Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings end Sunday in a playoff spot -- now what?

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Matthew Coller and intern Paul look at the very, very bad game between the Vikings and Jaguars and what it says about the Vikings that they barely escaped with a win. Can they fix the incredible amount of mistakes that they make on a weekly basis? Why don't the Vikinsg target Justin Jefferson earlier? Why did they use Dalvin Cook to the point of exhaustion again? And what to do about the special teams? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Soccer is going to explode, and it's going to be around this kid. We were the Beatles. Everywhere we went, it was the Freddie show. And with that came the expectation, and with We were the Beatles. Everywhere we went, it was the Freddie show. And with that came the expectation, and with that came the pressure. New episodes of American Prodigy drop Tuesdays from Blue Wire Podcasts. Hello, welcome to the post-game what the Vikings are in a playoff spot reaction after the worst game close that I have ever covered. Not blowouts, but in a game that was competitive to the very end and went to overtime.

It could not have been more of a mess, which we will get into every part of that disaster. But breaking news as we are starting this podcast, Matthew Collar and intern Paul, the Minnesota Vikings are in the number seven seed because the Arizona Cardinals are just having a meltdown. And it's almost like the football gods reached down and said, Vikings, this seven seed playoff spot was made for you. And you are despite your not very good football and all attempts to lose to the worst team not named the jets in the nfl you still may sit in the golden seventh seat of the playoffs so uh paul what a day what a day it was what a day uh i think if you could manifest kirkins into anything it would be that seventh playoff seed he seems to just like everything about that seems to fit him

but I don't know Matt at times I was pained watching this game I I wanted it to be over I was exhausted even though I was just sitting on my couch watching it it was I don't know I'm kind of of speechless that they simultaneously won that game, but also that it came that close to a team that is now 1-11. There's just so much to get into. The Vikings were the winners. Every one of us was the losers for having witnessed that game, which, by the way, took forever. I mean, usually I'm walking out of the stadium at a certain time

after a regular old noon o'clock start, and today it was almost pitch dark as I was walking out of the stadium. That usually doesn't happen even after the clocks change, but the game took forever because it went into overtime, but there also was all these different turnovers and changes throughout the game. We'll just begin with the broad statement, which is if you play this way over the next few weeks, you won't just lose one or two of those games and stay in the playoff race.

You will lose all of them, every single one of these games, because what we saw from Chicago is that they are better with Mitch Trubisky in, I know is like haha lol Mitch Trubisky's still awful he is but you only beat the Nick Foles version by six points so let's keep that in mind and they scored a lot against the Detroit defense that is kind of like the Vikings defense and then Detroit now has a competent coach who every player is trying to play their tail off for to be like, yeah, it was Patricia's fault. It wasn't my fault. The contract that you're going to give me in the offseason,

you still want to give me that contract because it was Patricia's fault. So you know that they're going to be playing hard. Tampa Bay is coming off of a bye week. They also still have Tom Brady, and I don't care if he's missed some deep passes this year. He's a hell of a lot better than Mike Glennon, who almost beat you today despite every attempt. A safety, multiple interceptions. He threw it right to your corner on the first drive, and your corner was like, no, bounce off me and go to LaVisca Chennault for a touchdown. I mean, Mike Glennon did everything he possibly could to botch that game as he is a well below average backup quarterback who is the third guy off the bench for the Jacksonville Jaguars. And he actually moved the ball against your defense.

So if you play like that against your next few opponents, you will lose each one of those games. And this magical story of coming back into your playoff spot, it'll go bye-bye really, really quick if it continues to happen. But I want to talk about, Paul, before I get into, like, what you have for questions for me, is just that there are mistakes that you normally don't put under the category of repeatable that now I have determined are repeatable. Like fumbles, oh random, it just happened. No, this team fumbles. This team fumbles every week and they're going to keep fumbling. So I mean, I don't know if there's like a solution,

hold on to it tighter, maybe know how to hand off at the one yard line, what? But this team fumbles the football and I think that that has become a feature. This team throws pick sixes. They turn it over to the point where the other team can score, and they are capable of allowing a game-winning drive under any circumstances. If you can give up a game-tying drive in the final seconds to freaking Mike Glennon, you can definitely give one up to Taysom Hill if he's still in, if it's not Drew Brees or Tom Brady or Mitch Trubisky, who's done stuff like that to you

before in the past, or especially Matt Stafford. If they play like they did today or against Carolina, they will have this be a blip on the radar where we got to have a little fun and talk about the playoffs. And it will go right down the drain very fast in a couple of weeks. So where do you want to start with your questions? Well, I was just going to say, after last week's game at Carolina, we said a similar thing. They can't play like this and expect to win,

except they were playing the 1-10 Jags, so they had one more week to play like this and to win. But now is the cutoff point. Like, you have competent football teams coming in. You have competent quarterbacks, I guess, coming in. I know earlier in the week you said this wasn't maybe the Jets. Mike Lennon is at least a quarterback who has played games. This isn't Ben DiNucci.

This isn't Kyle Hinton. But he's not very good either. Like, he's been on so many teams. He couldn't start for the Bears when they had no one at quarterback. He couldn't start for Tampa. He couldn't start really anywhere he went. And it just proved, we saw this with Baker Mayfield today, when he wasn't pressured at all.

And he throws for four touchdowns. And now he looks like the Baker Mayfield of old. Mike Glennon looked like a competent NFL starter today because the Vikings cannot create any pressure. And so, yeah, they're not going to be able to keep doing this moving forward. And my overwhelming take was just, did anyone want to win this game? Because the Jags, at least it made sense to maybe they didn't want to win this game. At one point, the Jets were ahead.

It looked like the Jags were going to have Trevor Lawrence for about 10 minutes there. And then the Jets absolutely, I don't even know what happened there. They let up a Hail Mary. But the Vikings can't perform when they have a playoff spot on the line like they just did today. Everything was set up for them to smoothly go through the Jags to set up their momentum, going to Tampa to like really do this thing. If they beat Tampa Tampa their playoff odds I was just playing around with it at 538 they go up to like 71 percent if they win that game and they almost let it all fall apart today so I I'm just just flabbergasted at the fact that like the

team could play this way with what was on the line I I don't know. No one looked like they wanted to win today. That's exactly the right point is that I think when you have so many fundamental flaws that no matter how much the game matters or how much you should be dialed in, that you still make a ton of mistakes and keep a bad team in the game. This is just who they are. And that's why this final stretch is going to be so interesting because they have played up to their competition this year. No one has wiped them off the map who is good. Atlanta did, but Green Bay in the first game got way up against them. That's the opener.

But aside from that, only Indianapolis really crushed them. But since Justin Jefferson has been a major part of this offense, they've played close against good teams and have lost. offense. They play close against good teams and have lost, and they've played close against bad teams and have won. And that's the difference a lot of times between good teams and bad teams is that if you get up on Seattle and give them a couple turnovers, they're going to beat you because their quarterback is Russell Wilson and not Mike Glennon. Mike Glennon, you're right, that this is why he is a backup and shouldn't ever do anything more than be the number three

or a practice squad now that you can put veterans on it or whatever. There's a reason they decided to go with Jake Luton first and then to Mike Glennon because he just throws it to the other team at total random, even when he's got guys wide open. I mean, a couple of those picks are the one that turns into a touchdown. He's got a guy wide open. He just misses them by a ton, and yet still you make the right point. This team can't pressure an opposing quarterback at all.

Even with some of the blitzes today, the Jaguars were able to pick them up, and they were able to complete passes and get first downs and continue to move the ball. And I think that that's where, aside from the fumbles, aside from the bad special teams mistakes, the missed kicks, all that sort of stuff that has become a staple of who this team is, I would also say that not being able to pressure an opposing quarterback is going to open the door for any opposing quarterback to have success against you. And I do wonder if

Chenault had not got hurt halfway through the game. They were using him a lot as sort of a playmaker. They were handing him the ball, throwing him screens. And I wonder if they have a little more success than they had. At no point did I think the Vikings would lose because Jacksonville is so devoid of talent. That roster has a couple of receivers who can play. Chenault can play, and Chark is pretty decent, and the other guy, Johnson, was really good today. He made a couple of great catches, but aside from that, I mean, they don't have a good offensive line. The running back is pretty good, but their defense is, what, 32nd in the league in passer rating allowed, so it was no surprise that once they started to open things up,

they were able to do it. But the fundamental flaw to me that gets them each week against these bad teams to allow them to stay in the game is that they simply cannot pressure the quarterback unless it was Nick Foles. I mean, he was the only guy that they've really been able to successfully pressure all of the season. And as you look forward and say wow if you can keep Mike Glennon in the game despite him trying to make a cutback move and

fumbling like what I mean that is a classic like fourth string quarterback is in the game and he's six seven all neck and he's trying to do a cutback move against the cornerback or something and fumbles but if even he can stay in the game with you and get it to overtime, that tells you a lot about where you are just in general as defense. Cam Dantzler played well today. It didn't look like the coverage was terrible, except for Chris Boyd a couple of times. But, you know, he's like their fifth string corner.

But it's that defensive line that just simply has no capability of stopping anyone. And if Eric Kendrick's injury is serious at all, then everybody they play the rest of the year is going to move the ball. They're going to put up points. If they have the ball last, they're probably going to score. Like that is who you are as a defense. And the only way to overcome it is playing offense really well without throwing the pick six or without having the fumble at the one or without having the fumble that turns into a touchdown like they have the last two weeks yeah if if the Jags can stay in a game with the Vikings any team can stay in the game with the Vikings and so that's a news flash for if fans are getting excited about the playoffs those teams all

of them are going to be able to score there aren't teams that just have no offense that are going to find their way into the playoffs. If you look through a theme of it, it's mostly teams that can't stop anyone, like the Vikings, like the Seahawks, like the Packers, like teams like that. So it just shows that against these bad teams, yes, maybe they can squeak out these games, but if every single opponent that you play is going to be able to score and is never going to be out of the game it's just not sustainable to say that they can make a playoff push and make any sort of playoff run because at some point like we talk about every week Kirk Cousins is going to Kirk Cousins something's going to happen the special teams isn't going to go is going to just continue doing what it's doing and it's going to cost them so it didn't today

against the horrendous Jacksonville Jaguars that at one point could have been the worst team in the league except for what the Jets did. So yeah, there's not many positives to look at for this game. And I just want to go through the drives in the second half. Like it's hilarious just looking at like the ESPN play-by-play. You get the pick six right away and then the Vikings score. Then the Jags punt punt the Vikings score again then they go fumble fumble safety punt punt punt fumble field goal touchdown missed field goal missed field goal punt interception field goal and the perfect it was it was yeah I don't know there's two fumbles in a row, a safety, three punts. There was just everything in this game. I just, I don't know. I couldn't look away, but like I wanted to look away. It was horrendous, but after all of it, they are to make the playoffs, and it's in the realm of possibility, and I guess we have

to talk about it, but they do not deserve it after this game or after what we've seen from them the last three weeks. And I will give Mike Zimmer credit for acknowledging that that is the case, that he said even in the locker room, they weren't celebrating this win, because this is a, you should walk out with your head held low after this. You should walk out shaking your head in embarrassment as opposed to celebrating a victory. But like you said, the bottom line is you're in a playoff spot. The only thing I would come back to, though, with being in that playoff spot is if you do make the playoffs, I've seen this sentiment quite a bit, and I want to talk about it a little, that let's say you're 7-9 or you're 8-8 and you make that seventh playoff spot, which was invented

out of pure magic. Like, we wouldn't be talking about this at all if the NFL wasn't just insanely greedy. Like, six playoff teams is probably right, and maybe if they got rid of the division winner thing, we would have the system totally great. i loved that it was only the cream of the crop that made it unlike hockey where if you can keep the ice rink cold you make the playoffs or the same thing with basketball if your hoop is 10 feet you're in the playoffs and then you get murdered by the lakers in the first series or something and you get to i don't know put up a we made the playoffs trophy or something and you get to, I don't know, put up a we made the playoffs trophy or something in your arena. Well, it's the same feeling now with allowing seven teams in where it's the ultimate participation

trophy for your season, because more likely than not, a team that makes this many mistakes has this many holes, can't pressure the quarterback. Very unlikely that they're going to make it. In fact, make it past that first round I mean in fact when you look at Arizona they're a great example of like that's the team you're chasing they're bad too their quarterback's a mess their offense is a mess their defense can't stop anybody like that's the team that you're like neck and neck with and neither one of you actually deserve to be a playoff team so i think there's a cynical view of looking at an eight and eight or seven and nine eight seventh seed to say

was that was that good because now you know you get blown out the first game or you lose the first game or maybe it's exciting i don't know whatever but you're not winning the super bowl so you lose the first game and you end up with the 19th draft pick. And then what? I mean, is that a game changer? Probably not. The top tackle, the top guard, the top receiver, the top defensive end, the top defensive tackle, all those positions you need to change your future, probably not going to do it with 19th. Justin Jefferson, I know, was in that range. So I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's less likely than it is if you're drafting seventh or if you're drafting fifth or something

like that. So there'll be a lot of people that look at it and say, what was it worth? And then the other part is, well, they were one in five and they fought their way back. And this is how I think that the ownership will look at it is if they go eight and eight, they'll say, well, we started out one in five. We had some bad breaks and we had the COVID thing and we didn't have the home field advantage thing. And then, you know, okay. So all of a sudden the team fought for Zimmer.

Zimmer is coaching these guys up. And then 2021 is our year. I think that will be, in fact, even if they fall off here at the end, that will ultimately be the message that sort of comes out of the team is look how we fought, look how we turned it around. And, you know, when you start to look farther down the road, the cap situation, the cap going down, the players that you might have to lose, what you have to build with is still good,

but are you going to tell me that it's a huge jump? I'm not really sure. So, you know, this is a funny place to be. And I think I said this weeks ago, and I think I'm going to stay with it for now, which is take the roller coaster thing that holds you in and put it real tight. Put it real, real tight around you. Because this thing is probably going to still jerk you around quite a bit before the season is over and just just ride it out the world is awful

it's 2020 things are still bad you know just kind of enjoy the ride here and don't think too much about 2021 at this moment because whatever happens from here on is not changing that message that they turned it around. They continued to fight. Jefferson's amazing. We got lots to build with. That's going to be the message. You're not going to draft a quarterback in the top five.

Our skull searching can continue, but it's kind of over, unfortunately, for us because there's a lot of good content there. But that's the way I look at it, that today if they blow the Jacksonville game, we can go back to being like, ah, see, Cousins had one of those down games and he blew the Jacksonville game we can go back to being like ah see Cousins had one of those down games and he blew the Jacksonville game this is why we're talking quarterback but without this then I think we go back to all right the rest of the ride is they're going to talk about how great it was that they turned things around so strap yourself in and if they get a playoff game that means you get more football into January, and that's the best I can do for you. But to say that this team deserves it after these last couple of weeks, of course they don't.

And Arizona doesn't either. And if Chicago makes it, they don't either. And if the Lions make it, they don't either. Like, nobody deserves the seventh seed at all. So you're not alone. This is not just a Vikings thing. Yeah, and using your rollercoaster analogy, I want to ask, like, after everything we take in, we take in the way the Vikings played, but we also take in the fact that they are now in a

playoff spot. They moved above the Cardinals who lost. Did we move higher in that rollercoaster? Are we like moving our way up after today? Like from where we were yesterday to now where we are today, did we move up or did we go down because i think the feeling of just what we just watched points to okay we're going down but they're in the playoffs they improved their playoff position they improved their odds so i don't really know how to digest this moving forward because yes they looked horrible but they look they've looked horrible these last couple weeks and they've still been gaining so i know that might not happen with better teams, but they're still gaining. So I don't know. Are we, do we feel better about the whole situation? I don't know.

To me, the rollercoaster kind of broke and you had to use the bathroom and you were stuck up there for a while. That was today's game. The rollercoaster didn't really take you up and down in terms of the big picture throughout Throughout the game, it did. I mean, it went from early in the game, they're down 9-0, and my Twitter is just firing everyone they want. Cousins gone, they want. Spielman fired, they want. Chris Boyd shot into the sun, which he might deserve it

after getting another illegal block in the back. But, I mean, that's inexcusable. He's supposed to be a special teams expert he is falling under the category of guys who are um not taking the next step forward in 2020 I'll just politely put it that way but um outside of the individual roller coaster nature of this game where then you know they start to get it together and it seems like oh well they'll just blow this team out and run away and we'll forget that first half ever happened even when they were a great team stuff like this went on they were losing to Cleveland in 2017 in London and then the second half they were like oh yeah

Deshaun Kaiser's playing for the other team let's win by 20 and that's actually what I expect to happen and then you could just sort of shrug it off the fact that they allowed Glennon the game winning drive the fact that they fumble at the oneyard line when Kirk Cousins is then on the sideline explaining handoffs to Delvin Cook. Like, I mean, no one has more experience at doing it than Kirk Cousins handing off repeatedly to Delvin Cook. But, I mean, this should be something you guys got down by now, I think. It's sort of unbelievable that on the throw and the handoff, there could be

miscommunication between these two, who have played together the whole time that they've been here, and you get the most used player there is. And that just speaks to sort of the lack of general overall focus that they seem to have throughout this game. But in terms of like where the roller coaster is at, I mean, today it was just sort of on pause, even though Arizona goes down, you get to be in a playoff spot. But I think there's just a lot more peaks and valleys to go through these last couple of games, whether it's more ugly wins like this or more games where you play better than you expect and you lose because you do something like they did today. And instead of missing a 62-yarder at the buzzer, you know, maybe, you know, the kicker makes it or something.

Maybe not from 62. That would have been the ultimate revenge, though. That's a former Viking practice squad kicker. If he bombed it from 62 after your guy missed, it would be the most Vikings thing of all time. And that's the other part. Non-Vikingsy things are happening recently so they will start to happen again soon kickers missing final field goals and stuff that that's usually not how it goes um I did want to talk about a few individual

things and I want your uh your instant take on what I'm going to say here uh I don't know how Delvin Cook survives this season with how much they're giving him the ball. I know that Alexander Madison was out. You have had Mike Boone on this team. You've had Amir Abdul on this team for several years. And at some point, you can't set career highs every single week for this guy. You're going to play physical teams coming up. You're going to play Tampa Bay. You've got Chicago again.

They beat the heck out of Delvin Cook. You have New Orleans that is a great defense at this point in the season. I just don't know how they can continue to do this where he doesn't get hurt or doesn't get slowed down. He played well at the end of the game today, which says something about his, you know, I guess how in shape he is, but I didn't see the same level of burst from Delvin Cook. And maybe those little focus things are, these injuries are starting to really pile up on him, Paul. Yeah, you talked about it with Courtney, I think last week when you were making

the Derrick Henry, Delvin Cook comparison, and she was saying he just gets stronger going every week further into the season. You see it at the end of the year, You see it at the end of the year. You see it at the end of the games. Dalvin Cook's not exactly like that. He had those couple games in the middle of the season where he was on a tear. He really helped them kind of survive that little bumpy period where they didn't.

Cousins was in transition from hitting home runs to hitting singles and doubles, as he likes to call it. He was kind of getting him through that period. But now Cousins is playing exactly how you'd want him to be playing for the most part. Justin Jefferson has come along even more. Adam Thielen has continued to play well. So this is when you'd theoretically want to maybe go a little bit away

from Dalvin Cook when he is hurt, when he hasn't been as effective. You could tell early in the game the Jags were going to make it a point to not let Dalvin Cook do a lot. He was not very successful through the first half, but he had the most touches of any skill player. He had the most receptions, I think, of any skill player. I think he had four. So I don't know. It seems like those injuries are racking up, and his play is not doing well because of it.

He had the fumble. He had everything. And I think a tweet that I saw from a friend of the podcast, Sam Monson, PFF Sam, said, how much better would the Vikings be if they thought they were down 10 points at all times? And I thought that's a great observation because in the second half, it felt like they started to understand, OK, Justin Jefferson had only had two receptions. Let's get him more involved. Let's stop throwing on first and second down or stop running on first and second down, which we were doing a lot of.

And it just made me question how much Zimmer has said going into the week telling Kubiak they need to establish the run going forward. And then when things fall apart, they're just letting maybe Kubiak do more. Or maybe we don't know that. We don't know how much each person is influencing it, but it crept up into my mind because you're right. Dalvin Cook cannot continue to do this. We've just seen how frequently running backs get injured. Chris McCaffrey's injured. Zeke has struggled.

Todd Gurley obviously struggled. So this, this can't continue, but I don't see how they go away from this, especially with Alexander Madison hurt, but I don't see how they go away from this, especially with Alexander Madison hurt. But I don't get it because they should be throwing in early down situations a lot earlier in games than they have been, and this is starting to become a trend that they're doing it week over week where they're just not understanding what the best part of their offense is, and that's Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson,

and it takes them until the third quarter to magically realize it, and they can't keep doing that. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K to get your original Minnesota sports

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Original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER15 for 15% off anytime you purchase at least two items this holiday season. Or simply overstating how much they need Delvin Cook to set all that up for Justin Jefferson to succeed, because I think that Justin Jefferson is so good, and we've seen it today, and we saw him clear Randy Moss' number already four yards for a rookie. I mean, he's reminding me right now of like a Julio Jones. And I know that he doesn't have the height of Julio Jones, but in terms of how he runs so powerfully and how every ball you throw up that's 50-50,

even if he pushes off a little or doesn't, I don't know. When both of his arms come out, even if the push off was weak, they're going to call that. But still, Cousins just launched the ball up like a punt and he still went and got it. Any throw that goes deep to him, it's possible that he's going to make that play. And it's sort of like Diggs was, especially in 2017, where Case Keenum would just launch it up and Diggs would go get it. Or last year, same kind of deal for Cousins and Diggs. But now it seems like with Jefferson, it's even to another level in terms of going deep and making every catch,

especially when it's a backup corner on him. He's just going to destroy that person and to have even a half where you're not targeting him in 2020 this is not 1998 this is not like different offensive philosophies and you know defenses are tougher corners are allowed to do more to your wide receivers you're allowed to hit the quarterback more like this is built for superstar wide receivers they're all over the league succeeding and not leaning into that fully i think is a mistake and i look at it as delvin cook has made mistakes in terms of fumbling recently i'm not saying for sure because you're using him every play but it's plausible to suggest that ever using him 32 times in a game will eventually wear him down and mistakes

will get made. With Jefferson, it seems like they're just afraid to overdo it or to trust Kirk to throw to him all the time because they think Cousins will turn the ball over. The reality of Kirk Cousins is he will turn the ball over. That is a historic fact with Kirk Cousins. And you have two options. Do you lean into the Kirk and say, you know what? The last two weeks, he's turned the ball over and they overcome it. In fact, the last three weeks, he's turned the ball over a strip sack, an interception, whatever it is. And he's overcome it by doing what? Throwing to Justin Jefferson. That's how he overcomes it. So even if he makes mistakes along the way and throws a pick six or has a strip sack

or whatever it might be, you can overcome that when you lean into throwing to Jefferson. And what helps you overcome it as well, being ahead in the game because you passed it to Justin Jefferson. So in this particular instance, no one has to go to jail after this game because he ended up with 12 targets, 9 catches, 121 yards, incredible performance by Jefferson. And it would have been more if he wasn't called for that push-off. But we can still look at it and say the distribution of your throwing to Jefferson was problematic. And I don't know whether to say that, yeah, it's Gary's fault or, yeah, it's Zimmer's fault. I don't know who is say that yeah it's Gary's fall or yeah it's Zimmer's fall I don't know who is designing how they're going about that and then I go back and forth on the

Gary thing because how about the play to Delvin Cook that's very creative they line up it looks like an empty set Cook comes into the backfield he gets a finger quote pass that's padding the stats right there like more of a handoff but he gains 20 yards on it very creative looking play and he's getting Jefferson matched up one-on-one throughout every one of these games even when teams are double teaming him so it's like I think Gary knows the right buttons to push the order of operations at least today in this game kept Jacksonville in it even though they were down right from the very beginning yeah and i it's it's definitely not me critiquing gary kubiak's like offensive scheme and stuff it's just when they choose to implement the stuff in

their offensive scheme because it feels like they're getting to the good stuff that's really successful when they're down 10 points when they haven't been able to run the ball and so i just would like to see that creativity come uh out sooner when you're not like back against the wall, have to use it or something like that. But to go back to your Dalvin Cook point, I just hope it's not them trying to justify the contract that they gave him by saying, hey, we can run him because one, he's shown that he has injuries. We know he's really, really tough and he's shown that this year and he's been able to stay on the field largely. But when you go through all the successful teams, whether or not they've paid a running back a lot they've used a committee like the Saints use Latavius Murray a decent amount to change it up they know they can't use Alvin

Kamara every single time like the the Rams during their or the Rams this year they're moving around running backs all the time Tampa Bay is doing that the Cardinals do that like the Chiefs did it last year in the Super Bowl they're doing it year. The Bills have Zach Moss and Devin Singletary, guys they can run. The Browns have two running backs. So, and some of those guys are highly paid, but that doesn't mean they can't use the backup. And so it feels like maybe they're trying to justify paying Dalvin that much. And he is so important to this team, but like, just but just use Madison. He's good too. It doesn't really matter if Cook is getting 30 touches a game because we've seen it.

He's not going to hold up. He just isn't. As tough as he is, he's just not going to hold up, and they probably do need him in some aspects for this playoff run if they want to make it. As much as we say running backs don't matter, he's a special talent. They have a better chance when he's out there, but I don't think their chances go down that much if he goes from 30 touches to 20 touches a game like I don't think it decreases so dramatically that

you have to take that risk of injuring him like I just don't yeah well and today to me was the ultimate evidence that it's wearing him down and Gary Kubiak admitted that on a radio interview that he did this week and now Delvin got of course a little defensive when he was asked about it but I mean his longest run today was 12 yards and it just didn't have the same sort of burst and I give him credit for being the horse at the end also Mike Zimmer come on man you got to trust you got to trust your kicker at the end there what a middle finger to Dan Bailey by sending the offense back out. And then they jump offside. And then, okay, we're going to kick the field goal.

But imagine if they had fumbled again and this game ended in a tie. It would have been perfect. That would have – I don't necessarily believe in football gods or karma or whatever. That game being a tie, I would have changed my mind. I would have believed that someone was watching over us and made sure justice was done to that game if it had ended up being a tie but at the end it's a great point that yeah I mean Delvin did a great job running for first down setting them up

to be in field goal position over and over again even when the Jaguars are stacked in the box but at the end of the game he averages under four yards a carry against the jaguars against a team that just can't stop anybody on defense and you wonder like mike boone is not great but he's not like garbage either i think he averaged over five yards a carry last year when they mixed him in and gave him a chance and the same thing for amir abdullah who gets in the game for maybe a play and they throw him a quick pass over the middle and he sets them up for missing the field goal and it's not like these guys are incompetent or you pick them up off XFL rosters these are guys who have been on your

roster and who can play and you can mix them in you can throw them a screen pass you can line them up Boone used to be a receiver you can line them up and run a bubble screen to them. You can have a couple of plays where Amir Abdul is just pass blocking or something just to get some breaks in there. So I feel like we're belaboring the point about Cook and his usage. But when you set a career high against the Jaguars, a game that should have been, hey, let's not use Cook too much. Let's get him a week of rest. And now you got to go to Tampa and play a tough defense with Cook coming off this,

now going on the road. Like, that's hard. And he's a warrior. I mean, I'll give him that, that he just continued to battle. But we also know the history of the injuries and how much he got worn down last year. He had 312 yards all of last year in the second half of the season. I mean, it's something to be concerned about as they go into the official playoff race. Now, let me say something that was really good today before I get into the special

teams, which is now, I mean, it's almost like it needs to be a weekly feature of like, what did the special teams do wrong? A lot. So Cameron Dantzler, good job. Good job, Cameron Dantzler. He's job Cameron Dantzler he's looking good I mean since he came back from the injury it's kind of weird to say because it looked like a tragedy on the football field at first when he was down and getting carted off in Green Bay and then he's off for a couple of weeks he comes back and since then he's played really well and today the interception is on Glennon and the tight end. What are you doing? I mean, like, the tight end should catch it.

The throw is bad. But he makes the play. The fumble is legit. I mean, that's a great play. That's a guy bringing the ball in and having full control of it and just peanut punching that thing out like Charles Tillman back in the day. That's making a great play on the football. And I just feel like his play over the last few weeks,

I know you're playing the Jaguars and Carolina, but I think it's been quite good over the last few weeks. And that's a good step for them. And Zimmer was, it might be the only thing he was enthusiastic about after the game. He said, it feels like they might have their corners here with the way that Gladney and Dantzler have played recently.

And in terms of what you wanted to see down the stretch, even if they weren't going to make the playoffs or get into this race, Dantzler getting back, staying healthy, improving, making plays. That's what we expected coming out of camp. It just took kind of a long time to get there. Yeah, and I would have to go back and see exactly how Jeff Gladney did today but he didn't have a as good of a game as Cam Dantzler but he's not making the boneheaded plays that he was making earlier in the games or earlier this season letting guys just run by him he's shown he can be a good tackler uh they're putting him in there to blitz like throughout the games

like Zimmer's at least trusting him to do some of those things and when we've seen cornerback errors it's been mostly Chris Boyd and Chris Jones and those during a normal year hopefully those are two guys you probably didn't expect to be playing a lot of cornerback so if we're now erasing like most of the mistakes from like everyone on the defense on the defensive backfield and now it's just relegated to your, like, undrafted guys that you're putting in and plugging in there. Like, I think we can live with that a little bit more. And to see the progression that Dantzler and Gladney are having, we've talked about it all season, we don't totally know what to do with cornerbacks and, like, how to, like,

judge their progression. Like, you always bring up Stephon Gilmore in buffalo and how he had a horrible year and so it doesn't always like lead to success or failure but the two guys that were a big part of the offseason and we expected to be a big part of this team and have been a big part of this team are improving so that's that that is a good step to see um one area that's not improving that i know you want to talk about next is the special teams. And every week it's just something new. It's like if it was over and over again, they're like fumbling punt, like, like punt, like returns. And again, enough KJ Osborne, enough, enough with the KJ Osborne.

We weren't really worried about Dan Bailey. And I guess now we have to be worried about Dan Bailey too, because he looked just skittish throughout the game. So go on, go on your special teams rant because, because it's deserved. Well, let me send this back your way,

a theory that gets tossed out on the interwebs of many theories on the internet. But this one is the one that I'm going to ask you about, which is that Zimmer and his disposition toward kickers, understandably has exacerbated the problem. So Zimmer, not just toward kickers, understandably, has exacerbated the problem. So Zimmer, not just on kickers, but going crazy when there's the kick return for touchdown, or if you go back to the Daniel Carlson thing, or even what he did to Bailey at the end of the game. Just, I mean, that's just mind games.

They're in field goal position. It's an old extra point distance. Your chances of making it are 99% at that point. Like, just do it. Just win the game. Even if he kicks it poorly, it's still going to go through those uprights. Instead, you risk running and fumbling just to basically stick the bird out to your kicker for missing one from 51, which he didn't kick well at all. But it's also 51. I mean, it's not like it was a chip shot that he missed to win the game. And I just wonder if you think that there's any validity to Zimmer and his frustration

with special teams, and if that actually makes the special teams worse, or if they're just bad at special teams because they have a lot of players who are bottom of the roster type guys or young guys that make a bunch of mistakes, which is. Well, I think I think the fact that Zimmer berates them in the media and probably behind closed doors to like has to be a factor. Like if you take this in any other job, like if I was just listening to you, like in your old job, like on the radio talking about how much you hate interns. And then I come in and I'm like your intern. Like, I'm not just going to be like it's going to have an effect on you in any position if you're like you hear your boss say like how much you like don't like a certain like department like that department suddenly isn't just going to be like oh yeah whatever like that's going to have an

effect and for kicking that's so so much based on confidence if you have a thought that like if I miss this one kick like I could be out of here like that has to be in your mind like it's such a mental like it's such a mental side of the sport that the kicking is like we've seen it over and over when you miss one your tendency like the chance that you're going to miss the next one is a lot higher like that's just that's just how it works. So I have to imagine when they're just running through kickers, when you go Daniel Karros and you have Kai Forbath, you have Kari Vedvik there for a second, and then you have Dan Bailey. Like, at some point, it has to influence you.

I mean, if you had Justin Tucker back there, I don't know. Like, maybe not. So part of it has to be that they're not playing well. But I don't think Zimmer's demeanor helps. That's for sure. 2020 has already reshaped how we work, and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be the most efficient, which means every hire is critical.

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And then all of a sudden, like you said, it's multiple field goals that end up getting missed, including the game winner. Now, I mean, he makes eventually the game winner, but has a shot there at the end. I don't think Dan Bailey is mentally soft enough to fall apart but I do think it's possible that there are other mechanical issues that we don't really understand or know about that might happen in a situation like that especially when you're changing long snappers and I am not against them changing long snappers when it was Austin Cutting and Austin Cutting made three or four mistakes in a three or four week span which can't be done like that's a career's worth of mistakes by a long snapper you have to make a change but was that part of it I

don't know if we're going to find out publicly what exactly happened there but it was certainly something and Zimmer didn't have an answer for it after the game, but he did say, well, I still like Dan Bailey, whatever. He gave him kind of that like lukewarm, if we had lost, I would have ripped you in the media kind of comment. But going even beyond just the missed field goals, which are very hard to explain, but special teams mistakes nonetheless. I mean, when a guy gets a seven-yard punt return and all of a sudden we're saying, hey, career high for you on a seven-yard punt return, and then fumbles later in the game, which could have been incredibly costly, it's just time. It's time to put somebody back there who knows what they're doing. I don't care if you have to bring Marcus Sherrill's back just to catch it. Fair catch, catch it, zero yards, yards good go let's get back on offense nobody

doing a legal block in the back maybe uh you know like if that if you have to get to that level of conservative so you don't turn the ball over that's doing better than you're doing now because every punt has the capability to ruin the game for you and that's uh yeah that's pretty concerning and i don't know it's it's hard to blame I mean, it's hard to say, well, this coach did this or this guy did that when it comes to special teams. But I can tell you for sure that there is nothing about K.J. Osborne that makes me say, well, you've got to keep putting him back there. I mean, he's fumbled several times now. And he shows no explosiveness. Like, usually what you want from that guy is that quick first step even someone

like Marcus Sherrill's had in his prime he had such a quick first step he was fast he was small and he was shifty he had great eyes we've seen none of that from KJ Osborne I see why they wouldn't run Chad Beebe back out there for fumbling one but I think KJ Osborne deserves the same treatment put Amir Abdullah back there I don't the same treatment put amir abdullah back there i don't rush it don't don't put anybody back there and just rush an extra guy whatever it is you're going to do and speaking of which by the way i mean this this game had just so many funny things what exactly is the jaguars player thinking when the vikings punt it down and it's you know chris boyd's trying to down the ball at the one,

and he just, like, touches it. What are you doing there? Why are you in that area? And the other guy grabs it, like, oh, my God, my teammate just touched it. Heads up play by that guy, and he takes the, you know, kind of almost a kneel down, and luckily for him, he hadn't come out of the end zone. But just boneheaded.

It was like a tennis match of boneheaded plays like oh did you just do the dumbest thing ever don't let me send back the dumbest thing ever i mean it was that was so wild but again it sort of speaks to what we were talking about before where eventually you get so far into the season you have to say these mistakes are going to happen maybe not every single game like they have recently, but you're not going to go five more games with pristine special teams play and no turnovers and your defensive line suddenly going to pressure the quarterback.

That's not going to happen. So the question is, like you said, can you play up to your competition over the next few weeks? And can you beat a Bears team that's going to be coming after you and a Detroit team that's going to be trying to prove that it was all Matt Patricia's fault? I remain skeptical, Paul. And I think that's a good place to wrap up is I want to know your, without looking at the odds, I know that you did, but give me your odds that they make the playoffs.

Because I'm kind of a coin flip right now. I think it's possible because Arizona is that bad and they could lose to anybody the way that they've lost these last couple of weeks. At the same time, I think that this stretch, if you make a lot of the same mistakes, you are winning two games or something like that or one game. And then we're talking about, Hey, remember that time they were almost in the playoffs?

So I'm at a coin flip because they're there in a playoff spot. But protecting it, I don't know. I'm not willing to say that I'm buying in until they beat Tampa. Yeah, I'm probably right around that 50%, 50%, probably maybe a little less than that. But they're in the spot. I don't know what we can say. And I guess we have seen, like, we've seen them play bad competition for a while. And I like the point you made up where they're kind of playing down to it.

The couple games that they played against good teams, they played well against Tennessee. They played well against Seattle. So we haven't really seen them play a good team. They don't know how they're going to play. If they kind of play to their competition, we'll find out. So this Tampa game is going to be really illuminating in terms of just where they're at, because I don't feel like we could get totally an accurate representation of where this team

is at in like a playoff lens. Like we've seen this team, okay, they're better than the horrific teams most of the time, but we haven't seen them against a good team and so this has got to be the most important game of their season coming up uh and it's definitely going to be the most telling about where this team's at because i don't know how much we take away from this jacksonville game i don't know how much we can take away from these other games other than that they haven't been very good but i'm excited to see them against a good team and see what they can can do against a team that they're not necessarily

expected to beat and by i would say tuesday we can at least start the hype machine for a game the real life actual hype machine which has been shut down since what before seattle because i remember talking about well if, if they beat Seattle, then they've got the easy schedule and then they can get right back in it. And pretty much that hype machine went when they lost that game. And now we're ranking, you know, crank it back up. Hype machine this week, Vikings and Bucks playoff position. It's exciting, I guess.

Sure. Maybe it will be so this team though to win by like 28 points or something against tampa or lose by 28 points and that's the best part paul is every time a vikings game comes around on sunday anything could happen and uh same goes for this podcast so great things uh from you paul here i appreciate all of your time. And make sure also, if you get a chance, people to go listen, or I'm sorry, read my article on Kirk Cousins. I kind of went like deep dive into his statistics and the battle that goes on back and forth between fans and all that sort of stuff and where we should stand on Kirk Cousins. So make sure you go to purpleinsider.com

and check that out. And Paul, we'll get together again soon, my friend. Thank you, Matt.