Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings definitely played a preseason game against the Denver Broncos

Episode Date: August 28, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the Minnesota Vikings' preseason contest with the Denver Broncos, a mildly key injury in Bisi Johnson, whether Kirk Cousins should have played after a bad practice this week and the incredible punting stylings of Ryan Wright. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the post-game Vikings Broncos preseason podcast. And I am in the dark, literally in the dark, because midway through the game, my power went out. And I mean, of course, a lot of people had great responses like, you saved yourself from having to watch the second half of that game but i feel that between myself and paul hodowanek wcco radio who is here that we can meld together also with the help of a lot of friendly tweeters who gave me all sorts of updates of what happened from the second half of the game that we can come together to combine, to talk about this glorious third and final preseason game, and then never have to speak of the preseason again. So I also want to say

thank you to the iPhone hotspot that is making this happen. And my diligence of generally keeping my laptop at full charge. This is allowing us to have an actual podcast here because I still do not have any energy at all. And my diet Dr. Peppers are now warm. So that's really going to hurt my takes. Paul, how are you? I'm good. I'm soaking in the power over here, feeling lucky to have watched that preseason game. You missed so much. I mean, I really feel bad that you weren't able to witness the punt off. That wasn't a punt off, but Ryan Wright still seemed to think it was a punt off because he was booting them. Greg Joseph, 58-yard field goal.

I mean, special teams galore, Matt. Just, I hate that you had to miss it. Okay, did anybody mention the altitude? I feel like the altitude needed to be brought up, but yeah, I mean, it is notable that Ryan Wright kicked the ever lucky loving heck out of the football in his first chance to be the real punter man, because I got a bunch of questions from people asking like, is this really a good decision? Because, you know, you had missed a couple of field goals with Ryan Wright holding and my

answer was I have no idea I have no idea if Ryan Wright is a good holder or not or if Jordan Berry was a good holder or not and I guess Greg Joseph would have told the team if he was really apprehensive about having Ryan Wright holding but I guess the Vikings now have the premier young punter in the NFL. There was a study, and I am not messing with you here, that if every kick went out of the back of the end zone, if they punted a touchback every single time, it would actually be better than general punting. So maybe Ryan Wright will be able to do that. Maybe he'll be like the Bryson DeChambeau of punting

and totally break the game. And that's what you really always dreamed of. Now the punter for the Bills has his own set of problems and they released him today. And of course, had you known anything about that, we wouldn't have talked about it so much during the draft, but the Vikings seem to have come away with one heck of a punter, which I think is a good development. I mean, of all the things we could be talking about after a preseason game, that's fine, right? Yeah, I mean, it's better than having a bad punter or having questions coming in. So if those are the two options, I'll take the good punter over the bad punter. And I mean, he's one

of two, three starters that was out on the field. So if you're really analyzing guys that are actually going to be on the field come week one, he's one of them. So I guess it's good that one of your starters is playing well. But yeah, still hard to get me feeling, get the juices flowing on a Saturday night with Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, right. Punting in altitude. But yeah, I mean, always good to have a good punter. I mean, if that's gotta be the takeaway, that's gotta be the takeaway. I've got a few more though. Uh, BC Johnson got hurt in this game and I guess what I want to know also TY McGill, who's had a preseason for the ages and, uh, Jalen Naylor also with McGill and Naylor. I'm not accusing the Vikings of anything here, but

it will allow them to keep those guys on IR on the roster with their injuries. So I'm not saying they're not real, but they won't have to cut those guys. And I think that they were pretty fringe that, you know, McGill had proven himself in preseason as an interesting player for them. And Jalen Naylor was a sixth rounder so I don't think those were guys that they wanted to cut and the fact that they're hurt may allow them to put them on IR and then kind of kick that ball down the road and not necessarily have to deal with that potential issue of cutting guys that they like but with BC Johnson there would be no benefit to that he's supposed to be wide receiver four. And with that

happening and we'll find out whether it's serious or not, but it sort of shines a light on once again, the delicate nature of the wide receiver position that it's Jefferson Thielen Osborne. And I mean, you know, Johnson has become during training camp, their most reliable guy. And Amir Smith-Marset is an exciting talent, but I don't think that he is ready to play a ton. Like maybe somebody you mix in and continue to develop. And next year, he's a guy that you're talking about being interesting, but this year in camp, there was a lot of ups and downs for him in the preseason, the same thing, lots of ups and downs. So if BZ Johnson is hurt, it's not a massive season changing injury, but it also means that your top three really have to stay healthy.

Yeah. I mean, we've seen this in recent years with the Vikings when they lose one of those receivers, Thelan's missed games several times in the last couple of seasons. It gets bare really, really quickly. And so, yeah, if you remove Justin Jefferson, if he misses, God forbid, he misses a couple games, you're looking at Dillon Osborne and B.C. Johnson as you're starting wide receiver room. And that's fine, better than the Packers are going to trot out. But like you want to have a steady stable of wide outs coming down the pike. And so they have some interesting development pieces kind of late in that room,

but they're interesting development pieces as the wide receiver five and six, not as the wide receiver three, if a bunch of guys go down. So yeah, keeping Justin Jefferson is, was always an imperative for this season. Keeping Adam Thielen is an imperative for this season. And yeah, if some of the guys below them start to drop off, then it just reminds you how scary it can get at the wide receiver position if you just lose one of those guys. Because a unit that looks maybe amongst the top half, top 10 in the NFL, that wide receiver room, at least the couple top three guys, you lose one of them. It suddenly looks bleak. And then you're looking around and saying, who is Kirk throwing to that?

You feel really good about separating consistently and just having a solid passing game. So you really need those wide receivers to stay healthy. And it's why you beat the wide receiver drum year after year after year. You'd think it'll probably get addressed more during the O'Connell and Odoflamensa tenure. They already seem to have started to get more of a stable of wide receivers back there than they've had in previous years. And they'll continue to need to build that out as they kind of keep going through the years to make sure if one or two guys goes down, they still have NFL capable receivers behind them. Did you use the word scary because of how I look on this stream yard call? It's a little spooky.

I would say spooky is kind of how I look. And I'm still going to have our guy, Jonathan Harrison, who does some of our video stuff and social media. I'm still going to have him put it on YouTube because I actually think I kind of look pretty cool. Cause it is pitch black in this room where I'm at we do have one lantern but if if i took it with me then the wife and dog would be completely in the dark doing nothing so uh anyway

that's why i'm doing that but i think that the the linchpin to the whole wide receiver room is bc johnson and that's why that injury of him leaving this game is one where you kind of maybe scratch your head about why he was still out there. He's a veteran player. They were already sitting everybody else. Is there any reason not to play like a Myron Mitchell instead or Jalen Nate? Well, Jalen Naylor also got hurt. So I guess they really had no one in the wide receiver room to be able to use here at this point. So maybe that's why he was still out there is because Naylor got hurt and then uh you're left with just him Amir Smith-Marset Dan Jacenna is also hurt they had basically no wide receivers left so I guess I shouldn't second guess that because they needed someone for Mannion

and Mond to throw to and I guess if we have to have this discussion again we will but Sean Mannion was Sean Mannion there were a couple throws that didn't look too bad then there was a strip sack and then my power went out and so did his it just you know I mean Mannion is just going to be Sean Mannion there's nothing that's ever going to be impressive or make you think like oh yeah this guy could really be trusted if he came in I think we should respect Sean Mannion's ability to work as hard as he does and understand the offense as hard as he does. And the fact that the guy is still around is really remarkable, but there is nothing there. And with Kellen Mond, I mean, you know, now at this point,

it's the second half I'm not watching. So you can correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of people are tweeting highlights and stuff. So I was able to keep up that he makes a great throw and then it's a disaster. And that's just been the entire Kellen Mond experience. So the winner of the night at quarterback is Nicholas Mullins. Like, yeah, if anybody was going to have any second thoughts about who the backup quarterback should be, well, it's, uh, it's Nikki malls. Yeah. I, you saw the highlights on Twitter, but he Kellen Mond throws a nice go route you know

go routes one aren't that difficult for an NFL quarterback to throw he's just quick step drop back and then he's pumping and firing now he threw a good a good ball and but that was never really the question with Kellen Mond like he can throw a good ball it's all the other stuff it's when the next play when he play action rolls out to his left and just absolutely sails a four yard route like that's that's the struggle and it's the footwork issues and it's all the issues and they were just on display the whole the entire backup quarterback experience was on display with Mannion and Mond and like you said Nick Mullins didn't have to be subjected to this game five days into being acquired. It's probably good for him. Uh, just not getting thrown to the

wolves without understanding the offense or the personnel quite yet. I wouldn't call that any sort of panic. Uh, if you're a fan wanting to see Nick Mullins out there, I think he will get his due and week one, he might not be the exact backup, but week five, I'm sure he's the go-to backup for this team because Mannion and Mond have gotten an extended tryout, and neither of them have taken the bull by the horns. They've, if anything, they've done themselves worse than where they were entering the start of training camp. Neither of them took it, and neither of them are going to be your backup quarterback for very much longer i would guess yeah it kind of goes in that category along with and i've said a bunch of times like there wasn't a whole lot of money to deal with here and that's

why you end up with mon and manion but the same goes for garrett bradbury on this at center where we kind of knew that these things didn't work and they stuck with them and of all the things to stick with like you can understand sticking with Harrison Smith and Adam Phelan these are great players who would be really hard to part ways with same with Daniil Hunter but staying with some of the positions that you knew were not in very good shape was a little bit head scratching. I think from day one, even when they brought back Sean Manning, it was like, oh, really? Wow.

Okay. I mean, teams keep doing this, but clearly even when he gets in preseason games, he can't run the offense effectively. He made a really nice throw to Amir Smith-Marset and he makes a good grab. And then there's a throw to Jalen Naylor. That's a little off on the timing, but you're like, well, maybe Naylor should have caught it.

And then it was like, here's a pick six. Do you want it? And the guy dropped it, but it should have easily been a pick six for a starting player. It probably is. You go, Oh,

okay. And then there's a fumble later. And then it's like, both of these guys have been yakety sacks the whole time. So it has to be Mullins. My guess is though that they cut both of them and then they put Sean Mannion on the practice squad he's activated for the first couple games until Nick Mullins can feel like he really understands the offense

and then he's the backup but you know there was probably somewhere in their minds of like prove us wrong Sean we love you show us that you can be the guy because I mean, with Kellen Mond playing in the fourth quarter of the second, I'm sorry, the third preseason game, like you're just done here. He didn't practice at all this week. I mean, he didn't take any 11 on 11 reps. It was pretty obvious that the Mond thing is completely over. I guess if they put him on the practice squad instead, it would just be basically we have zero confidence in Sean Mannion and we gave him every opportunity we could, but there isn't really upside. I mean, when you're trying to deal with a development quarterback,

it's like fans, a section of fans tend to think anyone who is young and i saw this on seattle seahawks twitter it's like anyone who is not old must have a lot more potential but a lot of times they don't like why are you not playing drew lock it's because drew lock is really bad like there's no point to playing drew lock he if he lost the competition to geno smith he's not good he's never going to be what you guys want him to be and the same thing it's like if you lost the competition to Gino Smith, he's not good. He's never going to be what you guys want him to be. And the same thing. It's like, if you lost the competition to Sean Mannion and that's how he plays in games, that's what they think of you. And there's no reason to keep going down that road. It's just a pick that didn't work. They took a shot at it and such is life. Uh, but there's

really nothing more to spend on that other than Nick Mullins was standing on the sideline thinking I'm making the 53 everybody. Uh, Ty Chandler is our Mr. Mankato. I don't think there's any question about it. He has got some bursts and he has got some elusiveness and he's got some ability to break tackles. He has been the best preseason player they've had. And I don't even think it's close. And, you know, this shouldn't get you so excited considering the competition to say, all right, well, he's RB1 for

next year. But, you know, I do think that when we look down the road into the future, it will depend a lot on how Delvin Cook plays because moving on from Delvin Cook isn't super favorable to the salary cap after this year. It's like you kind of split the dead money and, you know, the cap space that you make. So if Cook is really good this year, he's probably still the running back. But the backup will be Wong Wu and Chandler. And as amazingly fast as Kenny Wong Wu is, I think I see a little bit more like actual running back stuff from Ty Chandler. It might be because he just has more experience in college, but he's got a natural ability and the, and he runs through people. So I think that they have like, he you'd have to have

three people get hurt, uh, in the running back room for it to actually make a difference on this team. I mean, I think what they showed is they have remarkable depth there. Is he better than Mike Boone, though? I don't know. Mike Boone's still pretty good, man. That was a guy that forever and always would play great in the preseason. Anytime he got in a real game, he'd be pretty good. And then Mike Zimmer would be like, no way. You stay over there, Mike Boone. Don't you dare.

You're a special teamer. I'll never understand that. He made a great move at the beginning of this game. Like, hey, Caleb Evans, I don't know if you checked the scouting report. Mike Boone's super fast. And yet, I don't know. They just, when he was with the Vikings, they never used him. But, yeah, the Vikings, somebody tweeted me, like, the Vikings have so many good running backs that one's on the other team and he's doing stuff.

On a serious note. Yeah, I think Chandler again for the third consecutive game looked really, really good. And it's not a like really a note for this season, but a note for seasons to come to say it looks like the Vikings at least have someone they could feel comfortable being a backup and potentially as a starter moving forward. Those are always guys to just have on the roster. It's nice to have one of those guys not have to go and find one of them. If they decide they want to move on from Dalvin cook,

he's almost assuredly the backup next year, because I agree with you. I think Wong works better in kind of maybe more of those gadget opportunities. He's going to return kicks for you, put them out there for a jet sweep, get him carries every once in a while, find creative ways to get Kenny Wong with the ball, but don't have Kenny Wong Wu maybe run the ball 20 times. If Dalvin Cook went down or Matt and both Madison went down, I think Chandler feels like more of that workhorse back than Wong Wu does.

And so I think they both fit long-term on the roster, but I don't think, I think Chandler's just surpassed Wang Wu in terms of pure runner at this point. But again, I think Wang Wu can be useful in a lot of different ways, just getting that speed and utilizing that speed in different ways. And this offense should find ways to be able to do that. And it's very creative in that way. So I would expect we'll see Wong on the field this year. I'm not sure how much we'll see Chandler on the field this year, but it's the third preseason game. If you're feeling good about your running back position going forward for

several years, that's a nice takeaway to have. And Chandler has done nothing but impress any time he's been on the field during the preseason. I mean, it's just high, like nice run after nice run. He's stacking exactly what you'd want to see from a young rookie on this team.

And he's, I mean, first box checked. If you're going to be a good running back in this league, he's checked off the first boxes and pressing as a rookie flashing against second teamers, kind of proving I probably shouldn't be out here with these second teamers. That's what you want to see and the development you want to see from a guy that you hope will take a next step down the line. I also thought that the offensive line was very good and notable that Jesse Davis was playing in this game. So what we've thought for several weeks now, really since the joint practices, is that Ed Ingram is going to start at right guard. And

that's very clear since he did not play. And Jesse Davis was in there. Chris Reed was not at center. He was at left guard, Austin Schlottman at center. And that makes me think that, well, they haven't gotten Chris Reed enough reps because he's been hurt to make any sort of competition out of the center position. But I think if we start talking about based on what we've seen and then how things were lined up tonight, who's going to be on the team and who they could go out and have a look at, it was clear that they wanted an extended look at the second team offensive line.

Blake Brandel has weirdly been like pretty good. He seems to be a development guy that's turned out to be a quality backup player. I'm not sure if they're keeping only Udo and boy, that would be an indictment on the previous regime of having a guy start a guard and then the next year cut. But I think that's a very realistic possibility. It wouldn't even shock me if they cut Jesse Davis and just said like, look, man, I mean, it's clear that your kind of time has come to an end in the NFL because he was a guy that was barely in the league to begin with. And it wouldn't shock me if they decided to keep Chris Reed instead or cut one out of the two, whichever one they were more or less happy with. But, you know, when you look at, you know, the rest of the league, I think that they have to at least take a serious look at

that waiver wire whenever he cut comes down if there's a veteran um if so you know so remember at one point john sullivan this was him he got cut by the vikings he ends up being signed by the rams and he wasn't unbelievable with the rams but he was their center when they had the number one offense in 2017 he was good enough um so they have to look at other people who get cut around the league if If there's any veteran who loses a job, clearly they're not going to go after J.C. Tretter, and we've been over that a bunch of times, but I think that a move should be made

if there's anyone out there that passes the Austin Schlottman test, and I don't know. I mean, he had a good PFF grade for his last preseason game. Seems to have been fine but if there's anyone who's a starter or who has started and gets cut they have to take a serious look there because uh you know you could be four or five weeks into the season going my gosh this is just over with Garrett Bradbury and we need some other option the same way that Mason Cole was for them last year yeah I we've been banging that drum all, I think, offseason long to try to get some

other look. It was confusing kind of the entire offseason that they didn't at least bring in any sort of competition for Bradbury at the center spot, but at least at the guard spot, I think their offseason strategy kind of worked the way we were talking about it, potentially working, just throwing a ton of bodies at there and then hoping you find one to start their offseason strategy kind of worked the way we were talking about it potentially working just throwing a ton of bodies out there and then hoping you find one to start and one that can capably back up potentially and i think that's what they've done i think previous vikings regimes maybe would have just signed jesse davis and said all right we're gonna roll with this journeyman

here and we're gonna have ole udo back him, and they'd probably be in a bad spot right now. And so the fact that they threw numbers at it, cheap guys that they can easily move on from if they don't like the way that they're performing, if they get injured, they've done that. Ed Ingram has shown himself that he can start there. And that's a better scenario than just having Ed Ingram and immediately putting all this pressure on him.

Like you are the starting guard from day one. He had time to develop. He had time to learn. And then his development tracked to the point where they were able to start him. And now they're able to move on from some of these other guys. I think at least from the guard position, that's exactly how you'd want this thing to go.

And I think they executed that plan for that position correctly. Now I kind of wish they would have done a similar thing with center and thrown a couple things at it and not just tried to throw a couple guys and Schlottman and Reed who have really never played center and tried to justify that as his competition. That's not competition. 42 combined career snaps at center. That's just not the competition you're looking for. You would have hoped that came would come from someone else.

Maybe it's still coming in free agency. They still, again, have a little bit of cap space to maneuver around with if they so choose. And center seems like one of the biggest holes for them if they want to try to spend some of that money. I just you're just kind of then playing a game of who else other teams trash that you're going to try to turn into something. And maybe it does, but they're also all going to be cut for a certain reason. So I wouldn't expect too much and some savior to come down the pike here in the next week, but they're in a position to do so. I just wish they would have maybe addressed it a little bit early on. So they're not at this point now. Yeah. Somebody brought up to me on Twitter, like, well, you know, when we talk about it being

hard to replace with Bradbury, if he was the lowest graded guy in the NFL and pass blocking, is that really that hard to replace? And the answer is, well, kind of, I mean, kind of, because, because if you have someone that is not a starter, that kind of assumes that they're not better than most of the low end players in the league now it's possible a younger player that's been developing could be behind somebody and they could get cut and you could find someone slightly better but how much better are you talking about and also bradbury is good at some stuff he is good at outside zone run blocking and they're still going to do the zone run blocking he's good at screens and i fully believe that their screen game is going to take a big step forward here and those things can be useful from him so if someone is fairly equal but doesn't have

any other assets to their game then you kind of have to stick with it and i think what they were hoping was that chris reed would take some snaps and show that he was a better pass blocker because that's just more important than the screen game. But he really never got the chance to do that because of his injury. And tonight he was in there at left guard and we'll see if he even ends up, you know, hanging around, but you know, the Jesse Davis experiment might just be over. And I think that I expected a higher bar for Ingram to have to jump over to start. And Davis was just not that like from the very start, from the very first series against the Raiders, he just got bowled over and it looked like, is this really what they're looking for? He's not even necessarily a physical fit with his size. Like usually this is a mobile, you know, type alignment situation.

It's not quite what Gary Kubiak is looking for but you still need guys who can move left to right that was never really Jesse Davis so I wouldn't be surprised if he is just not here at all and I don't think that it's like oh well you put a really good starter there and he clearly outplayed him it's more like well that's not gonna work so rookie you're up and then we'll see if it's uh you know a similar situation with what happened with Javon Kinlaw last week or if he rises to the challenge and becomes a good player I mean we did see that out of a second rounder in Brian O'Neill Ezra Cleveland hasn't quite gotten to a consistent point yet we haven't really talked about him because I don't

know how to evaluate him in camp necessarily. Like he he's played a couple of years, so he looks like he knows what he's doing. I don't know. But that's another question mark. He has to take a big step forward. And oftentimes offensive linemen do. So that's going to be one of the things that after Tuesday we take a close look at is are there other people available to add to the offensive line? But I think on the whole, with the way that the offensive line is played in these games, the second unit, you actually feel good about the depth for the first time in an extremely long time. I think probably, probably 2017 was the last time where they had somebody, our friend, Jeremiah Searles, who will be back by the way, Tuesday morning, guard it won't always be tuesday morning but he'll be back um but you know he was good depth for that team and they

haven't really had that um you know overall so let's see what else happened tonight we got uh luigi valaine if anybody had not heard of luigi valaine yet he had a tfl and an interception so that happened um what else you got anything else oh man let me look to my extensive notes that i have here yes i have some luigi valaine notes uh just a lot of the injuries i i guess is really the biggest concern to me along with bc johnson jaylen nailer going out troy die going out ty mcgill out. Not necessarily all guys that we're going to see playing time, but they were the best of the depth. And so you don't want to lose your depth, guys,

to where if you lose a starter, you're now going to some third stringer. So I thought some of the injuries were important. Otherwise, it was kind of the specialist show and just some bad play from some more quarterbacks. I guess I was interested in the guys that didn't play some names. I wasn't expecting some that I was Dan Chisna, not playing. I wasn't sure what that one was about,

but he's hurt. Yeah. He's hurt. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. I was, did he make the team?

No, I was just, I was very confused by that when I saw that Andrew Kramer tweet, but yes, no. And we, for full disclosure, we started filming this in the fourth quarter. So if someone broke out, I haven't checked tweeting about us like well let's just go let's just let's just have this conversation and then as soon as we're done this is my long-held luck the lights will come right back on as soon as we finish up this podcast for sure but luckily my laptop and phone are holding up pretty well so we can continue to have a conversation i just want to know if you had

anything else in the notebook so then we can move forward with some other things I wanted to talk about, which one of them was, okay, well, a couple of things. So Kirk Cousins has a truly hideous practice by his own admission. I mean, it was ugly and I will put the qualifier on it again, that I'm not saying the season's over because they had a bad practice in front of us or anything like that but is there any argument because I did get this tweet is there any argument for running Kirk out there for one or two series because of how much they struggled in that last practice before this game and really it was supposed to be a scrimmage that they got a lot out of. And what they got a lot of was ineffective offense and interceptions that were thrown.

And this is, it is by far, it's like these little things where you go, I don't know if this is a thing or not. And I guess we'll see, because I know that if you're doing podcasts or tweeting and you have to be super definitive on absolutely everything and pretend that you know what everything means. I don't know if this means

something or not. Kirk Cousins has thrown more interceptions in this training camp than any other training camp that I've covered. And I've covered all of them. And it's not close. Like normally the guy doesn't throw very many interceptions because he doesn't actually in real games either. And is supposed to go or the timing isn't right where I think with Stafford you would you know easily say all right well it's gotta be because he was over aggressive because he's Matt Stafford but maybe there was some confusion to some of the interceptions he threw a couple ones against the Vikings that were very bizarre. And some of them were classic Stafford interceptions where he's getting sacked and just wings it to nobody for no reason. But that has made me wonder about why that is. And I guess that ties into should

they have run them out there for a little full speed because a lot of other teams did run their quarterbacks. And I'll ask you about Justin Fields in a minute, but like Chicago was running their starter and Pat Mahomes got some time. So it wasn't completely unprecedented that the quarterback played for some other teams just a little bit. I get what you mean.

I'm just not sure one or two series roughly two weeks away from the season starting is changing all that much from what they're doing in practice, what they did with the joint practices. Now, if this was a continuous thing, like if Vikings fans have kept the follow with Chad Graff and have seen his tweets coming out of Patriots camp, it's every day like this offense looks terrible. Day in, day out, it looks terrible in the preseason games it looks terrible pretty much every practice like there's I don't know if Chad's tweeted anything positive since he's gotten to New England um and I'm sure that's warranted um just by what he's seeing every single day if it was that yeah i'd want them to get some time to probably work out the kinks before the games start but to me i just i just don't know how much one or two series against the backups today was gonna change the vikings fortunes i just i don't necessarily believe that and

the funny thing about football is if uh september 11, they come out and they go three and out the first two series, everyone's going to be up in arms because cousins didn't do that in the preseason. And they would have said, well, he would have gotten those out of his system. I don't necessarily think that's the case. I think he's getting plenty of reps during the day during practice. It was one practice. I'm not worried about it too much. We saw five or six guys for the Vikings get hurt today. A couple of them out for the whole game. Some went right back in. That is not a scenario you want with your starting quarterback. with without a head coach that's kind of staring you down uh very very frequently one that

historically has not liked when his quarterbacks turn the ball over uh so could it be confusion with the offense sure could it be being freed up sure could it just be trying to be aggressive in practice to see what he can get away with potentially i know that's obviously i think patrick mahomes is known for that he tries a bunch of things in practice just to see what he do. He's not going to end up doing a ton of them in the actual games. Now, Kirk Cousins is no Patrick Mahomes, but could he be just forcing things to see what he can do in this new offense and what his wide receivers can do? I think so. And if he increases his interception total, am I even going to consider that a bad thing necessarily if that means he's taking more shots downfield and he's pushing the ball downfield more on third and that third and nine

he's not dumping down to the running back like I don't think all these things necessarily are bad and so I'm as a whole no I'm not worried about Kirk Cousins I don't necessarily think he needed to come play in these preseason games would it maybe have helped a smidge yes was it gonna change the entire fortunes of how they play week one I don't buy that one bit and I guess we'll have to see on the interception front because I think that can be however you want to look at it it can be pushed negative or positive and we just won't know until it's actually happening in games that matter here in a couple weeks well in this case it definitely wasn't him trying things because he was super upset after practice and he would not have been super upset after practice. If that

was the case, he was, I mean, you can go watch the press conference if you want, but even when I asked him like, well, doesn't it kind of help to be able to work through these things since you know your receiver so well. And even then he wasn't willing to say like, oh yeah, it's fine. And he was kind of like, we're going to really have to go back and look at this. We're going to have to figure this out because they were all pretty horrendous interceptions, honestly. I mean, they were just like throwing to the wrong area or a receiver wasn't there or reading the defense wrong. And I was kind of reminded of like, nobody wants to hear that it could have some similarities with 2018, but you have a young coach who hadn't done a whole lot of play calling in his

career and wanted to push, you know, the sliders all the way up on leaning into an explosive passing game and have that drive the offense. And sometimes that worked really well. I mean, against the Rams that year in 2018, it really worked against the bills. It really didn't like it had its major ups and downs where I think Mike Zimmer believed if we make this as simple as possible and we run a lot of bootlegs and play actions and stuff like that to get open wide receivers and give him time to throw, he's going to make a lot of plays. And honestly he did. I mean, that's, you know, with the previous offense, it did work really well for him. And even early in his career, that's what his offensive coordinators believed in. So the question is like, are you asking too

much here? And I don't know the answer. I think that's just the question we have to ask. And as far as, I mean, I agree with you as far as the actual preseason games go, though. Is it really going to help him to be out there for two series when you're running really super vanilla stuff? And the defense is very vanilla, too. I don't buy into that changing a whole lot. He did admit, though, that he was going to play in the first one or he thought he was going to play in the first one. But that was when he ended up getting COVID.

And I thought that was an interesting admission. So instead of sitting him out for the entire preseason, they were going to probably get him two series because they ended up getting the full offensive line two series. So they were at least considering doing that with Cousins to get him a bit of work. So I'm not trying to doomsday anybody here at all. I'm just like all of a sudden this sort of has jumped out

after that practice that was supposed to be like high intensity. And there was a really bad interception against San Francisco in the joint practices, too. So it's just something to keep an eye on. And I agree with you, though, if he throws a few more interceptions, but it results in being more aggressive. Well, that's good. But if he throws interceptions because they can't quite get on the same page with what the offense is supposed to be well that's that's not good it's like every interception i think maybe it was kevin o'connell said like it has its own story and some of the stories are who cares and some of the stories are this is a big problem so i mean i you know i don't want to go on and on

about it but i think that people will do that for sure that if if they don't come right out against green bay and light it up then there will be a lot of like does he look a little rusty should they have gotten him in some real games and things like that i think that will be a conversation now uh does that mean though that we shouldn't take anything seriously from the preseason. And then this is not a leading question because Justin Fields lit it up. And what I noticed from Justin Fields was he was running the boots and any long time listener of this show can remember our friend Sage Rosenfels, former Vikings quarterback coming on and ranting about Matt Nagy's offense and why they didn't run more bootlegs, more play actions and like try to get

him kind of on the move and things like that. Instead, they just put him in the shotgun and he had to read a whole bunch of things before making a play. So they've simplified this offense, it seems, and he had a great performance today in preseason. I guess one to 10, how much would you make of the fact that Justin Fields is running bootlegs and actually looking very comfortable? Like a six maybe. So I don't, I don't see it as nothing. I think good things can come out of the preseason. Bad things can come out. You can learn things from the preseason. If you're giving you guys time, I think Fields is just an interesting, interesting scenario because again, he's coming into a new offense and he's in his second year and i think you're just looking for

any signs that he looks like the quarterback they thought they were getting it when they traded up and drafted him and so i think maybe you're just putting on maybe i'm putting on the rose-colored glasses for bears fans with this one but i I think you have to, in those scenarios, when it's an unproven player that you haven't seen much, any tape then, any reps are good reps for that guy. And so I would take a little bit from it. Now, his supporting cast is dreadful. His offensive line is dreadful.

I don't necessarily know if that's going to translate to amazing play on the field, but at this point the bears are trying to evaluate a new general manager is trying to evaluate am i keeping justin fields going forward for years to come like if we're terrible and i get the first pick am i just not looking at quarterback because i feel good about justin fields like all of this is an audition for him and for the general manager and the team they're looking for any signs of what they should be doing moving forward because of how valuable those rookie quarterback contracts are am I going

to start to carve out space for his extension next summer if I'm Ryan Poles or am I looking for a new quarterback in here one of these next couple years so I think the fact that Justin Fields is doing things that people like Sage have said he should be doing and he's looking good in them. That's a good sign. Now it doesn't mean he's going to be a great quarterback, but I think especially after how much he struggled last year, it's, it's a good thing. And I take a little bit away from it. Yeah. I agree because the process looks right. And the process is that's the type of offense this guy should be running. And I compared him coming out in the draft to Ryan Tannehill because I just don't see

this like unbelievable wizard of like, I'm a Holmes. He has the athletic ability, but I don't think he has that dynamic skill. He is more, even the guys who did like really great breakdowns of him like jto sullivan qb school it's like well you know he's kind of locking on to that first read for a longer time and hanging in the pocket for a longer time which is stuff that kirk will do at times but tannahill is a is a kirk that's a good athlete and i think that that's kind of justin fields except for his arm is you know really strong but i, but I, but Tannehill's is too, um, a little stronger than Kirk's maybe, but not quite as accurate. And I think that that's kind of what I've seen from fields. So if he's, if they're running the ball

and running play actions off of it, that could actually be decent for them. It's just that I don't know if Joe Montana showed up. I don't think that they're winning like 10 games. They just don't have any talent on that roster. It's one of the worst rosters in the NFL, but I do think for the longterm, if they have it right, that's not something Vikings fans want to see because you can turn these things around pretty quickly. If you've got that guy and Joe Burrow is a great example. He's not Joe Burrow more likely than not, but you could start to fill up that roster pretty fast because they reset their salary cap so when i see him look that good in preseason i don't go oh my gosh this is the next superstar quarterback in the nfl but i also think that looks like they know kind of what they should

be doing with justin fields in this offense and i think that that's uh probably a good thing for them just one more thing paul before we wrap up in this this. And I think that that's probably a good thing for them. Just one more thing, Paul, before we wrap up in this, this beautiful evening. I mean, it's a little dark for me, but overall very, very wonderful. Is there any surprise cut that you have on your mind for the Vikings? And I guess when you say surprise that, and then we try to see it coming it may not be surprised it's like a paradox but anyway the whole point is just I think this is the roster

that has the least potential for someone to get cut and we go like whoa really wow I mean I get like Jesse Davis with that wow anybody if that's actually a cut? Like B-Rob the one year, Terrence Newman, yeah, I think it was the same year, 2018. Those were really surprising. Alex Boone in 2016 was pretty surprising since they had paid him so much. But I don't know if there's a player now this year where we would go like Mond or Wyatt Davis or Chaz Surratt. None of these guys, even from last year's draft class class would be surprising since they've shown nothing, but anyone on your mind that you'd be like, Oh really?

Okay. Wow. I mean, not a ton. I mean, you mentioned one of them earlier, just if only Udo was cut, I would just be surprised based on what he was doing last year.

But I mean, he had like Garrett Bradbury had the worst pass blocking rate, a grade of a center but if you just put that out for all offensive linemen Bradbury was like sixth worst and Udo was like third worst so he wasn't very good but I think coming into this training camp we kind of assumed he was going to take that Rashad Hill kind of swing tackle roll back in a spot that he felt more comfortable in and he just hasn't been very good so I think he got cut it's more just kind of a surprise based on what he was doing last year and the fact that he was a starter kind of what you mentioned but yeah i mean him and if you qualify mond as a surprise i guess that

would only be the other one but uh i don't think some of those people in your twitter replies are going to be happy when alexander madison is not. He will not be cut. But that would qualify as a surprise if that happened. But I don't think that small minority of people that have been coming after you are going to be vindicated here in cut day. I think that those people were desperate to have some sort of preseason opinion. And now it wasn't cut that the Madison people wanted. It was created for a very good player which was not going to happen um but uh you know it just at every turn we wanted there to be

something there and there was just nothing there with this preseason i think this is sort of sign of the future like in the future that i've done the bit before and you don't know this because you didn't watch conan o'brien 20 years ago but like in the he used to do this bit in the year 2000 it would it was like 2005 and they would be like in the year 2000 and talk about the future it's like uh you know i don't know anyway that that doesn't matter but it's just like um you know i don't know they're not trading alexander madison i don't even remember where that, but it's just like, you know, I don't know. They're not trading Alexander Madison. I don't even remember where that was going. It's just like, it's not going to happen. But there was, oh, I know what I was going to say. It's just like in the year 2000,

we will not talk at all about these preseason games anymore. Cause they'll just be so irrelevant that they won't matter at all. And look, we just did a podcast breaking one down that i didn't see half of like that tells you everything you need to know i kept up on twitter and i was still able to do this just fine like this was an intentionally super incredibly ridiculously dull preseason because kevin o'connell had no no no thoughts at all of putting anybody in harm's way that was going to matter for this team. I think he's right to do so. I also think it resulted in any desperate take that you could possibly reach for, but you know, now we are in full 53 man roster cut mode and then NFL season folks. So I think it'll be a very dull cut down day, honestly, as well,

that the most exciting thing out of cut down day, we'll be seeing if there's centers somewhere else, like that's it. And maybe, you know, if, if BC Johnson is hurt long-term, if there's any receivers to pick up or something, but that never works anyway. So, um, yeah, it it's i think that it's been one of the least like dramatic off seasons that we've seen and that's very good for them and uh kind of leaves us in a spot where maybe next week we'll pick the schedule and we'll decide did we change our minds on how many games they're going to win and all those things so i appreciate you paul taking the time and diligence to make sure I didn't miss anything super, super serious in the third quarter. Thanks for doing that. And thanks for doing this as always. Thanks, Matt. you you you