Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings lose classic kicking fashion

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom break down the Vikings' latest kicking-related loss. They break down how the Vikings and Cardinals played an epic game in which both teams had plenty of chances to win but had miscues that brought it to the final moments. Did the Vikings play too conservatively at times late in the game? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. hello welcome to the oh my gosh kickers did it again to the minnesota vikings post game episode matthew collar sam ekstrom is in arizona the vikings lose to the arizona cardinals 34 to 33 to go oh and two and sam we have to start out with Greg Joseph's wide right kick. I want you to take me through just your view on the final drive and what happened on Greg Joseph's kick.

Okay, good to talk to you, Collar. In the Arizona press box here, I'm talking a little bit low-voiced and all sultry. It's because I'm trying not to disrupt people. So, first of all, the drive starts. And I'm thinking, this disrupt people. So first of all, the drive starts, and I'm thinking, this is so deja vu and so fortunate for Kirk Cousins to have another chance for a second week in a row because last week he was given that extra chance at the end when the Bengals could have just iced the game away.

Defense comes up with a clutch stop second week in a row. Cousins gets another shot. So I'm thinking, I actually felt good about the drive itself starting. I had a weird positive feeling for the Vikings. And then they start off, of course, with a was it a Dalvin Cook run? They were pretty willing to run on that drive, even with a Dalvin Cook, like clearly injured Dalvin Cook. I thought their usage of him late in that game was a little bit peculiar when, you know, clearly Alexander Madison is more fresh and healthy, and I thought he showed that a couple plays.

But that aside, Justin Jefferson, another game where, I mean, number one, not used enough, but number two, a couple opportunities to make catches where he gets his hands on the ball, and I'm not panicking on Justin Jefferson, but on that drop on second and 10, that's a play he has to make. So at third and 10, the connection with Thielen, huge throw by Kirk Cousins.

Thielen continues to deliver the biggest throw of the game for Kirk and uh and then they kept the foot on the gas right they they go Osborne Osborne and I felt like the Cardinals were on their heels with 41 seconds left Osborne's down they could have run collar what I mean let's be realistic one or two two more plays and maybe more if you get out of bounds. So for them not to keep their foot on the gas when they had the Cardinals backpedaling, I thought was a mistake. I think you at least try to convert one more, get it inside of 30 yards, you know, like up your percentages. With every five yards you go forward, you're probably upping your percentage.

So I question the conservative nature of those final 40 seconds. I turned to Tom Schreier of Zone Coverage when Joseph was standing over the ball, and I said, I feel a miss. I think he's missing it. And he missed it. And the crowd told the story. And, you know, credit Cliff Kingsbury for not calling the time out because that's kind of the thing that every coach does now. He didn't. And I imagine if he

would have time to give him a second shot, but it doesn't go the Vikings way. And here we are again, deja vu. Right. And this is two weeks in a row where they had one play that they needed to execute and they win the game. And Dalvin Cook fumbles last week and this week they don't put it away with this field goal. Now, going through that drive, I thought, wow, you're really running the football. I believe there was a second and 10 handoff that Dalvin Cook went nowhere because as you mentioned he was clearly dealing with an ankle injury and he just did not have the burst to explode and get a huge gain there and so he goes down they end up with that third and 10 that you mentioned and that was the throw that we have not seen on many occasions from Kirk Cousins that he made there to put them in field goal positions where in fact on the previous drive they had a chance and he sort of played it safe and he threw underneath instead of going

farther down the field to just to jefferson he threw it underneath it was incomplete they had to punt it away and then arizona and we'll get into this but arizona gave them another chance kyler murray bizarrely ran out of bounds which was just crazy to do in that situation then he takes a sack and so they have to punt the ball back to the vikings they get a good punt return they come down the field now here's where i just i i totally get it and i totally get where you're coming from and many other people who tweeted this to me about the conservative nature and there are other instances of playing it too safe in this game that cost the Vikings that I wrote down some of them that we can discuss. But my thing is it was 37 yards and last

week Delvin just fumbled and Delvin is dinged up. And so do you want to hand off a couple times to maybe get on whatever hash Greg Joseph wants? Do you want to really put the ball in the air again? I mean, what if it gets tipped? What if it gets popped up in the air? I mean, he had a couple of balls that were batted today. If that ends up turning into an interception, then you've given away the game when you had a chip shot field goal. Essentially, I mean, anything under 40 in the NFL today with today's kickers, it's like a 90% chance, right? When they moved the extra point back, which of course, Greg Joseph missed one of those too. But when they moved the extra point

back, wasn't part of the argument, Hey, this is like a 90% kick. So it'll change a little, but not that much. And so it was about an extra point distance that any kicker should be counted on to make indoors no wind and win the game and greg joseph who nailed two from 50 plus does not come through so i thought yeah i i get it i i get why this would be criticized and i'm not saying that you're wrong or anybody who's saying it is wrong because this is a persistent thing with the Vikings of being just too conservative and not quite being ready to, or willing to put the gas all the way down and go score a touchdown. For example, at the same time, 37, 37 has got to go in Sam.

Doesn't it seem a little arbitrary though, that this is the same coach that last year against jacksonville ground dalvin cook right into the turf down to the one yard line because he wanted a shorter kick in overtime they could have taken 37 they could have taken 30 they could have taken 25 and they took i think a 19 yard field goal um and i know your time is limited in this case but um and maybe maybe collar it's not too like you know maybe it's not two passes maybe or maybe it's one one shot to the end zone maybe you try to get um justin jefferson on a fade which you had tried a couple times in the game, which is unlikely to be

intercepted. I just think it was a lot of time to let run off. And yeah, we can question it all day. Mike Zimmer said he was fine with it. And he sort of spoke as if Greg Joseph will remain the kicker on this team. He didn't say that flat out. He said, you know, it's never good to talk about, you know, personnel decisions after a game, which is not an endorsement. But I think they're going to stick with them. And I think if that's the case, you've got to at least not destroy his ego following this disaster, because I'm sure that, you know,

Joseph's going to feel the brunt of this for a long time. Well, and the other thing to factor, too, with that kick is the fact that Greg Joseph had made two from 50 plus and just looked dialed in. I mean, the guy looked great. He's made now 350 plus yard field goals and then he's got the missed extra point. So maybe that could have been looming in the background. And you're right that the numbers go up, the percentages go up, that if you get inside the 30, it's almost 100% chance. Whereas the closer you get to the 40 and beyond the 40, it can be a little more dicey, a little more problematic.

But I think from Zimmer's perspective, you think we've gotten to the point where this is about a 90% field goal. Let's just take it home. Let's not fumble another ball at the end or, or get greedy here and throw the ball deep. Like you said, and have something, you know, tip the ball up in the air or a holding penalty. That's another thing. If you get a holding penalty, then you're talking about pushing it back to a 47 yard field goal or more. If you get a sack, uh, Kirk was strip sacked like I could see all these things running through Mike

Zimmer's head and I and I understand them even though there is a case for trying to get it a little bit closer but ultimately Greg Joseph a guy who was unchallenged at any point during all of preseason and training camp ends up with his first chance to do something for this team and ends up missing now there's another part of this game that I really want to talk about, Sam, and that is the end of the first half, the final four minutes. And if you'll indulge me, I'm going to take you through it real quick. I read your story, and it's in your story for people that want to see this in print. Right. So purpleinsider.substack.com, if you haven't gone.

So Kyler Murray converts a third and 16 by running the ball and then they almost get a fumble recovery but it's not a fumble recovery arizona scores two minutes left delvin cook fails on third and one then murray throws a 77 yard touchdown the vikings end up with they run on back-to-back plays so they kick a field goal they squib kick for some reason which i truly did not understand and then give up a 62 yard field goal and so they went from 20 to 7 in this game to all of a sudden it's a coin flip game going into the second half so I think that as much as Greg Joseph deserves the first 10 minutes of this conversation being about his miss and whether they handled it correctly going up 20 to 7 and then giving up a 77 yard touchdown at the end of the half which they basically did uh last week too and then giving up an additional field goal like they earned the fact

that this game was as close as it was into the second half yeah so what is the running total now on points allowed in the final two minutes of the first half is it uh let's 10 this week or 10 last week or 14 last week and 10 this week so they're getting outscored like 24 to 3 in in that situation that's pretty unacceptable and i know the offense needs to you know extend the drive and not give the ball back in that situation. Or I guess they did get a get a field goal. But my gosh, I mean, there were so many crazy plays in that sequence. The coverage bust on Rondale Moore. I got to watch that one back and get a better feel for it. But throughout this game and included in that stretch kyler murray just gives the defense so many fits i mean he he might be on the verge of kind of being the

next big thing after these first two games um like stephen weatherly is the end who's rushing murray on that 77 yard touchdown and he's got path. Um, you can't expect an edge rusher just to like sit on his, on his hands and try to quote unquote, set the edge. He's going to go after him. He's going to try to cut him off. Um, and the problem is, is that Murray's just going to win that foot race every single time. And he's got that little backspin thing that he does to switch directions. That's just an insane play. Like, I'm kind of less bothered by that than I was the third and 16 on the previous touchdown drive, right? You've got him third and 16 and in clear field goal position. And wow, caller, teams are allowed to overcome third and long, i i didn't i didn't think was possible

right after last week um but arizona scores there the zimmer seemed to think that on the fumble i'm all over the place here on the fumble that vigil wound up with zimmer seemed to think that control plus one foot would was requisite of possession um but i believe it's two i don't know i'm not sure if zimmer has his rules right but if zimmer's correct and it's one foot then i think they have a case to be like upset about that but i i'm not sure he's right uh mike perera said on tv that it's two feet that you have to have two feet in bounds with possession of the ball so unless unless perera has it wrong i think it's Zimmer who misunderstood now I would have guessed it was just one foot but it turns out it was two that was another one of the like

there were lots of plays that were sort of earned turning points for both teams and then there were just some ones that were random like a ball that hit seven different people before ending up in Max Williams arms but on that 77 yard play, Weatherly, like you said, he's got to go for the sack. And I saw a lot of that on Twitter of why aren't they playing contained? Like, is he supposed to stand there and not sack him?

I mean, eventually they did get to Murray a couple of times toward the end of the game where they did sack him. I guess they should have just stood outside him and said, well, you're not going to run over here. You may throw the ball down the field, but you're not running here. I think the criticism there

would be, well, how does Rondell Moore get that wide open? Like under any circumstance, you know, as a team going into this game, that Kyler Murray is going to extend plays. And yet on those extended plays, people were consistently open. I mean, time after time, including the 77 yard touchdown. But even when the Vikings went after Kyler Murray later in the game, when they tried the double A gap blitz and he threw it up and he's got an open wide receiver against Mackenzie Alexander, like two weeks in, and especially the way that Joe Burrow played today with Cincinnati and Chicago.

Two weeks in the revamped secondary aside from the times where Kyler Murray threw it right to people uh has not been very good Sam no um I wanted to make one final point too on that that last field goal drive where Prater um you know go makes it from 62 yards do the Vikings even try with 16 seconds left do they even try to advance the ball like the aggressiveness from arizona is applaudable i i appreciate them for that and then to have a kicker that can make that props to them um the secondary is in a bad state right now and i still think a lot of it's breland like i mean breeland was pretty rough again. The coverage bust might have been a little bit on Peterson or Woods. That's, you know, that's obviously a pretty negative play.

But Breeland was awfully liable on a number of instances in the first half. I think Peterson was responsible for the first Hopkins touchdown. Just trying to recall all of the big plays in this game just makes my brain hurt. But, I mean, I had a great view on the Alexander coverage on the Christian Kirk pass. And if Alexander knows where the ball is at all, he tracks that thing and deflects it away.

There was a split-second hesitation just before he made his play on Kirk where he had some indecision he wasn't sure like whether he was playing the ball or the man um but if he knows where that ball is i guarantee you he makes that play because i think he had the angle kirk was slowing down alexander could have accelerated into it and that let's see at that point it was 33 31 if the vikings get that stop they've got the ball at midfield with, well, how much time left? Less than five minutes. I mean, that could have been game right there. And Kyler Murray, back foot, what, 40, 50 yards in the air? That's a special kind of performance.

And even with his two interceptions, which were kind of ugly, I still walk away kind of like jaw on the floor from what I saw from Kyler. Fans are going back to stadiums, so you have to be ready with the best Minnesota football gear. That's why you have to check out Soda Stick. I saw a ton of Soda Stick gear around training camp. I expect to see it in the stadium as well. There are so many cool designs on hats, T-shirts, and hoodies for the fall weather, including the John Randall design that is extremely cool. There's also the straight cash homie Randy Moss homage. Can't stop the Thielen hats and a personal favorite,

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order for Minnesota football tickets. I felt too that Kyler Murray was Mahomesian in this game in the number of times where he dodged tacklers, made throws, accurate throws, risky throws at times, one of which cost him, maybe he just didn't see Nick Vigil, I don't know, but that one really cost him. On the interception to Xavier Woods, he did get face-masked on that play and the referees missed it.

Just so everyone knows that the occasionally the referees miss something that the Vikings do. It's not just always on there on the wrong side of this. But that that interception probably should have been negated because Stephen Weatherly grabbed Kyler Murray's face mask. But still, it was a poor decision. They were at the 38 and they were driving. And if you get another field goal or another touchdown there, things become very tricky for the Vikings. And instead Kyler Murray just sort of hauls off and throws it right into the hands of Xavier Woods. But aside from that, I mean, his stat line is just outrageous for this game. He throws for 400 yards on 29 for 36 passing. Um, although he got out

rush yardage by Kirk cousins, which I don't think anybody had that one, uh, in terms of the over unders, but Kyler Murray's playmaking ability in this game, his ability under pressure, his ability to extend plays and throw the ball at just rocket speeds. I agree with you. Like that's what a number one overall pick looks like. And just to throw this in there before we get to some other things in the game. I mean, you've got to be jealous. You just have to be like he's on a rookie contract and he's outrageously talented and he's super fun and he's got all this escapability.

If you're an Arizona Cardinals fan today, you are looking at what has happened in these first two weeks going, wow, we have got something going on here with Kyler Murray as he looks like he's taken that next step and the Vikings were on the wrong side of it. Now, the other part though, Sam is they signed. Okay. So Nick vigil has been fantastic through two weeks. No question about it. Um, by the way, they signed Anthony bar to a huge contract extension and Eric Wilson and Nick vigil have been fine in this role next to Eric Kendricks.

That's worth mentioning. Uh, but the rest of these signings, Alexander Breland, Weatherly, they have not gone particularly well. Michael Pierce was great in week one, not much to say about his game today. Sheldon Richardson has done nothing. Everson Griffin, a bad break, did not play in this game because of his injury from the car accident. So we can't really judge that one. And Xavier Woods gets an interception where it's thrown right to him. This revamped defense through two weeks has had a lot to be desired.

Yeah, let me kind of think about this player by player. I'm okay with Alexander for the most part. I'm okay with Woods for the most part. But, you know, I'm okay with Peterson for the most part. I've been ragging on Breland a lot. And I think if there's a knock, it's that there's been enough miscommunications, like on the whole whole where you say, that probably is indicative of having a lot of new pieces,

where you've got major coverage busts happening and people aren't on the same page. Even if it's a different guy here, a different guy there, I don't know if that's a knock on those players as much as it is. You're trying to bring so many outside sources into the same place and get them to play well together that that's going to happen. And it's really cost the Vikings early on in this season. My other thought is, call it. Dalvin Tomlinson and Michael Pierce are nice pieces. And, you know, if teams try to run up the middle on them, it's hard to do. And Michael Pierce, to his credit, two really good pass rushes last week.

But I look at a pass-centric team like the Cardinals that has a quarterback that can literally go 53 yards side to side across the field, east and west. And suddenly those defensive tackle acquisitions don't seem that valuable anymore, and you put big money into two of them. Sheldon Richardson, too. I don't know if you mentioned him. Not doing a lot. Steven Weatherly probably is better in the run game than anything else.

So player to player, the acquisitions certainly are not paying off big at this point and i i think the vikings are uh are running into sort of like these younger quarterbacks that that can move it's it's just it's hard to just spend money and make that type of talent go away um like a talent like murray is probably going to expose you no matter what no matter how much money you pour in so it's uh it's a tough reality the vikings are facing mike zimmer like you said there are a couple plays from two and oh but your record is your record and when you give up 34 points i i think that you kind of have to live with the result well and that's the thing is that as wowed as i was by Kyler Murray, if you're going

to compete for anything, you really can't be just sort of throwing up your hands and being like, well, Kyler Murray is real good at football. So I guess we just give up 400 yards and then a hundred yards rushing. I mean, they averaged 5.8 yards per run with Chase Edmonds. And then Kyler Murray added another 31 yards. James Connor was kind of grinding it out, but they gave up 101 yards rushing on 21 carries. So they didn't even shut that down for the second straight week.

And so we're talking 27 points in the first week and 34 in the second week, which is both games above league average from last year when it was really scoring friendly. I'm sure that this year will be even less points per game. And that's not what you tried to do in rebuilding the defense entirely. So I think that, you know, the focus for this game is going to come on how great Murray was, how they had a chance at the end and they missed a field

goal. But at the same time, you're supposed to be containing great offenses because that's the thing that gives you a chance to win football games. Like the offense was really good. And I, I know we've been neglecting talking about cousins and cook and so forth, uh, yet and KJ Osborne, of course, I'm surprised you could contain yourself, but, um, you know, I mean, this is what you brought everybody here for not to go. Oh, and two and give up that many points in the first two weeks and big plays and big moments to Joe Burrow, big plays and big moments to Kyler Murray, when there were opportunities to get a big stop. And it happened a couple of times late in the game, but not enough, not enough to come away with a win. So, okay, let's switch to the other side. And I heard Mike Zimmer call the performance

encouraging, which I just, at this point in the universe of the Minnesota Vikings, that's just not a word that you can say. I think encouraging is who cares about encouraging who can write like good for you. Raise a banner that says today was encouraging. We went Oh, and two to start a season. And this team in its history has only made the playoffs once when it goes 0-2. And you had all the numbers in your article about the chances that a team has when it goes 0-2. And Vegas right now has your team as a favorite to miss the playoffs. So great, encouraging. Congratulations. What you actually did was you wasted a terrific performance by your quarterback because you couldn't stop Kyla Murray and you

couldn't make a field goal at the right time. I mean, encouraging. I understand why Zimmer said it, but that's not anything anybody wants to hear at this point. Expectations were high and you lost to Cincinnati and then you lost again. And I mean, there's really no like, well, you know, Twitterly D good for us. We got 130 yards out of Delvin cook okay you want a medal i mean what i i'm sorry but like this should be looked at as wow this was one of the best games we've seen kirk cousins play as a minnesota viking and you couldn't find a way to win it that is really not encouraging in my mind you know mike zimmer um patted his team on the back last year after they lost to Tennessee in week three. They dropped to 0-3, but he said, yeah, if we play like that, we're going to win a lot more football games.

And it sounded the same tonight. And last year, you know, that team had no expectations. And you can kind of understand, you know, maybe, well, OK, he's trying to build up this defense with a bunch of young guys. And they just need to be, you know, kind of coddled right now. maybe well okay he's trying to build up this defense with a bunch of young guys and and they need they just need to be you know kind of coddled right now but this is not a team that you coddle um you gave up 34 points and i know that he's resting on their performance in the second half where they only allowed 10 points and uh you know only three points in the last i don't know five drives or something um and he's resting on the offense in the

first half when they put together 23 points. So he's kind of pairing it together. He's like, well, if the offense looks like the first half and the defense looks like the second half, we're going to be pretty good. But that's just not how it works. And now you're going back to face a really hard quarterback and a good team in Seattle who lost today, by the way. And then obviously Cleveland comes to town, too. So I've said all along that if you get to two and two, you can exhale. But now you've got to win both those games. And I think that's a pretty tall order when your defense is discombobulated, can't put together 60 minutes at a time.

And there's no guarantee that your running game is going to produce like an absurd um 6.6 yards per carry again next week and going forward i mean that was an insane rushing performance from dalvin cook especially in the first half before the cardinals tightened up and then dalvin got hurt um but you know when you play that well in facets um you need to win on that day the vikings had was it three three penalties caller they cleaned up the penalties they were plus two in the take give one they scored one sack which was hardly it was like a zero yard game right it was barely even a sack and um And they scored 33 points. I mean, you've got to win that game.

And the fact that they didn't, I mean, I think it's way more deflating than if you lose by, I don't know, 17. Then you just kind of throw the tape away. I mean, this is a brutal game to lose. Right. And when you lose on a final kick kick they don't give you like half a win for it uh they i mean that's well we only lost because of the kick okay well there were a lot of other moments in the game where you could have won including giving up a 13 point lead so the other thing is that you can be encouraged by how you played by certain players and on offense. But at the end of the day, there is a record that you get, and it's 0-2. And we said all along, when you look at the schedule, and by the way, the Bears are now playing Justin Fields after Andy Dalton got hurt.

They played much better today than they did in week one. So they get a win. Now they're ahead of you. And Green Bay is going to play tomorrow. And if they get a win, now they're ahead of you and you know, green Bay is going to play tomorrow. And if they get a win now they're ahead of you and you're chasing from behind. And you know, it's one of those seasons where encouraging things don't matter where last year, even I could have bought that last year. They're a young team. They're revamping everything. Now they made some moves that were sort of win now, some moves

that were toward the future, but you could have sold me on, Hey, we've really shown some stuff for the future with a young team. Okay. I guess that's all right. Even though you extended Kirk Cousins, but, but that narrative does not really fly here. This is wins and losses and that's it. And if they had no other opportunities to win the game, except for that one field goal, fine, but there were other opportunities. And the point about Kirk cousins is if I told you, here's the stat lines for Kirk cousins in the first two games of the year. And both games were close. It wasn't like a blowout where they were losing by three touchdowns the whole game. And he was just dinking and dunking and getting completion percentage, a three point game and a one point game. And here's how Kirk cousins played on paper. Here's his stats. And I told you they went, Oh,

and two, you'd be like, what, how, how did this happen? And I think that that's part of it for me, Sam of why this loss is such a gut punch is that, you know, Kirk cousins over a 16 or 17 game season, we know he's probably going to give you like 10 good games, right? 10, 11 good games. And you've just taken two of them and flushed them because of mistakes. And it's just because it's the kicker's fault. Doesn't mean we go, ah, well, no big deal. And this was like you said, a truly special performance by Delvin cook. And now he's banged up and now you're playing Russell Wilson, one of your ultimate nemeses of the Mike Zimmer era. So I I've just, I guess I'm just not really ready to hear things

were encouraging because I mean, if we want to talk about Kirk for a second, I don't know if you had any other opinion other than he was just good. Like from the very start to the very end, he was, it was a very good performance. Yeah. And I think in conjunction with that, you can be encouraged by Clint Kubiak. Mostly the second and long runs still drive me bonkers and make no sense. And please stop it. But, um, I thought when asked to throw Kirk was, I mean, getting through his reads really well, he was decisive the only throw that i really

disliked was that little flat to um abdullah on third that was short of the stick yes yeah but even even decisive as a runner on a couple occasions 29 yards caller career high um that was uh i'm glad gus johnson got to announce this game because there was so much craziness in it for him to scream about. But you you fear the other shoe dropping with some of the mistakes that do seem inevitable to happen at some point. No turnovers through two games. That's great. That's also not sustainable. And also, I'm wrong about that. You fumbled cook fumbled in overtime last week no interception is yeah i meant to say cousins no turnovers committed by cousins which is pretty important for this team um for him to play that cleanly and i thought in in this environment for him to mount that final drive in an emotional game would have been a pretty significant pick me up for the team and

uh yeah i think you could sense cousin's disappointment after the game he was very terse quiet um kind of kind of clenched after this loss as uh as we've seen before he's not really fond of of talking you know glowingly in defeat so i i uh i agree with you i think that when you you've got an opportunity to cash in on your quarterback's best game uh that we've seen in a while then you've got to do it right and this is where i felt this way after tennessee last year where it's like i think kirk has a really legitimate case to look around and be like, well, come on, guys. It's been my fault plenty of times, but it certainly wasn't today. You know, the Tennessee game last year where they had a lead, it's very similar to this.

They couldn't hold it. And then at the end, they can't finish a final drive. Now, in that case, that was Cousins not being able to do a whole lot. In this case, he was able to work his team into field goal position. They can't finish it. But here was my thought, though, Sam, these games have felt super 2020 ish. There have been many times throughout the last two games where I've had this thought of, OK, now is when the defense kicks it into gear or now is when they don't

make the bad mistake or something like that. And this is where they show us that they're not the same team as last year. And when you go through the roster, they certainly don't look like that on paper. And yet this game felt like the Chicago game, the Dallas game that, and I said that last week, and then we got an exact carbon copy of another one of those games where they could not finish it off. So if Kirk cousins plays like this every single week, he'll win the MVP. And that's a great point that you make that these performances are not easy to repeat week in a week out for anybody except for Patrick Mahomes. So now next week, if cousins has, you know, a half or a quarter or

makes a mistake or whatever struggles that go with the ups and downs of the NFL. Now your margin for error is almost none. And you're basically asking him to put up these huge numbers because you're going to have these great offenses that are coming in the next two weeks. And you're playing Russell Wilson. Good luck getting ahold of him. And then the next week after that, it's the best offensive line in football in the Cleveland Browns. And your defensive line has really not done a lot outside of the Neil Hunter yet. So I'm, I will talk about this later in the week about like, how can they get to two and two and can they salvage this? But for today, I mean, this is a really, really tough one to take. So let's, um, let's talk about KJ Osborne here real quick.

Um, anybody, anybody want to cover him on that first play? Great stat from NFL next gen. He was the fifth most wide open wide receiver of the last four years that's how wide open he was on this play with 12 yards of separation but aside from that five catches on six targets so anybody could have we saw Laquan Treadwell do that once like literally anyone could have caught it that and run in the end zone but his catch is late in the game second straight week with that are you ready to call it that the vikings have a wide receiver three uh you know i am caller um this is impressive what he's doing and um the the slant seems to be particularly successful with this this quarterback so far this year and i'd like

to dig into that a little more but they keep going back to it um that little like five yard slant now has worked three or four times with osborne in big moments he's catching everything and uh i think he's led them in yardage today uh so that's a that's just a huge huge uh bonus for this team and this offense to get that kind of production so so let me look at this caller you've got an unexpected source in osborne leading you in receiving that never happens with this team where someone just like rises up out of the blue and puts together a performance like that it's always cook jefferson and phelan you know carrying the entire load um and i think the offense looked pretty dynamic

because of it um so the last you know three halves of offensive football you can be pretty encouraged by um cook's performance you can be encouraged by thielen and jefferson were somewhat productive too six catches each justin jefferson managed 10 targets even though it didn't feel like he was being utilized like that um but the wide receiver three race is call it i mean dd westbrook is not going to come in and take osborne spot it feels like westbrook is is now punt returner guy and receiver depth guy and uh the punt return thing didn't go too well at one point today so and am i surprised by this collar? No, I've seen it in Osborne for three months. So I think this is exactly what, um, this offense needed to maybe like convince

themselves to, to be a little more versatile and multiple and throw the ball a little bit more. And when your quarterback has another weapon to throw to, it seems like he's doing pretty well with that. And that's what I walked away with, uh, with the offense should have the potential to be very, very good and even better than it was last year. If Osborne is a legitimate threat. And I think today proved that he is. And if Delvin cook can play the way that he did, I think it's very concerning that he has an ankle issue already. Uh, and at the end of the game, I thought, why is he in? I mean, I know that he has an ankle issue already. And at the end of the game, I thought, why is he in? I mean, I know that he's the star player, but he just couldn't really cut or drive off of that ankle. And now here we are with some injury to watch involving Delvin cook. Like this is not new,

but Osborne giving them an extra weapon may come in very handy. And like you said, with Clint Kubiak's passing game today, it was just straight up impressive. And so that is another one of the unfortunate parts of these last two games is in the second half of Cincinnati. And then the entire game here, you've gotten really good play from your offense and have not been able to capitalize. Now I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up is, so you mentioned the Justin Jefferson diving almost catch that sort of goes off of the inside of his arms. And I thought that would have been a pretty darn crazy catch. I mean, you called it a drop. Other people were calling it a drop. I thought, geez, I mean, that's like a diving catch down the sideline on the, on, you know, your outside arms or whatever you're trying to reach out and catch it kind of coming over you into your blind spot i thought it would have been a really great catch but

didn't really look like necessarily dominant today made a nice touchdown catch are you at all concerned about the shoulder and justin jefferson i don't know if there's an injury connection here and it's not any one catch, but I think he's had his hands on four, five balls in the first two weeks and he's caught none of them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but has there been a catch where you've said, wow, what a catch? I don't think we've had that. I think he's made a routine catches. And you know, his, his touchdown today was, we've had that. I think he's made routine catches. And his touchdown today was quality, given that. But I think when you're going to be elite, which he is supposed to be,

I think you've got to make a couple of those. You've got to make some of those more difficult catches where you're laying out. You've got to contort your body a little bit. There was the other one where Kirk's arm got hit and it was kind of a wobbler but Jefferson had his momentum going toward the ball all he had to do was sort of lean in and and and reach out and catch it before it hit the ground and he didn't get that one either so I don't know if he's like worried about hitting the ground as he like lays out for some of these balls.

I haven't seen any evidence of him rubbing the shoulder or seeming injured. So I don't even want to speculate really on that. But it's not exactly the kind of Justin Jefferson that we saw last year where anything in his radius was going to get snatched. The contested catches have not been there yet. They're contested for a reason. They're hard catches to make, but I think we've already sort of set the bar pretty high for him.

And he hasn't made like a lot of high degree of difficulty grabs. And I also thought though, I mean, they score on the first drive, but there were times where you're saying it's just been too long since Justin Jefferson has gotten the football. And one thing that he consistently does very well is run after the catch. And I mean, there was a little out route that they threw to him where it was just wide open and catches it for like eight or nine yards. And like, where is that? Like, why is that not a thing that is a first down play all the time to Jefferson to feel in? And they just today I got it though. I mean, sticking with the run, but there were times where I felt like that's been a little bit of a long portion of time before he's gotten the ball. And that has existed really since he's been here, despite all the big numbers. But I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it would be fair to speculate. Oh, it's the injury, but he did miss a lot of time in training camp and preseason. So it might take some time to ramp

up. And that's why KJ Osborne's emergence may be important. And we'll wrap on this. Hey, offensive line, mostly good for you, right? They come out and they are just blasting Garrett Bradbury. I think we'll see what the PFF scores say about every play, but I think had a great game and it sort of speaks to what the kryptonite is of the Vikings. If you have interior power rushers, they're just going to struggle, but if they don't, they can move bodies and they can gain six yards of carry and they can be effective. And then you're not setting up Kirk cousins to stand back there all day. But I mean, this was as good of a day as the Vikings offensive line has had in a couple of years, I think. Yeah, fantastic. Um, they were, you know, given a lot of tight end help on Chandler Jones side, he was kind of moving around a little bit, but I, it didn't seem to me and I'll have to

watch it back. It didn't seem like they were doing a ton of creative things to get jones after the quarterback like the the vikings were running stunt after stunt after stunt on the defensive line and they use like innumerable defensive line combinations and and i don't know if we saw as much of that from from the cardinals and probably it you know this is a case where establishing the run probably helped um and we make fun of that phrase but i think in this game to to put them um kind of on their backside right away in the run game probably open some things up for the duration um open some some things up in play action too so yeah give them credit or you know the only real knock i guess is rashad hill's holding call which was pretty bad

at the time and uh i think that cost them their penultimate drive and uh but yeah otherwise i it felt like it was a like an enormous bounce back performance from them so and and if that i that's probably the one bigger picture concern you had about the offense coming off week one was like is this going to be a recurring thing with this group and the fact that it wasn't tells you again like more support for the offense being good long term and today was also more support for the defense maybe not being totally resolved all right on tuesday you and i will get together again and we will talk about the bigger picture of this and talk about the next game against Seattle. We've got Tuesday morning left guard with Jeremiah Searles.

He's back from his hunting trip. Courtney Cronin will be on the show as well. So we've got and, of course, Monday morning Murph tomorrow morning. Brian Murphy and I will be recording as well. So we have got lots of breakdown to come on this game. And, Sam, I hope you had a good time golfing in Arizona before covering this game and we'll see you when you get back. Thanks caller. Um, appreciate it. Thank you for sending me. We'll talk to you soon.