Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Kirk Cousins quarterback rating conundrum ft author Chris Jones

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Chris Jones is an accomplished author, including writing for Esquire and ESPN. His work has also appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing and The Best American Sports Writing anthologies. Jones has a new book called "The Eye Test: The case for human creativity in the age of analytics." Jones joins to talk about Kirk Cousins and why he has an incredible quarterback rating but the Minnesota Vikings haven't won as much as you would expect compared to other quarterbacks with similar numbers. Jones uses examples from his book to try to hunt for an answer to this confusing question. Is it just the defense? Or is it something beyond the numbers? Get your football tickets at TickPick.com/insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here and a very interesting guest on the show. Going a little bit of a different path here today with author Chris Jones. You're laughing already. I like that. I mean, it's

unique because we often have football players on the show, but we have author Chris Jones, who's one of my favorite writers of all time. And his book coming out in January, The Eye Test, A Case for Human Creativity in the Age of Analytics. And you're going to help me with a problem I have, Chris. Are you ready to do this? Well, yeah. Okay. Let's get started. Yeah. Because- Thanks for having me on, by the way.

And thank you for your kind words. Yeah, for sure. And now I feel like I'm about to get filleted. No, it's not that. But the premise of your book is that we have all these numbers and everything else, but numbers are created by humans and numbers can be flawed and they can tell us the wrong things and that people who have the right eyes can figure out and cut through the truth. And I just, there's so many stories that I could share that people should, will want to read in here. But I love the story of the weatherman who hacked the price is right. And the story of

Teller from Penn and Teller is one of my favorites. And it's got my favorite quote of all time in here from him. And you know exactly what I'm talking about when he says that the real magic is that no one would ever put this much time into magic tricks. But here's my problem that I'm having. Okay. The quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings Kirk Cousins has one of the greatest quarterback ratings of all time fifth in NFL history and has had a top 10 rating every single year and they don't win Chris and and you you laugh but I cannot tell you how unusual this is so I went through all of the uh this might be taking more time than anyone should ever take with something. I don't know if it's magical or not,

but I went through all the top 10 rankings each year, quarterback rating, and they almost always win like 65 to 75% of games for the top 10 quarterbacks in terms of winning percentage. And I feel like this is a very human problem of why Kirk Cousins does not win football games. So I want to talk to you about athletes, statistics, quarterbacks, all these things. When I tell you this statistic, what strikes you? What do you think of?

I mean, first of all, I would say that's super interesting. So you're saying normally a top 10 quarterback, a top 10 rated quarterback wins two thirds of the time. Or better. Yes. Or better. And what's Kirk Cousins? 500 quarterback. Dead down.

But the last two years he's been in the top five and they've been below 500. They've been a bad team. Seven and nine, five and seven so far this year. So my instinct, and I don't know if this is correct, would be that the Vikings, it's got to be a problem of defense, doesn't it? Now you would think that, yes, but it's more complicated than that because a lot of the teams that are around the Vikings in points allowed are better than them.

Almost every team that's around them in points allowed are better than them. Almost every team that's around them in points allowed is better than them. And they had good defenses in 2018 and 2019, but they still weren't good. They were a little better, but they still weren't good. It is a defensive problem. There's no doubt about it, but it's also the quarterback impacts the defense. Unlike baseball where, you know, the battle does not impact the field, the quarterback impacts the defense. Unlike baseball, where the batter does not impact the team's fielding, if you hold onto the ball longer, as you saw last night in Bill's Patriots, the other team can't get the ball. And this is a thing where the Vikings are 25th in third down percentage,

yet their quarterback has 123 quarterback rating on third downs. Another conundrum. Right? That actually seems not possible. Mm-hmm. Here's how it's possible. Yeah. Do you have a theory?

Because now, I find this. This is actually super interesting. This is a solid opener, Matthew. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. So it's not a case where the Vikings score a lot, but allow

more points. It's not a case where they're losing like 42 to 35. Correct. Even when they have a decent defense, they don't win. Correct. Is it coaching? What's it got to be? Game management? Is that the problem?

Yeah. So it's a lot of things well that's the other thing that's the other thing that it doesn't have to be one thing right which is always when we have debates like this it's always like what's the golden bb like what's the one explanation that sometimes it's a lot of things and it's not as sexy but it's like which is why i like your book so much. And I was thinking about, and I even started my own article about this, talking about your book and the movie executive who tried to algorithm his way into hit movies. And yet it kind of imploded. And so, I mean, this is a quarterback who on third and 11 will consistently complete a seven yard pass like all the time. So he has 36 completions this year on third down and 13 of them resulted in first down on third down and long. Sorry. So you

can look good on the quarterback rating, but actually not have completed the goal. The other thing is that his coaches don't trust him they blame him for things uh pretty openly they always great that's great it is it makes for good drama they uh they also uh dial up plays like screen passes and underneath throws and things like that that show very little trust in the quarterback it's like things you would do when there's 40 mile an hour wins is the way that they've done it and in 2018 and 19 they lacked so much trust in him that they focused on a run first offense this year they can't run the ball that well so they changed it but it's a pass short offense it has he's averaging one of the shortest passes in the league so i think what's fascinating about this because you wrote about derek jeter and

uzr and how like this one statistic was supposed to just tell us everything about Derek Jeter as a defensive player, but you use the example of the pitch to get Jeremy Giambi out. And I think there's a lot more to this too, because there's, there's, you know, a statistic that tells you kind of one thing that broadly captures most of the people who are good at quarterback, but misses also a lot of different factors that can go into it as well. Yeah. And there's always like exceptions to rules. I mean, that's the other hard thing that there is to adjust.

And I mean, this lead off that you've given, there are 20,000 things we can discuss right now. I mean, one of the things I'm sort of wondering now is, so there's a law in economics, Goodhart's law, that is once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to become a good measure. So a lot of analytical argument presupposes that the people being watched don't know that they're being watched. So that, you know, you are neutrally examining a system at play, and no one is aware that you are having

anything to do with this and they don't alter their behavior because you're watching now kurt cousins knows full well what will give him a good passing rating i'm assuming he knows what goes into that statistic and how he will it's possible that he knows that he will rate himself well with these plays and that it doesn't it's possible that his play is altered by the existence of that statistic do you know what i mean like it it's it's a this happens in hockey with um possession stats you'll see guys try to get off the ice as soon as the puck gets turned over and then they screw the guy on the back check and it's like it's it's it's it's just because they know that statistic matters uh plus minus is another statistic that is sort of like it encourages you to get the hell off the field like it's like a it's a it's so i guess i

would do my first question is kirk cousins playing the way he's playing because he knows it makes him him look good okay this is a this is a great point because i don't know i don't know either no one would ever admit to that of course not no one would ever say yes i intentionally throw short of the sticks on third down because i don't want to risk throwing an interception now there is some psychology here of the thought process that he was a fourth round draft pick. And if you're a fourth round draft pick, one of the things you need to not do when you get in football games is throw interceptions. And there's also a thought that because he does not have a particularly strong arm, he's extremely accurate, but it's not like a laser that he

doesn't really trust to throw passes into tight windows. So that doesn't exactly mean that he's trying to pump up quarterback rating, but it would mean he's trying to complete passes and throw, throw things that are like risk averse, which is actually rewarded by completion percentage, which is baked into this quarterback rating. So normally it's, you would think like, okay, well, Steve young completing 70% of his passes meant that Steve Young was unbelievably accurate. That's what it meant for him. I'm not sure it means that

necessarily for Kirk Cousins, right? Like, so the same stat can mean different things. And also the other thing too, is your contract is tied into your statistics, not as much as baseball, but it's certainly, they're going to look at it, right? When you're, you've talked about Scott Boris creating these binders for Barry Zito. Well, you can bet that Mike McCartney, Kirk Cousins' agent, is creating the next contract extension and is able to use these sorts of things. So maybe it would be in a sort of an unconscious type of, I need to make sure that I don't get picks because that hurts my numbers. And it's interesting that that statistic does not factor in risk reward. So if a quarterback, I'm trying to think of a good, well, going back to baseball for a second, you know, we all thought Derek Jeter was an unbelievable defensive player because a ball

would go past him and we didn't see someone with limited range. We thought, oh, that ball would get past anybody. But then, you know, in 2010, when he won the Gold Glove, Alexi Ramirez made a lot more errors, but also in exchange for those errors, made many more assists and many more put outs and would have gotten to many of the balls that Derek Jeter let go. It's an easy trade.

Ramirez is far better the defensive short stop but it's like a risk reward thing where yeah you're going to take some errors because he's going to make some plays on some balls that he probably can't make but in exchange you get these great plays so it's like Kirk Cousins what it sounds like to me having not watched hours and hours of Kirk Cousins is he's really good at the short five yard pass, but we'll never give you the 40 yard bomb that you need sometimes to win a football game.

So he can, if the guy is open, make the throw, but it won't be the double coverage, Brett Favre. I'm going to throw it. And if there's an interception, there's not,

which is kind of the example that I use. There's another thing too, that you write about, which is with movies, that there is a formula to make a successful movie. And this formula has been taught and a lot of people have copied it and a lot of people have copied it successfully, but some of the great artists have said, you know, this doesn't really, you know, work for me and I'm going to do it differently. And they've made magical articles because of it.

I think there's some of that with Cousins as well, that Cousins can execute a play when drawn up properly, blocked properly, run the route properly, the way that quarterbacks are taught. I've talked to quarterback coaches who say like, this guy is the best technical quarterback you're going to see. He's going to set his feet. He's going to be on time. He's going to throw an accurate pass. But when things break down, that's where there is not an, let's say creativity. There is not the human creativity that you would see from some other quarterbacks, even quarterbacks who aren't fast. I think we sometimes connect that entirely with this, the guy fast, but I mean, even if you watch old Joe Montana, I don't know if he was, you know people in sprints but moving around finding somebody keeping your eyes

down field these are things that he doesn't necessarily do and i think that those aren't really picked up by a lot of the statistics right well that's the other thing about statistics by especially if a in a dynamic game like football i. It's really hard to capture what that many guys are doing at once. You can say I always talk about laboratory conditions. It sounds like Kirk Cousins is a great laboratory conditions quarterback. If everything goes according to plan, he's your guy. He will complete that pass exactly the way you want him to complete it as

long as everything else on the field is going according to plan. But then football, how often do things go according to plan? And you need someone who can, one of my favorite quotes of all time is Mike Tyson. Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. Like you need that guy who can freelance. I think, I think I would want a guy who, if I was putting together a football team, I'd want a guy who was, I don't know, 80% technically smart, accurate thrower, but with that 20% genius strain that is like, you know, Brett Favre or now I'm thinking, I know, I know these words are fraught in your territory, but occasionallyally, I wonder what if you put Jay Cutler's mindset

into Kirk Cousins? What happens then? I think possibly you get a great quarterback. I think you're actually right. Yeah, I think you're actually right. It's that little edge, right, that is sort of like an interesting question. It's like, what's that? And it probably comes down to like two or three plays a game

this is every big plays like it's just well and this is a point about like their defense and everything else and how like their defensive ratings are bad in part though because you're you know giving the other team the ball and then they've had some injuries and so forth but there are and i've been watching the world chess championship and it's very much this way with the greatest chess players is it. They all know the main lines for everything, but then it comes down to like one blunder or one slight inaccuracy. And then the other guy gets you. And it's kind of like that with the Vikings where in a lot of their losses, they've had chances to just end the other team, put the dagger in their back.

I mean, there's a, there's a opportunity in week two against Arizona, one of the best teams in the league where they're up by two scores and they have the ball San Francisco two weeks ago, same thing up by two scores, have the ball and they go three and out. And like, well, you know, how am I supposed to say this quarterback isn't good when his numbers are so good? So he is. But there's also not like a mentality that is, I don't know, this extra level of competitiveness or maybe even a situational understanding of like, this is the moment. This is when I end that team's life. And it's just not there. It's like play the mechanical type of quarterback and that's it.

Now, here's where it's hard, though, Chris, because look at so many quarterbacks who are just God awful. It's like, can you do it with this? Can you not do it with this? Because if you end up with something really bad, it's really bad. It's really bad. Yeah. It's so hard. So, but then you have the quick, like I've, then I have two questions. I mean, one is, does it matter if you're...

Does it matter if you win three games a season or you win seven or eight? No, not really. You're not making the playoffs. I mean, that's the story. And so it's... And I think what you're describing

almost is like the difference between a good quarterback and a winning quarterback and it's like what how do you how do you quantify that that little extra that makes you a winner and and and i don't know this is where i think the eye test sort of comes into things i don't know that there's a statistical way to divine whether someone is a quote-unquote winner. And they're just – Tom Brady is the perfect six-round pick. NFL teams analyze the hell out of college quarterbacks. Like everything, everything, everything.

And then it still comes down to a lot of luck. Some chance, it seems like. A guy will fall and be great. You make a first-round pick who's an absolute bust. It's like, how does that happen? And that position, quarterback, you know, I read about this in the book. Quarterback is one of the best positions that defies traditional statistical measures. It's just its own thing.

And there are positions and there are players's just its own thing. And there are positions, and there are players who are their own thing. I read a great story today about Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant goes against every modern basketball metric. His great art is the mid-range jumper. The mid-range jumper is not an efficient shot. That's why now we see it's three points and below the basket. That's all basketball is now. Kevin Durant is not that at all.

And of course you would take Kevin Durant on your team, even though he defies every standard of modern basketball. And so the quarterback is like that, I think. Quarterback is one of those things where you just find the guy. I'm so interested to watch Mac Jones. I thought last night's game was so interesting. And Belichick obviously has some element in him that is really good at figuring out those guys who have that little extra something. And I, I, he must see something in Mac Jones. I'm super curious what it is. Like I, I, at the moment, don't really see, I think he's sort of Kirk Cousins-esque it sounds like i i at the moment don't really see i think he's sort of kirk cousins-esque

it sounds like to me but he must see something hey everybody minnesota football is in full swing and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for minnesota football tickets because tick pick that is t-i-c-k p--C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site. It's the only one you'll ever need as your go-to for football tickets. TickPick got rid of all those awful service fees that the other ticket sites charge, which allows them to guarantee the best prices on all of your tickets. Don't believe it? If you can find better prices on the same seats on another site,

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where they were like, Ooh, he's not going to throw it all. And they're still going to win. It's like that last night's game was amazing. Well, on the Durant point, here's the thing about basketball though, is that so often it comes down to a few key shots in a game. And the other team knows that you want to go underneath the basket or three pointer.

And if you have a guy who can win a one-on-one matchup and make a play, no matter what, no matter who's guarding him and he's going to get a bucket, like you're going to win a lot of games because of that. I mean, that's the thing with like Allen Iverson or Kobe Bryant. Oh, they were inefficient and so forth. Like, yeah, but when the shot clock is counting down and this guy has the ball in his hands, he has a great chance to score where most players don't have any chance to score in

that situation. You need to be open to make threes. The numbers are very clear about that. Right. And that's why I love your book, because I think that from the title, you could be like, what does this guy hate numbers? Like, what's your, what's your problem, man? And it's not that at all. No, in fact, it so brilliantly ties in the human aspect of these things of like how these numbers are very human. There's another thing that I thought of too. By the way, Matthew, it's making me insane that i can't have a chapter on kurt cousins this is a perfect example it's like a complete i'm like sitting here just going

it's coming out in uh january so you have time you have like a few weeks. I don't know if you know how books get printed. It's a while ago. I know. I'm what I am probably a year ago. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So,

uh, because it sounds like a perfect example of someone who's sort of. Yeah. Statistically looks good, but doesn't have that. Well, you know what? Kirk cousins ends up being too is,

uh, what's that test where you look at the shapes and oh yeah the rose heart yeah yeah whatever it doesn't matter yeah I didn't know how to say it so I wasn't going to do it and put it on me exactly yeah you know what I mean because everybody sees something different and that's what like nobody sees anything different in Dan Marina like oh man that's just like an unbelievable quarterback he wins all the games and the same thing with you know whatever Patrick Mahomes everyone and the same thing with, you know, whatever Patrick Mahomes, everyone sees the same thing with cousins. I think some people see, see themselves like he's a bit of a rule follower and

he kind of sticks to the plan and he's not a, he's not a typical like bad-ass quarterback personality, which I think that his teammates sometimes kind of bristle out a little bit. Like it doesn't have this connection of guys. We're going to go win that football game, which I think Mac Jones has a little more of the other thing too. That's interesting. Chris is that unlike baseball, it matters how much you make. It matters how much money they pay you. And if you're Mac, if you're Mac Jones at $40 million,

you're probably not winning as many games as you do with the Patriots. But if you're Mac Jones at $10 million, you're probably not winning as many games as you do with the Patriots. But if you're Mac Jones at $10 million, they could sign all the other players. So there's like these little tiny edges that go into it that are so interesting. There's also, you mentioned hockey stats, and that used to drive me crazy with Corsi. Everyone loves Corsi. But you're like, look, if this player on the third line plays Sidney Crosby all the time, he's going to get murdered. But he doesn't. And we don. Okay. But he doesn't. And we don't have stats for he doesn't.

And that's what I think in so many instances in your book, you think like we have stats that tell us certain things, but we don't have it if that's not the case. And it's the same sort of thing here where it's like, we don't have a stat for didn't make the throw into the tight window. We only have the ones that he did make and not the ones he didn't make. Right. The missed opportunity stat. And because anytime you get into something more subjective, statistics aren't amazing at quantifying it. And that's another one of my arguments in the book. And thank you for saying it's not like, I know people are going to think this is like the anti

money ball and it's not. I believe in science. I believe believe in numbers i just don't think numbers always tell the whole story and and there's a place in those margins where they don't tell the whole story for smart creative people to use their imagination to come up with the answer that's basically the premise of the book and that like what we're talking about here is like it's a perfect example it's like uh hockey like there's so many things that don't look i'm trying to think of a good just where it doesn't soccer so my favorite sport is soccer there is an analytics movement in soccer and uh big teams have data analysis of players there's so much much that is hard to quantify in soccer. Like a good defensive midfielder, really hard to quantify.

Like it's tackles, it's, you know, ground cover, just things like that. But like leadership is really hard to quantify on a football field. Communication is really hard to quantify on a soccer field. Just smart positioning. Are they in the right place like that matters so much and there's no stat that quantifies like whether someone is an intellectually good soccer player and it's that for me is the stuff that is missing and you see when you watch a game i know in american football your football uh there's this there's like film there's analytics and film right there's

these two schools that kind of and i'm like why wouldn't you both love the game you can see it a little differently well why don't we join forces and this is where this is where like greatness comes from it's like you get you take the best from both worlds and i think something that's happening you see it across society take it out of sports black and white thinking is endemic it's everywhere and i think what's happening in a way is that people we're taking in more information today than people are designed to take in i think it's what's happening and we can't process it it's like there's a fire hose of stuff it's too much and so we engage in sorting. We sort of like, well, this goes in that bucket and this goes in that bucket as two sides to every

argument. Well, he's over here and she's over here and blah, blah, blah. And it's, it's, it's such a unhelpful way to think because the world doesn't work like that. The world is very gray and so many things. Kirk Cousins is a great example. Great. That's a great, it's a, it's a, it's an argument about the margins and black and white thinking isn't going to help you yeah um smart zealotry is still zealotry smart zealotry is still zealotry it's just it's it's and you see this in analytics it's i think it's softening now there's been sort

of um you know the analytics the movement has occasionally stepped on a rake and it's and it's and you see it happening a little more where it's like but like maybe five or six years ago if you dared question analytics like you were branded a moron like instantly if you just said yeah i'm not sure about this well you must be an idiot and it's like the most unhelpful you're not gaining any converts first of all if that's your goal as a movement you're not gaining any converts by calling people morons. And second of all, you're blinded to the valuable contribution that this person might give. It's just, for me, it's like, if you want the best possible solution,

you listen to as many smart people as you can from as many points of view, there's many perspectives. And then a smart person makes the final choice based on all that information. For me, it's not rocket science. Sometimes I felt pretty sheepish about the book because the book is basically just common sense. To me, it's just like, everyone just take a breath and understand that there's nuance to a lot of situations and that multiple points of view are pretty helpful. And what I like about analytics is that they have raised so many more interesting questions about sports that we just weren't capable of raising.

Like, how do we figure out if a quarterback is good? And we have some of the smartest people in the world working on this. The scouts are actually really good at it. They don't get it right all the time, but they always pick out the top guys, like in the draft. Like you mentioned in one of your footnotes about Josh Allen. And the interesting thing about Josh Allen is that some of his analytics were not good. Some of his analytics are unbelievable coming out of college, his height, his weight, his arm strength, things like that. Like those

are data points. And so the bills decided that they liked those data points more than they liked his quarterback rating at Wyoming. So they kind of went again against this quarterback rating stat, which is not usually a good way to go. But they decided that some of these other things were right. Other people who have tried this have had it blown up their face. They've said, oh, look at him. He's Dan McGuire is six, seven and throws a bullet. But like Dan McGuire was horrible. So it's always this ever evolving beast that we're trying to figure out the answers to. And what I love about the Mac Jones example is that everyone said, oh, no, no, no. You got to take the athletes. See,

everybody's Mahomes, everybody's Josh Allen. And then it's the non-athlete who looks like me in terms of his body type. And when there was that picture of him without a shirt on smoking a cigar. And I was like, that's me. I know that guy. He's the best quarterback in the draft. It's like, I don't know, man. And the fact, the fact that we don't have the answers is a great part of your book. Like it was some things we just don't have the answers and this constant chase for those answers, trying to figure out the weather and when tornadoes are coming is just like such a that's like football. It's like you're trying to look at all these things and figure out when tornadoes are coming. And it's really hard to do. It's really hard. And I think I think the other thing, the other point I try to make in my book is I think there's sort of the strain of arrogance that is coming through us.

That is like there's always one right answer. It's always in us to find it. And there's so many situations. The world is more complicated than that. Like the world is full of mysteries. And sometimes the mysteries are kind of awesome. Like they make life interesting. If everything was fully predictable and the future always behaved like the past,

and if the data was always correct, like, ugh. Like, great. We get to live inside a machine. Awesome. Like, the Earth is not – I mean, Earth is a very complicated system. You talk about the weather. I have a whole chapter on weather. Weather is really hard to predict.

Like, people always get mad at the weather. You know, oh, my God, I can't believe that it rained today they said it wouldn't rain do you know how complicated it is to predict rain like it's it's really hard like certain conditions lead to rain often but not always and sometimes they lead to like titanic amounts of rain and you have no idea why it's like well that came out of nowhere and because it came out of nowhere it's really hard to predict it's like a so that's the other i think there's like a humility that we need to sort of reacquire where it's like okay like we're not the dominant force in the universe the earth is a we don't understand everything and we don't understand everything about our own bodies

and we don't agree what the human spleen does like That's in us. And we think we can divine every possible secret in the world. So for me, that's another sort of step back. We don't have every answer. And it's okay. It's okay. Because debates are fun. And it doesn't mean the other person is a moron. It's just like they just disagree.

That's okay. Depending on the way they're disagreeing, yes. Depending on the way they, and sometimes they are a moron. Sometimes they are a moron. Because the world, there are morons. And you're not going to get rid of them all. It's just, I don't know. One of the funny things I had, I'm going to get slightly philosophical here.

This is probably not the venue to do it. Go ahead. When I was young, i was so certain about everything like i don't think there was a more certain purple uh more certain person on earth than 20 year old me and what a dickhead like just thought i knew everything i knew nothing and what's happened over time is i always thought you would get more certain. As you got older, I was always like, oh, well, you'll become set in your ways, right? That's the myth is that you become more set in your ways.

I don't know anything. I can see room for debate in just about everything. I mean, not everything. Sometimes it's pretty cut and dried. Are you a good person? It's fairly, you know, that's cut and dry are you a good person it's fairly you know that's cut and dry but like the and i i guess i the certainty of a lot of these arguments kind of i find sort of maddening and like oh you're gonna get stepped on like this is not gonna work out for you and for me with the geraint example is a great example where if everyone goes this one way there's opportunity

over here yeah if i wrote a business book that said the title if i titled the business book follow the crowd my ted talk would not last very long like it would like it would it would just not and and so an analyst is like this is the one white right way to do this well now there's an opportunity over here where you kevin durant finds the because everyone thinks oh three points or well i'm gonna go here where no one else is this is you this is using a fullback in football like there's five teams left that use fullbacks and they all succeed with it because no one knows what the hell to do with the foot fullback anymore okay just go the opposite the pendulum swings and you find room on the other side like it's like there's a gap that gets created and then you're like i'm you know if

every team is doing something one way, the, the team that does that the best will succeed. Yeah. But yeah. But if you're a third or fourth or fifth best at it, you're going to lose. And so you have to find a way to do it different. And that for me is like, And this is why for any chess fans out there, Magnus Carlson's the greatest player ever because he knows every main line, but he always finds a way to change it. And then all the commentators who are watching him go well what's he doing here I don't know what this move is and then 30 moves later they go it was that horse that

moved it was that thing he created out of nowhere somehow in a game that's been played 10 million times it's fascinating disrupted and then he throws you off because now you don't know, because you are Kirk Cousins. You know how to respond given a certain set of parameters. We changed the deal. Bryson DeChambeau is a good example of this golf. He is amazing when everything is played under laboratory conditions.

Yes. But you can throw him off so easily. A little wind, a little whatever, and he gets all rattled because it's like it's why he has one swing. He doesn't want to change any of the, I don't want, he doesn't want variables. He's trying to steam all the variables out of golf. Well, unfortunately for Bryson, golf is played in nature.

And occasionally there are variables and that's, he is tremendously successful when everything goes according to plan. But sometimes the plan goes out the window. Sam Ekstrom here, wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report. In an unfortunate situation like that, it's good to have someone in your corner. That's where Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer Law can help you understand your rights under Minnesota's workers' compensation laws. There's enough uncertainty in our lives nowadays that the last thing you want is to feel helpless if you wind up in a bad situation after a workplace injury. Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer will fight for you if there's been a wrongfully denied work comp claim

so you can get the benefits you deserve. If your claim's been accepted, they help with rehabilitation disputes, medical disputes, help you get a second opinion, and ensure you're getting We'll be right back. handle all that messy legalese to and from the insurance company about your claim while you focus on what's important, your recovery. And there's no cost involved for reaching out to Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer. In fact, you don't pay a dime unless they successfully obtain your benefits. You get paid, then they get paid. It's that simple. The website is yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com, where you can find a phone number to get a free consultation. This is an attorney advertisement from Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com. Yeah, and sometimes I pull back and think of how good these people are that we criticize for the the point zero zero zero zero one percent that's missing isn't it don't even get me started on this i as a sports writer i spend my life

fielding calls or people coming up to me about their kids and how they're going to be professional whatever and because i'm a soccer coach so because i'm a soccer coach i get it all the time with soccer and soccer is probably the hardest game in the world to make it because it's played by billions of people i mean it is a truly world game played by millions and millions of people i had a parent the other i won't say who but his kid isn't even the best player at his high school and there are millions of high schools like your kid has to be the best player in the country like the best player in the state of minnesota the best high school player in the state of minnesota will not play in the in europe professional i can almost guarantee that like you have to be so good these guys are so

insanely good it's like it's disturbing how good they are and often it shows up in practice like if you see them just messing around like it is nothing better than watching some guy in practice like kirk cousins i bet would do insane things with a tire on a road kind of football like it would blow your mind and you'd be like how dare i criticize this it's god but you put him in that it's like you see the little cracks that's how uh brian scalabrini is like 50 years old and there's a video of him yes demolishing some high school kid who's good and he's just makes every shot like the the 13th guy on an nba roster destroys everyone you've ever met a thousand times in a row a hundred hundred to nothing. The worst player playing professionally would destroy you and everyone you care

about in any kind of game. It's like, it's, it's one thing. It's the one sort of insight I've had as a sports writer is like the gap. Cause every guy has this thing where it's like, well, if only I'd, if only I'd done this, I could have made it. I'm like, i'm like no no you couldn't you can relax you you wouldn't have and i'm telling that to sports parents all the time i'm like just let jimmy enjoy the game he's not gonna he's not gonna make it it's okay soccer soccer you get signed at eight years old you can join academies at eight if you are 10 11 12 and you have not been found yet, it's not happening.

Yeah. Hockey's like that. Hockey's like that. Just enjoy it. Just enjoy the game. It's just for fun now for you. I started adding up one time golf. Like my goal is to break 80.

I really want to break eight. So I'm in the mid eighties right now. And I think like, just do this, this, this. I started adding up one time, what a tournament would be if I played 80 versus what like a top player played, how many shots after four days, it's like 70 shots.

I'm like seven. Like if I play 80, you're like, Oh boy, man, you're hitting it today. You're you're on fire. Yes.

And you're 70 shots behind a real golfer and they're playing like the hardest courses ever right right in terrible and brutal conditions from the tips like with greens that are concrete do you know how hard it is to shoot a 66 that's impossible isn't it that's perfect golf and it's like someone shoots a 72 in a final round you're like oh man did he ever sneak up there was a there was a lpga player who went i think like two and a half rounds without a bogey yeah that's like and and she's like five four and you know you're just like come on but they're also the other thing that i i think people don't understand about athletes is and i think there's probably a good book to be done about like almost mental illness in athletics oh sure yeah like the dedication the passion the time i mean

it's almost pathological for some of these guys like the the amount of time they spend hitting golf balls would make most of us insane oh yes most of us are just like it's not worth it for me to do that like i yes i would like to be a better golfer am i going to spend six hours a day at the range no no i'm not i would find that really tedious and so it's like that's the other thing that factors they're they're sort of naturally gifted but even the most naturally gifted of them works an insane amount at this thing phil mickelson in a short game is like how many wake shots is that guy hit ten hundred thousand million it's just like yeah that's uh the people i could return a serve from serena like nope no oh no you sure couldn't those are amazing i love when people are like um well america could

dominate at soccer we just have to take all our good basketball players and football players and and put make them play soccer and i'm like that's not no sure yeah yeah okay go ahead that's not how this works but go ahead it's like it's like it's like a it's such a i don't know it's like uh people yeah yeah there's a lot of self-deception in the world there is there is i could gain three yards in the nfl nope no you couldn't uh oh my god i watched an n game. I was talking to a buddy about this the other day. If I played a down of football, it's not whether I would succeed. It's whether I would live. Yeah, correct.

I think I would possibly die. In fact, very possibly die. Like, not a 1% chance of death. I think if I took a full open field hit from one of those guys, it would probably kill me. Very likely. Yeah. I mean, having seen it up close, like on training camp sideline. Yes. No understanding. People have not stood on that sideline, have no understanding of what that is. Titanically violent. One time, a player who is a state champion weightlifter and nose tackle

Linval Joseph, the most powerful man I've ever met. I did an interview with him and he patted me on the back and the way out. Like just, Hey, thanks for the interview. I, I mean, I'm not kidding. Like jolted forward. It hurt. Walk it off, walk off the backslap. Imagine being a center. You're lining up, looking right at that guy. This would be fine. No, I can do this. Like what? So it's a, off the backslap imagine being a center you're lining up looking right at that guy this would

be fine no i can do this like what uh so it's uh and that's why that's why when people will so i'll be critical of course as i as we have to that's what we do you know people will tweet me oh why do you hate kirk cousins i have an unbelievable amount of respect for him he is the point zero zero zero one percent of all people who have ever thrown a football. I have an incredible respect for that. But the franchise didn't build the giant stadium to go five and seven. I'm sorry. Like, that's just, but that's what makes him such a fascinating quarterback to study.

And Chris, I have really enjoyed studying him with you. And people should look for your book, The Eye Test, A Case for Human Creativity in the Age of Analytics. And I know that, well, it actually seems like from people who listen to this show that this is something I wouldn't read, but it's you. So I knew what it was going to be because I've read your work for many years and I knew what it was going to be. And I was like, I can't. So I got the email like, do you want Chris on your show? And I was like, does he want to go on a Vikings podcast? I sure do, bud.

Yeah. Well, let's do it then no i actually learned something so this is the other thing it's like uh i think people have to approach the world like always wanting to learn i knew i'd learn something today because i i you know more about football than i do i want to listen and so and kirk cut that kirk cousins anecdote i'm literally kicking myself because I'm like, oh, I could have done a whole section on Kirk Cousins. It's like, that's a fascinating debate. You do a book, the Kirk Cousins conundrum. Like it's so, no, I'm so happy to have been on with you. And I really appreciate you talking about this. It's fascinating. Yeah. Thanks, man. I really appreciate your time. And the Kirk Cousins conundrum has been the last four years of my life, basically. I feel like you're the man to write this book. Yes. You've seen those pictures that are like

before 2020, after 2020, like this is me, like before covering Kirk Cousins, after Kirk Cousins. I guess that, you know, that's from Always Sunny, the guy with the red strings. Oh, yes. Yeah. Wall of pictures. And then you got the third of pictures. And then you got the third down percent and then you got the PFF rate and then you got the big time throw rate. And then you got the- I just want there to be a room in your house that's just Kirk Cousins all over the walls

and ropes and sort of your strings and weights. Who says there isn't? Just on the other side of that door. No, I really do appreciate you having me on, Matthew. It's awesome. Thanks, man. I'm really glad we could do this. And one more time, the eye test, the case for human creativity in the age of analytics. You're going to want to read it. So thanks, man. And hopefully we can do something

like this soon again. I am always available to have nerdy sports talks.