Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Too hard or not hard enough on Kevin O'Connell?

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Matthew Coller talks about how backup QBs all over the league are causing overreactions and how hard we should be on Kevin O'Connell for close losses, especially against Cincinnati. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and if you're watching on video, i am not in a hostage situation i am just visiting family and am kind of recording this late at night in my father-in-law's office which doesn't have a working overhead light so i look a little bit interrogation-y but we're gonna still talk lots of football so hopefully this works for you totally Totally fine for me. It'll be a couple of days where I'll be out of the studio. Then maybe the lighting won't be quite as beautiful and so forth, but we'll be just fine talking football. I think I've got lots of fan questions. We're going to talk about some of the reaction coming out of the Vikings Bengals game, what it looks like in the light of day. And of course, a long day of football on Sunday, when a lot of games had an impact on the Vikings playoff odds.

Now here's the funny thing about the playoff race because the Packers lost today and Tampa Bay one against the Packers and somehow Baker Mayfield had a perfect quarterback rating and we're ever supposed to predict football and Baker Mayfield goes into green Bay and has a perfect quarterback rating. Are you serious? Uh, but you know, I'm playing around with the New York times playoff machine after today's results. And I just plugged in what if the Vikings win and what if they lose against the lions after what happened with the bucks and the New Orleans Saints got a win against the New York Giants so they're up to seven and seven as well the Rams up to seven and seven so we have a lot of teams that are jockeying for position over these last couple of weeks and essentially what the machine tells us is that

if the Vikings beat the Detroit Lions this week, they have an 80% chance to make the playoffs. And if the lions win against the Vikings that goes under 50%, but even still, no matter what happens here, it looks like two wins for the Vikings will do it. And anything less than two wins for the Vikings will not do it. But the crazy thing is that even when I plug in two losses to the Lions, there still seems to be some chance that the Vikings could make the playoffs. The only thing that they can't do to miss the playoffs is to go 0-3 or lose to the Packers would significantly hurt their odds, but it still would not make it impossible. Think about that.

That even after all this, even as crazy as this has been, and even as low as Vikings fans feel after losing to the Cincinnati Bengals, the playoff race is still right there to make it. Now, are you inspired after watching that game to believe that the Vikings could go to Philadelphia or San Francisco or Dallas and win a playoff game? Well, of course not. And we'll talk about that as we go along when I get to the fan questions and everything else. But somehow that loss did not crush their odds to make the postseason. And that's just the status of the NFC, I suppose, and how weak the races are at the bottom. But what happened with the Packers losing had a major positive impact on the Vikings' odds

because now it's going to be a lot harder for the Packers to potentially chase them down, not only just from the perspective of the wildcard race, but also from believing that the Packers are actually who they looked like just a couple of weeks ago. We'll also discuss that as we go forward. So lots of questions to get to. And I wanted to start out, though, just talking a little bit about backup quarterbacks, because this is going to shape our entire discussion for this episode and probably a lot of episodes going forward. Watching I took a log today and after the Vikings game on Saturday of all of the backup quarterbacks that were playing around the league. Because I've just been saying that, you know, when you got a backup quarterback in there, it gets kind of crazy. They could get hot

and cold. And I can give you a bunch of examples through history where a backup quarterback was on fire and everybody fell in love with them. And then immediately they fell off the face of the earth and everything else. So I started writing them down and Joe Flacco, my gosh, what a, what a crazy game between the Cleveland Browns and the Chicago bears, which if the bears had been thinking maybe just a little, Hey, you know, maybe we should stick with Justin Fields. I think today probably ended that as Justin Fields had a tough day against the Cleveland Browns and let a game that they should have won slip away because they could not put away the Cleveland Browns. So that team is very, very likely still drafting a quarterback. But I started to hear that discussion, like maybe they should trade down and draft

Marvin Harrison Jr. and stick with Justin Fields. Like, no, they're not getting talked into that, I don't think. But we start with Joe Flacco. I just want to do a little bit of a rundown here. So Joe Flacco gets a win in this game. He throws three interceptions. And I don't know if you're familiar with ESPN's QBR, but it's a one to a hundred metric. And it's supposed to give you an idea of the game situation is factored in, EPA is factored in, expected points added, and how a quarterback's performance impacted their chances to win. So the way I think of it, a very rudimentary way of thinking of QBR is how, what, how often would you win if your quarterback played like this? And Joe Flacco had today a, let me look this up to get the exact number. He had a 22.4 QBR, which is horrendous. Like a 22.4 is you are barely ever

winning a game when your quarterback plays this way. Three picks, kind of a mess going into the fourth quarter there. They're losing that game. And it looks like, well, the Joe Flacco magic ride is over. And then all of a sudden it isn't. And he leads a touchdown drive and then they kick a game winning field goal and Chicago melts down offensively and Flacco gets to be the hero. And I'm seeing everybody in Cleveland talking about, Hey, you know, could Kevin Stefanski be the coach of the year? And I mean, yeah, I guess, or they could just have barely gotten away with a terrible backup quarterback performance

and they get a win. And now all of a sudden Cleveland looks like one of the stories of the year with Joe Flacco because of the randomness of playing in one score games with backup quarterbacks. Right. And then in Houston, Case Keenum does not have a good game. His traditional quarterback rating is under 80 in this game. His QBR is 35, which again means essentially that you're winning 35% of the time when your quarterback plays like this. But Will Levis, another backup quarterback gets sacked seven

times and the tech, the Titans blow it to the Texans and end up with a bad loss there, and they get eliminated for the playoffs. Last week, Zach Wilson was the offensive player of the week in the AFC. This week, he was four for 11 with 26 yards. Yep, and then got hurt. How about Tommy DeVito? Everybody's hero, Tommy DeVito. You recall, they're showing his agent.

They're showing his parents. Everybody's falling in love with Tommy DeVito, everybody's hero, Tommy DeVito. You recall, they're showing his agent, they're showing his parents, everybody's falling in love with Tommy DeVito. And hey, you know, maybe they found something in this Tommy DeVito guy. Not so much today. I believe he also got sacked seven times, threw for 177 yards in a 24-6 loss. Bailey Zappi got a win last week. Very good for him. Congratulations.

He got his win over the a win last week. Very good for him. Congratulations. He got his win over the Steelers last week and then threw 31 passes for 180 yards and they lost to the Chiefs. I mean, this just continues. How about Saturday night? Mitch Trubisky, Aiden O'Connell goes from zero points to 63. Easton Stick is playing quarterback for the Chargers, and his coach is getting fired. The whole point is that I wanted to really take stock of this

to see if it matched up with what I thought, which is my perception was that when backup quarterbacks are in, it's a wild ride. It's like not just a roller coaster. Kirk Cousins is a roller coaster, but with Kirk Cousins, there's a standard that you expect you're going to get on a week to week basis. And almost every week you go into the game, even in his worst performances, thinking you, you, most of the time he should give you a chance to win. So let's say out of 17 games, Kirk Cousins gives you a chance to win what 12. And then there

are some that we don't understand that are, that are some down games and so forth, but it's probably 12, 13, that he gives you a good enough chance to win just with his performance. And when you look at his QBRs, you see very few that are under 50. They're usually hovering around 50. And then, you know, he'll have his great games where he dominates like against the Packers and and they're just great and they get a win so you know that's that's Kirk Cousins for you where there has been a Kirk Cousins roller coaster through his career where it's you know month to month that could be up and down and even this season we saw it to some extent that roller coaster but with backups it's way more extreme because even good performances

feel like, wow, how did the coach and the team even do anything with this guy? Because he's a backup quarterback. That's like our Josh Dobbs situation. Wow. Kevin O'Connell had to be out of his mind in order to even just get enough out of this player. And then when that player falls back to earth, they don't just have a tough game. They have a four interception game or they throw two of the worst interceptions you're ever going to see like Nick Mullins had, or they get sacked seven times or what, whatever,

like we saw multiple backup quarterbacks getting sacked more than five times on Sunday. And every team and every coach is dealing with this. So even if you're Robert Sala, you look like a total fool when you're benching Zach Wilson and playing Tim Boyle and then going back to Zach Wilson, but then you look smart as if, wow, did he adjust something? Well, all of a sudden, everything works for Zach Wilson. Maybe he instilled confidence in him. No, it just was a random good game. I don't know. Maybe they found something in Bailey Zappi. No, probably not. Nope. It was just a random good game because every

player who's in the NFL is there for a reason. That means that their team scouted them and they saw something they liked and they made the team and they beat out somebody else. So they probably have the capability of having a good game, but they also have the capability because they're not a starter of having really bad games. And this point seems obvious, but it really ties into Kevin O'Connell, which is the most difficult part of talking about this season is when it's Kirk Cousins, we can much, much easier put our finger on if they lose. Was it Kirk? Was it the game plan? Was it overthinking it? Was it the defense? Was it the offensive line? Because we've seen Kirk play so many times. We know when he's not looking right. We know when he's let down by

a play caller. We know when he's let down by a guard or a running game or a defense or whatever, because we've been over this a thousand times. It's so much harder to figure that out when it's Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullins, Jaron Hall, whoever else. And I think that goes for around the league because coming into this year, if you ask people about Robert Sala and Brian Dable, you probably would have gotten, oh yeah, I mean, these are two of the best coaches in the league. Brian Dable's coach of the year last year. And then what happens? Well, you know, backup quarterbacks and all of a sudden Robert Sala and Brian Dable are feeling the heat.

But Kevin Stefanski has been on the right side of that swing in part because they have probably the best defense, top three defense in the league. That's made a big difference for them as well. Made a big difference against Chicago, where they got very poor quarterback play from Flacco with three interceptions. And yet they find a way to win that game. And everyone thinks that the offensive guy is brilliant for winning with a backup quarterback. You see, we're really chasing our tails so often with this,

but that doesn't mean that all criticisms are wrong just because backup quarterbacks. It's how do we assign blame? Can you say, like, oh, well, they shouldn't have done a tush push with Brandon Powell? I think you could say that. You could also say that they had converted QB sneaks earlier in the game. They've converted a lot of them without a running or a physical quarterback in Kirk

Cousins. It's not that much different QB sneaking with Cousins than it is Nick Mullins. And around the league, it's usually a pretty successful play, but didn't work so then we're upset about it right because i also think you can live in that world as well where you're mad it didn't work and very unhappy that they blew that game and you know that that's one they should have had also while recognizing i mean it's it's not i saw in some places I just saw that it was acting like it was the craziest play call of all time to run a QB sneak. And it's just a very good statistical play. Maybe give Ty Chandler the ball.

Sure, I can agree with that. But when we're evaluating that one play and ignoring all the other stuff that goes along with having a backup quarterback, like two interceptions in the red zone where you could have produced six more points and really run away with that game. That's where it gets hard for me is that everything becomes under a microscope and yet you can control so much less and even we can control so much less in the way that we analyze it. So that's where the struggle has been. And I look around and I follow a lot of different NFL writers, different fans, content creators, and I see from all those cities that are dealing with backup quarterbacks this same sort of roller coaster.

People are tattooing Joe Flacco's name on their chest when he had a terrible game and got away with it. Case Keenum's doing the interview on the field after the game in Houston. Oh, Case, it's a great game. You pull away with this win in overtime and everything else. What a great job by you. You didn't have a good game. They just sacked Will Levis a bunch of times. And Will Levis is a backup quarterback, wasn't their starter at the beginning of the year. So even he's been volatile. Last week, he has this great comeback against the Dolphins and everyone's saying, oh man, maybe the Vikings should have

drafted Will Levis. And then the next week, ah, you know, maybe he gets sacked seven times and maybe that's not what they should have done. Right. So we're always kind of chasing our tails with this thing. So I guess what I would say is like, as we come out of this Cincinnati game, number one, it didn't ruin the chances to make the playoffs. If that's important to you, for some people it's not, and we're going to get to a lot of this stuff in the fan questions, but it did not ruin their chances to make the playoffs. It probably just made you believe a lot less that they're going to be able to beat Detroit, beat Green Bay, and get into the postseason. Adam in a bunch of numbers says,

thoughts on how hard Vikings Twitter is towards is towards kevin o'connell and what is your honest assessment of o'connell so i want to say that when we talk about people are saying people on social media are saying it's usually um the lunatics who are the loudest say the craziest and most over the top stuff that get the most attention, right? The person who could say the thing that hits the hardest and is the punchiest and is the most critical or is the most over the top. The Vikings could never win with Kevin O'Connell retweet because I'm really mad. So I try to focus on when I see comments from people that I know to be reasonable that I've followed or who have followed me for a long time, who followed the show, who show up to the live broadcasts and comment and so forth.

And I've tried to pay attention to what those people are saying because I know they're not nutjobs who are just doing it for attention online. And I think coming out of that game, there was a lot of reasonable questions about, like, are there cracks in the foundation here a little bit where a couple of weeks ago, we're saying, Hey, if you put another quarterback with Kevin O'Connell, other than Kirk, he's going to elevate him. He's going to make him the best version of himself. And, and they're going to win a bunch of games and all that stuff. And then now is the game management a problem? Is the play calling a problem? Should they give somebody else the play calling, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that, uh, so if we, we kind of focus on that and we don't focus on the unhinged wildest possible comments for Kevin O'Connor. Come on.

I mean, if you're, we know that no one thinks that no one thinks that, I mean, he is what 20 and somebody else do the math for me here. So they had four, seven, 20 and 11 as the head coach since taking over for Mike Zimmer, they are still more likely than not to make the playoffs. If they do make the playoffs, that will be back-to-back playoff seasons, despite the fact that they did not have their starting quarterback and superstar receiver for a large portion of the season. I mean, the big picture is going to be a very successful start to the Kevin O'Connell era, and he's not getting fired. He's not on the hot seat. That's, it's not even a part of the discussion. So I am just eliminating that for when you asked me about Vikings Twitter and focusing on the people that are making more reasons critiques. And I think

that the truth is probably in the middle there. You just kind of wonder about some of the decisions that get made in game. And it's not just the trick plays. They stand out the most because you go when you dial up that trick play. What are we thinking here? What do we think in having just a Jefferson throw the football in the red zone when the offense is rolling? You're just asking to have Jefferson throw an interception or screw something up there, right? The trick plays have never worked. Not a single one of them has worked. It's almost like I need to show you that I can really dial up something super creative. So it gets shared a bunch of times and played on sports center or something, but it's unnecessary. It's been unnecessary. And look, if they drew them up and they worked, then that would be great, but it's unnecessary. It's been unnecessary. And look, if they drew them up and they worked, then that would be great, but they don't. And I honestly truly can't think of one that worked. Maybe there was a Jefferson throw across the field to Thielen last year that was successful, but that might be it. Delvin cook, throwing a pass, throwing a pass to Kirk cousins in the

playoffs. Like it just makes you wonder, wonder, is there a screw loose there? What are we doing? That's not right. And I'll give you another example that sometimes there's a little bit of a feel thing where you are running so successfully with Ty Chandler, and then you get to the red zone, and you push the pass button, and you push the pass button again, and you're sitting at third and seven or something. And Nick Mullins has already thrown a horrendous red zone interception.

It's okay to just throw a little screen to tie Chandler and see if he can get a first down. It's okay to give him a little pitch and see if he gets to the edge and get seven yards. I mean, the guy can make plays out of the backfield. It's okay to run even a draw play and see if you catch the other team off guard. He dodges a tackle, gets six, seven yards.

And if he doesn't, you get three points and you keep going and you keep increasing your chances to win the game. There's a little bit of that. Do you understand exactly when you should be running the football or when like having that perfect feel for this is the right time and right place to do certain things and then some of you have brought up criticisms about like hey sometimes it'll be third and three and they'll throw a 20-yard pass or they'll dial up a play where there's nobody open underneath. And it's an offense that pushes the ball down the field so much and looks for explosive play so much that you leave behind something that's easy. You're almost ignoring the easy button and say, let's make sure we're

doing the hardest thing all the time. And I think that that would be my biggest criticism in general is that sometimes you just don't take what's there, what's right there for you. And you leave it on the table or you try too hard or you overthink it. I think that that is, I've seen people say too cute, like as a kind of a common way of phrasing this. And I believe that that's right. But in the bigger picture of this thing, where is the franchise surrounding its front door, which is its head coach? Is it in a good place? Is the locker room in a good place? Is the culture of the whole organization in a good place? Is it you go into a game and you believe that the head coach of this team can out scheme the coach of the other team? And my answer would

be often, yes. It feels very Andy Reed-ish in some ways. Now, Reed has Patrick Mahomes, but it feels that way where sometimes Andy Reed will do something really goofy, like have his tight end take a snap and try to pitch it to somebody and it'll fail. And he just was that really necessary. And, you know, sometimes with the play calling could be a little off. Sometimes the in-game decision making when to punt, when to kick a field goal, the clock management, like all that stuff has been criticized of Andy Reid over the years. And yet, like we're talking about one of the better coaches in the league because he's a great game planner and he knows how to get through to his players.

He knows how to keep everybody on track. He knows how to remain even keeled, not overreact to things and keep his team from falling into massive slumps and consistently overachieve for expectations. And if the Vikings make the playoffs, considering that they lost their quarterback, it will be overachieving versus expectations when you lose your quarterback. Last year, say what you want about one score games, but they overachieved expectations where Vegas thought that they were something like a eight win team and they end up being a 13 win team. And I think year in and year out, you're going to have a pretty good chance to be a playoff team and a legitimate contender with Kevin O'Connell. And that is more important to me than the micro critiques. But I also think that analyzing himself, looking to improve in some of these areas, trying to eliminate those times where we are saying after the game, what was

having Brandon Powell out there to do the tush push really necessary? Like, yeah, I understand what you're getting at with the 11 personnel and wanting to keep the lighter personnel on the field, but maybe you just need CJ Ham doing that or something, right? Like, I think that these improvements could be made, but I also look at Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan. And when you look at any charts and assessments of them and their in-game decision-making, punts and game management, clock management, it's never perfect. I think it was a McVay who was just awful at using timeouts that he shouldn't have used.

I don't think Shanahan's the best when it comes to punting or the clock. There's no coach that just nails everything all the time. And we have to keep that in mind because we watch so closely every single play of this team. And then we just get tiny little bits of everybody else. And you notice the catastrophic mistakes. You notice the total meltdowns of other coaches. but do you notice everything that they do? Do you watch every play of even the best John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens football? No, you don't. Do you watch every Doug Peterson rep when it comes to his play calling and everything else? You watch everything else so casually that you're not really analyzing, did they use this player perfectly? Did they do the right play call everywhere else? It's only with your own team.

I bet if you asked 31 other fan bases, hey, tell me about your coach, guess what they'd probably say? Well, he gets too cute sometimes. He's very stubborn when it comes to this one thing, like with O'Connell, and always needing to go back to the past if one run doesn't work or whatever. Every single one is going to have their tendencies that frustrate the fans. But I think that's why you need to look at the bigger picture for how I feel about where the team is under O'Connell overall. And that is, to me, much more important than the micro stuff.

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Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, next question comes from Dustin. Do you think the Vikings record would be the same if Kirk never got hurt? No, I don't. I think their record would be better if Kirk never got hurt. I don't think it would be all. I mean, they were already four and four, so I don't know. That one feels weird to me for Kirk, right? Because we're going to be talking about, oh, yeah, Atlanta is not that good. They should go down there and win. But that might be one where we're shocked, where we go, oh, what happened? That was one of those bad days for Kirk Cousins.

And that does happen to Kirk from time to time, which is the reason why he has hovered around 500 for a large part of his career is because we still have some of those discussions that we're having with backup quarterbacks. It's just like less, less volatile, less crazy ups and downs, but it still can be that way over his career. And, you know, I mean, he was still be missing Justin Jefferson. I think that that did catch up with them eventually, that they were asking so much. Every week, Jordan Addison, you have to have a great game. Every week, TJ Hawkinson, Brandon Powell has to step up each game

in order for this team to survive those injuries. So there would have been one or two games that would have been problematic. But I think that we could easily say that a game like Denver, you're better off and they could have turned the ball over in different ways. I mean, we're just doing imagination land here. I can't guarantee that they would have been better against Chicago, maybe not four interceptions, but Kirk gained fewer yards in Chicago than Dobbs gained at home against Chicago. So I can't guarantee that that would have been a win and it would have gone exactly that same way. They probably would have lost the game or two here or there. But would I be surprised that they had four losses if they only had

maybe one or two losses? I mean, if it was eight and six, if it was nine and five, I wouldn't be surprised at all with the way the cousins was playing, how he was coming into his own in the offense. But I think if you, you know, I would probably say that they really got away with one against the Raiders to be able to win that game, but it would probably be, I think four and two after green Bay. Cause that's where we're at right now is what six games post green Bay. So yeah, four and two is probably where I would have expected them and that they would have been eight and six as opposed to seven and seven, which is only a one game swing, but it's a pretty big swing. And against, I mean, Cincinnati is kind

of a game. We've seen Kirk lose a bunch of times where he plays well, they put up a bunch of yards, but there's a failed drive here or there we go, huh, what the heck? How are the, how's the other team still in this game? And they gave it away, but I don't think their playoff position would be all that different when, you know, you look at where they stand in the post season now and their odds to get in probably would have been very similar. And it still remains that any combination of two wins gets them guaranteed into the playoffs with two wins out of these final three games. So can they do it? I don't know, but they would probably be at this point if they had Kirk locked, locked into a playoff spot, almost they would be very, very

close to clinching as opposed to still fighting for that. But it was amazing to me when I look at this and see that if they, even if they lose two out of the three, that their chances are not that bad to make the playoffs. It's just what a crazy, crazy, crazy kind of year. Matt says before the season I started, I thought that the Vikings wouldn't get to eight wins. How likely is that still to happen? I mean, it's very possible. And that's what we're talking about with the backup quarterback situation where you could go on a hot run, but you could go on a cold run. And I think that Nick Mullins performance on the whole was about as good as they could have expected outside of the two turnovers. But that's going to be a feature of Nick Mullins playing quarterback

for the Minnesota Vikings is that he's going to throw interceptions. He's going to turn the ball over. There's going to be bad decisions that get made. I don't think you can eliminate them. Those happen to good starting quarterbacks. Those happen to Kirk. And then it's like turning it up to 11 when you have a backup quarterback. It's like Mullins is kind of a copy of Kirk only the ball goes slower. And the, he throws even more of those interceptions that are ill-advised or puzzling. Where, why did you do that?

Where did that come from? Trevor Lawrence did the same thing that Nick Mullins did, except for it didn't go right into the lap of a guy and it turned out to be a fumble. So it does happen. These things just happen a lot more with a backup, which means I can't guarantee to you that they'll get a win the rest of the way that if Nick Mullins throws a bunch of picks in every game, or if the lions have a good offense, it's not just good. Actually, it's pretty great. I remember on draft night when everyone was criticizing the Jameer Gibbs pick, and I did too.

I don't think it was the best use of their assets considering where they are. But one thing I added was you're going to have to play him. And now Jameer Gibbs looks like a star in the backfield of Detroit. So you're going to have to play him. And that's going to be a really tough challenge. What we saw from Cincinnati is they figured out some stuff in the second half that was really effective against the Vikings defense. A lot of underneath stuff, a lot of dinks and dunks.

Then they made the one big play that got them over the top. But that game against Green Bay, the way Jordan Love is, you talk about volatile. A couple weeks ago, he looks great, and he kind of comes back to earth. Which version are we seeing? I think that Brian Flores can still very much get to Jordan Love. So I don't, if I, I would bet on them getting to eight right now and then having to wait and see for how the rest of the league

is playing out that that's how i would guess that this ends up going is that they get to eight but the chances there's probably like there's like a one in four probably 25 chance that they just lose the rest of the games i mean it could totally happen after what we saw the other day i mean this is the anything is possible ke the other day. Anything is possible. Kevin Garnett style. Anything is possible, but not in a good way. Or maybe in a good way. I don't know.

The way Nick Mullins played for a lot of that game, you're like, he's just putting the ball up down the field to his great receivers. They're making plays. They're moving the football up and down the field for a lot of that game. And then there's catastrophic plays. That makes it even more feel like anything could happen and you know i we try so hard to preview games and say well if this

happens or this is the key factor the key factor is what wild horse bleep is going to go on this week that's really what what the main factor is. What crazy stuff it will happen and how will it affect the Vikings chances to win in Vegas? The crazy thing was a fumble by the Raiders and the fact that the Raiders didn't score any points. That was pretty crazy. And then the following week, it's Jake Browning coming back on you. I don't know. Like, I don't know. I just then it has been it's Jake Browning coming back on you. I don't know. Like, I don't know.

I just, man, it has been wild. Daniel says, how is it that every week I watch a Vikings game, I feel like they're doomed, then watch the rest of the league and come out thinking maybe the Vikings are a top five NFC team. Yeah, that is certainly a fact. And when you watch Green Bay play against Tampa Bay, it's like, why did, why did anyone decide after a couple of good weeks that Green Bay was like back? Oh, Jordan Love is the next Aaron Rodgers.

Every, every TV producer is getting their graphics ready. Oh, look at this. This is fantastic. We've got a perfect narrative from Favre to Rodgers to Jordan Love. Look, they even throw the same. Look. And then Jordan Love is missing wide open, guys. He is the same quarterback that he was in college.

It's funny how that works, right? That the strengths are the strengths. The weaknesses are the weaknesses. And he missed a dude wide open in the end zone on a fourth down, wide open because his accuracy is just all over the place. And anybody who's ever played like basketball video games, you know how you have to push the button and you kind of got to match it up. And the better shooters have a larger window for matching it up when you shoot? Well, it feels like

Jordan Love has this very, very tiny window. When he hits it, it's great, and he nails it, and he makes an incredible throw as he did later in the game, but it's very hard to hit for him, and his accuracy could just be all over the place at times, and I just don't see a wildly different player. I think that some of those balls that he launched down the field ended up working out for him for a few weeks and then they didn't. And their defense got away with some things for a couple of weeks. They were able to pressure Jared Goff, played pretty well a few times, you know, against the Kansas City Chiefs. They kind of got away with a little bit of a pass interference at the

end of the game. They win that one. And the Kansas City Chiefs do not have a very good offense this year and compared to what we usually expect from them. And there you go. A team could look a lot better than they are for a couple of weeks. And so I'm using them as an example, the Packers, but this goes for everybody. Everybody who is on the fringe of this playoff race in the NFC has looked exactly like this all year long. It's been the New Orleans Saints. They're toast. They hate their quarterback. It's over in New Orleans.

And then they play the Giants and they get a big win. And all of a sudden they're in the playoff. And if they make the playoffs with Derek Carr, they're going to tell you, hey, the Derek Carr thing worked out. We got back to the postseason, even though I don't think it's worked out really at all. That's the nature of being in the middle. And, you know, the Vikings have the capability, even with Nick Mullins playing quarterback, to be right there with all of those teams. Do they have the ability to be with the actual good teams? If they beat Detroit a couple times, I might be convinced.

I don't think that they'll beat them both times. Do I think that they could go to any of those places, San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia, and win with Mullins? I don't. We don't have enough evidence to be convinced of that. But are they the best of the middle? Yes, they are. And you could put that, I guess, on the gravestone of every Viking season, the best of the middle.

But that is where we're at. Yeah, I agree. There's so much mediocrity in the NFC that when you watch it, you go, okay, well, I guess we're not that bad, which may have calmed people down a little bit after the terrible loss to the Bengals. All right. Next question is from at I am super before. Is it okay for a Vikings fan to root for losses for just this one season in hopes of drafting a better quarterback? Well, in my mind, it's always okay to root for the thing that would be best long term for your franchise. I think it's a little awkward, probably, if you have Randy Moss jerseys and purple everything and you have tattooed a Viking logo to your chest. And then you're being like, I hope lose like that's weird uh but i don't see it as a moral issue a lot of people do and a lot of people send me emails and dms we talk about

tanking and everything else and i'll get this well how could you how could you ever ask these players to lose not which no one ever does And we've explained that a thousand times. No one thinks the players are trying to lose so they could get a draft pick or whatever. But I think that if you are at home watching the game and they lose to Cincinnati and you go, all right, one step closer to drafting our future quarterback.

And if they lose to the lions this week, one step closer to drafting our future quarterback that's gonna upset some people i think it's very much person to person but i've never seen it as any sort of wrong to be thinking about how you can get closer to a super bowl because this team has had so many years of being just okay as we were just talking about hey are they a top five nfc team like i guess but great you're better than atlanta that has desmond ritter as its quarterback like you're not in the conversation for the best nfc team well how can you get there can you get there by spending 40 million dollars on Kirk Cousins next year? Probably not. Can you get there by going to the free agent market and getting Jacoby Brissett or something? Probably

not. How are you going to get there? Can you get there by drafting a quarterback 23rd? Sure, maybe, but it's a lot easier to trade up if you're drafting like 14th or 12th. Last year, I think that the Panthers were ninth and were able to trade up for the number one overall pick. There will be potentially some teams at the top who are not going to draft a quarterback, namely Arizona, and Chicago has one of those picks that won't be a quarterback. Maybe they would make a trade.

And so the closer you are, the better chances are to get that quarterback that you're looking for, for the future. I think the better approach might be to say that you have no control over it either way. So if they lose the game, you could probably just be like, okay, well, that's actually not that bad for us. That that's probably the best approach, But on such matters, you kind of have to decide for yourself because everybody feels differently about that. I would just say that anyone who says, no, I would never root against my team, never, ever, ever. And what if I could give you Andrew Luck because you were this close? Then maybe it's a different response. Folks, if you've been listening to the show,

then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet, or you haven't tried it yet, very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks you either pick more or less and boom you are playing so last week each week has

been a roller coaster ride of fun and the best part is that when i have a bad week i didn't lose much it doesn't cost much to play you can turn turn $10 into $250 very easily. And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. That is prizepix.com slash purple, just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prizepix.com slash purple, the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. Uh, from Dan, am I wrong to think that the Vikings are absolutely set up to make a big trade for a quarterback, regardless of where they end up drafting? Uh, yeah, there's a couple approaches to that. I mean, one would be a trade for a quarterback who exists on a team right now. And that's either Kyler Murray or bust. I think I just don't think that the Rams would move on from Matthew Stafford at any point. I mean, when you win a Super Bowl, it's it's Flacco like for that. Like the Ravens kept hanging on to Flacco for a while after that.

And Stafford's playing extremely well, by the way. I don't want to make it sound like he's not, but when, after winning the super bowl, you are crowned there in Los Angeles and it would take a lot to, to do a trade there. But I mean, that's a guy that you think of if they're like in a competitive rebuild and want to get, you know, going on the future or something, Stafford, the connection with O'Connell, I've seen that come up here or there, but now that they're looking like they might make the playoffs, then that discussion is a little bit different. I don't know who else it would be as far as trading for an established quarterback. The Justin Fields idea I don't like very much.

That's just not a very good fit with Kevin O'Connell. So Kyler Murray is really it are they going to Arizona trade away Kyler Murray draft a quarterback high and maybe they have plans to do that to trade up or if they end up with a high enough draft pick to pick Caleb Williams or Drake May that they would do that and move on from Kyler Murray that the Vikings would have to be in that discussion. The Vikings were in the conversation for Lamar Jackson in the offseason. And I mean, they were at least brought up once in a report as a team that was checking on it or something. It's one of those, it was a rumor from somebody somewhere, but it's hard to keep track of from whom, but I think it was someone fairly legitimate. And then, uh, you know, they did the

Deshaun Watson due diligence a couple of years ago. Thank goodness that didn't happen. Um, I may have just had to shut down the entire operation if that happened, because I don't know if I could go out there and cover that if they had gotten a Deshaun Watson, but luckily they didn't, that would have been a horrific move for the future of their franchise. Now people are split on Kyler Murray. Some people like him. Some people don't like him. If you go back halfway through 2021, he's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. MVP caliber season that year through three quarters of the year and was a top 10 PFF quarterback. He's dynamic. He's got the big arm to move the ball down the field and has dealt with wild incompetence his entire time.

But there's also the issue of the contract and again, whether they would even consider doing something like that. But I think that you're probably talking about the scenario where they trade up for a quarterback in the draft. And yes, this is the time because when you look around at the rest of the roster, um, a lot of it is not completely full and they do need more talent on the defensive side, I think, but what position is not pretty well set on offense, like guard, maybe still, maybe they'llign Dalton Reisner. Maybe they could get a better right guard. But running back, Ty Chandler looks pretty good. They could get other people. Running backs are not hard to find. Wide receiver one is set. Wide receiver two is set.

Left tackle, right tackle, tight end. All that is good to go. And then on the defensive side, pass rush is an issue, but linebacker, you're in pretty good shape for the future. The secondary looks pretty solid at this moment, and they're going to continue to build on that a little bit, but you don't necessarily desperately need to use those first round draft picks if you were to trade away a couple of picks to be able to move up. I don't see it as being crushing to the future of your franchise. And then when you get the advantage in the salary cap, that's when you could go out and spend on the things that you would have gotten for draft picks. So do you send three firsts to get up and trade for a quarterback?

Yes, this is the year to do it. And they will talk about it for sure because last year they did and they just didn't have enough ammo. Now, maybe you have, well, you have more from this draft, but you also have ammo going into the future that you feel more confident you can use knowing that there's a lot more talent on defense than you actually thought there was. All right. This question comes from Swerve and Mervin. Vikings have had a hard time adjusting to adjustments that other teams made. There have been countless games where the offense is thriving until the halftime adjustments. Can KOC handle the curveballs?

I remember it feeling that way last year because there was some crazy stat, like they had the worst point differential in the league in the third quarter. And I mean, I didn't feel like the offense really had problems adjusting to what the Bengals were doing in the second half. The offense moved the ball. And even when the Bengals scored, and this is why I just didn't want to get caught up on the tush push debate because the Bengals scored to make it 17, 17 and the Vikings jumped right back on them and took the lead again. And you're asking your defense to get a stop there and end the game. And they weren't able to do it. I mean, at some point, I mean, we have to also point that out, right? We, we can't just focus on like the last play that we saw that caused them to lose.

We also can look through the entire game and say, well, where was this lost? And it was lost when Jake Browning was able to lead back-to-back-to-back touchdown drives late in that game. So the defense let that get away, but maybe that's part of what you're talking about, the adjustments. But when I think of Kevin O'Connell, I'm thinking more of on the offensive side. So I don't know when I go through this season, like are there particular games where we felt like in the second half they were worse than the first half or there was something the defense did to completely shut them down offensively. I don't know because, I mean, yeah, I guess you could say the Saints game, but the Saints game was intentional. They were so far up that they were just trying to run the ball, get to the end of the game, not have to ask Josh Dobbs to do too much. They were way up in that

game and I didn't have a problem with that approach, but I mean, that's always a question. I think with every coach is how much you could change at halftime. I remember Peyton Manning saying something like, I don't even know what you're talking about with halftime adjustments. We barely did anything during my career. Maybe Peyton himself was the halftime adjustments, but usually, yeah. I mean, you get a look at what the other team is doing and try to figure something out. And I think the Bengals did against the Vikings defense, but I didn't think that the offense ever stopped moving the ball in that game. In fact, in the second half, they scored more and they moved it better and put up more yards in the second half of that game against Cincinnati. So I don't know. I mean, that's like, how do we, how would I go about figuring that out? Like, it seems like, it seems like a thing that would sound good if I said it right.

Like, it seems like a thing that you would hear on NFL live or something where someone would be like, they need to work on their adjustments. That's the thing. And then all the other panels would be like, yeah, adjustments. That's a football thing. Right. But I'm not, I really don't know. I mean, I really don't know because was it random that last year they had those issues in the third quarter or was it something that, that opponents figured out? Wasn't an adjustment that was lacking because then in the fourth quarter they were great. So like, I don't know that that seems random to me. And this year I'm just trying to go through the games in my head and think, well, where was it

that they had particular problems adjusting? Like they continue to move the ball against the chargers. They improved late in the game against Carolina as horrific as that game was, but they kind of got it together. We got, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure. I mean, I think as the longer you go along, probably as a head coach, the better you get at that. So maybe last year that took longer than it needed to. Uh, I remember people talking about Gary Kubiak being super, super good at making small observations like, Oh, a safety is moving up on this look. And let's go back to that. Um, but I, I just, I don't, don't have a great answer to this question. Uh, because I think it's, it's, it's almost too easy to just be like, yeah, they're just not adjusting, not adjusting to the adjustments.

That sounds great. That sounds like a football analyst thing to say. I'm going to kind of just tell you the truth here. I really don't know. I really don't know. Because some games they've played poorly early, great later. Some games they play great early. How about last year?

It seemed like they scored on every opening script. This year, it seemed like they turned the ball over on every opening script to start the season. That's a really tough one. But I think that when it comes to this offense, we know that one thing they will be really good at, which is if they can push the ball down the field to wide receivers, if they get the protection to do it, the receivers have time to get open,

they will, and they'll succeed. And if they don't, if the quarterback gets pressured or if the quarterback makes silly decisions or isn't on time, that things will go wrong. I really think it's that simple for this offense. And maybe as Ty Chandler continues to run the football, there will be a little more trust there. C.J. McCauley on Twitter says, why won't the NFC let the Vikings die in peace? Yeah, we kind of had a feeling it was going to be this way, right? Like the AFC has got too many good teams to get the playoffs.

Buffalo crushes the Dallas Cowboys 30 to 10, 31 to 10. They're not in the playoffs. We saw how talented Cincinnati is. They're not in the playoffs. Buffalo crushes the Dallas Cowboys 30 to 10, 31 to 10. They're not in the playoffs. We saw how talented Cincinnati is. They're not in the playoffs because there's so many good teams. And it just seems like the NFC is like, you know, who's the least worst in the NFC is going to end up making the playoffs. Maybe someday the NFL or leagues will take my advice of just taking the top. How many ever teams in your league make the playoffs? And that's how you do it. So, yeah, you play against your conference and so forth, but you end up with and maybe they want rivalries.

But I don't know, like the league changes so much. Are there like lots of rivalries? Maybe the Cowboys in San Francisco recently, but it's not like we're getting common matchups all the time in the NFL and the playoffs. So why isn't it just the top 14 teams in the NFL make the playoffs and everybody else goes home? I don't know. I don't know. Why do they just spot the ball at total random without even taking a look at it or they take a look at it. There's not enough evidence. And then I'm watching the Jaguars game and a guy clearly catches a touchdown, has a knee in. He's got the ball totally pinned up against his body, survives the ground.

It's not enough evidence. I don't know. Like the NFL does a lot of weird stuff. But that's the reason. The reason is because your team is in the NFC and it just happens to be one of those years where one conference is a lot stronger than the other, as far as its depth of its teams go and the sheer number of competitors. And that could mean the Vikings making the playoffs. And, you know, then we'll see after that, if they are able to do it, but it is remarkable. I just go play around

with that New York times playoff machine. You're going to find that even losing two games, they have a decent chance to make. It's just crazy. Like that shouldn't be the case. This shouldn't be a playoff team. All right. This one comes from Cy Yuma. Clever, very clever. Do the Vikings have a pattern down of just being good enough in every game to keep you invested to break your heart at the end? Well, I mean, you don't need to get an answer from me on that. I think you know that's the case. How crazy is this, though?

Even like go back how many years? Go back to 2021. I believe they played something like 14 one score games in 2021. They played 11 last year, 12, including the playoff game. And then this year, just think about, as we're talking about Kevin O'Connell and all that, how close they are to being what I mean to having nine wins right now, how close they are within one stop of Justin Fields within one knock the ball down of Cortland Sutton, one knock the ball down of T Higgins, four or five inches on a QB sneak. And it gets them very close to field goal

range for Greg Joseph in Cincinnati. They are that close, but this kind of goes for every team that lives in that world of not being a true Superbowl contender that all of them do this. I mean, how many fans after the saints got beat by the lions and lions fans kind of took over their stadium. How many saints fans were like, I'm done with this team. You know, they're garbage where they're not good. Screw them. And then they come out and they beat the giantsants. And we're back. We're in the playoffs. I mean, that's when you add a seven playoff seed, that kind of becomes the case for.

I mean, maybe you mean on kind of a week to week basis, just in actual games to have that happen, where you think like, wow, they're up by a bunch of points. And then all of a sudden they're not. And that's that is another criticism of Kevin O'Connell is that they haven't closed out teams. But closing out teams is a quarterback thing. It's a can you score consistently enough and not screw up with turnovers and so forth. I don't know if that's a game management thing

or a play calling thing. As much as it is is you need your quarterback to consistently move the ball and to be able to score but i think overall what you're describing is what 90 of the nfl and nfl fans go through and you don't have to try any harder than just watching nfl red zone and the witching hour i mean they call it that for a reason because at the end of that first part of the slate, when we get to the end of all those games, they're all like this. I mean, the Texans and Titans are coming down to the final moments.

There's only a couple of blowouts a week. Everybody else is playing close football. And so unless you're a juggernaut, that's kind of how it's going to go. But the Vikings also have this pattern of as a franchise also being just good enough to keep you invested to break your heart at the end. And if I knew how to explain that for Minnesota sports in general, then I'd have more subscribers to this podcast because I would be a genius. I don't know why that seems to happen to every Minnesota sports team. Hey, the Wolves are in first place. I don't know. Maybe seems to happen to every Minnesota sports team. Hey, the wolves are in first place. I don't know. Maybe that'll work out. Uh, head coach 21 asks, are the Packers cooked?

Yes, I think so. I think so. They're, they're, they're clearly just not good enough. Like they could win because Jordan love is so up and down a week to week basis that they could beat the Vikings. They could even make the playoffs potentially. I think it's a lot harder for them now after losing this game to the Bucs. But are they cooked as far as they're not a contender and you feel pretty good about the Vikings beating them at home? Like, yeah, because I think what we saw was a small sample size, short spurt of really good play from them that was not really who they are. Who they are is another middling team that on any given week could be pretty good or pretty bad.

And that's, you could boil so many teams down to that. It's kind of like the theme of the podcast today is a lot of teams can have a good week or a bad week. And that's why we try to fly a little more even keeled on the show. And we don't declare Jordan love the next Aaron Rogers on the show because he might fall off the very next week. And we don't fire Kevin O'Connell because they could beat the lions. And then everyone's going to be like, wow, this is great. We're making the playoffs. So, you know, that's, that is, uh, in fact, this plays into the next question. I have just one more after this from Beast Neymar once says, would you agree football has to be the hardest sport to cover accurately?

The shortest sample size of games in sports, as well as how many fluky things happen in a game. A hundred percent. That is a hundred percent true. It's the hardest. I mean, not to cover as a reporter. It's, it's easy to cover as a reporter because there's lots of access to coaches and players. And we can always get explanations from everything that's going on. I saw some people thinking we should have like yelled at Kevin O'Connell the other night.

But you know, the coach is always, you know, but the coach is always available. The players are always available. It's a very, very easy sport to cover for a reporter. If you're around, you're going to have lots of access to players and coaches and everything else.

But is it the hardest to predict and also the hardest to decide where the line is for reaction versus overreaction? Yes, that is absolutely right. Because after Dallas won, I felt very safe in saying, man, Dallas is for real. Dallas deserves to be talked about as the best team in the NFL. They are great. Look at Mike McCarthy. He's got them turned around. He took so much criticism after getting rid of Kellen Moore. Man, I felt good about that.

Then they go to Buffalo and they get beat by three touchdowns. I don't know. But how much do I want to react to that? Going to Buffalo's hard. Buffalo's super desperate. You know, they were coming off, you know, the Cowboys off of a tough run of games. So you were bound to have one that goes sideways. And the statistics, there are so many statistics.

But how many of them really point us in what's going to happen next? How many possessions are in two weeks of basketball games? How many plays are in two weeks of NFL games? There's maybe 300 plays in two weeks of NFL games. There's what? I don't know, 2000 possessions of basketball in two weeks. I games, there's what? I don't know, 2,000 possessions of basketball in two weeks? I mean, there's just the sample sizes for even the numbers that we use, where teams rank in scoring and EPA and everything else. The only thing that's ever been consistent has been the passing game. And if you have a great passing game by expected points added,

which really takes the situation you're in, how you perform versus that situation. Like that one is consistently picking winners. But if you're doing it through a couple of weeks, five weeks into the season, how about even this? If you looked at passing EPA right now, does that mean that's who somebody is? What if a receiver is hurt? What if an offensive a receiver is hurt? What if an offensive lineman is hurt? What if teams have adjusted to how you play offensively? Like there's just so many crazy factors that can go into evaluating a single season, a single game.

And there's always that, Hey, what if he got six more inches on that quarterback sneak? What if they had spotted it correctly the first time? What if, what if what if and the Vikings you can you can get yourself to the Vikings having a bunch of wins this year even against Kansas City what if they call an interference on a fourth down where Jordan Addison kind of gets grabbed and they pick up the flag right then maybe they're beating the Kansas City Chiefs and we're saying wow this is incredible they've just beat the Chiefs what what you know what if, this is incredible. They've just beat the Chiefs. What if Trent Williams and Debo Samuel play against the Vikings and instead of getting a win that makes them think they're actually good, they lose against San Francisco and they trade the Neil Hunter.

That is not only the reality of trying to cover the NFL, but it's also one of the things that makes it so freaking fascinating and captivating is that you just do not know what's coming next. And small, tiny sample size events can have gargantuan impacts on what's going to happen as far as decisions that get made or how we write the narrative after it happens. So yeah, it's, it's a hard, it's a hard one. It's a hard one. And that's the, the, the challenge for me each week is how much do I react to this? How much do I critique this, criticize it, praise it, whatever else. Uh, and that's what makes it really fun. I think that's what makes it the most captivating sport there is. All right. Last question. Uh, at nurse in time asks, uh, where would the team be if they had drafted will Levis instead of Jordan Addison? Yeah, I don't, um, I don't know because will Levis is playing with a pretty bad team in Tennessee. He's had some really nice moments.

He's had some really bad moments, including losing to the Texans and getting sacked seven times. He clearly has a ton of arm talent and is very raw, needs lots of work. He could be two to three years away from being a really good quarterback, or he could be just like Jordan Love, where he's got enough talent to make you think he's great and enough flaws to make you think that he's not that great. And it just fluctuates over and over and you never really win anything. So I don't know what will Levis is going to be long-term. The one thing you would know if they drafted will Levis is who your quarterback was going to be next year. The minute that Kirk cousins got hurt, it would have been all right. Will Levis, he's the quarterback from

here on after, and they're going to let Kirk go and there's no uncertainty and he's the guy and they will ride or die with him. That's what it would have been had that been the case. Jordan Addison's really good though. Like he's really good at football and we've seen that on numerous occasions. So long-term Jordan Addison may end up setting up the next quarterback to have a ton of success and the next quarterback may outperform will Levis. But there is also this uncertainty of his cousins going to come back and how's he going to play now that Jordan Addison is like the guy along with Justin Jefferson.

Now that he's an established player or, you know, his Kirk Cousins is not going to come back and they're going to have to develop a rookie, but you have Jordan Addison. So that really helps them. Like, you know, there's, there's a lot more options, uncertainty, confusion, and decisions to be made because they did not draft Will Levis. But we're going to have to figure out long-term whether that was the right or wrong thing to do. All right. Thanks everybody. As you could maybe tell, still battling a little bit with the voice issue, but we're going to grind through. We don't need perfect studio.

We don't need perfect voice to talk a lot of football. So thanks everybody for listening again, and we will catch you next time.