Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Trap game? Letdown game? Vikings blowout? How will Vikings-Cowboys play out? Ft. ESPN's Courtney Cronin

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin dive deep into the Vikings-Cowboys matchup and break down how the two teams match up, what's gone right for the Vikings that they can carry over against Dallas and what some of the potential pitfalls are. Plus are the Vikings using Dalvin Cook too much? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Grant Wall, and this is American Prodigy, ready to do from Blue Wire Podcast. Hello and welcome into our Cowboys Vikings preview on Purple Insider, Matthew Collar and ESPN's Courtney Cronin. And I feel like, Courtney, it has been kind of a fun trend recently that we get to really preview games and every podcast isn't necessarily about Kirk Cousins' contract. Good times, eh? It's been great. I mean, I feel like we are in a prime spot right now with a lot of good content. We're not sweeping anything under the rug, kind of keeping this thing going forward. And we're not talking about Kirk and his 11 interceptions. No, but you know what?

I had to actually agree with Kirk Cousins for once on the interception matter. There have been way too many times where there's something that goes wrong, and then he will give a long diatribe about how, well, you know, not everything is my fault, but not everything is everybody else's fault. It's just like, Kirk, we get it, pal. But this year, with his 11 interceptions, two were Hail Marys. Adam Thielen should be credited with a handoff or a phone call. Yeah, exactly.

Going to Chicago. Yeah, the Khalil Mack interception. That was not Kirk Cousins' fault at all. So now we're down to like seven or eight. Seven or eight probably, yeah. There was one that was debatable that went through somebody's hands, but that could have been on him because it was behind the receiver. I don't know.

So, yeah, Cousins is correct that not all of his 11 interceptions are his fault. And I think we should just start with Cousins against the Dallas Cowboys because in his recent history're playing these next three weeks are the three worst teams in points allowed total for this season. And you could just see it. Like, Kirk, this is your October 2019. This is laid out for you to come in and have all three games at home on the fast track at U.S. Bank Stadium with Justin Jefferson flying high and put up huge, crazy numbers and get your team right back in the driver's seat for the playoffs. So my question to you, Courtney, will it happen? Will it happen that Kirk Cousins takes out his, whatever, I don't know, baseball bat and just beats the hell out of these next three opponents?

Or will we get bad Kirk in one of these games, including maybe Sunday? I think that's why so many people are still hold their breath with him because this guy is capable like he won a playoff game on the road against New Orleans but then the flip side of that there's always like the caveat is well they want a coin toss like was it really all just Kirk that type of. They won a game in Chicago on Monday night football, the first of his career. Well, the Bears offense is terrible and et cetera, et cetera. Like,

because there's always one of those things that I think that he gets knocked for probably more than any other quarterback in the NFL fair and unfair. But the reason that that narrative kind of hangs around is because you start seeing him do well. And then he kind of falls off a cliff and has that clunker that you just know is coming it's hiding around the corner and I think it's honestly just very simple it's he has not been consistent once he's had success it's always kind of gone the other way I mean think about how they ended 2018 he had an opportunity there to back the Vikings into the playoffs and came out

and just you know had a meltdown against Chicago like it's it's more of those moments that I think keeps people hesitant and why you will look at this the stretch and you say okay really there should be five wins on the schedule five guaranteed wins uh the remainder of the way with dallas carolina jacksonville and then chicago and detroit again but you can never i mean a it's the nfl like you can never put like all your chips in one basket but those are bad teams and i just don't know if you can truly say kirk will be the reason that they are able to you know we can go ahead and mark a w down next to any of them. I feel like there's always just kind of that expectation that he's going to come out flat one day or throw an interception on the, on the opening drive and not be able to recover. I mean,

that's happened in quite a bit. And I think that with any NFL team, even the best teams, even your Kansas city or Pittsburgh will have this probably happen to them eventually, or the 85 Bears that there's always one there's a reason why only one team went 16 and 0 in history and even then the Patriots almost lost a couple of games that year that there's always one thing that goes wrong now the question is was the Atlanta game the one or is this team capable of more ones popping up because I was talking with our pal Sam

Ekstrom about this about how there's always that possibility for a team that's really bad to show up and beat you because if bad Kirk shows up and like you said if he checks down to the fullback on the first drive or he throws an interception on the first drive we have seen this throw him off you could tell that Chicago, right from the get-go, it was going to work out great for him because he was hitting different receivers and he didn't look under duress at all and looked very comfortable. And you went, oh, this is going to be one of those games where he plays well. But you just never know when this is going to creep in. And I mean, last year, you could also say that the loss to Kansas City was equally as bad as um let's see was there another one last year Chicago was a bad one Chicago yeah that's oh that's right

16 to 6 right against Chase Daniel that the Matt Moore game and losing to him was the same sort of deal um where you usually you're playing a backup quarterback you should win the game and then your quarterback just doesn't give you enough. And you worry about the same thing with a team like Dallas, where their defense is coming off of a decent game. They've had two weeks to prepare. Mike McCarthy knows you and has played you a lot over the years. And it's not like they have no one.

They have Alden Smith. They have Lawrence, who gets after the passer, too. They have two good linebackers who are capable of making plays it's not like this team is entirely schmucks they're a major underachiever so i don't know if if that game is showing up here on sunday but i think it's showing up eventually and whenever it hits there's going to be a lot of frustration i think uh pointed at kirk cousins but on the other side of the coin if it doesn't then i'm not willing to say he's a different quarterback but that's that's like what you're here for is for that not exactly no of course and i mean

you're supposed like is it so much to ask that you go out and do your job the way that you are compensated the way that you're expected to and not have to have kid gloves on all the time? Chicago considerably even when he got to that point like he was still able to not get into a true drop back game and have to go hail Mary Kirk you know to win the game like that's just not who he is and that's not what you can expect with him and if you want success and you know the way that the way that I look at it is like how does this team now they're what four and five so what three weeks from now seven and five maybe like how will they handle like what's what's it going to be like around this team if they go if they lose this game or if they lose another one that's kind of unsurprising they don't have any room right now to lose games because you have to go

ahead and give them the leeway of the saints and the Bucs just just because um but like if they go four and six then like into next week when they play Carolina like what does that look like is it still a team that thinks it can make the playoffs is it still a team that has faith in the quarterback like I mean they've looked really good the last few weeks and Kirk has looked really good but I just I you know there's so many factors I think that you can look into here that could set this whole thing on fire if it doesn't go perfectly, which kind of comes full circle. What does Kirk need to have happen in order to be successful? Everything around him essentially perfect. Depends on the result for how we feel about the team. If you think about Detroit, they lose to Detroit. Let's just say Matt Stafford, instead of throwing picks in the end zone, throws touchdowns in the end zone. And then they get those punts blocked and you lose to Detroit.

We are just burning them down, right? For not trading more people, for not getting rid of Riley Reif and getting draft picks for him, for not moving on from Anthony Harris and all those things we are saying, why did you not rebuild? What is wrong with you? You were still a severely flawed team. And the same thing goes for even Chicago. If they lose that game, I think their odds of making the playoffs go into the tank.

It's probably like 3% or something. If they lose the game to Chicago and they end up at three and six and we're doing the same thing hey you went to Soldier Field you proved you weren't for real and again why didn't you sell parts off I'm not sure this is any different because then at this point if you don't beat Dallas then I mean you have to basically run the table the only team that I look at based on their schedule that has a real chance to fall off is the Los Angeles Rams because they have a tough schedule the rest of the way. But if the NFC West teams kind of beat up on each other and they go 500, they're still going to end up with

10 and six records. So the only way you can get into that is by being great the rest of the way. If you lose here and go to four and six, I mean, it's just hard to see. You got to beat New Orleans. You got to beat Tampa Bay. You got to beat Chicago again, which you often split with them. So, you know, I look at it as, again, one of those kind of big swing games for how we feel about this team. And it will blow up all of the narratives about how they've made progress and about how, you know, the offense could take them a really far way. And Zimmer's fixed everything on the defense. If they don't do what they're supposed to do, all that kind of comes apart at the seams.

I honestly think it's going to be like that every game from here on out. Yes. Like, that's the feeling I get because it just kind of feels like, you know, you hold your breath. And if you're a fan, you hope they win the game. And then it's like, all right, got that one out of the way. What's the next hurdle to cross because nothing feels guaranteed with this team, because it kind of at points feels like a team held together, like a house held a paper house, like that you could just blow over.

And that's not a comfortable spot to be in. I mean, yes, Zimmer's fixed the defense. We can say that in, like, some terms. It's not completely fixed. He's, you know, making chicken salad out of chicken blank right now. Like, that's just, you know, that just is what it is. But can that be sustainable against every team that you face from here on out over the next seven games?

I don't know. And it's just, you know, the narrative around this team changes so drastically when they lose. It's pretty amazing. The pendulum shift, like, you know, how it swings one direction and goes the completely opposite way. But I honestly feel like we're going to have, you and I are going to be having this conversation every single week for the

rest of the year until they get into the playoffs. And then it's going to be the conversation of they probably don't deserve to be in the playoffs or not as good as the other teams. And there'll be a first round exit. Like, I mean, the story writes itself. Well, and I think that it's fair though, because a lot of times in football analysis, it can be quite unfair to ride the roller coaster and just react to the thing that we just saw I was trying to figure out whether Seattle's defense is actually competent now after what they did to Arizona and then going back to but I don't know because that just happened so I think that but their defense all year has been a garbage fire so it probably leans more toward garbage fire

and with this team that's also hard because what we've just seen is them play pretty well and do the things we expected them to do this year but the bigger sample is still you're not scoring on a particularly high percentage of your drives your expected points added are not that impressive for even your passing game which has been efficient, but you haven't put up huge, huge totals or anything like that. I mean, there's still a lot of statistics that point to this team not being very good. And so usually you bet on the bigger sample numbers rather than what you just saw. So I'm trying to decide whether we've kind of had a mirage here over the last couple games and we should expect some disappointments coming up or say well wait if we go back to the beginning of the season this was where they were supposed

to be they were supposed to be hitting the soft part of their schedule and reel off a bunch of wins here anyway um so it's a bunch of push and pull to kind of what i feel like should happen where we should actually set the bar and i think um still probably too soon to say oh yeah they're like a sexy pick for the playoffs I know that's being said but I'm not ready to get there until they actually do it against some of these teams they show that they can be contenders like they've shown they're capable but can that capability be long term and by long term I mean over the rest of the season like it's a glimpse of what could happen that you are better than Detroit and you're better than Chicago like there's no doubt in my mind that they're better

than both of those teams but will the record reflect that at the end I don't honestly know and I'm with you I think that there's there's definitely props that need to be given um in you know when you look around like the rest of the league and how other teams have fallen off the cliff I mean the Vikings clawed their way back into this like don't get me wrong they they fought and um there's but again it's kind of the kirk argument there's always going to be like two sides to the story like wow they beat up on green bay well also it was a weather game and green bay's run defense sucks like oh wow like they you know, they beat Detroit and all this stuff. Like, you know, well, Matthew Stafford got hurt there at the end.

Not that they were probably going to pitch much of a comeback anyways. And Detroit didn't take advantage of your secondary because they're stupid. Like, I mean, there's always going to be, there's always going to be, like, two sides to if they're actually good or actually bad. You know what I mean? So let's talk about instead of what if they win, what if they lose, how do they win? How do they lose against the Dallas Cowboys? Because this is very much a preview episode.

So I'm going to just start with on the offensive side side how do they win is they do not do what they did against Chicago they do not sit and wait for third down and long before they decide to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson I think if they're going to win this game they need to look at the secondary for Dallas and say absolutely none of those human beings can stop Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen and if Irv Smith Jr. plays and Dalvin Cook out of the backfield on passing plays last year he destroyed Dallas when it came to those screen passes I think the how do they win starts with how quickly do you get involved your best and most dangerous players? Yes. Here's the thing I do worry about, though.

Like, I guess I'm the only one because coaching staff's like, oh, it's up to the player. And Dalvin's like, I feel great. I think I'm the only one who's actually concerned about Dalvin Cook and his health. Because for the brief second he went down on Monday Night Football, and I guess it was a lower extremity that he injured. So I was so stupid. I was like, oh, my God. Like, what happened?

And I was watching it, and I didn't see what had happened right away. And I was like, oh, he got shaken up, shaken up, whatever it is. And everybody's like, that was the first time I'd actually – I was okay being well-actualied on Twitter because I didn't realize what happened. Sorry. Yeah. But the first time ever,

it's been a disadvantage for you to be a woman covering football. You know, I did ask him about his groin. I mean, if that wasn't awkward enough, being like, that's a weird injury. How do you take care of that it's in a weird spot like when we've seen those players use the the vibrating gun or whatever when they're trying to fair gun not safe for work kind of thing exactly um but those actually do work though can i say that you are justified though so we can get off of delvin cook's uh certain areas um that you are i think you are justified in saying carrying the ball 82 times in three weeks is a lot in a league where uh these

running backs get worn down quickly and he's had previous injuries i think you're right to be concerned about them and and i understand this is an easy like matchup on paper right like they allow the second most rushing yards of any team in the nfl you have a terrific running back use him but my theory is like if you get up big are you still going to be running the ball just because you want to eat clock and you wearing down dalvin cook because they they say they're going to spell him more they've said that multiple times by using alexander madison yeah i think he had 12 carries or whatever against detroit didn't go very far but like you know he barely did anything in chicago they were running dalvin cook straight into a brick wall there with the defensive line and i think that that's you know

when are we going to actually see them back up their words with action like we're going to try to spell dalvin cook here i mean you didn like, and I just worry this offense and everything that they've built so far falls apart when cook is not in there. It really does. I know that they have faith in Alexander Madison and I know that he is capable. He showed us in Seattle that he's capable of handling a big workload, but it is not the same player. And you know that. So, you know, when you have somebody like Justinin jefferson you have kirk playing as well as he's playing right now you have feeling in the in the you know the goal

line situation who knows if they'll get herb smith back but kyle rudolph played pretty darn well last week you have all these pieces set up for you do you do you want like i guess i try to say it this way like does dalvin is it worth saving Dalvin for the team that is going to be really hard to beat? You can beat Dallas probably without running the ball down their throats. I think what history tells us is they think that and they say that, and then when it gets there, they don't do it. And so like Zimmer saying, oh, yeah, we want to spell Alexander Madison more.

But you don't actually do it very often. And in theory it makes a lot of sense. But when you feel like, well, we really need this first down, so Delvin, run on out there. And Zimmer said, well, he wants to be out there. Like, well, so does every player, right? Who's telling you, no, get me off the field? Like not anyone except like who's telling you no get me off the field like not anyone except for maybe drew samia wanted to get off the field early on when he was playing

but um i i think it's a concern because it's it seems like a team who should always keep one eye on the future being desperate in the moment uh in the now to to be like, wow, Dalvin's got to run the ball here. We're going to lose. And that, to me, says you're going to run him into the ground. And you know who else did this? The Dallas Cowboys with Ezekiel Elliott. The Los Angeles Rams with Todd Gurley. And those players down the road were just never the same.

I think of it as the five more minutes mom argument. That's what the Vikings are doing with Dalvin Cook. Five more minutes, just a couple more, you know, got it. One more first down, couple more carries. And then it's like, you eventually, you know, run out of time. You eventually, like your mom's coming down there and grabbing you by the arm and yanking you out of the basement because she doesn't want you playing Nintendo anymore.

Like you've used up your five more minutes excuses to where it's not believable anymore when Mike Zimmer says we want to spell Alexander, we want to spell Dalvin Cook, use Alexander Madison more, we want to, you know, we want to be cognizant of his health. I understand all of that, but you're not doing it. And I just fear for them it's going to come at a point where they're forced into that

situation where their mom is coming and grabbing them the injury mom is coming and grabbing them by the arm and yanking them upstairs then you have to do your math homework or some nonsense like that instead it sucks but um but anyways like i just don know. I don't buy it for sure. I don't buy it because we haven't seen it because they keep saying it. And it's just it has not happened yet. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There are many great designs. Someone on Twitter recently sent their John Randall shirt.

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Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. So I was looking when it pertains to the running game. And again, if they want to continue to do what they did against Chicago and put Kirk Cousins in third and long situations, his career tells you that's not what you want. Against Chicago, it worked out great. Justin Jefferson was wide open. Kirk made some great throws, and you were able to move the sticks more than half of the time in that game. Usually, if you're setting yourself up for third and nine all the time, third and 11, whatever,

it's not super easy to convert those. And I was looking at Dallas's last game and I understand that they are one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. Their last game against Pittsburgh though, they only allowed 38 yards on the ground on 17 carries. And a bunch of guys had really good grades from PFF against the run. Alden Smith, Neville Gallimore, who you remember from Courtney R draft scouting, Randy Gregory played really well against the run, Leighton Vander Esch, Jalen Smith, Neville Gallimore, who you remember from Courtney, our draft scouting. Randy Gregory played really well against the run. Leighton Vander Esch, Jalen Smith, even Demarcus Lawrence. Like these guys had a good game that they're coming off and then two weeks to prepare, two weeks to rest. And I just think it is possible that this group has enough talent that they could come together and at least slow down Delvin Cook enough

to cause some problems here so if the Vikings want to win kind of circling back to where we were of like how do they win I think it has to be counteract that like counteract the fact that Dallas has a lot of talent on this defense and I, Randy Gregory had five pressures against Ben Roethlisberger a couple weeks ago. Demarcus Lawrence is a good player. And Alden Smith is still very dangerous. It's pretty clear that he can still play football. So you have to be able to counteract that they are coming off a good game

against the run and then not let any of these guys strip sack Kirk Cousins. That's the other part. Don't put him in positions on third and seven to be strip sacked because that is always the thing that could just come up and kill you. Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, when you think about, like, how weak Dallas' defense is, like, I don't really – I mean, from where they started, I know Kyle Rudolph talked about that on Friday,

just about how different they looked week one to where they're, you know, they had the bye last week, but like where they recently left off, like I don't know if I'm seeing a whole lot of difference with this defense. I mean, I think that they are a mess and realistically, Kirk should be able to, to just to annihilate them. I mean, they're allowing an opposing quarterback passer rating of like 103.1 so that gives you your options to pick where you want to take these deep shots but i'm with you i

mean don't wait until you're in third and long to to do that and i mean yes they're they're it all the coach speak it matters what you do on first and second down sets you up for what you're going to do on third down well how do you avoid that is the key going to be running dalvin cook at them on first and second down all the time and then like using a play action bootleg to like hit justin jefferson for a 40 yard gain on third down it's going to become so predictable even against a bad secondary that's going to become so predictable so i don't know i mean it's you're right about all of that like they do have good players but it's just like you know yeah like i mean can they bring them i don't can yes like and i don't i'm i'm with mike tomlin on this like i'm not calling this a trap game but it has that feel

to it i don't know why i just i that's kind of where i stand right now with it i i'm gonna go let down game because i think that you have to be good to be a trap game like you have to be the packers almost losing to jacksonville that's where and i don't really believe in trap games being a real thing there are upsets in pro sports like that happens um but you know when we define these things i think it's a letdown because you win three in a row and then you know cousins has his big performance against chicago the thing that everyone said he couldn't do went on monday night football beat a good defense he plays really really well and then it's always been once there's a high mark then there's

a low mark and that's been the shape of this team since Kirk Cousins has been here. I mean, you come off of Kevin Stefanski takes over as the OC in 2018, and they win two games, and they say, we're back. We've got our offense rolling. And then Chicago comes in, plays half their team, and still beats you, kicks you out of the playoffs. I mean, so it's the same sort of thing. They play a great offensive game in Green Bay, week two, 2018.

Kirk throws for 400 yards. Amazing. Dee Filippo's a genius. And then Buffalo comes in and beats them. So that is the thing that you're probably staying up late at night as a Vikings fan on Saturday night thinking about. The other thing is Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb, Michael Gallup. These guys have had a mess at quarterback since Dak Prescott went down,

but now Andy Dalton is coming back. He has not played well for them by any stretch of the imagination, but is an NFL quarterback who has won a lot of games in the league before, and those three receivers, that's one of the things over these last few weeks we have not seen, a team with multiple really good weapons. Green Bay had Aaron Jones out. Kenny Galladay was out for Detroit. And Allen Robinson is on an island all himself.

This is a different challenge, I think, for the Vikings defense. Yeah, I do too. And Andy Dalton's always just – he's always been very accurate, very methodical, like not – nothing like that's going to like super surprise you, but he is who he is. Assuming he's going to play on Sunday, I think that that actually gives him a huge boost.

What were we saying when they signed him in free agency? That's probably the best backup that you could possibly have. The guy was a starter for however many years in Cincinnati and Mike Zimmer knows him really well. And Mike Zimmer was there for a big part of Andy Dalton's career. So I think they're in a situation that this defense isn't going to be able to tee off on. I mean, didn't even need to Nick full stunk. Like I hate when people Bears fans

specifically blame their offensive line I'm like the offensive line's bad it was not 2018 Minnesota bad but like it was bad but Nick Foles still really yeah wrecked that game on his own um same with like you know the Detroit Lions like and I'm not even gonna blame that on players I'll blame it on play calling by running Adrian on you know third and one inside the five yard line things like that like you're you know the teams are set up for failure that way with those types of things this is the one where I actually think that their players probably can beat you they have a lot of speed on the outside um and you know the receivers are really good like it's just a matter of like is it all going to come

together where the quarterback and the skill players are going to like shine in those moments there is a uh i don't know if you've run across this because i agree with everything you said that that when you have multiple ones of these receivers who can beat you amari cooper ate them alive last year against mike hughes uh in that game there is a player, though, that Vikings fans should be very concerned about who is on Dallas' roster. There's a Vikings connection and I want to know if you've stumbled across this or not.

This guy is a Super Bowl champion. He was on the 2017 team with the Vikings and scored a touchdown, I think, one in the season in 2017. Do you know who I'm talking about?

I don't think I do. Okay, I'll give you a hint. Former quarterback. I think he was a baseball player too. He's on Dallas now. He was on the Vikings. Sean Hill? What who yeah Sean Hill is funny uh no it's a tight end I thought you said former quarterback he was a former quarterback but now he's a tight end he was a college quarterback Blake Bell yes nailed it oh my god yeah he was on

the 49ers too yes yes Blake Bell uh He was really last year's 49ers? No, not that he... When I was with... Oh, when you were there, okay. We had Blake Powell go way back. He was with... He was with KC last year and won the Super Bowl. You're right, he was with the 49ers

and he caught four passes for them in 2016. And I was just calling up last week's performance just you know how did amari cooper and michael gallup and uh cd lamb play and i noticed one catch for minus four yards from blake bell and i thought what how inevitable that blake bell will catch a game-winning touchdown against the Vikings. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's all there is to it. But now the route to the Vikings winning is clear, I think, for their defense, right? It's do you get them in third and long?

Do they try to rely on Zeke Elliott? And can you slow down Zeke Elliott because you know they're going to do that? And that's it. Like, that's the route. I mean, can you give Mike Zimmer his opportunities to blitz on third and long? Period. That's the only thing the Vikings will win going forward is if they do that. And he's been, like, really creative with some of those pressures that they used.

And I think, honestly, I'm not saying that they fixed their defensive line or that, you know, this is the group that you want inevitably going forward. But I think they got creative. Like the sack that Hercules Mata'afa, did they credit him solely with that? Was that half a sack? One of he and Eric Wilson kind of went in on together. Like, I think the way that they're rotating on the interior is really impressive just to kind of mitigate some of the issues that they had. And he's blitzing far more than he wants to this year. But it's working, right?

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That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. Yeah, I think so, too, against this offensive line because it's just bad. It's not where it was a few years ago. I mean, it's the complete opposite. This is like a 2016 Vikings. This offensive line is so beat up and awful. And they should have been on the phone to the Vikings trying to get Riley Reif because the NFC East is such a joke.

Terrence Steele is getting TJ Clemmings like PFF grades it's a hilarious name for an offensive lineman but he's super bad is that the right tackle uh yes and so I think that um he can potentially be uh beaten up by this defensive line that I don't actually believe is so much better than they were earlier I think that they've just drawn some good situations and really bad offensive lines. And in back-to-back weeks, you're playing two of the absolute worst and most beat-up offensive lines in the NFL in Chicago and Dallas. So I think that they'll continue to succeed as a front four.

Yeah. No, I mean, I think you're right. I think that that's – they've looked better, but it's not – the personnel is not better. I think it's just the way that they've schemed around some of the issues. I mean, DJ Wanham's playing meaningful snaps. Like that was a – right now, I mean, it's probably too early to say, like, yeah, great draft pick for a fourth-rounder,

but it looks like it's trending that way. He made some good plays these last few games. Can I say the same about James Lynch? I don't know. I mean, I would – I think anything's better than what you had in there before, these last few games um can i say the same about james lynch i don't i don't know i mean i would say i think anything's better than what you had in there before and i think that's they're getting better at those obvious passing situations but also like rotating guys in and out on the interior like hercules mod alpha was not was was good i mean that was the reason like you know early on

they were flustering the hell out of fooles. Even with or without offensive line issues, the defensive line was a problem in Chicago. So I don't know. I mean, it's their offensive line. I know they had, like, Zach Martins there and Connor Williams or whatever. But, like, do they have a bunch of guys that are on, like, the COVID list or anything? Is that what they're worried about?

I think just injured. Injured? Because Tyron Smith is out, and that's how they end up with Cam Irving playing left tackle, and he's never been good in his entire career. Zach Martin is still in. He's great. Connor Williams is the guy they drafted a couple years ago.

He's never really figured it out. He's kind of been a guard. And then they're playing, well, Joe Looney is their center, but he's a guy that took over for Travis Frederick, who was great. And, you know, no one's going to be him. And then the right tackle position is a huge problem. So I think they're going to try to take advantage of that. One area where it helps for Mike McCarthy is he's seen all these blitzes from Mike Zimmer. And he also knows Dom Capers really, really well. So he's got at least a sense for what they might do. I think we should wrap this on a pie chart. Do you agree?

All right. I'm off to the pie chart. Okay, you ready? All right. I'm going to make this one. This one is simple. This one is straightforward. This one is you have four options for what's going to happen, Vikings and Cowboys.

A blowout win for the Vikings where they dominate from start to finish and it's never really a threat that the Cowboys will beat them it is a last second type of win for the Vikings call it a Dan Bailey revenge game and Austin cutting they hold them up on his shoulders after a great long snap. Cutting, cutting. Because he finally has got it right again. A close loss in which Dallas maybe throws a Hail Mary to Amari Cooper to win. And then a blowout loss, a Falcons-style loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Percentage chance those four things happen.

Okay. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Will they win or lose? Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Okay, I've got to add up my percentages. Just give me a second. Do, do, do, do. I've got some good ones.

It's a pie chart. We're doing it again. Do, do, do. Okay, now you're done ready no no no I need two more minutes I'm kidding um all right so we're gonna add up the math as we go here blowout win for the Vikings I put it at 20 percent okay because Dallas is not good we know that um I I think that there's too many ways for them to win on offense here you could pound it down their throats with Dalvin you could um you know like I mentioned with like their how weak their secondary

has been like I don't know like what's going on with their defense it's not good and it hasn't gotten better so I think that 20% chance of a blowout win is probably um more like it's it's it's less realistic than my next one but i thought that was like a fair mark for that sure um so then i have 55 percent lost so that means hold on oh are you adding yourself i had to add so that's what then i'm doing for last second win 45 percent oh okay when you when watch that game, the last game that they had against the Steelers, and yeah, it was a different quarterback, Garrett Gilbert or whatever his name is. Yeah. Their defense looked pretty darn good.

Yeah. All things considered in that game. And they made the Steelers come back and fight them for that win. So I think that, I don't know I just feel like all the expectations the Vikings are three and oh they you know came off an ugly win but it never really felt like they were going to lose that game in Chicago even when they were down because it's just like the Bears are so inept right now um that a last second win kind of feels like what's probably going to happen here I put close loss for the Vikings at 25%.

And then blowout loss. I don't think we're going to see another Falcons-y style game. I think you can get one of those. You get one Buffalo a year and one Falcons a year. I put that at 10%. I think I would have blowout win higher than 20% because I don't really buy into Andy Dalton being any good anymore.

And he also said that he can't smell or taste. Like, I don't know if that makes a difference for how you play quarterback, but are you sure you're over COVID, bro? Yeah, but it's COVID and a concussion. I just, concussions never cease to amaze me. Like Cameron Dantzler had one where his neck looked like it snapped just back the same way andy dalton's did um and it's still questionable for this the first weekend he's gonna actually be a game time decision apparently

unless he gets downgraded tomorrow but um yeah just just. Like I don't expect him to just bounce back. Yeah. I, in fact, if I was Dallas, I think maybe I play Garrett Gilbert unless they're really sure that it's going to be all right. Garrett Gilbert was decent. I mean, he looked like he could play in the NFL. I think I would have played him instead. So I think blowout loss, I might have it like 40 or maybe even 50%.

And, uh, close. And then, or I'm sorry, win, blowout win. And then I agree with you on that there's not a very high chance of a blowout loss to Dallas. That would be truly stunning. I think the close loss thing, that maybe these teams are in total talent closer than their records indicate or the recent play indicates, but the overall accumulation of good players on both sides,

there are a lot of them on Dallas. And yet, you know, they lose their quarterback and things have gone sort of sideways for them. But it's not like you can look at their roster and say, oh, wow, that's Jacksonville. Who are these people? We know these Dallas players. They were good last year and they've been good in the past.

So, yeah. I know who DJ Chark is. Is he, like, playing for them still? Is he healthy? I don't even know. For Jacksonville? Yeah. Is he doing good?

I don't know. I can't name anybody in Jacksonville. Yeah, I think he had a decent game last week. Okay. I've watched almost no Jacksonville except for half of the game against Green Bay. Last week. Yeah, that was a good game. They made that thing a game.

It was a good game. It wasn't a good game, no. Fairly close game, yeah. But I was not focused much on DJ Shark. I apologize greatly to the podcast listeners who expected, give me a couple weeks for Jaguars takes. Anyway, okay, well, good pie chart chart and we will see what happens uh this uh season on the line every week is kind of fun so i know it creates chaos that you just don't

sweep under the rug you gotta keep that thing out there and you know go after it a hundred percent um would you say back down from it i mean honestly i was gonna i was gonna go there okay would you say if it was coming at you, this game, that you would come back at it 100%? I just want to make sure that I understand what this game is trying to tell me and what I'm trying to tell the game. You know, you just have to

know the situation and what's going on. That's the key. That is the key here. Don't back down from challenges. All right. Thanks, Courtney.