Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Cowboys completely destroy the Vikings

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

40-3? Seriously 40-3? We knew that a letdown game could be on the way at some point for the Vikings but Sunday afternoon's game was a complete shock. Why did the Vikings struggle so much? How does Christian Darrisaw's injury impact them going forward? What changes need to be made to avoid a serious slide going forward?  -- For more of Matthew's Vikings coverage, head to purpleinsider.substack.com For bonus discussions, interview clips, and more videos, check out our YouTube channel! Interact with us on Twitter! @Purple_Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, Matthew Collar here along with Paul Hodowanek and welcome to our post-game reaction in a game where the Minnesota Vikings lost 42-3 in the biggest whooping in the history of this stadium, one of the biggest whoopings in the history of the entire Minnesota Vikings franchise at home and a completely shocking, stunning, totally unexpected result here. Well, I think we thought that the Vikings had a letdown in them at some point where we felt like there will be a game that they don't win and we walk away. And I had previously promised, I had previously said, no, I will not overreact to any loss that they have because they've built up this huge lead and it's inevitable that it will happen that at some point there will be a game that they just don't show up and it doesn't go their way and the ball bounces

the wrong way and there's a fumble or a mistake or something that costs them. But 40 to three, I did not see coming Paul. And I guess I don't even know what to say after that. I mean, they were completely dominated in every facet from the very start of the game. There's no part where we could go, well, you know, if this had just happened, then they would have. I mean, no, like really from the very beginning, it was a strip sack. They kind of got away with the fact that Dallas got a little cute in the red zone. They moved the ball a little on the very next drive. And then after that, it was one sack after the next complete and utter domination of the line of scrimmage in both ways. I mean, and Dallas, see, this is a team that can actually

run the football, unlike the Buffalo Bills, unlike the Washington Commanders. And you know what? They did. And they ran it a lot and they ran it successfully a lot. And this felt like San Francisco 2019, where just every part of the game in the trenches was won by the opposition, and it felt like they had no chance really from the outset. And I don't know what to say about that other than I think all weaknesses were exposed. Every weakness that we've talked about along the way, hey, that interior of the offensive line, that's going to be a problem. Hey, the depth, if you get somebody hurt like Christian Derrissaw or if Christian Derrissaw isn't on his game right from the very beginning, or the cornerback depth where, hey, look, Cam Dantzler was playing pretty good football, and then you're down to your third corner.

There's a reason why Andrew Booth Jr. was not ahead where normally you would have expected Z'Darrius Smith to be in, which makes me think that he's probably battling that knee injury that had him questionable going into this game. And if Z'Darrius Smith's not in there, and if Delvin Tomlinson's not in there, all the weaknesses came together here in this game. And Dallas was the worst possible opponent. They had everything that the Vikings cannot match up with. They have a quarterback who gets the ball out quickly, so he wasn't really susceptible to the pressure. They had a running back that was excellent. They put in two tight ends and forced the Vikings to put extra personnel in there that was big, and they were already short on the defensive line.

They have playmaking wide receiver in C.D. Lamb. They have a kicker who can kick it from outside in the parking lot, apparently, and make it from just about anywhere but most of all they have micah parsons he can line up anywhere he can crush any offensive lineman and he did exactly that in this game and i think the there are things of this game where you'd say ah well look it's one game you came off the emotional when you had all the hype and. And as Jeremiah Searles said on the podcast last week, look, what goes up must come down. You're always going to have that letdown game. But there were also things in this game, Paul, that you feel like we didn't just get a preview of the playoffs, did we? I mean, for them, they have to find answers. And if those answers mean that this is their

excuse to make a change at right guard, and I know he's not completely responsible for this, they're going to have to really be patient with Christian Derrissaw to make sure when he returns that he is at 100%. And, of course, they're going to say, look, we did all the protocols, and I believe them, but he immediately got another concussion, which is very scary for his future. And so they have to be as patient as possible going through this, but the offensive line,

not being able to go toe to toe with a violent defensive line, where have we heard this story before? So I guess I want you to start out Paul with giving me how much do you think this should be concerning to the Vikings, to Vikings fans? Because I did see a lot of people saying we knew that this was them. And I don't think that this is them. I don't think they're a team that loses 40 to 3 against another very competitive team. But I also think if you go through why they lost, some of these things have been very creaky from week to week and have caused them a lot of problems and have caused them to get down in games from week to week. And then they finally all came together,

all the weaknesses in one game, and it resulted in a monster blowout. I think this is legitimately concerning for the playoffs. I mean, the two games that we've seen them play, NFC playoff contenders, they've gotten played right off the field. They did not look like they belonged on the same football field as the Dallas Cowboys today. It looked every bit JV versus varsity, whatever comparison you want to make. That's how the Vikings looked, particularly in the trenches on both sides of the ball, just utter and complete domination as you said so i think it it has to be concerning because this was not a game where a couple of the bounces went the cowboys way early and they just kind of built on it we you can see blowouts like that where one or two things just kind of change

the complexion of the game the game script goes weird on you and suddenly you're down and maybe you didn't play that bad no this was horrendous they earned a 40 to 3 loss like all parts of that 458 yards for the Cowboys 183 for the Vikings the Cowboys were like 12 for 17 on third down to the Vikings 1 in 11 like it was a shellacking in all like all respects they probably could have taken out the starters at like the midway point of the third quarter the Cowboys scored on every drive until the four minute mark of the third quarter their eighth drive of the game that was the first time that the Vikings defense was able to stop the Cowboys offense so it wasn't just the offensive line for the Vikings it was the entire

defense just not being able to stop the run and then Dak was able to tee off when he could and just expose the matchups. Like everything that could go wrong went wrong. And so maybe that's where you're optimistic. And you say, maybe not all those things can go wrong for the Vikings again. But the way they went wrong felt repeatable in the way that other teams can manufacture the same types of things. I think of the Eagles again. I think of the Cowboys if they face of things. I think of the Eagles again. I think of the Cowboys if they face them again. I think of the 49ers, these teams that can dominate you in the trenches. And when fully healthy, the Eagles certainly can do that. The Cowboys showed

they can do that today. The 49ers are another team that can do that and have tons of weapons on the offensive side of the ball, along with just a scary, scary defense. So they're eight and2 at this point. And so you have to just look through everything in the context of what will this look like in the playoffs. And I see three teams that can reasonably recreate the type of destruction that the Cowboys just put on the Vikings. And so we're starting to see this Vikings team, at least we did today,

when the injuries start to pile up like they have with the rest of the league up until this game, even in this game, or leading into this game, I'm sorry, they were still one of the least injured teams and the value that those injured players had cost for the Vikings. With Derrissaw out, that's certainly going to bring Minnesota up to probably league average in terms of how much value you're losing, because that's how important Derr important Daris is so now they're starting to feel how the other half of the league has felt this whole time when the Eagles are signing defensive tackles off the street because they're getting injured and they need to feel like these are the things that happen to these teams and the Vikings are hit their first big blip of adversity here so we'll see how they

respond on a short week but it just feels too repeatable in the way the Vikings got beat they didn't even Kirk Cousins didn't even have a chance to mess up or do anything bad in this game because he didn't even have a chance and so it's it I think it needs to be legitimately concerning now they certainly have time to make it up they have plenty of margin of error um so we we will see what happens as they continue to go forward. But it's not looking good right now. They got their lights turned off, just how you're getting your lights turned off on you on the YouTube right now.

Yeah, sorry about that. Well, maybe I look better in the dark anyway. All of a sudden, all the lights went out. The lights are not out on the Vikings season, of course, because they are still 8-2. And when you look at the division, they are in great shape regardless of this loss. It's just that almost you would say now 40-3 is hard to make this point. But let's say that it was a 27-10 loss if it had been that. Then I think that it would have been fairly easy to make a

case that losing Derrissaw is worse than the loss because of his, like you said, his value. When you go into any game against Micah Parsons, and I know Derrissaw gave up the sack right from the very outset, but I don't think he was maybe as at a hundred percent. The team again is going to say that he was, and I don't doubt that he passed all of the concussion protocols, but that doesn't mean necessarily that he was at 100% after missing time in practice this week and after missing some of last week. And, you know, I think that right from the outset, you saw how valuable that left tackle position is to Kirk Cousins and just how much Christian Derrissaw has probably been painting over some of the issues this year by being unbelievably good.

I mean, one of the absolute best players in the entire NFL making a case for himself as an all pro. You can't underscore how good he's been going up against a lot of good pass rushers this year and him being able to shut down top pass rushers sort of made up for in a way the weakness on the interior and even after the game Kevin O'Connell basically said we were trying to chip and things like that to help Blake Brandel who look was a hero of the Buffalo game but week in and week out this is a guy that was cut out of camp in his first two years you don't really want to rely on him too much in a game where you're playing mega stars on the other side, especially Parsons, who just looks like Derek

Thomas or Lawrence Taylor or whoever, you know, Julius Peppers. I mean, he's of that ilk of like hall of fame, gold jacket type of talent right now in the way that he's playing. So you don't want to back up going up against him. But once that part of the offensive line becomes weak, then the rest becomes super weak. Then it means that you can attack as a defense from anywhere. You can rush on the outside. You can send those stunts and twists up the middle. And Kirk Cousins took as many sacks today as I've ever seen him take.

I think maybe the most since he's been a Minnesota Viking. There were just no answers there. And with Cousins, we've always known the reality of the opposing defensive line. This is the kryptonite. It has been. It probably always will be. And there's only one way for opposing teams to slow down Justin Jefferson. Yeah, I know Trayvon Diggs grabbed his arm on that bomb

and maybe he catches a touchdown there. Maybe he doesn't. But the only way to slow down Justin Jefferson is by pressuring and sacking Kirk Cousins because the Vikings don't have an answer when that happens. They don't have that second gear that they can drop down into. And what that gear has been in the past. And it hasn't always worked against good defensive lines, but the other option that they had was running Delvin cook.

But once you get down in the game, there's no running Delvin cook over and over again. I mean, you really have to score a touchdown on that, on that first drive and you have to start playing from ahead. And it sort of speaks to, you know, what they've been getting away with this year is falling behind and then finding a way with Justin Jefferson at the end but you can't really fall down too far week after week after week and expect to be able to come back and you really can't fall down like that with a defensive line like this that you know last week Buffalo was missing Gregory Russo but this week Dallas was completely healthy and this is what they looked like. So as far as the concern level, it totally applies to the playoffs considering that the two teams that have really whooped them this year and their losses have been teams that have great

defensive lines and have just dominated with their pass rush against the Vikings, which look, you go back to a lot of different games through the years, even, you know, 2019 against green Bay at the end of the season, when Kenny Clark and Zedaria Smith took over that game, it's like this movie has never happened like this. It's never been a slasher movie before, but you've definitely seen the movie before where, Oh, Delvin can't get going. Oh, you fall behind a little bit and they don't have the defense to hold them in a game like this. They really have gotten some big performances out of Patrick Peterson and Z'Darrius Smith in past weeks. And they've caused a lot of turnovers and they've gotten a lot of sacks, but today they didn't do those things. And if they don't do those

things on a play to play basis, they've been a pretty inefficient defense overall. So again, like you don't want to go so far overboard to sound like, Oh, sound the alarms, the season's over, look, you're eight and two, but it is a reminder that in 2019, they had a middle of the season where they went eight and two and the season kind of ended on a game just like this. So now it really is on Kevin O'Connell to figure out what is your counter punch when this happens? And I don't know if I have the exact answer. I think the answer is supposed to be TJ Hawkinson, but they need TJ Hawkinson to catch the touchdown pass, get another hoof down inbounds on a big play down the sideline, which I thought Kirk Cousins made his best play of the day. And then it doesn't come to fruition because he couldn't get both of his feet down.

It was just a really tough day for TJ Hawkinson when he is supposed to be that second option. So I think that, you know, you're going to play another team like this in the playoffs because there are good teams in the NFC. There's no perfect team, but there are good teams. So you have between now and then to find answers. And here's where some real tests are going to come, Paul. These next few weeks, they face really good defensive teams. Now you and I might be able to hold Zach Wilson to three points like New England did, but they also have the NFL's leader in sacks in Matthew Judon. So this is not over. You're going to take a backup left tackle and Kevin O'Connell announced

after the game that Christian Derrissaw is out. So you're going to take a backup left tackle. And Kevin O'Connell announced after the game that Christian Dersaw is out. So you're going to take a backup left tackle against New England, Bill Belichick, short notice. They also have a very good secondary that has given some teams some serious problems. So that's, I think it's a really good test for them. How quick can you turn around, but also what's your mentality? Because this week they got a ton of attention.

And I mean a ton. Like if you're saying, oh, no one believes in us or whatever, like, oh, no, they did this week. They sure did. Because when it's a 325 start, I got to watch the pregame shows. And it was one Vikings thing after the next. One feature on Jefferson's catch, sit- sit downs with Kirk Cousins. Everything was pushing the Vikings hype train. And it's been so often the case over the last number of years that when that happens, there's always that fall off that is on the way. And that was today, but

you have an opportunity these next couple of weeks to find answers to your weaknesses against the pass rush, because these teams are going to provide it and and really the rest of the season to show us that the game against Philly and the game against Dallas like that's not really who you are those were more of just bumps in the road but how they respond to this on Thursday Paul I think is going to be very fascinating because you have to turn around really quick. And again, I think the mentality of the team after being smacked in the mouth, after being raised up by everybody and hyped up now is really going to be kind of on display. Like how much,

how much does that bonding and that team chemistry matter? How much can you guys pull together and fix things on a really quick week? I think that it really, it sets up for suddenly, even though it doesn't matter in the race, Thursday feels very big now against the Patriots. Yeah. And I did just to circle back. I did look it up.

Kirk Cousins. This is the most sex he's had in his career. Seven sacks. It's happened twice in Minnesota against Chicago in 2019 and against Tampa in 2020, he was sacked six times, but this is the most he's ever been sacked in a game. Yeah, no, this,

this Thursday night game just becomes pivotal for a kind of like vibes mindset kind of look at how you view this team. And then you have like 10 days to prepare for the jets, but both those teams, you mentioned Judon, but the jets defense, arguably the Patriots D line in the jets D line, that's the best thing about both those teams, you mentioned Judon, but the Jets defense, arguably the Patriots D-line and the Jets D-line, that's the best thing about both those teams. And so we saw that alone can limit this Vikings offense to three points and looking like it doesn't know what it's doing. So neither of those games become cakewalks whatsoever solely because of the offensive line

and the issues that it's having but yeah this quick turnaround is kind of testing everything that we've kind of given the Vikings props for this year and Kevin O'Connell in specific of having this team on the right mindset having them playing together playing on schedule kind of doing all the right things always kind of keeping your head in it even when you're, 17, however many points you are repeatedly down in these games and you're gutting out these wins. Well, that's basically the equivalent of what you have here. You have to gut something out in four days against the Patriots after what just happened

to you here. You know, Belichick's going to have his team ready for a Thursday night game on a short week. This is the first time this coaching staff is doing that. So it really tests this mindset of this team is kind of all together, all as one. They are like the vibes couldn't be higher and we're going to blame it all on Mike Zimmer and the previous coaching staff.

Like, Hey, here's some adversity. You finally kind of gotten your teeth kicked in. Now, how do you respond and it really just i don't like this game really the analysis just comes down to the trenches like i don't know how to evaluate kirk cousins's play i don't know how to evaluate a whole heck of a lot other than the cowboys offensive line beat up the vikings defensive line and the vikings offensive line couldn't handle the cowboys at all and now you have to turn around and you have to figure that out. And you're going to have to do it against one of the best schemers in the

world and Bill Belichick. And so I think it really does test why we've credited them so much through this eight and one win all their perseverance. It's going to have to show here. And again, while it won't affect the standings, I think the Vikings playoff odds went from like 99 to 98% with this loss. So really not much happened to you there.

And the Eagles and some of the other contenders didn't look great, although those teams all won. So it's not like everyone's high flying, but you certainly look the worst of any of those contenders coming off this week and just mentally how you rebound is going to be a huge deal and a huge driver of how you can view them going forward this season and how it feels. You know, I think that tells us a lot of if they get down in the playoffs, how they respond because we've seen it early season, but the playoffs is a whole new thing. And I think the way they respond this week gives us a good indication of whether this first part of the season was truly what they look like or if it

was some bounces going their way it's it'll be interesting to see folks have you noticed that i'm always talking about liquid death here on the show well you've probably also noticed by now that it's in the grocery aisle with the water yes that's the water that looks like a tall boy beer and hey there's a good reason for that. Liquid Death is not only delicious mountain water and sparkling water, but it's also saving the environment as well. Liquid Death tall boy style cans are much easier to recycle than those plastic bottles. So they're trying to kill plastic by using aluminum and by donating 10% of profits to put an end to plastic use.

I've enjoyed taking a break from soda and trying Liquid Death. and by donating 10% of profits to put an end to plastic use. I've enjoyed taking a break from soda and trying Liquid Death, and some of you kind folks have tweeted me and said that you've done the same with great results, even if your family thinks that you are downing beer after beer. Find Liquid Death at Hy-Vee 7-Eleven, Target, or check out liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquid death.com slash insider. You know, I wanted to take the accumulation of these four games, Buffalo, Dallas Patriots jets, because I felt like, all right, here is winning teams who have good defensive lines. And again, like that's long been the kryptonite of the Minnesota Vikings.

They still have not put together an offensive line that you can really rely on. I think early in the season, we thought that it was looking like it was coming along. And every week is a new version of Ezra Cleveland. Ed Ingram is getting worse by the week. You know, I think that Garrett Bradbury has sort of settled into being himself. Brian O'Neill even got pushed back a handful of times. Like he is not completely impenetrable to great players creating pressure against him. And what you have is anytime that the pocket breaks down, Kirk Cousins is not a guy who's going to escape and make plays off of it.

And when he did try to escape, he got strip sacked. And that's just who he is. It's who he's always going to be. There's really no answer for that. So I thought this accumulation of games will be pretty interesting to look at. But the extremes of these first two results, like what do you make of them? I mean, I guess there's maybe a more cynical viewing of what happened in Buffalo and like, well, they did throw you a bunch of interceptions when they had chances to win that game.

But I don't want to take that angle because I was there and I saw how well they played and the big plays they came up with. And I think that the players on this team are capable of making those plays. Patrick Peterson has stats that are reflective of Sauce Gardner and Patrick Sertan, who are like the two best players in the league at their positions. And heck, like Peterson was the only one that showed up tonight and made a couple of plays on the football. You know, Zedarius Smith has an MVP candidacy that he's put together. And Justin Jefferson has had, you know, one of the greatest starts in history to a receiver's career. So there's a lot of stars here that you know will continue to be stars

and that tonight is much more of an anomaly for them. So what they did in Buffalo I didn't think was totally fluky or anything because it was stars being stars, and that's what they do. But if you're going to tell me that week after week, which this is possible going forward, that Kirk Cousins is going to face this type of pressure, then that is going to be a problem because we didn't see Adam Thielen at all tonight. We didn't see TJ Hawkinson. KJ Osborne caught a pass and was like, oh yeah,

right. KJ Osborne. And if Delvin Cook doesn't rip off an 80 yard touchdown run and is just an average version of Delvin Cook, he can be pretty effective-yard touchdown run and is just an average version of Delvin Cook. He could be pretty effective, and I thought he was tonight, but it shows you the limitations of relying on things starting with that running game. And then if you're down a left tackle for a significant portion of time, I agree with you that the playoffs are pretty much a lock at this point, but these things can start to snowball if the injuries continue to happen. If they don't get Delvin Tomlinson and Cam Dantzler back soon, they are going to allow a

horrible Patriots offense or a horrible Jets offense to run the football. Those are the only two things those teams know how to do is to run the ball. But you saw how effective Dallas was at doing that. And they're coming off playing some teams that have not really taken advantage of Tomlinson's absence. So injuries are a big deal on this team, even though there isn't like a ton of them across the roster. They're at spots that make them very weak.

And Andrew Booth Jr., I think, is just not ready to play football in the NFL at this point. I mean, that's what it looked like to me tonight is there's a reason that Caleb Evans was ahead of him on the depth chart. He barely practiced during training camp. He started on the season with an injury.

I mean, that's that's just a guy who is behind. That doesn't mean he's a bust. It just means he's behind and they didn't want him to have to play at this point. So now you're asking a left tackle who's a reserve, who has been on practice squad in the past, a corner who's not ready to play, defensive tackles that really shouldn't be in the game. I mean, James Lynch, Jonathan Bullard, these are very much reserve type players.

And the defense looked probably a worse version, but like a similar version to what it has in the past when there have been injuries. And the thing that should really be a concern is, is this knee thing for Zedarius Smith going to be an issue week after week? Because if you can't pressure Mac Jones, if you can't pressure Zach Wilson, even those guys are going to make some plays. But I think what you saw from them today is those two defenses do get after the quarterback and both of those guys melted down in their respective games that it took a punt return for touchdown in order for New England to win that game. But if you don't pressure either one of them,

then there's always the possibility of them doing enough on offense. So they can't let this snowball. They have to find a way to get some people to step up. And I think especially the biggest answer is other weapons outside of Jefferson because the pressure took away Jefferson. There was a good cornerback on the other side who has the capability to run with him and jump with him and catch with him that not very many people do. And also, you know, I wonder too, if more teams are going to start playing that extra safety in the box against the Vikings and put their other safety over the top of Jefferson and just dare team,

just dare this team run against us with an extra guy in the box. We're going to double team Jefferson, leave everybody else one-on-one, find someone else other than Jefferson because we saw a lot of that from Dallas and they did not make them pay at all. So I guess what I'm sitting here thinking is that they have these next two games to show that, OK, elite defenses are going to have some success, but you can overcome them. You can score points against them. You can bounce back from this sort of difficult game because the last thing that they want here is to play against New England

and put up, you know, 13 points or something and play against the Jets and have the Jets completely slow them down, because these defenses are capable of doing the same thing that we saw Dallas doing tonight. And the answers have not existed in other weapons outside of Washington and Hawkinson. But even then, they didn't score a lot of points in that game. And so I think that it was always a little worrisome how much they were relying on Jefferson. Think of like the Miami game where Jefferson has a hundred yards and the team total

passes for 175. Like these things have happened throughout the season, but it's never really caught up with them because Jefferson always came up and made a big play and tonight there was just no time to be able to find him and the other thing I want to ask Paul react to that but also the idea that maybe Chris Reed needs to play right guard because I think that this would be your excuse like there's been lots of reasons he leaves the NFL and sacks allowed and I know tonight's not all his fault but but it's the accumulation. He leads the league in pressures allowed, but when you're winning, you can't go to a guy and say, Hey, we're going to bring in somebody else. And then, cause everyone's going to look around and be like, wait, okay. He's had some struggles, but we're winning. This was a 40

to three loss. If there's an opportunity to say, whoop, okay, we're going to just make that little change there. That's going to be one of our tweaks coming out of the game. I think now might be the time to do it. Yeah. I mean, certainly it's hard to replace a starter after you're winning games. So this, if they have kind of been maybe hoping to do it or waiting to do it, this gives you an opportunity in the fact that you lost a game and your offensive line got decimated. So maybe you feel like it's time to do it. On the other hand, it's four days where you're putting in a new starter with a new left tackle that's going to have to get there and so how many new moving pieces do you want to put on an offensive line on short notice that maybe is kind of a thing of where you roll with ingram against the patriots and if you want to make big

changes you make it with the 10 days where you almost have a mini buy to get yourself back and ready that feels more like when you would make uh replacements it's also if you were to lose that game in your eight and three it feels more justified to maybe feel like you're making those moves but you also feel like if it needs to happen now don't wait till you know lose another game or blow another game just put him in there it really just comes down to how comfortable you feel with chris reed obviously he could have had a chance to start at the beginning of the season and he didn't Ingram beat him out. Now based on Ingram's play, I don't see why you wouldn't at least want to see what Chris Reed can give

you. But yeah, it's kind of a push and pull of how they want, how reactionary they want to be off this game and what they feel like they need four days from now and how much they can kind of, you know, get a new guy in there and ready your second new guy. Cause it's going to be like Brando on the left side,

or I know O'Connell's referenced only Udo there too. So whoever they decide to put out there, I guess either way, not a great option against a Matthew Judon, but yeah, just largely to your other points. I think we've talked about it all year long. Someone other than Jefferson needs to step up and it is continuously not happened. You've seen glimpses with it,

uh, with Hawkinson so far. And I think he can be that, uh, person you saw him on the first drive of the game. Get, I, he probably would have caught the ball. He got called for a pass interference. The defender got called for a pass interference on Hawkinson on a third down. Those are the types of plays he's going to make. He's going to get open and he's going to force defenders to leave him open or get called for a penalty. But really where I thought they lost this game and it happened early because once you got to halftime, this game was pretty much over, but Dallas coming into the game, not a good running team.

It was talked about nationally over and over and over again. And it was, you could clearly see the Vikings wanting to establish the run early and it just didn't work. Through the first four drives, they had 16 early down plays on first or second down. Nine of those were runs.

They had a 22% success rate on those plays. So two of those nine runs, this team generally throughout the whole year has been much more of a pass heavy team. They've been passing more than expected based on the advanced metrics. This is a team where O'Connell has pretty much followed kind of modern thinking and you're going to pass more than you don't. But clearly early on in this game, he seemed to want to get Cook going after the first quarter. He had an interview with the CBS sideline reporter. He talked about, we need to establish the run.

We need to establish the run. And it straight up just didn't work. And then they found themselves down 20 to three because they were trying to get this run game going. And they just were three and out, three and out, seven plays and a punt. It seemed early on, they were trying to get cook going downhill and to really expose this cowboy team where the Packers did last week and other teams have in the past.

And they just weren't successful at it whatsoever. And then that put them in those third and eights, third and tens where cousins was just getting clobbered back there. And it probably helped the confidence of the Cowboys. It probably exposed some things for the Cowboys where they saw, Oh, we can just keep doing this over and over and over again. So I really think those first series were pivotal, not because the second half you can't really even analyze

what the second half looked like, but the first half when they were still relatively in it, they were running the ball over and over again, trying to make something happen. And continuously, it was only two, three yards, getting stuffed at the line. And that set them back for a really long time. And then they just couldn't throw it to Justin Jefferson, like fast enough

because defenders were just on top of cousins over and over and over again. So that's when you talk about kind of those ancillary pieces. Cook just couldn't get going. And I think Cook of previous years probably makes a few more things happen. Now, I don't think the offensive line played particularly well run blocking or pass blocking. So it's not all on him, just like it's not all on Kirk or anyone else in this game. This was a total system failure. But you can see the game plan when it doesn't happen early for them, when they're not scoring

a first drive touchdown and getting out to that early lead and can kind of play like they're within a score for a while when you score on that first drive like realistically you're going to be within the in the game at least even if the other team scores in their first second third drive you're still right in it they just didn't have that today and they were playing off their back foot the entire time and that's when it really becomes justin jefferson and nothing when you're playing off your back foot, because the other guys aren't getting open consistently and it just becomes, we need Jefferson to bail us out. And he was just not even given the opportunity today based on the way the offensive line played.

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That happened? It happened. Yep. Okay. That sounds familiar. I feel like I've heard that before. You know, I think that as far as like when the game was lost and how, I think you make a great point that if you're going to beat Dallas, actually the Packers showed you how to do it, which is that you have to run on them successfully.

And Green Bay did that the week before very successfully at Lambeau. Aaron Jones had a great game. AJ Dillon looked pretty good in that game. Like they were consistently pounding the football and then they just hit a couple of big passes. Aaron Rogers barely even threw in that game, but when he he did he was throwing it deep and hitting Christian Watson and I think you have to kind of make him think about it we've always kind of known this that when they can run the football they are going to be so much scarier to opposing teams because then you're talking about play

actions you're talking about creating one-on-ones and you saw today on their play actions, Dallas did not care. Okay. Run it. We don't care. Like we're just going to attack your quarterback over and over and over again. And if you can't run the football successfully and you have a 22% success rate, then that's going to allow them to do that. And then, you know, after things went sideways, well, then there was no chance of being able to run the ball. I mean, every coach in the world is going to say, Hey, we got to play our game. We've got to run the ball. And I know it was in O'Connell's head that in Philadelphia, they got away from the run too early and they weren't actually down by that much. And they could have possibly come back. Maybe had they run a little more and not panicked and thrown

interceptions. And I remember him talking about that, and I imagine that was in the back of his head. Hey, the last time we were down 17, Buffalo, we got an 81-yard touchdown on a handoff. And in Philadelphia, I didn't run at all, so I do have to go back to Delvin, maybe when the other team isn't expecting it. But it just was not happening. I mean, the brute force of the Dallas Cowboys defensive line was just way too much. But I did want to ask a question, and it's not rhetorical. It's a real question.

Is it concerning to you that we fight to the very end, we're going to be in every game or whatever, that it ran out today? I think I want to say no because it is just one game and things happen. But I also think that, you know, if your strategy is to come from behind every week, it's not a sustainable strategy right now. Here is a crazy stat for you. The Vikings have a negative point differential. They have been outscored on the season after this game. Of course, a lot of it came today, but when we've talked week after week on the post game, and sometimes people have been like, maybe you guys

were a little too hard on them. They won and all that sort of thing. I think that the critique has always been, you had to come from behind five times and that's just not great. And so there's the opportunity to change that and the opportunity. And I thought they did a great job at the bi-week of telling Kirk Cousins, Hey, you got to push it to Justin Jefferson and so forth, but he really didn't even have any chances to do that. I do think that if you are reliant on coming from behind all the time, that that is something that you, you're just not going to be able to do on a week to week basis. So this is still the bones of the same Kirk cousins team that has existed,

but maybe there is a, there is a wake up call here that can happen that says, look, we've been playing with fire for a while, down 17 against Buffalo, down 10 against Washington, losing to Detroit. All those things that maybe kind of snaps them out of it a little bit. I guess I want your opinion on how we should view the fact that like they've had to do that a lot and it's been the foundation of their confidence but also maybe they have to realize that that's not something you can really do every week yeah it's nice to have that swagger in one score games you just don't want that to be the only way that you're winning and it's the only way that they win that's why their point differential despite being eight and two is negative And it's the only way that they win. That's why their point differential, despite being eight and two is negative two. It's because all their other wins were by a score,

basically other than that green Bay game. And so I think it's good for the team to know that they can come back from 17 points on a Buffalo bills like team, but that can't make you complacent in the fact that fall, you fall down and you feel like you can always come back because you can't make you complacent in the fact that fall you fall down and you feel like you can always come back because you can't and against some of the better teams more often than not you're not going to be able to and so i think this game was kind of a classic like we probably should have seen the letdown coming type of game um like after the minneapolis miracle game you had a very bad game following that last week was its, its own miracle kind of wrapped up in however that game was able to go. All the hype coming to you this week, you're feeling yourselves.

You just beat the bills and you get punched in the teeth. Like, like, I've seen this game and it's, I think there's a reason it's a cliche and that there's these letdown games. It's because it happens a lot. And so it happened to them here. And so I think obviously they can recover from that and it's not going to be the way it always is but this vikings team like has been fragile in the way that they're winning games because at some point they just you know just math tells us like they're not the bounces aren't going to always go their way.

And so today wasn't even about the bounces. They didn't even have an opportunity for luck to factor in because they were just so, so outplayed. But I, I, it does leave you wondering about how this looks later on. Cause you mentioned their point differential. They're now just right around the commanders and the giants and the Titans and the the seahawks and like some of these more just kind of average teams that have more average records that we've been saying well you're not like those teams because you're eight and one and those teams are 500 uh but you sure looked like one of those teams today and so the question is how quickly can you turn not only the play around, but your confidence around and get back to where you were feeling yourself into where you can put

these games away by more than three, four or five points. Cause in the playoffs, they're just going to keep coming at you and coming at you and coming at you to their last breath. And there's going to be, it's the talent margin is going to be much, much closer. And so that's when this team is truly going to be tested. Now, I think we'll get a sense of that the next couple of weeks, but I think it's, you know, I think it's fair to say their confidence has been built on these kinds of fragile one-win games. And the way I think you really build it sustainably is you just, you kick the teeth of some opponent coming up and they could very well do that against the Patriots or the Jets who have no offense to

speak of whatsoever. So if you can find some semblance of protection on the offensive line both those games project as possibilities to really do a 180 on that confidence meter not only for yourself but how people view you outside the building but for now you got to pick yourselves off the mat and figure out something because the way they played today was not sustainable whatsoever and it is emblematic of a collapse if they don't if they don't turn it around and figure out something because the way they played today was not sustainable whatsoever. And it is emblematic of a collapse if they don't, if they don't turn it around. Well,

and I think that this is where it all gets tested, right? Like everything that they've talked about from day one, which is bonding together, veteran players, leading this team, better culture, not a culture of fear that was thrown out there

by Eric Hendricks after Mike Zimmer was fired. It all gets tested now. And we knew that it would eventually, but Buffalo was that test and they passed in flying colors, being able to come back after really falling down pretty badly in that game. But, but 43 is just hard to recover from, right? Like when you, when my thing about Minnesota sports is the factoids start coming out. It's like when the gophers lose that game, it's like, Oh, the lowest over under ever. And then you lose like, or Hey, you ran for this many yards and lost. There's only so many teams that have ever done this and lost. Like once the factoids start coming out, then everybody piles on. And you can bet when you lose to the Dallas Cowboys,

guess what's being talked about on all the shows tomorrow is, hey, those Vikings, you know, we all hyped them up last week and then they had that letdown game because you didn't do it against the Jaguars and then it would have been a side note. You did it against the biggest team in America, like it or don't like it, but they're the most popular to be talked about. And so it's going to get a ton of discussion. And I know that everybody would like to say that they're blocking out the noise and so forth, but there's no way you're going to be able to ignore the number of conversations on television and by the big NFL voices on every

network about what just happened here against the Dallas Cowboys. So I think that there is a lot that's going to be tested. And I think that this is what they were always aiming for with Kevin O'Connell in making that coaching change, is that you have a lot of the same players and some are different, but you have a lot of the same players and some are different, but you have a lot of the same players. And you have guys who have been through this before where they get America excited about the Vikings. And then you start having, you know, your analysts on TV, picking the Vikings to do this and the features and everything else. And then there's that letdown around the corner. And then they never seem to recover and miss the playoffs last two years, or, you know, they go to New Orleans and they have that big win,

but then San Francisco is a complete no-show in the playoffs. Or it's a big win after they change offensive coordinators in 2018 only to come back and have that big letdown game. So now kind of the tests really come. And, you know, I know that the playoff odds are what they are, but, you know, it's a good point to bring up by our chats, which we have now when we're going live after this, about the injuries and stuff.

If this starts to build the injuries that they're having, then, like, you could, I'm not saying miss the playoffs, but, like, you could really be stumbling down the stretch. And that is the last thing, like they have to find a way to not have that happen. And it feels like an overreaction to say that, but also I keep coming back to when I'm saying to myself, am I overreacting? Am I being too much like prisoner of the moment to say like, this could snowball or these next couple of teams, you could lose some of these games because of their defenses and all that. I keep coming back to 40 to three, like 40 to three, you put up three points. If you do that in the next couple of games and you don't get back on track and put together

the same offensive performance that you did in the second half of Buffalo, then, then yeah, these things can snowball. And, you know, I also. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about O'Connell and his mentality in this game, because you brought up the running. But also, they didn't go for the fourth and two. And this is a totally lost point at 40 to three. But when they kind of came up with a big stop to start the game, you kind of thought like, okay, all right, game on, right? Like, oh no, Micah Parsons is going to murder everything in his path. But wait, no, they held him to a field goal, game on.

When they drive down the field there, Hockinson doesn't catch the ball, but it's a great throw by Cousins, like dead on the money, really should have caught it. And they get fourth and two. That was where I wondered, and I know this doesn't affect the whole game. It probably goes mostly the same way, but I did wonder, did he get,

did he get a little scared there? Did he get a little like, okay, we've got to take the points. Let's make sure we're tied. I haven't had many criticisms at all, really for the way Kevin O'Connell has handled his decisions and things like that. But I also wondered if it just sort of creeped in a little bit, like this defensive line's good, and we just have looking a little shaky here to start the game, and we got to drop pass, we got to fumble, we got these things, we've got to just take some points, and that's where we're at. I don't know if that decision mattered to you at all, Paul,

but as the game played out, I did wonder if it plays out a little differently and I'm not saying they win, but a little differently. If you score a touchdown there and go up seven to three, because in the swings of momentum that happened throughout a game, if you get up seven to three there, it feels much more like, okay, we got, you know, we got two teams that are going to box each other for 60 minutes as opposed to okay you stopped us we stopped you and and kind of nobody's really made any progress here

yeah i mean especially for a team in the vikings who seems to have thrived off those moments like that dalvin cook run last week where it gets them back in the game i think that's just if they go for it they make it they score that's a big momentum shift after the way the game starts and Cousins gets strip-sacked. It just kind of flips it back on its head of, okay, we overcame that. We're now leading at this point after we just got the ball back. After all that, we stopped them. We scored a touchdown.

We're now leading. Even if they score on their next two drives and they are now at whatever 13 points let's say like worse it's still a one score game i think that keeps them in it for much longer that probably keeps them more in their game plan for a little bit longer running the ball maybe you're finding more cracks and crevices there to where you're able to kind of have a breakthrough at that point where then the defensive line isn't pinning their ears back every snap because they know the Vikings pretty much have to throw the ball at every snap.

Like I mentioned to you early on those three first four drives, they had nine early down rushes. They ended up with 13. So they only had four the rest of the game. That tells you how hamstrung you get when things happen. So I don't think it's facetious to go and say, Hey, that could have changed some things. Now I think they still get dominated. They still probably lose, but does the complexion of the game look different? Yeah. And could things change? Yes. Uh, so I think that decision deserves to be scrutinized, but when it

comes down to it, I think they're losing this game regardless. It's just something to kind of think about and put in the back of your head as they move forward. And they likely will have more close games against some opponents coming up. How do they look in those big moments? And how do they feed or not feed off of those aggressive plays by Kevin O'Connell? And how can he be better in those areas? Okay, we've picked up a lot of watchers live here over the last few minutes. So I want to keep the discussion going.

Normally our postgame lasts about 45 minutes, but I do want to talk about this. And we've gotten this far in without really talking about it, but this Kirk Cousins performance, I would say decidedly this is not his fault. Like, we've always played the is it his fault is it not his fault game and it seems like it's just this endless around and round and round of well this guy should have done that and that guy should have done that well i think this one we can all agree that no this was not kirk cousins fault i mean he looked antsy in the pocket after being walloped a

bunch of times but you know I think that how quickly they were getting beaten I saw a stat midway through the game that he was getting the ball out at 2.4 seconds which is faster than usual and yet still was getting sacked the way he was getting sacked so no I don't put a whole lot of blame when you lose 40 to 3 on the guy who was getting just uh destroyed however however and, and I agree with anybody that says like, look, every, every quarterback who played with this type of differential in terms of pressure, like, and so forth that they probably lose that game. Like when your offensive line gets beat that handily, but that's not what I want to ask about.

Cause I think we're all on the same page there are you worried at all about his confidence because last week he didn't actually play a great game like I you know PFF gave it a 50 QBR had it as a 34 I mean he got them behind 17 points by playing a little antsy and then they've made some huge plays down the stretch of that game but overall like the accumulation of the stats said this wasn't actually a great game um you know when it came to that game in buffalo and then in washington it wasn't a great game either was able to come back the interception and now you kind of have this it's like are you concerned at all that he's going to after getting sacked as many times as he was get more antsy in the pocket as they continue

they do not get breaks here I mean even as they go so they play the Lions eventually on the road a couple weeks from now but even Indianapolis if you watch that game today like their d-line really dominated the Philadelphia Eagles who have an awesome offensive line. Like this isn't changing. They're going to face a whole lot of good defensive lines. So I guess I wonder what you think of his confidence coming out of this game because offensive line play,

interior offensive line play has always been the one thing that has thrown him off. Yeah, I think you could see it later in this game. Once Christian Derrissaw goes out, he's just not as comfortable. He's getting hit over and over again. He's taken some rather hard hits the last few weeks over and over again. He's pretty much an iron man on the field. Like he rarely ever misses games, but he's continuing to just hit the take

these big hits especially to the like chest midsection area just over and over again at some point if you just continue to get hit like you're going to start feeling it you're going to start sensing it even when it's not there it's what they talk about with really young quarterbacks and obviously cousins isn't a young quarterback and has been through this plenty of times so you think some of that is mitigated but we've seen he can easily be affected by pressure and so without derisaw i'm worried about how much confidence do you have in your blind side does that force you to not be the aggressive kirk cousins we've seen in the last two weeks which resulted in them playing better getting kind of more deep shots more explosive explosive plays, leading to more offense.

Do you become that guy who's going to try to check down, who's just going to look for the tight end safety blanket because you don't trust the offensive line? I think that's a real possibility, and it's something that's really going to inhibit this offense from flowing the way it needs to flow and to play the way it needs to play when your bread and butter is finding Justin Jefferson down the field for those 15, 20 yard,

like kind of middle of the field plays that he just kind of makes his whole living on. Like you can't let those routes develop. If one, you don't have the protection, but also two, you don't have the confidence that the production is going to be there and that you're going to stand in and do it. And so I think this game has kind of those kind of it has the building blocks the seeds planted for if in a few weeks from now cousins really isn't playing well and is really skittish you can trace it back to this cowboys game and it's again why this patriots game becomes

so pivotal to quickly bounce back because i think if you do quickly bounce back a lot of the scar tissue that you could have developed in this game can just be kind of wiped away. And you can think about that 40 to three game and you can worry about it. But if you rebound four days later and you correct a lot of these mistakes, I don't know how much it lingers. But I think if anything on this team, you don't want to linger. It's the offensive line and Kirk Cousins is confidence in it. But if I was going to pick one area that's fragile and doesn't seem like it's going to stay consistent, it would be the offensive line and Kirk's confidence in it.

So it feels like that's where they're headed. If they can't pull together one of these next couple games where he's clean and he's just confident and throwing it all over the place, it feels like we could be headed down that path. Yeah, I think that maybe the biggest test here that Kevin O'Connell hasn't necessarily passed yet is how to adapt to that pressure. Because even in Buffalo, early in the game, it caused some problems, including a couple of interceptions. And Washington was

another good example. And they have a great D-line, like no taking away from it, but they're not the only team in the league that does. A lot of teams that they're going to play do, and the teams that they're going to face in the playoffs do. Look at the playoff teams. I mean, there are a couple that might not have great D-lines, but who would you match up as of today? The San Francisco 49ers, and that's a team that is a nightmare matchup for you because they play like this team.

They run the football. They pound it down your face. They have one of the best left tackles in the lead that can slow down your great edge rushers. This is all the things that the Dallas Cowboys have. Still a good offensive line. Maybe not perfect, but still good. That could plow you in the run game.

And that's sort of San Francisco as well. And one thing that's really missing for me is short passes and screens. I mean, the one way to take advantage of a team that's overly aggressive is to hit on screens. And if you go back to 2019, they were one of the best screen teams in the league that has been non-existent. Like if Kirk cuts and this, you know, you look at the Rams too, and you look at their offensive line, it's been banged up this year and their quarterback play has been horrible. I think that this scheme relies on down the field, time to throw for the quarterback, and it goes lost that the Rams had the best pass blocking grade in the entire NFL last year. And I think that O'Connell has to find a way, has to find a way to get those short passes because you

should be able to pretty quickly realize when the matchups are too much for you. Like Micah Parsons is too much for you, but what's the way to limit him hitting on some screens, hitting on some quick passes. They don't get the ball into Jefferson's hands quickly. It's like, they've sort of gone in spurts with this where like in Miami, they did it a little bit at the beginning of the game, then kind of went away from it. New Orleans, they did it early in the game, drove down and scored on quick passes and then got away from it. And this is the evolution of a play caller and of a scheme genius. If, if you know, he eventually becomes that is knowing how to push all the different buttons at the right times when it comes to comparing to

the teams that you're playing against. And tonight, to have no answer outside of trying to work the ball deep down the field to Jefferson. I don't know how many times I looked up after Kirk Cousins was getting sacked and saw Jefferson way down the field. And I get it toward the end of the game why that's happening. But you had to know you were going to get whomped in the trenches tonight. That had to be a thing going in that you knew was going to happen. So I think that there's got to be an evolution there of Kevin O'Connell. There has to be some recognition that this is not getting better.

And maybe the fact that they lost Darisaw will be kind of a wake-up call for, you know, discovering a little more of that short passing game because the last year that Jared Goff was in Los Angeles they had a similar problem and they made the playoffs on a lot of quick passes with with Goff that season because they couldn't hold up and Robert Woods was big for them like a lot of those yards after catch they have guys who can do that KJ Osborne could do that he showed that last week with the ball in his hands he's powerful he can run but they're sending him down the field all the time. Tight end screens are not going to do it. That play they can just throw entirely out of the playbook if they want.

So there will be tests here. You know, I guess a part of me thought going into tonight, well, if they lose 27-20, we'll kind of shrug off this postgame and be like, well, you know, things happen. But 40- uh, that starts to raise some flags. It's not the panic button of any kind, but it certainly does start to raise a little flags about, uh, the, the quarterback and his ability to handle the pressure. It's never going to be there that, and they're not a team that's going to put in two tight ends like Gary Kubiak would and CJ ham and run two guys down the field.

But on a night like tonight, they needed that button to push. That needed to be there. With Kevin Stefanski in 19, they seemed to have answers when that happened. And it was in the form of screens and it was in the form of big personnel. And I know they're missing Irv Smith, but they're not really going to that a whole lot. And I think that that has to be something that's in their bag. So how they adjust in just a couple of days, which can be good or bad for them. They all said, oh, we want to get right back out there and everything else.

But you're pretty beat up over the last two weeks. These were physical games and you really, really got beat up in this one. So they will have a huge challenge to play the Patriots. And, you know, look, their offense is miserable, but you only put up three points against a great defense tonight. And then you have to face another one and then another one after that. So I think it's some intrigue thrown into a season where they've been front running for the entire way.

And this is really the first major bump in the road. Even Philadelphia, they could come out of it and say, hey, like we had some chances. We just had some turnovers in that game. This one, start to finish, they got run entirely off the field. So, you know, with as many people that are watching, I want to keep going and keep going, but we have to put a wrap on it eventually and, you know, continue to do the rest of our postgame work.

And so we'll continue to do this podcast every day, wherever you get your podcast, Purple Insider, Brian Murphy, Jeremiah Searles, we'll be breaking it down and then getting right into game mode again for Thursday's game. Chad Graff, who covers the Patriots now, formerly covered the Vikings, will absolutely make an appearance this week. So we will have a ton to discuss leading up to it. So if you're not already subscribed

to the Purple Insider podcast, make sure that you do. Thank you for all your time, Paul. And thanks for everyone listening and watching this post-game reaction. And we will catch you next time.