Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings get clobbered by the Packers, more or less ending their season

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Matthew Coller and Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press talk about the Vikings losing to the Green Bay Packers on New Year's Eve and what it says about the past and the future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, happy new year. Matthew Collar and Dane Mizutani inside the press box at u.s bank stadium following the minnesota vikings lost the green bay packers 33 to 10 on a night where it was never close there was never a glimmer of hope there wasn't even really a moment where either jaron hall or nick mollins who can't really be blamed for this, but either one of them played well enough to say, Oh, maybe. And on the defensive side, if Jordan love had not thrown away a couple of third and shorts or fourth and shorts, this game could have been instead of 33, maybe more like 48. So a defensive collapse from start to finish Jaron Hall, the unknown included a wide range of

possibilities and on that wide range was very bad. And that's what ended up happening. He was over his head from the outset, looked like he did not belong in playing in an NFL game. And Kevin O'Connell was forced to take him out at halftime to which Jaron Hall just told us down in the locker room that even he would have benched himself with the way that he was playing more turnovers, more interceptions, more strip sacks, and more watching backup quarterbacks fumble around in Kevin O'Connell's offense. However, they did throw a successful screen pass, just one to Ty Chandler, but it did happen. And that was one of the few highlights of the night, including a Najee Thompson had a very good game on special teams. And that is literally all

we can speak of for positives to come out of this. The Minnesota Vikings season for all intents and purposes is over. They have to win next week and have about four other things go right in order to have a chance at the playoffs, which after watching today does not seem very likely. So I ask you, as I always do, Dane Mizutani, where would you like to go with this one to start us out? I think we have to start out with just Jaron Hall and just how you felt bad for him after a while. And I get it.

This had to be the play because after nick mullins threw four interceptions to trot him back out there kind of be doing a disservice to the rest of the team in a game you had to win and you probably wanted to see what you had in jaron hall but we can tell you now it's not good and it was clear pretty early on, the lights are too bright. This kid is overwhelmed. He was missing reads. He was late on progressions. A lot of the things that I think we knew about Jaron Hall, just reading between the lines, the way the coaching staff has talked about him this year.

He was a project coming in and he's still very much a project, a work in progress. I don't know if it ever gets to an end goal at this point. I'm not sure what Jaron Hall's career trajectory even looks like. I know that's a lot to put into one half of football, but it was bad. It was really bad. And at no point did it feel like the offense was going to roll. But I think we start there because the fact that Jaron Hall had to play in this game on New Year's Eve, primetime, season on the line, Vikings-Packers, is just so emblematic of this whole year, right? Kirk Cousins goes down.

Jaron Hall actually replaces him because everyone else was hurt. Then they trade for Josh Dobbs. We're going to get into all this. Then it's Nick Mullins. Now it's back to Jaron Hall. Just a calamity of issues this year. And injuries definitely are to blame. But I think there's part of this that probably you can look at Kevin O'Connell

and the head coaching job he's done. And there are things that I think he needs to really look in the mirror going into this offseason and just say, hey, is this the offense that's always going to work? If it's Kirk next year, is that going to work? If it's a rookie quarterback, are you going to be able to be adaptable? Because we haven't seen that. I'm not ready to quit KOC completely because we can't do that when we watch what we did tonight with Jaron Hall

or Nick Mullins throwing four interceptions or Josh Dobbs not being able to run an offense, but there are concerns of, are you going to be able to win in a way that's not just your way? Um, I think all of those things are fair game now. Um, but yeah, just overall tonight, you really felt bad for Jaron hall. Um, and you kind of felt bad for everyone else around them on that biking sideline, because this thing has just gone up in flames completely and this is the story of a team that talked itself into we can compete we can throw in some backup quarterbacks and i can offensively scheme enough and we've got enough receivers and we've got enough weapons that we can figure out a way to win without Kirk Cousins. And our defense is good enough. And I think we're going to look back at the wins against San Francisco and Green Bay as the ones that they truly regret for a really long time. And as fun as the Josh Dobbs era was, and very short,

that's the one where you can go back to and say, if they hadn't talked themselves into that, and they had traded away to Neil Hunter and they had admitted that it was over when Kirk Cousins Achilles popped, then we would have been talking about the potential of a top five to seven draft pick here and possibly being in position to take the future quarterback without even having to make any trades. But instead, as the Vikings so often do throughout their history. And I know I'm ignoring what happened in the game, but I mean, who cares at this point? Let's go on. Let's move on. So often in their history, the Vikings have

convinced themselves that they are competitors and they've made moves that go against the grain of how the NFL and most pro sports operate, which is to either be competing for the championship or rebuilding and tearing things down and accumulating draft capital. But this team says, no, no, no, no. We are different. We are smarter. We are better. We are the ones that can thread that very small needle.

We are the ones that can come back from 0-3 because we are special. And they repeated history from the same thing that happened in 2020, where they started off 1-5. They won a crazy game in Green Bay and decided, no, we can't tear this down. We can't trade Kirk Cousins. We can't trade anybody else. We are going to compete. Our schedule is easy. We can make the playoffs. And what ultimately happened? Well, there's a reason why teams who start 0-3 or 1-5 don't make the playoffs, because it's really hard to have everything go right the rest of the season. And they had an opportunity to trade away Daniil Hunter, to get draft capital, to think about the future,

to think about their future draft status, to think about their future of their quarterback position. And they said, no, we're going to trade for a quarterback. We're going to try to win. We're going to trade for a quarterback who averaged less than six yards per pass attempt and think that that guy was going to take us somewhere. And then after that didn't happen, we think, no, no, no. This other guy who throws an interception every third pass for his whole career, he's the one that can take us somewhere. Oh no, no, no. Actually to save our asses on the last night of the season, it's a fifth round rookie who shouldn't be playing anyway. And did I disagree with the decision? No, of course I thought it was fine because this was an outcome that actually is going to turn out better for the Minnesota

Vikings to lose because as of right now, they would be drafting like 12th, which at least puts you in earshot of potentially trading up to get a quarterback or picking one at that point. But the regrets should be everywhere for that decision to think that you could survive with a quarterback getting injured. You know how many teams have survived with their quarterback getting hurt? Just one, just one, the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Browns tanked like crazy to build up this freakishly amazing roster that has helped them get Joe Flacco. They're not the same situation as the Minnesota Vikings. If Joe Flacco was the quarterback here, guess what your record would be? Probably exactly the same. So I think that we should look

at the very top of this organization and their obsession with trying to squeeze out every possible victory that has cost them so many times. And it did here. And this was just more proof tonight. You just didn't have enough. And the defense was never that great. It was a defensive coordinator doing everything he possibly could, sending every blitz, running every coverage to get something out of them to make them competitive but they don't have the horses they didn't in week three they didn't

now and once they got a couple players hurt it was a total wreck on defense jordan love looked totally fine in fact he missed a couple of wide open people he could have been even better tonight the coverage was so bad. You need stars on defense, superstars. Look at the teams that are great. Look at the Baltimore Ravens. They are fantastic at every position. That's what a contending defense looks like. Not one with a defensive coordinator trying to smoke and mirrors his way all the way through the end of a season and guide a team that was just not good enough and was never going to be. In fact, they were never going to be with Kirk cousins, much less without him, unless they were able to trade for, I don't know, a great quarterback, which that does not happen

at the trade deadline. So we are living in time being a flat circle with this organization. Once again, talking about a seven win season that is not good enough to make the playoffs, not good enough to tank and actually rebuild. And by the way, on a day where the Chicago bears who tanked like crazy will be drafting number one and have how many wins the same number as the Minnesota Vikings, but don't ever tank. Don't ever tank not on purpose. They've, uh. They tanked tonight, but they didn't mean to. So here we are once again, stuck in the middle with you, but on New Year's Eve. So it's a great night. Your reaction, Dane?

Preach. Preach, Collar. And I think this frustration is probably shared or this annoyance or whatever we want to call this is shared amongst a ton of vikings fans because there does seem to be this like want of just let's just be okay let's make the playoffs let's get our playoff gate let's make more money and not risk falling by the wayside and not becoming the number one ticket in town for one year. But the thing with that is just, then you're just continued to be mired in media mediocrity, which is what you've basically signed up for every year. When you continue to run it back with the quarterback who has proven that he's not taking you to the next level.

I know there's a lot of people who want Kirk cousins back here next year because of what we just saw tonight. That is just signing up for more of this, more of this. But I think the most frustrating part about this season is that you had an out. You had a lifeline. Kirk snapped his Achilles in Green Bay. And while I agree with you that the San Francisco win and the Green Bay win are the ones that you're going to look back on and say,

God, man, if you don't win those games, maybe you realize you kind of stink heading into the trade deadline, and then you actually blow it up. And let me tell you, if they only had four wins or five wins at this point, they would be very much in contention for a top five pick. You didn't have to go three and 13 or three and 14 this year. Five wins would have got you right on that precipice of being in the top five. But through all of that, you had a lifeline and it sucks that Kirk Cousins popped his Achilles. I get it. I'm not happy that that happened for him. He's on a long road to recovery,

but that was your lifeline. You won against San Francisco. You won against Green Bay. So you convinced yourself you could move forward. But when he snapped his Achilles in green Bay on the surface at Lambeau field, that was your chance to just say, damn, that really sucked. But this is the, how it is in the NFL. The fact of the matter, we just lost our starting quarterback. Let's just quit and play for next season. I get it. There's some quit and play for next season. I get it.

There's some politics involved in the locker room. You can't just go in and be like, guys, we're trading everyone. Thanks for the other 53 guys on this roster. I get that. I get that that would have been brought with some pushback from the veterans on the team, from the Harrison Smiths, the lifers who have done this for a long time. I get that. But at the end of the day, you have to look way bigger picture than just this singular year.

And your lifeline was there. You could have at that point, it was still before the trade deadline. You still could have unloaded Daniel Hunter. I get it. It was two days later. It would have been very surprising at the time to watch them blow the doors off of Green Bay and then trade everyone. But you have to be realistic at that moment in time. And I think there was was a commenter i wish we could remember who it is because he's a genius a month and a half ago who in this comment section said guys the season ended in green bay we just

didn't know it yet it absolutely did um you would just hope the front office could have seen that or ownership could have seen that because i think you'd be in a better position now if you realize crap season just ended let's plan towards next year. We have a good core. We can make this core even better. If we can get someone to lead it instead, I get it. They're going to be 12 right now. If they lose next week, they can maybe be 10, maybe nine, but they're going to have to trade up to get the quarterback. They want, um, Jaden Daniels is not falling to 9-ish, 10-ish, 11-ish. He's going to test out of his mind at the combine, and he's going to go top five.

He would have been top five if he traded everyone after Green Bay. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet, or you haven't tried it yet, very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks. You either pick more or less and boom, you are playing. So last week, each week has been a roller coaster ride of fun. And the best part is that when I have a bad week, I didn't lose much.

It doesn't cost much to play. You can turn $10 into $250 very easily. And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. That is prizepicks.com slash purple. Just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prizepicks.com slash purple, the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. Well, and when you think about it, it's not just the position in the draft that the Vikings sacrificed. It's whatever Daniel Hunter would have got them in a trade,

which I would project probably would have been a second round pick. And when you look at this defense now, and you look at all the needs that they're going to have in the future, which by the way, in my mind, it's the off season. I know that there's a chance there's a parlay that they would have to hit on, but all gamblers know you don't go for those four part parlays because you will lose almost every single time. And they have to beat Detroit next week. That's a big part of the parlay. They have to beat an angry Dan Campbell. I was going to say,

I'm going to guess there's a little B in the bonnet of Dan Campbell after the way that things went the other night. But the point just being that you also sacrificed maybe a top, what is it? 60 draft pick in a defense that may lose Harrison Smith will very likely lose Daniel Hunter anyway. So it's nice that he had a handful of sacks after week eight. Didn't really do anything different for you. In fact, it hurts you by helping you. That makes sense.

The defense was better because of them, which actually made your draft status worse for the future. This is how sports work in the year, which we're very close to 2024. We are 30 minutes away from 2024. That's how sports work, where it's all about timelines. It's all about teams rising and falling. And the only teams that aren't rising and falling are the chiefs who, by the way, are still good, even as bad as they are, and the Buffalo Bills. You know why? Because they have the top two quarterbacks in the league. But unless you have the top two quarterbacks in the league, you're always building or you're rebuilding.

And instead, they're nothing. And they've been nothing for a while. And I think we go back to the offseason, and they move on from all those stars. But they decide, we can't go full rebuild. We have to keep Kirk cousins because we have to fight for the playoffs. And then, as you said, you were given a get out of jail free card. No one would have criticized them for moving on from Daniel Hunter at that point. And yet they said no. And I remember Kweisi Adafo-Mentz talking about, well, I got a text from a player in the

locker room saying, you know, we want to keep fighting and don't trade people. This is why players aren't general managers because they're thinking about this year, the right now, and nobody thinks that the players should not give everything they have. It's just living in reality. I don't even like to use the word tank. It's what is your position and what's the best you can do? The best they could have done was look at the landscape, look at the rest of the season and say, can we really compete here? Or are we screwed? Because there are no quarterbacks you could get. Then there are no quarterbacks that we have. And then look, Jaron Hall wasn't ready for this. If you watched him play in camp, if you watched him play in preseason, and I was willing to listen to, Hey, maybe he's been really good in practice,

but this is a guy who needs a year to develop and may never ever be a good quarterback. I think honestly, he can't process things quick enough to get the ball out. Things were moving way too fast for him out there, both against Atlanta when he got hurt. And then on the play, he got hurt specifically. And then they had to pull him out for his own safety because he couldn't get rid of the football without getting sacked and this is what you were relying upon is him to win games or Josh Dobbs who's never won anything it was two and nine when he got here and it was fun it was a good time for those one and a half games with Josh Dobbs no one will ever forget Atlanta oh wait actually they will that's the thing is they will forget what happened in Atlanta. The only thing you'll remember is that you didn't draft high enough to take a great quarterback prospect and rebuild around it. So now we're going to hear for months. Everybody say they've got to bring back Kirk because look how bad the offense was with the backup quarterbacks. I think this tonight was actually evidence that the whole roster is not strong enough.

And if you lose your top pro bowl safety and you lose your top pass rusher and you lose your top linebacker, Jordan Hicks, who's a free agent, and you lose your left guard and you lose your three wide receiver, you lose your four wide receiver. Tell me exactly how Kirk Cousins makes that a Superbowl team. He doesn't. So now are you going to rebuild next year? Well, that's harder to do when this was supposed to be your rebuild year. And next year is supposed to be your win now year. So we are now looking at a position where

the lions are great. The bears could be great because they have the number one overall pick and they got a King's ransom from the Carolina Panthers. I, if I was their owner, I'd be throwing drinks on people too, because they, they got completely robbed. Uh, and the, and the, the bears did great in that trade. Their, their GM now looks brilliant. Isn't that stunning that their GM looks brilliant because they tanked and the Vikings doesn't because they didn't. I mean, it's look, that's the position you're in. And I've tried very hard to hold in the, I told you so, but today's the, I told you. So here it is, everybody. I told you so. And so did Jeremiah Searles when he said before the 49ers game, they should trade the Neil now.

So they don't get talked into it, but this is, this is our life. And this is our life spinning round and round around the, in the hunt graphic over and over and over again, talking about if you win this magical game and that game, then at least you get to get killed in the playoffs. That is not where this franchise needs to go in the future. And now all of a sudden you've got to, you've got to have some magic as a front office in order to compete with the other teams in the division. Hey, guess who else looks better? The Packers, because they found their quarterback who they picked in the first round and developed and have now built a young team because they rebuilt a lot of it and moved

on from an older quarterback. So anyway, that's where we stand. You want to talk more about the game or what? But I think the game is a good point that that you brought up um in that incredible second rant because that's where we're on to at this point let's just rant all night though this is i think this is a good timing for it it's 11 35 on in central time zone 25 minutes sure people are celebrating new year's eve accordingly but this game is a good example that you're not close right if you bring back kirk that's a super close, right? If you bring back Kirk, that's a Superbowl or bust move. If you bring back Kirk and there are a lot of people who have convinced themselves that because he played good against the San Francisco 49ers, who by the way, were not at full strength,

they were, Christian McCaffrey was banged up. Debo Samuel was not playing and Trent Williams was out. That is not the same as beating the San Francisco 49ers that are going to be Super Bowl favorites in the NFC. After beating that team and beating the Green Bay Packers, you've convinced yourself that, wow, Kirk was really turning a corner. This was the year he was going to do it. This was the year he was going to push past that wall and get over that hump and lead us to the Super Bowl.

I think fans have truly convinced themselves because of those two games. Never mind that they started 0-3, 1-4 with Kirk as the quarterback, because they won those two games, and then he went down. And again, I feel very bad that he went down. But because he went down, I've said this at the time, he got to die a hero. He never had to have that regression game that he's always had. I promise you that against Atlanta or New Orleans or Chicago or any of these games, we would have seen the old Kirk at some point.

So now we're going to run this all back because of the way things played out, because he traded for Josh Dobbs. And by the way, those Atlanta wins that we're going to remember, the only reason we're going to remember the Atlanta win and the new Orleans win is because it's going to knock you out of potentially drafting a Drake may. Um, but because after those two games happened, now you move forward and you've convinced yourself, okay, the roster was okay enough. And Kirk had turned a corner and this is the year that, that he was going to do it. So we have to run it back again. And no,

you do not because the game right now is proof. I get it. TJ Hawkinson's out. The injury bug has been horrible. You've lost pretty much everyone you could lose while still being able to field someone somewhat of a semblance of an NFL roster on defense. But if one or two injuries or three or four injuries is going to completely push you over the edge and you're going to lose by 23 in a game you absolutely had

to have, then you have to be honest with yourselves and say like, this team is not that close to winning a Super Bowl. So if it's not that close to winning a Super Bowl, at least in this current form with the money and the salary cap, then you can't bring back a guy who's going to cost $40 million a year and be 36 and coming off an Achilles injury. I get it. Kirk's had a really, really nice U-turn of, he got the Netflix documentary. He did a shirtless skull chant today. He's likable. He's fun. He's a good dude. But that doesn't mean you have to just bring him back. You don't.

You don't have to. And I think while you're right, and I think we've talked about this now ad nauseum, that it would have been better to be realistic and lose and have a top five pick, they're still going to have a chance to finagle their way into a quarterback of the future. I just think it's imperative that you do that this year, because I don't know the next time you're going to get this chance. If it costs you an extra first round pick to move up to go take a Drake May or Jaden Daniels, I think you just have to do it. And it sucks that you have to trade

capital because you could have just done it on your own by losing, but, but you can't convince yourself that you're close because you're not that close right now. Nope. And, the defense is truly evident of that. Uh, when we see what happened when they lost just a couple of players, because even though they had those offensive injuries on the defensive

side, Marcus Davenport was really the only guy went down and they were they were able to survive Jordan Hicks being out for a couple weeks. But losing DJ Wanham, losing Byron Murphy, Harrison Phillips is nowhere near 100%, as we saw from the domination on the run game. But if you are flimsy enough on the defensive side that you lose a couple players, and by the way, every time they played a good team as a defense, that team had success every single time. I mean, the Eagles had success against them.

The Chargers, we saw Russell Wilson with a game winning play. We saw, and that wasn't even that good of an offense. The Chiefs played well against them. Not even that good of an offense. And then these last couple of weeks, the Cincinnati Bengals, they can put up some points. They were able to steamroll late in that game last week. This week, it's a pretty good offense now that the Green Bay Packers have well-designed, maybe a little cute on the third down and short play calling, but they now have a good quarterback.

And when you see Jordan Love play in person the way he did, a lot of physical talent there. He misses some throws, but a lot of talent. And he was missing a couple wide receivers as well, and yet still performed very well. So this defense was always a house of cards that was being held together by Brian Flores, who I would argue to the ends of the earth, still did a great job this year. I'm not going to take away from that, but this defense, we projected it going into the season to be like 23rd and to even flirt with the top of the league was really impressive, but it wasn't something that was going to be sustainable when they played better teams because they really were not in a position to actually compete. And when they went into the season, Kwesi Adafo Mensah talked about the competitive rebuild and

he explained exactly what they meant and where they were. And I appreciate that, that he laid it out for us. But when Kirk cousins gets hurt, the competitive rebuild part should end at that point. And when not ending it at that point has legitimately harmed their chances to get a quarterback in the future. And maybe it's better that they lost this game because if they got into the playoffs, then maybe they would have said, Oh, we're just Kirk away. If they had had a great defensive performance against Jordan love, maybe they would say that. So this night should be a wake-up call to how far you actually are away from competing and how much you don't need to go and

bring back a 36 year old quarterback. And again, like give him all of his props for a really good career and being a really good quarterback. But is that the right decision for this team right now? I don't see how that's possible that it could be after watching this. And if we're always saying, oh, well, if not for that one injury, well, that means your team wasn't deep enough because look around the league. Every single team is banged up at this point in the season. There's 17 games now. It's kind of ridiculous, actually, how many injuries there are around the league. And if you were never going to be good enough to be able to survive that, then you needed

to not try to compete when you actually couldn't. And look, they talked about Josh Dobbs is a threading the needle. Once again, a competitive rebuild move. He'll help us compete down the stretch, but we didn't have to give up too much for him. And look where you are. You're exactly where a competitive rebuild gets you. Right in the middle, staring into the abyss as they've always been. And look, when there's 32 teams, that's a long way to go to the top.

You watch San Francisco play. Tell me this is close. Tell me this is actually. Tell me this is actually close. It's not. You watch the Baltimore Ravens play. Tell me this is close. That's not. And the goal should not be to just play a December game where you could talk about maybe if you win, you can make the playoffs. It shouldn't be to fall ass backward into 13 wins because of an easy schedule and an unbelievable amount of luck and then lose in the first round. It's to get to the end of the season and have a plus 150 point

differential and have people talking about you like they do Baltimore. That's the goal. The goal isn't like, oh, last year we kind of, sort of, no, no, no. That's not what the aim is supposed to be. If that was the aim, then why even get rid of Rick Spielman? Because that's what you could have done during Rick Spielman. So let me swing back because there's something else that we do have to talk about here, aside from the overall approach, which is the head coach. Kevin O'Connell as shook as we have seen him after the game. Really no answers for anything. No answers for what they did wrong. What didn't work? The answer is very simple, but there weren't really any

explanations. It was basically Jaron Hall can't play at this point in his career. And he entered through interception and got stripped sack. And that's why I lost. And your defense just ran, ran out. It ran out of energy at this point. That's why you lost. But usually the coach has something. If we had just done this, well, we had a game plan to do that, but instead this happened and a very, very, very little answers. In fact, long winding, lots of wordy answers, but really no actually concrete things that I can tell you. Well, here's what Kevin O'Connell said happened. Should we be concerned about Kevin O'Connell's ability to manage quarterbacks when we got three benchings?

That's pretty good. I don't know if I've seen that before. Three benchings in the middle of a, what, four-game stretch or five-game stretch? It's kind of a lot. And once again tonight, we we did again, we saw one screen pass and I want to point that out because it was a very good screen pass. Maybe try it again sometime. We watched Matt LaFleur on the Packers side, create a quick pass

offense for Jordan Love. And then they took the occasional shot. They ran the ball successfully. They threw a lot of bubbles, a lot of quick outs, a lot of stuff. They made Jordan Love's life pretty easy. And those receivers were pretty open. And then it goes to the other side of the ball. And here's Jaron Hall taking seven step drops, looking deep down the field at Justin Jefferson running forever and getting sacked.

And I just can't figure out how in God's name, that would be a good idea. How, like if there was one way this was going to work, it was going to be that way with the quick pass offense. It was going to be, let's play it closer to the vest. Let's play it more conservative. Let's, let's play it closer to the vests. Let's play it

more conservative. Let's, let's get Jaron Hall, getting the ball out of his hand quickly because he's a fifth round rookie. Who's never played outside of that one time he got hurt. And yet I'm watching Jefferson and I'm watching Addison and there they go flying down the field. And there's no TJ Hawkinson to check it to. It was Johnny months. Great game. I hope his family was here. And, uh, but cause that won't happen again ever. I have to say that I think Kevin O'Connell with the right quarterback, if he's got Carson Palmer, he's got Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford, some big arm gentleman who can whip that thing down the field. Oh boy, it's going to work. But how do you not adjust to even Jaron Hall?

You wouldn't adjust to Dobbs. Okay. You wouldn't adjust to Mullins. So he tried to play the role of, you know, Terry Bradshaw and whip it down the field. Tommy Kramer out there throwing bombs, Wade Wilson, but Jaron Hall, like we're not, we're not even going to tweak this thing for Jaron Hall. I have to say that I truly do not understand.

Yeah. I mean, I think it is fair to be worried about if the Vikings draft a quarterback, you better damn hope sure it's the right quarterback for Kevin O'Connell because I think it's pretty clear this year, and I'm trying my best not to have whiplash with every single game. I'm trying. But I think it's clear he has a very specific way

he wants this offense to run. That's pretty inarguable at this point. He wants to run these long developing routes downfield that cross over each other and guys pick defenders up on the secondary. And all of a sudden, if you had the right protection and the quarterback who can throw it, there's guys running wide open downfield. And we've seen it. It does work. But why I think you can be a little bit concerned at this point is because if they don't get the right quarterback for Kevin O'Connell, is he going to be able to shape shift and mold his offense in a way

that best suits that next guy? Because I get it. If he could create a quarterback, if this was Madden, he could go on, create a player and, and drop all these things and move the sliders around. He would create a very specific prototype of quarterback,

but that's not always going to exist with where you're at in the draft. And obviously your, your options shrink when you aren't a top five team and picking in the top five. So whoever you take, you better hope Kevin O'Connell can work with them. And I'm just curious to see it all play out and see, okay, if you have an offseason, this is the quarterback. Can you scheme around that guy in a way that works? I am willing to give Kevin O'Connell the benefit of the doubt this year

that he had a very specific offense in mind with Kirk Cousins. And when Kirk Cousins went down, he thought it would keep working because this offense has gotten him hired. It's gotten him to the highest level. He's 13 and four last year in year one. It seemed kind of easy to be a head coach. So I'm sure part of him thought my offense will work no matter what. we'd sure we lost Kirk, but let's just get someone else in here. And then you got two games of Josh Dobbs and you were like, Holy, maybe it will work. Um, so I,

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that like, maybe he will take a long, hard look in the mirror this year and realize like, okay, should I have tried to shapeshift a little bit more to help some of these guys? He's still a young coach in the league. I get it. It's excuses. I understand. I hear it. But like, it is something that I think we need to just at least think about with Kevin O'Connell moving forward. Cause I am making excuses for him to a degree, but I'm also saying you need to be a little bit concerned because what we saw this year and how he's handled the quarterbacks call into Dobbs, into Mullins, back into Hall. Maybe it'll be Dobbs next week. He hasn't done anything that has helped those guys succeed. The only way they succeeded so far with a backup

quarterback, the only backup quarterbacks that's won games for them was Josh Dobbs when he was running around and just throwing it to anybody. And that actually did not work for much more than a game and a half because after halftime of that New Orleans games, Dennis Allen started blitzing the crap out of Josh Dobbs and it stopped working. So there was nothing that Kevin O'Connell necessarily did,

in my opinion, that helped those guys. Like you mentioned a quick game tonight, Justin Jefferson was winning consistently off the line of scrimmage. They were playing rookie cornerbacks on him. Like it doesn't have to be so hard. Throw him a slant, throw him a bubble, throw him a hitch, like let him get the ball in his hands and make plays. It doesn't have to be my offense created him open downfield. And then he took it the rest of the way. He could be a special player. He is a special player. Just get him the ball. So that's why I have pause now. Like, like I said, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Can he change? Maybe. Um, but for the first time in a long time, I feel like it's fair to wonder and question, like, where does this go this go? Because we don't know. He didn't have answers tonight either. So my issue is, is I've really tried to be patient with this because I am of the belief having grown up in my career, watching the likes of EJ manual, Ryan Fitzpatrick,

Jeff tool, Thad Lewis. There are people you guys have never even heard of who I had to cover games for and do pre and post game and even Tyrod Taylor. And guess what always happened? We always thought the coach was dumb. It was like this, this coach doesn't know what he's doing with these offensive schemes. Look at these quarterbacks. They're not performing well, but what was the reality is that the quarterbacks were bad because most human beings can't throw that pigskin accurately uh most of us try i mean you even pick up a football it's huge it's very difficult to throw much less to whip that thing into tight windows 20 or 30 yards downfield however when there isn't even an attempt to run an out route five yards off the line

of scrimmage with the greatest wide receiver on earth, I have to wonder, huh? Like, I just, I just don't get it. I mean, because now look, the Raiders are playing with a backup quarterback and Devante Adams is on their team and they can't get him the ball because they're playing with a backup quarterback and he's bad. They try to run a lot of short stuff. Guess what happened? Ivan Pace Jr. jumped in front of it, picked it off. I fully believe that if you ran short stuff instead of long stuff, that they wouldn't have won a whole lot more, if ever, any different results from what they've gotten now. But it's more about the thought process than it is the actual result of trying to get,

you know, quick game going is when you have Jefferson, you can do anything with him. The catch he made today in front of that guy where he was about to get slammed. And yet he just like yoinked it away from him. It was very Randy Moss, like actually, because Randy Moss made catching the football look like the thing weighed, you know, uh, nothing. And like, it was like, it was just effortless to just snatch the ball away from people. That's what Jefferson can do. He can run short routes. He can run long routes. He can run after the catch. He could do fricking anything. And the choice that you make to use him is to send him 20 yards down the field on almost every play. And some of that is clearing out.

It's okay. Two defenders go down there. Now it's underneath. I get that. But I think even when Devante Adams was at his best with Aaron Rodgers, they made life easier on Rodgers with a lot of quick out stuff, a lot of back shoulder stuff. And to not even give Jaron Hall a chance that way. And I watched Cincinnati. They played a halfway decent game against Kansas City. Jake Browning is no different or better than Jaron Hall. It's pretty much the same guy.

And Jake Browning, when we watched him, what happened? They threw a lot of dink and dunk, a lot of quick stuff, a lot of easy passes to Jamar Chase, and then ran every once in a while, somebody deep and had him launched up in the air and then prayed. And T Higgins caught it against the Vikings. And I guess must be today that he didn't catch it because they lost to Kansas city. I didn't watch the game, but the point being that their coach, who is also from the Sean McVay circle, tried to adapt and tried to work with what he had. And look, it doesn't usually work for almost anybody because backups are not good at football. But at least to try, like I would have wanted, they weren't going to win this game.

The defense was so overwhelmed today. They weren't going to win this game, no matter what Jaron Hall did, but to ask him to run a very challenging and difficult offense was setting him up to have what happened here to get sacked, to get intercepted, to feel in over his head. And after the game, I felt bad for Jaron Hall because it was, it was too much for him. And you could see it in his face. It was like, he was even trying to give us platitudes, but he couldn't. It was like, I guess I need to go back to work. I mean, that is not a confidence booster. That was a confidence killer for Jaron Hall to play the way he did today.

So I do think that you're right when you say that it's really about for the future, the quarterback position matching Kevin O'Connell with someone, because I am not in the camp in any way, shape or form to fire Kevin O'Connell, to strip him of play calling duties, to start looking at new coaches or that he's going to completely, you know, tank this franchise or whatever else I I'm not, I'm not there based on what happened with backup quarterbacks, but I think we learned something here. And, and here's the one thing that's starting to ring hollow when a game like this happens. And he says, you know what? Got to go back and really look at myself first. They're like, let us know when that's going to happen because nothing has changed. They did actually run back to back plays and gained like 15 yards. Ty Chandler can play. We know that at least, but I think if

there's one concern, it's really that, which is I totally believe when the offense is got that quarterback and has these receivers all healthy, this thing could be nasty. It could be really good. But even when Kirk cousins was the quarterback, the same sort of roller coaster of today, they're hitting tomorrow. They're not hitting. It's not hitting against Chicago, but it is hitting against green Bay. And I think that there's a learning process that he's going to have to go through here or he doesn't have to learn. He just has to get the right player to go along with him, where that player comes from. I don't know because, uh, if

Kyler Murray was that guy, he made a pretty good case to stay in Arizona today with a win over Philadelphia. So that that's our main conversation now, Dane. It's we have switched now in my mind completely to how are you going to deal with the fact that there are three teams in your division that are good and or are either coming up or already there and what are you going to do with the quarterback position to stay in that race with these other teams because if you get it wrong you're going to be at the bottom yeah and then i think that's probably this is not going to be easy to hear but i think there's a chance you you might be at the bottom next year like you just because the other two three teams in the division seem to be ascending like i say

two because detroit's already ascended they're they're they're there um chicago they're playing better and and like you said that they're going to have tons of draft capital ammunition to do whatever the heck they want if they want want Caleb Williams, they can take them. They already got the number one overall pick. They want to trade that for a King's ransom and build around Justin Fields and just give him a really, really good roster, like a San Francisco 49ers, good roster,

and just hope he's good. They can do that. Green Bay. I mean, once they get rid of Joe Barry, but his defense actually looked pretty good tonight. Once they get rid of him and their offense will continue to ascend, I think their playmakers are getting better. Jaden Reed is a star in the making.

All these teams are going like this. And if you're listening, I'm doing a hand motion upward. It's an upward trajectory. And the Vikings are kind of plateauing, maybe potentially dipping. I think not even potentially, like if it's not hard to see them taking a dip next year because they're old, there are certain position players that play impact positions that are aging out. I think you've done an okay job developing certain players on the defense.

Like I think Josh Metellus is going to be a good player for them moving forward, Cam Bynum, Ivan Pace. But they don't have any stars on the defense. And on the offensive side, it obviously starts with just get the quarterback right. But even if you get the quarterback right, I think unless that guy comes in and he's Patrick Mahomes, and Patrick Mahomes wasn't even Patrick Mahomes until year two. Unless he comes in and he's immediately like a top five good quarterback, like holy crap, good quarterback, then you're going to need talent around that guy.

And right now there's just a talent deficiency on this roster as a whole. So yeah, I mean, the other three teams that you're battling within this NFC North, which for a long time has just been a mediocre division, free wins over Detroit, free wins over Chicago. Now you might actually turn into those free wins for a little bit, unless you get the quarterback thing, right. Um, which is just where we're at right now in this whole conversation. And it's why this off season is going to be really, really interesting. And it's why we've already shifted towards talking about this off season. The game next week doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. It would actually only matter if they won. It's better if they lose because right now you should

be thinking about, holy crap, the rest of the division has gotten better and is getting better. And we might be at a part you're talking, if you're the Vikings, how do we compete with that moving forward and that's where you need to figure that out and obviously it starts at the top with the quarterback position but then you need to figure out other ways to do it as well well we're almost at the new year we are counting down to the minute so i guess uh we should sing something uh i think it just happened oh it just happened happy new year everybody thanks so much all of you for watching the vikings are stuck in the middle and if they don't find a qb

then we forever will live in this hell and do this podcast again next year. Happy New Year, everybody. Your team's not making the playoffs. No, honestly, it is amazing to me how many of you are watching as we are literally talking about the turn of the calendar to 2024. So I can't say how much I appreciate all of your passion and how much you have shown up for us in this postgame show this year. We have had a lot of fun breaking down these games with you and the comment section

and everything else. It's always been a wild ride. So it's funny to switch from like endless ranting to appreciation with the new year. And I'll give it that, that it's a little bit of an awkward transition, but I really, I really do from the bottom of my heart, appreciate everyone who has listened to the show, uh, whether it's on YouTube or on the podcast all season long, we've had such a fun time with all of you following this, but at the same time, you know, this is one of those seasons where it's going to feel like maybe there was opportunity missed one way or the other. If Kirk Cousins doesn't get hurt, we'll never know what happens. And also, if they had taken a long-term approach, we'll never know what happens there either.

But look, here's one thing I want to say. That the best quarterbacks in the NFL were not always taken number one overall. Some of them were, but not all of them. And not every team who is rebuilt and become a Super Bowl contender had to draft that quarterback high in order to do it. Some of them were able to just build super strong rosters and drop a quarterback in, and then you are there or develop a quarterback like Dallas with Dak Prescott or Brock Purdy, draft someone and have it work out. So who knows what the future could hold. At this moment, it feels like an opportunity lost both ways for not making the playoffs

because cousins got hurt and a lost season because of that. And it also feels like you missed the chance to draft higher and potentially change your fate with a quarterback at the top. And look, I mean, last year, Indianapolis hired an ESPN analyst who had never coached before so they could get Anthony Richardson. Like this happens all around sports. And if you're going to watch the Timberwolves, enjoy those two number one draft picks that are guiding them. And Hey, twin season is coming soon soon who's the player to be most excited about oh yeah he was drafted number one so anyway uh they were not able to achieve either of their goals and they landed dead in the middle uh in 2023 and i guess we'll find

out in the off season whether it becomes a successful competitive rebuild or a failure and i guess what i want to end with is the timeline of this team now. How do we feel about it? As 2023 ends and we go into 2024, because we were having this discussion before the game, like what if they lose this game and do seats get hot? Does the pressure ramp up? And we know that the Wilfs will be very patient with their

coaching situation if they let Zimmer go on as long as they did. But even then in 2019, there was talk about potentially trading Zimmer to the Dallas Cowboys. So it's not like they're so patient. They're going to let this go on for absolutely ever if it's not going in the right direction. So as of next year, they can potentially reset their timelines in a way by drafting a quarterback, or they can put all the pressure in the world on themselves by bringing back her cousins. I feel like that quarterback decision also dictates how we feel about this regime and where they're at and how much leeway they will get from the fans in the ownership going forward. So that's kind of what I'm looking for in 2024 is are we back to a, Hey, next year is going to be a transition, a continued transition with a new quarterback

or is next year right back to 10 out of 10 pressure to go back to the NFC championship or bust. What's it going to be? I think it would be prudent on this front office and this regime to reset that timeline. I think you really leave yourself vulnerable to getting canned sooner if you run it back with Kirk Cousins, who has proven he can't get you to Super Bowl when that would be the expectation of bringing him back would be getting to the Super Bowl. So, I mean, I think the best decision would be to just move forward, to move on. And inherently by moving on and by drafting a quarterback, trading up to get a quarterback, taking whatever quarterback falls to you at 10 through 12, whatever, that's the best way to reset your own timeline. Probably give yourself more runway to just see where this thing goes.

If they draft a quarterback and they stink next year and that quarterback stinks, then obviously that leaves yourself liable to losing your job sooner as well. But I just think a lot of the times, and I've said this on this podcast and pretty much anywhere else they let me speak, is your clock as a GM does not start until you pick your quarterback. And while Klaise did the whole thing with Kirk and the extension and kicking the money down the road, he didn't actually pick his quarterback yet. The Wilfs picked their quarterback and it's been Kirk cousins, the Wilfs pick to be competitive and rebuild at the same time. But this is the first off season. I think Casey will be picking his quarterback, Kate Casey and Kevin O'Connell, the collaborative unit that they are, will be picking their quarterback. So who do they go? Where do they go? I don't know. Hopefully they

pick the right one for their sake. But if they pick Kirk Cousins this year, that's who you picked. That's your tying yourself to Kirk Cousins at that point. If you go to a rookie or a rookie quarterback and a bridge guy, that's who you've taken. So I think it just makes more sense. We've seen kind of how this movie plays out. I know people wanted to see the ending of this year's movie, and then it just got cut short with Kirk Cousins injury, but we've seen Kirk Cousins here and he's only getting older and he's coming off an Achilles. So I think it would be best suited to just take the rookie, whoever it is, trade up or stay. And if you don't think he's going to be ready, bring in a guy like a Gardner Minshew.

It's what the Indianapolis Colts did and give yourself somewhat of insurance if that guy's not ready to play. But if you do all of that, I don't know how soon you're competing with Detroit, with the lions, with maybe Chicago. I mean, like it's, it's time to really look ourselves and say like, wow, Chicago might be close to being something good. I know they're the bears and it's like, Oh, they've never been anything, but there's pieces in place there because of what they've done because of how they've decided to build their roster. So it really starts with getting the quarterback right. I think it's just time to move on from Kirk Cousins. I think people are all starting to agree and be on that same page. And I really think it's kind of funny that

we might look back at this game, which was a total abomination on New Year's Eve and say that was the time when people finally realized we are not just a Kirk Cousins away, because I think that's what became clear tonight, if anything else. I completely agree. Yep. Because there were a lot of problems that went beyond just the quarterback position. It was also the defense gave them no chance to win this game either because a few injuries happen. And then all of a sudden you're not in a great place and there's going to be a lot to replace on the defensive side. I am laughing at how the comment section has really devolved into celebrating the new year. But upon the funniest comments, because I always have to read the ones that try to break apart the they should have gone backward to go forward,

is saying that Caleb Williams and Drake May will become Mariota and Winston, but you conveniently overlooked Joe Burrow, which is an interesting choice there. Conveniently overlooked CJ Stroud or Trevor Lawrence or Tua or lots of other quarterbacks who have been drafted high. We all know this though, at this point in my mind, as far as 2024 goes, you should really be looking to go in 2025, which I know is hard to hear right now, but we'll be standing here doing another podcast next year saying, Hey, 2025. Uh, if you think about a timeline where they draft a quarterback and then get out from under Kirk cousins, dead cat cap money and then can spend while developing other parts of the roster and knowing what you have and presumably getting Justin Jefferson

under contract, which is a huge, huge deal, then you've got your chance if you draft the right quarterback. If you don't, everybody knows the deal. You're fired. That's how it works. But guess what else happens? If you bring back Kirk and go 8, nine, you're also fired. So pick which one has a better chance to go deep in the playoffs in the next couple of

years. But I will say that this off season is going to be absolutely fascinating. Of course, we'll cover next week's game. One of us is going to Detroit. The other one's not spending the purple insider budget to go to a game where they're not going to have anything to play for sorry Dane uh enjoy Detroit in early January I am going to be back in the studio and we'll we'll work it out for there for the podcast uh but I I do think though this next offseason determines the Kevin O'Connell and the Kwesi Daffa Mensah era it determines the next 10 years of Vikings football,

where they go with it, or at least five years, I guess. But maybe the next decade entirely of Vikings football. And tonight is the night that we brought it to an end and start anew with the next offseason. And I'm very, very excited to talk about it all and run through all the scenarios, analyze all the quarterbacks, all the options, all the decisions as they come throughout the year. So of course we will, you know, we'll get there as far as this Detroit game and who knows, maybe the Vikings will have six things go right and somehow make the playoffs. But assuming that

doesn't happen, I'm very, very, very excited in 2024 to have all you watching the channel, subscribing to the newsletter. If you guys don't do that and reading our and listening to our work. So thank you, Dane. And next week, I'll thank you for the full season, but for a 2023 year where you stepped into this role, it was great to have you. I enjoyed this thoroughly, being able to spend time with you and all of you guys. So happy new year. I'm sorry about what happened tonight. Trust me, everybody wanted a better game than what we got tonight,

especially, you know, I just wanted to take a shout-out. Two shout-outs, quick shout-outs. Najee Thompson, good for you, man. Let's not forget, that guy's a great story. He was like 90th out of 90 on the roster, and now he's a special teams ace made a couple of plays tonight. Good for him. Shout out as well to the Minnesota Vikings entertainment that puts on one hell of a pregame show. They had this place going absolutely nuts by the time that they got there. The halftime show was great. It just all fell flat

because of what happened on the field, but shout outs to them. And, uh, we will see you all for podcasts in the new year. Thanks so much, Dane. And thanks everybody for watching. Have a very safe and good night. Take care.