Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings lost the same game to the Ravens that they have been losing for a long time

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

The Minnesota Vikings lost to the Baltimore Ravens 34-31 in overtime and let me ask where you've heard this one before: The Vikings had a two-score lead and let it slip because they were not able to stay aggressive offensively, with Kirk Cousins failing to throw to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. How many times have we heard this now? Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom go quarter by quarter talking about the consistent themes of the 2021 Vikings and how this season has fallen apart and discuss the things that led to Baltimore's comeback, including too many runs, a shorthanded defense and one particular strange penalty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. All right, let's get to the post game. It happened again. How does it keep happening? Minnesota

Vikings lose to the Baltimore Ravens in overtime, the third overtime game of the season. The Vikings have lost two of those. This one, they got their faces beat in, in terms of never having the football, giving up almost 250 yards, rushing, throwing for under 200 yards. And yes, everyone, someone is going to jail for not throwing enough to Justin Jefferson. The Vikings are three and five in an NFC where nobody wants to be in the playoffs. But the Vikings said, we really, really don't want to be in the playoffs by coming up short in this game against the Baltimore Ravens. So I guess my first question for you, Sam Ekstrom, is this. Should Vikings fans react with, should it be take out the baseball bat and smash the television 50 times because they are enraged? Should it be throw up the shoulders, shrug them, meh, go rake the

leaves while you still got some sunlight? Boy, that threw me off this morning. The whole time change thing. Or should it just be walk away and go find another hobby for your Sundays? I mean, what is the answer for how Vikings fans should feel after this happened again and they lose 34-31 to drop to 3-5. Watching the late game drama will never stop being compelling to me. Even if the results are the same and the patterns are the same, I mean, it's sort of the pattern that is intriguing. Wow, this keeps happening. This is unbelievable.

Another blown lead. Another game where there was questionable decision making. Kirk Cousins pulls a last minute drive out of his hat and they can't finish it off. I know it's disappointing and your season is on life support. And I think my pithy final line in my instant reaction was your playoff odds are dropping like the November temperatures. Once again, you're right there. They are the ultimate tease. They play up to their competition against an AFC contender on the road,

and they can't get the job done. And despite being right there in every opportunity, they still have not beaten a winning team this season. So I would suggest you just brace for the pain, right? I mean, at some point you've got to expect it, know it's coming, relish it, embrace it, and take it all in because, I mean, every single one of these losses in a vacuum is an absolute gut-wrencher, and it's pretty mystifying how this offense continues to fade as the game goes along.

I'll give them the last- drive but other than that pitiful pitiful play calling um you probably want to take this in a certain direction i'll withhold judgment for now but um where do you want to go next well i was going to say that i made the mistake of saying to vikings fans at some point in the game hey, you can't say that it hasn't been entertaining and you should have seen my mentions after that. Not great. Well, you know, but there was a compelling point that some people made, which was, is it though? Like, is it interesting at this point?

Is it exciting at this point when the same thing happens over and over again? Like at some point in the same thing happens over and over again like at some point in the movie Groundhog Day they ran out of different ways for Bill Murray to like not make it through the next day and eventually you're like okay Groundhog's Day figure it out where this is going does he just die or does he end up with Andy McDowell right and so of course they didn't want to go the dark route he ended up with Andy McDowell, right? And so of course they didn't want to go the dark route. He ended up with Andy McDowell. This team is going the dark route though to Groundhog's Day.

They are now three and five. They have two very difficult games left. Just in time for Aaron Rodgers to get back with a full week of practice. They'll play him in two weeks. And the Los Angeles Chargers are no easy team to go up against. You have to go East Coast back to the Midwest, out to the West Coast. And if there is one franchise that tends to have these games like this, it is the Chargers. So, you know, maybe that's in store again.

But, you know, I think that the point that a lot of people were making is it's not just the scores. It's not just the endings. It's not just the crazy plays like Anthony Barr's interception which we'll get to but it's the same thematics each week it's hey Sam what are we going to talk about in this post-game show let's see 187 yards from Kirk Cousins less than seven yards per attempt in the year 2021 you have three receptions by Justin Jefferson. Adam Thielen, I found out, was playing on the final drive when he made that touchdown catch to tie the game. They needed a big play from CJ Hamm in order for it to not be a complete disaster there at the end. And then they do get a

big game-changing defensive play by Barr with his interception and they cannot take advantage and Sam second down runs oh the second down runs that put them in third and long so many of them and and I think that from that perspective even though each game has your heart elevated and you're clutching the side of your seat if we're in the press boxes, you know, fingers are clenched trying to type and you just like sweating, but that's the individual Sundays when you pull it back. It's, Hey, why did they lose against Dallas? Oh yeah. Couldn't get the ball to Jefferson and Thielen. Hey, why did they lose to Cleveland? Oh yeah. Couldn't get the ball to Jefferson and Thielen. And I don't know, on a weekly basis, you could have it happen every once in a while where another team just finds a way to put the clamps down or beats your offensive line.

But when we're talking about five losses, and I think in all of them, or maybe four of them, the other teams have shut down your elite wide receivers in almost all of their losses. They've started out with a big touchdown drive, or in today's case, a huge 50-yard touchdown. And I think where you really get upset is they had a lead against Arizona, blew it. They had a lead against, well, Cleveland was early, so that wasn't a huge lead. Cincinnati was also late first half. Right, late.

They ended up getting a lead. But then you go back to even last week. They've got a lead for the entire game, blew it. They've got a lead for this entire game, blew it. I mean, at some point it does just seem to happen over and over again to the point where you do feel like you want to sort of shrug and go, I don't know, man, like that's just kind of who they are. They hang around in games, but they're just not good enough to win them because of what they're doing offensively. Yes. So to me, I think the fact that we have kind of learned with pretty definitives oftentimes persist longer than they should is because it's tough to nail down exactly what they are.

There are the ups, there are the downs. And every single game provides evidence. We learn something, right? And the deeper the game goes with the outcome still in doubt, the more we learn, right? So we learn about who's going to play well in the fourth quarter. What decisions are going to get made when the game is on the line? And this Vikings team has given us a mountain of evidence through eight games, four full quarters worth every week, three times extra, more than four quarters.

We've learned how this team operates, right? So the evidence is building and building to give this team operates Right so the evidence is Building and building to give this team An additional identity It's not a good identity You don't like what the identity is But there's so much evidence That when you look at this

Mounting pile this kind of Steaming pile that's in No way good It's hard to Look at that and say yeah this is what i want in the future and there is value in that organizationally and as a fan if you want to turn the page i think this team is doing what you would want in order to move on from certain individuals because it the same thing keeps happening um there's not a lot of excuses to be made anymore.

I mean, there might have been early in the season, the Greg Joseph miss and blah-de-blah, a bad review on Delvin Cook, but the excuses are sort of whittling away. And here you are once again, your offense inexplicably faded, your defense broke when it mattered most, and you're three and five.

And you're way now on the outside looking in. The schedule is tough. Your head coach is terse. Your quarterback is declining. You're learning everything you need to know. And curiously, this Clint Kubiak season is going the way of John DeFilippo fast. We had, I think, maybe our first call out today in the postgame presser, Mike Zimmer, saying he was unhappy with the play calling after the Anthony Barr interception. And I do not blame him at one bit. You take a short screen or a pass to the flat, a run, and then, you know, a throw to nowhere by cousins three and out.

So we've got our first signs of dissension kind of around the same time we had with DeFilippo. So I'm, I'm intrigued to see where it goes from here. And now as the Vikings are trying to like put out this fire, their, their identity will get shaped even more. So I'm, I'm intrigued to see, you know, what, what the ramifications are of this latest devastating loss. Yeah. And this has been building with Zimmer and Clint Kubiak as well. I mean,

we thought a couple of weeks ago after the Detroit game that we were really going to have some problems. And then the second half of the Carolina game sort of closed that door a little bit. They went for almost 600 yards in that game total. And we said, okay, all right. It feels like they've gotten some things back. They're running the boots again. They got a couple of big plays. All right. That's what they're going to do from here on out because they do have the talent to have a very, very good offense. But as of right now, they do not. And Mike Zimmer can come out and he can read all the stats he wants in press conferences. Oh, we're 13th in this and 12th in that, but that's not good. And what we saw today

is it's not good. It's not working. It's not hanging onto the ball and having long drives. It's not creating explosive plays. It's not getting to third and shorts and then having Delvin Cook run for a first down. It's just a nothing. It's just a nothing offense. It's not creative. It's not interesting. It's not worth studying. It's just a nothing offense that has at times showed some signs where, oh, well, they've

got explosive plays here or there and so forth. And today you can look at it and go, well, they ended up with 31 points, right? But they went icy for so long in this game after they were given so many opportunities. And that's where you could be deceived at times, I guess, by the score sheet, because of course you get a kick return for a touchdown

that changes a lot there. But aside from that, and then a last second drive where Baltimore is kind of playing back and you need you know a couple of big plays there in order to do it but for most of the game outside of the very start when this is what I wanted to do in this postgame but outside of the very start it's just bleh and that feels the 2018 season, but it also feels like stretches where they've played good teams always. And if your identity is we can beat the lions, but not anybody good coming Carolina, my gosh, again, Sam Darnold, the total disaster today in Carolina. If those are the only teams you could beat, then well, guess what? You're the Vikings of the last three to four years. And

that's where I feel this incredible exhaustion where I got, I don't know, dozens of tweets again today saying, come on Ravens. I hope we blow it because I just want to see a change. And I know that not everyone feels that way. And I think that's a tough position to take, but I can see where you would just get tired of this. But the thing is that normally around the corner, every time that this has happened in the past, there's three easy games on the way. And in this case, there just isn't. So you blow the game against Dallas,

the next week isn't easy. You blow the game against Baltimore, the next week isn't easy. And like you said, maybe there's a 35-0 game that you just completely no-show because that does happen to NFL teams at times. But what I wanted to do was I wanted to go through, starting with the very beginning, before the game, and go through quarter by quarter and talk about what happened and all the themes that have just been pervasive throughout this team.

And one of them is unvaccinated players. We have to discuss Harrison Smith's absence today. I don't know if it would have made a difference. Cam Bynum had a great interception, seemed to play really well, but missing Harrison Smith, not good. And all I want to say about this is before the season, reporters covering the team took flack from a lot of people on Twitter for asking about whether players were vaccinated. The reason we did that is not because we care about their personal choices. It's because they would be more likely to miss football games.

And there you have it, Harrison Smith missing a football game. And to me, you're walking on the razor's edge at all times with this many unvaccinated star players. And it came up to bite them here against Baltimore. It literally happened at inactives and at 1030 a.m. I'm chasing kids around. I'm not really around my phone at that time. That's bad to admit as a reporter for this team, but I wasn't. So I turn on the TV and they're focusing on cam bynum and i'm like um oh so are they doing like kind of a third safety thing to get extra guys in the box this is interesting no harrison smith literally out so that's shocking and a huge development and i thought early on

the story was like the depth and the unsung heroes stepping up. It was Bynum stepping up. Richardson got a sack. Kenny Willekes and Armand Watts had good games. You know, Chris Boyd wasn't a terrible liability. It was all going great until it wasn't. But you now have lost Smith, you know, who was kind of supposed to be the linchpin to keep it all together because you also didn't have peterson you didn't have pierce you didn't have hunter and that defense no longer looks the way it was supposed to and when you have someone who is one positive test away from

being out not just on sunday against baltimore but already out for Los Angeles. That's no bueno. I mean, that's not good. So there is certainly a storyline there. And that's something that I'm sure will come up once we're allowed to talk to Harrison Smith again. And we will ask more questions because, you know, when someone, I think we've eased off Kirk because he hasn't missed any time since the incident.

When you miss time, you're going to get bugged about it. It would be the same with any of the other unvaccinated starters. And I assume he'll have to answer for this in 10 plus days. Well, and think about Mike Zimmer before the season. Think about some of the things that Mike Zimmer said about his roster. I mean, one of them was we're going to probably miss star players in games because COVID is not going away. And again, you personally can feel however you want about it. But the reality of the NFL is there are rules in place, availability rules. And Zimmer was

extremely concerned in training camp and preseason that the availability rules and the combination with star players being unvaccinated would ultimately cost them. And again, I don't want to say Harrison Smith cost them this game, but now they have to go to Los Angeles without Harrison Smith because of these rules. And it was like his worst fears come to life here. You're going to Baltimore in a must win type of situation. And now you got to do it without your best defensive player. And I'd have to study much closer on Cam Bynum, whether he did this right or that right.

I mean, eventually it looked like the cornerbacks were what really got them. But here goes again to another Zimmer comment in preseason where he talked about the lack of depth that they had. I didn't think that DJ Wanham and Kenny Willekes were terrible today by any means, but they're not Daniil Hunter, everyone. And this is what Zimmer was concerned about at the beginning of the season. And we talked about it and, you know, some people agreed and some people said, no, no, no, it's fine. Everything is fine. Well,

you're going to miss players throughout a season and it makes it even easier to miss players with COVID like they did even with vaccinated players like Garrett Bradbury, though unvaccinated players again have different rules. So it's a different story. Bradbury can come right back. Harrison Smith has to wait. Just want to clarify that, but we saw that on display today that eventually when you don't have your stars, like you said, early on, they played well, but they wore down eventually. Everson Griffin at the end of the game had nothing left, and I don't blame him. Sheldon Richardson hasn't played that much, hasn't played well, and he's worn down at the end of the game. Armand Watts had a good game, but you're throwing out

there guys like James Lynch, who doesn't play that often, and Willick is playing his first game with significant snaps ever and this is the depth you have and then what really comes to haunt them is the corners Patrick Peterson goes out it's Chris Boyd it's it's pass interference it's missing a tackle it's playing guys that really shouldn't be playing because they're not all that good and that's the lack of depth that you had and you've brought up the Mike Hughes thing. And well, it certainly made you think of it today when Chris Boyd had to go in there when Bashad Breeland got hurt. So that's just sort of the pregame setup is like your team was already on very thin ice and then it got some cracks.

Now in the first quarter though, Sam, were you thinking that it would be different at all? Like after after they're getting up in the first quarter, are you thinking, OK, actually, this time they might have the Ravens? Folks, Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the Internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore. That's because TickPick, that's T-I-C-K, P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need for your go-to for all NFL tickets. TickPick got rid of those awful service fees that the other sites charge, which lets them guarantee the best price on all of their NFL tickets. Don't believe it? If you could find better prices for the same seats on another ticket site, TickPick will give you 110% of the difference on the

purchase price. So we've got lots of big games going on in downtown Minneapolis and lots of road trips for Minnesota football fans to take. So you want to go to TickPick.com slash insider to save $10 on your first order for Minnesota football tickets. Again, TickPick.com slash insider to save $10 on your first order of Minnesota football tickets. No, I almost called you out, too. You said something along the lines of, you know, if they were to score a touchdown to go up 21-3, that might have put it away. And I almost, I almost quote tweeted you and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Hold on. We've seen this Ravens team. We've seen this Vikings team. It's way too early to call it. And I think, and that might be getting into the second quarter a little more,

but first quarter, we've seen this kind of response before sometimes by the Vikings where they come into a game you don't expect them to perform. And they actually, they put up a fight. And that did not surprise me because they have put up fights on the road pretty consistently this year, much more than at home. I mean, they've had way more of a backbone on the road. You this year much more than at home i mean they've had way more of a backbone on the road um you know you think in the first quarter you see the the perhaps bogus horse collar on wanham and you say well there you go you know it's already starting there's a bad call down three points offense responds nicely um credit to them they converted you know a third down couple third downs early

and then once again converting third downs completely disappeared yeah but i yeah i thought there was they were kind of gifted that lead by a ghastly lamar jackson like that was not lamar jackson that i watched in the first half I don't know who it was. It might be like the cornerback Lamar Jackson who got drafted a year or two ago. That was not Lamar Jackson. That was incredible how inaccurate he was on the shorter throws. And to the Vikings credit, they held them down. And we're getting into the second quarter here. I'll let you tee this up. But the same type of stuff where they had two or three drives to go up, not two, but three scores and couldn't take advantage. Well, you're right. And the first quarter is like the other team's quarterback isn't playing well. And you take advantage in the first quarter, a 50 yard touchdown to Jefferson, a 60 something yard run by Delvin Cook leads to a touchdown and you're up 14 to three.

Now it's the NFL. So 14 to three is not, Hey, the game is over and you could just hand it off and play defense. Right. But they acted that way. You get into the second quarter and the Ravens have to punt. So they get stopped. That's where I tweeted after they had an eight play drive that essentially went nowhere. That's where I tweeted after they had an eight-play drive that essentially went nowhere. That's where I tweeted, score a touchdown here.

And I'm not saying it's over, but I'm saying it should be kind of almost over. 21-3, I mean, for anybody, is really difficult to come back from, even if it's an MVP quarterback on the other side, because he was not playing well. And it was clear that Mike Zimmer's strategy was working. They were playing a lot of zones, letting guys just sit back there and saying, make some tight window throws Lamar. And early on, like you said, it was clear, I guess he had been off for two weeks, almost reminded me how Brady was last year when they played the Bucks, how Brady had been off two weeks and the first quarter, he just could not throw the football. And then all of a sudden it came roaring back. But in this case, it really did come roaring back

in the first half. And then the Vikings after that. So they force a punt from the Ravens. It is a four play drive punt from the Vikings, a seven play drive punt from the Vikings, and then a field goal. And then it's 17 to three. And still, even at that point, Sam, they have a chance to go into the half 17, three, and your win probability is probably very high up 17 to three. And here comes the two minute defense. You wrote about it this week, and this is where it becomes some things that are noisy and fluky have become a reality for the Minnesota Vikings,

where they just happen all the time. And I think this is where not having Harrison Smith, not having Daniel Hunter, not being able to create pressure and then having backup corners. That's where this comes into play. They commit the huge pass interference penalty and then give up the touchdown. To me, this is where the game really turns because now once you've blown enough of these games, now you see that they know that they've blown enough of these games and there is a serious tenseness. I think to just about everyone, whether it's Zimmer with his decision-making, whether it's cousins with the way he's playing quarterback, uh, the offensive line, once again, I thought got pretty beat up

today outside of a few good plays. Um, but. But that to me is where this entire game turns is that once again, the Vikings, they don't have an offense that can put the pedal down and they don't have a defense that is good enough to come up with clutch stops. Yeah, so following the second touchdown drive, the Vikings had six possessions. One of those, for what it's worth,

was the one play trick play fake kneel down before the end of the half. So you can count that if you want. But six possessions, two first downs. Two first downs. One of those first downs was a fake punt to Ken A. Wongwu. We'll get to him. So you converted a third and nine to kj osborne and a fake punt on six drives and you wonder why you got doubled up in time of possession following the cameron binum interception which was fantastic play the vikings are in the red zone my espn is automatically playing me highlights. I hate that. Sorry about that.

I hate that. It's a field goal, right? They get a field goal by going Cook minus one, passing complete to Thielen, passing complete to Jefferson, I think all short of the sticks. So it's 17-3, should have been more. Once again, and it's Dallas deja vu, doing nothing after turnovers. And I was trying to run some filters on stat head,

and I kept running the wrong criteria, obviously, so I don't have historical context for this. But how many teams in NFL history are going to lose three games in an eight-game stretch where you're plus two in the take give not only plus two you don't turn the ball over you take two and you lose three times it's happened well this is the way to do it because the way to do it is to you're not turning the ball over because you're way too scared and that's how you're playing and that's how they've played all year i mean this is one where any decent team just says we're up 17 to three, or like you said, after they get the interception,

we're going to go score a touchdown. We're going to work the ball down the field. We're going to be aggressive. We're going to throw to Thielen and just to Jefferson. I've made the joke. And I did off the very start that someone has to go to jail if you don't throw to Jefferson, but Adam Thielen finishing with five yards that, I mean, this is just incomprehensible how as player of his caliber and the thing about the touchdown catch, it's marvelous. It's just this tremendous route. And he, you know, makes a last second little veteran move to create some space. We'll call it may have been a pushup, but we'll call it veteran move makes the catch touchdown. Like this guy has never been stopped by anyone especially

when he has another wide receiver around him the only people that can shut down thielen and jefferson are the vikings themselves because every time they push the ball to them they seem to make plays and come through and i think that they're as good as advertised and we have past evidence to suggest this everything that Jefferson did last year everything Thielen has done for his career I'm guessing a lot of defenses have thought of covering them before and yet they've been able to find ways to get them the ball but this year it has been just such an extreme struggle and if you're Adam Thielen I mean what motivation do you have to get up and come to TCO Performance Center on Monday to look at the film? Why do you have to look at the film?

There's nothing to see. They wouldn't look at you. They're looking for the fullback down the field. Amazing catch, CJ Hamm. Loved it. It was incredible. But like, what? And they're throwing to Tyler Conklin on third and 18 for like three yards as if he's just going to take it and motor past everyone and and now it's time to get to kenny wall all right i i've kept my composure for 27 minutes just to just to write this moment uh now it's time to get to kenny long what a return i mean just right we saw that we talked about that we made training camp videos about it oh my gosh we've never seen someone so fast i'm not joking and there it is and then they do a fake punt to him

cool uh is he not allowed on the field any other time like the fastest freaking guy i've ever seen and they're like no no look look tyler conklin's got to get his touches okay i mean that that is what and then you know respect to tyler conklin he's doing a fine job but like what i mean that's what's so bizarre to me you just saw the dude dodge the entire football team of the baltimore ravens for a touchdown you're like great job man we'll see you next week i mean that's just kind of kind of crazy to me the number of talented. They just can't seem to get on the field and get the football in their hands. And furthermore, I'm growing disenchanted a little bit with Alexander Madison. He's had a couple of nice games in bulk, like in total yardage, which is nice.

But he's not really that efficient of a runner. And he's not really that much of a change of pace from Dalvin cook. The Vikings never use their change of pace backs. Yeah. We're going to keep Mike Boone for three years as a change of pace. He's a night, you know, night,

nice guy to have around a little, a little lightning to the thunder, right? Never used him. Amir Abdullah never used him. Can I Wong? We was going to gather dust. He's going to get Moss and not Randy Moss.

I'm talking about algae. He's going to get algae building up on him because this team is not going to use him. And he's never going to have a kick return again. Teams are going to see that and they're going to say, all right, he got a kick return. It happened, folks. It's happened again.

We're never going to kick to him again. And they won't. They'll kick it out the back of the end zone. So, you know, that was fun while it lasted. it happened folks it's happened again we're never going to kick to him again and they won't they'll kick it out the back of the end zone so you know that was fun while it lasted um good luck finding him touches any other way in special teams the fake punt you use that card not going to use that again so you've blown all of your all of your the bullets you had now you would have to get him in the offense to use him and i'm so tired of the Viking. I'm losing my composure. I'm so tired of the Vikings saying, we want to get the ball in Dalvin Cook's hands

at whatever cost. We just want him to get touches for the sake of getting touches because it makes our offense better. We don't care if the run game's not working and it's second and 10, we're going to give it to him anyway. The game's on the line. It's second and 10. Let's give it to a running back and see what happens. Even though he's got negative yards on his last 10 carries, this seems like a good, smart play. No.

And that right there is where we circle back to. It's almost like you ever see those DJs where they have those button bars where they can just like push a button and it'll be like, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Like here's our, you know, gave it to Delvin Cook too many times. Pew, pew, pew. Like just wouldn't trust Kirk. Pew, pew, pew. Like, come on.

I mean, once again, it's not a windy day, folks. I mean, they're out there. You're fine. You could throw the ball. I didn't think Cousins was being pressured that many times. Although, feel free to have a hot route mixed in. I know that's our brand with the hot routes thing. But there were several blitzes where I will say, I mean, from at least the view that they showed, Cousins did not have anywhere where he was supposed to throw the ball.

And that's one where every quarterback in the league would be throwing it away, except for Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson, who would run around. But aside from that, he didn't look like he had answers. And I know that this cropped up before. I haven't heard it since, but maybe it will again about audibling or making changes at the line of scrimmage or seeing a blitz and being able to switch something and i don't know that cousins has that has that authority uh whenever we've asked about if you've been like oh uh yeah sure he does but does he though because it looked like they were really showing some of their blitzes and then they came and there were no answers there um so, so, but it's the same thing. It's the button bar. It's like the too much Delvin. It's the

don't trust Kirk. But you know, the other thing was too, when Clint Kubiak said this week, we need to get the ball to Delvin more. It was based on a question about passing the ball to him, which they did not do. So they're not effect. And I looked this up that last year they were at six and a half yards per pass behind the line of scrimmage the year before over seven, 2019 this year, they're at four going into this game. They are getting nothing in terms of those screens and easy passes for Kirk. And then, I mean, I think there was one maybe underneath route that came across the middle of the field that Jefferson caught for a first down. And that was the last one that I saw. And, and it's just script, you know, right, right,

right. Exactly. Like this thing is broken. And then you sort of get back to, well, you did hire an offensive coordinator who had never offensive coordinated before. And so there is that choice that you made. And it's like all of these things, yes, they're close games, they're tight games and things like that, but, but they're, they're well-earned. So we get to the third quarter and this is where the whooping starts. This is where it's Philip Ricard. Oh my, put a neck roll on Philip Ricard. What is it? Philip? That's his name, right? Patrick, whatever. It doesn't matter. Ricard, give him, just give him a neck roll because he's just plowing through people, getting 20-yard catches, catching touchdowns.

It was beautiful. The fullback game. But that they had after the touchdown, and this is what winners do, honestly. This is what winners do. They're down two touchdowns. They get the ball back, and they're like, uh-oh, we got to go. So they start pushing the ball back and they're like uh-oh we gotta go so they start pushing the ball and they have a six minute drive for a touchdown of course the Vikings punt a 12 play drive that still somehow ends up with a punt and then it's the drive for the Ravens 10 minutes I mean they just this is what I mean they're smart they went for it on

fourth downs at all the right times today. Every time, basically. Yep. Converted. Yeah. Because of course you're getting one yard against a team that doesn't have Daniel Hunter, right? And so they did that. And then they realize, oh, we could just give it to these running backs who haven't been

good since 2015. We could just plow with them and just wear down this defense. And when you watch the Ravens, you go, a lot of the things you're doing here makes sense. A lot of the way that you're playing, you're taking advantage of your opponent's weaknesses. It's making sense. And that third quarter was where it all shifted from, oh, the Vikings are in command of this game to, oh, the Ravens are the better franchise. Sam Ekstrom here, wondering if you're stuck on your company's injury report. In an unfortunate situation like that, it's good to have someone in your corner. That's where Kemet Sanford and Kramer Law can help you understand your rights

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The website is yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com, where you can find a phone number to get a free consultation. This is an attorney advertisement from Kemet Sanford and Kramer, yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. I want to talk about the fourth downs in particular because I think this is where it was extra prevalent. When you normalize it the way Baltimore has, how liberating must that be? Because you are literally anywhere on the field, you're inside your own 30-yard line, and you can think with the mentality that it's four-down territory, right? So you get 12 yards on a third and 14 check down to the fullback suddenly that's not a bad play yep because you are confident in your choice to go for it on

fourth down you're not laboring over the decision you know you're going to do it you have eliminated the stigma and the pressure and the you know the cl the clenched, oh no, what if we miss this? Because you've proven that you're going to do it and you can do it. And it just completely changes your play calling, right? So Baltimore goes for it fourth and two at their own 36. Eric Hendricks was a shoelace away from making a game-changing tackle there. Would have been huge. Instead, a practice squad player, I don't know who it was. Mike Zimmer wouldn't say, do you know who it was? Gets a penalty for 15 yards.

Do you know? I do not believe that's a practice squad player. I think that's a team employee. I think that. Okay, I thought so too, but the broadcast said practice squad. No, no, no, I don't think so. I think, I don't know his his name but i think that's one of the dudes who like uh works for the team and might be like quality control or something like that

like um and here here's the thing mike zimmer said he didn't agree with the call look if you're just the guy standing over there and you're whatever team employee you can't be touching football players no matter what you do in no universe can you reach your hand out and shove the guy even if it's the lightest little love tap because you're gonna get called for that i mean if it's a player on the sideline and you kind of give them a little push or whatever i don't think that anybody's gonna call it but when they see some random standing there touching the players and then a great job by, was it Devante Freeman? He like looked around like who touched me? What happened? But good job. I mean, that's what you should do. And this is the type of stuff that if this is a

good team, we'd be like, remember that? That was weird. But when you're not a good team, every little thing matters that you do. And something like that is so ludicrous for that to ever be a penalty. Like how in the world do you make that choice? If you're a team employee to push that guy, but it also, everything becomes costly when you don't have an offense that could just put a team away. Everything becomes costly. If the Vikings score touchdowns, when I tweeted that they needed to score a touchdown, I mean, oh, they won 28 to 10 instead of 28 to three, who cares? Right. But instead you let teams hang around and that's when goofy stuff ends up mattering that, that was my whole point when they lost the first two games. It's like, yeah, but you let Cincinnati

get ahead and you gave up big plays to them. So yeah, when a fumble happens, you're screwed. And the same thing with Arizona, you had a two point, you had a two score lead and then you let them back. And so when you miss a field goal, you're screwed. And the same thing happened against Dallas. And the same thing happens here that a bad call or a weird thing that ends up being problematic. I wanted to talk about real quick, fourth quarter, how they opened the fourth quarter. After a Baltimore touchdown, I believe this is the one to tie the game.

Yes. 24-24. Go ahead. I'm ahead of myself. Go ahead. Okay, 24-24. Yep. Minus eight run to Delvin Cook.

This is one of the best running defensive teams in the league, by the way, and one of the worst passing defenses in the league, just to be clear here, minus eight run a incomplete pass to Justin Jefferson short, and then a five yard pass to Tyler Conklin. And then Baltimore goes and scores a touchdown the next drive. I mean, if there wasn't a drive that was more emblematic than anything else for the season, wasn't it that one? Wasn't it like, okay, you can bounce back. Things have gone wrong, but they're a good team too, so bounce back.

And it's like eight-yard loss on a run right away. Of course it was because everyone in the universe knew you were handing off to Delvin Cook on that play. Everyone. And so did Baltimore. Yeah, that must not have come up in the self-scout, huh? That you run it constantly on first and 10? Right.

The only thing that wasn't indicative is that they targeted Justin Jefferson on one of those plays. Oh, wow. Let me read you. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. Let me read you the go-ahead touchdown drive for Baltimore, the play-by-play.

They start at their own 39. Pass short right to Marquise Brown, 22 yards. Devontae Freeman left guard to the Minnesota 31 for eight yards. Bell with a seven-yard run for a first down. Bell with an eight-yard run. Bell with a five-yard run, another first down. Jackson, another first down uh jackson another first down on a 10 yard run bell touchdown they did not have a third down and they did not have anything

more than a second and two like that is the definition of your defense being exhausted and completely gassed yeah totally so there's a key key point here is after the kick return for touchdown they have a drive that lasts four minutes and a drive that lasts one minute and then um or maybe i'm getting lost yeah a drive that last one minute the one i just went through so it's like you just didn't have the ball and at that point your defense is going to get run over i saw somebody tweet like yeah the media keeps saying the word gas. Like, yeah, that's what it was. I mean, and this is how you end up as a good football team with Baltimore.

And they're not perfect. And I'm not, you know, as Denny said, crowning them. But like they recognized Lamar's a little off today. Those big shots down the field aren't going to be the thing. So we're going to have to smack this team in the mouth. And guess what? They could do it. And when a team can win multiple ways, the Vikings can't win anyway at this point.

Honestly, really, if they win a coin flip to an overtime, that's their best chance. So now let's get let's get into that. So the end of the game, Cousins has a great throw to CJ Hamm. They drive down the score, tie the game. We're going to overtime. And Anthony Barr makes the best play since when? I want you to tell me the last time Anthony Barr made a play like that. Do you even have it?

I don't know. It was also overtime. It was his rookie year, 2014. He stripped Austin Safarian Jenkins and returned his own stripped fumble for a game winning touchdown. That's probably the best play Barr has ever made. And this rivaled it. Yes, this was an incredible play. He was getting cut down as the balls coming into his hands.

He makes an incredible play. And tell me how you felt when they just completely gave that right back in a three and out. Like, appropriate? Did you think? Because that's how I felt. I thought like, oh yeah, that kind of makes sense. Like, that's who you've been all season, more or less. And if you're going to ask her cousins to have multiple game-winning drives or game-tying drives per game,

it's just like the third downs you talk about all the time. Like, yeah, you're going to get some and you're not going to get some. And today you did and you didn't. Yeah, it's like this team just doesn't take into account the game flow and like what's actually happened in the game. If it's part of their quote unquote identity or if it's part of the plan, then they don't move off from it. And the plan is always get the ball to Dalvin Cook.

But the 66 yard run was a thing of beauty. But you have to look at the pattern. It was TFLs. It was one yard, two yards. He wasn't going anywhere. I think he had one pretty quality run right after the CJ Hamm catch. So nice chunk there. He had about three chunk runs and nothing negative, negative, negative. And I think you have to look at those, look at sort of the greater parts of the whole, like what's comprising all these runs. How did you get to 110 rushing yards or whatever it was? Was it, you know, fives and sixes kind of steadily getting there or was it feast or famine? Cause if that's the case, I don't think you should be relying upon that.

Um, and naturally, you know, and I guess I'm, I guess the first play of that was a pass. It was a very short pass to Dalvin cook for two yards. Yeah. Um, didn't accomplish much.

And then the second and eight run to cook is, you know, the real, the real killer on that drive. Tell me this. Um, and I thought this was the case on the real killer on that drive. Tell me this. Um, and I thought this was the case on the third and nine where cousins kind of threw it into an open area and it fell

harmlessly. Was cousins just lobbing the football a lot today? Did he, did he seem to lack conviction with some of those throws where he was just kind of putting a little of air under it, not much velocity, just hoping somebody wound up underneath it. That struck me a few times and didn't seem altogether Cousins-like. I haven't seen that a lot from him. You're touching on a point that I just wanted to ask you. Because, you know, all right, so the end, it ends how it ends. Like, no surprise, you don't take advantage of a chance in overtime. Guess what the other team's going to do?

They will. And so they did. And, you know, like, this is your weaknesses. Your defenses run out of gas. Your corners are not good. And eventually an MVP, who is now 36-9 in his career, by the way. Lamar Jackson found a way to win. He does that a lot, finds a way to win the Vikings. Not so much over the last few years have found ways to win.

They usually find ways to lose. And that's where I think big theme also is, you know, people will talk about how there's luck involved in close games. And I agree on an individual game, but over a huge sample size, when you lose way more of them than you win against good teams, I'm going to say it's probably you. But anyway, I wanted to ask you if you thought, because last week I went nutty at the beginning of the game and talked about how, look, no matter who's offensive coordinator here, Bill Walsh, there would still be this Kirk Cousins game. Did you feel like this was a coaching failure, something good Ravens did, or just one of those Kirk Cousins slides that continues to happen? And it's usually not just a one-off game. It's usually a significant dip that you can actually

spot if you look, and I've done this, of course, if you plot all of his games and you can see like, oh, well, there's like three or four where it goes down before it comes back up. Which one like quick pie chart on those three things? What like what percentage would you assign? Yeah, I'm as you're talking, I'm trying to. Yeah. So someone asked Zimmer about the play calling and he says, I think we changed up quite a bit, especially early. What did they change? Like I, I put a lot on Kubiak, um, but ultimately he's not, he's not playing. So you still have to look at the

quarterback. I think first and foremost, now it might be close on the pie chart. It might be, what were your three options? Kubiak cousins or what yeah it was cousins kubiak or something the ravens were doing oh sure sure sure well so i think the ravens shut down the run really well yes and dalvin cook after the game saying he thought they ran the ball well is so off base it's that's that's wrong they didn't run the ball well um i'm sorry, Dalvin. You had one nice run. But I think the Ravens shutting the run down certainly dictates why the pass struggled and why Cousins struggled a little bit. And that kind of comes down to play calling. Because if the play calling continues to put you in third and longs, there is only so much Cousins can do because he's not Patrick Mahomes and he's not Lamar Jackson and you're not going to go for it on fourth down so that does hamstring the Vikings quite a bit so pie chart I'm going to go I sort of talked myself into Kubiak here I'm going to go Kubiak 45 Cousins 35 and the Ravens 20 because I Because I think the Ravens kind of did what they do.

You mentioned it, good against the run, bad against the pass. I think you played into their hands. Yeah, I think that Cousins has these days where, and he's had a lot of them this year, where it looks great to start when he's on the script. And then when the other team starts doing something a little different, that's when it throws him off. And so I want to give the Ravens a decent amount of credit. They started, they didn't seem to blitz at first, or at least

they were doing something different. And then when they did blitz, it was at the right times and they got them. Part of that is just down in distance. I guess I should have thrown in there the lack of a run game because it matters so much to this team when they can't run successfully throughout a game that that puts it all on cousin's shoulders. And that's where it goes awry. The thing that Kevin Stefanski did really well, and I didn't think Kubiak did this Gary Kubiak last year, particularly well. And Clint has been just F minus at this is when Kirk isn't going, you sort of need something for him to do that gets him going. And what I mean is like a screen pass or something, an easy completion, something to sort of get his confidence back.

And I remember the game in Kansas City. Now it's known for the one they lost to Matt Moore, of course, but they had to come back in that game where he was really struggling the whole time. And they scored on a drive where they threw like four screens in a row and they just went down the field and score. And I think that was to go ahead late in the game or tie it late in the game or something. And he seemed to sort of get some, get some juice back there. And I feel like, I feel like they both have the same problem where Kirk, when things start to collapse, he gets antsy and Clint, when things start to collapse, he gets antsy and Clint, when things

start to collapse, he gets antsy. And so then he's like, Oh, I just better run. I bet it's a sec. I better throw a screen at Tyler Conklin. I don't know. I just, you know, it's, I mean that, look, that play's not doing anything. It, I think they had a decent play off of it maybe in Carolina, but I mean the tight end screen thing is just, I don't know, key spots. That shouldn't be your call. But anyway, I think they play off of each other. So I'm, I, I don't know what I would put for a pie chart, but I think that they're sort of culpable. It's like you cause you to not be able to be a steady hand here. And I thought that Stefanski was and Gary Kubiak was, but Clint Kubiak doesn't have that sort of cachet to him that the other two did. So here we are, Sam. So anyway, they lose the game, you know,

Justin Tucker, you give up an easy vehicle. And now we get to the point of the show where we've been every single week after these types of losses, where we say now what Sam? Or as I once screamed at you, what now, Sam? I think you are two losses away from big things happening. I've got no intel, but Spidey's sense is tingling. I mean, Zimmer is retreating into his shell right now. Zimmer has no answers. Zimmer is surly. Zimmer is a guy that feels like he knows there's pressure. And it's harder to say that that seventh seed is right there for you because suddenly you are looking up at it. You're surrounded by, you know, whicheverfc teams decide they want that thing are passing you um so you're in serious danger yeah it's still attainable but you're gonna you're gonna have to go five and four minimum probably six and three to end the season and when you keep losing coin flips like this um and you're constantly in coin flips, how am I going to assume that you're going to come out and win more coin flips than not? So I think there should be a lot of pessimism right now.

I think a win today, we're probably saying, again, the result does change the narrative. If they win, we might be having a little bit of a different conversation, but the same issues would still exist, and that's pretty troubling. So I think this team is closer to kind of capsizing than it is to righting the ship. Yeah, I think the word that I would use would be inevitability is how it feels now. That going into this game, I thought,

you know, and we talked about this the other day, decent chance that they win this game. They're at 500 and we're like, okay, well, season's still around. I mean, there's nobody special. Look, Trevor Simeon lost to the Falcons today. And apparently he's still the quarterback in new Orleans for now with Jameis Winston out. And I don't know what they're going to do with Taysom Hill. So that team's not special.

Carolina is just, oh my gosh, like just a bus fire of an organization. And I'm feeling so much better about my take at the beginning of the season that I thought they'd be the worst team in the league. They're not, but they're close. Although Jacksonville just beat Buffalo. So maybe, you know, there's no one can out bad the Texans and dolphins at the moment. So anyway, there's not a lot of competition here, but Russell Wilson's coming back and San Francisco is not complete garbage. You've got two games against the bears that I don't know. I mean, you should win, but it's the bears. So usually split it feels inevitable. Now it did not necessarily going into this week, but now it does not that they lose the

next two weeks and fire Zimmer exactly. Just that, however, this goes, we've reached the point of like passing go to where it can't be good. It just can't. I mean, the expectation, I picked them to go 10 and seven at the beginning of the year. You pick them at 11 and six. You're not getting to that now. Now the inevitability is,

your best case scenario, you're going like nine and eight and that's if you get hot. And that wouldn't have been good enough for us when we started talking about this team back at the beginning of training camp or in the off season after they had made their moves so that it feels inevitable now that this thing unless it goes crazy the rest of the way in which we will be here um now it feels like like the train is on a track and we all know where it's going who's going to ask

the money question who's going to say to zim hey mike at one and three or even at one one and two one and three oh and two early on he said this is a good team i see it we're going to win a lot of games what's different what happened that's that's what i'd like to to have answered i guess you fall back on the injury excuse but not really on offense i mean you can't you can't make that excuse for the offense so where where does the blame lie i'd like we'll see if there's any finger pointing this week um because i think zimmer might have fired the first arrow at kubiak in the postgame presser today. Yep.

And I just don't know that anyone is going to buy the, well, we lost lots of close games, we fight as a team. That's just, you know, that was last year. Last year, I could buy a lot of the stuff last year. The defense was being rebuilt. There were no fans in the stands. That's not helpful for them. You know, they had horrible injuries i could buy that

this year though not not when you did everything you possibly could as a front office to try and make it better and it's still the same in fact i mean now like you're you're not too far away from it being worse than where you were last year because the vikings got hot around this time of year it got back to 500 and now if you don't win the next two games, or even if you win one of the same record, you have the same record right now that you did last year. You have to win two games against good teams to be where you were in 2020, which is one of their bigger failure seasons of recent past.

So anyway, well, that's where we're at. Lots to come. Courtney Cronin is going to be in for for Monday morning Murph because Murph is away. And wow, that's a shame. It's her 50th birthday, but that's a shame with Murph being Murph. So we'll have that tomorrow and we will go forth. And it's only going to get more interesting from here, Sam, because of what I said about that train on that track.

There's things coming. So it'll be interesting. All right. We will be out there as always. Thanks, Sam. Yeah. Thanks, Collin.