Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings losing to the Lions could force this franchise to change

Episode Date: December 5, 2021

The Minnesota Vikings lost to the Detroit Lions. Matthew and Sam talk about all the possible criticisms of Kirk Cousins, Mike Zimmer, Rick Spielman and everybody else that played a role in the Vikings falling to a 0-10-1 football team and taking a hit to their playoff chances, which now might not really matter. Could this be the game that forces changes if the Vikings lose on Thursday? What went wrong with the gameplan? The offensive line decisions? The defense at the end of the game? Playing Oli Udoh at left tackle? Now what happens? Get your NFL tickets at TickPick.com/Insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 vikings actually let jared goff lead a game-winning drive to win the first game for the detroit lions against Minnesota Vikings. And I think Sam, everyone is justified in whatever they say, whatever criticism you have, you're probably right. If you say that only scoring six points in the first half is because your quarterback has these bouts with horrendous play and you just can't explain it.

You're right. If you say it's Clint Kubiak's fault because he was dialing up tight end screens at the beginning of the game against one of the NFL's worst defenses. You're right. If you said the Vikings galaxy brained their way to only Udo at left tackle for only God knows why. You're right. Because he was offside several times, gave up a strip sack. If you say that Mike Zimmer had enough talent on the field,

enough players that they have handpicked or drafted, and enough players in the secondary who are not injured to stop Jared Goff on a final drive, and maybe Mike Zimmer should have dialed up a pressure or two and even the kicker in the booth on cbs knew you should drop a pressure or two that's correct uh greg joseph had a fine game so i guess you can't blame him uh if you did say that uh maybe they shouldn't have gone for two and chased the points because that ended up hurting them later you're right if you say that they mismanaged the end of the game by not running off more clock

because there was no way in hell that Jared Goff was going down the field with only a minute and no timeouts, you are right. What did I miss, Sam? What did I miss? I think everything is right. If you say Mike Zimmer should be left in Detroit, you're right. If you say that Rick Spielman has built a roster so thin that if you lose a few players, you fall to the lions. You're right. If you say that signing the contract extension is one of the worst moves for Kirk Cousins in the history of this franchise, you're right. They are five and seven, and they just lost to the worst team on this planet playing professional

football. I mean, there is nothing you could say that I would disagree with unless it was about Justin Jefferson. You might be able to say he didn't do enough. He did enough. He was fantastic. That's it. That's been the story of two years with this football team, desperately trying to scratch

and claw their way to relevance. And then whoop, you lose to the Falcons. Then whoop, you lose to the Lions. I mean, this is who they've been for a long time. I didn't think this would happen today, but it did. And I think that everybody listening to this is like, yeah, okay. It's about right. I'm not super shocked by anything that happened here today.

So your reaction. Well, hi, Matthew. How are you doing today? I'm okay. Yeah. I mean, I tweak my back a little. So I'm sitting on the couch like sideways. Oh, tweaks are bad, man.

Tweaks can linger. They can. They definitely can. Yeah. That's a stinger for sure. That is a franchise altering gut punch that you deserve when you play half a football game. That's what you deserve. Let me tell a story. The 2001 Minnesota Vikings

were another squad that was still trying to recapture their glory from 1998. They were trying to get back to the NFC Championship game. They weren't good, but they had good offensive pieces. They were underachieving with Randy Moss and Dante Culpepper, and they went to play Detroit. They were 0-12. The Vikings were 5-7. Detroit led 20-7 at halftime. The Vikings came back to take the lead, and Detroit beat them on a late touchdown. I mean, how circular is this sport, is sports in general? Like when history repeats itself 20 years later, I mean, you can't just sit back and be in awe of that, that the Vikings have now been the elixir for two separate winless Lions teams to prevent their shame and get them a win in the exact same fashion. And I would venture to say perhaps losing their coach in the process. Two weeks later, Denny Green was fired in 2001. Are we two weeks from a Mike Zimmer axing? That might be the final nail in this regime's coffin. And it

might not be Monday. It might not be Tuesday. There's a short week. They have to play the Steelers. The playoff hopes are still technically alive. But when you look at the sum of this season and you see glaringly Lions 29, Vikings 27, that's going to absolutely be the tiebreaker. If ownership is wondering what to do here, that has to be the deciding factor, particularly when you don't just get beat. It's not like you got screwed by five different bad calls and you turned it over four times in fluky fashion. I mean, you got beat soundly for half the football game and then got marched on on the final drive of the game for some reason thinking that Jared Goff was going to beat you

over the top somehow without any good receivers and that they were going to like somehow just, oh, the clock's just going to run out on him with a minute 50. No, like the most prevent conservative nonsense on the final drive. Cameron Dantzler and Xavier Woods don't know what they're doing on the last play, it seems. And you absolutely deserve that result and once again another entertaining football game that should not have been that close whatsoever the vikings it was a classic vikings performance and also a classic lions performance with the way that they tried to give it back to minnesota seemingly not wanting to win that game and the vik Vikings just couldn't take the

gift. They couldn't, they couldn't take it. And ironically, after their ugly win against Detroit saved jobs in week five, probably now in week 13, it might cost them jobs because they flirted with the same team again, disaster strikes. What a meltdown. Oh goodness. No, you're right. Using the word meltdown is so right because it wasn't that they had, like you said, things go wrong. It wasn't like there was some tipped interception off of Tyler Conklin's head that they ran back for a touchdown and it just everything unraveled from there. It was, you are soundly beat in the first half you were outplayed by an 0-10-1 football team like well that Jared Goff is standing back there throwing

30-yard passes down the field to open receivers he had the lowest average depth of target in the NFL coming into this game and in the first half he looks like Tom Brady throwing to Rob Gronkowski at times because he has open receivers and plenty of time to throw. And again, I'm very surprised that they weren't dialing up blitzes and things like that. Because remember that game that Jared Goff played against, I believe it was Miami when he was with the Rams where they blitzed them all day long. He had this horrendous game.

And that was kind of the turning point to, I don't really think the Rams can go forward with Jared Goff as their quarterback. And today they decided to four-man rush with two nose tackles, Sheldon Richardson playing out of position, DJ Wanham, Armand Watts mixing in. Like these are not guys who can create pressure. This is not Daniel Hunter. It's not Everson Griffin. This is a group of either run stuffers or backups.

And the fact that Detroit did everything they could in all, only a fashion that Detroit could do. I mean, fourth and inches QB sneak up the middle and you probably get that if you're Jared Goff, right? And instead they like, no, no, no, we're going to hit a big play here and decide to try to throw deep with Jared Goffin. Like you said, his almost no talented wide receivers outside of their tight end. And he fumbles, gives the game away.

And the Vikings had plenty of time there to just wind the clock down because Detroit had misused its timeouts too. They threw an interception when they were in the other side of the field. Detroit did. They got a first down run for six yards and then threw incomplete and then threw an interception and gave the ball back to the Vikings and somehow did not lose. I mean, it's really incredible how many chances Detroit gave the Vikings here. Even in the first half, a couple of drives right down into the red zone,

failure, failure, field goal, field goal. And we've seen this how many times with this team in the red zone, try to stuff it up the middle. Doesn't work. Try to stuff it up the middle. The same thing with Mike Zimmer after the game sort of implied he was not happy with the play calls on the two point conversions. Like, yeah, man, those runs up the middle have not worked on short yardage since forever now. Like it just has not been working at all. And yet they kept going back to it. So I want to break this down like on a more micro level from sort of start to finish, but I'll, I'll make the declaration that if they lose to Pittsburgh on Thursday, I think

that's it because as of right now, weirdly, and it feels almost inappropriate to say out loud, they're still in the playoff race. They're very much still in the playoff race. Like their odds. I look today. I think they dropped down to like a 25% now after this loss, but still they're right there and Washington's no good. Philadelphia is not that good.

So they could still get in. Technically speaking, if you lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers, I mean, then it's really hard to make any case that you're going to beat green Bay. You're going to beat the Los Angeles Rams with the position that they're in. And I think that pretty much takes away any chance and any reason to even keep talking about this. So yeah, I mean, this is the exact type of one that for many years, if this is it, if they don't turn it around, win a bunch of games, get in the playoffs, if this is it, this will be the game that we all go back to. That's when I knew it was over. It was poorly quarterbacked. It was

poorly designed. It was poorly coached from Mike Zimmer to the offensive coordinator, Clint Kubiak to everybody down the line had a horrendous day to lose to a team that bad. And when you've had one of the, if you have one of these, oh man, the bills lost to the Jaguars. What a weird day in the NFL, but it's not like that. This is a, this, this happens every year to them. And now to be at a worse position than they were last year, last year was the, oh, what a horrible lost year. Worse position right now than they were last year is completely unacceptable from a team that started thinking,

we're going to make the playoffs. A team that declared over and over, we're actually a good team. We're actually a good team. And now, well, if you're going to make that declaration, you can't end up five and seven and lose to the lines isn't it crazy how the two-week stretches have just kept defining and redefining this season we've talked about it all year first two weeks oh and two you're on the brink of of an oh and three start disastrous and then you kind of stabilize a little bit then you win two more games and things are great. You lose two out of the bye.

You want to fire people. You win two. Suddenly it's back on. And now you've lost two in a row. And we go from playoffs here. We come to who's the next coach? Is Joe Brady going to be the next coach? I'm sure there will be an article on some blog Monday morning.

The Vikings should hire Joe Brady. Mark my words. That will be a story. I guarantee it's somewhere. If you're a listener and you find it, send it to me on Twitter just to prove the point. The hunt is on now. Two weeks ago, we were talking about can the Vikings compete with the NFC's elite? And now we're saying fire everybody. A two-week league. Astonishing. Now, I think there is probably going to be some excuse making with the injuries. Like Mike Zimmer even alluded to it. He said, well, we're going to get some guys back on defense. That'll help us a lot down the stretch. But the fact that they played, I mean, really until the final drive, the fact that they were as dominant as they were inanded dominate this team for basically two quarters of the game shows that the injuries are not an excuse. You cannot make injuries as an excuse.

Not, you know, it was the really the, it was a bingo. It was a bingo in the first half of how to lose to a winless team. You come out and you can't score twice in the red zone um you don't cover basically the only viable passing threat the lions have um t.j hawkinson give up touchdowns you turn the ball over kirk cousins with the the strip sack gives it back to detroit for an extra possession you get a you know a key injury no fault of adam thielens but getting hurt, that threw the offense off early. A missed call to complain about with the face mask on Cousins. Like it kind of had everything mixed in. And of course, the botched two-minute drill.

There's another perfect like Vikings-esque moment in this game where you think, okay, they're going to come down and score before halftime and make this suddenly not, you know, suddenly it's a close game again. No, not only do they miss on a fourth down, but they give it back to Detroit who gets a field goal and former Viking Riley Patterson can't miss on the day. Just absurd stuff. Everything that you could do to lose to an 0-10-1 team, they did in the first half.

So the fact that they climbed back shows that yeah that it was absolutely within their capability to win that game and put it away early and they couldn't do it and they took the first half off and when you talk about not coming out trying to play to win right from the very get-go that's where the play calling comes into this but also like tell me you don't trust your quarterback without telling me you don't trust your quarterback. The play that Adam Thielen gets heard on is a little screen pass to him, which I don't understand. They do those a lot. And it's not like Adam Thielen breaks those for touchdowns. It's kind of not who he is these days. And yet they've loved that little bubble screen pass to him, the swing pass on third and long or second and long or something

that got them into a third and long. Like, you know, that cousins on those third and longs is always going to be who he is. So if it's third and 20, do not expect some dime 40 yards down the field. He doesn't even have the sort of wherewithal to think, you know, if they pick it off 40 yards down the field, it's probably just like a punt, not that big a deal deal if we're going to take a shot to Jefferson, but there's a pretty decent chance that there's pass interference or the guy makes an unbelievable play. So they, but they just don't do that. Like that's not a thing that they do, but to come out, it was almost like they got spooked a little bit last week by the interception that cousins through.

And then after that, it took them getting down two touchdowns for him to start throwing. And of course, you look at the final box score and you go, hey, look at all these yards, couple of touchdowns. It's like, right, but you got down by two touchdowns to the Lions by playing ultra conservative. They ran the ball probably too much considering who they're playing and the fact that you could just steamroll the Lions most of the time

and other teams have done that this year. This whole idea of, oh, the Lions have played some teams tight. Yeah. A lot of teams that they've played tight have bad offenses also. They don't have offenses with this quarterback and this wide receiver. And look, the offensive line wasn't good, but I mean, that's a product of something that they did to themselves to begin with also. And maybe that's what they were concerned about, but it's not like Detroit even had their best pass rusher, Trey flowers, not even playing. And so I guess there's a bunch of different things we can get into, but you know, when you sort of hand out all the blame, it's like a hundred percent to you, a hundred percent to you, a hundred percent to you,

because cousins had opportunities to make plays. He he didn't they had an opportunity to drop a game plan to be aggressive and go out there and blow the doors off and they didn't they had oh yeah there's some bad breaks in there he was clearly face masked on the fumble there's no doubt about it but it's kind of how it goes sometimes yeah they miss a call every once in a while it's going to happen um so that yeah that, yeah, that was a tough break for them, but I mean, there's so many opportunities there in the first half to just, even if you just go back and forth with them, Oh no, they had a long drive. Well, right. Because your defense is not very good in the state that it's in, but there's no world where Jared Goff with no receiver should outdo you with Justin Jefferson on the football field. And okay. Let's talk about this

too. I mentioned the only Udo thing. I just, I don't get it. I don't get it. Say, I don't get it even a little bit, not even a little. And I'll ask Jeremiah Searles what he thinks on the show later this week, but only Udo is not a good guard. So let's put them at the hardest position on the field to play at left tackle. When he has played no left tackle. He played right tackle in a game in 2019, I think. And that's the only time he's ever played tackle in the NFL. So he's going to play the harder position when he was struggling. Just another baffling decision. And that's why I'm saying this. Everybody combined to make this glorious loss happen. Well, and you're putting Mason Cole in a spot where he has scarcely

played. I mean, I know he's got a little experience at a lot of places, but he's a center. He's been a center all of his pro career with like a couple snaps here and there. But I don't know really what Cole's going to get graded from this game, but that was questionable. And then taking your worst guard, putting him at the hardest spot when you have Rashad Hill. And not only, and it's not like this move works at all. Like Udo was clearly uncomfortable in his set. He was jumping the snap count. He, um, you know, did he get called for a hold today? I can't remember a couple of false starts, gave up a sack and maybe the Vikings were adjusting their play calling because of it when they would have only needed to make the Rashad Hill move like that's the obvious move and you know what

it felt like it felt like Mike Remmers moving from right tackle to left guard it was a Mike Remmers move all over again and once again the offensive line um the team again just makes brilliant moves Matthew week in week out you're in you're out never changes hey everybody minnesota football is in full swing and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for minnesota football tickets because tick pick that is t-i-c-k-p-i-c-k is the originalee ticket site. It's the only one you'll ever need as your go-to for football tickets. TickPick got rid of all those awful service fees that the other ticket sites charge, which allows them to guarantee the best prices on all of your tickets.

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insider. I mean, is this not it though? Is that not the point about where people are at with this team is year in and year out. It's the same mistakes by the same people. It's messing around with the offensive line. Rashad Hill is not good, but he's a career swing tackle. Like this is what he does. He just goes in there and plays a single game and is okay and prepared to play and knows how to take a pass set without jumping offside and all that sort of stuff. Like that's Rashad Hill, everyone. And so you've got that guy standing over there I spotted him on the broadcast one sort of standing with his arms folded like I don't know Rashad I don't know either I don't know why they took a guy out of his position

not that Udo had been playing well at guard but at least he had been playing guard for the entire season and then all of a sudden you just change it up on them. So just to recap, you take the guy from tackle to guard right before the training camp, expect them to learn that when it doesn't work, then you take him from guard to left tackle where he's never played. So just, I mean, wrap your head around all that, uh, like where to go. There's just so many different directions here because there's like the big picture. And then there's this game sort of bouncing back and forth. Do you want to go even back to the two point conversion? I mean, I'm, I'm kind of all over the place on this game, Sam, because it's like, wait, let me remember all the things that they botched to let this happen.

So they go for the two point conversion. They miss it, but they score another touchdown. At that point, did you think, okay, they're going to win this. And cause I know I was sort of preparing my, they won a game that was unbelievably unimpressive, but I guess we go forward sort of speech. Where did this, where did this happen? Like, it just seemed like everything was going their way in this second half. And I'm still very shortly after this game, trying to figure out like, when was it that this thing truly fell apart at the end? Because how as a team you've missed the first one, you had to do the last two. I mean, the first to tie the game in the fourth quarter, you have to do that. And then the last one doesn't really matter. I mean, it's kind of academic. You're trying to

go up six, the team, the other team still needs a touchdown. So that was kind of irrelevant. Sure. If you add it all up, oh, there's six points right there left on the field. But if they make the first one, they probably don't take the second. Like, you know, there's six points right there left on the field. But if they make the first one, they probably don't take the second. There's a ripple effect there. So the only question is, do you go for the first one? And I'm never going to criticize a team for going for two. I just think that it's analytically efficient. If you're going to go the first time, yes, then you have to make sense to go the next time because the goal is to go 50%. I mean, the Vikings did this last week too, and I agreed with them last week. Getting more points is better. So I'm in favor of them. And they've been, prior to the last

couple of weeks, they've been good in these sort of key, like fourth down two point situations where they need like one good play they've been good at executing that until recently so i'm not upset about chasing the points at all um i'm more befuddled at sort of how the lions got in like how the lions found themselves trailing because they gave this game away i mean there was tank written all over this loss for the lions, Jared Goff with an awful interception where he misses a wide open receiver on what third, I think it was third down. Um, then he double clutches and fumbles it into Blake Lynch's hands. What were the lions doing anyway, going for it in that situation twice, they go

forward in their own territory and miss. Um, and the fact that the Vikings don't win in that situation twice they go for it in their own territory and miss um and the fact that the Vikings don't win in that in the under those circumstances is insane but let's talk about the final drive I mean the the prevent defense with that much time on the clock Matthew like I get it if Detroit inherits the ball with 25 seconds I understand they inherited it with a minute 50. That is so much time when you are in control of getting out of bounds, you know, getting up to the line and spiking it. That's so many plays. Like it doesn't even pay to play prevent because Detroit's going to have time to get the ball downfield. They threw it over the middle middle how many times on that drive four five and caught it and got to the line and funny they didn't run out of time they had so much time so you don't need to

like play the clock game at that point when Detroit has almost two minutes it doesn't matter um you just play play it straight up they've been playing great defensively in the second half, to be honest. Play it straight up. They did bring the one safety blitz with Harrison Smith that didn't get home, but that was the only attempt to try to rattle Goff on that drive. Who do you pin the touchdown on, Dantzler or Woods? It seemed like a miscommunication. Yeah, I'm not sure. Dantzler has typically been the guy that other teams attack in

big moments. I mean, we've seen that a number of times, including it was Cooper rush targeting what Amari Cooper against cam Dantzler in that game. And it even goes back to the Russell Wilson, the game where he had the comeback win. And again, this is where it's like, we live in a simulation that just got stuck and keeps doing the same things over and over again. And so this is, there's a sort of a thought that came to my head as they were not blitzing anybody to go after Jared Goff, who only does one thing well these days, which is if he has lots of time to throw and someone is wide open, he will actually throw the ball to the correct spot. Like that's not always a thing that bad quarterbacks can do, but he can do that. And that's how he was able to operate those offenses with the Rams. But if you

startle him at all or throw him off even a little, he just fumbles you the ball or throws an interception. So that's why it was so shocking that they weren't doing anything to go after him. But it also made me think about Sam. One thing that I have had in my mind for a while is Mike Zimmer and this team are just not really a fit where they are, where they need to go to get somewhere and how he coaches and what he wants. Like he could tell us, Oh, throw the bomb Kirk, all you want. But then when I see you throwing tight end screens, like, oh, okay, that seems kind of right. And the final drive was the way that Zimmer has probably handled final drives forever. All right, let's drop everybody back. And you guys up front, just one of you get home to the quarterback and he's not going to be able to do anything. And that used to work with Daniil Hunter.

I mean, you're sending probably five wide receivers out. So you're saying we're going to line up Hunter way outside and he's going to be one-on-one with that tackle. You beat that tackle. Everson Griffin, you beat that tackle. You meet at the quarterback and he's not going to have time to let people run around and get open. They don't have Everson Griffin and Daniil Hunter.

Those guys are not on the field. And what you need is something dialed up to make up for that, to confuse the quarterback, to frustrate him, to cause a big play, to cause Zach, even if it results in one big throw, you can afford that as long as you get your kind of big play later. But Zimmer played it the same way he usually plays it when he has more talent than this. And this is the result. And I think we've seen this before with defenses that are flawed. We saw it last year with rookie corners. He asked rookie corners to play the way that veteran corners would play. And lo and behold,

they didn't. And they get times he's even asked his veteran corners who are not really all that good to play the way that his good corners used to play. And I think that's a, I mean, I think that that's kind of like where we're at, that the pieces should probably add up to more, but none of them fit. You have an offensive coordinator who doesn't fit with the quarterback. You have a quarterback who is much more of a guy that needs to be put on a stacked team to give you a chance as opposed to someone who's going to drag you anywhere. And that's what we saw today. That's what we've seen many times. Oh, some stuff went wrong. Some bad play calls, goofy left tackle decision, bad, you know, defensive decisions early in the, in the game or bad plays, no pressure on golf. We just lose.

Yep. The other team had things going for them more than we did. And we just lose. But if cousins is on an unbelievable team, much like Jared golf, he could probably win, but he's not and they don't. And so now we're stuck kind of talking about these over and over again. But I have to say in like the hall of fame of crazy stuff that goes on with the Vikings. The last second drives that they've allowed this year, Sam, are truly astonishing. Like if you tried, you ever do this on Madden? I'm losing. I'm mad.

I'm just going to blitz everybody every play. And if they score a touchdown, I'm already down two touchdowns. Who cares? If you or I are play calling and we're mad and we blitz everybody every play of the whole season on final drives we probably do better than the Vikings have done this is the worst clutch defense I've ever seen and it's not just talent wise I mean it's just everyone has had an easy time with them and Jared Goff did today. Credit to Krauserific on Twitter who compiled this.

Our guy Will Raggetts retweeted it. So Vikings 2021 game winning or tying drives that they've faced defensively. Cincinnati in overtime, 46 yards, game winning field goal. Arizona, 55 yards, game winning field goal, late fourth quarter. Remember that was the YOLO ball that Murray threw on fourth down. Epic pass. Detroit goes and scores at the end in week five, gets a two-point conversion, takes the lead.

Carolina goes 96 yards in week six, two-point conversion to tie the game. Dallas, 75-yard drive with Cooper Rush, game-winning touchdown. Baltimore, 75-yard field goal drive in overtime. Green Bay, 75-yard drive, one play, touchdown, ties the game. Detroit, 75 yards, touchdown, walk-off today. That's eight, eight this season. I mean, enough said, right? yeah well it doesn't even begin to capture it because of all the first halves right i mean even today the first half i mean this is

we've reached the point and i i've thought this a bunch of times with the timberwolves where almost every game you watch and and that's not this year they're kind of exciting this year but in the past everybody knows what i mean is there's always a graphic that pops up of like Timberwolves are setting a record tonight for most whatever allowed or, you their defense, they've given up more points than anybody since 2000 at the end of the first half. Like, wow. Okay. This is a win now team. You say, huh? A team that's supposed to be in the playoffs.

I mean that it all circles back to that. It all circles back to if this was a team that was rebuilding, retooling, trying to figure out who's good, who's bad. It would still be a pretty shameful loss, but we might go like, well, I don't know, Blake Lynch looked okay or something. You might be willing to say, I don't know, you don't have any players, but the guys who got beat for the game winning play, one signed a contract here. The other one was drafted here and was supposed to start and then lost his job to another guy. Who's even worse. I mean, look, look at the defense. This is a key point.

Almost every player was drafted by this team signed by this team, or was on the team last year that they were supposed to be developing. I understand not having Kendrick's a big deal, not having Daniel Hunter's a big deal, but these are all your players. This isn't, Oh man. At one point they said on the broadcast, I don't blame them. Like they got a week to prepare or whatever, but it's well, you know, they're just picking up guys off the street to put on this defense. Like who, who, I mean, there was one or two that we talked about last week, but those guys weren't even playing this week because you had Pierce and Tomlinson back. You handpicked all of these guys. The secondary was healthy outside of Peterson. The defensive line had its two run stuffers today that didn't really stuff the run. I mean, your linebackers.

Yeah. But you signed that guy. You drafted that guy. I mean, Troy die. My gosh. Like you drafted him and said, Oh, this is our next Kendrick's. And then like, uh, get stiff arms right in the face, like right away. I mean, I think that's a big part of it. And that's my whole point about a hundred percent of blame goes to a hundred percent. Everybody. It's not just, it's not just the quarterback, let them down. It's not just the decision making or defensive strategy, let them down. It's not just that the drafting development, free agent decisions, it's a whole complete 1000% system failure to lose a game like this. And that's why if you ever watched Godfather two, okay. Talking with Michael, she says this whole thing must end Michael. That was today. This thing must end. And you know how she says, I needed to do something that you would

never forgive me for. It's like, they just did it. They just did something you can never forgive them for losing to the O 10 and one lines. Yeah. Here's what I'm thinking about now. Here's how I want to think about whether or not this regime should be retained. Could the narrative, if they were retained, could the narrative that they spin be believable? Like in 2021, I think you could believe a lot of the things that were being said. Okay, Mike Zimmer has a great history of bouncing back after bad seasons. Mike Zimmer has been given veteran defensive players that they're going to improve that defense. The offense has another year with Justin Jefferson and they've got

continuity in the system and all the same guys are back. That unit's going to be better too. I think that was all believable and it took us all for a ride. We all got kind of bamboozled by it, but I think it was believable. What do you say next year? If you've got the same core decision makers in place, what could you possibly say that anybody would believe? Even the players. Who would believe if they came back and said, well, we've got this, our next new defense. This is the real thing, guys. They are new and improved. We drafted a couple guys. We signed a couple guys. This is the defense that we've been looking for. You're not going to believe that.

Kirk Cousins has turned the corner. He's more mobile. He's more decisive and more aggressive. Swag. What are you going to believe? You can't believe anything after this season because this shattered the trust that you have, I think, in this staff and this quarterback. Sam Ekstrom here wondering if

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their football analyst, shield Kapadia projected the Vikings to have the number one defense in the NFL this year. I'm not saying that we projected that because we watched them in training camp, but the point was that you signed all these players to do that. Mike Zimmer at the beginning of training camp was kind of giddy. Like, Oh, look, I got all these good players. And last week you just wrote an article on it. Last week, they told you, you asked them out there, you asked them, hey, why is this different from 2020? Here's why it's different. You actually blew this one. Like last year, you beat the Jaguars in overtime.

You're worse. That's why it's different. Like, and what a twist, what a twist. But that was the whole thing was, well, it's different. It's different. Even up to the other day, they're demanding you believe that this is different, but how is it? How is it different that signing Patrick Peterson is different than franchise tagging Anthony Harris? How is it different than some of the other moves they made? Delvin Tomlinson is different than trading for Yanni Kingakwe. Shuffling around the deck chairs on the Titanic is not different. How is it different that this quarterback suddenly had swag? Like they were

like, come on, man. After the game, the broadcast shows Kirk Cousins with a big smile on his face, dapping up somebody after the loss. I mean, look, I know it was just for a second on TV. You just had, well, it's not the first time they've had a loss like this, but you just had a loss that is a crushing blow to your season and a complete embarrassment. Everyone will be talking about this tomorrow. This will be on ESPN, NFL Network.

Hey, good for you. The Lions got a win against those Vikings who found a way to blew it. And here's him like, hey, nice to see you, man. Great to be back in Michigan. It's like, this is your quarterback, guys. This is who you have. No, the whole loss isn't his fault. I got that a bunch.

I tweeted about it. I said, he's smiling after the game and dapping people up. Like, what? Good quarterback rating again, though. I mean, but this is what you have. This this is what you've had and there's no arguing that this needs to come back and return and your point about the defense is right they're gonna have to sign a bunch of whole new players again we already saw this like this must end give me any scenario, Sam, where it doesn't after this. Well, like you said, Thursday is probably the reckoning.

A loss on Thursday and it's over. I think if you win Thursday, which again is believable. I think every game is a coin flip with this team. So you win Thursday and I'm assuming that I haven't looked at the score. I don't know if Washington is losing to Las Vegas. I'm assuming that – I haven't looked at the score. I don't know if Washington is losing to Las Vegas. I'm assuming they'll lose. You know, Philadelphia's got that bye coming up.

You can catch up with Philadelphia. You can be tied for the seventh seed. And at that point, they can probably justify again, like, riding it out, end of season, and then they would have to win the rest of their games. I think you probably have to win. You know, 5-7 from here, you need minimum 4-1, I would expect. But if you lose the 1 on Thursday and suddenly you're 5-8, yeah. I fully agree with your earlier endorsement that Thursday is the game. Like, this is it.

Because then you've got a week and a half transition period. The reason you don't make the move today is because you have three days to prepare. You can't change coaches in that situation when you have a playoff hope. But after the Thursday game, yeah, that's a perfect time. So circle Thursday. And if you're disinterested in the team because of they're just bad, they're not going to make the playoffs. You can watch. And if you want to, you can cheer against to see like what happens with this,

with this football team, whatever floats your boat as a fan. But Thursday is meaningful. If not for the win, like for the playoff part of it, for what comes of this coaching staff so as we speak right now washington is actually ahead of las vegas seven to three so we'll see where that game goes all right i wanted to bring this up here's the playoff race just think about this in terms of disappointment in terms of like i don't know if it's an all-time disappointing season the most disappointing season that i have covered from this team is 2018. Hands down, that would be tough to match because they had a good football team,

an extremely good football team in that year. Lots of talent, all of Mike Zimmer's guys, and they just blew it. Philadelphia won with its backup quarterback today. They've been playing Jalen Hurts, who was supposed to be kind of their tank quarterback, but he's won sort of too many games. So as we speak, they're in that spot now in 17, Washington lost its quarterback week one. They're playing a guy who is an XFL backup. Now he's done. Okay. But again, Taylor Heineke lost out a job once to case Keenum Carolina just fired its office of coordinator. And I haven't even got to gloat

about it yet. Uh, Atlanta has been horrendous now for years. It's just flat out just awful. New Orleans played a tight end at quarterback the other 90 through four interceptions. These teams are tied with you. You've had your quarterback healthy all year. You have had a long time defensive minded head coach who is lauded as one of the smartest defensive minds in the league. You've had tons of draft picks. I mean, you've traded and traded and traded on drafted and drafted. You had two first round draft picks in one year. One of them is under indictment at the moment. I mean, what excuse do you have to not be ahead of these horrendous franchises or teams that had their quarterback hurt. What excuse

is there left? I can't get to one. So my question for you was kind of like, what could change it? I think the only thing that could change it is undefeated the rest of the way in a playoff win, but you just lost to the lions. Who am I supposed to expect you to beat? I'm sure there'll be the one. They beat the Rams at us bank stadium and everyone goes, Oh wow. They just beat the Rams. They could be dangerous. Like maybe, but I'm not there'll be the one, they beat the Rams at US Bank Stadium. And everyone goes, oh, wow, they just beat the Rams. They could be dangerous, like maybe. But I'm not even sure. Do you think this team has that in them?

I don't think after this, this team has that in them. I think it depends on if there's playoff hope. I mean, I think there is. I think that's a possibility. Like, just as you can kind of be justified in, in ripping the Panthers and Joe Brady, you've also kind of been right about Stafford coming back to the pack. Yep. You know,

the Rams are not unbeatable. Um, and I could very much see the Vikings finishing week 18, looking up at the standings and saying, shoot, that lion's game was the difference. That could be it. Like last year was the Chicago game.

And, and that was a pretty bad look. Yep. This year, it could be the lion's game. You could be it like last year was the chicago game and and that was a pretty bad look yeah this year it could be the lions game you could be eight and nine and that could be the difference maker very well could happen i'm i'm also not optimistic that they go and like beat the rams and the packers which you kind of have to do now but i could see him split like i could see them even if the season's over I could still see them win a stupid game just because they do have the aforementioned talent that we've discussed,

and they are going to get a little healthier on defense. So maddening team. I mean, if you're living and dying with this team every week, what a ride, and what a disappointment for the people that invest their time, their money, you know, into this franchise, the season ticket holders to see this product with this roster, that, that, that is hard. That is tough to, uh, to bounce back from and get excited. Like if the same people are around next year. Yeah. Uh, I was thinking about that from the

close game perspective, you're familiar with the concept of a BABIP in baseball, batting average of balls hit and play. You've covered some baseball. Yep. Absolutely. So the argument from BABIP is that the hitter doesn't have a whole lot of control of what happens once he puts it in play. Now,

of course that's not true because if you hit it harder, you have a higher chance of success, but like put that aside. So that's the idea. The idea is that, you know, over a season, there's a lot of luck. So you look at somebody's bad bip and you'll say, oh man, you know,

they've got this like low bad bip that should be much higher. And it's just kind of a luck or regression thing. You could have made that case about these close game losses. Oh, well, you know, you just lost some close. You had that fumble, You had that field goal. You had, you know, Cooper Rush. Who knew, right? They bounced off Breland in that game. If Breland just grabs it, then, you know, that never happens. But when you've had this many of them, this many losses that are close and you can't finish and you can't come up with a big play and your quarterback overthrows somebody in the red zone like you did with KJ Osborne or your offensive coordinator calls up another tight end screen to Tyler Conklin, second down runs, or

you, I don't know, get hit by lightning and decide Ole Udo playing left tackle is a good idea. You earn it. And that's how I look at them too. And after this game, the last thing I'll say for this is I don't think there's any win along the way that isn't multiple playoff wins that can wash this out, that can wash out the loss to Cooper rush. They can walk at least that that was a talented football team with a backup quarterback, but this is a horrendous, horrendous football team in Detroit. I don't think there's any like, this is the moment that it ends unless something absolutely out of this universe happens and they win multiple playoff games, which is really hard to see with more guys banged up.

And Daniel Hunter and Everson Griffin presumably not coming back. So like this is this is the one where we bounce back and forth a lot between. Oh, maybe they're not that bad. Maybe they're pretty good. Maybe they can do it. Maybe they could just throw bombs all the time. Like, nah, nah, not after this one, not after this one. Even if you beat the Rams at home, it's like, I don't know who cares. You were five and seven at one point. I picked them to start the season at 10 and seven. You picked them at 11 and six.

Like we thought this team, did I say that? I don't know if I ever said that we had on the record. And that's the reason everyone should be unhappy, which I'm sure they are at the end of this is that there's no, there's no reason roster wise injuries. I get it. There's no reason roster roster wise schedule wise, anything else that this team shouldn't be right where we thought they were going to be, especially with the NFC like this. And yet the games that were handed to them by Dallas, not having Dak Prescott and Detroit Detroiting, they didn't take advantage of. They have earned every bit of the spot. And what happens when you do that usually is changes in the NFL.

So bottom line on that, the Minnesota Vikingsikings are max kepler that's basically what i took from that pop popping the ball up a lot of weak contact um no i mean had i watched any baseball in the last three years i would probably get what you're talking about um will is there any chance that in two weeks we're having another kind of change of heart? Because we've had so many yo-yos this season. And we try to sort of, I think, look at it impartially and kind of get the zeitgeist of the moment, but also look ahead and say, all right, what does this all mean, big picture? And the big picture, it just keeps fluctuating so much. But I think you're right.

I don't think there is a way to erase this image i mean this is this is tarnishing your record for all time mike zimmer and kirk cousins by the way you can no longer go to your to the well of kirk cousins is undefeated against detroit it's over but that quarterback however, I'm sorry to keep going back to that. And I know people don't like snarkiness. Some do, but 340 yards on 30 for 40 passing two touchdowns. And let me see what the quarterback rating was. 116.7 quarterback rating in this game. And you look around at the end, go, what? When? When did that happen?

I mean, he came through after being down two scores to Detroit, but like it's, I've never seen a player quite like it in baseball. There's no baseball comparison. If you hit 300, you hit 300, but there's, is it like Andrew Wigginsy where Wiggins would score 25 points on like seven for 30? Maybe there's something like that. I don't know. Andrew Wigginsy where Wiggins would score 25 points on like seven for 30. Maybe there's something like that. I don't know,

but you get your team behind by two scores. So you start the house on fire and then you come in with the fire hose and put it out. Can't give you credit for that. Sorry. So anyway, well, this was a day, Sam,

this was a day. And, uh, I'm glad I, I glad I got the instant reaction story today, but I specifically requested it today. That was a great decision on my part. Yeah.

Well, I'm sure we'll have another one of these Thursday. Can you believe Vikings fans that you have to do this again in just a couple of days, but you do sorry. I just wanted to respond to what you said about, you know, the in two weeks,

like, yeah, they could get to seven and seven with these next two weeks uh as we speak i'm watching ben roethlisberger play and it is just it's just bad it's extremely bad and then you know chicago like they're horrendous so of course that could happen but i don't think you can convince anyone unless you win all of them or maybe you lose one to green bay or something i don't think i just and does that seem like that's here after this? Probably not.

So is it still possible? Yes. But the odds of it happening seemed like they were decent of them, like winning enough to get in and being a little dangerous. Not after today. So we're going to have a lot to discuss. People are asking about skull searching, which I don't think, I think you came on board after skull searching happened last year.

So you'll learn all about skull searching. Can't wait to find out. Yeah. And then we'll have, you know, lots of other things to discuss. Maybe, maybe by Friday we'll be talking about coach search.

So I don't know. We'll see. Sam, great stuff as always. What a day. And they never cease to amaze. Thank you, Matthew.