Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings beat the Bears ugly -- now throw it to Justin Jefferson more

Episode Date: November 17, 2020

Matthew Coller breaks down the Vikings' 19-13 win over the Bears, what it means for the playoff race, how Kirk Cousins went against a lot of narratives, why the Vikings should have trusted him more in a game that Justin Jefferson was dominating and how the NFC North looks really bad going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Grant Wall, and this is American Prodigy are back in the playoff hunt podcast. The Vikings win one of the most hideous football contests that I have ever seen in my life. But if you're a Vikings fan, you do not have to apologize for it, nor do you have to apologize for looking at the standings now and looking at the schedule to see whom is playing whom and who you need to win, who you need to lose, and how you can get back in it. Matthew Collar here with intern Paul. It's official, Paul. They are back in the playoff race.

We can finally say it after a game that I will rewatch for you because I care about every one of you people listening. And it is my job to go back and watch that game and take things away and do a film study and break it down with Jeremiah Searles on Tuesday morning left guard. But I don't want to, Paul, because that was an ugly, ugly football game. And let me just get it out of the way before you get into your questions and everything else let me just get it out of the way real quick there's going to be two new coaches in the NFC North next year end of story there is no reason for the Chicago Bears or the Detroit Lions to retain their coaches this is not taking

away from the Vikings win don't take it it that way. That is a hideous, pathetic excuse for an offense with a head coach that branded himself as an offensive genius. And they're about to go from what five and three to falling completely off the face of the map. I'm guessing that Detroit and Chicago are going to have new coaches after this year. Okay, go ahead and start us off wherever you want to start us off, Paul. There's lots to discuss. Yeah, I think before we get to playoffs, should we have expected anything else than what we just saw in this game?

It was, as you described, hideous at times. It was like I think we saw the national stage fully understand what a Vikings game at Soldier Field really looks like. Just their fifth win in this century at Soldier Field. And for a while, it didn't look like that was going to be the case. Still to the end when they were punting, you didn't think the Bears were going to score, but it would have been perfect for the Bears to score, kick the extra point, and win 2019 and have the reason they lose that game be the Austin cutting bad snap, and we'll get into the special teams later, but did we, were we fooling ourselves if we expected anything different than what we saw between these two teams today? This might be actually my best pick ever for a score and a result before the game I think on the podcast I

picked 18 to 16 Vikings and boy was it close I mean normally in the NFL things don't play out the way that you think they do that's why Vegas makes a lot of money and people lose a lot of money trying to gamble on football because it's sports friends it's unpredictable this was extremely predictable that the Vikings would go to Soldier Field they would struggle to move the ball on the ground with Delvin Cook and that the Chicago Bears offense was a mess and uh yeah you know what I think it tells you two things though it tells you that the Vikings can indeed win at Soldier Field that there is no actual curse because this one they needed they needed to go to Chicago and win to keep their season alive and they showed up in a lot of different areas we will discuss the areas

that they did not but the areas that they did the quarterback position this is another thing curse is not existing and such of the Monday night football. Kirk Cousins numbers on Monday night football aren't that much different than they are. Usually it is just kind of a random sampling of games that they put together and it ended up 0-9. Well, it's not anymore. And this might have been one of Kirk Cousins best games that he has played as a Viking. and there's a good case for it because he usually comes up short against good defenses, and we saw Chicago has a lot of things going for them on defense. Now, when Akeem Hicks went out, it changed the formula a little bit, but they only

averaged three yards per carry against this Bears defense, and Cousins was not pressured a ton. That's credit to the offensive line but he also escaped pressure a couple times he moved he made some plays he stepped up huge on third down he made extremely accurate throws and the only unfortunate break for Kirk Cousins is that he gets marked with an interception for this game which was right in and out of Adam Thielen's hands and into the hands of Khalil Mack. But this was a tremendously well-played game by Kirk Cousins. And I would fancy to say this, Paul, that they would have won by more points had they trusted Kirk Cousins to win

at Soldier Field. So all the things we talk about on the show that are general truths about Kirk Cousins, that he does not beat good defenses, that he does not step up in a lot of the biggest moments, and that you don't win very often when everything rests on the shoulders of your quarterback. All those things, he went the other direction in this game. And to keep the Vikings in the playoff race, it's a little bit of putting out the fire that you started because his play got them to one in five in part not all his fault but in part got them to one in five and now in recent weeks he's been digging them out of that hole and I think that that's the person who of anyone should

be the most proud tonight because he just flat out played a A-plus game. I have no complaints. I mean, he didn't throw any ball that you would say was an interceptable pass. He threw it out of bounds when Chicago got pressure. His touchdown pass to Adam Thielen is marvelous. His second touchdown was in a position where the Vikings did not help him very much by running on second and long, and then he threw a dart to Adam Thielen. All night long, it was, let's see how much we can put Kirk behind the sticks here,

and then Kirk came through. And that would be my biggest criticism of the Vikings' offense, was second down runs as per usual, and no one is stopping Justin Jefferson that's on this earth. So why are you only waiting until third down to throw to Justin Jefferson? But as far as them going into Soldier Field and winning this game, on the back of their quarterback, that was not the expected result, even if the score kind of came out how we thought,

and Kirk Cousins deserves a ton of credit for that. Yeah, I want to expand on that a little bit more because the last two games, Mike Zimmer and the whole, like, you could tell their plan was, we're taking Kirk Cousins out of this game, and it worked, and it seemed like that was going to be their plan again today, and for a lot of the game, it kind of was. In the first half, the Vikings had 14 run plays on first and second

down there weren't a ton of plays in that first half it went by really really quickly so the fact that 14 of them on first and second down or run plays was quite a lot even and it still wasn't working so it wasn't like Dalvin was doing what he had done in the past games and you're like well yeah I just keep giving it to him it wasn't working like it it wasn't at all Dalvin racked up yards as the game went on but in the first half I think he only had like 32 or something like that. So there was no success there. And I think Mike Zimmer, I don't know if this is right or not. This is kind of the question. He's going to continue moving forward saying, we don't need Kirk to do that much. Like Kirk threw a bunch of picks at the beginning of the year. We got into this hole because of him.

And now I'm wondering, should they be giving him more responsibility? This is kind of the point of your reaction piece right afterwards. Because I'm not sure they're going to after these three games, because two of them, he only threw 34 passes combined. This one he threw 36. But I'm still not sure this is going to convince them to give him more responsibility. But I think it should should because Chicago is the first good defense that they've seen in a while. It's actually going to be the first good defense they

see for a while longer with the games coming up, but still, I think they need to be giving Kirk Cousins more of a role in this offense, and it was kind of the argument you were making. They should structure everything around Kirk Cousins to make him better and make him more successful. That obviously didn't happen, but it seems like we're at a tug of war where how Mike Zimmer wants this team to be played, which is these past two games. And like you said, Kirk Cousins kind of willed them to victory for this game. So how do you see it playing out? Like, or how do you, how should it be playing out in your mind? I'm looking right now doing a little quick investigation on where the upcoming teams rank in terms of past defense. And just in terms of quarterback rating against, let's see.

You've got the Dallas Cowboys next. They rank 27th. You have Jacksonville after that. They're 31st. Carolina after that. They are 23rd. So I think you should pass the football to Justin Jefferson. Here's the thing.

Delvin Cook is a wonderful player. I mean, there are few guys in the world who even get as many yards as he did tonight. There were a bunch of great runs that I think they'll look back in the meeting rooms and go, wow, I don't know how he pulled that off or how it wasn't a negative play or he pushed forward for two, three yards when it should have been zero. All those things. He's a great player. There's no question about it. But think about how few plays it took Justin Jefferson to get over 100 yards. I mean, this is just the game today. It took six catches for Justin Jefferson to get over 100 yards and he tied Randy Moss for 100-yard games for a rookie.

He is putting his name up next to Randy Moss's as he goes through this season as one of, potentially going forward here, the great rookie receiver seasons of all time. That is what is happening in front of our eyes right now, and with all respect to the great Delvin Cook, that's who is getting more of the attention now I understand that with the last two weeks being incredible the most valuable player on this offense because of the position he plays and just his dominance is Justin Jefferson and over these next few weeks I have made this crack before I but lean into the Kirk and let loose in the passing game, I know that it scares Zimmer, the turnovers from Kirk Cousins. That is a feature of having Kirk Cousins as your quarterback,

and it always will be. There will be stretches where he protects the ball and he's great. There will be stretches where he drives crazy and turns the ball over. That's never not going to be a thing. But if you're talking about the way to have your offense lead you to success, it's not running on second and 10 over and over again. I know I just beat that dead horse a lot about the second and 10s. It's the least efficient play. And even when you have a great running back, if he gets stuffed there, you are in a bad position.

All defenses talk about wanting to get the other team in third and eight and that's what you gave Chicago a bunch of times and Cousins and Jefferson came through no one can guard Justin Jefferson like this is it's time to go Randy ratio on Justin Jefferson you must throw to Justin Jefferson 10 times game and if you don't Jake Browning plays or something like that has to happen. Or, uh, I don't know. Someone else calls the plays for the next week. If there are not 10 throws in the direction, at least of Justin Jefferson, if he can take apart a very good defense and the best third down defense in the NFL, single-handedly like he did tonight, he can do it against the Jaguars the

Cowboys the Panthers and then you know that we start talking about whether you have a chance to do it against a great defense because the numbers that the Vikings are putting up in terms of yards per pass attempt and things like that are at the top of the league so now when you play the Jameis Winston Saints or the Brady Bucks that aren't as good down the road, those games that will really matter in this playoff race, that's how you're probably going to have to win. It's probably not with those teams, handoff, handoff, handoff, handoff, like you can beat the Detroit Lions. You can do anything against the Detroit Lions. You can run reverses every play and you're going to be fine. But tonight showed you, you have to be able to pass, I think, in other situations if you want to beat a team that you really whipped them in a lot of ways and still only won by a couple points.

Like, you don't want to do that when you play against good teams because they're not going to have the worst offense in the league. They're not going to make the Jets offense look good and explosive. Probably not, right? Even with Jamison, you know that the Saints are not going to make the Jets offense look good and explosive. Probably not, right? Even with Jamison, you know that the Saints are still going to be good. So when you face the better teams, you're going to have to lean on your most valuable player, which is now Justin Jefferson. And I think that this is what writes it in stone. If anyone had any questions about how good he was or how much he could impact the offense,

they are a completely different, maybe even franchise with him here than what they were over those first two games. If Justin Jefferson is fully Justin Jefferson the first two games, maybe they're in them as opposed to what happens. So, you know, I think that that's one of the lessons. I forgot your question by now, but I think that that's one of the lessons that needs to be taken away from this game yeah and the a little bit troubling thing for me is early the past game was working I know Rudolph fumbled the dealing in reception but they were

just dicing up buster screen like he just couldn't cover anyone and like we knew this was going to be a hard game for Dalvin Cook to run the ball with the front that the Bears have against the offensive line, which probably took a little bit of a step back, like, which was probably to be expected considering who they had faced prior. But Dalvin Cook had never had more than 40 rushing yards against the Bears. Like, the Bears bottled him up, and historically they have bottled him up. They have a team Hicks up in the middle, which we saw how much that probably helped Dalvin rack up some extra yards at the end of the game when he wasn't in there. And the fact that they were successful in the passing game, then still came back to the run, even though it wasn't successful, is the thing that's a little bit confusing. And it feels like that's what were the Mike Zimmer influence on

Gary Kubiak more than maybe Gary Kubiak wants to run the ball. And this has just become a pattern for every single offensive coordinator that's been in here. So now I don't think it's time for us to be like, well, it might be the offensive coordinator. It pretty clearly seems like it's Mike Zimmer wants to run the ball. The offensive coordinator knows that. That's in his head all the time. So that's going to be the most of the first down runs. That's probably going to be most of the second down runs. Like everything we've seen from Gary Kubiak, we know he likes to run the ball.

I think that would have changed based on what we saw in this game partway through and what they were doing through the passing game. Justin Jefferson was open on pretty much every route that he ran. Adam Thielen had the one good catch. But yeah, it's, that's the only thing that concerns me is even though that they're seeing all this progress and they're seeing it work, it might not matter to them because we have to establish the run we have to do this like Davin Cook is the force of our offense so that's the only thing where I'd push back on I don't know if this continues because I don't know if Zimmer will let it continue but I hope I hope it does.

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SodaStick, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. I think that it's weirdly a criticism and compliment at the same time of, hey, maybe under certain circumstances you should switch. And the compliment is that you have one of the best receivers in the NFL. Right. So it's like I know that you're we're talking about going away from the best running back in the NFL to go to one of the best receivers in the NFL. And this speaks to how they can get back in the race is the fact that they just have too much talent. This is what we discussed when they were tanking. I still want you to do skull searching interviews though, Paul, you are not done doing that because that was great. Your interview about Trey Lance. So I want you to keep doing that. But the skull searching part of it, at least for now, is kind of put aside of the future.

And when I do the Friday mailbag on the website of all the people saying, well, how can they get out of Kirk's contract and all those things? That's kind of on hold for now. And it points to, all right, well, now there's pressure again. At the beginning of the season, there's pressure on you, and you come up short, and then it goes away, and then there's no pressure on anybody. There's no pressure really on even Gary Kubiak to improve the play calling

or Kirk Cousins to put up big games or Delvin Cook or the offensive line or the defense or anybody. And they come into this game sort of loose with this, hey, if we win, we're back in it kind of thing. And if not, we go right back to where we were. And they're able to take care of business on national TV and play well and use their SAR receiver and everything. Now you go back to there's pressure and there's expectations again.

Because when you are putting up some of the best numbers in the NFL on offense, then you have to beat the heck out of teams that can't play defense at all. That means running Dallas out of the building. It doesn't mean beating them 19 to 13. It means using Justin Jefferson to his full abilities and him putting up 200 yards or whatever it means versus a team that cannot cover anyone. So now, how are you going to take this win, which gets you back in playoff position and maybe some of the errors that you had along the way and fix those to go on and beat the teams that you're

supposed to beat. Because if they make the same mistakes that they made in this game in all three of the next three games, and I mean, some of it being play calling, some of it being turnover, some of it being special teams of it being special teams all those things somebody's gonna get you and I don't know which team maybe it'll be Carolina like they've played a bunch of good teams fairly close uh we know that their quarterback can play they've got a few weapons on offense like someone is going to get you if you continue to make the mistakes so uh and part of that is you just have to look at the situation and the game flow and the down and distance and who's dominating and say,

whatever your hesitation is about throwing a lot to Justin Jefferson, put that aside and keep doing more of that because that works. Yeah, and I think it's time now to talk about that playoff potential. They're now ninth in the NFC. Eighth is the Bears. It seems like only a matter of time where they flip-flop those positions. Then seven is Seattle at six and three. Obviously, Seattle has the head-to-head.

So they're hoping that that NFC West kind of cannibalizes itself with Arizona, the Rams, and the Seahawks, which is kind of doing. They're all kind of trading wins at this point. So that's a very real possibility if one team just kind of fades because of the competition that they're going to face. But they're now right in it. They have the winnable games coming up. And so did the game we just saw make you more or less confident

in the Vikings' playoff hopes? Because as we talked about, there were positives. Kirk played well in a game that really mattered. Justin Jefferson continues to break out. They showed that they can win a game without Dalvin Cook against at least an average or better than average defense. The defense played well against the Bears. Who knows how much that really matters considering what we saw from Nick Foles in that offense, but they played well. So coming out of this game, are we feeling more confident? Because, I mean, just in the numbers,

we have to feel just a little bit better about their probability, but it wasn't always very pretty tonight. So where do you kind of rank on the scale of this helps their chances, like in terms of how they played? And don't get me wrong. Any win at Soldier Field for this franchise is a good win. I'm just making the point that the not pretty parts of it, or even the frustrating parts of it, if you say, think that Justin Jefferson is the best thing the offense can do,

that deserves some scrutiny there. And I think that they will, you know, they'll probably run Delvin for 200 yards a game against the next couple of teams because they're very poor on the offensive side. It's just that don't wait until third and 10 to throw the ball to your best player. Feel free to do that lots of times throughout the game. Now, the point on the playoff situation, it's still not pretty. Even after this win, you dig yourself a massive hole. like the hole that they were in is uh the dark knight when batman is all the way down at the bottom and he's trying to climb up uh you know by jumping up and getting the rusty chain or whatever you know what i'm talking about and uh that's where they're at like maybe they've just grabbed the rusty chain and they're starting to climb

their way up from this massive one in five hole. It's not impossible for them to do it. The problem is the margin of error is very small and the teams ahead of them are still a ways ahead of them. The NFC is kind of broken into here's the playoff teams. Here's not the playoff teams. And even if you are as good as them, which I think right now after watching the full game between Arizona and Buffalo on Sunday I don't think that the Vikings are much different than

Arizona in terms of their total talent or which team is better if they were to play 10 games they probably split them five to five between them and Arizona but Arizona's six and three and you are four and five so you have to be two games better than them. Simple math here, Paul. Two games better than them the rest of the way, and there's not a whole lot of games to do it, only seven games to go. That means you need losses from them or the Rams or Seattle, whoever it's going to be.

You need losses from somebody in that playoff spot. You need them to fall apart, and then you need to win everything, because teams right now that are 6-3 have a really good shot at being 10-6, and that's kind of the bar that's getting set here. You already lost to Seattle, so if Seattle is in the last spot, they get it and not you, because you didn't convert a fourth down and won, and then gave up that huge drive at the end. Arizona, that Hail Mary touchdown, might end up playing a huge role in whether you get into the playoffs or not. Think about the

road that they have to go. Still, it almost has to be perfect the rest of the way when you're sitting at four and five. If the bar is 10 and six, again, this is not complicated math. You only have room for one loss and you don't have any room for another Atlanta game. You don't have any room for Cousins shows up, he throws the first pick of the game, and then it's off to the races for the other team. And every year, there have been a few disappointing games where you expect the Vikings to win, and this has gone back. I mean, really the only year that I've been here where that hasn't happened is 2017, where you expect them

to beat a team. And then they do. There's always those games that are mixed in. Maybe it's out of their system with Atlanta. Maybe all is fixed and all is good, but you can't say, you know, week 17 lose to the Detroit Lions who are playing for nothing. You can't stumble against the Jaguars like we almost saw the Green Bay Packers do. You can't have Andy Dalton come to your building and suddenly and randomly have a really good game. So I think that it's worth talking about now. I think it's worth breaking down every matchup like it matters, like they're in the playoff race as we go into this next week and talking to someone from the Dallas media and seeing what's going on there and like hyping these things up. I'm excited about that. But I also think that there are a lot of people that deserve credit for getting them back into the race, starting with Justin Jefferson.

I mean, my gosh, he's just the complete difference maker. But also the offensive line held up in pass protection. They needed to do one or the other tonight. It needed to be pass pro or it needed to be run blocking, and it just so happened to be pass protection. Cousins had time to throw the ball. Mike Zimmer deserves a ton of credit and I have always been in the camp of there are much worse coaches in the world that you can have than Mike Zimmer I understand if they're direction wise and all those types of things if they should trade

Zimmer or move on or whatever and go all in on Kirk if they want to do that that's been a fun discussion to have about does the head coach fit with the quarterback and you know in some ways tonight it didn't exactly but uh he's good he's very good and you will find very few schemes slash play calling defensive minds in the NFL that are better than Mike Zimmer and even against a pathetic Bears offense, to hold them in the 100 range of yards is a job excellently well done, especially considering the talent that we're talking about. I mean, Harrison Smith, Anthony Harris, both fantastic tonight. But still, someone named Chris Jones is on this team, a guy that they got off waivers

from nowhere and pretty much throw him right into the starting lineup and then he's not getting torched and somehow Zimmer is finding ways to protect Jeff Gladney more and Chris Boyd and and they're getting pressure when who's on the defensive line that's going to the Pro Bowl this year so you know I think that it says at least from the head coaching standpoint that you've got something there so to circle all the way back uh yes we are talking about the playoff race and we will talk about it until it's over do i think that the odds are high or the chances are high no i would still put them as a seven and nine team at the end of the year but i am going to at least be excited about breaking

down these games going forward until they prove to me that I don't have to do that anymore. And then we go back to skull searching or something. Yeah. And, and you mentioned they can't have another Falcons game. I'm not sure they can have another bears game really this game that they played because they out gained them 385 to 149. You can't do that. And then only win by win by six points like you like that's going to come back to bite you at some point it if the Bears didn't have an anemic offense it may have come back to bite them today so I don't think they can have another game like they had today but

yeah the the playoff picture probably still isn't great the Saints just lost Drew Brees for who knows how long we like Jameis. Maybe he does some good things for them, but that's another team that could fall off. But again, that just becomes a math problem. They're seven and two. They'd really have to fall off for anything to happen. But as we've seen, a team in the NFC looks like the best team in the NFC for one week, and then you'll lose to a crappy team. The Packers almost lost to the Jaguars this last week so all the NFC teams are beatable and none of them I don't think are immune from a losing streak like the Vikings saw at the beginning of the season so now it's just time for the Vikings to turn that

around and them to go on a winning streak they still don't have a lot of margin for even if a team falls down but I want to talk about the about one of the areas that did really struggle in this game, and I think is a point that Zimmer is really going to harp on. And I don't know if we see a coaching move happen at some point, but Marwin Maloof can't be sleeping well tonight after this win. Last week, two punts blocked. This week, Cordero Patterson runs a kick return touchdown of like 105 yards. I think a couple punt returns that just went for too many yards than they probably should have. The Austin cutting thing is now becoming something we have to monitor. So it's a smaller part of the roster, and there were maybe concerns earlier in the year, but they didn't match the concerns the rest of the team were having.

Now this is a big storyline. So I don't know. Is Marlon Maloof worrying about if his key card is going to work tomorrow in the building? Where are we at? I do think, based on Zimmer's history with coordinators, he often makes changes with them when things don't work out. I would say this in defense of Marwin Maloof. Partly, none of us really understand how special teams are coached. So it's not like any of us look at that Cordero Patterson kick return and go, oh, well, that's coaching because it's been so eliminated from the game.

It's not worth studying most of the time. I think the biggest thing that irritated Mike Zimmer was that they kicked to him at all. I mean, these are ones where you want to either roll it up there to him or you want to kick it out of the back of the end zone, and those are the only two options. This is the greatest kick returner, not just overall returner, but kick returner of all time, Cordero Patterson. And considering how few opportunities he gets and how few opportunities anyone in the NFL gets to return kicks,

the fact that he's tied for all-time touchdowns is insanity. I mean, this play has been eliminated, and this guy is still dominating it. So don't kick it anywhere near him. That is a thing on the first day of preparation for the next game where you say, okay, let's start off with how we're going to block Khalil Mack and don't ever kick the ball to Cordero Patterson. They kicked the ball to Cordero Patterson. So that might be coaching.

But the long snapping, I don't know what the special teams coach is supposed to do, but it's bad. And they spent a draft pick on the man. That's a little concerning right there, that he was such a good long snapper, they had to spend a draft pick on a position that nobody ever drafts. And usually you just find someone. And now Austin Cutting is really struggling. Is it the yips?

I don't know. He was fine last year, I thought. And then all of a sudden it's like terrifying to watch. And so the special teams, I don't know what you do about that. But I also think a part of it is you have a bunch of guys that have no experience that are out there playing. Like Josh Metellus recovered the fumble by the Bears, another instance of really Bears. But he recovers that fumble, and you're reminded, oh, yeah,

that's like a sixth-rounder guy who's a rookie who had no offseason. And there's a lot of players who were special teamers and were good who are now having to play as opposed to be special teamers. I think that that will matter to some extent. But would it shock me if Mike Zimmer, especially from what we saw on the sideline, got super upset about the special teams and made a change? They haven't really been all that good the last two years, honestly, under Marwin Maloof. But it's much easier to say, hey, Gary Kubiak, why are you doing this, you know, I don't know, route combination,

or why are you calling this play in this situation, than it is to say, oh, I know what the blocking should have been or where they should have been in their lanes or whatever. So that's one that, I don't know, Mike Zimmer will have to decide. But clearly it goes into the category of I'm not ready to say for sure that this team is good enough in any area except for Justin Jefferson and Delvin Cook I'm not ready to say for sure that they can win all these games because special teams gaffes like that will cost you even if it's against Andy Dalton if if you're giving up two punt blocks or if you're

giving up you know missed extra points because of long snaps and if I mean what in a hell is KJ Osborne doing like the ball bouncing off him and then he puts it between his legs like a basketball player like what is going on I can't remember this ever really being a discussion outside of the obvious Blair Walsh you know shanking a field goal but the coverage units the return units Marcus Sherrill's was so good for a long time like this is a discussion for the first time uh at least since I've been covering the team so it's it's been a long time since it's been any sort of concern um but yeah I think that I I think that it's it goes under major concern when it's been any sort of concern. But yeah, I think that it goes under major concern when it's over multiple weeks.

Yeah, and had they lost this game and those gaffes become the biggest reason that people look back and that they lost the game, then I wouldn't be surprised that Marwin's kind of the scapegoat to say, okay, we lost this game. We're clearing him out. That's just what's happening. But again, in the defense of Marwin's kind of the scapegoat to say, okay, we lost this game. We're clearing him out. Like, that's just what's happening. But, again, in the defense of Marwin, every time I've talked to him or I've heard him talk to the media, he's very much like Mike Zimmer

makes the decision on who the person is going to be kick returning. Like, we're going to prepare Amir Abdullah. We're going to prepare KJ Osborne and whoever they decide to go with. They probably, meaning Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman, whoever is making that decision, we just want to get them ready. So I don't know, fans are probably what's going on with KJ Osborne. He was one of the top picks. I don't know if you can really put that on Marwin. There's the Dan Chisna thing that they kept him. He continues to not really know how to tackle. I forgot about backing into the end zone

yeah to ground a play i don't know how much that's on marwin i mean you have to teach those types of things but then again you're mike boone missed the guy last week on the punt block that seems like a clear coaching thing where you put it on marwin or just i mean you don't put it on him that boone just missed the whole thing but you're supposed to be able to at least have your guys be able to do that sort of stuff. So there's kind of some push and pull in both directions. This is less about is Marwin Maloof going to keep his job and more just the special teams is bad. Like they need to fix some of these things. And, yeah, I'm not sure how much Marwin's really going to influence the Austin cutting thing.

Maybe it was all the press he got in the offseason. It went to his head. It went to the long snapper's head. That must be it. Yeah, so maybe something like that. But, again, he went to Air Force, so you'd think he'd have the mental – he'd be tougher than that to be able to withstand some of that. So, yeah.

Real quick, though, think about how many opportunities the special teams gave the Bears. And if're on chicago's postgame podcast you are going just ape right like you can't believe this uh how about it even at the end so the bears get a stop and uh you know colquitt punts it out of the back of the end zone he was probably just terrified it was going to be blocked or he was going to get a bad snap or something and so he boots it out of the back of the end zone he was probably just terrified it was going to be blocked or he was going to get a bad snap or something and so he boots it out of the back of the end zone and right there you're going well this is kind of a lot of time I mean they have no chance because their team is a mess on the offensive side but even then if you gave Aaron Rodgers that much time say then you'd be pretty concerned it's just it's it's an amazing turn um of the

quarterback schedule that we talked about going forward uh back at the beginning of the season how they have this really tough quarterback schedule and then all of a sudden it fell off the side of a cliff with Nick Foles not being able to do absolutely anything Dak Prescott gets hurt I don't know if Gardner Minshew, I don't know what his deal is, or if it's going to be Jake Luton. Either way, you're not concerned about them at all. And then you, of course, have Breeze and Brady and Stafford at the end of the season.

You get another shot at these Bears, but, you know, it's amazing how the Bears' offense did bail them out on numerous occasions. And you can give Mike Zimmer credit, the defense credit. They deserve it. They made plays. Harrison Smith getting the interception. Harrison Smith breaking up play. The defensive line getting pressure.

Hercules Mata'afa showed up a couple of times getting pressure on the quarterback. We saw DJ Wanham. We saw Armand Watts. All those guys. But if it's a slightly competent offense, I think, I'm not going to say that they win the game, but it is requiring much more offense from the Vikings than they gave. If the Bears took even a little bit of advantage of all those special teams mistakes. So to your point, if they do that for the next three games and they have these turnovers or whatever it might be,

someone is going to make you pay for it, and the Bears did not tonight. Yeah, and it's not just one game now. It's been two that they've had gaffes. So it's not just, oh, it's Soldier Field. It's weird. It's Monday night. Things happen. They just had a bad day.

It's now become a trend. So now it's just something we need to watch, and we know Mike Zimmer's not going to have patience for it. So it has the possibility of blowing up and being kind of a reason they lose the game because we've seen this season, they've lost games for things that shouldn't matter, like a right guard.

So like some of these special teams things probably shouldn't matter as much as they may end up being for a Vikings team that's towing the line so so much um I just want to ask you your your favorite um like Vikings soldier field moment because we did the whole mystery thing in the offseason it caught steam again this week but my gosh there were lots of them There was Kyle Rudolph fumbling for the first time conceivably ever. There was Adam Thielen bobbling a catch into the arms of Khalil Mack. There's Kirk Cousins saying, you like that at the end of the game when they still needed another first down and they ended up giving the ball back to the other team. There's just so many.

Maybe there's a pick-your-own-adventure that you want to go with, but I just want to know from you, your most favorite classic Viking soldier field moment from tonight. And I would say that I enjoy when bogus narratives are blown up. And we discussed this a little earlier in the week about Kirk on Monday Night Football. And I think the determination was, look, any way you study the guy's national TV games, there's nothing that shows up that says he's any different than he usually is. And it was really unfair. And they had, I'll give ESPN credit, they had a hilarious

graphic of, you know, an office space reference of, you know, Kirk Cousins beating up a TV. And that's good. I mean, it's well done, creative, but it's just so uninteresting and easily proven that there's nothing really to it the sample of nine games is your typical nine games so when Kirk is celebrating early then yeah you're kind of like good for you man because that narrative is a bunch of nonsense but it would have been the most Vikings thing in Soldier Field of all time for Cousins to be jumping around, celebrating, you like that, and then punt it away. And the punt returner takes it back for a touchdown and all of a sudden you lose. I mean, that would have absolutely been the thing to happen. And maybe the curse is broken now.

I don't know because a bunch of things had to go with Delvin Cook having to leave the game ever so briefly because he fell on the ball in a precarious way. Let me say that as soon as that happened – They just kept showing the replay too. They just couldn't stop. And they wouldn't say like what it was, and everyone was just like, are you going to mention it or are we just going to keep playing the replay and being like, well, was it his leg?

Or, oh, well, look at Jalen Johnson over here on the side wall, down in Cook's doing that. Like it was, it was bizarre. 2020 has already reshaped how we work and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be the most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. Indeed is the number one job site in the world

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That's BLUEWIRE, all one word. BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. Yeah, that hit him in the most unfortunate spot, and he was only forced to miss one play because of it. Remarkable. Happens with boxers all the time. You get hit below the belt, and you just give the guy a second. He'll come back. He'll be fine.

But the ball falling out and hitting him there was the most Soldier Field thing. I say that only like half in jest. The most, I think, is probably the missed field goal because that was the – or extra point, I mean. The missed extra point. And then Britton Colquitt trying to throw it. I don't know why he tried to throw it just go down britain cole quit like this this should have been a whole podcast entirely on the special teams mistakes because that one why are you throwing it who do

you think is going to catch it and run it in for a touchdown like dakota dozier i mean who's even allowed to catch the ball at this point do you even know are you just throwing it up in the air like most play that looked like i would have done it if i was out there was that play if you snap the ball to me in an nfl game and i bobbled it a little i would just throw it away because i'd be like don't hurt me and that's what britain colquitt did uh that if that had either been caught and run back for a two-point conversion by the Bears, or if that had cost them on a last-second touchdown, it would have been the thing we talked about forever, the botched extra point that turned into the Vikings season

being over in Chicago. And I'm almost sitting here as we talk in awe that none of these things cost them like that tells you the status of the Chicago Bears let me explain it to you the Vikings did all these soldier fieldery things and none of them cost them the game that's how different uh this is and that's how bad the Bears situation is at the moment and yet still somehow ahead of the Vikings in the standings what a weird football world it is Paul yeah I have several Bears fans in my life and they were tweeting they're like you guys are seeing this on national television for the first time but this isn't even the weirdest and they were like we've had like three of these games this is like normal to us.

So yeah, that's not where you want to be as a franchise when you have two field goals, ones where you're just in like field goal range because of a turnover. The other is a Cordero Patterson return for touchdown and you literally can't do anything else. So yeah, had they won that game, I was going to ask you, who's going to make the playoffs first,

the Bears or the Vikings? Because the Bears just mathematically would have been in a spot but now they're both probably not going to be there and the Bears have really no way out of where they currently are so it's most definitely the Vikings but yeah this I don't know if we could have had a better Vikings at Soldier Field game than what we got tonight. So they've got another game against the Bears, which we've learned can also go bad at home from 2018 in week 17. So like, don't count all the chickens before they hatch. But I would write that one down as a win personally myself when they played the Bears again, because of what we saw. I think the Vikings will actually play better the next time. I mean, I would not expect a dozen special teams errors the next time they play the Bears.

So I think that they'll win again. But when you start thinking about where these two franchises are at in terms of like the long-term outlook, the 30,000-foot view, the bigger picture, you would hate to be the Bears. I mean, the Vikings we've talked about, they're in a tough spot. They're in between a rebuilding team, as we were discussing with skull searching, and the other side, which is a team that's in a playoff spot. So you're in that tough middle to where, you know, going into next year, you're not going to have a high draft pick

who makes a huge impact right away, necessarily. Maybe you get another Justin Jefferson. Maybe you don't. But you're not going to get that number three overall pick. You're not going to get that franchise quarterback at the top that you can structure your whole roster around and spend a bunch of money around that guy. So you're probably not doing that if this goes the way we think it's going to go. But if you think about where the next couple of years are, you at least have a quarterback who can win you games. You're guaranteed that by having Kirk Cousins and you're locked into him for a

couple of years. Okay. But you've got a superstar young receiver. You've got a superstar running back. Adam Thielen had a bad game in a couple of instances tonight, but he's a great player. Still you have a budding tight end that didn't even play. You have an offensive line who has at least three guys who are young, recent draft picks who are growing here. And on the defensive side, there's still a lot of work to do, but Jeff Gladney looked like he had another good game tonight. And so you build off of that. And the

offensive side is much harder, I think, than the defensive side. So you're saying, okay, 2021, you should be a legit contender and maybe win the division. 2022, same deal. And if you're the Bears, what's your thing? Because that defense is already starting to slip. That was not the Bears' defense of two years ago or last year. They were not as strong tonight. They gave up some big plays. So your defense is already starting to slip. They mentioned Akeem Hicks is 31 years old, so he's getting on the older side. Khalil Mack costs a gazillion dollars to be like a good player, but, I mean, he's not like winning you Super Bowls because no defensive end can do that. Your offensive side, your great receiver, Allen Robinson,

who you threw bubble screens to tonight, is going to leave. Your running back doesn't matter. You're playing a wide receiver there. Your offensive line is trash. Your quarterback situation is a disaster, and you don't have a high draft pick because even if they win two more games, they're in the middle of the first round and not the top of the first round. That is one of the most bleeped franchises.

One of the ones where if they offer you the GM job, Paul, they're like, you know what, we've been looking for an intern to just be the GM. Do you want to take it in Chicago? You're like, I don't know, man. I don't know that. I don't see a path. I see a path in Detroit more than I see a path in Chicago to being a competitive team. The path of Detroit is fire Matt Patricia, and then you're probably a lot more competitive. In Chicago, much, much more difficult. So you'd rather be the Vikings by a wide margin. So final thoughts, Paul, give them.

Well, I was just going to say, that gives the Vikings and the Packers, knowing that you have now a just stuck in nowhere Bears team that's getting older and a Lions team that I will never believe is good until they have maybe won a playoff game or two. I just don't know if we can do that yet. But that incentivizes the fact that the Packers and the Vikings should be going for the next few years to try to win. I don't know if the Jordan Love should be the move, but if it is, then the Vikings say we have Nick Foles or some other quarterback with the Bears. We have an aging Matthew Stafford, and now we have Jordan Love. Like, we should be going for this now.

And the way the contracts are put in, I don't know if they really have a choice. They probably just have to go for it anyways, but that might be a blessing in disguise because, man, the NFC North, if you look at it like with a glass half empty look, they're bad. They're not NFC East bad, but they're probably the second worst division in the NFL. The NFC East is just kind of taking all that glory and attention away from you, but man, if you go through the other divisions, maybe it's the AFC South, but like other than that, there's really no other division that away from you. But man, if you go through the other divisions, maybe it's the AFC South. But like, other than that, there's, there's, there's really no other division that compares to you. So it puts the Vikings in a spot where they could try to win this year, because they still have a Bears game and a Lions game, where they it's still conceivable at this

point. And then yeah, how everything shifts from week to week, because now we're like, well, for the next few years, maybe they have a chance when two weeks ago we said you got to blow it all up so that's just how Vikings football works well let me just make sure that we've got it right because I still would maintain that your playoff odds are probably going to be about one four right now so if that's still the case I'll check tomorrow what football outsiders has for playoff odds but if that's still the case, I'll check tomorrow what Football Outsiders has for playoff odds. But if that's the case and you're more than halfway through the season and have a 20-something percent chance to make playoffs, you still didn't exactly hit the nail on the head for where you were. And, I mean, think about the Yannick Ngakwe move. You messed it up twice.

Like you messed it up at first thinking that you needed him and then messed it up again by trading him away when he could have been pretty helpful if you're going down the stretch here. So, yeah, I think that there's always going to be no matter what the result is, if we judge the process of being in the middle of we don't know if we're making rebuilding moves. We don't know if we're making win now moves. That's where you get yourself into trouble. And I do believe that they got themselves into some trouble. Now, if you're talking about the long-term, uh, what they can do going forward with the fact that they have Jefferson, I think changes a lot about the franchise. And if you're talking about 2021, I mean, I wouldn't immediately project this team

as a Superbowl contender. I would just look at the other NFC North teams and go, my gosh, they're all a complete mess in the future here. And yeah, that path, even if you made mistakes along the way, may open wide for you going forward in the future because that Bears team, I don't see how they turn it around this year to get to the playoffs. And I really don't see a quick fix for them even drafting a quarterback because you're probably getting like the fourth or fifth best quarterback in the draft unless they trade everything for it. So it, it will be something to watch of sort of like what happens to these other

NFC North teams. Although with the Vikings luck, they'll come to Minnesota and beat the Vikings to eliminate them from the playoffs or something in the future here. So, well, great stuff, Paul. Glad you were able to stay up past your bedtime as an intern. I require all interns to get a lot of sleep so you can cut podcast clips and post articles and so forth tomorrow.

So always appreciate you jumping on here after the game. And we will talk again soon. Thanks, Matt.