Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings lost to Kansas City and may have lost Jefferson to injury too

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press break down the Vikings' loss against Kansas City. Why Kirk Cousins was way down on his performance, Jordan Addison playing a great game and the defense mostly giving them a chance and what happens next if Justin Jefferson can't come back from the hamstring injury he suffered on Sunday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another recap of the Minnesota Vikings losing a one score game. Matthew Collar along with Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press. 27-20, the Minnesota Vikings fall to the Kansas City Chiefs. And I want to start by just asking you, Dane, where do you think we could begin with this? Because a lot of stuff happened today. There was pass interferences that were and also weren't. We mixed in another fumble. There were Mahomesian genius plays that happened.

There were opportunities abound for the Minnesota Vikings to potentially win this football game, and yet they come away with another close loss. And in my mind, it is just sort of another run through the whose fault is it anyway? Is it the refs? Is it this play? Is it that play? Should TJ

Hawkinson have caught this ball? Should Osborne have caught that ball? And the final result is kind of the same that they fell down two scores, tried to come back and have a magical win. And at the beginning of last year, all the magic happened and it ran out. They use their full bag of one score magic last year. Now they have nothing in the bag and have dropped to one and four all in one score game. So where do you want to go with this, Dane? Let's just start with Kirk. We always start with Kirk because we should start with Kirk and we should always start with Kirk. Yes, they used all their magic up last year, but they needed the magic because of Kirk.

They were always in these one score games because of Kirk Cousins. It's not even that Kirk Cousins was bad today. He just wasn't good when you needed him to be good. Right out of halftime, the game is tied 13-13. Patrick Mahomes gets the ball. Third and long. What does he do? He does what he does.

He was good when the Chiefs needed him to be. Third and 18, he throws off his back foot, completes an amazing pass to Justin Watsonatson who made a really good catch and they march right down the field methodically and score a touchdown what does kirk do on the next drive he goes three and out and then homes gets the ball back and he goes right down the field for another touchdown so you want to ask well why are the are the Vikings having to come back again? Why are they locked in another one-score game? Why does these pass interference calls at the end even become a question? It's because when the game was there for the taking,

Mahomes went and led two touchdown drives, and Kirk sandwiched a three and out in between. So I think that's where you start because that was the difference in the game. Yeah, I think that when they played, which game would it have been? So it was Philadelphia, and then there was another good, really good Kirk performance before Carolina. And it was like, okay, you know, this is like he's playing really good football right now. Oh, the Chargers.

So they get off to an 0-3 start. Well, Kirk played some really great football. Honestly, I had very few complaints about the way Kirk Cousins played over those first three games. But the issue with the Kirk Cousins era has so often been that there's three good games and two bad games and then three more good games and then two more bad games. And if you maybe survive, okay, you survive the good and the bad of him and be in a good place going into this game, you can get past them having a bad game against Kansas City in a game that you never expected to

win. But if you don't win the games where Kirk Cousins is the good version of Kirk Cousins, and yeah, okay, they beat Carolina surviving a bad one, but you weren't going to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, you weren't going to survive a game like this. Then that's how you fall into a massive hole. And that's exactly what we've seen before in the past in 2020 really comes to mind because you are one game away from starting the season in the same way that they started one in five in 2020, which was, it was a good game. It was a good game. And then it was that Atlanta game where it all kind of went sideways and they dropped to one in five and we went, Oh man, Kirk blew it right there. Like now you kind of lost the games where he was actually good.

And they did the same thing here. This was not a good game for Kirk cousins. There are plenty of things that we will get into that played into that, uh, including maybe TJ Hawkinson should bring in some balls after the game. He kind of felt like he was responsible for that. things that we will get into that played into that, uh, including maybe TJ Hawkinson should bring in some balls after the game. He kind of felt like he was responsible for that. And Kevin O'Connell said eight out of 10 times, they usually complete those, but there was a little bit of this, a little that, uh, Hawkinson said on one of them, he didn't get his head quite around. And then there was the KJ Osborne miss, which cousins put entirely on himself, by the way, for everybody who was fighting over that on social media and wants to trade Osborne miss, which Cousins put entirely on himself, by the way, for everybody who was

fighting over that on social media and wants to trade Osborne or whatever. But, you know, he explained that he was a little early on that progression, that Osborne would never actually expect the ball to be there and almost was able to make the play, but, you know, kind of had it whiz by the back of his head. The point just being that, you know, it wasn't a good day for him. He admitted that he was throwing the ball a little bit too high which happened on some open plays that were there for the taking and there you're not going to survive playing against the Kansas City Chiefs if you don't have the best possible version of Kirk Cousins there's another part of this too though that of course we're you know looking at him first as you said the quarterback we talk about him. The Kansas City Chiefs did a good job against Justin Jefferson.

And Jordan Addison beat them at times and had a great game. And hey, by the way, look, a draft pick that's good. Guess we should wait for a couple drafts to judge the general manager. But we'll talk about that a different day, maybe for our offseason that might start next week. But aside from that, they did a good job from the outset, slowing down Justin Jefferson, which I think sort of threw off the general, uh, progression of the offense and how it's supposed to work and forced him to go other places. And they weren't able to

have success. And ultimately Kansas city's amazing all universe quarterback who seems to always come out on the right side. We talk about one-score games are luck. Not for that guy because any opportunity he gets, by the way, you got to guess what Brady's winning percentage is in one-score games. He wins like 75% of them. It's not all luck. Anyway, the point just being that Patrick Mahomes, he had a lot of things going against him. His offensive line wasn't very good.

He was getting pressured all the time. His defense was allowing the Vikings to come back and to take the lead, and they didn't just completely shut them down. But when he had to have it, he made all the throws that he needed to make. It was third downs. It was third downs and longs. It was down the sidelines. And I think that this is one where it's like, yep, that's these two teams.

That is not probably that much better of a football team than the Vikings are right now from complete roster. And yet kind of the difference that one of those quarterbacks finds a way and the other throughout his career here has at times and has not at times yeah and and it's it's why you you you kind of hear whenever anyone talks about the Vikings and the way they're constructed they are still a quarterback away it feels like they are a quarterback away because they don't have the right one um you know Kirk in in a vacuum can be a good quarterback and we've seen it at times but to your point you just ride this roller coaster week in week out season in season in, season out. And that level of consistency just kind of isn't there. And today is a good example of that.

But on the flip side, you just watch some of the things Patrick Mahomes is able to do. Kirk just doesn't have that in his bag. And I think that can be a huge thing in big moments of the game when you need a play. You need something to happen you need your quarterback who gets paid the most money on the team to make something happen well Mahomes did it today on that third and long we saw it Mahomes did it today when he shifts the pocket over and he finds Travis Kelsey and then a couple plays later the Chiefs go and they go up by two scores Kirk's most creative play of the day which is actually a pretty good one it was a weird

little scramble where he kind of tried to do Mahomes but then he ran into Ed Ingram and then he turned back left and he had a chest pass to Cam Akers it didn't count but like he looked so uncomfortable in that situation it's just kind of who he is and you hate to kind of keep piling on because it's like we could probably say the same thing every week, but we have to, because at the end of every week, it seems like we're saying, okay, well, how did this game kind of just play out very similar to every other game? How was this close again? It's because of those plays that, that don't get made. I think you made a good point about the chiefs did a really good job with Justin Jefferson. They were physical with him. They obviously did the whole thing where it's

like the Jefferson coverage or whatever. However, Kevin Cole Connell describes it. I think he calls it the JJ plan or the JJ whatever. Teams have a very specific way of defending Jefferson. It's one guy and then it's help over the top. And sometimes a third guy can come in there. But the Chiefs clearly made a point to not let Justin Jefferson beat them. He did not. Another big thing we should note, Justin Jefferson suffered a hamstring injury and hamstring injuries in receivers, not good. So who knows how long he could be out. We saw him after the, you know, in the locker room, he looked like his normal peppy self but i think at the end of the day when you hear hamstring in receiver it doesn't bode well so it's kind of insult to injury here with the vikings dropping to one and four having another you know roller coaster game for kirk cousins and then losing

their best player yeah and so of course i can already feel the weight you're blaming kirk for that loss it was the refs don't worry we'll talk about that as well uh it's just that when we see the same movie over and over again and now all of the magic is is gone like i mean we are so far now separated from all the fourth quarter comebacks and everything else that it feels like we're kind of back to the same old discussions that we've had so many times about the quarterback and the rest of the team and the kind of overall situation where you get a three 25 game. And this is Owen seven for the last seven gym Nance games, by the way, and it's a three 25 game and it's all the

marbles kind of on the table here. And if you do not win this game, it feels like your season is completely over. I think their playoff odds after losing this game are probably going to go down to just barely alive I mean we're talking maybe like 10 chance and you could tell me about the schedule but New Orleans had a win today I mean Cincinnati looked better today it's just like you can't tell me that the rest of the season you're only going to have like three losses or even four losses to even have a chance. And being that we like you to tune into these post games and the podcast and read the articles and everything, the season's not over, but man, it wouldn't have been over if they won today. And that just always feels like the daylight dollar short of the whole era where it's not just him. It's more of an accumulation of,

well, Hey, everything goes right for a season and they're in the playoffs and they're hosting a playoff game. And it's just not enough at the end. And it's, Hey, if you get this win, then you go to Chicago,

then you face the 49ers and then it's the division games and everything else. And then, okay, maybe you could talk me into a miracle turnaround, but what happens? It's seven points short. It's one drive short.

It's, oh, we used the timeout, so now we can't go down the field and make a play. The man on the other side of the field, just to show you the difference in how it's small but it's also huge, was in a playoff game and had 13 seconds. 13 seconds at the 25-yard line. That's all he needs to go down and get a field goal. And I know they need a touchdown here, but that's all he needs to go down and win that game

was 13 seconds. The Vikings got the ball back with what, like a minute and six seconds. They threw a three yard pass and it ate up 18 of those seconds on a three yard pass. If that isn't the most like 2018 through 2021 thing that I have ever seen at the end of that game. So yeah, we're going to talk about all the other stuff, but the other guy is not throwing a three yard pass. That's eating up 18 seconds off the clock with no timeouts. Yes. It's the coach's fault for not using those timeouts. Yes. It's Josh Oliver's fault for fumbling the ball. Yes. It's the ref's fault for maybe calling harrison smith when he didn't commit pass interference or picking up a flag when maybe

it was pass interference i don't really think so but i don't know who knows who actually ever knows i let internet fight about that because i don't even know but the point is just it's always and it makes it fun to recap close and exciting games and break it down to the very detail of, hey, if you didn't call a timeout and instead you just took a five yard penalty, maybe you would have had one which would have set you up for a better position, which maybe would have helped you potentially tie the game at the end. But at the end of the day, it's the same story. It's the same conversation.

And by the way, it's the same two score lead that you're chasing all the time with this team. And so if you're trying to convince anybody after this, that there's like a comeback to be had, or there's a magical change, or there's a light switch to flip on, or even luck can start going their way and they're going to be a different team. Well, that's a pretty darn difficult sell, I would say. And this was like the last frontier of that. The last hope was here today of maybe

they're actually better than their record. They're not like they're, they're just not like this is who they are. They're going to beat the Carolinas of the world and they're not going to beat them excitingly probably. And they're going to most likely lose the games that matter the most and probably miss the playoffs. And I guess to me, I think everyone in that locker room and the press conferences was despondent because they feel exactly what I just said. They feel that way. They feel like this was the chance and now that's gone.

Yeah, absolutely. Because you look at the way the schedule plays out, like all the people who want to latch on to optimism about what the schedule looks like down the road, they're not completely wrong. It's definitely looking at it with a glass half full demeanor, but you needed to win today's game to even start doing that mental gymnastics because of what we've talked about for the past month. You lost the game. You should have won in Tampa Bay. Yeah. You had a toss up game against the

chargers at home that you could have won and you didn't. Um, so because you lose those games, you have to go out and beat the defending Super Bowl champions at home in order to do that mental gymnastics. Oh, maybe we're better than we actually are. But the reason the Vikings didn't do that today is because they're not better than they actually are. They are what they are. And, and what they are is just kind of an average team with a very limited ceiling that we saw get hot for six weeks last year. And if you take away those six weeks, they're just an average team with a very limited ceiling that loses to Daniel Jones in the first round of the playoffs. Or like this team does not make the playoffs at all. If the Vikings were to go on and turn this thing around and make the playoffs, I would be the first person to eat my hat, but I'm not wearing a hat. I'll go put one on and I'll eat it on camera on, on this purple insider podcast. If the Vikings go

ahead and turn this around and make the playoffs, they're not going to, this team is what it is. And, and you start to really worry now, like how bad can this get if Justin Jefferson is out for a week, two, three? I don't know. How long do hamstrings keep you out? I don't think it's a one-week injury, and everyone's, oh, look at the schedule. They can get hot. They can beat the Bears. If Justin Jefferson doesn't play at Soldier Field next week

where Kirk Cousins doesn't play well and Justin Fields actually looks pretty good. The last two weeks, they could easily lose to the bears too. So this thing could snowball out of control. And I think you're right. You, you saw the looks on the face in the locker room.

It wasn't like weeks one, two, and three where they're like, we can turn this around. Like, you know, it, they said that,

but I don't know if they actually believe it anymore because how could you, you're one in four staring down maybe one in five and then one in six because then san francisco comes to town it looks grim and it looks grim because this is kind of just who they are yeah i would have uh well i changed my rule this year and maybe i shouldn't have which was to always write in a loss at soldier field and i'm just gonna be saying this all week. They're playing at Soldier Field right after Friday the 13th. That doesn't seem good for a Minnesota Vikings franchise

that always gets upset there. But, hey, look at the records. They're the same. They're the same. They're the same. I mean, the same as the Bears. No matter what argument you want to make, they're the same as the bears, no matter what argument you want to make, they're the same as the bears, the most, the most criticized dumped on team in the entire NFL who has one pretty sorry win

against Washington. Who's not a good team. Their win is better though. Their only win is better. What? I mean that like that today, today was the, all right, I don't even know, but here's something I want to ask you. So Kirk Cousins said after, and I actually agree with him, he said this might be the best group of weapons I've ever had. I mean, it's pretty close. I mean, Washington, he had some beasts. He had Pierre Garçon, Deshaun Jackson, that whole group,

the two great tight ends. But this might be just as good or better. And even the running game has been pretty competent the last three weeks. I thought they ran the ball. Okay. Today, uh, when you get down two scores, can't really run the ball, but when they were in the game and they ran, it was going okay. And yet you look up at the scoreboard last week, it's 21 points this week. It's 20 points. What was it against the chargers? Like 24. It has not top 30 points. It's had some yardage totals against Philadelphia. They racked up a bunch of yards when they were down two scores

and they kind of did that a little bit again today. But why is it, I mean, is it just purely turnovers? Is it something that Kevin O'Connell is doing? Is it who the quarterback is? It's not the offensive line. they made one mistake today and the whole rest of the game kirk cousins had time to throw until the hail mary i thought the line had a very good day today gave him time to throw and there were just some inaccurate throws but the accumulation of five games here is not an elite offense and really not anywhere all that close to an elite offense and i think if there's one huge disappointment other than the record, it's that.

It's that the offense is inconsistent. It's just okay. It is not great. And we all knew that in order to win games like this, even though I thought Brian Flores had a pretty good plan today, you're going to need a top 5, 7, 10 offense, and this has looked more like a middling offense. Yeah. I think a large part of that from the first month comes down to turnovers because they'd

March right down the field. And then the Kirk would throw an interception at the goal line, or like last week in Carolina, they put up 21. They should have had more because Kirk marched right down the field through a pick six at the goal line. We've seen fumbles. We've seen crazy strip sacks from your own guard. So I think turnovers are probably a large part of why this offense hasn't been elevated. But today is a good example of the ceiling that you have. I'm just going to keep piling on. I'm sorry. With Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, because the drive you needed to have you went a three and out

and then you got the ball back the Chiefs you know they kind of sputter they go up 14 the Vikings to their credit they respond with a really impressive drive which Kirk has done like when they go down he's shown the ability to bring them back and at least make the score look respectable put them in a one score game but you got the ball back it's 20 to 27 you have a chance to go score a touchdown and you don't I get it like maybe this is a good segue to talk about the the defensive pass interference and the flag that gets picked up and Ladarius Sneed takes his helmet off and and the refs don't call that either but it all kind of feels moot to me because when you listen to Kirk Cousins talk after the game,

the fourth down where Kirk Cousins throws the goalball, the referees throw the flag, the referees talk and pick up the flag, and then they don't flag the guy for taking his helmet off. That's not the play that Kirk Cousins is lamenting. He's lamenting the third down play where he threw it to Jordan Addison on the goal ball, pretty much the same exact throw. And he said, I should have gone at somewhere else. I should have done this. I should have thrown, you know, I should have worked KJ in the flat. We would have got a first down there. All of those things, those what ifs, those, oh, I wish I would have done this differently. They culminate in not being able to find the end zone there. and maybe it's not a fair comparison

because Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback in the league hands down but I just would venture to guess that if he was down 20 to 27 in a game where they weren't playing that good the Chiefs probably find the end zone there so yeah you just you're in positions to go out and score, and you just don't. Yards, they don't really mean a lot if they don't end with you lifting or crossing the goal line and scoring a touchdown. They even had two field goals today. They had to settle for Greg Joseph field goals when Greg Joseph field goals are not going to beat Patrick Mahomes.

So the offense just sputters out at the wrong time. And I think a lot of that just has to do with the quarterback. Make Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, part of your game day. Order online during our Pizza Pizza pregame one hour before NFL games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning, everyone scores with convenient delivery

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you're seeing me shrug. If you're listening to me on the audio, I'm shrugging. I don't know. Does the NFL know? Does anybody know exactly what pass interference is to the point where they could get it accurately correct by the rule book time and time again. And I think this game was proof of that. I didn't think Harrison Smith committed pass interference. And then I also didn't really think that LeJarrius Sneed did, but it is against the rules. Take your helmet off. That's actually true. And he did take his helmet off. They didn't seem to notice, but I thought neither one of those were, they called Harrison Smith. They both went against the Vikings. All right. Well, you know, you can't split the difference and just sort of flip a coin there. But the reason I've always been hesitant is that the bigger picture on this team is it's just not good enough.

And so, like you said, there's several three and outs. And you can go back to, well, Josh Oliver fumbled right off the bat. Okay, and you didn't have to give up a touchdown there, but probably going to happen against Patrick Mahomes. You're leading at one point in the game, 13 to 10. So you got rid of that. You're, you're getting going and you're getting your momentum. You're tied at halftime and yet it's not too long after you're tied at halftime that it's 27, 13. And so, yeah, we can always get into those nitty gritties, but I, first of all, I always struggle with the refs. What am I supposed to say? Yeah. Well, you got screwed, put a W up. Like, I don't know. I mean that, that those happen in every game. I feel like I watched

so much football, Dane, that I see every single game has these calls. And there were calls that went against the chiefs today. They in fact had, I think what might've been a record of penalties on a single drive where they were just like, all right, who's got a weapon. I'm going to assault Justin Jefferson with it. That's our strategy. And we'll let them come all the way down the field.

And if I'm not mistaken, did that end up with a field goal and not a touchdown? The other team commits four penalties and you don't finish it off in the red zone. Like it's always like a day late, a dollar short. And that's why I think it's difficult. And the same thing goes for TJ Hawkinson, where he was getting slammed on social media and so forth, and he's got a big contract. So once you get it, yep, that's true. I thought those were very high difficulty catches for a tight end. He made one.

He didn't make two more. But what we should talk about that matters, all that was to say this, that Kevin O'Connell giving up the timeouts took away their chance to win at the end. And who could have seen this coming other than absolutely everyone? When those timeouts were called, when that challenge flag was thrown, look, they show it on the big board right after travis kelsey had his knee down with the ball gripped what a beast that man is by the way after getting injured and then coming back catching a touchdown in that play i can i would

date him so uh but what what an incredible i'm sorry she wasn't here today dane i'm sorry you're okay you got over it you got over it no taylor swift that's okay but he had the ball by the rule he's got complete control of the ball and goes completely to the ground before it gets taken out of his hands by josh patelis there's no reason to challenge that play i mean he explained why he did but it was pretty clear that that was not going to get overturned the toe tap review much closer another thing that went kansas city's way uh you know conspiracy people were out on that one but when it came to the kelsey one i thought it was clear as day he completely had control of the ball and his knee was down like what more do you want and so there's a wasted time out because the

personnel and the substitution wasn't right it's's at home, by the way, you notice what stadiums behind us, us bank stadium. They're at home struggling with substitutions, delay of game in a key spot in the game. How is this keep happening? Like the every week there's a silly timeout. There's a delay of game penalty, like something about the operation and today's game management with those timeouts really hurt them because if they get the ball with 106 left and they could call three timeouts, they've got a chance to tie the game, but instead you wasted again, 18 seconds on a three yard pass. So I think that at least there should be some discussion when we talk about this whole thing of why are they an average offense that the operation has not been the smoothest all year

long. Yeah, no. And it's, it's both sides, but yeah, you're, you're right. When you talk about just the delay of game in that huge moment, um, that is kind of emblematic of this offense kind of we talk about it, clicking, firing on all cylinders, kind of the opposite, not clicking, not firing on all cylinders. And that's a kind of a holistic thing. I guess if we're calling it a holistic thing, then probably part of that rests on the shoulders of Kevin O'Connell, the play caller, to kind of get these guys in the right position to get make sure everyone's on the same page. I do think it also goes back to the quarterback kind of evoking that sense of calm and in those pressure filled scenarios um but to your

point about the challenge like that is he kevin o'connell said after the game he would do it again i don't think if he watched the film he would go actually like if he went back and was honest with himself watch the film tonight i think he would answer tomorrow and i don't think he would do it again that was the classic hope challenge i hope this is this is a thing that could change the game because wow that result was really good for us so if the refs you know screw up then wow that that'll be good for us like you see coaches kind of throw that hope challenge flag a lot and that's what it was for kevin o'connell in that moment and it was huge um we can say whatever we want about this player not knowing his assignment or that how we see these jumbling cycles in and out uh on on possessions or really important plays that you

have to go take that time out but whenever you burn up three timeouts with 905 left in the game that's just on the coach and and it just is so I think if anyone has shown their ability to be self-reflective it is Kevin O'Connell I'm sure he's not really satisfied with how he managed the game as a whole um but yeah I mean there were kind of a collection of things that led to this oh down the stretch one minute left down by seven impossible situation because you have Kirk Cousins as your quarterback and no timeout so and by the way no Justin Jefferson on the field that would have really significantly helped in in that hurry up you know we need to go score touchdown situation but frankly with the way the offense and the operation look today I don't know

if Jefferson being on the field would have made a huge difference. It just never really felt like they were going to go down and tie that game. It really felt like to lose by seven. It was a collective effort. And that's why it feels weird to talk about them as the same record as Chicago, by the way, Chicago, the same record with a worse win. It feels weird to talk about them that way because you see the talent that they have. And even today, I was very impressed with some things on the offensive side. Like they lined up Jefferson in the backfield on a play.

They had motion on a play, a few plays actually that created open receivers. Jordan Addison is just really good. I mean, he is off the line of scrimmage in the red zone. He is pressed up and he throws like an Iverson crossover at the guy gets across, works his way through space and grabs the football. Beautiful play. He is open all the time. He's a good receiver. Like there's a lot of things that are going right. And it seems like that there's devil in the details with all of it. And that's part of it, like the misuse of the timeouts. And yet when I am criticizing a coach for misusing the timeouts, I feel like I'm 78 years old and this would have

been done something that we did like in the nineties of, Oh, you know, this coach needs to figure out his timeouts. Like, I don't know, man, look at this team. They're one in four. Right. And so there's part of me that says, yes, absolutely. The game management I think has been overall. Okay. For Kevin O'Connell, but there was a fourth down. Your team's been great on fourth down and has all these weapons and they kick a field goal. And who was it yesterday? Arizona and USC. I stayed up until one in the morning watching that football game. And Arizona does not go for two to try to win the game.

Same thing, Washington against Philadelphia. It's like, Hey, message you guys. Caleb Williams plays for the other team message to you guys. That's my homes. So you're going to have to beat him with touchdowns not field goals and to kick a field goal it kind of felt like all right they're going to play it this way today they're not really going to push it down and they converted a fourth down another spot had actually some really excellent fourth down conversions the rest of the game but it becomes

a forest through the trees like yes I think there's criticism to be had there, but also, yes, they could have overcome that. Now we're 30 minutes in and we have not talked about the defensive approach at all. And the reason is because I thought it was fine. I thought that Brian Flores did everything he could. And even that third and 18, which is an incredible play and Bynum is like inches away from knocking that down. I don't know how many quarterbacks, by the way, people are saying, oh, Bynum's got to pick it off. It's just luck.

It was just an arm punt. Okay. Do you know how far he threw that football with Daniil Hunter right here? Sideways. Like, yeah. You know why it got over the safety? Because there's no way in god's name he thought he was throwing the ball that far that's why anyhow so he had blitzes that caused problems

for mahomes he had moments in the red zone where they succeeded they sacked him a couple times he got sacked today as many times as he's been sacked all year i i don't know what else was really supposed to be done and a couple yes a couple flags went their way i don't know what else was really supposed to be done. And a couple, yes, a couple of flags went their way. I don't know what else was supposed to be done against Mahomes and against that offense. They didn't let them run consistently. They forced him to be a wizard to make some great plays. They, they knocked down a couple where he was doing genius things. And if there's anything to take away from this truly horrendous one and four start to the season, it's that I think Brian Flores knows what he's doing. I mean, I think he's actually done a very

good job. Perfect? No. But if you're right there in the game when that guy's playing and he's throwing around the way he was today, I think you've done a pretty decent job where they had a chance to be in it if the offense was successful today yeah it is interesting that we are a half hour and haven't talked about the defense because honestly going into today I thought well what's going to happen is the offense is going to be able to hang with Kansas City and we'll be there at the end of the day talking about wow look at this defense again but we're not because they were fine like were they perfect no i don't think you're going to be perfect with that collection of talent and i i think there were plays to be made that

that didn't get made yeah sure you'd like cam bynum to to knock that ball down he even wore that after the game like mistimed his jump to your point mistimed his jump because superman dropped back threw off his back foot foot and chucked it 45 yards. And Justin Watson made a really good catch, by the way, too. So there was an interception that Mackay Blackman kind of went, had go through his hands. There were a couple of plays where it felt like, you know, the Vikings had Patrick Mahomes bottled up and they couldn't, they couldn't finish. But those things are probably going to happen when you you look at the roster and you're really honest with yourself but i thought the plan worked

and i thought it was somewhat encouraging i don't know how much we can say is encouraging when when the vikings are sitting one and four but i i don't think the defense is going to be good enough where when when brian flores got hired in february people were like the defense is going to be good enough where when, when, when Brian Flores got hired in February, people were like, Oh, he's going to be here for one year and he's going to leave. He's not going anywhere. I don't think, I don't think anyone's going to give him a head coaching job after this because there's defense is not going to grade out very well at the end of the year because of the talent they have.

But I think if you look at this with like a scope down the road and this game can kind of be a microcosm of that kind of hope that you see is like the scheme is going to work when the talent is kind of there to catch up and the fact that you were able to kind of limit this Kansas City offense which you know the weapons you can say what you want about who Patrick Mahomes has throwing to throw the ball to. Kelsey was still out there today. He came out and he battled through an ankle injury and Mahomes is always going to be great. So it doesn't matter the limitations like that offense is always going to be good because of the quarterback and the Vikings were able to kind of contain it for most of the day. Defense is not why they lost the game today.

So I, which was kind of a surprise to me because that's what I thought we'd be talking about. Purple Insider is brought to you by BetterHelp. Friends, have you ever had times where you felt like your brain is getting in the way? Maybe your brain is racing and you can't fall asleep or you can't slow down negative, intrusive thoughts and you know you should look for help but you haven't brought yourself to do it yet well therapy can help you figure out what's holding you back so you can work for yourself rather than working against yourself therapy can be as simple as finding training methods for yourself to learn positive skills

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H E L P.com slash insider. Yeah. You know, the funny thing about the season, the way it's played out is if they were three and two right now, two and three, maybe I feel a little different, but if they were three and two and one,

some of the games that they should have early on the season, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles, then I think we'd be talking quite a bit about Brian Flores' turnaround defensively that even after this game, it was not a very efficient game by Patrick Mahomes standards. I mean, this is a guy who generally in his career averages like eight yards a pass and is the most prolific passer. Even on the road, I looked this up on the road. This the most prolific passer even on the road i looked this up on the road this man has 110 career quarterback rating on the road he did not do insane things to them statistically today it was kind of a slog they forced him they actually did the thing for the most part outside of that one amazing catch on the sideline that ed donatel claimed he was

going to do last year which was forced teams to have play after play after play. And they converted a ton of third downs because the man is a genius and a wizard, but they actually put them in a lot of uncomfortable positions. They didn't let Pacheco run over them. Uh, the run game was pretty well stuffed again, which every other game than Philadelphia, they've done a good job there. And if they were three and two or maybe even two and three, I think I'd be saying, look, this loss was kind of weird, but it wasn't that bad. And some strange things happened. And I think that there's some good signs for the future, but it's impossible to say that when you go to one and four, I mean, if they had pulled off a win today, Flores would be a huge part of the conversation. So I feel like we have to talk about that, how he did put them in a position to be right

there at the end. And they did get a couple of stops. They, I mean, think about this. They've been really good on some of those short situations to the point where Andy Reid was like, ah, let's punt it back to him instead of going for it in those final moments. Or maybe he also saw Justin Jefferson on the field and thought, no, no way. But, uh, I think it was as much to do with the fact that they had stuffed the run. Well, they ha they, you know, have, have done well in those, uh, short yardage situations overall, they forced them, you know,

to convert a lot of third downs and they actually did pressure and make Mahomes uncomfortable. And if you were telling me that Justin Watson had to make two amazing catches and, uh, Ross, Justin Ross, is everyone named? Okay. Uh, there's so many Jalen's and Jaden's that, uh, you know, it's hard to say, but Justin Ross made a great catch down the sideline. That guy's not been very good in his career. And they mostly limited Travis Kelsey throughout this game. Like there's a lot of good things that happened on the defensive side that you would be interested to see how it progresses through the season. Had it not been for the final score and the way that the offense performed, but that's the game we always play. Now let's talk about Justin Jefferson's injury. jefferson is out for any amount of time

i think you all know what everyone's opinion is going to be and that is a correct opinion because he has driven this offense for two straight years i i don't know i mean i don't know what you do at that point at that point your offense is not going to be all that good and you could lose to anyone on a given week if he's out and uh you know cousins pointed out it's remarkable how he's never been hurt throughout his entire career and doesn't it feel like the football gods saw what they did last year and just said oh no you're gonna pay for that buddy whatever deal they struck with the devil for a handful of games last year

it has come back to haunt them this year and i feel like jefferson limping off the field was my okay this season is just not gonna go the way you guys thought it was gonna go yeah no it is everything that like could go wrong has gone wrong for the most part this season so far they were only a few plays from losing to Carolina last week and just kind of sitting 0-5 right now so yeah the season itself and we've talked about it pretty much at length through the first month about all the one score games regression to the mean it became kind of a buzzword and I don't think we're going to talk about anymore because there's no reason to talk about the one score games anymore. Like it's pretty clear last year was an anomaly, but to

your point about Justin Jefferson, if he's out, the Vikings are underdogs in every single game. He's out as far as I'm concerned, Chicago. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, that's, that's fair, but I don't know. I mean, probably if it it's if you're making the line in vegas they're probably not going to make the vikings underdogs in that game maybe the better way to phrase it is they could lose any game that he misses because how important he is to the operation the operation that at times this year has not looked great but he has the ability to just make you look good, even in situations where 95% of the league, it would look bad. I think some feeling for optimism is Jordan Addison is really good. He was awesome today.

He's going to take on a bigger role if Justin Jefferson misses any time. Can he handle that when Jefferson isn't drawing two, three, four defenders? Can KJ Osborne step up? Like the collection of weapons is great. And then Kirk Cousins is right. But the straw that stirs the drink is Justin Jefferson. And your collection of weapons without Justin Jefferson is not that great. It's a rookie receiver who's shown flashes and is going

to be a really good receiver in the league. It's a very highly paid tight end who at times has kind of underwhelmed this year. It's KJ Osborne, who I think he's pretty good, but there's limitations there. So the weapons are obviously, I'm not breaking news to anyone here. The weapons are very much driven by, by Justin Jefferson's greatness. And if he misses time, the Vikings are going to be in a lot of trouble, just up and down the, you know, the entire team. You're a hockey guy. It's like saying, you know, Hey, the penguins have a lot of other good players other than Sidney Crosby. But if the penguins are without Sidney Crosby, that is not the same hockey team. And the same, it feels the same way without Justin Jefferson. And then, I mean, look,

if you go to Chicago without Jefferson and don't win that game, it's not, I mean, it's not just over. It's like over, over to the point where we're talking about, does anybody want a lightly used Daniel Hunter? Does anybody want a lightly used daniel hunter yep does anybody want to trade for i don't know ezra cleveland's a free agent after the year somebody need a guard teams need guards you mentioned kj osborne we are having a very serious discussion about that and and that's really the thing that today could have kept alive and does truly defeat not just because of the record, because the one in four record, you could say, all right, well, that gives you maybe four losses to work with the rest

of the way. Uh, maybe you could split with Detroit. Maybe you can sweep the Packers of Jordan love stinks. Maybe you could beat the bears twice. All right. Vegas, Denver, all not in any kind of order. Uh, maybe you could talk me into it because i do think there's a lot of talent on this football team and they are not like garbage by any means they're not i've been saying the chicago bears loudly multiple times on the show but they're not the bears they're they're a much better football team than them but where if that ends is talking about Justin Jefferson missing any time or having to come back, and then is his hamstring back to 100%?

Please do not play Justin Jefferson until his hamstring's 100%. I'm also not certain, and I don't want to speculate on injuries, that TJ Hawkinson is going to be 100% going into next week. He took a very hard fall at the end of that game. He came back in. Who knows? Garrett Bradbury was taken out at one point as well. I mean, that was a physical game where they got some injuries. Caleb Evans, who I think has had a pretty decent start to his year, also got hurt. Knee injury.

Andrew Booth is out there at one point. If the injuries start to pile up, this could go in a bad way. I don't want to get into the discussion today about what happens if this goes in a bad way. I don't want to get into the discussion today about what happens if this goes in a bad way. I think we all know that draft wise, that's not the worst thing that's ever happened to the franchise. But after today, not just what happened, not just the final score, not just the record, but how it went, how they come out of this makes you think it's not crazy that this could be a one and six start to the season or worse yeah no because there's not been anything to this point to show you otherwise like you can't latch on to something that's not there and i think early in the season it was like oh that loss to Tampa Bay in the season opener that's a fluke that's a week one loss they're gonna be fine and then they go get pretty much

railroaded by the Philadelphia Eagles on the road four days later I know the score looked close it wasn't a close game we were there and then you lose to the Chargers and then it just starts you barely beat the Panthers and then you do what you did today like if we're just saying like oh this is a this is a good team they're gonna figure it out i think we're holding on to last year and at the beginning of every training camp whatever preseason all the players and coaches say like this is not last year it's not and so i i just don't see like do i think they will beat the bears honestly yes but also this is me shrugging my shoulders on if you're listening like i don't know like there's nothing that gives you confidence that that this vikings team is just going to go out there and hammer a team that they should beat because they didn't do it last week they hung tough this week to a degree they enter next week's game probably as the

favorite but I just don't feel good really about them in any matchup because of what they've shown us this isn't piling on this is just kind of what they've shown us to this point for five weeks is that I don't know how you could feel that all too, that optimistic. So they're a little over a quarter of the way through the season. Dane, is there anybody that you want to, I don't know, throw some stones at for this? You want to blame anybody? I mean, of course, like we've talked about the quarterback and so forth with Kirk. I, I actually don't really blame Kirk for the start because he did play well in games where this team fumbled the ball away or defensively they weren't good enough. But also it's just who you should always have expected Kirk Cousins to be when you brought him back. So if you expected him to just carry you past the homes and be Peyton Manning, well, that probably wasn't going to happen.

If you expected him to play better than he did in those first three games, well, I don't know what you could actually ask from him in those three games. And they won the one where he didn't play well. So it's like a big picture versus small picture on the Kirk Cousins discussion. But is there stones that you want to throw at anybody else for this one and four start? Or is this just who we knew they could always be? Because I remember being asked during training camp, like, Hey, could this seem like based on the schedule start one and four, two and five. And my answer was always, yes, I, and I could have seen the exact opposite. And that's like how close the score differential has

been. Uh, but I think we could always see the two sides of this team where if you had things go right, yeah, you could start off pretty well, but there was always a universe where they could start off just like this. And I think this is where they are as a team. And I'm not going to rant about it today, but this is where they are in the progression. And when you take all the good players off who are veterans and experienced, you know, like you're probably going to hit more road bumps and you're going to have more mistakes and things like that. So in a way, it's like how I thought they could be.

In another way, it's inexcusable because how did this happen? There were opportunities and there's players on offense. And it's a little bit, I don't know, it's like a little bit of a hard position to decide how I feel about. Yeah, if we're nitpicking and we're assigning blame, which is probably not fair to assign blame on one person for this start, even as much as I've filed on to Kirk Cousins in this podcast, it's probably not fair to put it squarely on his shoulders. But a guy who I think you probably need to see more out of moving forward is TJ Hawkinson is the guy who just became the highest paid tight end in the league before the

season started. And there's just snapshot moments from the first month of the season that I can, I can say, yeah, he needed to be better there. He needed to not fumble the ball on the, on the opening possession against the Los Angeles chargers. He needed to catch the ball on the on the opening possession against the Los Angeles Chargers he needed to catch the ball on on that play that calamity down the stretch in week three where they can't get the call in and they should have called the timeout or they should have spiked the ball they didn't have any timeouts they should have spiked the ball and the play gets off and and we all blame Kirk after because we should but Kirk also kind of threw a dot to TJ Hawkinson there and TJ Hawkinson didn't catch it. It's a hard catch to make. There's catches today that are hard catches to make.

And Kirk Cousins talked today about how a lot of his throws were high. He doesn't know why. But why I picked TJ Hawkinson if we were nitpicking here is because you should catch that if you are the highest paid tight end in the league because there's an 87 on the other team today Travis Kelsey who he makes those catches he does the third down where it was a huge play in the game because Travis Kelsey converted the third down that the Chiefs end up going to score but it was also a big play because it it cost the Vikings a time out that's a really hard catch to make the one he makes over his head holding it on almost looked a

little bit like the David Tyree helmet catch the way he was able to kind of grasp that ball when it didn't look like there was really any surface area to grasp over a well-defended pass by Josh Metellus was in coverage there. Well, TJ Hawkinson, he hasn't had that catch yet this year to me, and he hasn't had that moment. And I'm not ready to go out and say, oh, this was not the right signing. You overpaid a guy like this. But I'm just saying if you're 1-4 four right now he's someone you want more out of and and we could do this with with a bunch of guys but he's the one that comes to mind because justin

jefferson's held up his end of the bargain week in week out sans this one um and i don't think tj hockinson's had that marquee game where it's like oh yeah this is why we paid him all that money so i i think he needs to when you get the you know, the expectations follow. And I'm not sure he's totally lived up to them yet. No, I completely agree with you. And I was very much on the side of like, this guy's a really good player. He's a great weapon. You want him set up for the future. And it has not been through this section of the season, what you wanted it to be. But the problem is when you get to one and four at this section of the season, it almost doesn't matter what you do after this.

I mean, you could have the best run of how many other, it was a 13 games, 12, 12 games, but Oh my gosh, 12 more games. But like 12,

12 games, you could be amazing the rest of the way. And he was really, really good for them last year. But when the big moments were there for him to make a play, Kirk Cousins has put it close enough where if you have great hands, you make that catch. And if you are one of the highest paid tight ends in the league,

you have to make those catches. I agree. And I think DJ Hawkinson agrees after listening to him talk after the game. And of course, Kirk's going to say, could have put it there was too high. You're right. And that is kind of, again, that, uh-oh, Kirk's having a little bit of an off game, which means that how are you going to make up for that? Are you going to have a great defensive performance?

Is somebody going to make an ungodly catch like they did in Buffalo? And that's how they won that game. Even though Kirk had started off really poorly. Someone did something heroic. And a lot of times it's one guy, Justin Jefferson. But this could have been, this is a little rough. It could have been Johnny month this year, and it wouldn't have been different from the tight end position is you got to prove that it's different. So I completely agree with you that that so far, that extension again, though, I thought

it was the right move has not worked out so far i think the actual build of the defense uh with a lot of young players getting opportunities who have played quite well has been workable i mean that's what i would call it like the secondary we thought could just get killed every game and yet evans has been pretty good uh blackman came in you know he's been okay when he's been in hasn't gotten a lot of play. Murphy up and down. That Chargers game was tough. Thought he was good today.

And the Cam Bynum, again, there's a play here. There's a play there that maybe are there to be made today. But I thought he also made plays in this game and has made plays through the start of the season. So they've got the bones of something to work with that I'm interested to see where this goes. But right now, they are teetering on the season. So they've got the bones of something to work with that. I'm interested to see where this goes, but right now they are teetering on the edge. We'll just put a, a period on the sentence of this podcast. They are teetering on the edge of this season being completely blown up to it. Just going off the rails bad. They go to Chicago with a chance to at least make an argument that they're still alive and then say, Oh, well, we just have to upset San Francisco. And it was always going to be this way where you had to upset Casey or San Francisco. So is it completely over?

It's not completely over. And if it, if they do lose to Chicago though, it's getting ugly after that. And we're like an evaluation mode for everybody, including the coach, all the players, the whole roster. Who's the next quarterback? We're watching football every Saturday. I mean, we have gone now to the point where we are at the brink of going over that edge. And I'll tell you, professionally, not been here in quite a while. I mean, when I lived in Buffalo until 2015 and moved here for the 2016 season, I went through this a lot. Like Ryan Fitzpatrick played there.

E.J. Manuel played there. And they were going 6-10 every year. We got to pretend for the first half of the season that maybe they just need a couple wins at whoever beat jacksonville and it'll all be fine and they would lose and like that's what that that feeling is back and you know 2020 even the schedule was so awful after they started one and five that i believe they were going to be in the race so we've really never this week if they lose it's almost uncharted territory since i've been covering the team to feel like, no, this

is a truly awful football team, sort of dressed up with some decent players. Kind of reminds me of like late Matt Ryan, Atlanta, where people would be like, no, Matt Ryan's playing. Okay. And they'd be four and 12. That's, that's kind of how it feels right now. So that's my final thought is just this game has now pushed them to the edge of this season could be over next week if they can't save it against Chicago. And you could talk about refs and you could talk about timeouts and you could talk about whatever else. But this was, well, they won't be talking about trading Kirk cousins. They won't be talking about all of these other blow it up scenarios

this week. I don't think we're going to necessarily be talking about it because of who they are staring kind of down the barrel of, but if you lose next week, what this loss did is it opened the door for that conversation to reignite next week so yeah it could be a much different tenor tone of what we're we end up talking about post game if they lose next week because frankly if they lose next week the results wins losses you'd almost prefer losses if you're the vikings at that point because if they lose next week to the bears it is done it is over there's no chance that you're gonna go be that point, because if they lose next week to the bears, it is done. It is over. There's no chance that you're going to go be optimistic and dig yourself out of that hole.

And I think they know that they're probably what's going to happen. So probably going to win next week and then they'll probably get wiped by San Francisco. And then we'll be here. We are talking about this all again. But yeah, you better win. You better beat the bears.

It's going to be a weird situation for us in Chicago next week because their press box has nothing like this, which has been really great. So we're going to have to figure that out. We might be in like a hotel or something. I've done that in the past after bears game. So we'll see how that works out. Uh, I will always remember this game as the time that Taylor Swift's fans were really mad at field turf, tough break for Travis Kelsey today, but came back and of course scored a touchdown because why wouldn't he? So thanks everybody for watching slash listening.

And we will see where this goes. We'll have a lot of analysis of what happened here today, continuing on the channel and the podcast feed and go from here, which as you mentioned, just because the season might come to the brink does not mean that the drama will end. There will be quite a bit going into Chicago feeling like it could be over. And then after that, depending on what happens, are they going to bring it back? Are they going to blow it up? It's never, never boring here at U.S. Bank Stadium. So, Dane Mizutani, Pioneer Press.

We'll see you. We'll see you next time. We'll see where this whole thing goes. I don't know what else to say. It was bad. It was a bad loss. That's pretty tough. All right, we'll see you next time.