Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings' loss to the Titans was crazy and entertaining and there's a lot to talk about

Episode Date: September 27, 2020

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Download TE1 today, wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello and welcome to the post-Minnesota Vikings-Tennessee Titans game in which I will tell you over the next 30 minutes or so how fun that was and how you should enjoy it and not be super mad the way that it ended because you probably should have already known that it was going to end that way podcast. Matthew Collar, as always, and intern Paul here as well for the five post-game questions reacting to Tennessee 31, Minnesota 30, in a game that, I'll tell you what, Paul, my heart was beating a little faster toward the end of the game. Things got tense, and the Vikings

were allowed to play their music a little bit louder, so it felt like there was mildly an atmosphere inside of U.S. Bank Stadium. And I came away thinking, you know what? There are some people who will be really upset about the way this went, but I think that where we're at right now with the Minnesota Vikings, that you really shouldn't be. But before we get to your five questions, tell me if I'm wrong with that. Tell me if I'm wrong to say

it was an offensive performance that was fun to watch. It was a shootout game that took up three hours of your day and had a lot of twists and turns to it. And considering what the first two games were like, I would sign up for many more of these. You win some, you lose some. It's probably not a Super Bowl team anyway, even if they got back into the playoffs. So strap yourself into the old roller coaster and go for the ride. That is my overarching

take, is that wrong to not freak out that they lost and not start criticizing every play. Why did you do this? Why did the timeouts get misused again in the fourth quarter? Or why did Garrett Bradbury get picked up by Simmons and walked back into Kirk Cousins and so forth like that? There's a lot you could dive into. This should have happened. That should have happened. But I think that those are a little bit podcasts of the past with this Vikings team.

And now that they're 0-3, I think we have to start looking through things from a different lens. No, I don't think you're wrong at all. I tweeted about it, but I was saying, I don't think I flip-flopped as much as I ever have in a single three-hour period on a team than I did with the Vikings today. First two drives, they struggled on that first drive. They hadn't done that all year. They had been good on first drives.

They struggled that one. And then Dalvin fumbled. And I was ready to come on here and flame Gary Kubiak for his not being innovative in any of his play calls. And then the next drive, he's doing like a designed run to Adam Thielen. Jefferson's getting involved. Cook's going off. And then they're doing really good. And then they're falling behind.

And I just – it took me a couple hours. I'm glad we're doing this a couple hours after to kind of collect my thoughts on how I feel about this team because coming off right off the game, I'm not sure I'd think the same way I think now, and it might not be the way I think tomorrow either. I think it's just a really fluid situation. But, no, I don't think you're wrong at all. At least we have something to complain about,

about how the Vikings did in their final drive. I don't think any of the final drives that we've had have mattered at this point. So the fact that we can complain about the play calling or what happened and if we choked it away is at least improvement. So I don't think you're wrong at all. Maybe the people who are already hoping

and dreaming for Trevor Lawrence, maybe they're like mad because they saw that maybe we played a little bit better than the Jets are playing right now. They're getting smoked by the Colts. The Giants got beat up by the Nick Mullins 49ers. Like there are a lot of bad teams. So yeah, no, I definitely think this was a right, a good step in the right direction. So I think this is a great point, Paul, because if you think about just from the perspective of the fan who hasn't decided, I'm going to make memes of Trevor Lawrence and then send them to all of my friends, which is 95%, I think. I think there's frustration, but most people were not, hey, tank for Trevor and that kind of thing. I think that was a small percentage that were jumping full on board with that. And I can respect that. I am not

mocking those people. What I've always said was it's unlikely because Cousins will probably play well at times, and we saw that today. And in order to tank, you need Justin Jefferson to not develop, which we will get to. He very much developed quickly today, but if you went into this game with more of a, all right, well, this is, we'll see how kind of this goes, and if they get blown out today, then it's going to feel really bad, and this season could go as bad as people say, and as you see Justin Jefferson making big plays, and you see Delvin Cook setting a career high and breaking off runs, and then the defense throughout this game is actually getting stops at times a key interception by Harrison Smith they played well at the goal line and forced a couple of field goals that you

could sort of see the wheels turning of people going like well okay all right maybe we've got something here maybe we could be talking about one of those playoff runs. I got a couple of tweets midway through the game of people saying, hey, they're getting it together here. Maybe those first two games were like a preseason, and then it went the way that it so often does. And I think that if you look at this game through the lens of analyzing their chance to get back into things and get into a rhythm and pick up momentum and go

beat Houston and then okay maybe Seattle beats you but oh my gosh Atlanta will find any way to lose every football game they can in the most Atlanta Falcons-y all-time Falcons fashion and they lost to Nick Foles today somehow incredibly so. So you could talk yourself into it. Oh, well, Detroit's coming down the road. You could beat them. Chicago's changing quarterbacks already. And then as we get to the end and you see Steven Gostkowski, who missed three field goals in the first week,

all of a sudden get back to being one of the great kickers ever in Steven Gostkowski. It's like he found himself in U.S. Bank Stadium, and you're seeing the lead kind of slip away. At one point you're up, I believe it's a 24-12, and then they score, and then it's 24-19, and you're sort of seeing this go in that direction that you could feel like, oh, yeah, the rookie corners getting burned deep down the field on back-to-back drives. That's going to be an issue. And then the people who have been frustrated with Cousins,

he throws the pick six that is not because Jadavia and Clowney, why are you blocking a guy that didn't need to be blocked? I don't understand that at all. But they made up for, the Tennessee Titans made up for many Vikings mistakes, but left the door open for a wild wind to be the turning point of the season. And I could totally see people starting to get on board with that. And then as it fell apart, the way the last drive went, that's the deflating part is sort of having to accept your fate a little bit with the way this is going to go. I still argue that this season is going to be a lot of these crazy games and they're going to be worth watching. I am biased in that because I want all the people who listen to this

to still talk to me about these games and for them to matter and tune in on Sundays and listen to the show and have a lot of fun. But I also think that this particular version of the Vikings has some of the most potential in a while to get really crazy as we go forward and this game was crazy it had just about everything so I take this away as I totally get where people would have started off saying well maybe they figured something out with a couple of these plays on offense and then the deflating feeling of oh yeah the defense really isn't going to be stopping anyone and you come come away with a loss. Yeah, and with our first question, I want to start with the biggest positive that I think we're going to take away and maybe look back a long time from now and see that this was the coming out party for Justin Jefferson. So my first question simply is,

Stefan who? Okay, all right, Getting a little aggressive there on that. But what a game for Justin Jefferson. And we talked about this, I believe, at some point. Maybe it was Courtney and I on the podcast, where they needed to find a way to get Justin Jefferson involved. He came out of the draft as one of the top prospects, somebody that Aaron Rodgers wanted. Aaron Rodgers was grinding Justin Jefferson tape and saying, give me that guy. That's how clear it was that

this guy was going to be a top pick, and it was a legit playmaker with the ball in his hands. But if he's playing a number three receiver role behind B.C. Johnson and only playing out of the slot, it's pretty hard for him to just get the ball in his hands and make plays. And five catches through the first two weeks on only six targets. Most of those came when they were down in the game and he was just open, getting some chances. So for him to come out as a starting receiver today, immediately said that Gary Kubiak and Andrew Giannouko, their receiver coach and whomever, they said, all right, we got to do this. We got to have them ready. Even if we're asking a lot of someone, a receiver in

his rookie year on a steep learning curve, and he even was on the COVID reserve list for the very start of training camp and got a little bit behind. So I understand why they did it. I'm not ready to say, what were you doing in the first couple weeks but you could have run maybe some more short patterns for him and that's where it really got started that he ran a couple of short routes made some plays with his legs and you could see when he gets the ball in his hands he just has a different ability that 71 yard touchdown where I think most people go down and he shreds the tackles and literally dances into the end zone. You're talking about a first round talent receiver that actually looks like one,

unlike maybe some of the guys that they've drafted in the past. And with him playing like that, I don't expect this every week, but now being worth the attention of defenses because he can beat you deep. He made plays down the field. He made plays as the receiver. He made plays as the receiver on the outside and not just the guy in the slot, but also short stuff over the middle. Yards after catch, he had a 33-yard catch where he kind of caught it maybe after 10 yards or so and then just exploded out. That was late in the first half. So it was a really impressive,

impressive performance by Justin Jefferson. And I wrote in my postgame column, you should really think about that more than the loss, which some people disagreed with strongly the way that it ended. But this is what you needed to see from Justin Jefferson. And these are the things that you're looking for during this season. Again, it's very unlikely that we're talking about a massive turnaround where they win the Super Bowl, but if we're talking about a season that includes Justin Jefferson doing things like that, that's going to be worth watching very closely throughout the rest of the season. So it was an exciting day for Jefferson, and really just what, I mean, compared to the first two weeks where he was barely involved, I think a great bounce back day for Gary Kubiak where we were starting to wonder, is he going to put the ball in Jefferson's hands? Are we going to go with this, you know, B.C. Johnson running deep routes kind of thing? Yeah, and just a couple stats.

Kirk was 7 for 9 when targeting Jefferson for obviously 175 yards, the touchdown. To everyone else, he was nine for 16 for 76 yards. So not just over 50% completion to anyone else other than Jefferson. Seven for nine for Jefferson. And the one thing that you mentioned that I think is the biggest thing that we can kind of take away long-term is his yards after catch ability. I know you talked about that a lot in the offseason when you had some guys on who were really breaking down his tape.

But he averaged almost 12 yards after the catch per reception today. Thielen prior, or this season, has averaged less than a yard after the catch. So B.C. Johnson wasn't going to run after the catch. Kyle Rudolph or Smith maybe a little bit, but they're not going to run that far after the catch. So Jefferson was like a piece of this offense that was really lacking. They didn't have that playmaking ability. He's shown it. He showed it in small spurts. I think over the season, he's about eight yards after the catch per catch. So he's really creating down the field and it's something that they really missed and they still haven't figured out the Dallin Cook screen game. So they haven't been able to get yards after

the catch there. So this was definitely needed if we're going to, if that's going to take some more growing pains. And the point you mentioned at the end, I really liked the way Kubiak was able to kind of spread things around on this offense after those first couple of drives. It felt like he was finally scheming plays to certain people instead of basically having these plays and then having Kirk make the decision. It was like, Kirk, this is where we want to go. Like, this is where you're going to look. And he was putting him in advantageous spots. We're looking for Jefferson here. We're looking for Thielen here. We're getting Dalvin the ball when he needs it and for him to be able to create a lot of running plays. He had 181 yards, so he had a really good

game too. So I think Kubiak kind of figured it out and yeah we can ask the question of where Jefferson is or where he's been but I'm just happy he's here now I'd rather not continue to look on at where he was these last couple games I'm not sure it would have mattered at all where he was in these past couple games so just be happy it's happened and that's kind of the point is you know Kubiak said they were happy with the way that they brought him along a little bit slowly and I can buy into that if someone's not completely ready and they need a couple more weeks we saw that in 2015 with Stefan Diggs where he did not play the first three games came in a week four I believe it was against

Denver and shredded Aqib Talib and all of a sudden it was like, okay, you've got something. But maybe he wasn't ready through those first couple of weeks. My only point of contention is just run a reverse with the guy or a screen. It doesn't take too much effort to throw in a screen and let him run after the catch over those first two weeks. But, yeah, point is well taken that they clearly had a plan to work him in more, and they were desperate to get some other talent at that receiving position that Phelan is not exactly like Diggs, who can take on the double teams the same way and still dominate last year with B.C. Johnson as the number two.

And then we saw Chad Beebe actually get some of the reps there. So they were clearly unhappy with B.C. Johnson's progress. Does surprise me a little since I thought that he had maybe the capability to take somewhat of a next step and that did not happen. So we'll see kind of how that develops. Now let me throw a question back to you. I know this is your five questions, but I haven't decided what I want to say about Kirk Cousins in this game because the throw to Adam Thiel in the back of the end zone is absolutely terrific and a couple of the throws to Jefferson I mean you don't get any better than that like he leads him so perfectly on the 71 yard touchdown down the

sideline it's a perfect throw and considering that it started out with Drew Samia getting just bowling balled right back into Kirk, that I thought, oh no, this is going to be one of those days where we see him look a little skittish and so forth. But he moved himself around. He scrambled at the right time for a 15-yard gain. But at the end of the game, it's been the thing about Cousins that frustrates a lot of fans is at the end of the game, you have a minute 44 left to go, and you've got a chance to drive down the field. They give you a free 15 yards, and then things just come apart. And he had no explanation whatsoever for what went wrong on the snap.

You are at home, and there's no fans to distract you. How does the snap go wrong? And it might be entirely on Garrett Bradbury so that's a hard thing to know is that nobody threw each other under the bus so we could figure out okay it was Cousins fault it was Bradbury's fault but that's a thing that how is that happening in the third game of the season this is not preseason oh there was no preseason and whatever like that that is is bad and then the other part of it is people were frustrated, and I don't blame them.

He takes a sack, and they get that penalty from Irv Smith. They end up at third and 27 or something, and it's a 12-yard check down. Or it's whatever it was. It was something that Cook had a run, and then it was maybe, I don't know, third and 17, somewhere in that range. And it's a short little check down to Kyle Rudolph. So those are kind of typical Kirk Cousins things that frustrate people and make people want to create Trevor Lawrence memes. But at the same time, if you were grading this game by Cousins, it's about what he does when he's playing at his

highest level and he did enough to win this game and they gave up a bunch of big plays on defense I thought so I I guess I I don't want to put this under an A plus Kirk Cousins performance because he did have the interception that was inexcusable and a couple of other things especially the last drive where it didn't look like he was fully in command but I don't know I mean I guess I keep kind of wavering back and forth. If this was 2019 and there were expectations, we might be going, oh my gosh, Kirk, you blew it. So maybe the circumstances are making me go much more of like, well, I mean, he put you in a position to win. You just didn't do it. And the other team's kicker hit some bombs. So tell me how I'm supposed to feel about Kirk Cousins.

Well, I don't, I think you don't really have to feel anything different than we've already felt about Kirk Cousins after this game. I think everything about his game is about what he just did today is like expected. Like 251 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions. One was just the hucking it up at the end. So we're not, it's not really, the first one was bad. So that's an example of a bad play. The last drive was an example of bad Kirk. The check down was bad Kirk, but then you have the feeling throw and you have the Jefferson throws and he's able to facilitate these things. And it's just kind of what we've

gotten used to at this point. I don't feel like we need to continue to hammer it over and over again. Cause this was honestly just what I've come to expect. He's going to have some plays that blow you away, that Thielen touchdown blew people away, and then you're going to have these ones where you're scratching your head, and it's just the way it was, and the offensive line didn't help him in certain scenarios. The pick that he had, the defenders were basically in his face a second into that play when he had to throw that. The last drive, I mean, Garrett Bradbury threw it away. They didn't even really give Cousins a chance. So I wouldn't blame much of this on Cousins at all. I mean, he does have these bad plays, but again, I think if you're expecting anything more or less,

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come when he plays like this that Detroit will be terrible and he'll beat them or it'll be Atlanta you know not knowing how to recover an onside kick or something and and he's going to play well and they're going to win some games here but one of the great sports of Vikings following over the last two years was was Kirk good or not in that game or how much was his fault? There were ones where it was obviously his fault, like Chicago or Green Bay last year. But especially in 2018, there was always this pendulum going back and forth of, well, you know, Tom Compton wasn't good enough at left guard,

or John DiFilippo didn't have the right scheme, and this was his fault, and this wasn't his fault and the strip sack, well, that was on Riley Reif and all this, you know. I feel like that just doesn't have the same shine now or the same energy that I think people have sort of thrown up their hands. And before the season, if you recall, as a listener to every podcast, because you take clips from them and tweet them, you recall we discussed whether Cousins was interesting anymore, if he was an interesting quarterback to debate. And the conclusion was kind of, well, you know what you

have. So every Vikings fan walks away from this game on Sunday and says, yeah, that's what you have. That's what you gave a contract extension to is someone who will make some great plays and then have other times where you're just left scratching your head, like the interception. He did have someone in his face. But at the same time, flinging it out into nothingness for a pick six, which I'm still in disbelief that Jadavia and Clowney did that, and they didn't give – they gave up – I I mean is it the first pick six not ever but how often do you see a pick six that turns into no

points it's like they intercepted go for a touchdown and the penalty is so egregious that you put it so far back that you get nothing out of it do they get a field goal I don't think they got a field goal I think they got nothing right yeah so uh that was kind of wild. But that version of Cousins, when you were in playoff expectations, Super Bowl expectations, you're like, oh, this is the scary part of Cousins. And this is going to matter eventually when they get to the playoffs and he makes the big mistake, like he did against the 49ers. And now it's like, eh. and I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss that. So in 2021, depending on how all of this goes,

I think we get back to that eventually. I think that the morning TV shows are debating, was it Kirk's fault? Is he paid too much? All those things. But this year we might not be doing that after. So anyway, I've derailed already several times your attempts to give me your questions so we can move on to the next one. I was just going to say, like, we could like insert what we just talked about for the last 10 minutes and probably put it in every post-game podcast that we have this season. I'm pretty sure every game there's going to be

these moments where he wows you and you kind of get reeled back in. And then there's going to be these moments where he wows you and you kind of get reeled back in and then there's going to be what the heck are you doing and I think over time people are just going to get more and more tired of that wishy-washiness they want to like at some point they would just would rather be bad and that's what we've talked about or they just rather be good and it's just who he is and I mean you, you scored 30 points. You had a lot of offense, like total offense. Like most games in Kirk's career, they would win these games. In past Vikings years, they'd win these games. If this was what the offense did, they would have won the game. So I, again, I don't really look at this as a bad Kirk Cousins thing.

This just is like, this is him. And he's paid like he should be able to win these games but we've been over that talking point he's paid like he should be winning these games but he's not going to do that I think fans know that at this point so I think that that's right there you just touched on the issue is that there have been games where Kirk plays this well that they win against bad teams but there also have been a lot of these games let's say against Kansas City that you really needed to win. And then, you know, I mean, there are no shows where you say

there was just no chance for him to win today. But the games that are close, Seattle last year is a good example. I mean, this team was this close to being 12-4 last year with just a couple of drives at the end. You've got the ball in Kansas City. Matt Moore is on the other side, and you can't drive it down the field against a Kansas City defense that is, you know, good. But if you wanted to be a real contender, you've got to drive it down the field

and score, and the same thing with Seattle. The opportunity is there. The ball is in your hands, and you're not able to do it. And that's in part why so many fans have gotten to this spot with Kirk, where everyone knows that he can make those great wowing plays. But when you see the same history kind of repeat itself over and over with when he's got will continue to go back to that's probably not going to happen, but that will be the ongoing conversation about Kirk is, has everyone decided on the same sort of thing in terms of Vikings fans with Cousins and how they feel about him? Or how much different might that be from how the front office or from

the coach or from the teammates and how everyone feels about him going forward in terms of their decision making by the way i wonder if washington and detroit are thinking about how they should have drafted tua didn't the very top of the drafts but that's another conversation so second question yep um this one i i want to ask you about the defensive line. And I wasn't sure how to format this question because just watching the game, it felt like they had a better game. Yannick Ngakwe had some stretches where he looked dominant. And when you have Daniil on the other side, you say, okay, well, if he can do this without him, like, okay, maybe dominant was a stretch. But like like if Daniil is Daniil and

Yannick was doing what he was doing today like that could be really good and Adenabo got to the quarterback a couple times but then looking at the stats like Tannehill's time to throw was pretty consistent with what all the other quarterbacks were doing like he still put up a lot of yards like the quarterback rating it's the lowest quarterback rating they've given up so I'm I'm kind of trying to figure out how to assess that. And I can't find the perfect stat that says this is why the defensive line was better in this game, and I can prove it. But just from watching it, it looked like the defensive line made some improvements.

So what are your thoughts there? Well, I definitely thought that Ngakwe did his job, which you're not going to see him on every single play and have him stand out. But if he stands out a couple of times a game, that's what he's paid for. And he did exactly that. He gets a strip sack. Again, they don't pick it up. The second straight week where they don't pick it up. And that's just a little bad fumble luck. But from that perspective, if he comes away with a big play or two, he's had a good weekend. And Adenabo had his best game from what I could tell in terms of getting after the quarterback thing about the quarterback rating in Tannehill is they did run in

one yard touchdowns so there's a little bit of that and he did have time to throw on several third downs where it looked like he was just standing there and on the deep passes he was just standing there and is Tannehill not like a more athletic, taller, stronger Kirk Cousins? It's the same type of stuff. It's amazing when the run game's working and the guy has a lot of time to throw, he's going to find his guy. He's going to make accurate throws. But then there are some times where you say, what was that?

I mean, the Harrison Smith interception is amazing by Harrison Smith. But it's also, hey, you want to put a little velo behind that ball or are you just going to kind of leave it dangling out there for one of the best safeties of the last decade to come intercept? So there are times where you think Tannehill is beatable, and they did put pressure on him and they did play well, but we are used to in past years consistent pressure at every turn, especially when we're talking about the big moments.

And I'm just going to look this up right now to see what they were on third down, because that's where you see it. Well, they were, they were third and third. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's a huge win for, for the defensive line then, if they could, because I didn't see them blitzing like crazy all the time. There were a few mixed in, and so going three for 13, it should give you a chance. What this game really came down to was, in the second half, giving up monster plays when you're ahead, and it's going to be really tough to win if you're doing that, but it's also going to be tough for this team not to do that, for Jeff Gladney not to

get beat sometimes, for Holton Hill not to get beat sometimes, for Holton Hill not to get beat sometimes. And he had a really rough start to the game and also had the ball in his midst that could have been a pick six of his own on a bad Tannehill throw. So, I mean, there was progress abound for the defense, but when you're giving up those big plays and a running back like Derrick Henry, you just weren't going to hold him down for a long time how about 119 yards but his longest was 16 that is you are getting three yards in a cloud of dust type of slammed into you but in terms of the pass rush yes definitely progress I think the other point was Taylor LeJuan got hurt and that helped a little bit for them. So I don't know, Paul.

I'm going to have to look at the tape. I'm going to give you a Kirk Cousins answer. I'm just going to look at the tape to truly tell you. But Odenabo, absolutely to the eye, stuck out quite a bit in that game, and Ngakwe did his job. I don't know that we're at any point going to expect the interior to get a whole lot of pressure. Yeah, so three for 13 today, third down efficiency. Last week,

they were three for 11. So I think in the Packer game, there was a lot, they were, had a much higher percentage. I believe it was six for 11. So they've seemed to, at least on third down, been able to minimize some things. Zimmer's been able to draw some stuff up at that point, and they have been effective, even though now looking back at it, it doesn't seem like they had been effective as those numbers show. But maybe that's just we're confusing stuff on earlier downs. I think the point is now they're letting too much happen on earlier downs. But, yeah, Derrick Henry, I mean, they had 3.8 yards per rush.

So if you're holding the Titans to 3.8 yards per rush, that's pretty solid too. Yes, they couldn't stop them when they needed to. A couple of those times on the fourth down, he got it. On the goal line carries, he got it. But again, with the people that they had on the defensive line, this felt like the biggest step in terms of Zimmer being able to scheme some things to where they're pressuring better. Some of the guys that maybe we'll see once Daniil Hunter's back next year when Michael Pierce is back like Afadi like Yannick those guys that we know will be a core part moving forward they showed flashes I'm not sure at this

point it really matters if Julio Johnson or Jalen Holmes show flashes because it's not going to be consistent enough to where in an ideal scenario they're playing a lot but the guys that we can take and move forward with I think showed some stuff So I think that's a good sign too. Yeah, it's almost like we need some sort of ticker music like, now it's time for your rookie report. Did anyone who matters in the future play good? And, you know, Jeff Gladney getting burned deep was a low light. He had a couple of good tackles and made some plays.

And, again, I'll have to look at how many times he was targeted and things like that that are tough to keep track of in real time and then don't usually come out until Monday the exact numbers from PFF on was he targeted this time or that time but to give up the big plays it it's the thing you look at and say they could make progress there throughout this season because that might have been I'm just sort of speculating here he makes a misread he jumps on a play action where he's not supposed to jump and that's kind of what it looked like it had that look to he played the run uh-oh my eyes were in the backfield they weren't supposed to be now the guy's behind me and I'm chasing it had that look to it when the ball went up in the air. And those are things that you can teach, that you can train.

I mean, Mackenzie Alexander had the same problem when he first started that I remember Zimmer saying, he's got his eyes in the backfield a bunch of times. You really have to train rookie corners a bunch of techniques that they've never had to deal with before in order to be decent at this. So I look at that as kind of growing pains. Overall, was the defense great? Of course not. And it could have been much worse, you know,

if you're talking about some of the stops that they got for field goals. But those count. I mean, making them have to kick 250-plus yard field goals to win the game was, I thought, a big win for the Vikings defense at clutch times where they could have completely melted down and that's a victory for them against a very good offense even though by no measure would you say they played great yeah and Eric Kendricks continued to be all over the field he is just going to continue to shine without bar there he was everywhere uh Harrison Smith seemed to be in it a little bit more than he had.

That's really, I have no stats to back that up, but he felt like he was in plays a little bit more. He had a little bit more speed. The whole defense, even though they let up 31 points, which obviously isn't good, they felt a little bit more together as a unit. And I don't know if it's three weeks. Zimmer's scheme is a little bit complex for the younger guys.

Again, they didn't have a preseason. No one had a preseason. So I don't want to use that as an excuse. But if it's a complex defense, it seemed like maybe they were starting to figure some things out. And at this point, I just don't know if it's worth it going over the cornerbacks and saying they played really bad. Because I'm not really sure what we were going to like wanted to expect at this point. Like in my eyes, Gladney gave up the big play and it looked like, I don't know if he thought he had any help over the top, but there was no one over him at all to help him with that route. So he bit and then it was pretty much a done deal

from that point. And he seemed like he had, even though he had more ups and downs, the person that I was a little bit more concerned with overall was Holton Hill yes and how he played like snap after snap like Gladney I saw some good tackles I saw some good coverage Holton Hill I didn't really see any like positive things happen that much like he had the one play he almost intercepted it was a good at least like pass coverage but he should have capitalized on it more uh looking at the replay it was it wasn't right in his hands but it was enough to where you should want it to happen so he was the the bigger piece that i was like not super happy with but at the same time if you look at the people that are out there i don't know if at this point we can expect anything more than what we're getting and i and i so i didn't find myself being that upset with gladney

getting burned and with things happening because it just feels like we're going to have to go through this before something else better happens so there's two different parts of the Vikings I mean really the roster in terms of how you're evaluating it's like the guys with no experience whatsoever and you grade them on a different curve when Jefferson doesn't have a big game you don't go oh well, it's not Randy Moss, just get rid of him. That's not how we're going to look at it. If next week he gets 30 yards receiving, no one's throwing him into the Mississippi River and calling him a bust. And the same thing with Jeff Gladden. It's like, well, you got roasted on that one by some guy

I've never heard of. The Kalief Raymond game is how we might always end up remembering this but uh you know all right fine I mean that that's a thing that happens and it doesn't really mean a whole lot to how we're evaluating you at this moment unless it keeps happening but with Holton Hill we're talking about a third year player who should be the guy that they can rely on he won the job out of training camp but when Dantzler and Hughes come back, I don't know for sure that he's going to be starting. It might be Gladney and Dantzler if they've made a decision. They might look at it like the way they looked at B.C. Johnson.

There's a more talented guy behind you. So, sorry. And the way that Hill has played so far, that could happen if we're talking about one or two more weeks of this. Yeah, and that spurts through Holton Hill's career. He's really been in Zimmer's doghouse, whether it's for on the field stuff or for off the field stuff. And it just feels like these couple games where if Dancer's out, Hughes is out, and Hill is going to be a focal point, it's going to be someone that the other offenses are really targeting. I mean,

they could have done that before, but they have these other corners. It's now Holton Hill. Like, I don't think Zimmer has a really long leash for Holton Hill. I mean, he might have to for this season just because they don't have other guys, but he's been really hot and cold on him. And so if he continues to not be consistent,

I'm not sure how long they're going to keep him. But yeah, I want to move on to just a bigger point. And we've kind of touched on this a little bit, but more directly, does how this game went in the way that it just felt different than these other games? Does it change the way you view the trajectory of this Viking season of how you view it going forward? Because I think on the podcast with Courtney, you were like, okay, now I'm kind of around six and 10, seven and nine thing. I'm not sure at 0-3 you can get much better than that just with how the math works. But just trajectory of how we're going to feel about this season,

do you feel like after this game it's different? A little. And if they had won this one, I would have felt very solid about saying 7-9, 6-10 is where they're going to end up because you are talking about some winnable games going forward. Initially, the schedule looked harder than it does now. And maybe the Detroit Lions will turn things around as we're recording this. They're playing, so I can't tell you if they won or not.

But maybe they're a better team than we were giving them credit for after two weeks. They should have won in week one against Chicago and dropped a ball at the end zone. And then they got toasted by Aaron Rodgers playing at the highest level, which the Vikings saw him to that here in Minnesota as well, but I was still looking at the schedule saying Jacksonville Carolina are winnable games, and you can take at least one from Detroit. You could probably beat Atlanta because they'll do something goofy to give it to you, and I'm not going to change that. But the fact that you get to 0-3 this quickly, you get to three losses,

it does make it so you would almost have to have a good season to get to the point where you end up being 7-9, a good season from here on out. You would have to be a winning team from this moment, and that's a hard one to see. I would also say if the offense performs with this level of explosiveness, and I mean, yes, you're going to get in some shootouts, but you see Justin Jefferson rise to the challenge as he did, and Irv Smith has been a no-show so far, but if he starts to show up and perform, Rudolph was doing his job today, then you could be talking about still like a 7-9 and kind of going back and forth down the stretch. It's just the thing is that I once saw – I have a really tough time saying anyone can be like 1-15 or 2-14.

That's something that happens to one team a year when everyone gets hurt and you have just absolutely horrendous horrendous quarterback play this version of Kirk Cousins does not lose 15 times this version of Cousins through the first three games loses more like 10 or 11 and that's where I would still probably have them as 6 and 10 because there's enough there and if the corners improve then you're probably talking about a little better coverage and you win this game as opposed to losing it. So I'm not changing where I have them. But in terms of getting to the in the hunt graphic at some point, it's a really tough

road from here. Yeah, it changes the trajectory of just how I feel about them in the fact that the offense found another explosive weapon. Before this, we didn't know what Justin Jefferson was going to be. We still don't know, but we've seen what he can be at this point. And so I feel really good about Thielen and Jefferson being there. I think Kubiak showed that he was going to change a little bit. Kirk Cousins had his fastest time to throw in terms of how quickly he was getting the ball out. It felt like that when he was playing.

It felt like they were going with some shorter passes, especially to Jefferson, to combat maybe for the offensive line and the struggles they were having. They weren't – I mean, they had the big play-action bomb, but it felt like Kirk was getting the ball out a little bit faster than – and I think that was probably, like, intended by Kubiak. He wanted to get the ball out a little quicker because he saw what happened to Drew Simeon last week. He probably saw get the ball out a little quicker because he saw what

happened to Drew Simeon last week. He probably saw in one of those first couple drives what happened. We saw at the end what happened to Garrett Bradbury. And maybe part of this is just because they were leading, so they were able to do some of the things that they wanted to do. But Dalvin faced an eight-man box over a quarter of the time. That was among the highest this week. So Dalvin was being productive. They were blocking for him at least a little bit. He was creating really well. He averaged over eight yards per carry. So I was encouraged by the signs the offense was making, especially with how that Colts game went last week and the parts that we can take moving forward. And I still think there's

room to improve with the screen game with Irv Smith, with Kyle Rudolph. We're still expecting more from the tight end group. I remember last week after the Chicago game I think I asked Kyle Rudolph did you expect coming in with a Kubiak like influenced off like offseason that you were going to get the ball more and he flat out was like yes I expected the ball more oh last so yeah last year yeah yeah so I would expect similar things to happen. I don't think we're just going to ignore Irv Smith all season. So I think there are nice building blocks to the way I feel about it. And then we talked again about the defensive line.

I just felt there were some parts that were good, and they were dealing with a really banged up defense. And they let up 31 points. It's not great, but it felt like just the way we look at this team is a lot better today, I know, by at least the tone of our podcast than it was these last two weeks. So in general, I don't think it will buy them much more in terms of wins and losses. But again, they face three good teams. Like between them, they've lost one game.

The Colts lost that Jags game. Not that they've played a ton of really good teams. They're blowing out the Jets right now. The Packers might beat the Saints. Like, we don't know how that one's going to go, but that's a really good game. Tennessee's a really good team. You really like them prior to the season. So it's not as if we're, like, we're destined, again, for that 1-15, 2-14. Kirk Cousins, as a starter, his worst season was 7 and 9. So it might still be worse than that, but, yeah, I just feel better about this team than I did last week.

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And we've seen, and this is the unfortunate part of this team becoming kind of predictable is that Cousins I looked at this the other day has two wins against teams that finished with a winning record and 11 losses I think in his first two years here and that has been the thing that you could write in pen is are you playing a good team that's why early in the season so it's harder to do but are you playing a good team if yes you why early in the season it's harder to do. But are you playing a good team? If yes, you'll probably not win. If no, you probably will win. And so there's not good teams that appear to be on the horizon there,

including Houston, who is also 0-3. And I think I'll pick the Vikings. If their offense is going to perform like this, it could be another one of these shootouts, but I'm going to pick them. And it also kind of tells you that even though in this game, they did blow a lead, it's the way that they have to play to succeed is to have Delvin Cook get a 30 yard run. And then all of a sudden, the other team gets terrified and starts playing eight man box. And then they go to the play action stuff that in the last couple of weeks, they weren't able to set that up and I saw some people get upset with Kubiak saying we need to run because his answer is always run and this week

sort of showed you why that is because he understands that defenses will adapt to that and every time we get to a point like this this is sort of in the weeds I'm like but does it really matter about that because you kind of already know from watching the last couple of years so all right uh i don't know how many questions deep we are here yeah uh well a quick one you kind of mentioned it right there but when do the vikings get their first win at this point because now that's going to be yeah are they going to go on four then it's like seahawks green bay lions you don't know right now the lions are tied with with Arizona, so maybe they're playing better. But, like, where's their first win? I say next week against Houston. That Houston team around Deshaun Watson,

and they've had a really tough schedule to start the season. How about facing Kansas City, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh? I mean, three teams that have great defenses, three teams that have Hall of Fame, I mean, maybe, with Lamar Jackson, and definitely the other two, especially Roethlisberger. You never know with Mahomes, but I mean, he's already on a Hall of Fame track. You have an MVP, a Hall of Famer for sure, and a Super Bowl champion slash MVP are the first three quarterbacks you face. So you're doing it with an inferior roster in Houston. Maybe there is an element of going too far with calling that team bad, but I also think their

defense is bad. And if they play the way the Titans played against the Vikings today, they'll give up a ton of yards to Delvin Cook. They'll give up big plays to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen and potentially Herb Smith if he gets involved. So I do think that that comes pretty soon. If it doesn't, then I'm not sure. If they can't beat an 0-3 team, then I don't know. I know that I think when Courtney picked the team, she went 0-6 to start, and then a 6-10 finish, they got into a little bit of a run as they went on. But there are some treacherous waters to be faced on the schedule here that we knew and talked about from the very beginning of the year and if you go one and two then you're maybe okay you gotta beat some of the bad teams and maybe you lose to the good teams but now that you're on three it's hard

to pick them for any game except for against another oh and three team so I think that both of these teams had hard schedules to start and they showed kind of who they are overall as teams but they're probably both teams aren't as bad as they looked and I and I hope that people can get on board with me with this is that I just think that some of these are going to be really entertaining and I started talking this way about Twitter of sort of like draft nihilism of like none of this matters so you're going to pick players and they'll work or they don't. We'll find out. But whether you study this or that part of it or use this or that analytics

and all those other things, that a lot of times it just ends up being a coin flip on players, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. That's draft nihilism. And I might be saying the same thing about 2020 nihilism. 2020 nihilism might be, hey, have fun on Sundays. There's nothing else to do in the world. And that might be how we end up coming on to this next game. Yeah, I've got one more question for you if we've got time.

And I think we've been pretty positive on this podcast, especially with how last week went with you and Courtney. That was a fiery one. And then we obviously didn't have a lot of positive things to say either. So for the people that are in your mentions that are frustrated about this, the way this game ended, about how the final drive went and about how maybe the game was managed towards the end when we were within, when it was kind of within distance of both teams like if you're going to assign some blame for the way that the this one ended like where where are you going with that like are we giving it to Kirk are we giving it to the offensive line I'm not even

sure we like are we blaming it on that final drive are we blaming it on stuff that happened before because the Texans had some questionable calls kind of down the stretch of that game and still were able to win so they they it wasn't like they came roaring back and was doing everything great like they they made some boneheaded like decisions as well so you're going to put some blame on this game for fans that want to assign some blame to this game where is it going that's actually a good question because i hadn't thought of the game through the perspective of like a 2019 where we would get into every bit of minutiae on the game and talk about how it's this guy's fault on this play and this went wrong on that play but i'll go let's see i will say that the final drive as a whole is to blame because the Titans I mean

everyone just everyone anybody who wasn't open every play call every offensive lineman cousins himself just everything Zimmer called it chaos I totally agree there seemed to be a little bit of a jab of we need to have some leaders that don't allow that to happen. It was like, well, really? But everyone, everyone is to blame for that last drive. That was a complete mess, especially when the Titans say, here, would you like 15 free yards to start? Would you like to start this drive at the 40 when you only have to get to the other 40 for your kicker to make it? Which, by the way, Dan Bailey missed one. That usually doesn't happen. So I guess he deserves a little blame. this drive at the 40 when you only have to get to the other 40 for your kicker to make it which by

the way Dan Bailey missed one that usually doesn't happen so I guess he deserves a little blame because you know they had to make a field goal to win it if Bailey makes it then they don't uh the young corners giving up big plays is probably at the top of the list here because I'm not sure, you can't look at the play calling this week. Kubiak was really good. But maybe there was some element of taking the foot off the gas when they threw a little seven-yard out to Chad Beebe. So that might go under the category of you got to keep being aggressive there and keep moving the ball and not throw a seven yard

out to Chad Beebe and then punt the ball away. So maybe there's a little bit of that, but the offensive line completely melting down when they needed to block a three-man rush at the end of the game. Come on. That has to be better. They let Cousins get get sacked i don't know what the pressure numbers were they probably weren't crazy but at the end you just need five to block three and then you've got a chance with enough time i mean they had all day they a minute 44 is all sorts of time to dink and dunk your way to the other 40 which which to me is where Dan Bailey can kick a field goal. So you need 20 yards and you can't block at all. So that's a big part of it. And I would also just, I'd probably give credit to Derrick Henry to some extent and just say,

that guy did not have an easy day, but he just dragged people for a bunch of key plays there and not being able to slow them down, not being able to stop them, run defense is going to be a problem all year long. So that's, I think if we attempt to kind of pass out the blame to different people, that's where I might go with it. And I want to say that from a game management decision, sometimes you can have the right logic and it not go the way that you expect it to go. Mike Vrabel kicking a giganto long field goal on fourth and seven to put them down by what two was just what? I mean, this defense has been giving up big plays to you today, and Tannehill has had time to throw in key situations, and you're deciding to kick a Mondo field goal with your kicker who missed three

in the first game of the year, and it worked out for them. It worked out exactly how he drew it up, but it was the wrong decision, and those are always fun too. So if you're on the Titans side, you're probably debating that all week and talking about how fun it is to be 3-0. So there you go. It's a lot here, Paul. There's always a lot here.

Yeah, I'm glad we didn't get another week of what we saw last week. Yes. Because I don't think it would have been really interesting. We would have come here. I wouldn't have had that many great questions because it would have just been, oh, Kirk was bad again. Like, you want to comment on that? And, oh, the defense got shredded.

And, like, which, I mean, they kind of did. But, again, they showed some signs. So I'm at least glad that it was exciting. I do hope we have more of these. I would expect it to happen just because it needs to happen if they are going to remain competitive. And Mike Zimmer's not going to let them at least remain competitive. So, like, in games, like, obviously not for this season, but he's not going to let them at least remain competitive. So like in games, like obviously not for the season, but he's not going to lay down. So yeah, I'm just,

I'm just glad we're going to have this going forward. At least that's what it looks like. And if people got this far, let me just offer you a couple of things that are going to be on my mind throughout the week, which is after the game, cousins had nothing to say Zimmer kind of offered a little bit of why was it chaos on the last drive? And then Cousins had nothing to say and said, well, I guess you'd have to ask the coach. And I'm like, isn't that the coach that said that? But that's beside the point.

How tense this gets from an organization that has expected to win. It's not tense in your living room watching them lose and seeing if you can find more pictures of Trevor Lawrence or highlights to tweet out. It will be tense within the team for them because they're going to start looking around and going, what happened here? And as I wrote for the Purple Insider site, like, should they have seen this coming? And, you know, Mike Zimmer is not going to enjoy losing neither is Gary Kubiak they brought in Dom Capers this year to help them win not to tank for Trevor so everything was going for for wins and when that's your expectation then to be where they

are right now means a lot of pressure on a lot of people so where does that tension kind of go if they don't turn this around and get to three and three somehow or get to two and three somehow and feel like the season's back on track a little bit? If that doesn't happen, then how does this thing play out? And who might the shrapnel hit on the way is going to be something to watch. So that's that. Great job, Paul. Great questions. I know that I took some liberties and not staying within the structure, but I play like Deshaun Watson on this podcast. So I appreciate your questions and your time. And thank you all for listening to Purple Insider.