Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Take the 'How Much Are You Buying The Vikings' Quiz

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune takes Matthew Coller's quiz about his level of belief in the Vikings. Andrew answers questions about whether he thinks the Vikings' chemistry is driving their success, if they can keep causing turnovers, if their team bonding matters, and more. Plus, Matthew answers fan questions.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and along with me, Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune. Andrew, I thought if I create a quiz for people to do to figure out if the Vikings are for real, who would be the last person that would want to do it? I thought, Andrew, so I didn't tell you that that's what we're doing, but now you know. Hi. Hey, yes. God, you were right right you're one for one on this quiz already right because it's it really isn't it really isn't your thing to like really plant your flag right I'm not a big opinionator yeah hot taker you are you are a reporter so you're giving people the facts and the information and then all the possibilities so once upon a time I said on a radio, so you're giving people the facts and the information and then all the possibilities.

So once upon a time, I said on a radio interview with you, hey, Andrew, you think they'll trade Stefan Diggs? And you were like, yeah, maybe to Buffalo. You nailed it. Maybe, though. So you said maybe, though. And, you know, Minnesotan, you're not really willing to go all in. I think sometimes people who are new to the show don't realize that I didn't. I grew up in the East, which means we're a little more like hardcore on the on the takes. But anyway, yeah, I created this quiz to figure it out.

So I'm going to help you and help you decide where you can plant your flag with this five question quiz. OK, so we'll start it out this way. And please play along at home. All the questions except for one are on a one to five scale. And then I'll give you what it means. So it's like a magazine quiz. What it means where you score. Wow. Okay. Wow. Oh yeah. This is intricate. This is involved. question. How much do you believe that close games in the National Football League are random and luck based? If you believe that they are entirely luck based, that is a one. If it is not luck at all, it is a five if you think that this whole spinning rock in the sky is just a bunch of random events then it is a one and of course anywhere in between on that spectrum one to five how do you feel yeah one really plays into my nihilist kind of tendencies and viewpoints just on the world in general but i would say i think it's a two i think it's more luck than it is skill i do believe in the situational masters as they they call it, this ability to

study really intently all the different scenarios and try to be prepared for everything that you can possibly be prepared for. But sometimes you're not going to be your best self on a given Sunday when you wake up at the Hotel Marriott or the JW in downtown Detroit or wherever you're going to be. You're not going to always bring your best self and you're not going to always perform at, be at your best when your best is required, as they say in TCO performance center. So I think right now they have been, and they it's shown, but you're not always going to get a fumble recovery at the one inch yard line in Buffalo. You're not always going to get a muffed punt, uh, three out of four games in a row in this, in this, uh, win streak that they're on. Um, I keep saying their luck is going to run out, and I'm waiting for it,

and everyone is waiting for it, obviously, and people who think it's not luck will say, well, gosh, look at you. Aren't you stupid with egg on your face? But at the same time, these win streaks run out. We just saw Philly lose to Washington. The Vikings easily could have lost to Washington. They could have lost to Buffalo, but they're not, and so enjoy it.

But at the same time, don't get mad then when the ball randomly bounces away from Eric Hendricks as opposed to toward him. Yeah, I don't think any fans would ever be vindictive like that. I mean, everyone is handling this totally fine. So you went with a two, so you're leaning closer to luck. I will tell you that I went with a three because I agree with almost everything you said there or everything you said that like, look, I mean, last year, some of the ways they lost were just absurd.

I mean, a missed field goal from 37 yards. And hey, look, Devin Singletary's fumble. We're not really sure if that's a primetime game. We've got enough cameras to figure it out. Delvin cook went through the same thing in week one against Cincinnati last year, that there were a lot of random events that went against them that this year are going for them.

But sometimes you do make your own luck. I mean, the clutch players that they have, I mean, this is greatness and what it is like making that catch that Justin Jefferson made is pretty improbable. But if you told me Justin Jefferson made the most improbable catch or that Patrick Peterson read a quarterback and a receiver in the exact right way at the exact right moment, I'd say, I believe you. And I looked up Tom Brady and how he's done in seven point

games for his career and you're not going to be surprised by this but he wins like six or seven out of ten and so if the greatest player can swing the pendulum toward like winning more of those close games than losing them then and he's played obviously seven zillion football games then i think that great players can push it in that direction. Sure. They're out. There are outliers. I think Tom Brady swings it much more than Justin Jefferson. I think if you look at Justin Jefferson's record of one score games, it's a lot different than Tom Brady. That's very true. That's very true. So I get what you're saying. Tom Brady is the outlier. Like Kirk Cousins is not Tom Brady,

nor is Davis Mills or 90% of the quarterbacks, 99% of them who start. So I just think that in general, it's probably going to be overtime more luck, but this Vikings team is certainly showing us that some of these things that we think are not repeatable can be repeatable for at least a little while. I mean, the number of stars that are like that, I mean, third and one, so Darius Smith comes up with a big sack. He's been there for the big moments in every game. You know, Christian Derrissaw has been a guy that, you know, he got injured in this game and Blake Brandel came in. But if you think Kirk Cousins needs a clean pocket to come up with a big play, which he often does, well, you need the blocking and that's where the top edge rushers come from, right? So the construction of the team is sort of built

to win in these moments and it's also enough flawed where it ends up in these moments but do i think that they're going to win every single close game the rest of the season of course not so if you're going five that means you think that this is team of destiny and they'll just win every close game and like you said no football will trickle away from eric hendricks because even if that bounced off his knuckle and rolled out of bounds the bills still very likely win that football game there's not much time left they'd be kicking off um so there's a lot of those that you can go through if this then that um yeah josh allen would have been better just hucking that ball that he fumbled into the back toward the field goal post like he would have been so much better off just throwing that thing backward and taking the consequences as opposed to what happened yeah I mean because I I said to

our friend Chris Thomason right before the play I was like they could get a safety here and we were kind of going through it like how much time would Kirk need to get Greg Joseph into field goal position plus Greg Joseph from 50 plus this year hasn't been reliable. And well, the bills took care of all of that conversation when they fumbled it for a Viking touchdown. All right. Next question on our quiz. How much do you think that a team bonding matters to their success? If it is one, that means you don't really think that it matters at all. And if it's five, then you think that it's everything that a team's bonding is able to drive them all the way to glory. This is tough. I would, I would lean more toward four on this one.

I think it matters a lot in football. I don't think it matters as much in sports like basketball or team sports with just fewer people on the field. I think it matters a lot like defensively too, because when they were struggling, the Vikings earlier with that Donatello system, one of the things that stood out to me that Eric Kendrick said was we don't know each other. Like we are just learning each other. And I mean that in terms of like, I'm just learning now what Shannon Sullivan is good and bad at on the field and what he prefers in this coverage, what route beats him in this other coverage and how I can be there to help in some of those moments. And those are the things we're spending time together. I'm not saying that playing top golf or whatever is going to help you necessarily know a coverage

better, but if it's going to help to get to know them better and then access that information more freely or have that communication be more free flowing between an offensive lineman or between a corner and a linebacker. I mean, one of the Vikings worst days under Mike Zimmer was in that Rams game in 2018. And Anthony Barr's talking about a reason why they get beat is because Holton Hill just doesn't understand a check that we're trying to get to because we haven't played together long enough. So to me, team bonding is more about the cohesion on field as opposed to the stuff they do off the field. But clearly coaches think that the stuff they do off the

field contributes to that on the field, which means it all matters. I think it's a chicken and an egg thing when it comes to this team specifically. then the you know philosophy wise if you win games then everybody bonds together and everybody wants the best for the team and they're all celebrating on the plane going home and everything else and then you become closer as you win more because you're spending more time talking to each other being happy with each, as opposed to being annoyed that this person or that person didn't do their job. There isn't finger pointing, which we've seen this in the past, just a few times, I think here where when you have two people or two groups, offense, defense that are pointing the finger at each other, that's not going to make things very comfortable in the locker room,

but that doesn't happen when you win, when win everybody believes in each other more and i think that it can build on itself and that's what we may be seeing right now is they got the wins early if they had gone like think about 2019 where they went two and two to start the season and that stefan digs skip in practice that chicago loss it lingered the whole rest of the year. And when they had big moments, they let everyone down in multiple occasions in 2019 because there was always just this idea that the star receiver does not believe in the offense, doesn't believe in potentially the quarterback because Diggs was not saying a whole lot about what was going on.

And so it just sort of sat there and rested over the team like a black cloud they don't have this they came out they lost one bad game in philly but then they bounced back and won and won and it's been o'connell's sort of mo from day one to push these players to to come together like this but i can guarantee you if they were a 500 team if the breaks we talked about in the first question had gone half the other way i think we'd be looking around going you know hey they were down 27 to 10 because of some confusing interceptions right you just totally forget about the things that go wrong when you win which is a lot easier to bond with each other so i think that it does help

and it does matter but it only happens if you've already won first. Now, so that's why I gave it a three. I gave a cynical view on it, but still said that it does matter. But think about the last team that we covered that really bonded with each other, 2017. Have you covered a team that wasn't all that good that you were like, but they really like each other? Yeah, that's true. That but they really like each other. Yeah. Um, that's true.

That's true. I have covered there. I mean, I can think of some teams that were not that good that really liked each other. Locker rooms that did. I can, I can also think of teams that weren't that close and we're good.

Yes. Um, yep. I can certainly think of the opposite. So it's not like it has to be one way or the other, but that's a good point about how winning, winning certainly builds that culture so much quicker. Uh, and I think it think it allows the for instance like the packers to go on a five game losing streak and then still beat the cowboys because in four years under lefleur all they've

done is win until the nfc championship game but yeah and i i also think that no quarterback needed this more than kirk cousins sure needed his teammates to rally around him and needed a coach to give his teammates permission to rally around him more or less right like I think he needed that and I think I think that you do see him playing different late in games and if you tie those two things together I'm not going to say you're wrong like I'm not 100 convinced that those things are tied together but I also can't prove that they're not. Yeah. I think he's been playing good late in games actually the past few years. Cause he's had moments, right? Like he shakes Mike Zimmer on the sideline. It's cause he led a game winning drive. And there are moments where he led game

winning drives that should have been game winning drives under Mike Zimmer, but weren't because his defense blew it at the very, very end. Um, I'm thinking of, well, the Carolina game was one, he had to come back and win an overtime when, after the defense blew it at the very, very end. I'm thinking of the Carolina game was one. He had to come back and win in overtime after the defense blew it right at the end. So he's had these moments where he's underrated, been decent at the end of games, and his team hasn't put it together for him, or he'll make a bad mistake in a key moment on a Monday night game, and everyone sees it, and he goes 2-10 on Monday night. But I think overall you're right and i

also think that relationship with o'connell helps he's willing to stand in the pocket now and rip it to justin jefferson in a way that he seems scared to make that mistake before more scared to make the mistake i think kirk already played conservative and hesitant in general but i think mike zimmer's coaching and the way that they he wanted offense run they really leaned into that conservative nature uh and now o'connell's trying to like kind of pull him back the other way and be like no let's be more aggressive we have the talent and you're seeing kirk um embrace that more noticeable difference after the bye week of them pushing the ball down the field more often the average depth of target has increased significantly uh all right on to our next quiz question how much in control of turnover ratio do you believe a football team is if they are not in control at all uh then it's one and if they are in control of their turnover ratio then

it's five i i think it's four because i think the you can 100 control it on offense theoretically like you just hold on to the football and don't you know sometimes things are going to get tipped so maybe it's more like you know 95 control it but you should be able to offensively we see the great offenses more often than not consistently keep those turnover numbers down good quarterbacks consistently keep them down um That you can control. Defensive stuff, that is, yeah, that's more like a coin flip. Like you have no idea when a ball is put on the ground. So I would say a four in that one.

There are examples of teams who, for long periods of time, dominated their turnover ratios. And I've just been looking at this team as a very Kansas City Alex Smith team, which is not an insult if you go look at how much they won. And one of the reasons that they won, because Alex Smith never had huge numbers for quarterback rating. I think one year he had a great quarterback rating, but he never had huge numbers, but he never threw interceptions.

I think that he had like one season past his second year or zero seasons with 10 interceptions. He just didn't turn the ball over. And that was really good for them. And then they had defensive players like Marcus Peters or Eric Berry or Tomahawley. Like they had players who were kind of big time and would force turnovers pretty often. So I think that you can construct a team that can do this. I mean, they have guys like that.

They have players. Patrick Peterson is a dude who you're never surprised he's got a bunch of picks. And Harrison Smith is a dude who you're never surprised has a bunch of picks. However, some of them have been thrown right to them this year. I mean, Peterson made an amazing play at the end, but the earlier interception was just Josh Allen not seeing him and throwing the ball right to him when he should have thrown it out of the back of the end zone the earlier interception was just josh allen not seeing him and throwing the ball right to him when he should have thrown it out of the back of the end zone and kicked a field goal there has been some of that taylor heineke just air mailing right to you that was catching

a punt uh not to take away you still have to be in position you still have to catch the football but that ref had nice coverage though he did uh. Uh, but you know, I mean, that's the randomness of turnovers and if the other team protects the ball, cause we're saying, Hey, you can do it on offense. Well, if the other team also does it on offense, then you're not going to get those takeaways the same way. So I lean toward Jamis Winston throws 30 interceptions for a reason. If he's your quarterback, you're turning it over over a ton and if you have no playmakers and no ballers on defense you're probably not stealing the ball from the other team so you can control it but you also need a lot of help from the other team if you're going to dominate the turnover ratio so you're more of a four or five oh i'm sorry i'm a

three oh three i'm a three yeah you seem more gung-ho on like it is controllable. Well, think about Philly the other night. I mean, Philly was annihilating the turnover ratio to get to where they were as an undefeated record. And then Quez Watkins, stay down, Quez. He catches the ball, goes to the ground, and then just pops up and loses it. Like, that's random. Dallas Goddard gets face-masked.

The referees don't call it. Like, that's random um dallas goddard gets face masked the referees don't call it like that's random so i think that there is control and you can push the meter that way but only so much like you could push the meter to 60 but you can't push it to 100 we get all the turnovers all the time yeah yeah okay next question and uh let's see hopefully you're playing along at home keeping track of what your score is, because I'm going to tell you what it means shortly, okay? How many current playoff teams would you qualify as very winnable matchups for the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC? Just use the number of teams.

Number of teams that are very winnable matchups. I have established already, and we haven't talked about it, but that the Dallas Cowboys are a very winnable matchup. For the Minnesota Vikings, I think, obviously, the Giants are. So that's two. The winner of the NFC South is. So that's three. I don't care who it is.

And is it Seattle still leading?attle still leading yeah yeah yeah yeah so that's four yeah the honestly the one i don't if i'm the vikings the one i don't want to see is san francisco totally agree uh they know this coaching staff they know this offense they have dominated kirk before they know kirk they know this offensive line they've already beaten them in the playoffs um that's the one like if i see that and i'm a vikings fan i'm like cool or good luck ran out but if they catch an nfc east team like i don't even i i think philly's a bad matchup for anybody obviously but i i wouldn't call it winnable either but i i don't fear philly as much and maybe as i should yeah i'm going very winnable i would probably go five and the two that you named are the two i would agree with which is philly if you have to go there because the thing is you have the same record but your tiebreaker

you lost so if you end with the same record you still have to go to philly eventually if you match up with them that one's going to be really tough and you already lost that match up 24 to 7 so it's hard to say oh you're better than them or it's very winnable uh san francisco they add christian mccaffrey which we made fun of for how much they paid for him but that doesn't mean he's not great and he is a great fit and they're a really good team uh that and the way they've beaten the vikings the last couple of times that they've played them that's another one it's a hard argument to make i just can't believe in dallas i think there's a lot of reasons to believe in dallas i just can't believe in dallas no i don't either i think their defense is fraudulent i think they make a lot of plays on the ball they're almost arizona like in their aggressive downhill

blitz-happy way that they like to pressure quarterbacks into making stupid decisions and then taking advantage of those. But you look at all the numbers. Trevon Diggs can't really cover that well. His pass deflection numbers cover up for the fact that he's beat a lot. They just lost their top slot corner in Jordan Lewis to a Liz Frank injury. Their backup's a fifth-round rookie.

J-Ron Kearse is starting for them, but he's very much just a box safety because they play so much single high. So I'd like the matchup. I think Jefferson's going to get command of that safety over the top, and that's going to free stuff up for Hawkinson all day, Dalvin all day underneath. I really like the matchup. Biggest thing for me is that Dals can't stop the run. And when the Vikings play a team that can't stop the run and when the vikings play a team that can't stop the run i that's just a bad matchup for the other team uh i so i'll go with five are very winnable is that how many you're going with five are very winnable all right last question do sports curses exist oh uh and uh this would be a one if they do and a five if they do not oh it's a five i mean they do come on they do they

do and i'm not superstitious at all like in my everyday life i mean me and my wife have this discussion all the time about ghosts but the the sports curses thing it's hard not to look at you know like the vikings the vikings have one of the top win percentages of any franchise over the last however many years and have not even made it to a super bowl and since 1976 it's incredible it's almost 50 years um they're approaching and they hope to end it obviously under o'connell but i think they exist and look at the bills you know the number of things that have gone wrong for this franchise considering the number of great players is so improbable and the fact that uh this was almost like a free space this is like it's like you

start with five you know so uh i yeah i have to go with five here until proven otherwise until the the ghouls go away yeah you're you, you got a five from this franchise. I even did a full podcast with someone who studies conspiracy theories, not invents them, but studies them, and they determined that, yes, the Vikings are cursed. An official, what's that person called? Like, what's their title? I don't know.

Okay. But conspiracy analyst, I guess. But Zach Johnson does a great job with his crackpot podcast. So anyway, all right, let's, let's add these up. Uh, so you went two plus four plus four. That is 10, 15 and 20. So that's where you were at 20. So here's how the scaling works.

Between five and 10, you do not believe in the Vikings at all. Okay. Between 11 and 16 is you kind of believe in them, but you are very wary. 17 to 23 is you're really feeling them. And you think that they're real good. And 24 to 26 just wrote super bowl z-o-m-g is what i wrote uh so you landed at a 20 i mean you are where are you at you are definitely on the side of you're feeling i'm feeling you're feeling drinking the kool-aid all right so i had five for the curses and i'll run through this uh real quick again for everybody so they can play along at home. I had five teams that they could beat in the playoffs, three as far as turnover ratio. So that's 13, five. Let's see. I had three, 16 and 19.

So we came very close. I think we're both in the same realm that feel in the team big time so that was again if it's five to ten that you scored you don't believe in them 11 to 16 you kind of believe in them and then 17 to 23 is you're feeling them 24 to 26 is super bowl literally half of our belief in them though is that the nfc around them is not very good and that sports curses are real yeah we each got five that's 10 of our 20 points for each one because actually you know what you know what i think i may know i scored this wrong shoot i scored it wrong it was actually one that was supposed to be sports curses because i was way like wait sports takes away from you feeling the team. Yeah. So sorry. You have to subtract our scores by four.

So you got a 16 and I got a 15. Okay. Which means that we just are on the edge between wary and feeling this team. Okay. So you got a 16, which is right on the edge. And I got a 15 right next to you. So you are oddly right in the middle, which is kind of what you talked about at the beginning. That seems more right.

Yeah. That seems more right. I, that seems more right. I think this team can. Sure. Why not them? But I don't think I don't think anybody should think that there's some powerhouse that's going to roll over the rest of the NFC. OK, sorry about that. That was a miscue on my part.

I put down five points for each of us to say we don't believe in curses, but we have to. We have to. We really, really have to. We have to. All right, Andrew, This was very fun. Did you have a good time? I did. I did.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Do you feel like your opinions are stronger now? I do, yes. It's like a little boot camp for the hot takes. I like it. Was it the takes we had along the way? It is.

The most fun. We laughed. We cried. Just keep working on those articles. Just want to keep writing those opinions. All right. Okay. We'll do some fans-only questions next.

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um I guess I wonder where you're seeing the unreasonable amount of scrutiny on Kirk Cousins this year because I turned on my tv two weeks ago and I saw him on the Manning cast and I saw him on Pat McAfee's show I feel like this year that people have gone along with the record much more on the national stage than they have looked deep into his stats I was doing a appearance on something called sports grid which is a gambling show and the way that the lead into the question was kind of how is Kirk different what's different with Kirk this year and I just wrote about this about how he isn't really different at all if anything the slow start the game in Philadelphia brought down his numbers a little bit and he hasn't had some of those huge numbers and if you say that it's because he's not

playing from behind as much that's not actually true uh his percentage of attempts is exactly the same 44 percent when playing from behind when trailing as it was last year so he's been essentially the same quarterback and on paper whether it's pff grade espn qbr has not been the absolute best version of himself so far but i don't see any outside criticism i mean maybe somebody that you listen to or maybe fans that you follow are not buying yet a team that's led by kirk cousins and i think that when you look at his entire history there's reason to be skeptical all the time of somebody who came into this season with a 59-59-2 record, I think, and has been at the helm for teams that have underperformed their expectations on a regular basis. I mean, he's been here now for five years. This is going to be the first division that they've been able to win um and

there's been a lot of times where people got excited about kirk cousins because he was playing really well and then they saw him fall off the edge of a cliff and let them down i mean the last two years they've had chances to make the playoffs and it didn't happen like we can't rewrite history there's a lot of scar tissue that's been built up for a lot of people if you're talking about fans who are criticizing cousins there's a lot of scar tissue that's been built up so even when you have a run like this you're maybe not necessarily going to buy fully in to the idea that they could go deep in the playoffs with this person at quarterback and and that's that's just history and frustration for four years of fans watching this happen 2019 of course

they do get a playoff win but throughout that entire year there were a lot of questions about how good the team really was how good the offense really was and then ultimately they get to san francisco and throw for 160 yards on 40 passes or something and just go home with a whimper and I think that's what people are concerned about what a lot of Vikings fans would be concerned about is you just have that disappearing act type of game that you just can't really explain and has been definitive of his career it's one of the reasons Washington moved along I talked with a person who had previously ranked high in an NFL front office that's the way I'm going to put it who said that his team did not go after Kirk Cousins because they watched some of

the biggest games that Washington had and they thought we don't know if he can overcome things or beat these good teams and so forth and Buffalo is a definitive win for him for sure and played great in the second half of that game you couldn't have asked for more of a clutch performance down the stretch from him but you know I mean that's a rarity from him as a Minnesota Viking quarterback so if there are those out there that are saying hey we're not really sure if this is for real or not or if this season is going to still live up to expectations or if there's a downturn in the Kirk coaster I think that there's evidence in the past for you to have that opinion but I also think that when you look at how the outside world has always approached kirk cousins not necessarily locally or within the fan base that has been split uh but it's really been when the vikings do anything the nfl networks the espns i mean they are just ready to pounce all over you know Kirko chains and all that stuff and share the Instagram thing and get them on their shows and talk about how good they've been. I think that

when you win, you get praised and when you lose, you don't, or when you're mediocre, you don't. And they've mostly been mediocre for the time that he's been here. And now that they're good, they're getting a ton of positive attention around cousins there might be somebody in your friend group who still says i'm not buying it or there might be one podcast you listen to or something that says i'm not buying it but aside from that i think most people are giving him his due for the way that he's played and as far as being polarizing i mean this just goes for all quarterbacks who are not Aaron Rodgers or Pat Mahomes or legendary quarterbacks. I mean, Matthew Stafford has been this way through his whole career that the people in Detroit, a lot of them said Matthew Stafford is great. It's just been a supporting cast. You guys don't know what you're talking about.

And they get to hang that banner with him going to los angeles and winning a super bowl but also i mean you can reasonably analyze a lot of the teams that they had through the years and go stafford let them down in certain seasons where they had chances where they had great starts to the year and then he had a downturn any quarterback who is kind of a roller coaster and lands around 500 a lot of the time is going to have this exact effect where some people want to buy fully into the highs and other people are terrified of the lows and that is what kirk cousins has been really for his entire career but you know every team that i've covered in my career, the fan base always thinks that they're being disrespected by the outside world.

I mean, I follow some Packers people on Twitter, and I will see them talk about how the Packers are disrespected. I mean, is there any team that everybody seems to love more than the Packers because of their great quarterback play forever, and yet their fans still think, oh, the world's out to get us and so forth. So I think that there's just, there's maybe a bit of a complex there with sports fans and their teams that they think

that they're not getting the appreciation. There's reason to look at what Cousins has done and say he could be even better, and if he is, this team can be very special as they go down the stretch. But if he plays the same level of football that he's played this year for the rest of the season, you're probably going to come up short in some games. And is it going to work in the playoffs to get down by 17 points because you throw an interception or whatever?

I don't know. So anybody who's been through it with this team many times, and for some of you it's many, many, many, many, many times, you're going to have your guard up a little bit, I think, when something happens that is unusual and outside the norm that goes your way for the Vikings. You know that so many people are always bracing for the downturn there. So great question. I just think that you know that that

there's probably not a lot of people who are actually criticizing your quarterback at this point when you're eight and one uh all right this comes from matt via email says i was wondering why we haven't seen the vikings use tempo that much to help the offense get back in rhythm at times when it stalls in the second and third quarters they used it in some of the first game against the packers then we haven't really seen it since any idea why this might be no i i don't actually have an idea of why that might be it's a good question you see them doing it early in games but i think that's by design that's planned it's part of the opening script of 15 or 20 plays or how many ever they're able to prepare on a given week and they will have it like in the game plan right away off the bat okay we're going to run play

number one and then jump right up to the line of scrimmage run it again get the other team on their heels that probably becomes harder to do as you go along in a game when it isn't so much scripted you'd prefer to huddle up, to have a second to call the play, and then get everybody set. But I do think it's something that makes it very hard for defenses. And where you can really see it is look toward kind of the sideline of the other team, and there's just scrambling. There's people running off the field.

There's people running onto the field. There's players looking around at each other. Where do line up what am i supposed to do and i mean even going back to the days of cincinnati and sam weish doing this uh for old school football fans or jim kelly and the buffalo bills who ran the no huddle offense peyton manning was doing it in indianapolis it is an advantage and there's just no quarterbacks in the NFL now who could call their own plays at the line of scrimmage and do what Peyton Manning did in Indianapolis and just run up to the line of scrimmage and direct everyone that's very very hard to do I don't I honestly don't know if there's a single quarterback that's like Jim Kelly or Peyton

Manning these days and maybe it's become harder to do that with the things that defenses are capable of adjusting to. But I agree with your point that in the middle of the game, there should be kind of a button to push to go up tempo because it really has for them kind of been this slog as they get going in the game. It's like they come out and score every single time. They're just up 7, nothing. And then it's like, Oh, here comes the three and out. Here comes the three and out. Here comes the frustrating drive, you know, and, and, uh, you know, kind of the looking like they're stuck in the mud a little bit. And yeah, I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea for them to try. I don't know that they will unless they're

listening, um, because it's probably easier said than done but maybe you know one thing that can help them when it comes to this is home field advantage over the next six weeks I think it's what five of the six games are at home that could make a difference maybe you'll see it a little bit more because it's probably very hard to do when you're on the road to do the up-tempo and call everything at the line of scrimmage when the other team's fans are super loud uh this question comes from at tom spicer tom i'm sorry if i've i've never pronounced your name before um early week question for you let's see 20 seconds before delvin cook's 81 yard touchdown run i remarked that he doesn't seem as explosive compared to last year even considering that clutch run am i correct in my assessment yeah uh well first of all that run was spectacular and he reached his high speed and was one of the fastest runners of the entire week in the nfl He was over 21 miles an hour. So he was trucking. But when you're on a track meet, essentially, you are going to be able to reach your peak speed. So

he was moving super fast on that play. And it kind of did look like the Delvin of before, but I don't think it's been quite the same. And the stat that I can cite is from NFL Next Gen that they have a stat rushing yards over expected. Now, this might have changed with an 81-yard touchdown run. But earlier this year, he was in the middle of the pack with rushing yards over expected. And I think that in the past, he's been one of the best in the entire NFL in that category. Yeah. With that run, he did jump up a little bit, but his number is still like on a per carry basis, still lower than it's been in the past. And there is some tracking data that we don't have publicly to show the quickness meter. But I know that Eric Eager from Sumer

Sports, formerly of PFF, had tweeted out something about him from last year that the burst was not exactly the same, that initial speed. And the breaking of tackles has not quite been the same. But I mean, when you look at his overall statistics, this is the best possible outcome for Delvin Cook. I mean, it has really been a very good year for him. And I think that teams playing back because of Justin Jefferson has made a difference here for Delvin Cook. I mean, he's averaging five yards a carry. You really just couldn't have asked for anything really better than that. I mean, that's one of the best marks in the entire league. I'm trying to do the math here, but it's in the top 10, I think think for guys that have over 100 carries so far this year

and what you're seeing is a lot of success for running backs because so many defenses are going to those two high looks so even if it's not quite quite the same as it was before I mean five yards of carry is pretty tough to argue with so I think that he's had just about the best best case scenario when we went into the season and early in the year he gets the shoulder injury right away and you're saying like oh no this is the age 27 season for a running back where they hit the wall they get banged up and they're just not as good anymore and delvin cook overall by his numbers even if the burst is just a little bit off from what it used to be still one of the best running backs in the league overall when you look at his stats i think he's just become more more of the famine famine feast than he was in the past

where in the past it was maybe a little more consistent because he was breaking tackles because there was a little more quickness there and this year it's been more reliant on the run blocking which ranks second by pff i mean they've just been a terrific run blocking team so their running game is still one of the most effective in the nfl and has really picked up i i think uh maybe after a slow start to the season but it kind of picked up there and has become much better as we've gone along. All right, next question comes from Marcus on Twitter, says this is a fans-only question. With Justin Jefferson playing the way he is and making catches like we saw against Buffalo, what stratosphere of contract do we have to expect from him asking for?

We obviously have to add a big chunk of money just because his contract will be a few years removed from the last big extensions but do we expect his contract to redefine the wide receiver market oh yes uh and marcus says love the show you keep me informed on all of my vikings uh needs across the pond in germany well really appreciate that marcus thanks for listening over in germany i have been told that the NFL is absolutely huge in Germany, and I see that they're expanding to bring even more games there. So that's very cool, and I appreciate it. And tell your German friends.

But, yes, it's going to reset the market for sure. The highest paid receiver in NFL history, hands down, no question. Lock it in. That's the offer. That's the only offer you can make to justin jefferson if quesia da fomenta went to the table with anything less than the highest paid wide receiver in nfl history to justin jefferson it would be a total disrespect and he would turn it down i mean we're talking about a generational player in justin jefferson there have been very few receivers that elevate to this point where you're talking about them on any given

year by their third season as the best receiver in the nfl he has no weakness he does everything well without him in this offense how many wins do they have four maybe i mean it's really been like that this season that we came in talking about well they've got all these weapons and everything else but they had to go out and buy another weapon because jefferson was the entire offense and they were still winning games with it and that bills game that is a definitive justin jefferson why you have to pay him the most money in the entire nfl type of game does that make things harder for the vikings down the road it probably does and where it's going to be interesting for them is so let's say you win 13 games and kirk cousins agent comes back and says hey remember that short-term extension from last year?

How about we make that longer? And oh, by the way, the price of quarterbacks has gone up. So now you might be talking about a quarterback being paid $40 million and a receiver being paid $30 million a year. And how do you manage that? Or do you just ride it out with cousins for another year and draft a quarterback because you literally can't pay a receiver quarterback money and a quarterback quarterback money that there's some tricky things salary cap wise that are sort of good problems to have in the future where it's going to be christian derisaw i mean already we're seeing that that man is going to be one of the best uh in the the NFL and one of the highest paid eventually in the NFL. Oh, Zedarius Smith, he leads the league in pressures and has a completely ludicrous cap hit of $3 million. Do you think he's coming back to play for them next year on a $3 million contract?

Like, probably not. So they're going to have to manage this carefully because they've had guys uh exceed expectations Patrick Peterson isn't coming back next year for three million dollars he's probably going to want 10 to come back and or or more uh to play the way that he did and you know that's again like these are things that only happen if everyone plays really well but this season is more like 2017 than I initially thought because when you look at their left tackle, wide receiver, edge rusher, and am I missing something? Maybe both edge rushers, I guess.

Like the price. Oh, number one corner. The price of those guys should be, if you were talking about the four kind of key positions top corner edge rusher tackle and wide receiver those should be like 80 million dollars on the cap and they're under 10 for this year which was kind of like when the vikings had kendrick stefan diggs uh daniel hunter and trey waynes all on their initial contracts they were paying so little money for such great production from those players that's what they're getting this year that is going to change in the future but all the money is worth

it for justin jefferson you're seeing miami is a good example where tyreek hill just drives that offense and stefan digs in buffalo drives that offense well that's what justin jefferson is for the vikings and if they do eventually change quarterbacks down the road, I mean, just based on Cousins age, eventually that's coming. The confidence you can have to bring in somebody else and hand them the world's best wide receiver is, I mean, that's a pretty good, pretty good feeling for the Vikings, but you have to pay for it. And they certainly will. I don't see any scenario at this point, especially since they've won that Justin Jefferson is not signing the market setting wide receiver contract next year. That that that to me is one of those like lock of the century type things. Great question, though, go to sodastick.com. See all the different designs from Kirko chains to the gritty to everything skull related. Sodastick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com and use the code purpleinsider for 15% off your purchase.

This is from Jackie via email. Maybe you jeremiah searles could answer this but is there a difference between snapping the ball for an extra point and a field goal i don't know that jeremiah has ever snapped anything so maybe we're both as qualified to answer this question uh let's see greg joseph has had a harder time in camp or had a harder time in camp with ryan wright holding the ball than he did for Jordan Berry and I wondered if the way the ball is snapped is different since those two kicks are generally the ones that get missed um yeah so I think that there might be something to it as far as the holder um I don't know that um there is a difference between an extra point a field goal I

would say probably not. I think it's the same operation. Maybe it's a little different if you're kicking from 50 plus, but I think everything is exactly the same. It's always possible that back in the day, the short extra point was a little different, but I think everything, they try to streamline everything. There are some people in golf that would say hey you want to use the same swing it's just how hard you bring the club back or how far i'm sorry how far you

bring the club back but you want to always use the same swing i think it's this way where you always want to kick the ball exactly the same way whether it's a 25-yard field goal or a 45-yard field goal. And I'm sure you have to lower the trajectory when you kick it from 57 or something like that. It has to come out a little bit lower or it'll just lose momentum and end up short. But I don't think anything else is different. It might just be that either Greg Joseph was kind of not a great kicker, but maybe just an okay kicker to begin with, or it could be that Ryan Wright and Greg Joseph don't have great chemistry as holder and kicker

in the same way that Jordan Berry did. Now, Jordan Berry was much more experienced in the NFL. He had had a lot of years with Pittsburgh, so he had done this quite a bit. I don't know how experienced Ryan Wright was at the holding element, but Ryan Wright is also a way better punter at actually punting the ball and changing the game. So maybe there's a sacrifice that they decided, look, we'll just try to have him figure it out, even though Jordan Berry is better at holding.

But I don't think that the explanation is that extra points and field goals are different. I think it's probably more what you pointed to with Ryan Wright just not being as experienced or potentially even as good at holding as Jordan Berry. And the extra points, we see them more often. There are more extra points than field goals. So I guess it stands to reason that they'll stick out when somebody misses one, but there's also really no excuse for them missing the number of extra points that they've missed. I think they've missed the most extra points in the league over the last two years or something

like that, or they're close. That's not good. I mean, that is just screaming for a late game tying touchdown where he hits the post and you lose a game because of it. So whatever the issue is, they really have to get that resolved. Next question comes from Paul via email. On the Justin Jefferson 4th and 18 amazing catch, no one was talking about how bad the throw was. On 4th and 18, you'd think the defenses would have locked JJ down, but incredibly he was wide open. Look at the camera angle from the Vikings end zone, and you can see him come out of his break open.

Kirk threw it late, high, and behind him. You want your $30 million quarterback to throw a strike there given the situation. Fortunately, JJ made the catch of the century and kept the drive alive. Now, I'm sure there are people listening who are like, geez, Paul, but Kirk Cous cousins said the exact same

thing yeah he he agrees with you kirk cousins agrees with you he went through this uh at the podium the other day or whatever we're calling it i guess he wasn't at the podium in the locker room the other day at his press conference where he talked about how he wanted to make a better throw there and when it left his hand he thought that he overthrew him there's a few things about that play that i am just so confounded by one of them is how jefferson had a one-on-one matchup because cousins said that if jefferson hadn't been one-on-one he wouldn't have thrown it that he had other ideas in his head of where he could go with the football potentially if he was double covered and that made me think like kirk no actually you really need to throw it if he's double covered in that situation just throw it if he's double covered man like don't worry about that but the bills not putting two

dudes that's a situation where you should just put two guys on the line of scrimmage with justin jefferson and make anyone else beat you anyhow and the Bills didn't do that the other thing is I saw the poor defensive back who he I mean you could say Moss but it's like maybe as good of a catch or better than any that Moss ever made and there were many many spectacular ones but the guy said if he had just knocked it down instead of trying to catch it that was what blew me away in the moment where I was like I can't believe because I didn't see it. Of course, I'm in the press box, so I'm 150 yards away from it happening.

But my initial thought was, I can't believe the guy didn't knock it down. Why did he try to catch it? Because you could see him reach out with both of his arms rather than just batting the ball down. But every spectacular play has some sort of what if or how it all had to come together. But I mean, I do agree with you because Kirk said he agrees with you about the accurate throw. It's just in that situation, though, all you can really do is just kind of throw it up. I mean, I think that Cousins has been fairly accurate this year, even compared to last

years, and he made some very accurate throws in that game i don't have a criticism about his accuracy overall it's just i'm not going to get too nuts about saying hey you threw a fourth and 18 pass too high for justin jefferson um i don't know if that speaks to a bigger statement about kirk cousins or is just hey man you just have to throw it up and see what happens. And if you're throwing it that far down the field, pretty hard to be perfect on that kind of play, especially since Vaughn Miller was rushing against Blake Brandel at that point and everybody had to know it. So a little harsh, a little harsh, but I have nothing bad to say about one of the greatest plays that I have ever seen in person that Justin Jefferson made there all right this comes from Rich says we've heard that Donatel's

defense uses a too high look pre-snap and then shifts into what they're actually running what kind of looks are they disguising because it seems to me that there are only so many zone looks you can run yeah they run zone defenses as much by the numbers as any team in the entire NFL. And as far as the disguises, that's a hard one because I watched the game back on film, but I don't know the players' assignments. So you'll see, I mean, guys running zones, and every once in a while, you'll see that robber where you know they have two deep safeties but one of the safeties comes down to where the linebackers are to kind of cut off over the middle

of the field but you don't see it that much it's not something they're doing all the time where it's a post snap switch to a single high it's mostly that they're playing kind of the same defense that i ran on madden all the time where you just play the two deep and you line up as the defensive end and try to sack the quarterback. I mean, that's really what they've been doing. And I think in recent weeks, what's really helped is the four man pressure. What it really comes down to is that is, are you able to get pressure from the offensive line? And I mean, for the most part, the answer has been, I'm sorry, from the offensive line and i mean for the most part the answer has been i'm sorry from the defensive line and then for the most part recently the answer is yes earlier in the season i wondered if they were going to be able to because zadarius smith got off to a decent start

but not unbelievable and he's worked his way into unbelievable same with daniel hunter where the adjustment to the system took a little while and and now he's top 10 in pressures. And those guys stepping up these last few weeks, it allows you to be able to do this, to be able to play everyone back, keep everything in front of you, and hope that the pass rush makes a play. Or that the quarterback gets antsy and tries to push it into windows that aren't necessarily there, or go over the top when the shot isn't really there but it's it would be hard for me to say by just watching on the all 22 oh this is the look that they're disguising because i don't know if that was the look that they were supposed to be giving or not right off the bat and then they change something right um it's it's hard i would say it's hard to say for sure but i think that they've done such a good job in recent weeks of pressuring quarterbacks that playing that way is is reasonable. I think that there's still maybe more aggressive, you know, choices to be had there.

Like they could go after quarterbacks a little more. They could still blitz a little more. They could mix in some man coverage from time to time. but this is kind of your for better or worse defense it's still a flawed secondary and this goes particularly with these injuries that it's a flawed secondary and they're trying their best to make up for or cover up for some of those weaknesses in the secondary and it just relies a lot on do you get to the quarterback or not uh this comes from peter the token brit is back with the fans only questions oh this is kind of like fans only euro version uh what in god's name are we going to do about ingram it's easy to ask after winning but the question uh is even there had we lost i get he's a rookie and he's having growing pains

but at some point he will cost us big time. So what is the best way to handle him without destroying his confidence but ensuring the team does not suffer? It actually does make it quite hard when they win week after week to over-scrutinize one player. But when we look at the accumulation of his numbers, and I can actually pull it up right now to get the most recent statistics on the right guard position I mean you can really see now that you talk about watching on tape where you can really see is uh that opposing teams are just going after him uh he has dropped to tied for third for most pressures allowed with 19 this year and seven sacks allowed. That is wild. I mean, that's number one in the league.

You almost never see that. I'm sorry, 19 hurries. Oh, wow, I had this wrong. He is way ahead, way ahead, leading in pressures. I had clicked hurries instead of pressures on PFF's website. He is eight pressures ahead of the next worst offensive lineman and has a 34 pass blocking grade, which I believe is right in the ballpark or still lower than what Dakota Dozier had in 2020.

It's not a good situation. And you saw Buffalo going after him. I think this is some of the reason that Garrett Bradbury's numbers are better because opposing teams are just attacking and attacking and attacking that right guard position. and when you're talking about giving up seven sacks from the guard spot I mean there are plenty of guards in the NFL who have given up zero I can get you the exact number here how many starting guards have given up zero sacks this year it's a lot it It's 16. There are 16 guards who have given up zero sacks and Ed Ingram has given up seven. Yeah. I think that they probably would have to lose a couple games now in order to make that change because the run blocking as a unit is good and his run blocking grade is good. This is what we ran into. His run blocking grade is 14th. This is what we ran into with Dakota Dozier versus like Brett Jones was that, you know,

everybody looked at Dakota Dozier's pass blocking and was like, what are you doing? But then, you know, Brett Jones couldn't really run block and Ingram is adding to their run blocking quite a bit, even if he's giving up a lot of pressure. I think that they're just going to hope that he improves as the season goes along, which you could very well see. At this moment, it's kind of catastrophic. If it improves to getting closer to average as the year goes by, then they'll be a very, very good offensive line

because right now they really only have that one massive weakness. Ezraveland is a roller coaster garrett bradbury has been much more solid but that's the weakness that everyone is attacking and if they find a way to even somewhat resolve that even below average play just not the worst in the entire nfl but i've said before a loss or two can sort of jostle a team out of it and force them to make a change and if they do have a couple of losses as they go down the stretch and that's a major issue then they will have to put some consideration into making a change but at this moment i don't see it let's get in one more question before we wrap up the show this from at dm cane 43 on twitter

are you excited about the vikings being eight and one sometimes it seems like you're looking for justification on how they're winning games and how it's sustainable i do firmly believe it's the new culture that koc has brought to the team and i don't think if mike zimmer was here that we would have won half the games that we have won this year based off your comment on your podcast with bob sternurm. He'd still be riding the 32nd ranked defense and running it on first and second down. Love your show. Listen every day on my way to work and really look forward to it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen. Yeah, I think the question would be, how do you want me to do

the job? Because I have always from day one of of the show, from day one when I started covering the Vikings, looked at the numbers very closely and combined that with being around the team to try to come up with the most accurate opinions and commentary that I possibly can. That's my goal. My goal isn't about being excited. It's about being accurate because I want to bring you guys the most interesting angles,

but also the most well-researched. And that means sometimes talking to Kevin O'Connell or it sometimes means deep diving into the analytics or talking to analytics experts or talking to former players or whatever it might be. Like this is my entire goal is to bring you what I think is the right opinion about any subject with your team. So just, I give you an example of this. I mean, right now, the Vikings, the 2022 Vikings, if you type into pro football reference, 2022 Vikings, and you look at their expected win loss now all this is is based

on their points for and points against what would you expect the team's win loss to be and the answer is 5.4 and 3.6 so a five and a half win team and they've won eight I can't ignore that I mean now you can certainly get excited about eight and one no one would ever tell you not to and i've said for day one there's no apologizing for winning close games or loving the team or loving what you're seeing or looking at this landscape of the nfc and going oh my gosh like it's all coming together. Here it is. But if I wasn't looking for whether it's sustainable, I would not be doing my job for you guys. Like that's, that's how I view it is I have to look at all of the numbers. I have to look at everything that the team has been saying.

And really they've been self-critical at times and they've talked about the things that they need to change and need to improve on. Like, I don't think that they look at themselves and say, this is absolutely perfect. I'm sure that they didn't trade for TJ Hawkinson for no reason. They traded for him because they felt they weren't a perfect team, even though they were winning a lot of games. And, you know, you make the crack about Zimmer's defense. Well, this defense is 29th in yards allowed at the moment so and 21st in terms of scoring percentage I mean you know look they've relied a lot on turnovers which is a hard thing to sustain week in and week out they've relied a lot on winning close games and you better believe that I looked it up Mike Zimmer in close games over his time with Kirk Cousins so I didn't even include 2017 just

with Kirk Cousins went you'll never guess 500 and so if you're going to say that you know Kevin O'Connell would win every close game that Mike Zimmer lost well then they would have been the greatest team of all time if they had only had kevin o'connell like no one thinks that you can do that every single week and get away with it for for a really long period of time for a season yes you can ride that wave and i totally agree and have been saying from day one about kevin o'connell how important it was to change the culture of this team how important it was to have somebody that got behind kirk cousins lean into the kirk was that not me like did i not invent that like that was my saying why are they not leaning into the kirk they've leaned into kirk cousins this year much more they've believed in

him much more but at the same time i think that if you use mike zimmer to prop up kevin o'connell that you're kind of doing it wrong like Mike Zimmer won a lot with this team when you look up the all-time win percentages for coaches Mike Zimmer is up there with some of the best coaches ever for his time in Minnesota so I was here for every game that he coached from 2016 on and I always thought that Zimmer was a very good NFL coach it was time for a change it was certainly time for a culture change time for an update on a lot of the things that you're talking about like game situations and so forth but if we're going to look at last year and we're

going to say that mike zimmer was to blame for daniel hunter being injured it's weird daniel hunter is back now and they're better at football right right? And, and, and Everson Griffin after the second half of the year was not around the team. Zedarius Smith is, these are big differences, right? In the things that they have as far as playmakers, Adam Thielen got hurt down the stretch last year. And that really took away a big weapon for them on offense, that secondary weapon. And it hurt them in some key games where they didn't have Adam Thielen to go to. They have a healthy group of weapons and have added someone in TJ Hawkinson, who's in my mind a lot better than a Tyler Conklin. Christian Derrissaw is a superstar now.

Last year, he was a young rookie that didn't have training camp. These things matter. Like, the luck element matters. Mike Zimmer didn't make Greg Joseph miss a field goal he didn't make Delvin Cook's fumble not be reviewed like we need to make sure and I've always felt it was important when looking back and making comparisons that we hit on the right things and that's what I'm saying to tie it back into my initial comment like that that's what I do that's what I do I try to play referee so for one summer I was an umpire and there was a saying with the umpires that either that that if both teams were not super happy with what you did um and they both

disagreed with you on some calls but they at the at the end of the day, graded you okay, that that's what you were looking for. Like, neither team thought that you gave them all the calls, and both teams had some beefs with a few calls. That's kind of what we do here on the show. So I'm trying to look at it like a referee would analyze everything that happens and say, okay, Justin Jefferson, that's unbelievable christian

derisaw zadari smith but the right guard position you know right like that's that's what i do here uh i think that's how i think of myself is the unbiased observer and sometimes you aren't going to see things the same way as me or sometimes you're going to say, I don't think you're giving X amount of credit as much, or I think you should give Y more criticism. And that's why we do fans only is so we can talk about things like that. So as far as am I excited, I'm excited to do this job all the time. There's never been a moment doing Purple Insider where I wasn't excited to do the job and where I wasn't excited to read your questions and answer them and analyze it eight and one has been good for the way we talk about team as in the games

matter as opposed to we're discussing whether someone's going to get fired and then rehashing the past constantly I didn't need to talk any more about the bad receiver trades that they made or something or Chris Herndon or whatever else. Like that stuff had sort of run its course. And so as we go forward, it's exciting to have fresh information to process, to analyze and to discuss with you guys. That's how I look at it. But there's never a time where you're going to listen to the show and go, oh, everything you said is perfect and I love all of it. Or I don't think if you're still listening every day on your ride in, you're going to say, I hate everything you say about the team. But it's balls and strikes for me.

And that's how I look at it. I can't ignore an expected win loss to say maybe there's some skepticism but i could also say t.j hockinson changes the equation here that the way that certain players are buying in and galvanizing around kirk cousins that matters here and i don't know which way it's going to go for the rest of the season they're always an injury or two away from not being as good as they are now and they've got a tougher schedule coming up and we'll know more as the season goes along but it's always a matter of just trying to use all the information we have to project what's going to happen that's why asking if it's sustainable i mean that's the question of football is it sustainable can they keep doing it are they going to go deep in the

playoffs that's the question every team asks all the time and i feel like it's the most fascinating and interesting for me so you know yeah it's not it's i'm not going to put on you know horns and blow a gala horn or something but um i'm always going to give you the truth about what i think and and if you don't agree then we have this whole podcast to give feedback and to talk about certain issues and everything else and i think my point on zimmer was just that you know if they had made the playoffs last year if cooper rush hadn't done what he did if the end of the and those are two games it's just random at the end where the ball bounces off Bashad Breland or Cam Dantzler forgets how deep the end zone is, like those sorts of things. If they make the playoffs last year, Zimmer very likely keeps his job. And then this year, if they had made similar moves when you were all talking about how it was a Spielman offseason, that it might have gone differently this year for Zimmer. And I wondered about where we would be

and how we would be talking about the Mike Zimmer era if he had had that win-loss or that one-score game luck swing back the other way. And I think that the record in one-score games overall shows you that it usually evens out over a long period of time. That doesn't mean they'll stop winning close games this year, though, because there is something about this group where they have playmakers who make big plays at the biggest times, which I was saying earlier with Andrew Kramer, like there is something to a team having those types of guys. So hopefully that kind of clarifies it for you. But that's,

yeah, that's the way, that's the way I view it. I mean, I think that the discussions we're going to have as we go down the stretch here, the storylines, the lead that's the way i view it i mean i think that the discussions we're going to have as we go down the stretch here the storylines the lead up to the playoffs all those things is going to be really really gripping and that's what i'm excited for more than anything so uh another great set of questions guys and i'm trying as always i tell you i'm trying to get through them purpleinsider.com at matthewcollar on twitter doing the best to get through all of your questions and uh feel free to keep sending them and we will talk to you all again soon