Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Talk me into the Vikings beating the Dallas Cowboys

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom go back and forth talking about the Vikings' Sunday Night Football matchup with the Dallas Cowboys this week and talk each other into why the Vikings can win, why Kirk Cousins's primetime struggles are more myth than fact, why the Vikings should wear their color rush jerseys and how stopping Dallas's run attack is possible (and the key to winning) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Alright, let's Welcome into the Purple Insider and Bring Me the News Tuesday live stream. We do this every single Tuesday. If this is your first time watching it, our first time seeing us, Purple Insider, Matthew Collar and Sam Ekstrom, well, make sure you go check out the Purple Insider podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, just type in Purple Insider. Matthew Collar, and Sam Ekstrom. Well, make sure you go check out the Purple Insider podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, just type in Purple Insider. It comes out every single day, so you will have all sorts of Vikings directly into your brain.

Also, check out our written work at purpleinsider.substack.com. We have a lot to talk about this week. Sam Ekstrom, how are you? Matthew, I don't know if you got the memo from all the other writers, but I got wind that we are dressing up in costume for Sunday's game, so make sure to show up to the press box in costume, and we'll have a little runway show, all right? Make sure you're prepared. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. I totally believe you. Now, there have been some games that we've covered on Halloween before in Chicago in 2016. Talk about a horror show for the Minnesota Vikings. But I think the best one that I ever saw was very simple. It was just someone dressed as Brock Lesnar wearing a Brock Lesnar Vikings jersey. I mean, I don't even know how someone gets a Brock Lesnar Vikings

jersey, but that person had it and they were right below the press box in 2016 in Chicago. And it blew my mind. Are you sure it wasn't Brock Lesnar? Might've been the real guy. I think I would recognize him by his size. I think Brock Lesnar is quite big. This man was not Brock Lesnar size. So maybe in the media room, we'll have a little Halloween fun and dress up as something funny. But as far as this game goes, there is a lot to discuss here, Sam, because now the way the standings are set up in the NFC after a win last night for New Orleans that kicked Seattle further down in the standings, which even when Russell Wilson comes back, it's going to take a Herculean effort from him to get a bad football team even back into the mix. Dallas Cowboys look like one of the premier teams in the NFC. And this just has all the makings of a national TV prove it type of game show. If you're the Vikings that you belong in this conversation, because it's so interesting how the seas have parted on one side, you have the real NFC contenders, and there's only a couple of them. You got Tampa Bay, Arizona, Dallas is in their green Bay. And then on the other side, you just have teams that got no shot to make it anywhere in the NFC and the Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons, and maybe the San Francisco

49ers are floating around in the middle. And I feel like this game is an opportunity for the Vikings to take the step from being in that middle to in the bucket of real contenders. Yeah, it's amazing how the kind of the accordion has opened up in the contenders are through seven weeks already clearly far and above. But if you beat Dallas, you finally have a signature win because the Vikings don't yet. Carolina, for a couple seconds, might have looked like it was going to be a big game. Frauds. They've lost four in a row. They benched their quarterback.

They are what we thought they were, said Dennis Green. Detroit Lions are bad. And the Seahawks, as you mentioned, it was probably better at the time, but in retrospect, that might be a win against a below 500 team by the time the season is over. So if you beat Dallas, who is a last second field goal away from being undefeated with Arizona at the top of the conference, if you beat them, you have made a statement on national television against the number one offense. And I'd be curious to see how they win as well. Are you going to outgun Dallas and beat them 38 to 35? Or will you go the Mike Zimmer route and try to do the opposite? Will you try to grind

out a win with the running game and keep the ball away from Dak Prescott and beat them with defense. Seems pretty hard to me. I think you have to beat them by scoring points. But I'm very intrigued to see how the Vikings approach this game, whether they lean into the offensive shootout that we all expect it to be. All right. So one way that I like to on the show talk about different games or topics is with a game of our own called Talk Me Into. So how this works is I'm going to ask you to talk me into something Vikings Cowboys related, and then you are going to ask me to talk you into something Vikings Cowboys

related, and we'll get into all sorts of different parts of this matchup. So let's start with what you just said. Talk me into the Vikings winning this game in any other way than a shootout that Greg Joseph wins a final, makes a final kick to walk off 38, 35. Talk me into the Vikings winning in any other scenario that is not the one we've been talking about, which is which is hey you have to fight fire with fire you have to be more aggressive more or less can they win this game not playing a different brand of football than they've mostly played this year so I think there's a path um number one Dalvin Cook's probably back to 100 I would expect you know that they're going to try to ride him early

and see if they can do it. I think they might be able to do it. The Cowboys have not faced a lot of runs this year because they've been way ahead in games. They've faced the second fewest rushing attempts. They haven't really been tested that much in the run game. The raw rushing yards against them, I don't believe any of that. I don't care because teams just haven't needed to run against Dallas. Therefore, the run defense appears

good. But PFF data on their run defense actually isn't that grand. It's like 26th in the league. Last year, it was also 26th. And last year, it was 30th in yards per attempt against um i look at that defensive line they don't have neville gallimore they don't have uh demarcus lawrence it's a pretty anonymous group other than randy gregory i mean it's a big rotation they're not gonna they don't have a lot of stars on that defensive line is what i'm trying to say and i don't think that um they are impossible to run against the defense is obviously their weakness so I think that instead of maybe trying to score in two minutes through the air they might try to score in eight minutes on the ground that's the Mike Zimmer approach I'm thinking

back to that Dallas game in 19 where in second half, something clicked with that running game. And even though Dallas was marching down the field against them, Dak Prescott, I think had 400 yards on that Sunday night, if I'm not mistaken. I remember covering that game in person and it was incredible. Somehow Dallas lost in one of the great offensive performances I've seen live because the Vikings were able to run the ball and control the clock in the second half. And I could see Mike Zimmer saying, light bulb, this worked two years ago.

We're going to try it again. And we're going to look at that defensive line. We don't think they're that great. We're going to wear them down using our run blocking offensive line. And we're going to make them play to our strength. That's what I think Mike Zimmer thinks. do you think that's what mike zimmer thinks i do think that's what mike zimmer thinks and i also think that this strategy is not pure insanity because a shootout

with a team that ranks number one in the nfl in offense and i think number two in the percentage of drives in which they produce points might be playing a little too much into the hands of the Dallas Cowboys, because this is how they play football all the time. Even if you look at last week, the new England Patriots got into a shootout with them and you're right about their defense. It's improved, but it's fallible. And they've relied so much on turnovers this year that it's hard to see that continuing that 20% of the drives, they create turnovers. I mean, we do know that one turnover here or there can swing a game. And if Trayvon Diggs gets a pick six, well then, you know, that's going to be a problem, but usually defenses that rely so much on turnovers and get beat everywhere else will have bad weeks and they'll allow the other team's offense to dominate. But I think that the Seattle game and the Arizona games showed us that

you can win with a run first approach. If you are getting big chunks of yardage, if you're also being somewhat creative in the run game, which if you remember in Arizona, there was a time where they used Alexander Madison and Delvin cook on the field at the same time. I'd like to see that again and see more of that. They motioned Delvin Cook out and ran an end around with him. It wasn't hugely successful, but it was creative. It was a little different from their usual running game. And they were able to, in Seattle or against Seattle at home, they were able to keep Russell

Wilson off the field. And I think that as much of a classic old school concept as that is keep the other team's quarterback off the field, that's what they have to do in this game because racing up and down the field, we score, you score, we score, you score. That doesn't exactly play well. I think to the strengths, as much as we want to see the Vikings be aggressive and we want to see them throw downfield and win with their offense, there's another form of winning with offense, which is you control the ball for 35 minutes and Dak Prescott has to stand and watch you do it. So I can actually be talked into this, not trying to win a complete shootout. Plus one more point. You have the U S bank stadium

advantage. Home field advantage is basically evaporated around the league, but it is still real here. And I think that that's something unique that the Vikings have and they can play to their favor in this game. Perfect. Can I give you my talk me into it? Absolutely. I'm ready to talk you into something. All right. I think the Cowboys have a one-two punch through the air with C.D. Lamb and Amari Cooper. I think they have a one-two punch at running air with cd lamb and amari cooper i think they have a one two punch at running back with zeke elliott and tony pollard who is getting six yards to carry right now that's insanity so talk me into the vikings shutting down either one of those duos because i don't know if i see it unless you talk me into it. Okay, this one is much harder.

Yours is talk me into the one I gave you was a softball. Talk me into Mike Zimmer football working. Well, it does work a lot of times. This is a little harder. So I guess where I would start is if Michael Pierce can come back from his injury, this makes it a lot easier. Now, we don't know that. We won't know until we're out there watching practice on Wednesday if Michael Pierce has a chance to come back. But the defensive line against Carolina performed maybe at their best level that they have all year. Armond Watts

rotated in and did a great job. When Michael Pierce is in there, they're a different team because they can put Pierce and Tomlinson in. And remember, some of the big runs that were ripped off were with Nick vigil playing. Well, it's going to be a healthy front seven. Uh, now you're going to have Anthony bar in there, Anthony bar, potentially Michael Pierce, Delvin Tomlinson. Uh, and I think that they started off this whole season by trying to focus on stopping the run. It hasn't worked yet, but they have the capability. They have the personnel to have it gel together here and two weeks to prepare two weeks to get a hundred percent healthy. That to me as a much

better chance of slowing down Zeke Elliott and Tony Pollard than it does of slowing down the wide receivers. Here's another thing too. And this might be their best chance. Dallas paid Zeke Elliott. He is the worst of the two running backs, but they still give him the ball all the time. And I even saw, you know, kind of a chart of like yards over expected of Zeke Elliott and this year, and it's dipped as the season has gone along. I mean, this is a guy who has a ton of workload over his last few years. And remember it was Tony Pollard who ripped the Vikings apart last year. I think maybe Mike McCarthy and Zeke Elliott are your best chance to slow down the Dallas Cowboys run.

And if you do that, it gives you some opportunity for Zimmer to get all blitz crazy. I watched a really great breakdown by Nate Tice, who works for The Athletic, of how Zimmer manipulates offensive lines, even talented offensive lines, into confusion on third downs. If you can do that

that gives you a chance to at least get some stops and get the football back but I think it actually does as weird as it sounds for a team that throws for 400 yards a game it actually all does start with stopping the run I don't know if I've done a great job of convincing you you'll have to tell me um well I think I agree with you that stopping the run is going to be more attainable than stopping the pass because Dallas might just say whoa Bashad Breeland Cameron Dantzler see you later Zeke we don't need you today take a seat on the bench um because they might just throw it the whole game I think that's probably the wiser play um is just to keep testing those cornerbacks Bashad Breeland has one good game.

Cameron Dantzler has one good game. He's basically only played more than a handful of snaps in that one game. And he was good against, I think it was Detroit. Nope, it was Cleveland. Cleveland game, he was pretty good. But Baker Mayfield was also terrible. This is Dak Prescott. I worry about Cameron Dantzler.

I worry about Bashad Breeland. I have concerns about this secondary without Patrick Peterson. I think if you had Peterson locking down one side of the field, you would have had a puncher's chance. I think this is going to be a game about playing some clouds, some shell, some zone, trying to keep everything in front. Don't give up the big play and just making Dallas march. Don't give them any quick strikes.

This is a tried and usually true Zimmer methodology is that if you have a really good red zone defense, you can be you can give up as many yards as you want. But if you hold teams to three points at the end of the day, you're probably going to be in pretty good shape. Now, I don't know if this red zone defense is good. I'm not sure this defense has really mastered that yet. They are doing great on third down. That's another Zimmer trademark. Red zone though, is a little more unpredictable and they haven't really figured it out yet. Other teams have kind of had their way with them in the red zone so I'm not sure that works but it could be the Zimmer approach they might willingly play a lot of off coverage and give up some shorter throws in the name of hoping to create a mistake and the Vikings haven't really created many turnovers this

year they're probably due for a little fumble luck, to be honest with you, to get like, you know, someone dropping the ball randomly. They haven't had quarterbacks throw them the ball much. Dak Prescott's not going to do that very willingly, but the Vikings are going to need to create a turnover or two. They're going to need to win in the take-give, I think. And I think that you do that by making Dallas work for it. And if they're going to score, make them go 12 to 15 plays. Folks, Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore. That's because TickPick, that's T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need for your go-to for all NFL tickets.

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on your first order of Minnesota football tickets. I'm not entirely convinced. I mean, I'm just, I know I was trying to convince you, but I was also trying to convince myself while talking me into it. And even listening to you that the Vikings defense can slow down Dallas, because I think that as, as much veteran presence is on this defense, this is not 2017 or 2016. I think it's a flawed defense still that the cornerback position has enough weaknesses that you're talking about a team that's going to spread it out and try to create one-on-one matchups with cam dance learn with the shot Breland with two of the best receivers in the world.

And by the way, if you cover them deep, they can check it down to Zeke Elliott and Tony Pollard and create big plays. Or Dak Prescott can take off and run for 20 yards. There's a reason why they're the number one offense. There's no weakness. And when they get to the red zone, they've got the best offensive line in the NFL. That's getting Lael Collins back, by the way, if they want to play him. So they are a healthy, awesome offensive line. And I think in the previous years, their offensive line was more fallible because of injuries, but now they're healthy. And I think that's going to be very tough for the Vikings to stop, which leads me to my next one for you. I want you to talk me into

Kirk Cousins, national TV, and why Vikings fans should not be worried about the stage that has been set here for their quarterback. Oh, that's, that's a good one. Um, I don't know if this is still a talking point with cousins. I feel like he's had enough success, not, not riches and gold, but he has done enough in the past two and a half seasons to believe that this is not the piano on his back anymore. Um, I'm thinking about Dallas 2019. You can't really win on a bigger stage than that. And I know that Dallas team ended up, I think eight and eight, or they, they, they might've missed the playoffs. playoffs they weren't a world beater but that was still a huge win at the time um and you can't overlook that you can't overlook a playoff win um he beat the Bears last year on Monday Night Football I just think that he's he's not only has he checked the box once but he's done it two

three four times I I don't think the primetime thing is going to get him. I don't think that's necessarily the story. I think that, you know, making the one Cousinsy mistake could be a story. That one throw that gets away from him to the wrong person, that could be a problem. And we'll see, you know, we'll, we'll see if he ends up caving against some pressure or if he looks sort of like previous versions of Kirk Cousins that, that melt down. But I think that he's, he is really erased a lot of the stigmas against him in the past couple of years to his credit. He's been given some opportunities. He's come through, not always,

but at a more representative winning percentage than it was before. He's not, you know, he's not over at this point. So this isn't something he'll be asked about, I wouldn't think, and probably something that's not on his mind. I never underestimate the things that people could be asked about. But I also agree with you that I don't think that the national TV thing is actually a thing. I looked into this a couple of years ago, going into a game against green Bay on national TV, which cousins performed excellently in 2018, kind of kept that season going into the second half briefly eliminated some of the problems they had, which only propped

up a few weeks later with John DeFilippo. But that was a huge game for them. Mike McCarthy was on the other side, Aaron Rodgers against the Vikings, big time stage, and Cousins couldn't have been much better. And there have been a number of games that we've seen from him where he hasn't just been good on national TV, he's been fantastic. But the explanation for why he had such a poor record was usually you're playing a great team and a great quarterback. And when he was in Washington, they had a lot of flaws on that team. And so he had played some good games that they just came up short. And in Minnesota, he had some of his classic meltdown games, but we've also seen those happen against the Atlanta Falcons on a 1 p.m. game.

Like you never really know where that when that's coming. And that would be your big fear is Cousins has played so well through six games and there's a lot of discussion about how well he's played. But in 2019 is a good example where he had this long stretch of playing really well. And then all of a sudden it just hit the skids. Same with 2018 started out the season hot, and then it just fell apart with a stretch. And then last year they started the season with that bad stretch. So every year of his career, there's been incredibly good play

and there's been play that ends up proving costly. And when you're playing against very good teams, like the Dallas Cowboys, who are a true Super Bowl contender with their offense. That's where you wonder, can he go back and forth with them? Or does the one Kirky in play? And think about this. This year, the Kirky in plays have not really cost them. He threw it backwards out of bounds on a second down or on a first down. It went to second and 17, trying to throw it away. He's had several strip sacks that bounced right back into his hands some in key moments even in the red zone against seattle bounced right back into his hands on a strip sack and there have been other times we've seen where uh bounces up in the air tip balls they get picked off or when he gets strip sacked it gets recovered and so a lot of it

kind of depends on on that sort of luck so i don't think that it's anything where cousins can't handle pressure. I even looked into the game winning drive thing and his percentage of game winning drives was very similar to other quarterbacks in terms of how many chances you got versus how many you converted into a game winning drive. So it hasn't shocked me. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is Sam, you look this up. The Vikings have a lot of three and outs and they have a lot of halves of Kirk cousins, not playing great football. And I think the biggest concern is if you play one half of poor football against Dallas Cowboys, you're going to be down 21 points. They can't afford that version of cousins that doesn't want to be aggressive, wants to throw short of the sticks on third down, gets a little antsy in the pocket.

That's the version that they can't afford to have in this game. The Vikings need a duplicate of the Seattle performance, I think, in the Seattle game. And not in every sense, because the defense still started out really badly on that day. But the offense struck early. They struck often. And even in the second half when they weren't scoring touchdowns they still sustained three field goal drives put points on the board scored 30 points I think they only punted once in that game you need that you need a four-quarter

offensive effort where you don't have and this has been kind of the problem with the Vikings in many of their big defeats like I'm'm thinking, you know, Seattle in 2019 and 2020, where they have one quarter where they just black out and have an out-of-body experience. And the offense turns it over and a lead becomes a deficit in the blink of an eye. Can't do it against Dallas at all. Ready for the next prompt? I am ready, yes. Okay, let me know how many of these we're doing. Cause I'm sure we could go all day with it. I've got, I don't know if it's a tricky

one or not. Maybe, maybe I think you can probably convince me here. Convince me that Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter can get pressure with potentially Lael Collins and Tyron Smith trying to keep them away from Dak Prescott. Now that's a good one. One thing I would say in Everson Griffin's benefit is I didn't think he had quite the same type of game against Carolina that he'd had in the previous couple of weeks, but then he gets to rest. And Andre Patterson has talked about this a lot of like making sure that he keeps Everson

Griffin at full health. Now, look, there's not a whole lot you could do. You have to just play him because he's the best player you have. He's the best chance you have to get after the quarterback. So him having that little extra jump, the little extra jump at home when the other team has to go on the silent count versus being on the road, statistically, that's been a huge difference in terms of sacks in the past. I looked this up about US Bank Stadium

with fans in the stands, the Vikings from 2016 to 2019, no team had more sacks in the NFL than the Vikings. When they were on the road, they were an average team in terms of sacks. I think that's a big advantage. And I think that speaks to Everson Griffin's quickness. Tyron Smith is unbelievable though. I mean, one of the best, truly one of the best players in the NFL, a hall of fame level talent. I don't know if he's been healthy enough to someday be in the hall, but he's that good. Now on the other side though, this is where I think they have the best chance. If Lyle Collins is starting, I don't think he's that great. He's not Tyron Smith. Great. We've seen Daniil Hunter take apart plenty of good defensive linemen and the other thing

or offensive linemen, sorry. And the other thing is that the way that things are set up usually by Mike Zimmer is to give an assist to these guys where you're rushing three, four guys over one part of the field, like on third and 12 or something, right? We saw this, I mean, really through the entire time, Mike Zimmer has been their coach where they'll show a blitz on one side. The offense will change the protection. Then there's some confusion and that will alone help them.

That's why they have to be in third and long though. That's why they can't give up a ton of rushing yards because once they get those opportunities, Zimmer is just a mastermind of doing this. You mentioned even last year when they had a terrible defense, they were still good on third downs for this reason. So I think they have a chance to get after Dak Prescott, despite this great offensive line, but only if they don't get steamrolled in the running game by this offensive line. And only if they actually force Dak Prescott into those tough positions. But I think that the way Griffin and Hunter have played this year, you go into any game feeling like these guys can make a game-changing play at any moment.

Yeah, and maybe Lael Collins isn't ready to go. Maybe you get to face Terrence Steele, who is a second-year undrafted free agent who's been doing a nice job filling duty at right tackle. But if you get Hunter against Stee against steel that is a decided mismatch and that's where you could really make some progress and get pressure on prescott who has not been hit very much this year and a lot of that's a credit to him because he's mobile but sack percentage is actually the same as kurt cousins they both have 3.6 sack percentage which i believe are both top five numbers um in the. Prescott has been very elusive this year, which he's tough to bring down because his protection, especially at the

guard positions is just so, so good. Okay. Let's do just a couple more here. How about talk me into if this game is back and forth and there's a ton of points and entertainment value. Let's say it washes away the terrible taste I have in my mouth from having to watch the new Orleans saints and Seattle Seahawks last night, please NFL gods. Why that was one of the worst football games I've ever seen coming off of a hideous game between Indianapolis and San Francisco. So that was horrifying for national television. So they wash away all that.

They play a great game. It's 35, 35 cousins has 400 yards. Dak has 400 yards. It's been miraculous. And the game comes down to a field goal on the foot of Greg Joseph. Talk me into Greg Joseph doing it again at home and why they should trust Greg Joseph in another clutch kick situation in a game that really swings the entire season, I think. Wow. This is a tough one. Let's recap. So week one, good Joseph, clutch Joseph. Week two, choke Joseph.

Week five, good Joseph. joseph week two choke joseph um week five good joseph week six choke so we're i mean we're alternating here so we are every other we are two for clutch we are due for clutch joseph um in week eight i think the vikings are clearly committed to riding this out with him unless something cataclysmic takes place he has proven that he can make the long kicks um and I think that in you know in a game where like if you've got a kicker who like Joseph I think is making 80 percent of his 50 plus yard kicks. I think that you ride with him on that. I think you go with, you know what the percentages suggest over a longer period of time and say,

okay, you've done this. You've, you've proved you can be clutch. You're not choking a hundred percent of the time. I think they give him the confidence to make that kick. And I think that he has the ability to make it. But I'm not even that convinced of my no no sorry i don't think there's anything you could actually say to convince vikings fans that they should trust the kicker i just that this was this was

an impossible one so you give me one more and then me into Trevon Diggs sticking the knife, because the Vikings passed on Diggs in the draft, correct? For Jeff Gladney. For Jeff Gladney. Yeah. Essentially. I mean, kind of. Like they needed a corner and they decided to go with him.

Anyway. Talk me into how that could have worked with Trevon in Minnesota after his brother's falling out. Oh, that's not a hard one. I don't think because he's good. He's very good. Everyone get over it. Stefan in his ear saying, hey, this place, there's nothing you can do about it. My friend, you're under contract for four years. You come in, you make plays and everybody's happy. That's really it. Isn't it? Like if, if they passed on Trayvon Diggs, because he was a better fit. But look, if you're talking about which guy had the better resume, one of them went to Alabama and was completely dominant. The other one went to TCU and was good. Jeff Gladney was a good prospect. His career was not undone by his talent. It was undone by his, what he did off the field, but Trayvon Diggs had a better resume coming out.

And a lot of people had him as a top corner that was going to be drafted high. And a lot of times in terms of draft strategy, if you pick which way works better, is it reaching for your guy or is it taking the guy who drops it's taking the guy who drops C Jefferson, Justin, right? And it's clear that they, not only was it really kind of clear at the moment that that was a questionable pick to take Gladney, I thought because of Antoine Winfield Jr., who has a ring, but also because of Trayvon Diggs and his size,

we also thought his size was a great fit for Zimmer. Picking a smaller corner was just surprising. But if they only did that because of his, of Stefan, that would make no sense to me because that player coming in as a draft pick. I mean, he has no leverage at all. If he wants to try and force his way out, like you got to play for four years under this contract. And also my brother, I have two of them. Our personalities are very different. So if you were saying, oh, well, he's going to bring the same personality. Well, that's not always the case, right? And so Trayvon Diggs

has had a ton of success. I do think though, one side note, Trayvon Diggs takes a lot of risks and there is some space here for Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen to double move or to take advantage of the risks that Trayvon Diggs likes to take. He has now been talked up for a few weeks. This guy's putting up insane interception numbers. So what should we expect him to do? Try to get more interceptions. I think the Vikings can take advantage there. Yeah, you'll read about this in tomorrow's story

about the key matchups in this game where the Trayvon Diggs, if you dig into his season so far, how about this Halloween grave digs are, Oh, wow. I love it. Um, he's penalty prone.

He's tied for the league lead and penalties amongst corners. Doesn't tackle really at all. Um, and he's given up a play 35 yards or longer in each of the last five games uh those are some red flags so the interceptions are nice and they affect sort of you know the passer rating when targeted stats but i think if you look on a play-by-play basis there is room there to to beat trevon diggs and he's probably going to be on Jefferson. They usually put, they put him up against, you know, the, the Mike Evans of the world. That's the kind of guy

they think he is. He's going to get the number one assignment, probably Jefferson. And I think Jefferson's good enough to win those matchups. Yeah. Um, that's right. Uh, so far this year, though, it's been a quarterback graveyard for Trevon Ds, right? Yeah. Yeah. In the grave. So anyway, yep. Keep it going. I got one more for you. And then we want to talk about whether we think the Vikings like what their chances are to win this game. And then we want to rank some candies because it is Halloween time. And that's a fun thing to do.

Talk me into the color rush uniforms for this one. What are the, are the Vikings all purple? Yeah. Now I'm not saying that they're wearing them. I don't know that, but this would be an opportunity potentially for them to wear the all bright purple color rush uniforms. They wore them for the first time in 2016 against Dallas.

And I, if I'm not mistaken, they wore them again against Dallas last year, I think. And they lost that game and they lost in 2016, too. I don't like the all purples, so I don't I'm not in support. I mean, I think it it it reminds me a little too much of the the combo they tried to bust out in like the mid 2000s where they had like a heavy purple and like a lot of yellow accents. Now I'm, I'm much fonder of the all whites or just the traditional like nineties look, which they don't bring back often enough.

Like the, the late nineties Cunningham Moss, Carter, Robert Smith jerseys, those need to be the retro go-to color rush. Don't care. Don't care at all. Burn them. So you just, you failed completely to talk me into that. Now I think they're fine. I don't dislike the purple with the bright yellow. I think that if you're an offensive lineman, maybe you look at it and say, I look like a big grape. Uh, but I think in terms of just how they look on the field in person, we saw them a couple of times they pop. That's what I thought. Uh, and it seems like I see them a lot with a lot of fans wearing them around. So if they so choose now, they probably won't because they lost against Dallas wearing those.

Um, I don't know. Was it last year they wore them? I remember in 2016. I really thought it was, but now I'm doubting myself. I totally agree with you, though, about the late 90s, mid-late 90s look to bring that back more often. Even the helmet that's not the right color. What about all blacks? Why have we not seen that with purple accents?

See, I've just been in sports not for that not for like every team like the los angeles lakers having a black jersey just like what is happening why why do the boston celtics and the new york knicks have a black jersey it's not a fan of that i don't know the timberwolves alternate black back in the kg days was the bomb, so I am in support. Folks, football season is in full swing, but we've got basketball and hockey getting rolling as well, and Soda Stick has got you covered. You have to see the Moose t-shirt designs for Marcus Foligno. You can also get your hands on the very popular Dollar Bill Kirill shirts as well.

On the basketball side, the design with three wolves howling at the moon, perfect for the spooky fall season. And the design with the wolf carved into the state of the Minnesota is just awesome. It's very cool stuff. And hey, for you college football fans, check out the Tanner Morgan t-shirts as well. SodaStick has tons of hats and hoodies with all their great designs on them. You will love it. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k check that out today use the promo code purple insider for free shipping and also follow myself and sodastick on twitter for our giveaways

okay well their jersey yeah their jersey although the throwback, their colors, the gray and the, and the light blue, very much classic. Okay. So now here's my last one for you. Talk me into the Vikings. When this football game, you win the take, give you run the ball effectively from start to finish. And you hold Dallas to field goals. I mean, the formula is not rocket science at all. Like there's a few things that have to happen. And I think, you know, if you list off the 10 things that need to happen to win a football game, Vikings probably need to do about seven of them out of 10, because Dallas is just like that talented. And that talent is going to, you know,

I think probably make them the favorite in this game. I think we've established like two and a half points. I mean, they are a better team, but you know, good teams go on the road and lose all the time. And it, if you can slow them down, even just for a chunk of the game, like if you can make them sort of play your style for one half of this game to get an edge. Yeah. I think it's very attainable. Um, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. I am all in for this game.

I know you'll be in, in your, your Halloween costume. They're, um, ready to take it all in. Um, it's going to be a real treat and the Vikings can absolutely win. Which Viking would you dress up as if you had to go Halloween as a Viking? I have the answer of this. Jared Allen. Oh, that's a good one. I like that. You could do like the Fu Manchu, that kind of thing. I mean, he's got a 69 years.

Of course, it's hard to be distinctive as a 150 pound, six foot man. Like I am. There's not Alexander Hollings. You could go as him. Hey, there you go. There's not many Vikings I resemble. But the mullet and the hair from Alan seems pretty distinctive. But you seem to have enough. Oh, maybe like the one bar, Gary Anderson. You could definitely go as Gary Anderson.

You could go as their their barefooted kicker that they had. I forget his name. They had a barefooted kicker. You could do that. But I was thinking you go as Mike Zimmer in Jacksonville with the eye patch. That's so Halloween too, to have an eye patch. That's right. Okay. That I think is the answer. Okay.

So before we, before we wrap up, I'm, I actually, you know what, you and I spoke yesterday and I said, I was going to probably pick Dallas to win close. I think I'm changing my mind. I think I'm going to pick the Vikings to win this game. There's something about U.S. Bank Stadium. And I think that Dak Prescott, if he slowed down even a tiny bit by the calf injury that he had. That I think this can stay close and it can come down to very much an Arizona or Seattle type of game. And I also think too, that we have criticized

Zimmer a lot about his way of handling in game situations, but I think Mike McCarthy is actually worse and Mike Zimmer will be aggressive in this game. We have seen him when there's pressure on in these games against Cleveland is a good example. He'll go for it on fourth down. He sort of feels the tension, I think, and will push it a little bit when it's time to do that. And I think he's going to handle this better than Mike McCarthy, especially since there's been a lot of noise about it that, you know, I think they went back and looked at it and in his decision making. So do you have your list of your top five favorite Halloween candies? Because that's, I think, the best place to finish here as we approach Halloween. And by the way, for everybody who listens to the podcast every day,

there's an episode coming later where I have someone who investigates in conspiracy theories look into whether the Vikings are actually cursed. I recorded that the other day. And I'm very excited. Terrific. Yeah. So anyway, all right. Nice.

Halloween candies. What do you got? All right. Um, I'm making, so I've got my favorites written down and I'm still trying to sift through my, my top five. Let's start with number five. Let's start at the bottom. Um, I got to throw this in just to stir the pot.

Um, it's, it's kind of right on the fringe for me in the top five, but, um throw this in just to stir the pot um it's it's kind of right on the fringe for me in the top five but um this is gonna rock the boat this is gonna blow up the the message boards candy corn i'm a candy corn guy that's where you were going sue me i mean you can you can at me if you want i'll stand on the table for it. It is delicious. I especially like those like little pumpkin candy corns that are a little denser and have a little more weight to them. I think those are great. I think as a candy, it's delicious.

Now, would I want to have it year round, like every week? No, but because it's seasonal, there's kind of a novelty to it. People busted out in the month of October and I am here for it. I would rather eat this purple insider flag behind me than have candy corn. In fact, they probably taste the same. Did someone melt down tires and paint them orange and sell them

as candy? That's how I view candy corn. So it is controversial. It is argued about a lot on the internet. I am on the complete opposite side. I cannot believe that people eat this. And I think whatever it's doing to your body, I'm concerned long-term for you and your healthcare plan. I'm concerned about the amount of diet, Dr. Pepper, you drink. So now we're even. Yes, we are even. All right. What's your next one? No, I want to hear your number five. Oh, okay. We'll do it that way then. I'll go with one that is incredibly boring. A candy that I can't imagine anyone under the age of about 62 eats.

That is a payday bar. It's simple. I enjoy peanuts and I enjoy caramel or caramel, whichever you choose. I'm not going to fight with you about it. And they put them together and handed them to me in a wrapper. And so I will go a very simple payday bar. All right. I don't discriminate much with candy.

I just, I'm not really a nuts guy. So I'm not like, I don't really eat those as kind of a rule, but I respect it. All right. What's your number four? Yeah. Number four. I think we're going to go to, you know, the Marshawn Lynch classic, the Skittles. I love the little snack size bags. I think they're perfect. I don't, I get a little full on them.

If I have too many, I can't do the Marshawn thing where I like eat them nonstop all day, but good little snack pack of Skittles is like the perfect pick me up. I, uh, I will taste the rainbow, my friend. I think that's a terrific pick. They are, um, I think there's just, there's just a burst of sugar that goes into your veins when you consume Skittles that is like nothing else, uh, short of illegal drugs. Uh,. I'm going to go with a similar type of fruity candy and I'm going to go starburst. If you wanted to be specific, the pink starburst is the best.

I don't enjoy how it gets caught in your teeth almost immediately, but in terms of the flavor, this is one when during training camp, they have a bowl of candy for us in the media room. I just pluck out the starburst. I'm going to go starburst for my number four. Yeah. A little too chewy for my taste, but there was, I got in a habit when I was young, I would go to, uh, to basketball games and football games, go to the concession stand. I'd get popcorn and starburst and eating those together for whatever reason was one of my

favorite things to do again. Very healthy healthy. Yeah, yeah, extremely healthy. Number three for me, this is kind of a cult favorite. I'm not a big fan of hard candy, but I like when they take a good hard candy and make it softer because I have these soft teeth. The Chewy Sprees, Chewy Sprees, where it's like a blast of fruit flavor makes me salivate. So I'll go with the chewy sprees. Number three. I feel like that's a deep cut and I used to eat sprees pretty often. And you're right. Once they made them chewy, once you break through that sort of candy shell,

you've got, uh, you got yourself going pretty well here. I think that's a great pick. Well, I'm going to go totally not off the board at all. In fact, I'm going to go. This would be like picking Duke in the NCAA tournament. I will take a Snickers. I like a simple Snickers bar at any time. But, you know, it is true, though. What they say in the commercial is really true. Like if you're out of energy or something and you eat a Snickers, like you're good to go. Probably because it packs so much chocolate and caramel and everything else in it.

But big fan of the Snickers.'s my number three all right um can't knock that at all that's obviously a fan favorite so number two you know I've gone with some an offbeat you know flavor and candy corn um some fruity flavors with Skittles and Chewy Sprees now we're getting back into the meat and potatoes the Twix bar, which has the crunch, the chocolate exterior, the caramely interior. It's not messy. It's like solid, but still it's not like too hard. It's perfect.

And I like that they break it up into a couple of different pieces in the bag. It's just one of the perfect candies. OK, so that's the one I give out at my house every year. And I won't pick something off of your list, but that was going to be very high on my list. A great selection. I think one of the things you can do with that is you can bite it in half and just sort of let it all sit there for a while. And then you get to the end and you've just got that little cookie. And so it's almost like having candy and cookies

at the same time. Well done Twix. You're the best. So I won't pick that one, but I'm going to stay in the same category of candy bars and I'm going to go with a crunch bar. What is it like Rice Krispies that they have inside of it? It just adds a little extra. I can't do straight Hershey's chocolate unless it's on some sort of s'more. It has to be mixed with something else that I can't snort chocolate right into my bloodstream. It's got to be mixed up with something. And I think a crunch bar does a really great job of that. So I will go crunch bar for my number two. All right. Well, a drum roll up to number one. I think Reese's for me has the greatest formula for how they create candy.

If you like peanut butter, which I do, you can't not go with a Reese's product. So I think the question is, which Reese's product do I go with? You've got, you know, the mini peanut butter cups, the normal size, the big cups, the big cups that have Reese's pieces mixed into them. I'm going to go off of all those though, or the Reese's pieces, another good option, but the Reese's fast break bar is my all-time favorite. It is a pillowy, soft, luscious nougat. It's got a little more density to it. So you feel like you're getting like a little more bang for your buck

with that little swirl on the inside. I could eat one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I love the fast breaks. I want to marry the fast breaks. Wow. I can only hope that someone joined just as you said the word nougat. I want to marry the fast breaks. Wow. I can only hope that someone joined just as you said, the word nougat, uh, that, I mean, you're right. Reese's I like Reese's pieces, the ones that are sort of, um, it's like a, it's like an M and M and then, but it's got the Reese's

taste. That's probably my favorite version. Uh, but I'll give you my number one. And once again, I'm not doing anything weird here, but this is my favorite. And I used to do this. So my wife used to call basketball games for a college and I used to go to the games with her. And then I just sit in the stands and watch. And I would always get pizza, just like you, the healthy route and, um, you know, uh, lettuce of some, no, just pizza and a soda. And I would get with that peanut M&Ms. And if you're not a huge peanut guy, you could go regular M&Ms, but I am, as you've seen from a lot of these candies, the peanut M&M, very similar to the Kit Kat or I'm sorry, well, Kit Kat was in consideration,

the very similar to the Twix where you can eat it and then let it sort of melt in your mouth all the way down to the peanut. Then you get the peanut. It's a, it is a classic. It's a gem. And the only travesty in this world is that they made all these little, um, Halloween, like mix up tiny little bags to give out for Halloween. So you get like six. So give out, quit being a cheap ass. Give out real bags of peanut M&Ms. Spend some money. Be nice to the kids in your neighborhood. Give them a real bag of peanut M&Ms. I don't care if you give out the little ones of anything else, but the peanut M&Ms, you get like four. It's not good enough. Yeah. So the theme of your list is you're a nut guy. You've got the Payday, the Snickers, the peanut M&Ms. And if I

were to go, I love Peanut Butter M&Ms because as we established, I'm a peanut butter guy. So I like the broken down version of peanuts into a smoother form. But I like that we disagreed a little bit. We had some conflict. We had some good know, some good, good support for arguments. I feel like we we did a better job with the candy than we did with actual game topics. Yes, I agree. So anybody who's listening to this, leave in the comments section how we did on our list. If you think that Sam's crazy for candy corn or I am too nuts for nuts, feel free to drop

those and we'll post them on social media, too too and get some reaction to our top five lists. Sorry to Kit Kat. I did leave that out of there. That was on my mind. Probably would have been sixth. So Sam, you know, it's a piece of that fancy feast.

Office reference. Office reference. Indeed. All right. Well, thanks for your time, Sam. Thanks of course,

for bringing me the news and their social media channels for hosting this. I hope that you guys had some fun and some hardcore football on Halloween. A lot more to come. So go wherever you get your podcasts, Purple Insider Podcast and purpleinsider.substack.com. And every Tuesday we'll be here.

So we'll catch you then.