Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings get smacked in Green Bay and drop to the No. 3 seed

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic break down the Vikings 41-17 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. What went so wrong? What does it say about their playoff chances and who they will play in the postseason? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another one of those episodes where we talk about the Minnesota Vikings playing a very, very hyped up game and then coming out and no showing and giving up a gajillion points to a very competitive team. And then we walk out and we talk about their point differential and we talk about what it all means. And we say, well, that can't happen in the playoffs. And then we go through every bad thing that happened. And then we try to go, well, maybe that won't happen because in a lot of other games it didn't. And we just do this thing that we've been doing all season long.

And we try to spin it forward toward the playoffs. But we honestly have no idea which one of the Minnesota Vikings teams are going to show up in the playoffs. Is it the team that beat the Buffalo Bills and came back on the road against one of the best teams, if not in the NFL? Or is it the team that went to Philadelphia or the team that played the Cowboys or the team that went to Detroit or the team here against Green Bay that through three interceptions allowed a kick return for touchdown? Aaron Rodgers had no problem throwing the football against the Vikings. They ran successfully. Kirk Cousins got hit a bunch of times and Justin Jefferson got shut down, truly shut down in the worst way he has all season long as he and the rest of the Vikings put their

skates on and slid around Lambeau Field, which, you know, maybe they brought out the water beforehand and tried to water it all down. That's kind of what it looked like at some points during this game with how much the Vikings were sliding around. So we do know, at least in the first round of the playoffs, that that won't be happening at U.S. Bank Stadium. However, at the same time, they might have to go on the road in round two. In fact, that now looks extremely likely, and the Vikings have now a decision to make about Chicago. Do you just throw up the white flag because of how beat up you were? And we will discuss that as well.

Injuries to Austin Schlotman. Garrett Bradbury has been out with a back injury. And then what might be serious with Brian O'Neill, which could be really crushing to an offensive line that has already given up a ton of hits to Kirk Cousins. So injuries coming out of this one as well. And that one injury from the very start of this game, Paul, it really seemed to just completely throw them off. And we've talked about at different times how the offense has been entirely healthy outside of missing Garrett Bradbury for a few games, but Austin Schlotman is an experienced center who's taken a lot of snaps all the way from the back of, you know, preseason and mini

camp and OTAs. Like he's been with them for the entire ride, but Chris Reed has never played center before in a game. And they came into this one with almost no depth. And right from that start, it seemed to throw them off because they begin with this punt block. It's like, okay, they've got the ball starting right out the one-yard line. Not punching that in, choosing to go with the field goal, trying to run behind Chris Reed after he came in for Schlotman, who, by the way, is going to be out for the rest of the year. He broke his fibula, so he's not going to be coming back. And now they'll have to hope that Garrett Bradbury is back at 100%

because clearly Chris Reed is not prepared to be a center as they couldn't get on the same page with almost anything. I mean, they had all sorts of issues with delay of game. There was guys jumping off sides. At one point, Kirk Cousins is just clapping himself silly, just trying to get the snap off. And yet it seemed like they couldn't communicate. I mean, this is one of the toughest places to play on the road anyway, and much tougher to have a center

come off the bench. And that seemed to shake them from the very start. And then, you know, nothing really went right after that three interceptions, one of them, Jefferson falls down, it gets tipped two other ones. You could probably put on Kirk Cousins for either misreads or bad throws, but it was one of those games where they couldn't get the running game going right from the very beginning, and then everything kind of fell apart from there. T.J. Hawkinson didn't have a very good game, a couple of plays that maybe needed to be made there, but more than anything, it was kind of one of those classic what happened there Kirk Cousins performances and then on the defensive side you just can't leave them to their own devices I mean this game had the potential to be one where it was two teams sort of bludgeoning

each other and making lots of mistakes and whatever else but when the defense is called upon to make some plays it it's, they're just not going to do it. I mean, that's just who they are. They had a red zone stop and there was sort of that like, okay, well maybe they'll rally themselves together a little bit, but that was not to be with a quarterback like this, a running back like Aaron Jones, who continues to prove he's phenomenal and a Packers offensive line that was actually healthy. And, you know, now the odds are almost nothing that the Vikings will face the Packers in the first round. But they left the door open for Green Bay to get in the playoffs. They had an opportunity to come here, put the Packers out of their misery.

Shut up Jair Alexander, who did the gritty right in Justin Jefferson's face and say, bye bye, Packers. We're the future of the NFC North. See you later. Watch us in the playoffs. And instead, if that team wins against Detroit, they're in the playoffs next week. But now there's really a collision course for the Vikings to probably play the Giants again, who played them right down to the very end. So there is that feeling, but unless San Francisco loses to Arizona and David Blau next week, the Vikings have lost the number two seed and dropped down to the number three seed with a very, very, very disappointing performance here. Paul, your thoughts? Yeah, I think it's just overwhelmingly like early on in the day, the Eagles lose and suddenly the Vikings have not like a decent chance at the one seat. If they can win out Gardner,

Minshew did not look good against the saints. And you're saying, Oh boy, is there a chance that the Viking can do this? So they had everything to play for today, but it looked like, like it looked like they didn't want this game or something because it was just from the very beginning,

the Packers outclassed them physically on both sides of the ball. Obviously you get the punt return or you get the punt block early. You need to score right there. You obviously only come away with a field goal. That's not what you want. And just over and over again, I think there have been three or four games this year where it just has felt like, man, the Vikings didn't even show up. And those opponents are the exact opponents that they're going to have to play once they get into the playoffs or could play once they get in the playoffs, they've lost big to the Eagles, the Cowboys, the Packers. They've also lost to the Lions, an opponent that

they could have faced at some point. And so I think we can look at some parts of this game as we've looked at other parts in this game and say, okay, well, is another team really going to get a kick return touchdown on you? Or what are the chances when her cousins gets intercepted, that one's going to get returned all the way back for a touchdown. And one's going to come for some serious yardage the other way. Like there are some kinds of things there that you go, are those exact things really going to hurt the Vikings as much as it did today? And I think the answer is no,

but the games where things have gone sidetracked completely out, out to sea and they have not been able to find it, are against these playoff caliber teams. And so we saw it one time against the Bills, where they were able to come back and mount this really impressive comeback. And I think throughout the second half of the season, as they've gone through some trials and tribulations of getting down and still coming back to win, and now these couple losses to the Lions and the Packers,

I think most of the time we look back at that Bills game and we say, okay, but there's still that team in there. They've still got that. And I think the mistake was looking at that, maybe not as much as a one-off. We'll look at one-offs when they play horrendous and say, that was just a one-time game. And more and more, coming back against a really good team and consistently playing well against a really good team and consistently playing well against a really good team. We've only seen it one time against the bills. And now I don't know if we can go into the playoffs banking,

but that is still in them. Yes. They've beaten bad teams. They've come back against the Colts. They've come back against a large amount of teams that just aren't very good. But now we're seeing when you're playing some of these better teams and it's happening over and over and over again, where you're just not showing up when you're playing these big time opponents in these big games. And so that doesn't look well for you when you enter the playoffs. And so the three seed does help in the fact that maybe you play the Giants instead of the Packers or the Lions, who are two teams that you've lost to. And it seems like

the Giants, when they have no healthy receivers and a banged up cornerback room, and still you're a first time head coach and a quarterback that's Daniel Jones, like those are nice things. And it's probably maybe a better team to play in the first round of the playoffs. But then in the second round of the playoffs, you're basically guaranteeing you got to go on the road and you are going to have to play a team that like, I don't know after what we've seen against the Packers and what we've seen against some of these really good teams that they have the teeth to beat a really good team when they're on the road. I'd give them a much higher chance if they're at home, but I just don't think that's going to

happen. So this game felt like there were certain things that kind of went off the rails that may not go off the rails on other times, but it's now repeated itself against these top tier playoff caliber teams and while green bay has struggled this year they are on a roll right now that defense sherlock playoff caliber today baron rogers is engaged and not kind of sulking in the middle of a losing streak you can still see how good he is and aaron jones is obviously a really really good player so i don't know how you come out of this one feeling very optimistic at all about where it looks like. And now the playoffs is two weeks away. There's no, well, they have time to figure it out.

Like they got one week against the bears to figure out this new hodgepodge offensive line and to figure out some new things. And it just is feeling like we're heading for an inevitable letdown in the playoffs because we've just seen these letdowns against these big opponents. And that's just, what's going to happen in the playoffs. So maybe I'm being too fatalistic about the team right now, but it just,

this game in particular, it just didn't have the essence of, Oh, well they could still come back like the Colts did because they were just playing a team. That's not going to roll over like that Colts team did. And you're not going to face any of those in the playoffs. And so that's when it really starts to wonder,

can you continue to become the comeback kids, the miracle, like this miracle team? You're not going to be that team if you have these blunders week in and week out, and they're starting to pop up more frequently than even early on in the season. Early on, the flukiness felt like, well, you're catching teams with injuries,

but you're still beating them decently. Now it's just, you're beating yourself with injuries, but you're still beating them decently. Now it's just, you're beating yourself over and over again these last couple of weeks. And I don't know if that can stop. Yeah. I think the concern here is that some interceptions are random kick returns for touchdown. Don't happen that often, especially against the special teams unit that overall has been very good this

year, but they got played, just outplayed in the run of play is what they would call it in soccer, but just like the usual offense and defense, like their offense was much better and their defense was much better. And the Vikings rarely moved the football at all. Even when they weren't turning the ball over and throwing interceptions, they did move it a little bit on a couple of drives, gave themselves a chance, but then had to kick a field goal a couple of times, missed both of those field goals and maybe a little regression from Greg Joseph after the 61 yarder last week to win the game that he had been like blazing hot before this, but you just always know it's there with any kicker.

But you know, the, the decision to kick the second field goal was a little bizarre. And we can kind of get into from the outset, Kevin O'Connell playing it conservatively. I thought that that was okay after Austin Schlotman got hurt, but then they ran the ball right behind Chris Reed. It was almost like he didn't think over that play call that it was a backup center who's never played there before. And then you ask him to block and then you kick a 23 yard field goal. And look, I mean, you know, Aaron Rogers is not as scary as he used to be, but he's still pretty scary. You don't want to give him an opportunity to get off the hook. It's like, if you make that mistake early on as the Packers, the thing that you're hoping for is,

Hey, let's hold them to a field goal here. And Kevin O'Connell kind of let them off the hook. And then they immediately made him pay for it with the kick return for touchdown. And even right there after that happened, you kind of went like, okay, you up for this? Like Kevin O'Connell? I mean, are you willing to, you know, kind of put the gas pedal down with nothing really to lose outside of the number two seed versus the number three seed. But if there was a game where you could try to go for a couple of fourth downs, and I know that we're talking about the deck chairs on the Titanic of this game of not going for a couple of fourth downs, but you just wonder like a touchdown there. And then if they get a kick return for touchdown, then we're all even, or even if you end up don't get it and they get it at the one yard line, like that's okay for you. I mean, unlikely that they go 99

yards to score, right. With the way that this Packers offense plays, that it's not hitting deep ball after deep ball or something like that. Like when Devante Adams was here, they usually need to run the ball and make some quick passes and things like that. You'd be okay with asking them to go 99 yards. I thought that that just whole thing right off the bat set the tone. So there's like the smaller, what happened here today and what went wrong and how they were just outplayed on both sides of the ball. And look, when the other team has a good defensive tackle, which this team has a premier defensive tackle and Kenny Clark, the Vikings have no answer and they have less of an answer if it's Chris Reed in, but there were plays where Ed Ingram was getting beaten again. And I know I saw some people saying like, oh, well, this is why Chris Reed didn't play

before. He's never played center before he is a guard. So I don't know, like maybe he wouldn't be any better than Ed Ingram. But I also think that your Achilles heel is very Achilles heel. A lot bad. Like, I mean, it's just giving up a ton of pressure up the middle. And how many times again was Kirk Cousins on his back getting smacked by, you know, a defensive tackle or pass rushers coming up the middle. And this is by the way, a really good argument to not play him at all next week. And I mean, Kevin O'Connell today left in the starters for too long. I mean, at one point, I mean, you could have pulled

them at halftime, honestly, because it's not the Colts. With the Colts and at home, I can understand, hey, you're just going to still go for it. Maybe you'll pull off the biggest comeback ever. That was not happening here today. You weren't changing your fate. You weren't going to change what happened in San Francisco by playing him. You were only going to have him get hit in the face a couple of more times. And they actually kind of got let off the hook with the interception because then he didn't have to stay on the field any longer. It was like, okay, that's it.

Bring in Nick Mullins who finished with a perfect passer rating, by the way, quarterback controversy, who's to say? Uh, no, but I mean, it just, you know, there were a few things in the coaching realm of this game that you had to question. And even like when the way that Jair Alexander was talking, waiting up to this game, was there any question that Jair Alexander was going to follow Justin Jefferson, that he was going to be man to man press man with a safety over the top. And there were some opportunities that went missed where either Kirk cousins did not throw him the ball when he might have been open or the throw and he falls down, it goes in his direction. But coming away from that game with

one catch by Justin Jefferson is completely unacceptable. They cannot allow any team to shut him down the way that this team did. And I also think that the couple of teams that were able to slow down Jefferson, they all did it the same way. So if you're the New York Giants and maybe you get a Dory Jackson back, who's their best guy, I think that the game plan through the whole playoffs is going to be exactly what it was. Pressure the heck out of Kirk Cousins, dare anybody else to beat you and put press man on Jefferson with a safety over the top every single play and just say anybody else give it a try and there have been a couple of teams that have been successful with this and I think that the bigger takeaway point when you have multiples of games like this to the point where your point differential

is actually worse than Green Bay and worse than Detroit which is astonishing to have won the division weeks ago and end up with a worse point differential than the other teams in your division is just mind-blowing. I don't know if it's ever happened before that a team has won the division by this much and ended up with the number three point differential. Of course, Chicago is nowhere close after another horrendous game today. But, I mean, to have Detroit and Green Bay look like recently they're playing better football than you going into the playoffs and only one of them is going to make it. That's not what you were looking for. That's not what you were looking for the end of the season to be like. And for all intents and purposes, the season is over.

There's nothing more to learn. There's nothing more to find out. There's no more big games like this is it. This is who you are. And the argument that you have to make going into the playoffs is this won't happen again in three games against good teams. Because when you look at what the giants did to the Colts today, kind of a preseason game, but the Vikings also had a lot of trouble with the Colts, a lot of trouble with the Colts way too much. And here's the giants just blowing them out. Here's the chargers blowing them out. The Cowboys blowing them out. And what's their shining moments was the first half of a game against you.

So now when we go back and we look at the sample size here, I mean, you've got in your recent games, a pretty bad loss to Detroit where it's double digits, a really bad loss here, a really, really bad first half against Indianapolis and a game against the New York Giants that came down to the very last moment where they had to make a 61-yard field goal. And they played pretty well throughout that football game, but still could not stop Saquon Barkley and could not stop Daniel Jones and Brian Dable's offense. And now they get another shot to take a look at that Vikings offense that beat them and Justin Jefferson that beat them after this game. So I think that anybody walking out of this saying, how can this team go deep in the playoffs? I totally understand it.

And that's this right here was sort of the sum of all fears that came together. It was like, if they came here and they won 41 to 17, you would have gone into the playoffs going, that's who we can be. That's the four quarter performance. And when it goes the other way, it's like, I don't know. I just, it's so hard to make the case that they're a team of destiny, that they're the magical team or whatever, because you always know that in that bag of tricks

is when it all just completely comes apart and it turns Titletown into a complete demolition town of the Vikings. So, yeah, I mean, I think that anybody who has a sinking feeling that they kind of know what's coming, I totally feel you. And how am I supposed to argue against that when this has been who the quarterback has been for many years, where sometimes you think like this, this season really reminds me a lot of 2019.

And you think about it, if they had won their meaningless game at the end of the year, they would have ended up with 11 wins that year. They have 12 wins right now out of 16, a lot of the same story, a lot of the big disappointments beating a lot of teams that they should maybe some crazy wins where they had to come back and things like that. But ultimately they were too flawed. And I think that that team was probably better than this team. So yeah, I mean, it's there,

they're in a tough spot. And if Brian O'Neill can't come back, I just have no answers because the giants have good pass rushers. The 49ers have unbelievable pass rushers. The Philadelphia Eagles, Josh sweat. I saw got hurt pretty badly today, but if he's back,

I mean, this is, this is a tough one. This is a really tough one. There is no way, Paul, with this loss to the Packers to sort of blow it off. Hey, it was a one bad game. Like when it happened against Dallas, it was really bad, and we did talk about some of the things that caused that, but I think I was willing to say, hey, let's see how they bounce back

and we'll kind of go from there. And a bunch of people made this argument. Every team has a loss along the way. The Rams had a couple losses along the way. That happens. But teams, the worst team ever to win the Super Bowl had a minus six point differential. The Vikings are well below that now.

So that's tough. Yeah, this is a really tough one, I think, for Vikings fans to take. Folks, we had some friends over this holiday and my wife and I cracked open some liquid deaths at nine in the morning. And let me tell you, that drew some strange looks, but it was also delicious and refreshing.

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you're looking at a Chris Reed, Ed Ingram, Ole Udo right side of your offensive line. Even if you throw in Garrett Bradbury there, it's a Bradbury, Ingram, Udo side of the line. That shouldn't inspire any sort of confidence. Christian Derrissaw could wrap up two men and it wouldn't matter because they just all come on the other side. And Udo can survive for a play or two there,

but you see later in a big spot in a big spot in the game, I think actually maybe it was Ingram on the one that Kirk fumbled. You get, they get the pressure in a big moment and that's what happens. And you laid it out. The giants have Dexter Lawrence and cave on Thibodeau. The entire 49ers defensive line is not one you want to see, even if they lose and you end up,

that means you're probably playing Dallas and you get the Micah Parsons experience again like none of that is good and so if you're looking at places you don't want to have issues with heading into the playoffs against these specific NFC teams having a weak offensive line has to be right up there because there really is not a team sans if they somehow play like the Seahawks where you go and you say the other team you're playing has a bad defensive line. Like you're going to just play studs the rest of the way here. And so it's going to be a massive issue if they can't get Brian O'Neill back. And from Kevin O'Connell's comments,

it sounded like they expected at least, you know, not have him for a little while. They still have to see the MRI, but it, you know, this injuries like this a little while. They still have to see the MRI. Uh, but it, you know, this injuries like this, aren't normally just a singular week or you come back and you bounce right back. So they have to play for extended periods of time without Brian O'Neill. That becomes a really, really dire situation because those were your two kind of blocks you had on the side, Darisaw and O'Neill. And you saw when Darisaw came back, they became a better rushing team. You can just tell Kirk is a little bit more confident when he has those bookends like why

wouldn't you be and so now when you're having to worry about what Ole Udo is going to be doing and then their teams are doing more to stop Justin Jefferson to disrupt your timing suddenly that happens where you're throwing to TJ Hawkinson 12 times and you're throwing to KJ Osborne seven or eight times and they're solid players, but your bread is buttered with Justin Jefferson and he had one catch for 15 yards. And so that cannot be how things go. And I think with a week of game planning, like I think O'Connell can do some things if it has to be a read and Udo like lineup, like that was not what he expected to play this game with. That was not how they were expecting to have to play this game. So you give them a week, two weeks, maybe for the playoffs,

if they kind of can forecast it down the line and know that they're not going to have those players, I would expect this offense to get better. And I would expect them to be able to look at what happened to Justin Jefferson and do some different things to get him moving around and to get him kind of maybe some short yardage things, just some different ways to get him involved. But you see kind of like with Miami recently and how teams have attacked them offensively or defenses attacking Miami's offense just pressing Tyree Kale pressing Jalen Waddle and kind of trying to disrupt timing and you've seen it takes them a couple weeks to figure it out and kind of get back on and so Justin Jefferson has kind of was foiled at least today. Now, is that something teams are going to repeat?

And if so, are they, the Vikings ready within a week to be able to counter that? Because a lot of times when your offense gets quote unquote figured out, you can get over it, but it usually takes a couple of weeks before you finally figure out the right bus buttons to press. Those aren't there for the, they just don't have the time for that now. And so everything speeds up because if they have all those issues along the offensive line, it just, it's hard to rely on this team if that's going to be the right side of your offensive line.

Like it was hard to rely on this offense when you had your starters in. And now if that is what it's going to look like, you see in the playoffs, if you just have a deficiency like that, you can get run out of the, out of the thing. Like the chiefs in the super bowl, right? Against the Buccaneers just got run over. You saw with the bangles and their offensive line struggles, they were able to pretty much overcome to the maximum that they could, but they sure had to go through a lot. And so the Vikings are going to get that and worse in the playoffs. So they're going to have to find a solution to that. Cause if that offensive line

stays injured, then I don't know. I don't know what they can do outside of maybe win one playoff game. And that's what we know as far as the reality goes is that if they're going to win in the playoffs, it has to be because their offense is great. Not because their offense is okay, not because it's decent, but because it's really excellent. I mean, even when it comes to playing the New York Giants, the New York Giants did a great job at moving the ball against them. I mean, I think that after watching Aaron Jones and what he did to them here, that they should be really concerned about. And we're kind of getting a little too far ahead of ourselves, breaking down a matchup.

We're not a hundred percent certain about, but it looks really likely that it's going to be the three seed and the New York Giants at home. But even then, I mean, you have, you know, one of the best running backs in the world in Saquon Barkley, and we saw Aaron Jones run over them. I think that the offensive line in Green Bay is probably better than the Giants, but still Barkley had a great day against them at US Bank Stadium. And he's as quick on turf as the Vikings superstar players are as well. So you know that your defense is going to just give up points and that other teams are going to move the ball and that they can wear them down throughout a game.

And the Vikings were mixing in some other players, Brian Asamoah and Josh Metellus from time to time. But it wasn't like they were playing their scrubs. I mean, they were playing all their star players. They did not pressure Aaron Rodgers almost at all. When they did, he kind of just backed out of it and then threw to an open guy, so they don't cover for very long when they do cover.

He was able to dink and dunk them whenever he wanted. They were able to move the ball on the ground almost whenever they wanted, and they made a couple of good plays in the red zone. But beyond that, it wasn't a good defensive performance either. And I think that means that Jefferson can never have a day like this all the way through the playoffs. It means he needs to dominate every time because the other part of it is,

I mean, we look at the second half, once again, the second half of a Delvin Cook season, and show me, was there a good game i mean he had the 64 yard touchdown against the colts but has there been a good game by delvin cook in the second half of this season he had the 81 yard touchdown against the bills and after that there has not been a whole heck of a lot of moments for him it's the last time any vikings rusher has had over 100 yards was that billsills game. And obviously the 80 yards on that touchdown helps that. Otherwise, that would have been a low, low number.

Right. So then it comes down to, all right, it's got to be Justin Jefferson and it has to be one other person. And that's the only formula for them to win. And Kirk Cousins can't make any mistakes and he can't get sacked and he can't get strip sacked and he can't throw any interceptions. And then now we're talking about a narrow margin where when you do have backup offensive linemen, and just to clarify on, on Brian O'Neill's injury, it's a calf injury that they're having an MRI on, which usually means it's pretty bad. And Kevin O'Connell did not say like, Oh, Hey, we think it's going to be pretty good or it's not going to be long term. Normally, if he thinks it's not serious, he will say he thinks it's not serious.

So it sounds like, I mean, two weeks would be incredibly optimistic for him to come back. Ole Udo is just the guy. I mean, he was behind Blake Brandel on their depth chart for tackles. He has a major issue with holding. I mean, it's like, look, this guy was always a development project that they've tried to throw in there from time to time, but it's never really worked. I mean, you're going from one of the truly elite players in the national football league at the tackle position to potentially a guy who was third on the depth chart of his own team,

or rather fourth, if you count Derrissawaw just for tackles go and even if garrett bradbury returns we know that bradbury is not exactly jeff christie or mctinglehoff i mean he's still a guy where you have questions and then you're going up against the team potentially with i mean all the teams that they could face are all going to have good defenses and defensive lines unless they match up against detroit whose defense is pretty questionable still, even after a good day today, but Detroit shut down their running game as well. I mean, so even Detroit has had some answers against them on offense and you look at these matchups and you say, all right, let's take away the record. Let's take away some of the handful of clutch plays. How do you really match up and your most recent matchups against these teams? Like look at the teams you could face a huge loss to green Bay, a two score loss

to Detroit, a barely escaping win against the New York giants. I mean, the accumulation of these things is just becoming sort of less and less impressive as we've gone along. And I don't know any other way to really look at it. I mean, to guarantee anything happens in the playoffs, I think would be foolish because it's the NFL playoffs and you absolutely never know. And if you watch the Rams and Bucks game last year, first the Rams are way up and we think what an embarrassment. And then the Bucks come flying back and then the Rams have a huge play at the end. And you could see a game going that way, but to see four games going that way feels super farfetched without one of them coming across this way. And all of a sudden it's just

the number of weaknesses has added up. And it's like, this is what happens when the accumulation of all the weaknesses, it's like, if you're playing some sort of casino game and you pull the thing and it goes. And some weeks, all three footballs come up and your special teams makes a great play and your passing game to Jefferson's amazing. And your defense gets two interceptions and you win being. But a lot of times you only win by a score. And if we pull that slot machine and any one of those things does not show up three footballs, instead it shows up an explosion or something, which is what happened today, then you just lose. And it's hard to keep pulling that lever and have all three footballs come up over and over again. But I wonder what you thought of the way that Green Bay played offensively against the Vikings, because I thought this was one of the best game plans against them offensively, where Green Bay was not afraid to just keep slamming into them and sort of just take what they were giving them because a lot of times what has happened to opposing teams when they've either fallen apart when they're ahead or they haven't been able to finish a comeback against the Vikings

is they get a little antsy they get a little sort of out in front of themselves take a couple of risks and then you have uh you know an interception or some problem happen but I thought in this game it was like Rodgers was not going to give you the ball once he got a lead Aaron Jones was going to continue to pound. They had a lot of really creative styles of running where it was like motions and it kind of looked like it was going to be a pitch, but then he pitched it to the other side. And, you know, these are things that the Giants should probably be watching

closely for how they were able to create the runs. But what I've noticed is because they play those wide outside linebackers, that the weakness in the Vikings run defense is on those edges because of the way they're they're playing and they took advantage of that they did not run repeatedly right into Tomlinson and Kyrus Tonga and like everybody who's just stuffing up the middle they were moving the balls to kind of toward the tackles and had a lot of success there so I I, I mean, they, they didn't have an unbelievable day, but they didn't have to really play in the second half offensively.

But in the first half, I thought that they had a really good game plan against the Vikings. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that is just, you get up early and you can play comfortably like that. And so like, I get that other teams could have had the opportunity to do that and didn't, but I think that's more a function of just the teams, the offenses that the Vikings played in recent weeks have just not been very good. I mean, they've looked good against the Vikings, but largely the Giants offense, not some sort of juggernaut. Indianapolis, not some sort of juggernaut.

Detroit is good and they beat you. New York Jets, not exactly a juggernaut. Patriots, like these teams where they've been able to keep it close defensively and then can kind of buy at least enough time for the offense to get going or for the offense to have one of these late drives, largely came against teams that are not good at all on the offensive side of the ball. And so I think maybe some of it was the game plan, but I also thought really early on in this Vikings game,

obviously the first drive, they get them to go uh they get them to punt and then you know right away as they were starting to shoot themselves in the foot with kind of that second offensive series where they only get the field goal like the defense was at least still capably keeping them in it in the first couple drives and then once they got up and Green Bay could kind of just sit and run and then take their shots when they wanted to and kind of were able to get comfortable that's when they just kind of really started to dice up the Vikings so had this game been closer and you force Rodgers to feel like he needs to make some plays down the field that's kind of when you've seen him be errant this year when he's thrown deep balls when he doesn't need to be throwing deep balls into coverages where he's forcing turnovers like those are that's when

Rodgers has not looked very good and so that was just never the game script here and so the Vikings or the Packers rather were just able to run Aaron Jones run A.J. Dillon and when they needed Rodgers to be effective he could be effective because the Vikings had to try to stop the run and you're still got Duke Shelley and Patrick Peterson out there so I think I think the game plan was solid, but I also just think it was a competent NFL offense. And that is enough some of these times to not shoot yourself in the foot and to not just start giving away games.

So I think that was a really, really big part of it. I think they did some good things, but I think for the most part, it's just the quality of opponent the Vikings have had in the second half. They played some good defenses. The Jets are a good defense. The Patriots are a good defense, but they haven't really played many good offenses. The two that they've played are now the Packers this week and the Lions,

and both of those were bad games for the defense largely and obviously both the two losses for them. You know what's hard when having the conversation right after they got demolished is to sort of try to keep perspective on what one game means right like the san francisco defense is amazing and yet somehow jared stidham put up a bunch of yards on them because sometimes that happens in a single game. And I was just reminded of exactly the same way I felt only not at this stadium, but at U S bank stadium in 2019, after they lost in week 16. So the second to last week of the season, then to the Packers. And it was just like this. I mean,

they got their faces beat in and it wasn't like the, you know, the Packers played unbelievable offense, but it was definitely good enough. And they ran the ball well, and their defense was outstanding, and they created pressure. Z'Darrius Smith in that game was dominant, not so much in this game. But Kenny Clark, I mean, Kenny Clark is one of those guys where whenever he retires, they can have a celebration, kind of like Akeem Hicks when he moved on, have a big celebration. Because that guy just destroyed you time in and time out. And that's exactly what Kenny Clark did again here in this game, of course, and has done many times before.

But then two weeks later, so they rested their starters, and we'll have that discussion in a second. But they rested their starters, and they came out in New Orleans and fumbled on the first drive. And I will tell you, I was in the Superdome and it was as loud as I've ever heard. And I thought this is over. This is just over. Everyone's getting fired. Like this whole thing is burning to the ground. They came back and they won that game. But ultimately when they went to San Francisco, it just wasn't enough. And that's kind of the same feeling here where it's like,

once you've seen all the weaknesses over an entire season, you start asking yourself, can you cover those up over a long period of time in the playoffs? Because think about how long the playoffs are. I mean, you've already played 17 games and then you're going to have to play four more because, you know, Hey, like back in the day, they had the two seeds and I guess that wouldn't have applied anyway to the Vikings, but you know, now it's every team almost, except for one has to play all the way through the playoffs. And can you cover up those weaknesses, especially Thielen is just not much of a contributor and that KJ Osborne's not scary and TJ Hawkinson is a tight end at the end of the day. Like he's a really good player. He was excellent last week against the giants and he is mostly reliable.

I know he had a tough day to start this game, but this is not like you can take him and have him be George Kittle or Travis Kelsey, where your offense can be centered around him. So, you know, that it really relies upon one guy and it's, this has been looked at before in the past that that's really, really hard to do when you only have one guy. In fact, you don't have to look far. That's kind of one of the things that happened to the Packers the last few years is that they only had Devante Adams and he got slowed down in one game. And that was it. Like it was, uh, what, 2020 Tampa Bay, they slowed down Devontae Adams in the second half of that game and Tampa Bay wins. And even last year, San Francisco, the bad weather, Devontae Adams,

wasn't a huge factor. San Francisco wins. It's like the same things might be coming for this team and there's no more solutions. So I don't want to write their obituary and say that the season is, this is over. It was all a waste that those 11, one score wins weren't fun and none of this matters and everything else, but it's really hard now. In fact, they made it way harder today. If they had lost, let's say 26 to 20 and both teams played a nice game and they all had bananas and orange slices after the game and sat around in a circle, then I think I would have gone back and thought like, okay, well, that's fine. That's all right. That's like a thing that happens at Lambeau. And usually when I do my little W's and L's after the schedule comes out every year, I always split with every division team because that's kind of what happens a lot of the time.

Is that even the winless Lions beat you because they're just so familiar and you play close games. Almost every game is like that. And even look at the point differentials when these two teams played each other. They both blew each other out. So it still turned out to be almost equal, right? But, you know, I think it would have been way easier in that case had they played well and lost the game, maybe on a field goal that doinks off the crossbar or something. That would have been easy to talk about

and how it didn't really change anything. But this kind of does change something, doesn't it? Like, I can't walk out of Lambeau field here tonight and say that this changes nothing with the way that I view their playoff chances. Yeah. I think like holistically I'm thinking like the Vikings can still beat any team. I think I'm still willing to say that for just the, like Justin Jefferson alone can take over a game.

We've seen it repeatedly this season. So on a one game in a vacuum, I think they can beat pretty much anyone. But I think what I was doing, like if the bills game or just like that type of game was a 10 and then like this type of game was like a zero, like I think more in my head, like I was always leaning more towards the,

but they still got Justin Jefferson and they've shown they can beat the Bills. And I think I was giving more credence to that type of performance and less credence to these games against the Eagles and the Cowboys. But now they're just stacking up and they're stacking up just against the types of opponents they're about to face. And so now what I think is just, we're just adjusting our expectations. Like this team can still very much win any game and so they can beat the Giants and in a one-off we just saw the Raiders get into a

game with Brock Purdy I think this Vikings team is better than the Raiders so I still think like on a game-to-game situation they can win any of those games but I think I was approaching a lot of those games as kind of a 50-50 proposition. And I think at this point now, you just have to look at it and say, with the holes that they have on the roster, with what they've put on the field, especially against NFC playoff teams, that can't be the expectation that they can beat anyone. They certainly can, and they can get hot, and we've seen this team get hot, and we've seen teams like it get hot in playoff runs. But it's just not going to be what I'm going to expect. It's going to surprise me if they can do it for more than two

weeks at a time, just with how big their deficiencies are, how obvious they are to other teams and how easily you can exploit them. So that's when it becomes, I don't know if it's sustainable. I still believe they can be whoever is on the schedule, but I'm just not going to rely on it. And I'm not going to give the same amount of, I don't know, like credit to them that they're going to do it. I just see when they play one of these teams that is competent, that's not going to let you come back from 33 points or doesn't have Taylor Heineke or Skylar Thompson or any number of these bad quarterbacks that they've been able to beat. Like it's, it's just going going to be harder the margin of error shrinks and kind of all that stuff starts to all this stuff the

one score stuff starts to crumble because they've gotten blown out by all these big teams so it's it's really just me readjusting and saying i'm now entering the playoffs with lower expectations than i think we should probably have for a 12 and 14 but that's just the kind of where we're at with this season and where we're at with this Vikings team, because it does not look good against playoff caliber teams in big moments with big pressure. Like you could have knocked the Packers out of the playoffs. And that's like,

that's a massive game for you. And you had a chance to stay within the number one seed and you didn't do it. Like when you played the Cowboys, you had a chance to really put your foot down and say, we are a serious contender. They didn't in week two, they could have done that against the Eagles,

but each time they've run up against these teams with real stakes involved for them, they haven't been able to do it. And so now it's not just, well, a couple of things didn't go your way. Michael Parsons kind of destroyed you right at the beginning. Everything falls apart.

Well, now that's happening two, three, four times. So that's becoming more repeatable. And it's just something we have to account for more often than well it just kind of didn't go their way it it's feeling more and more like that type of scenario is going to happen in the playoffs and then what do they have to counter it when you look at the point differentials now and and i won't belabor the point, but the Philadelphia Eagles are plus 127, even after a bad loss with

their backup quarterback in the Cowboys are plus 145. If 49ers are plus 148 and the Vikings are minus 19. I mean, even if the Vikings blow out the bears, they couldn't even begin to approach those teams. And this was kind of the point that I made earlier this week. And some people didn't like it, but this is how I felt. I just didn't feel like they were better. I just didn't feel like they got better throughout the season that the same issues kept cropping up the same way that they won happened and the same way that they lost happened. And what you wanted to see was some of those edges smoothed out. So after you win in Buffalo,

you take some of that and then go through and play another close game against Dallas, which they didn't do or blow out a team or close a bad team out or whatever. Like just, just solve some of the problems that you have. But what we come to with this, and this is why this reality of this game is so harsh is because it's like, this was the last chance. It was sort of

the last, like if you ever play one of those board games where your little guy has to go on the journey and you've rolled the dice enough times, you kind of got to the last one, the last little square. It was like, this is your last one to kind of roll a perfect score. And they didn't even come close to that. They didn't even roll a good score. And so now it's really hard to argue that they'll not have a game come up snake eyes. I think snake eyes is bad, right? Like they won't have a game come up snake eyes at some point against those teams that have over a accumulation of a full season just played much better football than them. If you outscore your opponents by 148 and another team is minus 19, you have played much better football to get to that point than that other team has on the whole, on the accumulation of a play-by-play basis over a full season. And even if we do the, like you are what your record says, I mean, you still have these other teams that have the same or better records going into it, but they have better resumes.

And again, that makes it really tough. And so I never have bought in at any point on this show's history to the just get in and see what happens. They are in, and we will see what happens. And it would be totally crazy if they got some good breaks and some good matchups and things always happen. Like we're assuming they're going to play San Francisco, San Francisco almost lost today and their guy might turn into a pumpkin. And, uh, you're right in the comments that I haven't played board games in a while. So I was trying to like, think of one, like a

candy land, maybe where you kind of go through, uh, I don't know, mousetrap. Maybe they got caught with the little mousetrap thing. It's like shoes and ladders and they keep getting close to the finish line. And then they hit one of those ladders and they fall all the way back down to the beginning. Maybe that's, maybe that's the apt comparison. Yeah, that could be. I probably took a couple of them and put them together and ended up with something pretty bad there.

But either way, everyone understands what I mean. It was like the final square to roll the good score and to win the prize of us believing in you. Because if the score was switched to this game, I think we'd be walking away going, okay, all right, bring on the playoffs. Or go to Chicago, beat the hell out of them, then like bring on the playoffs. But instead, there's just no way. And I will say that in general, the end of a season does not tell the entire story of a football team. One game certainly doesn't.

But this game has happened too many times to not say that it exists within them. And I think that that's that's really really the problem that we walk away from. So next week, your opinion, Paul, on whether they should play the starters or not. I, I know they still have a chance at the two seed and Kevin O'Connell has said that they want to go for it. And I do believe while the giants as your kind of first round opponent might actually be one of your easiest opponents of who's left for you. I just can't see a way if your ultimate goal is to try to get that NFC to get to that NFC championship game or further. I don't know how they do that without having the two seed with that said, I just, I don't think San Francisco loses in any way to

just a very, very, very banged up Arizona Cardinals team and a San Francisco that actually can still get the one seed here if they win and some stuff happens with the Eagles. So they have more than just the two seed to play for. So you're expecting they're going to go all out to try to still get that one seat if they can. I don't see how they lose that game. So I'm resting them. I'm resting them, the guys, because I think you just saw how fragile your offensive line is if you lose one of those tackles which you just did and now that like we're we're looking at this season and it's like DEFCON like with with the issues that the offensive line presents you can't have that injury happen to Justin Jefferson to Zedarius Smith to anyone on this team like that just can't happen and so I think you give it time for guys to heal up you try to get Garrett Bradbury back if you can and you just and also if Chicago wins they

could maybe get like the fifth pick instead of the second pick like you know you don't want you don't want them to look too good I think I could still get the number one pick there so I think you rest your guys and you kind of try to pick up the pieces and start fresh with the playoff spend two weeks really trying to game plan for how you're going to play against a team like the giants and i still think you could probably beat the bears with your backups potentially they're 3 and 13 for a reason um so i don't think nick mullen's necessarily going out there means you're just automatically losing a game so i think you rest your guys and you just cannot have another brian o'neill injury if you can survive one you're not going to be able to survive a second and so you just got to

stay healthy at this point and that was one advantage you had over some other teams like the eagles were struggling with hurts they were struggling with lane johnson they had a cornerback out the 49ers obviously are playing brock party because of all the injuries they've gone through like some of these other teams were starting to get banged up and you were one of the only ones that was looking largely healthy with a Garrett Bradbury probably returning you were looking like you were gonna have your full offensive line you're pretty much full offense to go and that would be a major advantage you know have you can't make it for yourself. So I think it's kind of a no brainer to rest them at this point. I completely agree with your argument.

I don't see any reason to play them because I think that San Francisco is going to just pound Arizona. I mean, this isn't like the Raiders have Devante Adams, but Arizona is not even going to play Deandre Hopkins. It seems, it seems like they're just full out tanking, which is fine. And that is their right. And congratulations to them on having so horrific of a season that they're in that position to play David Blau and sit Deandre

Hopkins. But I mean, that's the thing, like the Raiders seem to actually want to kind of win this game. Uh, and with Jared Stidham and Devante Adams is just, he's on a completely different level, but that team is actually way better than Arizona. I think like man for man way better. It's one of the reasons why I think they're, they should feel like they're in real peril here is because they just should have been a lot better. Arizona had a terrible roster pretty much from the start,

made a desperate trade for Hollywood Brown. Couldn't get much out of Kyler Murray and their backup quarterbacks have have even worse of a time. So I think that San Francisco should take care of that. And then you, you know, you'd just be wasting your time. You'd just be playing your starters for no reason and putting them at risk

for no reason. I don't think there's any reason to play them. And I 100% agree with you when you say if you lose one more guy, if Brian O'Neill is out and you lose the Darius Smith to Neil Hunter, Patrick Peterson, for God's sake, if they lose Patrick Peterson, like you're talking about Cam Dantzler and Duke Shelley and Shannon Sullivan, who everybody has figured out that he's the guy to pick on at this point. I mean, you've just got nothing. If Eric Hendricks is hurt, you've just got nothing. Like, you're already poor enough on defense.

I mean, hey, Jalen Naylor made a heck of a play, but I don't think that you're counting on anybody else. Although, at this point, with the way that Jalen Rager played as a wide receiver, I'd rather have Jalen Naylor in. But if Adam Thielen got hurt, we saw that in 2019 against San Francisco, where he got hurt in practice leading up to that week and how much that hurt the offense because San Francisco just keyed in on Stefan Diggs, took him out of the game outside of one play. Like this is what someone could do to you if you want to have any chance. So now we've gotten to

the point where it was like, well, home field could be really important. And if they had won this game, I would have said, yes, go for it. Make sure you get that because you want Brock Purdy to come here. But now when I think San Francisco has got about a 95% chance to win that game against Arizona, you know, we usually say, well, they're, they're all pros and whatever else, but they're going to try not to play their pros. Like they're, they're playing, they're going to play a quarterback who should be in the XFL at this point, like all respect to David Blau, who was totally professional here as, as a Viking, but he is like hanging on by a thread in the entire NFL versus a juggernaut team. So if it's a 90 to 95% chance, San Francisco wins that game.

Why go to San Francisco and put Kirk Cousins at risk? I thought they took two more snaps than they should have here in this game because of the way Cousins was getting beaten up. And that's another part of it too. This guy has taken so many hits this year and you have to think the accumulation of those hits adds up to everyone hurts more than the last one. And, you know, just in the locker room, looking at Kirk Cousins, sitting at his locker after the game, I mean, that guy just took an absolute beating in this game and you want him to get a full week to try to recover and get back to a hundred percent. You want Adam Thielen to rest the knee that he seems to have been dragging around for a while. Z'Darrius Smith hasn't had a sack since when? Since you were in your teens, Paul? It's been a while. I mean, for a guy who's had an amazing season, it has been a while since he's gotten to the quarterback.

And that's another guy who has battled with some injuries throughout the season that I see no reason to play. So I think that they should go from, well, hey, let's go for it to get that extra home game to you got to win the first one, to even get to the second one. And the only way you win the first one is if you are at 100% health.

So I think they, they will probably do that if they don't. I think I'll question it now. I, you know, I was at a point where I thought if they won here that I wouldn't question them either way, I'd be like,

okay, it's tough call. But now after the way this went down and showing how one injury can just kind of send them spiraling. Like, I don't know. I, I don't know. I don't think it's a very smart idea to play them in Chicago. So let us give our final thoughts, Paul.

A big audience here tonight deciding to watch us break this one down and hopefully cathartic for some people who I'm sure planned their whole day around this. I know I did. I woke up at, you know, eight o'clock in the morning, got in the car, drove down to Green Bay, really struggled to find the parking spot because they changed it on us. Screamed into the stadium, grabbed myself a brat. And, you know, I mean, like it was a lot of wasted fuel to come all the way down here to see them just completely get bludgeoned. So I'm sure there's a ton of disappointment from Vikings fans, a splash of cold water in the face. But when it was Dallas early in the season, and I'll just keep rolling and give you the final

word. But when it was Dallas earlier in the season, I think it was very easy to say it happens. It's okay. It's not a big deal. Like every team has had their moments and, you know, move on and learn from it. And when it happens at this point in the season, then it's so much more serious. It's so much more daunting. also play into what everybody has been saying about them is what this really does, because this, this not only represented an opportunity to end green Bay season, which should have been motivation enough, but it also represented an opportunity for people to stop saying the things that they've been saying about what the Vikings are.

They've been saying they're lucky. They've been calling them frauds and everything else. And I don't think that some of those things are completely fair, but who's going to tell those people to shut up? Oh, I also wanted to mention something that just sort of went by the wayside. Justin Jefferson is as great of a superstar as there is. I have tremendous respect for how he's handled himself in superstardom. So I don't want this to come off the wrong way. You can't do that. You just can't do that.

Like you can't accidentally hit a referee while trying to throw your helmet. You just like, can't, you cannot do that. You can't have a meltdown. And he's done this before where he's had a little meltdown at times. And this season he's been so good where he's never had those, but at times there,

they, he has had these kinds of little Stefan digs type moments, or maybe even worse when it came to this, because hitting that referee, he could have been thrown out of the game for doing that. You know, and I think he kind of got lucky that it was clearly an accident. I know he didn't mean to do it,

but like having a temper tantrum out there just because it's not working out for you. That's not something that's going to go very well in the playoffs. And you're supposed to be the team that doesn't lose your head. You're supposed to be the team that no matter how much you're down, you're always calm. You're always cool. You're always one play at a time and come back. And they were not that here today. He was not that here today. So, you know, I just think that they showed a lot of their weaknesses here today.

We're kind of all on display at the same time. And had it been random stuff, I mean, three interceptions and a kick return for touchdowns, pretty bad as far as random stuff goes. But they didn't move the ball. They didn't stop the other team from moving the ball. And had they had no turnovers, they probably still would have lost in this game. So, you know, I think that it was everything that everyone was nervous about. Every person who emails us and says, hey, you guys got to believe in this team.

And it's like, well, you know, then they can't do this. And then they did. So I think going into the playoffs, it's going to be very similar to 2019, where there's just a lot of nerves. There's a lot of, is that what's going to happen when they get to the postseason? And had this gone differently, that wouldn't be the feeling. And you can have the final word, Paul. Yeah, I think what I just realized mostly today is we knew this Vikings team was flawed, despite its 11-0 one score record in all

year. We'd been saying, well, the NFC is very flawed one. I think the NFC is looking and rounding into form here with Dallas and Philadelphia and San Francisco, all looking like legit teams, despite their flaws that they have on their team. But I think the Vikings like have the most glaring, um, issues right now of any of those teams. And so when you look at the offensive line struggles, when you look at just the porousness at which the defense plays on a weekend and week out basis, those are just not flaws. I can see them hiding for multiple weeks with. And I think today that came to fruition. Just we've seen the offensive line struggle throughout the year.

Today, they were really bad. We've seen the defense struggle at times. Today, they were very bad. And I think it just clarified for me that I get that they're flawed teams and every team has their flaws. I'm just not sure the Vikings don't have the worst of them right now with the way that the offensive line is playing. And just with their inability to do anything defensively that like gives teams headaches that makes them struggle that makes them concerned like yeah we may get a turnover once or twice on you but if you just play solid football over a stretch of a game you're gonna score 25 30 points with ease and that means we

have to be perfect on the other side and they just have now an injury that's going to make it very, very difficult for them to do so. So I think my major takeaway is just the flaws are kind of becoming more and more clear, more and more abundant. And like in each spot worse than they were earlier in the season. Teams that win Super Bowls peak right now. And this Vikings team does not feel like they're peaking right now at all. It feels like they'd have to be resurgent and they'd have to peak without really any warning or notice in the next couple of weeks. And I'm just not sure that,

that, that, that, that is going to happen. Other than that, it's still a great night to quote Steve Harvey. At least, at least we all got through it.

That's the nicest I can do at the end of this podcast. But this doesn't mean they lost in the playoffs. It's the best that I can do for anybody. But it's going to be much harder, I think, after this for people to hold out hope in the playoffs. So thanks, everybody, for watching. Thank you for your time, Paul. And we will catch everybody after next week. I'm not sure exactly

how much we will be breaking down, but at least by then we'll have a good idea. I think they might be moving that Packers game against the Lions. So I'm not sure, but we should have a better idea. We'll have plenty to discuss, I'm sure. So thanks everybody for watching and thanks, Paul, for your time. And we will catch you next time.