Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The latest on Everson Griffen's situation and how the Vikings will handle the 49ers shorthanded

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin talk about Everson Griffen's Instagram post and what's happened since then. They outline the day at TCO Performance Center and how "Next Man Up" doesn't really work in this situation. Plus, now the Vikings are completely decimated on the defensive line, so how will they take on the 49ers? What does this also say about how the Vikings have to be an offensive team now? Will this be Mike Zimmer's best coaching job if they make the playoffs? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here alongside ESPN's Courtney Cronin inside TCO Performance Center. And as we are recording this, the Everson Griffin situation is still in flux, but I felt like we wanted to get together and have a conversation about what is going on with Everson Griffin. And as things change and Rick Spielman is supposed to talk later, then we'll have more for you here on the show. But Courtney, this has been a really difficult day, I think, for everybody in the building. When we all woke up, we saw Everson Griffin's Instagram post. And I think every one of us thought back to 2018 and him missing some time due to mental health issues and then when we arrived we got a statement from the Vikings that people were at his house and met you know mental health professionals and so forth and so I think our

first impression was okay well they're dealing with this and we'll see what happens and now as we speak Everson Griffin is still inside of his house and the police are there. Rick Spielman is there. The Vikings personnel are there. And it is a very scary situation for someone who has seemingly gotten things back together in his life and is who has played extremely well this year and has talked on multiple occasions about how he was in a good place but you know clearly that is not the case yeah and it's there's a lot of things that you want answers to that you just don't have answers to yet so you have to get answers to what you can right now and what we know right now is that he's alone in the house. That is what the police news report from the

Minnetrista Police Department said. So his wife and three children are not there, which is a good thing because he did fire a gun in the house. That is also what the police incident news report, whatever you want to call it. I know there are a lot of people out there who are being very critical of reporting right now and just of what things are being called, semantics and all of that. I encourage you all have a little bit of grace with this situation because of how fluid it is and how tough this is to cover considering this is an active, you know, standoff situation between somebody who is armed and clearly going through something, a mental health crisis, and people trying to get him to come out who just want to see him safe. So what we know right now is that

the Vikings put out that statement. They had people over at the house in the western suburbs of Minnesota where Everson lives since 7 a.m. They've been dealing with this situation and I woke up this morning early and you know saw the posts like while many of them were still up where he was he had a post uh on his Instagram story where he said that there were people in his house trying to kill him the video which has now been deleted was incredibly scary of him just talking to no one really in particular, but talking about a.45, I think it's a.45 caliber gun. Is that what you call it? Like it's a pistol. And he said that he owns it.

He has it registered. Like he wanted to make sure that that part was clear for some reason. And, you know, he threw Dalvin Cook's name into it. So, of course, when you drag another teammate into that, like there's going to be questions on that too. Cook talked to us, said he doesn't know why that happened. And of course there's going to be these questions asked because it's just a really weird situation and it's a scary situation. You hope first and foremost that he's going to be all right and come out okay from this. But when you bring it back to what we do as reporters, we are

football reporters we're human beings too you know you have to ask the questions about well where does he stand right now I mean what I mean certainly his health and what we know now his health is first and foremost no matter what but you know if you're expecting Everson Griffin to play this week I mean absolutely not in my opinion that's never that's not going to happen considering the circumstances. Right. And when we got here and talked with Mike Zimmer, we were not aware that it was a, and I guess I don't know of any other word

to use, but a standoff situation. Yeah, that's the only way. I mean, it's not a hostage situation although like he had he is you know kept keeping himself in the house he won't come out and they don't want to you know make it worse right right so uh we didn't know that when we got here all we knew was the instagram post and when we talked with mike zimmer sam ekstrom asked zimmer is he safe and Mike said I don't know and that's terrifying when he said it like that that let us know in that moment it was an ongoing situation we had no clue yeah before any of that so again there are a lot of people out there who I mean got furious with me for asking

the first thing about what is his status like with the team for Sunday this is football we cover football and we had no clue that this was an ongoing situation certainly you're worried about this man's mental health because this has been an issue before with this team for the entire 2018 season I mean that had lingering effects too when he came back of how's he going to be is he okay is he getting the help and his treatment that he needs? And now seeing it happen again is just really sad. And you hope for the best. You hope that you don't have a tragedy coming out of this because that would just be the worst possible resolution to any of this. And as we are recording this, we still have no resolution. Right. And

that's the hard thing about doing this as we do with this medium, with podcasts, because things can change quickly, just like when we talk to Mike Zimmer and you ask him about the football part of it, because at that point it's just an Instagram video. And at that point we had no idea that he was in the house locked in there by himself and wouldn't let anybody in. Right. So I think that the context matters, but it also sort of speaks to how difficult things can be for people to follow when it comes to breaking news situations and how there was once upon a time in journalism school where it was, hey, you know, let's take it slow on these things and, you know, not be quick to react or quick to

report something unless you're sure or whatever else uh but now people want answers instantly and so you're trying to get answers of like what is this post what does it mean to his football status and that was before knowing what was going on outside uh withverson Griffin. So now, unfortunately, this is a huge part of this game on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers. And of course, you and I have covered Everson Griffin for a long time. He is a heart and soul type of player that has respect from top to bottom in the NFL, in the building. And you could see how shaken Mike Zimmer was. It was very clear that Mike Zimmer was not in a great place. No, and I think Andre Patterson in his own right was not emotionally, you know, like he wasn't emotionally here because this is clearly something I know he said he was

trying to compartmentalize and he lost his mother earlier this season and that you just kind of have to keep going in the moment when you're in this building when you exit the building real world problems come into play but he's trying to keep his his room together and I empathize with that because I saw that defensive line unit out there it's very thin you have four guys right now who are capable of playing defensive end apparently they you know I believe I just saw a report that he might be signing to Sean Bauer yeah so Sean Bauer is coming back coming back uh the return from the Patriots practice squad but that that shows you how thin they are right now right and Patterson's trying to do what he can to keep that group together before you know a situation like this can really shake a team to its core mean, think about what happened when the players before the media and anybody else knew

they all knew what was going on that Buffalo game. Why do you think, why do you think they played that way? Because they were shook after going through what, what Everson went through and everything else. Now he's trying to keep them together. So something like that doesn't happen again. Cause you know, bringing this back to football and what we do they're a 500 team right now this is a pivotal game for them to not fall off track and get behind the eight ball and you know they're doing it without their entire starting defensive line and that's a really tall task against such a good a team that mixes it up in the run they do a lot of misdirection stuff. They use a wide receiver as a running back. Like they do a lot of really creative stuff, which

helps them offensively. And I think your defensive line, when you look at it, is out for, has a very, very tall task ahead of it. And they've already been moving pieces around. I mean, Sheldon Richardson spoke with us today after his big game against the Packers because he was already moving on to defensive end because they didn't have Kenny Willekes. Yeah, let me just back up one second when it comes to a situation like this before we get into even more about how it affects the matchup. I thought it was really something to see the players, Andre Patterson and Mike Zimmer tried this,

but he's just wears on his emotions on his sleeve type of guy. I get that it's football culture to be like, look, next man up, man. Who cares? This is a little different. It's not an ACL. Yeah. This is very different. Everyone felt bad for Daniil Hunter when he went down.

Sure. But Daniil Hunter will be okay. He'll go on with his life. Daniil Hunter wasn't dealing with, I mean, we know he had dark days. He told us about that. But it wasn't a situation where he had an apparent loaded gun and was videoing himself talking about that people are trying to pop him in his house. Like, there's something seriously wrong here and I think it really goes to show you too just like the impact mental health

has I mean it's it's such a hot topic and I hate even calling it a hot topic it's just embedded within the fabric of the NFL within sports now that we actually understand a little bit more than we did and you know with from Calvin Ridley talking about it to even Stefan Diggs talking about it the other day and had a really, really heads-up answer about handling the highs and lows that come with what you do. But now this team's dealing with a crisis on their hands again. And I don't know if I would say I'm disappointed with the next man up mentality, but it just kind of felt hollow where it's like,

this is not somebody who just tore his ACL and asked to rehab for nine to 12 months. This is somebody who was like dealing with a, you know, a very scary situation with a loaded handgun. Like that's not, that's not next man up. That's, you know, and guys were talking about it. Like Dalvin Cook said he had reached out to him had not heard back from him sheldon richardson said he like i think the most honest answer came from sheldon he's like yeah he's not answering his phone right now like that kind of

gave me a little bit of chills and just like how creepy that sounded where it's like he's dealing with something right now he was live posting for a good portion of the morning, and now it's radio silence and we don't know what's happening. That's scary. And I'm sure it's scary for the teammates, too. The guys who have been with him in this locker room who are incredibly close to them to not know. As we speak here, Paul Walsh, who covers police matters for the Star Tribune, tweeted out, Scanner chatter is suggesting a peaceful resolution. So we hope that that is how it comes to, and then we'll continue to talk about this

and where it's gone. But I just feel like there's a lot of times where it's appropriate to say next man up and there's maybe one or two times where it's not. And Andre Patterson saying, hey, my mom died and I came back to work. It's like, you know, this is not really the right message for people. Um, this is the type of message that makes it, I don't know, pervasive in society to just keep working through things. Yeah. And that football mentality, it just kind of comes back to like, they can say all they want about, Oh, mental health, we care about this and everything else. But then as soon as something is really shaking everyone in the building, they can't even admit that it is. And I know they don't have to come out to us and, you know, shed their tears and everything else.

They can feel how they want to feel behind the scenes as opposed to in front of the cameras. But at the same time, I just felt like you said hollow. I just felt like it was maybe not the right tone to strike when it's something so serious about somebody that they all care so much about. It's like, look, no one's, no one's buying this. And also who, what does this accomplish by saying this? That's, that's all I wanted to bring up. It's like you in society don't act like them because this is a ridiculous approach to something like this. And it's okay to admit that things are bothering you while you're having to go do your job. And it's not, here's, I think the football side of a lot of people are, Oh, it's going to give an advantage. Can't give the opponent any advantage.

They can't see that we're catch us with our guard down. They can't, we opponent any advantage. They can't see that we're, catch us with our guard down. They can't, we cannot allow them to look at us and say, oh, they're weakened right now because they're dealing with this because their mind is elsewhere. Like that is such an antiquated way of looking at things. Like you're going to be prepared one way or the other. And if you're shaken, you're shaken. Like I don't see, if you're, you're not a human being,

if this does not shake you to your core, realizing that this person who's just in the building was just playing a football game had come back here had before he posted a pretty aggressive Instagram post before all this happened there was one that came before the Green Bay game that was littered with a lot of language that was asterisked out because it's bad words and said he was just angry and all this stuff and then he deleted that and then there was a post before that which I believe is still up where he's talking about how he's in the best mental space he's ever been in that's a little scary when you see somebody post that and then however many days later they're in a effective standoff

situation with the police which as you're saying paul walsh i'm looking at his twitter account now says that it's suggesting a peaceful resolution so hopefully hopefully that's the case but you know the dialogue and discourse around something like this needs to be less footbally and and more you know, like let's change the whole thing. Because, but then in the flip side of that, like people are going to be like, well, then, Courtney, why the hell did you ask the question about what's his status for Sunday?

Well, that's because we didn't know what was going on yet. We had no clue what was going on. If we knew this was an active situation, then we wouldn't have approached it that way. We didn't know he wasn't safe. Right. And now that you know that he's still, like, I don't know what happens with him from here on out. I don't think that he's probably going to play the rest of the year.

I don't see how you can. I really don't. He needs to focus on himself and getting right because something's not right right now is very clearly yep I agree I just thought it was the wrong tone to strike if you want to be the organization that cares about mental health but then comes out and says ah well we got a defensive line to coach like I don't know I just it just didn't feel just didn't feel right um but you know there is no real model to talk about something like this that's such a unique situation.

So, again, like you said, we both covered Everson Griffin for a long time. He has been a heart and soul type of person and player for this organization. And hopefully that it turns out that he can focus on himself. But now on to the football part of it, which, like you said, I mean, this is a huge part of it because this game holds a lot of people's maybe even careers in the balance of the difference between winning and losing this game is so significant with your playoff chances and not having delvin tomlinson because of covid which mike zimmer announced that he is out for this week so there was a possibility it was a close contact it's not he tested positive and he's un positive. He has COVID and he's unvaccinated.

He's out. He's unvaccinated. And so he won't play. And Everson Griffin won't play. Your only guy who has really any experience, any real experience in the NFL of being good at football is Sheldon Richardson. Tashaun Bower is coming back. Who knows how much he could play. Now you have Patrick Jones, James Lynch, Armand Watts,

and not a whole lot else versus probably Kenny Willekes, right? Playing what? His third game or second game of his career. And by the way, the San Francisco 49ers rank fourth in the NFL in run block grade from pro football focus. The Vikings have already lost to number one and number three. That would be Dallas and the Cleveland Browns. This team will stay with the run. They will continue to do it. They are not like the Chargers who got a little nervous about continuing to run the football and then felt the need to throw it downfield for incompletions and ruin their drives this team will continue to just pound and pound and pound and pound I mean this makes this matchup so difficult yeah I mean your front seven you're putting so much

emphasis on your linebackers this week and fortunately you know it looks like all of them are healthy at this point we but when the time we're recording this we don't have the injury report out but Anthony Barr was practicing Eric Kendricks was practicing Nick Vigil was practicing it looked like they had the full depth of their linebacking core which against a team that gets so creative with their run game and they were kind of down at the beginning of the year and there were points of October where it's kind of like well what are they doing like what kind of offensive identity do they have well they figured it out and a lot of that is that they stick with the run and they commit to it

in in really creative ways and they use a screen game and they do all these other things that make them so dynamic in that respect and now that your defensive line has taken such a huge hit, the guys behind them, if you're going to be in base all day, you're going to have a tough task. 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,

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The website is yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com, where you can find a phone number to get a free consultation. This is an attorney advertisement from Kemet Sanford and Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. Right, because this team in San Francisco also attacks the linebackers as well as anybody else in the NFL. So if they're finding ways to run the football successfully, and then they're going after the linebackers in play action and with motion and all these other things that are happening, this could make for a very difficult matchup. And when you look at San

Francisco's offense last couple of weeks, and I know it was the Jaguars, but it's just been very impressive. It was very impressive against the Rams, very impressive against Jacksonville. And with Jimmy Garoppolo healthy, they're just a different football team. I mean, there is no real answer here for the Vikings to how you can create pressure on them, how you can stop the run. I think it's really just, can you limit the number of times Debo Samuel breaks for big plays? Like this is going to have to be a Mike Zimmer scheme of Ben don't break all day long and hope that you can stop them on third down from time to time.

I mean, that seems to be the only way that you're going to be able to slow down this offense that in three of the last four weeks has put up at least 30 points. you know they use him as such a utility piece within their offense that that makes it really dangerous like you can look at a stat line be like oh my god why do you have one catch against Jacksonville well look what he did in the Russian game like if he goes over 100 do not be surprised this week considering the depleted defensive front that the Vikings have and that this would probably be the week that you can scheme up those runs. And, you know, that's, they got, you know, I know, I think it's, you know, their, their rookie draft pick, what is it? Elijah Mitchell. He's still dealing with the finger, so he might not play, but Jeffrey Wilson and Trey Sermon did pretty darn good in

his place. They kind of balanced the whole rushing attack out last week behind Debo Samuel. Wilson had 19 carries for 50 yards. Sermon had 10 for 32. They can get quite a bit out of their backup guys and their wide receiver turned running back turned Swiss Army knife. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I kind of compared him to Percy Harvin. I think that Debo Samuel is that kind of explosive weapon for them. And they're just getting their offense together at the right time. I mean, they have only had one game this year, San Francisco. No, I'm sorry. Two games where they have not gone over 100 yards rushing. And in the last two weeks, 156 and 171.

They are running the ball well. And I don't know if the vikings have any solution to stopping that outside of trying to load the box up and hope you can fool jimmy garoppolo every once in a while but the reality of this game now becomes we've been discussing kirk cousins and justin jefferson and adam thielen and throw the ball downfield and mike zimmer talked even more about it today how his conversations conversations with Kirk Cousins have been really helpful in giving Cousins more confidence in all those things, which, of course, Cousins basically denied.

I don't know. They just do that. It's a weird thing because he said, yeah, like, I'm still not going to go out there and, you know, be okay if I throw interceptions basically being given the green light and then say let's just turn it to a yellow right yeah right this is so odd I don't know I mean I think some of that too though I mean I asked Mike Zimmer like have you changed your approach with that because can you imagine him sitting here with you two years ago a year ago

even and being like yeah Kirk let her rip no I can't ever been like that so clearly something changed about his approach and the way that he's going into this and he doesn't necessarily think it's that I think he doesn't want to come out and say yeah like I took the handcuffs off my quarterback so he can throw you know openly and do whatever he wants to do it's just that their relationship has changed so Kirk's more comfortable now maybe maybe the relationship with Zimmer I don't think Zim wants to take too much credit for it in terms of the relationship their talks is like all of a sudden led to a good a better quarterback in terms of being aggressive but I think it's fair to say that it has like you have the support of the head man who has you know

undermined you in a lot of different respects the last three seasons before now. That probably feels pretty good because you know you're in a good spot with him and you can do less wrong than you've done in the past. Because before, Kirk could do no right. Like, that's just kind of how it came across, where he's damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Right, because Cousins would be aggressive, and then Zimmer would say he's got to not turn the

ball over and then he would be conservative and he would say he needs to push the ball downfield and at least he's been more consistent and I should mention by the way that uh Jeremiah Searles and I had a conversation about this more in depth about throwing down the field everything else this was recorded yesterday before everything with Everson Griffin broke. So you'll hear that conversation later in the week here on the show, but I felt like it was better that we talk about the Griffin situation before we publish that episode. So what I was kind of alluding to, though, is this one is really on the offense. I mean, they are going to have to win this football game

because it's very hard to see the Vikings defense being able to completely slow down San Francisco and I know some people when I wrote like look I don't think this defensive line can really pressure the quarterback I think this defense isn't any good at this point I know some people push back against that with whatever stat that they like but look you're 23rd in points allowed you're not at this point without Daniil Hunter getting after the quarterback Aaron Rodgers sat in the pocket all day in the second half of that game and just threw touchdowns against you this is not a defense that you can trust there's no amount of scheme that's going to help and it's going to be up to the

offense but when you look at San Francisco's defense, they are really strong. I mean, this is for several years in a row now. They are third in passing yards allowed. They are top 10 in net yards per attempt allowed. I mean, this is, I think, a way tougher challenge than Green Bay, especially considering you're in San Francisco. And if they can continue to play offensively like they have the last couple of weeks

against this team and have the offense lead a win against this team, that would be really impressive to me, I think. To keep pace with this offense is going to be really tough. Could this be a 30, 35-point scored game? Yeah, I do think that could potentially be it. How is Emmanuel Mosley, who's going to face his toughest competition this week against Justin Jefferson, how does he react to that? Do we see Jefferson covered or given the same sort of defensive looks? I mean, they played

so much, they gave him such a cushion against Green Bay, and maybe that's because they were worried about defending the underneath route. But do they play him in that way or do they say hey that was probably not the right idea like if you give him off coverage he's gonna you know you had 139 rushing 139 receiving yards like that's insane so how do they play him differently can Kirk still take those chances will he still take those chances because sometimes I mean even after the game, he said, yeah, there are about half a dozen chances I wish that I was too aggressive on. And it's like, well, you know, he goes back and forth with, yeah, I like being aggressive but not too aggressive. So is this the week the offense reverts back to form?

Yeah, that's where I made the joke about, like, I'm not even sure the word aggressive is a word anymore because it's lost like all meaning. It's said so much in this media room, in this media center. But I think what this shows us is that the Vikings offense has been good enough this year at times to make them right when everything else is going wrong. And that's what we saw last week. And yes, Darnell Savage should have picked off that pass there's no doubt about that both of them really but when Cousins was pressured 46 percent of the time and he comes away with still a big day I mean that's really rare for him when and some of it

was luck yeah like the roughing the passer on the first interception and then obviously Savage on the second one dropping it. And some other penalties and stuff that broke their way. Certainly. They had one of their, I think, most fortuitous days. It's a team that doesn't get a lot of breaks. So, I mean, it was a big day. At least they'll tell you that. Yeah, I think those have more than evened out in the second half of the season.

But when you can hit on those big plays, you can make everything that's wrong right. If your defense is struggling and they're giving up long drives, which they probably will against San Francisco, you can make it right with big plays and response touchdowns. When you give up a two score lead to Aaron Rodgers and you're losing late, you can make it right with a last second drive where you hit Adam Thielen and where you hit Justin Jefferson and where you make plays. I mean that, that's why we've seen before you, you will see every once in a while,

a team go to the Superbowl that has a number one offense and like the 20th best defense. Very rare. You have to go back to probably 2015, but even in the last 20, 30 years of the NFL, it's pretty rare that a team has a bad offense and a great defense because great defenses can only make you right so much as opposed to offenses that can help you overcome everything so this to me

is a game that is when you talk about are you going to sign Kirk Cousins and everything else are you going to give an extension all that I mean this is one where if you win and you're kind of like a lock at that point right I mean it almost becomes that because that really would show that with the right mentality you can drive success throwing the ball in the toughest of circumstances it's just now how do we look at this with this offense knowing it does it not feel like regressions right or like lurking around the corner and what leads us to believe that is it a history and a sample size of when Kirk's had a couple good games in a row maybe against worse competition than the Packers worse

competition than like you know the Chargers just won a big game on Sunday night football like I think they're still very much squarely in that thing. How is he leveled off after that? At what clip can this continue? Because 21-2 is a great touchdown-to-interception ratio, but the reason that it's so low is because he wasn't taking a lot of chances. So now that you give him the green light to do it, will he actually do it? Because that's the thing. That's the push and the pull with Mike Zimmer.

It's like he doesn't want to let him have the keys to the Ferrari completely. He still wants to have speed restrictions on it, and I think that that's reasonable within the circumstances of the offense and within the circumstances of who you have at quarterback. So over the last two weeks, and you're talking about how the roller coaster generally goes, Kirk Cousins averages 9.3 yards per attempt when pressured. That's third best in the NFL. That's just over the last two weeks.

Now, when I search this over the entire regular season, you get very different results for Kirk Cousins in terms of yards per attempt when he's pressured. I am scrolling down all the way to 30th in the NFL at 5.1 yards per attempt for the full season when he's under pressure that's the thing you'd be concerned about here when the other team has Nick Bosa the other thing is teams are figuring this out that if you move really good rushers over the center that you're going to get into the backfield and even if it is Mason Cole that

you're facing versus Garrett Bradbury, we saw what Kenny Clark did. Right, exactly. So I want to look here to see what Nick Bosa did in terms of moving around. But I feel like a lot of teams have started to do this. It's just I think that there's a case for, yeah, they could regress, but it's not guaranteed. I mean, it's on your shoulders, really. I mean, it's Jefferson and it's Thielen and it's Cousins.

And if you want to win this game, you guys have to go win this because you're short everywhere else. Yeah. No, I mean, there was no doubt in my mind in that Green Bay game that they were going to have to score just about every possession that they had in the second half because the defense was sputtering. I mean, the Chargers drive, they come out, the chargers come out on offense to start the third quarter.

Defense looks obliterated 10 plays, 75 yards, six, seven minutes. And it's like, okay, well that was whiplash. And then even against green Bay, when you're dealing with Aaron Rogers and how accurate he is and how he can scramble and the two of his touchdowns came on throws that he had six seconds to make like your defense couldn't adjust to that whatsoever and I think that that was a big problem and a big gaffe in that game how does that not happen against San Francisco well you're gonna have to put the weight exact squarely on the offense again

and ask them to pull you through because it just doesn't feel like your defense is capable of doing so tell me you think this is odd uh so by the way Nick Bosa has moved both sides it kind of depends on the game which is interesting but they might have D Ford back also yeah I was looking that up too there's a very odd quote from Kyle Shanahan he was asked about Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, and he said, I think we've made it clear that Trey is our guy of the future, which is such an odd thing to say before a huge game in which you need Jimmy Garoppolo to go out there and play against the Minnesota Vikings.

Kyle Shanahan has some odd things that he says, I think, publicly sometimes. That's a weird one. But that's the other part of it too is Jimmy Garopp says, I think publicly sometimes that's a weird one, but that's the other part of it too, is Jimmy Garoppolo, I think is a good quarterback just in the same way that cousins is like, he's got a little more gumption or at least has in the past than maybe cousins has, but it's not impossible for him to have a tough game. The thing that they do when he has a tough game is they find other ways. Sure. And so I think that's a huge deal what okay so what like what are we not talking about here because my brain's spinning in a bunch of different ways here and as we've been talking I'm just sort of refreshing Twitter and trying to see what's going on so I mean what else are we missing about this

matchup in this week well um if they win that gives them a very good chance to run away with the 6-7 seed more than they already had. This is why it's such a must-win situation because of where the 49ers are in the mix for that spot, where the Eagles are, and then beyond that where the Saints are, maybe where Carolina is. I don't know if we really care anymore. I don't think we care about where Atlanta is they're in a spot now that this is so critical

for like so they don't have to back into the postseason at the end and this is a quality win not that we're talking about style points or anything like that this isn't the college football playoff but it's it's big just to be able to prove that you can, you know, this is a place that you scored one touchdown, and then all of a sudden in 2019, the divisional playoffs, you just let your foot off the gas. You score on your opening drive, and then everything falls apart, and you get blown out. So obviously you cannot have that happen again.

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You can get their North State beanie, their Adam Thielen autographed shirts, Marcus Foligno fan club design for all of you hockey fans out there, and the one I always mention because it's the best one, the Randy Moss disgusting act. You can put that on a hoodie shirt or almost anything else. And plus anything you want with skull on it, SodaStick has it. Again, that's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Perfect for gifts. And you can get that shipping free by using the code purpleinsider. So here's something that just came to my mind. If they win this game and you just laid it out there, the playoffs are kind of yours. Yeah.

Because after this week is Detroit. Thursday night football has the Rams, and you have Chicago. Steelers, right? Excuse me. Steelers are Christmas, day after Christmas. The Bears are before that you face the Bears again you have Green Bay on the road but like it's a really favorable schedule when you talk about back half and getting in and being nine and eight being enough there's plenty

of that so if they make the playoffs considering where they started and the things that have happened oh my gosh I mean you got to think about everything they've overcome this year it's kind of the crazy part about it would you be saying you want Mike Zimmer as your coach going forward a lot I don't know if ownership's already made up their mind I'd be really curious to see okay was there one game one moment that they were just like nah we're done with this like we need to move on as quick as possible at the end of the season. Or is Zimmer truly coaching down to week 18 for his job? Now, I think we really only need to see about, like, one or two more games before the conversation of Kirk Cousins and the extension becomes readily apparent that it's going to happen.

I mean, it feels like it's going to happen because even if, like – but they have to make the playoffs with him in order and win a game in order for it to happen, in my opinion. So as far as everybody else, yeah, you are coaching for your job. You're coaching for your future. Even if you do have time still left on your contract, because it's a win now league and teams want to be able to keep up with others doing that.

If he were to make the playoffs win a game is this the best coaching job mike zimmer has done i mean it'll certainly be the one that he had to overcome the most stuff that wasn't personal health related issues like when he dealt with his eye when he dealt with um you know norv turner mean, 2016 was the year that he had so much chaos. Teddy's knee, you know, they start out really hot and then they slide to eight and eight because they stunk coming out of the bye. There's all of that stuff that I think Zimmer was really good at handling. But this is probably the most 2016-esque year because it kind of feels that there's something new on and off the field every week that he's dealing with and I think he's handled it much better than 2016 um this year

including getting together with Kirk and actually trying to repair that relationship and work together that relationship might the way that it is right now that might save the season like we were talking about this the other day my editor and, the year the Giants went to the Super Bowl, Tom Coughlin like changed his whole approach up. And it was about midway through the season. Like you realize he was like losing his grasp on the locker room and decided, hey, we're going to be aggressive in different areas. We're going to try to change what we do, change our identity.

And that's rare for a coach to do that that many weeks in the season. Well, you know what else is kind of rare? When Mike Zimmer's talking about Justin Jefferson and that he's frustrated in games, this is somebody who usually does not do things like that where it's more of a put-up-or-shut-up type mentality of wait your turn, you'll get your opportunity. Well, he saw that his star receiver, his two top receivers, were unhappy.

And if those rumors end up being true that like one of them I think it would might have been Thielen was like looking to try to get out of here at the trade deadline so um I think that he looks at that and says whoa whoa whoa yeah I want to run the football but we have to do it we have to run this offense in a way that's going to keep the guys who are putting up the most production keep them happy so that's a stand-up coaching job for somebody who has been stubborn to kind of give an offense and the offensive mindset and who has not truly bought into that um new philosophy but i can say right now that he's in a much better place to do so yeah what he's demonstrating there is a little bit of me that thinks if you lit the house on fire

do you get credit for putting it out with water and this environment was created by mike zimmer of the frustration of these receivers and everything else and by kirk cousins anxiousness about taking shots downfield but it's also been who Cousins has been before. But Zimmer did not push him, hey, this is what I want from you. This is how I believe in you and everything else. And Cousins, I don't know if he did this on purpose, but said the same thing Zimmer said in 2018 today in a press conference. He said, hey, there's a lot of people in the organization

whose futures rest on the ball in my hands. I'm like, wait, that's what Zimmer said back in 2018. And you just wonder. Where's that coming from? Did he pick that up from the head coach? Well, if that's repaired or if Cousins has got a little bitterness still about this whole thing of kind of Mike coming out and being like, oh, yeah, I told him to do it. And then Cousins saying, no, no no no no i'm just playing exactly the same way

it's a little bit of a weird dynamic so i'm not sure if i want to go all in and say that he deserves credit for it but the way they're playing football right now is the way you can play to actually win and even if it took a while to come around to he's come around and that puts you in a spot to potentially win in the future but i don't. There's another part of me that says just because you overcame stuff the year before doesn't mean in the future that you can actually win and not end up in the same spot you are, which is probably going to be like nine and eight. Yeah. I mean, being a one hit wonder one year is no fun for teams. I mean, the Jacksonville Jaguars did that and they were in a perennial state of rebuild and still are. So do do i think this is their

only window no but i think with this group it's it's it's getting it done with this group right now or it's not doing it with them ever again in a lot of respects yeah that very much could be the case so uh we will be doing this and keeping track of everything that is going on with everson griffin leading you up to really what is the deciding game of the year. I think you go one way or the other in San Francisco and now they will have to overcome a lot in order to do that. But if they do, then they're in good shape down the stretch. So we will be here for you as always. And like I said, the conversation with Jeremiah will be later in the week. Pro football focuses. Brad Spielberger is going to talk a little bit more about the cousins contract situation.

That'll be later in the week. So, but we'll keep you up to date on, on what happens with Everson Griffin. So I appreciate everyone listening and your time is always Courtney.