Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings' one-score losses are not victories

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy talk about how the Vikings' argument that they are actually good despite a 1-4 record isn't holding up to much scrutiny. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. And yes, indeed, it is time for Monday Morning Murph with Brian Murphy. And just before we went on, we were having a very calm and pleasant chat about the Vikings and where they currently stand. I'm going to throw something at you, Murph. I'm going to read the other teams that are one in four in the National Football League to you. The New England Patriots, the Denver Broncos, possibly before we're recording could be the Vegas Raiders. I guess we'll see. They're playing the Packers, the New York Giants, the Chicago Bears, and the Arizona Cardinals.

That is the company the Minnesota Vikings now keep after losing to the Kansas City Chiefs. Your reaction? Well, it looks like they're kings of the dips, I guess. Is that the best I can say? If I can even say that, they're like the best of the worst. It doesn't feel like they are as bad as those teams, but their record is what they say they are, so I'm not going to give them any slack. This was a winnable game yesterday against a championship team that they contained just enough. And I think that's what's got to be the most frustrating for Vikings fans waking up this morning. Because you're 0-3 at home. You're 1-4 overall.

And it feels like you are a play or two away from not being that way. But because of the overall ineptitude of the club, not being able to make good plays, key plays at the right times, especially offensively. I mean, Harrison Smith had his moment and the defense had their moment against a rookie quarterback in Carolina last week, but lo and behold, Patrick Mahomes rolls into town and the Chiefs and Andy Reid. And despite maybe getting Travis Kelsey hobbled and somewhat ineffective, you know, Patrick Mahomes can float back on his back feet, back foot with, you know, two defenders closing in on him and unleash a 40-yard pass that somehow Cam Bryman doesn't come up with, and there you go. That's why the

Kansas City Chiefs are your world champions, and the Vikings have passes go through their hands, fumbles go on the ground in the first 10 seconds, receivers, tight ends not on the same page with your quarterback. Your quarterback was off all day. Your head coach couldn't manage his timeouts, couldn't manage getting play calls and personnel in on time. You can't beat teams, good teams, let alone world championship teams, doing those things. And that's why they're always one score behind. They're always one first down, one key stop from really turning the tide on a game, they've always been chasing that this season because what fell into their laps consistently last season is no longer, it's not even regressing to the mean. Basically, the Vikings have revealed themselves to be an unclutched team

that is clutching at bursts of opportunity, bursts of momentum, and fragmented moments where you're like, boy, this team could really be good. But, you know, five games in, you can't play that game anymore. You need to put one together. And right now, I think they're all, there's a blood on a lot of hands, and there's explaining to do. And one and four feels like about 0-6 right now. It's really sad, Murph, is that I like a good old throwdown over what pass interference is and referees in this league and the NFL rules and all those stuff that drive everybody crazy.

And yet, I just didn't feel like I had that in me when you go to one and four and when you're hoping for penalty flags to not be picked up on fourth and 12 after you got to delay a game to bail you out. I mean that they can point to those things all they want. Also Kansas city gave them a free scoring drive by committing a bunch of penalties and had way more penalties than the Vikings did yesterday. But that was where I just couldn't muster the energy to talk about, I don't know what pass interference is. You don't know what pass interference is. Why did they pick up the flag? Why don't we have an explanation for

why they didn't pick up the flag? Oh yeah, because sometimes we get a a pool reporter but it wasn't even important enough for a pool reporter yesterday the refs though uh in the xfl we got to hear from them we don't get to hear from them in the nfl when they overturn a play although clearly in my mind travis kelsey caught the ball was completely down but it would have been cool if the nfl had us open to hearing that discussion and understood what was going on. And yet that just wasn't there for me. And you know what even wasn't there for me? Kevin O'Connell game management. Oh, last year, their genius situational masters.

And now all of a sudden they've forgotten how to do it. No, I don't think that's it. I think last year they beat Indianapolis, Washington, Arizona, Chicago, the Jets with Mike White starting, Miami with Skylar Thompson starting, Andy Dalton. And this year they've had to play one score games, which I'll give you a fun stat on in a second, one score games against Philly, the Chargers, Justin Herbert, and Patrick Mahomes. Here's why the one-score stat thing is just not really indicative of who they are, though, Murph, because you call them like the king of the dip leaps. But look, they have been losing by two scores in all these games, except for against Tampa Bay. Kirk Cousins has 12 passes when the Vikings are winning this year. 12 and 161 when

they're losing. Tell me this is a decent team. Tell me it's a decent team. Oh, they just fumbled a couple times. I don't know, man. Pretty hard to argue when you've thrown 161 passes losing and 12 winning. And let's not forget if we're talking numbers, 27 to 3. That's how they've been outscored in the first quarter through five games. 27 to 3. Constantly climbing uphill, constantly atoning for mistakes, constantly having to regroup on the sidelines because of a costly three and out, a turnover, a bad defensive series. You know, Josh Oliver, God love the kid. He's trying to make a play.

He's going upfield, but that is as bad as an opening drive can be. Ten seconds into the game, you've got your head coach. You know, it's all nice and cute when he's talking about going on Amazon Prime and eBay to find all these anti-fumbling machines. I guess they exist in the world and threatening to take away playing time for those that can't handle the ball and seem to bury their hands in Crisco before every game. Yet I don't see any results tangible at all. He did make the point that, hey, we grinded through for 59 and a half minutes and didn't turn the ball over again. Yeah, well, it may not be the number of turnovers. It's the timing of the turnovers. It's the tone that it sets. Kansas City said, thank you very much. We'll take our seven points here. And other than, you know, for a hiccup of time, the Vikings didn't have a lead

at all yesterday. I want to know what seems to be the communication issues getting calls into either Cousins or the defense in these critical situations. It happened two weeks ago against the Chargers. You know, the Vikings were practically blaming the home crowd for making too much noise reacting to a positive play at the goal line. They couldn't get the right call into Cousins at the goal line. He ends up throwing a deflected interception. Yesterday, he had a key fourth down against the Chiefs, who you didn't know if they were going to go for it or if they were going to punt. And suddenly, the Vikings have to burn a timeout because they can't get the right personnel on the field. They had to burn another timeout because they were avoiding a delay of game. They burned another timeout from, as you mentioned, the Kelsey catch, which seemed

pretty obvious. You know, who's barking in O'Connell's ear? He said he doesn't regret making that decision because it's something that he wanted to, he felt like it was such a key play that maybe we get the ball back. And, you know, they're not making critical, they're not making the right decisions from a management standpoint, but they're also not, they're not coming up with plays that they had been last year, but also that are just professional plays. And I'm going to go handle that dog in a second, because even he's upset with the Vikings clock management. I don't see where, you know, the boy, the boy genius doesn't seem to be. He needs to step up as a head coach and really set a tone that either there's accountability or there's a shift in focus or there's a shift in scheme or there's a shift in approach.

Because what he's doing right now, the levers that he's pulling, they're not working right now. And I don't think there's a lot of buy-in right now to what he's saying as well. Well, I think what you saw last year, and by the way, that means you owe a dog pun. So keep that in mind, that when the dog distracts, that's the rule. We haven't had a lot of that on the show, but that is the rule. Yesterday, half the stadium was red. So that may have played into some element of it.

There were explanations for each one. There was, well, Garrett Bradbury got pulled out of the game by a concussion spotter, but I guess he had like cut his neck or something and he was holding it and they thought he was holding his head.

So they pulled him out of the game and then there was a substitution issue and then they had to use a timeout. But it has been a perpetual kind of issue this year of getting the call in, this year of getting the call in the timing of getting the calls in and getting that whole operation to work and they've taken a number of delay of game penalties and even if there are a lot of Kansas City fans who have made the trek

up and a lot of Vikings fans who sold them their tickets because they didn't believe in the Vikings against Kansas City, then, okay, that's fine. But taking a delay of game, to me, is as egregious as using a bad time out in that situation where you're facing a fourth and seven, and then you end up pushing that back to a fourth and 12 to the point where you just have to heave the ball down the sideline. Now, the whole substitution thing in football in general, you see it in college and in the NFL, teams are doing tons of substituting and rotating, and there are going to be some issues here. But there was also a timeout where you would much rather just take a five-yard penalty. I think it was earlier when they took the timeout where it was something like third and eight versus third and 13. I don't know if that's a big enough difference to waste the timeout that you could need later.

And then on the final drive, they're needing that one, at least one timeout. But at the same time though, everything has come down to at the end of the game, O'Connell and Philly is saying, Hey, we were on on side kick recovery away from potentially tying the game. Okay. It sort of felt like that yesterday. Like, hey, we were a minute six with basically no chance in this world, unless Mahomes switches jerseys, to go down and score a touchdown here.

One score away. We were this close. I don't think they were that close in that game, Murph. I think that they just got beat pretty handily overall. But, you know, if the final score is seven, well, okay. But the score was 27 to 13. They couldn't make a stop in the second half. Mahomes just cruised down the field, threw a touchdown to Kelsey.

Yeah, there was the one, you know, pass interference that's probably going to get called 99 times out of 100 when you're not, you know, facing the wide, or, you know, when you're facing the wide receiver and not turning your head to it. But I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of like moral victory stuff that's kind of going on. And I think this is what you're alluding to with O'Connell. Yes. He's going to stay positive, but also you have to address what's happening here or you don't, I don't know, because I won't will you know watch drake may play the other day and it looks pretty darn good but i don't think it was supposed to be

this ugly to start the season no and there's a lot of moral victory vibes pouring out on a lot of tongues yesterday and i and look you know if you're three and two or you're two and three and it was a valiant effort against the defending champs at Arrowhead, you know, I might bite a little bit on that. But as the great Leo DeRocher once said, show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser. You can't just dress this up and make it in rapid and feel-good vibes. There's systemic issues. There's schematic issues.

There's personnel issues. And right schematic issues, there's personnel issues. And right now it's becoming self-fulfilling. The more they talk about controlling turnovers, the more egregious they seem to be coming. And they're coming now to the point where the opening play of the game, your opening drive, you're putting it on the carpet. So it's not even, you know, when is that hammer going to fall in in the first quarter the first half or is this going to come down and bite him late in the game no it's it's it's almost as if they they are again a self-fulfilling prophecy on on the turnover battle and it's not illegal to create your own is it not, look, Mahomes is otherworldly with the football, the way he can

fling it into traffic, the way he can elude traffic. But you look at Cam Bynum and you're wondering, even live I watch it, I'm like, he just jumped too early. It's almost like that center fielder at the fence. He jumps before the ball lands. And you're wondering, look at that athleticism, look at that opportunity to make a great play. The broadcaster was talking about what a great grab it was over Bynum. Bynum mistimed his leap. And that's probably going to happen during the course of a 17-game season. But at that particular moment, when Mahomes was about to get pancaked by two defensive ends, and he literally just flings it up into an area and you can't make that play at that moment. I mean, we talk about momentum. We talk about confidence. We talk about

making the right plays at the right time. That was a backbreaker. Even their inability to move the ball early and then you get the fake punt and you squeeze three points out of that, that felt like stealing a little bit, but they weren't able to just build that confidence and that momentum on either side of the ball that gave you any sense that they were going to pull this one out. And we've talked about that week after week. There's always a moment, it seems like in the fourth quarter where you're like, this is the moment, this is the drive, this is the change of possession, this is the defensive stop, that it's going to change things. It's going to turn the tide. It's going to put them in a position to actually go out and win a game. It did happen defensively in Carolina, but again, they were playing a junior varsity team,

let's be honest, and a rookie quarterback who's in way over his head. I don't see any other scenario. You know, the one thing they have going for them at this very moment right now, and we haven't even talked about whether Justin Jefferson is going to be sidelined for a while, which we can get into in a bit, they're going to Chicago. Now, I know Soldier Field has been a weird house of horrors and house of mirrors over the years. And, yes, Chicago did show some life with their win at Washington the other night. I think this is the best opponent at the best time that they could probably pick because I think they can probably get into Fields' head a little bit

and maybe steal some kind of a win out of Chicago, gets you to two and four. And then the mother of all judgment games Monday night against a San Francisco team that looks like it's on its way to Vegas for the Super Bowl, or at least on its way to facing Philly. Tony Romo said a very curious thing in the first quarter yesterday. I love the guy as an analyst, but he said the way the Vikings have looked this season, and this was as this was before yesterday yesterday all played out. He said he could easily see the Vikings walking into San Francisco or Philadelphia and winning.

And I thought, I didn't think the dispensaries were operating here yet, because not only had they just come out in a body bag from Lincoln Financial Field three weeks ago, I see no indication that they're going to handle San Francisco at home, let alone if they're out there in January in a playoff game. So, you know, the trade deadline's coming October 31st. I know you're probably chomping at the bit because this may be what October is most intriguing about is not what the Vikings record is going to be, is what they're going to do with their roster and maybe even in their quarterback situation come Halloween. So I think fans, you got two games here. Take care of business at Soldier Field, and it's probably going to be ugly because it always is.

And then your Hail Marys against San Francisco on Monday night. And if you're somehow three and four and you're still relevant and you're still standing, congratulations. You may be in the mix until the snow flies, but if, if you lose one or both of these games, it's going to be roster intrigue from here on out. 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 games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave.

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We're broadcasting to their state as well. Good for you. It's like when somebody on NFL Network picks Kirk Cousins to win MVP before every season, you go, oh, yeah, sure. OK, so I guess you got bored in June. Like this is the point, right? Maybe if they go to Chicago and pull off a win at Soldier Field, then they get the right to get steamrolled by an actual good team. Cool. Great. Another fun Kirk Cousins season to put on the one of how many that have actually mattered. It's going to, after this, it's going to be two out of six that have mattered. And it's not all his fault.

I know the obligatory. We have to make sure we say that. Although, did you know the Chicago Bears have more points than the Vikings this year? There's some bad stats, Murph. You talk about the turnovers on defense. Well, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of them. But they're 14th in score. You're not going to beat Jalen Hurts, Justin Herber, and Patrick Mahomes by being 14th in scoring.

But you know where I would have bet they would have been right now in scoring? 14th, because that's who you are. I don't care if Randy Moss, Tara Owens, Tony Gonzalez, and Orlando Pace come play for you. You will be 14th in score until you change who is that quarterback. I mean, this is just the reality. It's who they are. It's who they're always going to be. And Kirk Cousins said after the game, this is the best group of weapons I've ever had and walks out of this building at 14th and scoring again. And I don't even disagree with him. Not only that on the defensive side, and I blame this more on playing

really good quarterback so far, but they have three turnovers cause that is the third fewest in the NFL. They have the third lowest percentage of pressures on the opposing quarterback. You're not stealing victories on defense. We knew this. The idea was that you could match Mahomes because you have weapons. Mahomes has you, me, and Dane Mizutani at wide receiver and just outperformed you at your building in front of most of their fans. It's not, there's no silver lining. There's no pat on the head. This has been as bad as they could have projected to a start to the season.

And it looked worse that the Lions just ran over the Carolina Panthers with a tractor in that game. And we're laughing by the end where the Vikings barely survived the Panthers. I mean, it's a good scenario for trade talk for sure, but it's not one that makes me think, Oh yeah, actually secretly they're good. That's the annoying thing. Secretly. They're good. Well, you don't secret your way to one and four. You don't. You don't. You secret your way to like oh and two.

Or if you're the Bengals and you have Joe Burrow, maybe his calf hurts and you're not that good. This is not secret anything. I don't even believe in them going to Chicago and winning necessarily because that's what's really stuck in me this morning is just seeing the number of of tweets and arguments and listening to O'Connell's arguments that oh well you know the games have been close congrats put it on another the games have been close banner good for you but I've had enough of that you said you were going to be competitive you're not competitive and I don't know how you get there because you have five home games left one of them you were going to be competitive. You're not competitive. And I don't know how you get there because you have five home games left. One of them, you're going to get murdered by the San Francisco 49ers.

And then you go on the road for basically the rest of the season. So congrats on doing what you should have done a long time ago and having a terrible season and setting up for drafting a quarterback. That's the best thing I could come up with. I don't have any moral victories for any of this. We almost got close. Nonsense. I just have had enough of that. I feel like I've just been bludgeoned to death. So give me a minute while I compose myself, because I'm not sure even where I can, where I can unpack from there. Look, they're done. I mean, I'll agree they're done. I'd like

to see what they do the next two weeks, because I think it's going to change not only the minds in the public, but it's also going to change the calculus in the front office. If they can't come up with one and look all, if, you know, if two weeks from now, you know, we're talking about them being, you know, two and five, two and six. Yes. I'd like to see the bloodletting begin and the roster at least try to sell something other than, hey, we battled tight. You know, the thing about the NFL is that it is the harshest glare. It reveals your vulnerabilities and insecurities so much because there's only so many games to play. So you have so much to dissect. You can't turn the page like hockey or basketball.

You're on a road trip and it's like, well, we're probably in tomorrow night. Or baseball, of course, where you're playing every day and it's more of an attrition war. The judgments and the rewards and the punishments for mistakes or lack of preparation or poor personnel choices or injuries reveal themselves so harshly in the NFL that when you are wrapping yourselves in the feel-good vibes of, hey, we played the champs tough, it's not only not selling, you're cheating yourself because you're really cheating yourself from the scrutiny that you deserve. And that means a lot of hard self-reflection. And right now the Vikings are getting into, at least in their public comments, a very defensive crouch,

which is we're better than our numbers say they are, which nobody wants to hear. And it's maybe some kernels of truth buried in there somewhere, but the reality is you're not, and you're not, you know, it makes last season look so much more gift-wrapped than it was, and maybe that 13-4 should have ultimately been a 9-7, and it would have made you turn a more critical eye on yourselves during the offseason. You're right about Cousins. We've said this for a couple of years now. He is who he is. He's baked in.

And if you are walking out of the building saying this is the most talented team I've had, and yet we're a middling scoring team that can't hold on to the ball that is constantly playing from behind and uphill, then that says a lot about you as an elite quarterback or lack thereof as well. So everybody has an opinion on Cousins and when he's to blame and when he's not and when he's an empathetic figure. And look, he took his kids to the Twins game on Tuesday. He's just like one of us. I think everybody here is a little bit tired of the which camp are you in? Where's your empathy? Where's your understanding?

He's a good person who loves to talk to the Holland Sentinel, his old newspaper, as you chronicled last week, which was a great story. But he's a 500 quarterback. He's a 500 quarterback with a losing record in the postseason who's chewing up a lot of your cap. So what else are you looking to learn at this point? What else are you going to learn? If I'm a Vikings fan, at least they can stop self-medicating and at least just enjoy a cocktail watching the Twins actually become the feel-good story in town. I don't know if that takes any of the edge off for the fan base, but it certainly gives you another shiny object to look at,

because otherwise this can get dark in a hurry. It's going to get dark just like the nights are going to get sooner, and it just feels like this is going to come to an inglorious end for a couple of people on this roster by the end of this month. 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? Like 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

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Visit betterhelp.com slash insider today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash insider. I think for me, it's mostly about like moral victories in general. Like I last year, I defended the one score wins while everyone was calling them frauds by pointing out that a lot of those wins were actually they're up by two scores and another team comes back and scores at the end and so forth. And I think it was a much better roster overall.

I mean, yeah, I think Jordan Addison is better than Adam Thielen. But when you look at the defensive side, Zedarius Smith, Delvin Tomlinson, Patrick Peterson, when we talk about the sack and interception numbers, they had bad numbers with yardage. And by the end, not very bad numbers with yardage and by the end not very good numbers with points allowed either but they did cause a lot of turnovers they did get a lot of interceptions they did get a lot of sacks and anybody who's a playmaker is not on this roster outside of daniel hunter who is an absolute beast but aside from him you know marcus davenport kind of got a thank you sack as Daniel Hunter chased Patrick Mahomes into him. And I like what I've seen from Davenport in little

spurts over the two games he's played, but nobody else is making plays. This isn't like Eric Hendricks getting a one-handed pick or Patrick Peterson running the route for the wide receiver and jumping in front of him. Heck Duke Shelly made more plays than the corners that they have here. And you mentioned Bynum. It's like, I think Bynum's had a really good season so far, but again, that's not like a huge playmaking type of player. So clearly they need that for the future. But I think on defense so far, the defense has given them enough to win if they did what they said they were going to do which is put all these weapons around this quarterback and if the number of weapons can be this talented and you still can't go anywhere with this roster then now what happens to me Murph is

I start the wheels start turning and I go back like, Oh wait, you know, in 2020, nobody, you know, wanted to tank or whatever. And then, then, you know, they came back and then they couldn't draft these quarterbacks or whoever. And then, you know, now we're talking about, well, was it worth it last year to have that fun season? And they brought him back on an extension when they could have traded him before last season. And Oh no no then who would have played quarterback well what difference does it make you didn't get past the first round and you're one and four now i mean who cared if it was gardner minshu or if it was a mccown or todd collins i don't care who was playing quarterback it wouldn't have made any difference because you didn't get anywhere else except for you would have taken an approach maybe to uh to draft one and take shots at quarterbacks who could be your future so that's what ends up

happening to me when i look at this record so when i get the well you know actually we'd be much better if we just didn't fumble eight times like oh well you know if that titanic didn't bump into that iceberg everything was going great like that's kind of how it feels here. And I guess the question then is who are we pointing fingers at? I asked Dane Mizutani this yesterday, you know, he's like, well, maybe Hockinson got overpaid. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if you're expecting TJ Hockinson to be Randy Moss and Tony Gonzalez to have to reach up and catch those balls, you've got the wrong guy, I think. But I don't know. Who do you want to point a finger at, Murph? This is a day to point some fingers, I think.

I'm going to point it at Kevin O'Connell. Just start at the top because I think, you know, he's commanding this ship, as you said, with an iceberg, you know, tearing through its hull right now. What I haven't seen is we saw what he was able to do with house money all last year. We haven't seen him manage losing very well at all. I mean, he's, you know, it's almost like false bravado and false confidence that he keeps trying to say, but for X, but for Y, we would be, you know, that's what guys at the end of the bar would say. That's not what an NFL coach should be saying. And like I said, it's kind of cute, you know, that you're going online looking for ways to,

we're doing everything we can to clean up these fumble issues. Well, right now it's eating at your team's morale. It's eating at any semblance of organization that you have in the first quarter. And what you're doing is you're constantly managing play calling, scheming uphill. You're not really able to do a lot of what you probably game plan for because you're immediately putting out fires when you're down against elite teams, elite quarterbacks, and elite head coaches who smell blood in the water very quickly. I mean, Philly, Kansas City, even, you know, you didn't even get it done against Baker Mayfield. You were talking about, you know, all the quarterbacks you're going up against.

I mean, you almost look at the home opener as that was sort of viewed as a hiccup. But I think what we saw when they were really not able to have the ball much at all, you have a team that can't make enough plays defensively that can really only just pump the brakes as hard as they can and keep teams managed. And then you have an offense with all these weapons that can't seem to get out of its own way, whether it's bad interior line blocking and injuries there, whether it's dropped passes, fumbles, miscommunications from the sidelines, personnel issues. I mean, we can add them all up. It's really not that hard to look at why they're losing and to kind of look at but for this and but for that,

it just really feels disingenuous. And one thing I'm curious how they're going to manage Jefferson this week because, oh, by the way, your best player was unavailable for the final series because he tweaked a hamstring. Now, we know how wonky and weird hamstring injuries can be. It's about being – you can manage this thing and rest him for three weeks, and he can pop it on his first route when he comes back. Or you can, you know, manage it and then have him come out

and maybe try to one-leg it. But that's not how Jefferson Jefferson plays, and that's not what makes him who he is. I mean, we see what the Twins have been dealing with Royce Lewis, but there's no designated hitter in football. You know, it's not like Justin Jefferson, you can just put him out on the, you know, in the red zone automatically or in the end zone. He's got to get there, and it's not even the plays that he's going to make.

It's downfield blocking. It's the pass plays that aren't coming to him. This is going to be interesting to see the decision they make not only this week, but going forward. And in his mind, what's he going to be thinking if he's on a two and six, three and seven team? I'm looking for a big payday. Do I want to be out two to three weeks or six to eight weeks? And only he's the one that can really be honest and blunt with the medical staff and the coaching staff but I'm just curious what your thoughts are maybe as we wrap this up I'm like what how does the Jefferson injury factor come into play with

how they may be trying to shape the present and future of this team I mean I think you hide his helmet like for weeks and weeks until it is the most healed hamstring that has ever been a full, completely healed hamstring. I don't know how hamstrings work. I have no idea. Maybe I should have looked this up at some point because players are always pulling them in sports. But yeah, unless that thing is 100, 100, 100%, you do not bring him back. And for him, he should not come back until it is. Because one, your playoff odds are barely, barely alive, barely on life support.

And also, I mean, I don't need that for the future, for being a problem year in and year out. And I can think of a number of examples through the years, Delvin Cook, 2018. I think it was a hamstring, Adam Thielen, 2019 that slowed him up so much during that season. And in both instances, they put those guys back out there too early and they pulled their hamstrings again, which happens all the time. Guys in warmups feel like, yeah, I'm feeling great. But the acceleration, the violence to those plays is more than you can emulate when you're actually out there going against someone else. So I see no reason to play him this week or next week.

I mean, after that, you want to play him against the most physical and violent team in the NFL in San Francisco? No, you need Jefferson to be here for 10 years, not 10 weeks. So I would have no interest in doing that. Who knows? I mean, every player is trying to come back.

And we saw a few players get banged up yesterday and get back on the field, some of which I wondered if that was the right move. And we'll see with Jefferson. But in the scenario they're at right now, it's probably better to just not have him and make sure that he's going to be back at full strength. And sorry to fantasy owners. That's how I look at it. Well, it's prudent. I mean, this is a long-term investment, both you're going to make with him and he's going to make with the club and

boy, you know, one in four is not where you want to put your riskiest bets, right? I mean, I think right now it's really going to be a collaborative decision among the coaching staff, the front office and him. And, you know, you know, he's the ultimate competitor. So I like the idea of hiding his helmet. But I, you know, at what point does, you know, his value become more about 2024 and beyond than about what he can rescue for you today, maybe. So these are the questions they're going to have to ponder. Okay, let's end on this.

Did I come in too hot? Was that too much? And they're one in four. But do you, I mean, I don't know. No, I appreciate the passion. I mean, I appreciate the conviction and the passion. I didn't think in this dynamic and relationship, I was going to be the one to talk you off the cliff. I thought you'd be the one grabbing me by the collar all the time.

So maybe it's just, I dread having to write 14 weeks or, you know, 12 weeks worth of what's next columns. But I think, you know, I'm going to give them the game in Chicago, even though weird stuff always happens there. And I really like to see the reckoning against the 49ers before I can maybe declare last rights. Well, they are free to turn it around. They are free to turn it around this. We knew that you can create a turnover and you can win a couple of games in a row. It happens.

Right. We knew the start of the season would not be easy, but the all shucks, we played tough teams is way too Minnesota sports for me. And, uh, I I'll, I'll never adapt that,

uh, or, uh, adopt that part of being in Minnesota is the, well, you know, we played some good teams and we had a fumble. What are we supposed to do? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Feel free, feel free not to do that the rest of the way well, you know, we played some good teams and we had a fumble. What are we supposed to do?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Feel free. Feel free not to do that the rest of the way. Quick note, though, the teams that are supposed to be easy on your schedule, the Falcons, the Saints, they have winning records today. So just throwing that out there. Anyway, that was fun, Murph. One and four.

This is how it feels. Hey, look, tune in all the time. We'll have laughs throughout this. We'll figure out a way to not take life so seriously if they're three and nine. So keep coming back. Oh, you're going to study some college football film of quarterbacks if they're three and nine. You know, you didn't want to grind tape, but you're going to start grinding tape.

Hey, after reading your book on pro football focus now, I've found interest in data that I never knew I had. And people should buy it at Amazon. Football is the numbers game. Thank you, Murph. That was clever. I appreciate that.

We will talk again next Monday and we'll see how loud the rants get because if they lose to Chicago, I'm going to have to worry for this microphone. Thanks for your time, as always. Pet your dog. And we'll talk again soon.