Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings suffer some serious Hurts in Philadelphia

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic break down the Vikings' miserable loss to the Eagles. Was it scheme or players struggling? Were there some call backs to previous Kirk Cousins games of the past? Is the truth in the middle of Week 1 and Week 2 with this team and what does that mean for the big picture? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Post. Minnesota Vikings had a big game on national television and somehow disappointed the masses. Podcast Matthew Collar talking a little more softly inside of the Philadelphia Eagles press box here following a 24-7 loss to the Eagles in which the Vikings did not score a point or allow a point in the second half of the game.

Kirk Cousins threw three interceptions, posted the fourth worst quarterback rating of his career. And in the first half, we thought it was going to be all the defense that was going to get shredded after this game, which they very much did by Jalen Hurts, who, by the way, is capable of throwing the football as he proved in this game. And you know what helps is when no one covers the wide receiver and he goes for a 53-yard touchdown. You see when that happened last week against the Packers, the guy dropped it. Well, Quez Watkins did not drop it this time

and cruised into the end zone for a touchdown. It was a dominant performance from Jalen Hurts in the first half. Then the Eagles did actually a really good job for the most part of just draining clock, draining clock, but they still tried to Eagles a little bit and let the Vikings back in the game. They gave opportunities on a blocked field goal and an interception by Jalen Hurts and the Vikings refused to take advantage on this day. And what I find interesting, Paul Hodowanek with me from WCCO radio. So Paul,

what I find interesting about this game is a couple of different things. I mean, number one is that the storyline changed so quickly and we went from, oh boy, what a defensive debacle in Philadelphia to, oh wow. The belief in Kirk did not change the fact that he had the meltdown game against a team that checked all the boxes. They had an elite corner who made big time plays in Darius Slay. They had a dominant defensive line who caused problems. And they also had open wide receivers, one of which dropped an easy touchdown pass in Irv Smith Jr. Others that were missed. And when we just got done talking to Justin Jefferson, he said at times he felt like he was open and there were plays to be made and

they just didn't happen, which I felt the same way watching from upstairs. And you know what it felt like, Paul, is wind out of the sails for all the fans who got super excited in week one. And also how many times like is, are we living in a repeat or a flat circle of how many times have they had this exact same situation where they excite everyone with a big win or they're back in a playoff race or they beat the Packers. And then the very next big game, the one that they really need to sort of show who they are. They come up short and remind everyone of their flaws.

And their flaws were all over the place tonight. They didn't do a great job of pressuring Jalen Hurts because it's really only two guys who are relied upon to pressure. The secondary is just shaky. We've known that since training camp, since the offseason. On the offensive side, the Kirk cousins, what is going on out there? It just has always existed. And it very much showed up tonight, even though he was given multiple opportunities. Anybody who's watched this team over the last four years can think of about 15 games that are just like this. A couple that come to mind

from 2018 in Chicago, when the defense gave them chances to win and they couldn't do it Seattle in, uh, in 2018 and just, you know, so on and so forth. Um, how about the Falcons? The one where they, you know, went to one in five at us bank stadium, where there was a couple of interceptions from cousins and the game was just over. Um, yeah, I think that it's, it's really interesting how the narrative shifted so quickly from, oh, this defense might have some flaws, which isn't that huge of a deal. If you get in a shootout with Jalen Hurts and the Eagles and you play an incredibly exciting game because your super unique offense that now all of a sudden supports Kirk Cousins comes through for

you, but it didn't. And I think that that is the most disturbing thing of all, is that a talented defense that has given up, or had given up some points in week one, but a talented defense with a good defensive line, it just remains the kryptonite for this team. How about the 2019 game against San Francisco, where Cousins averaged like four yards a pass and the defensive line just dominated.

We've seen the movie so many times before. And the whole thing is it's supposed to be different. But then there's another part of me that says, or was it just a no good miserable bad night that they'll bounce back from in just a few days. So there are all of my thoughts at once. Now, Paul Hoda,

how are you and a reaction to all of that? at once. Now, Paul Hodowanek, how are you and reaction to all that? I'm good. Yeah, I think the best summation I have is like scheme can only do so much. And so, like you said, we've seen this iteration of this game over and over again. But at some point, shit hits the fan. Like Irv Smith drops a pass and several other players drop a pass. And the offensive line can't stop anyone. And it comes into Kirk's hands when he's under pressure on third down on big plays.

And, you know, he threw up at several balls that could have been picked. He ended up with three. He probably could have had more. But yeah, I think when, you know, we're sold this bill of goods of this is a new regime, this is a new team, but largely this is the same personnel. And so the fact that they had one of these games based on the personnel alone isn't quite surprising whatsoever. We've seen Kirk Cousins put up games like he has before.

Now, this one was really bad, probably one of the top five worst performances he's ever had, but he's certainly capable of something like this. We've seen this. It happens every once in a while. If the Vikings get no pass rush on the defensive side of the ball, we've seen what that looks like, but basically all their big additions, their additions that you can expect to have an immediate impact on this team came up front with Zedaria Smith and Harrison Phillips, and even Jordan Hicks to an extent. Like if they're not getting pressure, Patrick Peterson, Harrison Smith, like they're both a year older, like this, this secondary shaky. So I think from a personnel standpoint, all of the

things that happened today could have been expected because we've seen this, basically this exact personnel get into situations and games like this before. The one caveat we've seen this, basically this exact personnel get into situations and games like this before. The one caveat we had is this is a new coaching staff. This is a new way of doing things. And so we're going to try to limit these disasters. And I think what we're learning is that only can take you so far when you have these players and eventually it's just going to come down to, can they make plays? Do they know what to do in the big moments and this team has consistently come up short in those big moments and it happened again tonight there's plenty of other reasons we'll get into as why but that's that's a major summation for me is this we you know we we thought maybe things would be different this year and

I think last year or last week was about as good as everything could look. And I think tonight's probably about as bad as things can look. So the truth and the way this team plays is probably going to lie somewhere in the middle. They're not going to be, after one week, you probably saw it, if you only judged off that week, you're saying, oh, the Vikings kind of fringe Super Bowl contender based on how they played last week. Today, you'd think, are they in the running for the first overall pick? Neither of those things are happening, folks. Like this is after two weeks, they're one in one that probably

could have been expected coming into the season. And they're probably still right on the fringe of contending for the division. I don't think they're as bad as they showed themselves to be today. And they probably aren't as good as they showed themselves to be last week. And I think that just consistently, if we're going back to the theme of how they've looked in previous years, that's what it's looked like in previous years. And so I think they're at this point, they have to prove to us that this can be different than it has in previous years and the magic of a new coaching staff and a new way of leading and all those things can pay out in the long run and i think week after week after week

that can happen like they didn't bounce back well in mike zimmer teams of the past maybe this will be different and they can bounce back on short rest and that would be a noticeable difference but we we don't know that yet we can only judge them off two games. And right now it just feels very typical for teams like in most recent years, very typical for how this Vikings team operates. Yeah. Especially the part about big games. That's where I think if you're feeling like you've seen this before, or you've lived this reality before it's that, I mean, we've said the stat a number of times, but you know, the jets beat more winning teams than the Vikings since Kirk cousins got here. And the jets are the most putrid franchise in the league. I mean, and here you are against the Philadelphia team that I think is very much

legit with a quarterback that is very much legit and is developing and is an improving and through the ball very well tonight and made good decisions except for the one well I kind of bounced off the running backs hands I needed to take another look at that one I kind of thought Hurts should have just spiked it in the ground but also they should have just been running the ball because the game was absolutely over at that point if they run and punt but he made incredible plays he made plays with his legs this guy can plow over people like Derrick Henry at times into the end zone, but he also made a lot of throws. They schemed well, but maybe the most concerning thing that was said in the locker room was Patrick Peterson said they didn't really do anything schematically

that they didn't expect. He knew the route combinations that they were going to run and they just executed better, which is kind of bad, right? Like that means that their players were just better than your players, but we expected the defense to have these moments. So I wasn't surprised by that. Like you look over the defense and you go, all right, you're really reliant on two players pressuring the passer. Your linebackers are veterans, but they're also on the older side. So they're not just going to make like unbelievable plays all the time.

Your secondary has its flaws. You have inexperienced players. You have, you know, and cam Bynum and cam Dantzler, there's a miscommunication there. It leads to a touchdown. These things happen though.

Like this is the NFL. It happens all the time. Teams score lots of points all the time every week, but you have to come back in the game when the door opens. And we see more comebacks on a week to week basis than I can ever remember in my life. And I was watching Arizona and the Raiders the other day, and Arizona's left for dead early in the game. And then they shoot back. Miami is, is totally dead in that game. They come back with offense. That's how you win. It's a lot of times who has the ball last in the NFL

these days. And here it was again, that, you know, the Eagles opening the door, they block a kick, they get a pick. And then all of a sudden you have a chance and it's, and it's not only just like you have a chance, but you've got the ball in the red zone and you've got a chance and there's two huge interceptions. And it's once again, with those interceptions or turnovers coming at kind of the worst times, the sacks coming at kind of the worst times. And that has been the MO of this Vikings team and this quarterback in these games. And I think that when we talked about skepticism about whether you could change the stripes of a tiger, as I'm wearing a striped shirt, by the way, whether you could change the stripes of tiger, this was what we always came back to, right?

It was like, I'm not trying to say I told you, so I'm just trying to say that like, it's a 34 year old quarterback. We kept saying that like, this is a veteran quarterback. And even if Kevin O'Connell has all the right ideas, these are going to happen. Now, nobody thought they were going to go 17 and oh, and so I, this is, this is what I wanted to read you is let my instant reaction, um, at the end of it. Cause I kind of tried to, you know, summarize what, what I saw. And, uh, you know, I I'll just, I'll just read you the last like couple of paragraphs here. Cause this is kind of an organization of my thoughts. Uh, they might be overly, overly reliant on one receiver who was taken out of the game. They might be overly reliant on two pass rushers who were taken out of the game. They have a shaky secondary. They have a quarterback who is still capable of being two different human beings on a week-to-week basis.

Cousins might not be as comfortable with the offense as it appeared against the Packers. They do not have a dominant running game as they did in the past, and they have no answer for monster defensive lines. But it also might have just been a no-good, miserable, awful bad night. Like, that happens. It will happen to every team in the NFL at some point. And what I'm trying to balance here as we react to this, just after it happened, because I think it's, it is very easy and you've got plenty of ammunition to go thing by thing by thing for every single thing that went wrong tonight, because it's almost everything. Um, but there is also the, we didn't overreact to week one

because we knew this was possible. Is it also where we should say, don't overreact to week two. I tend to think that there's a lot of truth in the middle, but that means you're in the middle. It's like, you're capable of playing like that, or you're capable of playing like this, which means you are who you are and the problem that they face. And here's where the pressure comes in. If you are who you were before, and it's the roller coaster and it's somewhere in the middle and this week you're great. And next week you're not great. Um, that's a huge miss for this entire organization and it's only week two again. And so I want to say over and over that we're not going all the way to one side or the other with they were great against the Packers and that's who they are or terrible on this night. But even in the middle is bad in the middle means you missed missed this.

And by the way, like we didn't really criticize the Jalen Rager trade and he had a 17 yard run tonight, so forth. But if you're in the middle, that trade's not good, right? Like there's a lot of things. If you're in the middle signing, Jordan Hicks isn't good. If you're in the middle signing Harrison Phillips, well, you know, Phillips is more of a long-term player, but bringing back Patrick Peterson, like these things aren't good. And you're seeing in the game, the other thing is too, like you're trying to play the big draft value chart as well. And when Harrison Smith gets hurt, it's Josh Metellus who's playing and not Louis seen Josh Metellus, a seventh round draft pick rather than your first round draft

pick gets in the game first. Like these things are, are just, are like not good. Um, so I think that there is, it is worthwhile having some reaction to this. That's beyond just like, Oh, well, no good miserable night. And we'll all move on because it has to be better than this. Better than just, hey, one week you have this great game against the Packers, and the next week you fall apart. Right. Yeah, I agree. I think, again, you were hoping making these changes avoided a train wreck game like this like when things aren't going right that Kevin O'Connell could dial up just enough stuff to make this to get them to keep them

competitive to keep Kirk Cousins on the rails to not feel like he's spiraling and those things didn't quite happen uh and so you end up with another game that feels very familiar to Vikings fans and everyone around. And that is concerning. I think generally, if I had to decide the camp of, was this more about the Eagles being really good or about the Vikings being really bad? I think I'm going to tend more towards the Eagles just being really good in terms of Hurts looked much better than I expected. This team just had a lot of juice. It just felt like they were a really good team and a really good roster. And that a lot of momentum had that been building for that entering the season.

So I don't know if it's really an overreaction to say like they look really, really good. And in an NFC East, that's wide open in an NFC. That's wide open. They're kind of pounding down the door for, Hey, we're here and we're going to kind of be in that contention window. So I certainly think this is more about the Eagles being really good. And like, if one of these teams, no matter the result of this game, one of these teams, there was going to be overreaction, whether deserved or not about this team could be in kind of the NFC upper echelon. And I think clearly there, there certainly were drops and things that could have gone either way,

but clearly the Eagles were the better team. Clearly they were on a different level to this Vikings team in terms of talent up and down the roster. So to me, I take more stock in that, but even taking like more stock in that is like me, like coming to grips with the fact that I didn't think the Vikings were that team. And they were probably right in the middle with where we expected them to be, which, again, as you've mentioned, is not the purgatory you want to be in.

But it's the one that the Vikings keep finding themselves in and continually have found it harder and harder to move out of that area. And I certainly think the Vikings made it probably a little bit easier on Jalen Hurts than they could have. I will be interested to see the blitz numbers today because it felt like they were just rushing four a lot of the time and saying, hey, Jalen Hurts, come beat us. Well, he was 18 for 19 from 10 yards and in. He was 7 of 10 between 10 and 20 yards.

He hit the deep shot. Like he was converting on all levels. They were playing pretty, pretty off coverage and he was taking what they were going to give him. And then he was also striking it down the middle of the field. Like it seemed like the game plan was, we don't believe you're going to be able to sit here and do this for four quarters on us we're going to let you self-immolate and figure it out and probably run into a couple sacks and throw some balls you shouldn't and it didn't work the pass rush couldn't get there for with four and if you're just going to give a quarterback any quarterback that amount of time they're going to find him if he's any good and hurts established himself as good today and they had good receivers that got open so I think certainly some of it is the game plan the Vikings had and it just didn't work

but generally I'm more inclined to say I think the Eagles are a lot better than maybe we thought and the Vikings are probably just what we thought they were going to be and it wasn't some massive horrible game from them it was of the Eagles just being flat out better. So I thought the Eagles were the better team going in. Both Will Raggetts and I picked the Eagles to win because of that, because they just top to bottom have a better roster. And if you have a better roster and both quarterbacks are middle of the NFL quarterbacks, which I think is fair to say about both of them, there is a ceiling on one guy and not the other with Jalen Hurts, who just seems to be getting better with each week and looked very confident throwing the ball. I mean, the whole thing was, well, you got to make him throw. You got to make him throw. Well, you just gave off the numbers.

I mean, the man threw the football. He didn't have these insane Aaron Rodgers throws, but he delivered the ball to the people who were open. And I'm not going to go on the soapbox about this, but I mean, rookie quarterback contract, super stacked football team. Have we heard this one before? It happens, right? And so I think right now you have to look at Philadelphia and say like, this team is the favorite to win the division. If Jalen Hurts is going to play like this on a week to week basis. But I did want to talk more about schematics on both sides and trying to figure this out right after the game without watching it back can be a little bit tricky, but I think we should just give our opinions on it anyway,

because we also have to wonder like, did they get schemed or was it just players not doing what they were supposed to do and you mentioned that it looked to me just looked this way like their whole idea was we are going to try to make jalen hertz hit these underneath passes and if he and we're going to give him these underneath passes there was a lot of off coverage by the corners the safeties played extremely deep and they didn't move around a whole lot i mean again like i don't have the the numbers yet those things aren't out but it didn't look like they moved around a lot or shifted like crazy or had harrison smith all over the place

um which by the way kevin o'connell said that he thinks that uh harrison smith will be okay and be able to play next week but no guarantees on that with a concussion. But the point just being that I thought that that strategy in a theory kind of makes sense about like, make them dink and dunk, try to stop their run enough and try to get them into third down situations. Okay. Fair enough. You can't have two guys not know who's covering a wide receiver and give up a 53 yard touchdown. That's for sure. And you also, there isn't a whole lot you can't have two guys not know who's covering a wide receiver and give up a 53 yard touchdown that's for sure and you also there isn't a whole lot you can do when the opposing quarterback and uh vikings fans who saw michael vick put up one of the best runs of all time against them know this and then this was vick like by the way of a guy running where every other

quarterback in the league goes out of bounds and he he's like, nope, I am plowing four dudes into the end zone. That was just special. Like that's a guy having a lot of talent in a league that has incredibly talented, uh, free quarterbacks. Hey, I saw Josh Allen did okay tonight, by the way. How about Jalen hurts scoring a touchdown on the Vikings as dig scores his third touchdown in Buffalo. That was too much as also, and then on the other side of the ball.

So that's on the defensive side. Okay. It seemed like they were going to not blitz and they were going to play back and they were going to force these long drives. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Kind of a bend. Don't break. They just bent too much and gave up big plays when the whole theory is we're not giving up big plays on the other side of things. It looked very 2018 ish with a lot of cousins in the shotgun, not getting the run going. And almost every time we've ever seen Delvin cook struggle, like you did tonight to ever get it going. We don't see a lot of success from Kirk cousins.

I mean, it's just been a fact of them playing the bears and maybe this will be different against this year's bears, but like when they had a team Hicks in the middle, when they had Eddie Goldman in the middle, they were able to stuff the run and then force everything on one guy. And also the whole league knows that you are going to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson all the time.

And they had Darius slay. And unlike the Packers, they did not forget to put Darius slay on Justin Jefferson. But I, it's hard for me to say whether they messed up the game plan or not. Kevin O'Connell, of course, didn't seem to think so. It's his game plan. Justin Jefferson even said that he felt like he had opportunities against linebackers and safeties at times. But if they're going to ask a quarterback who is a roller coaster for his career over a now massive sample has just, you know, forced offensive coaches to tear their hair out

because of his up and down nature over his career from Sean McVay to Gary Kubiak to now Kevin O'Connell. Uh, and they're going to say it's, Hey, go, you know, go throw it around the yard and go back and forth in a shootout with this offense. Sometimes that works, but not against the team that can really get after you and really pressure you. And I'll be interested to look at the pressure numbers, but I'm guessing they're pretty high that he was under pressure a lot. And it wasn't that every throw was bad. The throw to Irv Smith was tremendous. And they did move the ball at times, but there were way too many of the just classic, like he's back there in the shotgun, checking it down. Doesn't really look like he feels comfortable being aggressive. Doesn't seem

like he's in rhythm or on time. And when that happens, I mean, I got tweets from people in the first quarter who were like, Oh, because everyone has seen this before. So I guess on a, uh, if I were to give you a meter and let's say five is right in the middle of half players, half scheme, anything less than five is on the players and anything more than five is on the coaches. You see what I'm doing here? Um, where would you put your meter i i i think like four i think slightly more on the players than it would be uh the coach the coaching staff uh i mean i think like if you get dominated in the trenches on both sides of the ball like scheme at some point it's just not going to matter like if you're not generating pressure on jalen Hurts and you're getting pushed back rushing four rushing five however many people the Eagles want to send like you can you can

concoct some great like some scheme but I it's just not gonna it's not gonna work and so I think I have my nitpicks with some of the things that they may have done schematically but I think at some point the players got to execute Irv Smith can't drop a pass down the sideline that's going to be a touchdown that makes that game 14 14 at that point like he can't do that like cousins can't like flail in the red zone a couple times that he did i don't know that first interception seems like it did justin jefferson mistake potentially or just a miscommunication but that can't happen that's not scheme that's a miscommunication whether it was quarterback or wide receiver someone's at fault there um like I think in general this is more on the players than it is scheme I think there's probably some concerning things particularly

what they did on defense and how they just kind of let Jalen Hurts go. I think Jalen Hurts had a 15% above completion or CPOE completion percent above expected. He was at like 15%. That was the highest in the NFL this week. So he was just carving them up and playing really, really well. But at some point Hurts had to play really, really well. And so I think generally this was more on the players than it was the scheme, but I don't think it's an all or nothing proposition. How about you? I would probably go more toward the players and probably go three. If we're pushing it that way toward the players away from five, it's just the middle.

But there is a big picture element of this where we've, we've always had this issue where it's like, you want lean into the kirk as we've talked about quite a bit but then when you lean in too much this happens so then you want to dial it back and you remember that you actually do still have to run the ball with delvin cook there were very few uh play action opportunities they scored a touchdown on a play action pass but aside from that i don't remember too many play actions and and just going back to 2018 when there were games like this really that stood out they were just a horror show from cousins it was a lot of that like their play action percentage was at its lowest so the thing that mike zimmer always wanted to do was to limit the ways that cousins could

hurt him by taking the keys away, essentially. And I think that we could all maybe agree that they took the keys away a little too much to the point where they were putting him in harder situations where you're running on second and 13 and getting four yards. And then you're saying, okay, Kirk now convert, you know, a third down and 11, but there's also a little too much of stand back there in the shotgun with five wides and everybody's going to run routes. And then you have to read, read, read and throw and react. And maybe that doesn't really work quite all the time either, unless the Green Bay Packers just like don't show up to play football that day, which they certainly did not in week

one at U.S. Bank Stadium. And so you could look at that offense in week one and say, look, all these great things they did. They got him on, you know, Jefferson on linebackers and everything else. But then the Eagles also got a look at everything that you were going to do. How different the two schemes were is hard to say. One week to the other and how they made their adjustments. But certainly the fact that Philadelphia got a look at everything they were doing

cannot have hurt. And they just cannot also form their entire game plan around. We're going to throw it to Jefferson constantly. O'Connell did say that they dialed up some things and this was the first little wink, wink, nod, nod, where he said, you know, we dialed up some things early on to go to Adam Thielen and you know, the ball just didn't get there or whatever read it might be and it's like uh-huh and why and why was that um because the quarterback will sometimes speed up in his mind what's going on and have performances like this and I thought that it was really telling on a couple of third downs where he wasn't actually pressured and he threw it to a covered Irv Smith who just had you know a miserable evening pressured and he threw it to a covered Irv Smith who just had, you know, a miserable evening overall, but he threw it to Irv Smith when he had a guy draped all over him,

when he may have had more time to throw. And that's kind of a classic, like, Oh, he's off tonight type of thing where it's just like, Oh, this is the guy I'm supposed to throw it to on this read. So here it goes. Like I'm just throwing it there regardless. And that's where do you say that it was the scheme's fault or was it the quarterback's fall? And I think that it probably leans more toward the quarterback's fault than the scheme. It's just the idea, what all comes into question on this night in this instant reaction, which may change if they put up 50 points against the lions, there's always possible against the lions.

But on this night, it's, do you have the right percentage of leaning into the Kirk or are you asking too much? And the reason I would say that there is validity to, are you asking too much? And it's not just overreaction is this is what it looks like in training camp.

And many times we've discussed what does training camp really mean? And I've always felt that what training camp tells you is the potential pitfalls. A lot of things will look good and whether those things look good in the regular season or not, I don't know, but it will tell you the pitfalls. And when there are multiple practices where there's three interceptions or

something like that, and players are kind of looking at each other, like, did we have that right? And, and, and what do we need to do there? And lots of communication, where there's three interceptions or something like that. And players are kind of looking at each other. Like, did we have that right? And, and, and what do we need to do there? And lots of communication.

Hey, I mean the atmosphere, I'm not going to say it wasn't a factor because the Philadelphia Eagles fans in this press box, you are jammed right in the middle of the fans. I mean, they were all sorts of rowdy. I didn't see walking through the crowd today,

anybody going completely nuts like they were in 2017, butdy. I didn't see walking through the crowd today, anybody going completely nuts like they were in 2017, but you know, it was a, it was a very serious crowd here. And that's another part of it is that you're asking a lot of, uh, of all the players in, in a very difficult atmosphere. And so now Kevin O'Connell has to look himself in the mirror. And this is what happens with a first year coach.. I think that you looked at this a little bit about first-year coaches and implementing new schemes and how much it can impact teams on the whole. Like this man has to learn on the fly, and he's got to learn on a very fast fly because they have a big game coming up against a team that is no longer a joke

in the Detroit Lions. So, yeah, I think that it's definitely a conversation that they need to have of like, we, we discussed this, like, are they running the Stafford version or are they running the golf version of the Rams offense? I think they're running the Stafford version when maybe they need to implement a little more of the golf version. That's my takeaway as of this second. Yeah. I mean, Kirk threw the ball 46 times he dropped back 48 times like that's that's not the recipe that like in running dalvin cook six times like as much as we're proponents of throw the ball more than you run the ball and you got to throw the ball like you also have to run it

more than six times a game and i know part of that part of that is is that paul zimmer i just heard is that i mean you don't even go to 50 50 but i'm and part of this is they go three and out just right away and they immediately go negative game script but those first couple drives are again that classic like man what are we doing on offense today like is this going to be the offense that we're going to run out today and so then they they go down really quickly Jalen Hurts is lighting it up then they feel like they got a pass and suddenly Kirk Cousins is throwing 46 times and Dalvin Cook has six rushes for 17 yards like part of the reason why they were able to scheme up Justin Jefferson so much against the Packers last week is the Packers felt compelled to keep extra bodies, heavier bodies on the field because they needed to stop the run.

They respected Dalvin Cook and Alexander Madison in that run game so much that they said, no, we can't put the extra corner in. We need to put Preston Smith in, or we need to put one of the linebackers in. And then O'Connell said, great, now we're going to spread you out, and one of them is going to have to guard Justin Jefferson, and now we're going to take advantage of you. You know why that worked? Because they respected the run game,

and they were worried about what Dalvin Cook would do if that didn't work. Now, the Eagles have a guy named Jordan Davis and Fletcher Cox in the middle, and they felt much, much more comfortable saying, these guys are going to eat up blocks no matter how many guys we have in the box, we have the defensive front to stop it regardless. And that meant they were able to play on the backend the way they wanted to play. And they weren't going to get those matchups,

but a lot of that stems from running the ball. So leaning into Kirk for 46 plays that are 46 passes. I guarantee you, that's not what O'Connell wanted to do. The game script pushed it that way, but they had to get the running game going. They had to get it going early. They needed to have any sort of success in the first couple drives, even if it didn't lead to points, just showing success,

showing different fronts of, okay, we can do this today. We might do this today because the Eagles defense never had to worry about Dalvin Cook getting going. And because they never had to worry about that, they were able to go all out and stop in the past. And that's just not going to work. That's not going to work for this team. So to get into those advantageous situations, they got to be able to run the ball more effectively and they just were not able to do it at all today. So Cousins has thrown 48 or more passes 10 times in his career and has one victory. And that came against the Carolina Panthers last year, a game that was absolutely wild and went to overtime also. So if you only count the games that were in regulation, he has, well, actually, it's funny.

He has two ties in which he threw more. So games that went to overtime but i think that that adds up to oh and seven if he throws more than 48 passes which i know is like one of those wonky stats because you're always like coming from behind but it just speaks to your point that you could hear mike zimmer's voice of like yelling at some poor offensive coordinator in this game that he needed to run the ball more but honestly they might need it to have run the ball more like I think that they got down by actively when they did it because they just didn't have to worry about it. How many runs in the second half? I mean, is it like three? And the thing is that if you look at, okay, a 17 point deficit is bad. It's, but it's also not like

the end of the universe in the NFL. Like you can have three drives that take a little while. Like you'll probably need some explosive plays in there somewhere, but get a turnover like they did. And suddenly it looks a lot easier if they were to score on that drive right before it. Well, they had two drives that started one at the 30 of the Eagles and the other at

the nine. And so like two opportunities right there. And they didn't run the ball really at all. It was just pretty much pass, pass, pass, pass, pass. And I think that this is part of the learning curve of Kevin O'Connell that you almost have to believe that when you go, when you're down 17 points, you almost have to believe that like, you have to take on your offenses one drive at a time. like we have to score on this one or we're just you know done anyway and then get stops uh until it's late in the fourth quarter then of course and i'm not advocating like just handoff handoff handoff handoff but if you completely take delvin

cook out of the game outside of some some screen passes which not really an improvement from the last couple of years and i don't know if it's time to start saying like, hey, can they still do the same things with Delvin Cook as they did before? But I'm not not saying that either through a couple of games. But the screen passes were not that effective in the short throws. And Delvin dropped one that was right in his hands. They had more drops today than they usually have. But I do think that there's something to be said for they went away from it so much and

even think about like the bears and packers game where the bears almost came back by running the ball like the the packers actually did this to the vikings where they were struggling they got down the defense played way back they got three or four explosive runs and then suddenly were able to score and make things interesting you don't come back with the running game but you can still use it until it's like in the fourth quarter i don't think you just have to keep throwing and throwing and throwing because then the eagles know exactly what you're doing and you don't really have a mahomes quarterback who's going to run around and find all these tight windows that that a, that is a situation that just pleads for Kirk cousins to throw short and underneath, or if he take takes risks, throw interceptions. And that's

exactly what they got. So, I mean, I asked, you know, it's funny, like I asked Kirk cousins, what can you learn from this? And the answer was just like, I don't know. You know, I mean, it was, it was like, ah, we have to go back and look at the tape and so forth and anything, but there's probably not a whole lot that Kirk cousins can, can learn out of this. I think a lot of it does have to come on to the coach to learn how much he's able to push these things and how much he isn't. And then,

then the question will also become like, do they have a roster to beat good teams? Because my answer right now is no, it just isn't. They're not going to face that many good teams, but then all of a sudden some teams didn't look so bad, including the Detroit lions, but also including, um, and especially the Miami dolphins that I think we would have looked at initially and said, that's 500 team.

It looks like it might be better than a 500 team. Um, so these things are always kind of shape-shifting as the season goes along. That's what makes it so interesting but i also saw that the vast majority of the reaction after this game was you know you everyone tried through the season and eventually the shine was going to come off through the off season tried to be like no it really was all mike zimmer that that silly goose him what was he thinking with everything he ever did like well some of the stuff had merit um but also some of the stuff he suffered from the same problems here and i think what we also have learned is like the defense i think is a very delicate thing very very much because if harrison smith and they say he should be, you know, potentially coming back here next week.

But if Harrison Smith is injured, oh, my gosh, like you are going down to either a first round pick who can't get first reps, even when Smith gets heard or a guy who's a seventh rounder. And then another guy who was just playing corner a year ago in college. Whoa. And I mean, the same thing goes for almost every position here. I mean, you know, even on this on this night, they mixed in. And I mean, the same thing goes for almost every position here. I mean, you know, even on this, on this night, they mixed in and I think this might be a mistake. They mixed in a full rotation of backup defensive linemen who aren't very good. DJ Wanham had a nice sack where he got around the edge and it was helped with Zedaria Smith. But there are times where it's

Jonathan Bullard, James Lynch, Patrick Jones, DJ Wanham. You can't do this very often. You have to be very careful about how you rotate these guys in. It's a lot of the growing pains of figuring out who you have, who you can play. But again, if any of those guys has not even just gets injured, we've really focused on gets injured, but also just has like an off night. I mean, if Zedaria Smith, who I didn't see a whole lot from tonight, if he has an off night or if he's not getting home or Daniil Hunter beats his man around the edge, but whoop, the guy goes running. Like what's your defense doing? I mean, like how is it stopping something? And so this year is going to have to be lean into the variants of Kirk cousins in a lot of ways

and hope for more big performances. Then you get small performances like today, but then also not leaning in so much that he ends up with almost 50 passes and you don't run the football at all. This has always been why it is so hard to get this situation to work. And you know, they have an opportunity to bounce back really quick against Detroit and then go play a team in New Orleans that I don't think is very good and then have a really tough game against the Miami Dolphins before they're by. And then, you know, Chicago's mixed in. I mean, come on, you lose that game and then we're going to be talking about all of these things being very wrong if you lose that game.

But as you're looking forward, I think what you have now on paper is all the things they can do right on a given day and all the things that they could do wrong on a given day and how you manage those wrong things is probably going to be the determining factor of whether this ends up being a playoff season or not. Yeah. And most likely not all the good things are going to happen on the same day and not all the bad things are going to happen on the same day and not all the bad things are going to happen on the same day like it felt like for this game like it's just going to be an intermingling and you're probably going to end up right in that middle ground i still think this team can win the division based on what we've seen from the other

teams in the division but i also again think because of the volatility and variance that we saw you can't take them serious as a team that's going to win multiple playoff games in tough environments against tough opponents. That's just not where they're at. Personnel, scheme, like everything-wise, they're just not there. I think if you want to look at it from an optimistic side, you look at some of those non-sticky things that don't kind of carry over week to week. Irv Smith's not going to drop.

If that happens again, he's not going to drop that pass. And they're going to run that. They're going to, he's probably running in for a touchdown and the game's tied. Like just like the Packers had a drop, uh, the Vikings had a drop and it debilitated them. Uh, and that's just not going to happen every week. Justin Jefferson is not going to stop the route and immediately get a pick in another end zone opportunity.

Like a lot, some of these turnovers, some of these drops, like you're, those things just naturally are going to regress back to a mean that aren't going to hurt the Vikings as much as they hurt them. So if you're looking for optimism, like the personnel on the offensive side as a whole is still one that can produce a top 10 team. Like you still have Jefferson. You still have feeling. I still have Thielen. I still think even though Irv dropped a ball, like he flashed some of the speed and some of the stuff

that you want to see from a tight end in this offense that can look good. So I think there are certain things you can point to as to be optimistic that this isn't what it's going to look like. But then you also have to look at the offensive line and say, Ed Ingram looked not great again today in the offensive line was getting pushed back. So there's push and pull in all these things. And I think we end up saying there's somewhere in the middle of all these things.

Um, but I think there are a lot of just kind of some of these high variance things that we can expect are going to happen. We tweak and probably positively regress for the Vikings moving forward. Not sure about the defense, but at least on the offense, I feel comfortable saying that they can regress back to a pot more of a positive than they, than they showcased today. And against Detroit, I mean, this is going to be a team that I think is a perfect test because they are flawed, but they also have talent. And so can you

decidedly beat that team and bounce back on a quick, you know, the whole thing about the culture and leadership was when you go through tough times, you're able to work your way through them. And like, again, we can't rewrite history entirely because part of the narrative about Zimmer was, oh, this team keeps fighting all the way to the end. Like last year, I mean, just even last year, they were one in five. They got back two years ago into the playoff race and it was, oh boy, these Zimmer teams never stopped fighting. It's like, all right, well, let's not, you know, let's not pretend these things didn't happen, that they did fight back from big holes into the playoff race late in the season, the last two years. So I don't want to put this entire thing on the lions they've had plenty of quote bounce back wins after bad losses throughout the years but this detroit team

is a little different jared goff has played very well their offensive line is pretty good they're running the eagles fine not letting it get blown out by the eagles right they're they're a receiver uh aman ross st brown is very good uh And they might have some more players on defense than they've had before. So, you know, I do think that it is a good test and it really is a big swing game because if you go to two and one and then it's new Orleans and Chicago, and then you feel like, man, you can win out all of these games. If you lose, then all of a sudden it feels like the same feeling they've had before, where you're playing kind of mediocre teams with a desperate feeling of having to climb out of something and uh i i think that that will be as telling as anything how they respond in such a short time so uh paul thanks for staying up late here it is uh after one o'clock in the morning eastern time but you're fine back there in central way behind me

um time wise but i appreciate you popping on. And so we'll sign off for now and we'll have much more discussion. Tuesday morning. Left guard is going to be back. Brian Murphy will return with his thoughts, which are going to be do not miss on this game. And you and I will do this all again next week after the game against the line. So thank you very much for your time,

Paul.