Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Minnesota Vikings actually lost to Cooper Rush because this is who they are

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom sound off on the Minnesota Vikings' loss to the Dallas Cowboys and backup quarterback Cooper Rush. They talk about how Kirk Cousins has traditionally had so many games like this that there may not be a solution. Why did Dallas have the right formula to totally shut down Cousins? How much is Mike Zimmer and the coaching staff to blame? What do we make of a defense that has consistently come up short? And how does the outlook of the rest of the season seem now? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. Alright, let's get to the podcast in which we talk about the minnesota vik Vikings losing an actual National Football League contest to someone named Cooper Rush who had basically never played in the National Football League ever before and yet threw a fade pass to the back of the end zone to defeat the Minnesota Vikings at home at US Bank Stadium. That's what we're going to talk about on this podcast because that's what happened in real life. Matthew Collar and Sam Ekstrom here. I am still processing what I just saw because so many things happened along the way where each team tried to

give each other the game that when the Vikings finally gave it away for good, I didn't even believe it. I thought, okay, okay, here comes another one of those game winning drives from cousins against the team that they let stay around in the game. And then we'll talk about how the Vikings are in good position, even though it was really ugly and all that sort of stuff. And it didn't happen. They completed a couple of passes inbounds. They ran the clock out on themselves and they lost this football game 20 to actual 16 in my life. Sam, explain, explain what happened. You were in some serious disbelief and still are, frankly, in some serious disbelief. And I tried to tell you.

I tried to tell you after witnessing the immaculate reception over here by Amari Cooper and then an illegal timeout by Mike Zimmer and then an unimaginable pinball of Ezekiel Elliott off of Anthony Barr propelled forward for an unlikely first down. At that point, I tried to tell you, Dallas is winning this game. And I think the football gods, you know, they have a funny way of working things out. Because the Vikings did not deserve to win. I mean, the Vikings are better than that. If you're a Dallas fan, you're salivating at the prospect of stealing that game.

You're chortling with joy. You're loving every second. You're saying, oh, this game is horrible. We both teams look so bad, but you know what? We've got a great quarterback. He's probably coming back next week. How hilarious would it be if we went into US Bank Stadium and won the game with Cooper Rush, despite all that we watched and how, I mean, frankly, how bad Cooper Rush was for much of that game and to still come away with the victory. If you're a Dallas fan, you are high and mighty tonight. You are sitting back with a big bowl of candy. You are digging in.

You are engorging yourself on it. And you're saying, life is good. Life is good for us. This will always be the Cooper Rush game. That was amazing. And if you're a Vikings fan, what do you do? What do you do after that? My initial lead to my post-game reaction before the collapse was for at least the second time this year, the Vikings

have won a game that you've walked away feeling worse about the team. Like that would have been the story if not for the final drive. Now, I don't know how you can feel much worse about this team. Again, playing down to your opponent, an opponent that sent out a quarterback who had no business being there, who tossed up softballs to you. You drop two interceptions. You bungle a pre-halftime drive again. You bungle the final drive. You go one of 14 on third down.

You can't really establish the run. And almost to add insult to injury, you managed to lose despite going plus two in the take give. Penalized offensively. Three and outs. Everything they didn't want to do after the self-scout, they did. Unthinkable defeat for the Vikings. And yet, in the back of my mind, unlike you, Matthew, I think I always reserved the possibility for this to happen. And it happened. And now we deal with the fallout. And I'm sure that when I start the show saying I'm still in disbelief a little bit that this happened, I'm sure everyone went, seriously, how long have you been covering this team uh matt moore in 2019 helped the kansas city chiefs get the number one seed because he beat the vikings just like this chase daniel came

off the bench in a game in chicago and beat the vikings just like this and you know so here's what i come away with after having i don't, 45 minutes to think about this and listening to cousin Zimmer and Xavier Woods, only three people, well, Thielen, four people that we spoke to after the game. It's funny how they find more people to talk after wins. But anyway, I guess that's how it is since the locker room is closed due to COVID. But now that we've gone downstairs, we've come back upstairs, and we've been in close contact with each other in an elevator. Here's what I was thinking of. I was thinking of Sean McVay

and I was thinking of Kyle Shanahan and I was thinking of John DeFilippo and I was thinking of Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak and Clint Kubiak and all the tweets that I have gotten about coaching and play calling and all those things. Now, this is not to say that coaching is not a problem and we will get to that for sure. Right now, as we speak, fire, Mike Zimmer is trending and I don't blame the trenders who have made that happen. But think about, I forgot the other Gruden there, whatever his name is. Jay? Jay Gruden.

Think about the trail of, what would you call them? Like, what are they in a cemetery? Gravestones? Gravestones. Headstones? Yeah, gravestones. Sorry.

I'm organizing this thought. The trail of gravestones of people who have tried to get Kirk Cousins to not do that. Think about that. Think about the number of people who have been really good at their jobs, who have attempted, who have bootlegged and quick gamed and run and creatived and tried everything you can and drafted receivers and drafted linemen and like think of the number of human beings who have put their energies into making sure that Kirk Cousins does not do that but he still does that there is is no model. There is no button to push. There's no bootleg to call, no play action, no creativity, no cleverness, no genius on the offensive side of the football

that anyone has ever come up with to take that football game out of Kirk Cousins. This is who he is. It is what he is. It is what he will always be. It's a guy who comes into a big game and absolutely no shows. That is this person. I don't know what you're supposed to do. Otherwise, this is the person you decided you wanted to pay $30 million to. And I, like, I wish I had an answer because on the show, we look for answers. We talk about, well, this last game they rolled him out. And they tried to roll him out, and he did the same stuff. The clock was running out, Sam, and he threw the ball out of bounds. They had the ball at the four-yard line, and he rolled out and was getting tackled

and flung it up with both hands at a ball that could have been easily picked off and run the other way for a touchdown. The other team had a good defensive line. The pressure was on tonight against a good team to win. And they came up short for the 170,000th time since they've gotten here on prime time. They have played 12 games prime time since Kirk cousins got here. Eight of them have been against winning teams, assuming that the Cowboys finished with a winning record. They're 0-8. I want to talk about the coaching. I want to talk about the details of this game,

but I just needed to get that out, that I don't have an answer for that. The Vikings are still very much the playoff race. They can 100% make the playoffs this year. They could win next week. They could win the next three weeks. But you can't take that game out of Kirk Cousins. And I just want that said before we talk about anything else. Yeah, I think this, this probably level sets a couple of things. Number one, it, um, it might temper those that would have been convinced by the first six games

that Cousins was actually a sustainable option, that Cousins could survive beyond the Zimmer regime if indeed it comes to an end. I think this is a pretty important reminder. And frankly, we've seen this game twice before in this building this season. And I think the Carolina game went a long ways toward trying to erase a little bit of that, but that is now three out of four where we've seen bad Kirk in this building against all three opponents had nothing going for them. Nothingful quarterback play. They've gone against teams that have now scored 14, 17, and 20 at home. And they only won one of those games because Greg Joseph made a ridiculously long kick. That's bad. That's really bad.

The home road splits are wacky. I don't understand it. I'm a fraud if I echo what you said because I spent the week saying, I think the primetime narratives are overblown. I don't think it's as big of a deal. And clearly this is the type of game that will rekindle some of that conversation of Kirk Cousins melting in the limelight, melting on national TV against winning clubs when it's not as if he had to out-duel Dak Prescott.

If this had been a defensive struggle between Prescott-led Cowboys and Kirk Cousins, we'd probably view it differently. But because the advantage was completely on the Vikings side. All you needed to do was score 21. That's all you needed to do. Or at minimum, just score from the four yard line. If you score from the four yard line first and goal, Dallas probably has to approach that last drive differently. They probably have different play sequence.

Like I don't know if they tie the game in that case. Just score from the four-yard line. And they kept going backwards. And Kirk Cousins was throwing perpetually short of the sticks. I think there is a coaching element to that. But again, the quarterback is within his rights to make plays when they aren't there. And tonight, I don't know if Kirk made any plays that weren't there. He did not add anything to what was called. And if anything, he was detracting from it. So this is

a huge net negative for Cousins tonight and really undoes, I think, a lot of the goodwill that he had curried through the first six games. This is exactly the game we talked about, though. I mean, just the other day on the show, I said, you know, the reason why we bring up the good Kirk, bad Kirk thing is because it's history, because it's real. And so what always happens is, and by the way, he threw for 184 yards tonight. You know what that reminds me of is the game out in San Francisco in the playoffs where Jimmy Garoppolo didn't play well at all. And it was just like this. It's like the defense held on for a while and then cousins couldn't move the ball because the other team had a defensive line that was dominating the offensive line, which by the way happened tonight. And, uh, Randy Gregory is very good at football

and took over this game in a lot of ways. But that's what happens, right? There are beasts around the NFL like Miles Garrett and Randy Gregory who play for the good teams who will come and get you and pressure you. And there's never been an answer. And that's what the rant at the beginning is about. How, like, when another team beats your offensive line and slows down your running game by the way delvin cook not great tonight i mean 78 yards 4.3 yards per carry

not a not a game where delvin cook is commanding and putting them in second and short and so forth dallas was very much ready for all the play actions they were totally in control of those they moved cousins off his spot many times. We've heard this before though. We've heard this on a number of occasions, usually when they play Chicago, Green Bay, who has a good defensive line. If you don't allow Cousins that easy throw and the clean platform as Carolina actually did in the second half last week that he just cannot operate. And when there's such a clear kryptonite to your quarterback, that's what makes me hesitant to say, this is the coaching staff's fault. Now that is not to say it is not the coaching staff's

fault. That's only to say that there have been many coaching staffs and there have been the same results when it comes to cousins and it comes to a game like this where yeah you didn't need a lot of points to close out the Dallas Cowboys we're going to talk about the defense and another late game big situation meltdown Patrick Peterson's absence is felt Daniel Hunter if he's out for any amount of time, is going to be a serious problem because they couldn't get after Cooper Rush. And guess what?

Mike Glennon with a clean pocket was good last year. So was Cooper Rush tonight for the most part when he had a clean pocket. But what it always ends up circling back to is we get to, well, Cousins has a very poor game in one that they really need. And then now it drops you down in the standings. Once again, you're scrambling.

Atlanta opened the door for you today to take a lead there on them. Now, all of a sudden, who's in your kitchen? Seattle, who will get their quarterback back? The San Francisco 49ers. Now, all of a sudden, you're right in a bunch of teams of mediocrity where you could miss the playoffs if you lose a couple of games down the stretch. And's always the place they've been in since cousins has been here it's always the well they had this meltdown this meltdown and this meltdown which cost them in the playoff race so we were in the uh in the hunt graphic at the end and i always end up with the

tweets that say well tonight wasn't cousins fault. It's like, well, no, no game is ever entirely a quarterback's fault, I think. But that's very different from saying that the same thing happens to cousins when other people don't get it perfectly right. So if the game plan isn't exactly right on, or if the other team does something good, like, oh, they mixed their coverages. So we just couldn't win. Or if the defensive plan isn't exactly right on or if the other team does something good like oh they mix their coverages so we just couldn't win or if the defensive you know if the defensive coordinator the defensive line the offensive line struggles the offensive coordinator can't call plays in the second half of the game whatever it is that you end up just losing in embarrassing fashion on national tv because your quarterback can't overcome that. And I

thought it was very telling Sam after the game, they botched another end of a half again and cousins, you asked him, why didn't you call a timeout? And he said, I don't handle that. I leave that to Zimmer. Like, yeah, that's kind of right though. Isn't it? That's been Kirk cousins. Well, you know, we didn't win win but it's a team game yeah yeah it is but i mean right like that's what that's how that's how quarterbacks are that are 500 in their careers they're like this and so you know look there's nothing you could do about it right now they're not going to fire coaches like people want. You can't trade cousins today to the Texans or something. But you feel after a game like this sort of resigned to,

yeah, this is who you are and this is who you're going to be. And that might result in you making the playoffs and it might not, but it doesn't feel like it's going to be different in any way. There have been a few glimmers, but it's mostly been, yeah, this is this game, this game, this game. This is just like this year. It's just like last year, just like the other year. And I don't know what you do about that to move out of that rut. Yeah. I mean, this was a pivot point in the season, right? You're exactly 500 equilibrium. A win against Prescott would have been a statement. Now Prescott not playing was very disappointing to me, to you, and I think to a lot of people

because it took away this showstopper of a game and it put the onus completely on the Vikings, where I think the only positive statement they really could have made against Cooper Rush was you win convincingly. I'm talking 24 plus. You flex your muscles and you leave no doubt that you are a contender, that you belong with the above 500 teams. You can play with the NFC contenders. Had they won this game 16-13, that would have probably been a negative statement in victory. And the loss obviously sets them way back into the pretender column. But don't you think this is actually boiling down to something very simple? That Kirk Cousins and this offensive coordinator, I think, lumped in, do not know how to respond when the run doesn't work.

Yes. Look at the results this season. 67 rush yards against Cincinnati, you lose. 65 against the Browns, you lose. Today it was just over 100. You had 101, you lose. Lions, you snuck over 100 again. You should have lost that game.

I mean, it's the games where Dalvin Cook either gets hurt or doesn't find his rhythm. That's where everything just gets out of whack. The offense is so reliant upon having manageable third downs, having their running back sort of guide them through a couple drives every game where he just does the heavy lifting. They almost had that late where they drove down and got in scoring position and couldn't finish the deal. But third and 8.1 was their average third down to go distance. And with this quarterback, there's no way you can sustain drives with third and eight on average. You just don't, it's not in his DNA. He was checking down a ton tonight

and all he could utter to us after the game was a combination of pressure and coverage. Isn't that every play in the NFL is influenced by a combination of pressure and coverage. That tells us absolutely nothing. This will be a good all 22 game to look at if Game Pass works. Thanks, Game Pass.

Game Pass International, though. That's where it's at. That works great. Yeah, I'm technically an Australian citizen, so I can watch Game Pass and tear apart Kirk Cousins' field vision. Yeah, I feel like there's no way that there were as few opportunities out there as they would lead you to believe talking to him after the game.

And in real time, it's hard to see, okay, who was open? Who would he have been looking at? Cause it's, you know, where we sit,

it's hard to see his helmet and where he might've been pointing, but there is a play that many have screen grabbed on Twitter where he's rolling to his left a little bit. And it's one of those levels plays where you got the underneath the intermediate and the deep and Adam Thielen has come in the intermediate and oh my gosh, there's no one around him. Everybody went towards CJ ham and double covered CJ ham gets the football for a four yard loss. And it was second and two also. So if he threw the ball into the stands and hit some guy dressed as where's waldo

then you still have a better situation than what he decided to do and that's the thing that i'm saying i don't think you can coach out of someone is that there are many many instances of this same sort of thing where he sort of gets the happy feet he gets the a little bit anxiousness there in the pocket and then you get the throws to cj ham which i think at some point last year or the year before maybe 2019 when they were really struggling on the offensive line i said like you know when it's going to go sideways when he starts checking to cj ham because that means that he's not keeping his eyes down the field because he doesn't believe in his ability to escape and make plays and by the way got away with a fumble again today

which is about the fourth or fifth fumble this year that's bounced right back into his hands so that may change at some point but let's just switch off of cousins though because I think that it's sort of clear this is what you're dealing with. And so I am eliminating the idea that there is some magic wand to wave to say, ah, you will not do what you just did ever again. Because it will happen again, and it'll happen in the playoffs, and that's why they won't go deep in the playoffs. Because they'll have to go on the road and play some team that has some great player, And then they'll say, well, you know, that good defensive line just got us like, yeah, yeah.

Again, for the 14th time, like since you've been here. But I do want to talk about Zimmer and Clint Kubiak because I thought that Kubiak tried a lot of the same things that worked in the second half of Carolina. I thought he Kubiak tried a lot of the same things that worked in the second half of Carolina. I thought he moved the pocket. I thought he did a lot of bootlegs and play actions. And they just weren't there. That Dallas was playing deep safeties and they were able to slow the run. Where have you heard this before? Slow the run with their front seven.

And the offensive line and especially the right guard situation in the center situation are still major, major problems. Ole Udo has to lead the league in holds now. And there was a run to the right side where Garrett Bradbury, I mean, it was so perfect that there was a flag for pushing Garrett Bradbury out of the way because that's what everyone has done for three years now. And this is part of the thing is, can you build a team that's so strong that it can overcome the other team being good, that it's so much stronger than the other team that you're constantly running successfully, or you're constantly finding open receivers, or you constantly have time to throw. The answer has been no, since cousins has

been here. And then the guy who doesn't make it any better is Mike Zimmer, because it's very clear, very, very clear. He doesn't trust cousins. And that shows in so many different ways. It shows in the play calling by his offensive coordinator. It shows in the lack of aggressiveness at the end of halves. It shows in the, every time they have something good happen they run on the next play like every time like oh we got away with one so let's run the next play and and this combination has never felt like a fit it at times has felt like a worse fit um you know like as bad as it gets like they were at odds earlier in training camp and then you have them pushing each other around after a win against the lions which was awkward and uh you know celebrating against carolina but they had to have known they had to have known that's jared goff and sam darnold and we got away with it the last two weeks

that it can happen again where you don't get away with it and so i feel like the lack of trust from zimmer even though his defense overall he played And I mean, played how you'd expect pacing Cooper rush outside of one big play. And his defense overall has been fine the whole year. I mean, outside of against, you know, Kyler Murray, it's been fine the whole year. But it's not that part of it that puts Mike Zimmer under fire. No, you're right to say that the defense has been fine. And I think that, you know, the greater body of work, we're seeing that sans these late game meltdowns, which are a little more random, I think, than people might say. This is Mike Zimmer

having an undue influence on this offense and this quarterback and shackling the combination of Clint Kubiak and Kirk Cousins in a way that just isn't healthy for the growth of the offense. It's like, you know, you got to get bigger shoes when you grow up. You got to go from size five to size six. You got to give your feet room to grow. They're trying to continually mitigate. It's all about disaster mitigation. What if we give the Cowboys a short field and Cooper rush? No, if we do that, we'll never be able to score more points. That's the approach they've taken against bad quarterbacks and bad teams trying to avoid the mistakes. And I don't get it. I don't get it. This is not, Kirk Cousins is not Cooper Rush. Kirk Cousins has the ability to do more than what they're

letting him do. And if he makes some mistakes, I think you have to live with it and just see what happens, right? Because they tried it for half a year with DiFilippo and it didn't work. And from that point on, it seems like Zimmer has sort of operated with a little bit of fear that it's gonna happen again.

And at this point, you have nothing to lose, right? Like this needs to be your shot. And we talked about this coming out of the buy. What can the Vikings do? They can lean into it or they can keep doing the same thing. And clearly, if this game is an indication, they're going to do the same thing. They're going to play down to bad teams and we're going to see them probably go and compete with Baltimore because they're behind and they're forced to throw the ball. I used to think the Vikings would never lose if they got an early lead with that really good defense. Suddenly, when they get that early lead, I'm saying, oh, no. Here it comes.

Here comes the conservatism. Here comes the second and long runs, the contentedness to punt the football, the inability to put the boot on the throat. And I thought Adam Thielen was the only one who kind of came out and said it after the game that they can't let teams keep hanging around. And unfortunately, they're kind of past the point now where they're going to be facing a lot of teams that are of that caliber. Now they're going to be facing a lot of teams that are of that caliber. Now they're going to be facing, I mean, Dallas was supposed to be a good team until the Cooper Rush news. But now it's Baltimore.

Then it's Herbert in L.A. Then it's Green Bay. I mean, those teams are above you. So you have to play up to them. You're not going to have a team that you're going to play down to for a while. So I'm intrigued to see what happens next week, if there's any adjustments, but man, what a way to come out of a bi-week to look at this sluggish. Yep. And again, to score on the first drive where I, we knew better than to declare the game over when they get up seven, nothing. But even when they did, I had the thought like,

Oh, Cooper rush is going to have a pretty tough time. And that guy, I mean, congratulations to him, but he's not very good. His throws wobble. They don't travel very fast.

A wide receiver through a pass. That was probably the best throw of the night and a, and a brilliant throw. It was on the move from either quarterback. Yeah. He led him, you know, 25 yards down the field. They led the guy perfectly. Uh, but it's not like Cooper Rush

played well. He turned the ball over a couple of times. He had an interception. He had a fumble where he didn't see the pressure coming right at him. Uh, there, there were receivers that were overthrown who were wide open. There were throws that went just randomly out of bounds. Like it wasn't like, it wasn't like this dude magically found it like if you watch the jets game with mike white where i mean he played fantastic at total random and he probably will never do it again in his life but wow this backup play that was not the case here i mean this was a mike glennon last year like performance and this is why now all of a sudden this season sort of feels 2020 ish and the defense is clearly better and kj osborne is here but if you're talking about how much is

truly different well they have lost to all the good teams and they have beaten the bad teams and everything has been close like it was mostly at the beginning of last year remember they played Seattle tough they played Tennessee tough but then they played Carolina tough and they played Jacksonville tough and that's the same thing that we're witnessing here and I think a part of it is when you let everybody hang around with you then you never separate you never like you you say put the boot on the throat. Like you never take care of business when they give you a chance. When Cooper Rush fumbles the ball, you've got to go score a touchdown.

I mean, there's just like, there should be no question. We are throwing the ball down the field. We are going to push this to Justin Jefferson. And you know my rule, which is someone goes to jail if Justin Jefferson gets less than 10 targets. Well, we got a lot of people in the wagon headed off to prison four targets for justin jefferson and the thing is that we talk about well the coaches aren't doing this and they aren't doing that and what's hard

for me and this is where you talk about looking at the tape. What's hard for me is to say, well, were they not dialing it up or was he not doing it? Because it felt like last week against Carolina he was doing it. And were they doing something different for the Dallas defense, so different? Was it something that the coaches decided, ah, no, we don't want to throw down the field at all? Because there were routes down the field, and there were a lot of receivers throwing their hands up and going why why aren't i not getting the ball uh tonight and

and so that makes me wonder is it that they don't want to do that or is it when pressure starts to come and when an offensive lineman's getting beat all night which i think derisaw had a very tough night against randy gregory the quarterback just stops being aggressive himself. And he's, we saw him do this against, I think Tennessee last year, where at the end of the game, people said, well, why was he checking down on the final drive? Like, well, he was dropping his eyes and just throwing to the check downs when other people were open down the field. That is a thing that's very typical of him. So it's hard to separate. So like, here's what I know. it's hard to separate so like here's what i know it's hard to separate the cousins from the coaches from the head coach who wants to play defense and run the

ball and all those things it's hard to like peel apart what percentage a pie chart is difficult here yeah but what i know is it's a three and a half year sample size of a happening something can't stay the same is what it feels like after tonight now i do want to talk about um at the end of the game and just that some of the defensive meltdowns what a play by amari cooper i mean most both of them on on the juggler on the touchdown both but the touchdown is a mossing the other one is the Antonio Freeman yep the he did what but also he I think that the defense is just imperfect like that's what it is it was never going to be perfect a couple people on the d-line are hurt the other team could take

advantage of you it was never going to be perfect the idea was if it could be good enough your offense can drive this team i don't think that that idea stands i think in order to win with this team and this is why it feels 2018 and 29 ish 2019 is when the defense falters at all you get disappointed i thought the defense was fine all night long gave you a hundred chances to win and so when you lose it at the end you go oh they blew it like did they though i mean yeah yes on that throw great catch unbelievable catch but the defense has been good enough to win all of these games that they've had that have been close yeah i i am i think i think i've been less critical of these meltdowns than most and I'm going to continue that approach.

I'm looking at, and this is straight out of the Cousins cliches, I'm looking at every play individually. I'm looking at the Lions game where Alexander Madison fumbles the football and gives Detroit a short red zone situation. I'm looking at a 4th and 10 against that they convert, where you make one misplay. I'm looking at crazy things happening on that final drive. Crazy. The deflection to Cooper, the inexcusable double timeout, and then Anthony Barr missing that open field tackle. And I think Breland did a Marcus Williams and tackled air. I think I need to see that again, but three bizarre things happening on that drive. And I'm much more of the opinion that like the first 55 minutes, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that's sustainable. And the end kind of comes down to coin flips.

You're going to come through sometimes, sometimes you're not. And sometimes just random crazy things are going to happen. They created two turnovers. I mean, they forced a lot of punts. They did plenty. And then to put it on them at the end, I that in the pie chart that's difficult to construct it's less than 20 on this defense um just look at the overall body of work and and tell me that they're not doing enough to win they're absolutely doing enough to win you expect more from the offense i mean that's the group that has the continuity that's the group that has the money no injuries poured into it and they're healthy. So, yeah, I'm not beating up the defense,

even though there were some ridiculous plays. The bar missed tackle is easily the worst of them when they were content to settle for a field goal. But, you know, Zimmer giving them five yards, those five yards probably made the difference. And there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the Internet to find minnesota football tickets anymore that's because tick pick that's t-i-c-k-p-i-c-k is the original no fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need for your go-to for all nfl tickets tick pick got rid of those

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an average cornerback who can be beat by a good wide receiver. And apparently Cedric Wilson is both a good receiver and quarterback. But that's the same thing there where it's like, you can have a trick play go wrong with you. They looked like they had it gobbled up and then he escapes and makes an incredible throw. There's two incredible catches that you mentioned it took a lot for Cooper Rush to get 20 points on the board against this defense and that's not to say that I think that they are the 2017 defense or even great it's just that when we came into the season we said well probably one of these corners is going to struggle it's just hard to say let's sign eight different people on defense and they'll all click and that's been the case Breland has not been good uh Dantzler when he's had a chance has not been good as we expected

coming out of training camp we thought when they lost Patrick Peterson it could be a big problem for them and so all those things, they came to fruition. Like there have been people who are imperfect, just like Xavier Rhodes in 2019 was imperfect. But with this offense, the whole concept was if you can be 10th in the league in offense and 12th in the league in defense, you're kind of right there. You're're an all-around team and this is not an offense that is in the top 10 in the nfl and we're seeing very much a split too in the nfl of the bad teams are really going over here and the good teams are really going over there and it feels like the vikings tonight went with the bad teams that they had a chance even with an ugly win i would have

started the show with an ugly win tell me how you would have done it if they had a chance, even with an ugly win, I would have started the show with an ugly win. Tell me how you would have done it. If they had stopped Cooper Rush there, I would have said, look, that was horrible. And I apologize to all of you for spending your Halloween evening when you could have been, I don't know, at a party or with your children or something. Right. But instead you gave it to Cooper Rush in this horror show that was, uh, way scarier than night of the living dead. All right. That's what I would have said. And then I would have said, but, but you're four and three apologize to no one and go to Baltimore and go to LA and play the Packers and win two out of four. And then look at the standings. No one in

the NFC wants to be in the playoffs. Jameis Winston just tore his ACL. Like that team is not good. And they beat, you know, Tampa Bay, who's probably a little overrated. And Green Bay is not perfect. And Arizona showed the other night that they're pretty flawed.

And all of a sudden you could say, look, I don't care how ugly it was. It's fine. You won the game onto the next one. You're in a good position to go forward. We still would have had the same, a lot of the same criticisms. But when you lose this, now all of a sudden it's like, well, who can we trust you to beat if you can't close out Jared Goff, who got beat by a thousand today?

If you can't close out Sam Darnold, who got benched last week and then knocked out this week, and if you can't close out Cooper Rush, I just don't, like, from a night-to-night basis, the end of these games is sort of fun. It's really energetic, like crazy. And that's, if you just watch, like, from that perspective, you just watch like from that perspective you're like wow what a crazy time we're all having but if you want more for the team if you want to think well they

could be a legitimate contender they can go into the playoffs and do something now you got to look at atlanta and go are we kind of like them you got to look at san francisco and be like if garoppolo stays healthy can we beat them is Is Chicago going to come get us if Justin Fields starts playing like he did today, which is better. That's not the place you expected to be in right now. And I think the bottom line, when, when you see the fire Zimmer and Kubiak and all that, that the bottom line is just, this was supposed to be better and it's not. And I don't know what the solution is. I think that if you are jockeying for a seven seed as your season's ceiling, you're going the wrong way. I mean, that's, that's last year all over again. It does have a bit of a 2020 feeling. And unless, you know, the saints come back to the pack with Will Winston being out,

that is your reality. You are what you are. You would have liked to, you know, come out of the bye and have a stylish win, a sexy win, stop with the ugly wins, which I think we've talked about so often the past few years and yeah, Zimmer's Zimmer's good teams of the past, even those clubs, 2015, 2017 one very ugly early in those seasons. And they did peak later, but they won the ugly games.

This team is losing the lion's share of the ugly games. And suddenly they don't have the margin for error. We're back where we were, you know, again, talking about trying to get back to this really imaginary benchmark of 500. It's just a round number. That's why we are attracted to it. But that's not what you aspire to. You aspire to be more than that. You aspire to win division championships, hang banners, win playoff games. And if this game reinforces anything, it can be true that you're in the playoff hunt in a bad NFC and also true that this team doesn't have the makeup to make a four-game playoff run as currently constructed. I totally agree, and I think that the pressure now has gone right back up

that it was quieted by winning two games, but also it was hovering in the background because they weren't impressive wins against Detroit or against Carolina. Those are not very good teams, although Carolina got their fourth win today and you don't have four wins so i don't know i mean i guess maybe uh maybe tiebreaker though baby right yeah they do have the tiebreaker i was thinking about this today that mac jones has more wins than the vikings and they decided they didn't want to draft. I'm just saying like that's something to think about.

And even Teddy Bridgewater in Denver has more wins than the Vikings. The New York Jets since 2018 have more wins against winning teams than the Vikings. The bottom line on this thing, whether you're blaming the coaches, the quarterback, the the defense the whatever what you come down to is i don't know how you can keep doing this same thing over again and if these next couple of games go sideways i i feel like there there could be a change that happens even in inside of the season if because think about this right inside of the season. If, because think about this right now, before the season,

you very reasonably pick them to be 11 and six, looking at the roster and the schedule. I picked them to be 10 and seven. I, since I did it, I think it was reasonable. Uh, and now,

but now there's 10 games left. I mean, they have to go eight and two to, to hit your record. They'd have to go seven and three to, to get my record. I mean, they have to go eight and two to, to hit your record. They'd have to go seven and three to, to get my record. I mean, that doesn't seem pretty likely now at this point. And now you're hoping to go nine and eight or eight, nine. If you have a good second half of the season, that's just not where anybody wanted to be at this point or where you believe that they should be from the accumulation of

talent. And I think that's the bottom line walking away from this is like, yes, it's very Vikings-y. Yes, you've done it a million times. Yes, this is kind of who your quarterback is. But man, if you say like, look, the head coach is who this is run by, who calls the shots. And the bottom line of three and a half years of the cousins areas is just not good enough. And now you got to go eight and two in order to have a good season, man. That's tough to stick with is my point.

That's tough to stick with. I think you have to look at history as well. If you're talking about in season moves. And again, I would have said heading into today, 5%, 5% chance that happens. Today was the kind of loss, and ownership was in the building for the Steve Hutchinson induction. Sometimes that carries a little more weight. Now it's more than five. And looking at history, the Brad Childress firing, I believe, happened at three and six, maybe three and seven.

I mean, past the halfway point of the year. So keep that in the back of your mind. You know, the Wilfs haven't had to do this too much. But the one time they did they didn't wait so uh i know that was a lot good for you cooper rush i mean welcome to history my friend i think that the nfl tweeted out that it was the first like cooper first name to cooper last name touchdown ever so So there you go. That's something that happened tonight.

But I'm still a little taken aback by it. I mean, as soon as Dak goes down, and that's the other thing. Last thing I'll say, if Dak plays tonight, I mean, what is this? Like 35 to 13 that the Vikings lose if Dak plays tonight? I think, I think Dak playing changes everything. I think the Vikings are more assertive. They,

I, I had honestly more confidence about Dak playing than weirdly I did about, like about rush. I just had this sixth sense that this was going to be ugly. Yeah. I didn't think they would lose, but I thought it would be ugly. Um, cause again, the team rises or sinks to the opponent and and i think it would have been different with dac yeah could be and you're right about that um so there you have it uh this week will be uh a lot to discuss and a lot to sift through as they go to baltimore and then to la

after that with once again, the pressure dial all the way up into the red. We were doing the meter the other day with Courtney. The pressure meter is once again in the red after one of the most disappointing losses of the entire Mike Zimmer era in front of the whole world. So that's a tough one for all of you and i respect if you're still listening so much the time that you spend listening to us talk about this and i have a great amount of appreciation for it and so i think we've got a lot of things coming up here that are going to tell us the direction and i am very interested to follow it so sam thank you for your time as always thank you and we will be back monday morning murph searls breaking down what in the world happened courtney will be back uh other

guests as well so thank you all for listening and your team lost to cooper rush so that happened good day