice had and a lot of guys. He had enough talent to accomplish something, and a push comes to shove, he accomplished nothing. Yeah, and the four years, I mean, that's the thing that is so tough with the Zimmer era,

because there's the first four years where I think people felt very good about their coach and you're right the no show in Philadelphia is brutal not even to mention that they're up seven nothing in the game yes right off the bat right and then he got out schemed badly by Doug Peterson who may very well be the next Vikings coach but you know that was another part of it too is that that Doug Peterson Frank Reich, they really figured out a lot of the ways to take advantage of Zimmer's scheme in that game and made throws easy for Nick Foles. And then their offensive line was better than everything else. But, you know, that was another part of it is that every time Zimmer over these last four years and then even like starting in 2017, every time that there was reason to think that this team could go somewhere, this is a big game that they really need every time they came short. It just like that. That's partly of course the quarterback, but it even goes back to 2016 where they've got a home game against the Colts.

All they need to do is win that game 2016. They're in the playoffs and they completely no show and get killed 34 to six. It was like, that is kind of what defines his era to me, is like the preoccupations, of course, and the way that he operated with the players, but also that his teams were so rarely ready to play when it came to when they needed it the most.

And even the Minneapolis Miracle game, they're up 17-0 and completely blow the lead and need a miracle win. If not, that would have been such a massive disappointment if, you know, drew breeze had just thrown the ball on third and one, instead of handing off up the middle at the end of that game. So,

yeah, I think that that, that really takes away, especially these last four years, the number of massive disappointments to fans every time they had reason to think their team was going somewhere and being on that edge makes your point that like they were good enough talent wise and they just didn't win the games that they needed the most um so i think that that's some of the disappointment that fans let's go all the way back to norv turner norv turner he comes in to save him because he's just a defensive coach, right? So

he's Norv's, Norv has agreed to come back to, you know, and Norv, whether you believe it or not, is considered one of the great offensive strategists in NFL history. It got him a lot of head coaching jobs that he probably didn't deserve, But you and you are waiting in his office when a team is what? What were they? They were over 500 that year, 15. They were five and two and just had lost to Chicago when Norv quit. Yeah, but he was waiting in the office when Norv arrived at 5 a.m. to tell him he was going to take his power away

from him and you know that that whole idea that nor quit is horse crap because zim basically ran him off so pat schirmer could have the job right and uh you know i mean that's what his paranoia about offensive coordinators start and john d filippo you know man i remember after remember the the storyline when we uh hired him that he was the you know doug peterson sure he was sharp but this guy was way sharper than frank reich he was the guy that they really relied on to run that offense and he makes it 13 games because he likes to pass. So his conduct with kickers, his conduct with the running game, his running off offensive coordinators, and landing on Clint Kubiak for his last year is just, I mean,

I have a hard time even putting him sixth. I think Chili was more harmless than him right getting to the end and having no one want your jobs to be uh working with you is it's yes and you know really that's the thing in 2018 if they had fired zimmer after the failure of 2018 which remember their expectations were to go to the super bowl that year and they won eight games and if they had just said you know what you came so far short we are done with you we're going to hire an offensive coach to work with um kirk cousins i mean i'm not saying they go to the super bowl at any point but you have to wonder like because you're right it just sort of degraded into lunacy

by the end with zimmer where it became a parody itself. Like when he said the thing about running the ball in green Bay, I think us in the room at that moment at Lambeau field, we looked at each other, like nobody laugh out loud because then he's going to get really mad, but we just looked at each other. We're like, what? They didn't hit a gap that didn't have two people in it the whole time for God's sake. Yeah, it was a, I mean, have two people in it the whole time, for God's sake. Yeah, it was – I mean, he got, you know, he got worse.

There's no doubt about it. He got worse. Chili, underrated. He's seventh. I got him seventh, but he's a – you know, Chili wasn't that bad. Chili – here's Chili's problem. He came in that first year, and it was, this is how a coach is supposed to act he's supposed to be a stern leader and uh and uh you know but now no nonsense guy with the media with the pub with the players with everything and it didn't work and he actually changed he actually became a pretty good guy

now there were certain people like lertzema and those guys that couldn't stand him because he didn't get the inside. He wasn't going to tell you stuff, you know, like they were used to. But what Ticey told everybody, everything. But he was, you know, I mean, he got himself a quarterback and was five seconds away from going to the Super Bowl. So I think he's an OK guy. And I appreciate the fact that you can still call him up and get good stuff from him. He's in town here. You know, he lives in town here. He goes to Florida once in a while but uh i remember going out in 2017 he had uh enough not 2007 he had enough bad pr that they had us all they lined up a half hour session for all you know before the start of camp come on out and sit in chili's office and talk to him. And I did one of those days. And he was he started, he started kind of

reviewing his career. And he started off as a graduate assistant at Illinois, with Mike White, one of the great, one of the great NCAA rules violators of all time. And he started telling Mike White recruiting cheating stories. And I was howling for an hour. He was a grad assistant in November. He was in front of the NCAA infractions committee trying to explain, you know, I mean, he was a competent he was it would they screwed up that that first introductory press conference so bad we all make jokes about winning the press conference and i think generally speaking you're allowed you know the the public is very liberal in judging the press conference right hey it was great right but between ziggy and Chili and that first Prescott, he was in, he was behind the eight ball from right off the bat. And you know,

and he's but he's, I got him. I got him seventh, but reluctantly. Okay. So eight, well, ninth has got to be Steckel. Steckel's ninth. And I got him seventh, but reluctantly. Okay. So, well, ninth has got to be Steckel. Steckel's ninth, and I got Les. I got Les eighth. Les had no impact on the franchise, in my opinion. Les was not a bad guy, a good guy, but, you know, nothing happened, right? And I think he's obviously proved he's a pretty good defensive coordinator,

but it was just a nothing three-year period, right? Do you think that he'll get another shot? You think Frazier will get another shot? No. Yeah, I don't think so either. I think he's too old. The Bears are talking about it, but I think he's – I can't see many. Of course, Bill Pullian,

who knows, he might think Les is a young and up-and-coming kid. But I don't see any people of that generation getting a job this time, do you? Probably not. Yeah, I think they're going younger. I was going to make the crack that Bill Pullian probably wants to move Justin Fields to wide receiver or something. I don't know. An athlete like that looks like a, looks like a halfback to me,

tailback actually. I was there for a Colts Patriots playoff game when the Colts beat him for the first time and Peyton, and that was in the old place, not Lucas Oil. And then in a corner of the press box that we were kind of in this auxiliary part of the press box, ducked down there where you could barely get out of it, up above us were the Indianapolis executives. I have never heard so many screaming obscenities in my life, and I'm a pretty good obscenity screamer myself. It was, Paulian and his boys were just insane.

So, I've never been a fan of his. When you go from Jim Kelly to Peyton Manning, you're a genius. Yes. Yeah, you're a genius, even though, you know, that, you know, who, who could have, everybody we know could have been that genius, right? Well, who's your pick for GM? Oh, for GM is hard because I just don't know a lot about the people, right? Like you just, with a coach, you can look at and go, well, here's his system and here's how they play and here's the factors.

But with the GM, I mean, I've started writing a piece about kind of the type of person that I want or that they should want. And it's, to me, it's someone who's focused on value and not being a scout. Like we're just making fun of Bill Polian. Bill Polian is an old scouting guy. And I don't doubt that Bill Polian in his day was great at scouting football players. I actually, I mean, I think that Rick Spielman was good at scouting football players. He's an old scout,

but scouts don't understand value the way that cap people do or that front office executives do. And I think the game now there's two games. There's the game that happens on the field and the game that happens during the off season when everybody makes their moves and tries to be the most efficient and get tiny edges on other teams. And there were so many moves, like you're drafting a center in the first round, you're trading a fourth rounder for a string tight end, like these moves that like, even if Garrett Bradbury was a great prospect, which I believe that he was coming out

it just didn't work out uh identifying a good center just doesn't really get you all that far you know what I mean it's like so like when you're drafting a center a tight end and a running back with your first three picks and what was that 2019 like those aren't the right positions to be taking for the value and then you know same, you talked about it like this, this squirrel brain idea of trading down from good picks to get more picks that mean nothing. I remember our friend Eric Eager for PFF said like sixth and seventh round picks. Those are changed to make a dollar. When you make a trade like,

well, you know, we need a little more value, throw in a seventh or something. They're not the picks that you should be focusing on to build your team with. So these harebrained ideas that he had and the sort of focus on, I can scout good players, but you don't really understand value. I think they need something that's completely different. That's very much focused, like hyper focused on the value part of it? My term for football, baseball, hockey, basketball, difference makers. I want different, there's a million, you can be a hockey team, right?

And you can take eight guys off the Iowa Wild and interchange them. It depends upon who the coach likes and doesn't like. But you need four or five difference makers. And my whole thing with Spielman was you got a hell of a lot better chance of getting a difference maker in the third round than you do from four of them in the seventh round. Just because you hit on Stefan D stephan diggs because he had problems at maryland and fell down the draft board doesn't mean you're going to be able to do it again and i you know i i value uh yeah i value talent over uh new numbers that's for damn sure. And I just it drove me insane.

The lauding that would be, you know, first of all, Spielman's got his guys right out in the national media. But they'd all give him a B plus on his drafting. And how about the four third rounders this year? That was what you brought him up, Wyatt Davis. What's the deal? You can't get on the field when people are hurt. Well, Mike Zimmer told us, and this is what I'll miss for Mike Zimmer, is if a young player was bad, boy, he had no problem letting us know.

Especially if he was bad on the offensive side of the ball. Yes, of course. Wyatt Davis showed up to camp out of shape, and that was a big problem. Especially if he was bad on the offensive side of the ball. Yes, of course. Wyatt Davis showed up to camp out of shape. And, you know, that was a big problem. Like getting back into shape isn't really possible once you start camp. It's not like 1964 as we're talking about. I mean, you got to be. And so they were playing him in these preseason games,

and he just wasn't able to keep up because he wasn't in shape. And I think that tells you something about somebody's drive how much they wanted so they were going to reward guys who had treated it like pros and maybe he'll get better but you know that's the thing with drafting a third rounder to start though which is a classic i mean they did the same thing with you know pat alfline like oh let's draft the third round we'll start it right away he was okay but then he gets hurt and we're going to just stick with him forever. Uh, you know, several years and they love funny, man. I was mad. I ran across some stuff. I was looking some stuff up the other day and we were the lauding that was being done for

Pat Elfline was, uh, I mean, early on man alive, what a genius move. But I think this is where we miss Sid though. Don't you? That the real, uh, the risk we don is where we miss sid though don't you that the real uh the risk we don't we miss that premature praise that we with it was his special well my i'll give you my favorite of the year we could wrap up was just that um when they didn't play kellen mond that jeremy fowler from espn tweeted that the vikings were keenly aware of how young quarterbacks struggled this year in the NFL. Keenly aware to make it sound like drafting this player who's an instant bust was really actually quite clever. Like not playing Sean Mannion was actually very smart and very clever. Like, come on, Jeremy, you got to layer it a little better than that or everyone's going to know exactly who it came from so yes well uh keenly aware of uh of uh people who couldn't let's face it i got a lot of problems

with zim but the kellen mon quote i might have kept let him keep his job just because of that quote we won't be getting those again say goodbye to those yeah goodbye to me uh say goodbye to the the uh the hot takes that we saw the last two weeks that's for sure yeah you're right uh where's the farm where's the ranch kentucky kentucky yep northern kentucky he's uh he'll have a nice off season and end up being somebody's defensive consultant don't you think i don't think you're coaching him but he gets paid for two years right yeah yeah he'll be doing okay yep maybe he takes a year off or something but i yeah i think that's it or maybe the way philip stroud he becomes a dc or something like that somewhere else uh after you know we did

find out why he uh interviewed for all those head coaching jobs and didn't get one because I'm sure he was way too candid. All right, Patrick. Thanks. Thanks so much for doing this, man. Always, always a great time. Okay, sir. Thanks.