Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings win hideous game in Las Vegas

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

The Vikings won 3-0. Kevin O'Connell said that he made changes to the gameplan for Dobbs but we couldnt find them. Are the Vikings going to lose out or make the playoffs on the back of their defense? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to Las Vegas. Matthew Collar, Dane Mizutani, the Pioneer Press in the press box here following, and I can't believe I'm going to say this, a three to nothing victory for glitz and glamour and things that pop. And wow, inside this building was the single worst football game that I have ever witnessed in the National Football League. And yet your Minnesota Vikings have a winning record. They get an incredible day from Ivan Pace Jr., who we could call Eric Hendricks Jr., the way that he played today. Brian Flores' defense shuts out a bad Raiders offense, and the Vikings fly back with an injured Justin Jefferson, injured Alexander Madison, who actually also had a good day,

and an injured Brian O'Neill as well in what Kevin O'Connell is calling a week to week offense at this point, Dane. And yet with the Rams losing, the Vikings are very much in the midst of a playoff race. And I don't even know what to say after this. Josh Dobbs was benched. Nick Mullins leads a game winning drive. Uh, KJ Osborne was benched, but then Jalen Naylor got hurt. So he had to come back and then made a big catch. So many things went on in a game that finished three to zero that, uh, I'm not really sure what to say. I mean, I want to give equal space to what the heck was that on offense to

also wow this defense, because this is the best defense we've seen since 2019 from the Minnesota Vikings. And we can't downplay that week after week, despite the quarterback play, that they've given them a chance to win. But also, I think we need to begin the discussion with Kevin O'Connell telling us after the game that they made adjustments during the week, and he talked about making adjustments during the week. And yet, this was what they came out with. And I don't know what I'm supposed to say. adjustments during the week and he talked about making adjustments during the week and yet this was what they came out with and i don't know what i'm supposed to say justin jefferson going out had a massive impact on how this game played out but they were so poor offensively that it took until the second quarter to even target jefferson and oh i'm sorry to throw to him they targeted him

in the first drive and almost threw a pick six so we want to get the facts right on that so if there was going to be adjustments to use Josh Dobbs legs I didn't see them also running the football is fine I will just continue to bang this drum of like if you're running successfully keep running oh by the way though Alexander Madison has his best stretch of the season his best best half of the season, and then sprains his ankle. I mean, just everything went entirely wrong. So your thoughts, Dane? Yeah, I think I agree. We have to give equal space to both the offense being atrocious and the defense being spectacular, but we have to start with the offense because it really doesn't matter how good this defense is proven to be if the offense is going to continue to look like this.

Because, yeah, they shut out Aiden O'Connell today. They were great today. Ivan Pace Jr. was awesome today. But as you progress, even going into next week facing Jake Browning, the defense is going to regress from allowing literally zero points. And if the offense can only put up three points against the Raiders, it just doesn't lend itself to feeling confident about this team in any way, shape, or form moving forward. about what they did today. You brought up the point about how O'Connell talked all week about, we're going with Josh Dobbs because we've realized through a bunch of evaluation through I'm watching every single snap he's taken with the Vikings and taken with the Cardinals this year and throughout his career.

And O'Connell told us multiple times that I found a way that I think that we can maximize what he does best on the field. And that would have been great if we saw a shift in offensive game plan at all. The first play of the game, I guess they came out of the pistol and they ran something that looked like a read option and Alexander Madison gained like seven yards and then they threw twice. So if your whole changing of your game plan and your system was just to run one play differently and then revert back to what hadn't worked for the last two weeks,

then I don't know what to tell you. So part of this is, yes, it's on Josh Dobbs, probably coming back down to earth in a way that we all kind of expected. But I think a lot of this is on kevin o'connell not kind of following through on what he kind of promised and what he claims was the game plan going in which was getting josh dobbs out in space using his legs to their advantage to

perhaps open up some lanes for him to throw the ball using his legs as ways to minimize the pass rush I think what happened here tonight was that Kevin O'Connell got spooked by how insanely good Max Crosby is that he's through the entire game plan of that he kind of put together with the coaching staff throughout the bye week out the window immediately without even trying it I think he said there's just no way that's going to work. Let's go back to what I know best. And what I know best is having my quarterback hang in the pocket and letting things develop downfield. Well, it didn't work. They scored three points. Nick Mullins was a reason for those three points. O'Connell wouldn't name a quarterback moving forward post game, but it's going to be Nick Mullins. You're not going back

to Josh Dobbs after this, but even if it is nick mullins i just i unless there's tangible improvement moving forward this loss i mean this win feels like a loss because they scored three points and you somehow improved your record through this debacle and that's going to inherently hurt your draft positioning moving forward because this team can't do anything in the playoffs if they get there which now they're firmly in the driver's seat moving into you know looking at tomorrow's game with green bay and the giants the packers lose then the vikings have a game on everybody in in the wild card race so this is the time where it feels like making the playoffs is kind of silly because they can't do anything once they get there. Unless we see a completely different team for the final month.

Yeah. It's hard to envision another victory unless they just pick off Jake Browning a couple of times, but don't check the box score for what Jake Browning did today where he was fantastic. And that team is so much better, so much wildly better than the Raiders as far as their receiving options and what Jamar Chase can do. But, you know, I just want to address a couple of comments here because I want to get this right for what we're trying to say.

Let me just scroll. Well, one, Danielle says these two dorks refuse to admit a 29 year old journeyman QB isn't very good. I guess it's your first time listening to the show which is great and i welcome you uh and dorks is probably fair as well we're in a city where there's a lot of cool people and we don't really stand out but i would say that over the time since josh dobbs got here one of the things we've discussed at length was that it's a backup quarterback and that you have to manage your expectations for what that quarterback can do however and and this goes to Jeff's point as well

says are you guys being fair and criticizing the offense so much they scored three points I go look at what Cleveland did today with Joe Flacco go look at what Jake Browning has done with Cincinnati you can't look what they did a couple weeks ago against the New Orleans Saints. Is it impossible to ask for more than zero points from your quarterback? Probably. And Nick Mullins came in the game and was able to find a couple of people open in order to get them in position to kick a field goal, which was more than Josh Dobbs could do, although they did miss one field goal. So maybe I should give him a little more credit. But I think what you're missing here is neither of us, after what's happened the last two

weeks, have this idea, this grand idea that Josh Dobbs was going to be the franchise quarterback. But I think when you hear from the coach through the week, talk about spending the bye week, getting in the lab, going deep into the deepest film, looking at every play that Josh jobs has ever run and saying, aha, I found it. I've found some answers for how to make Josh Dobbs a viable quarterback to

play to his strengths more, which I praised Kevin O'Connell for saying, and for trying to do, I said, well, this actually is good that he's trying to adjust and then to come out and fail so spectacularly to move the football at all. And then as you're running the football successfully

over and over to Alexander Madison and even Ty Chandler, and then go away from it in key spots, have second and three and pass the ball with Josh Dobbs, who is struggling so much. He was not getting rid of it quickly. He was getting pressured. The offensive line and pass protection has completely gone down the drain the last couple of weeks. And part of that I'm sure is the quarterback, but those are the answers that you said you were trying to find and you thought that you found, but yet we didn't see anything different. We didn't see this use of his mobility in the same way there was one or two bootlegs but

not very many for him and they didn't run him at all there wasn't a single play where he decided to run so i think you want to make sure that we're getting it right and stating it correctly that scoring zero points with josh dobbs in there and having to bench him is not acceptable. And it's something that deserves to be criticized because other backup quarterbacks on playoff teams, I know Indy lost today, but Gardner Minshew and so forth, but I gave a couple other examples are at least able to create something offensively. And if you score 13 points, this is a blowout. That's how good your defense is playing. So for this to even be a game, I think does deserve to be criticized and shouldn't feel like some sort of, so it was

a great win or also that we are like, wow, I can't believe they couldn't score with Dobbs. No, I'm not. But I will say though, that I was leaving the door open Dane going into this game for the possibility because anything can happen in a week-to-week league. Zach Wilson was great today. That Dobbs would be really good, and he would light this team up, and they would score 30 points, and we would be like, oh, okay, let's ride this train, and let's talk about this team as, hey, they bounced back out of the bye, and now they are headed to Cincinnati

with a chance to make this interesting. And I don't know how you've come out of the bye and now they are headed to cincinnati with a chance to make this interesting and i don't know how you've come out of this game unless you think this defense is the 2000 ravens feeling like oh well hey playoffs here we come it could be oh and for the rest of the way unless detroit plays like they did today in chicago but that's the feeling coming out like this might be your last win this year because I don't know what the plan is supposed to be, especially if Justin Jefferson isn't healthy. Yeah. And that's why this win feels like a loss is because when you, when you take everything away and you rewind the clock three hours ago, heading into this game,

you're right. I think there was a world that existed where you thought okay maybe if they do follow through on everything they've been saying and they maximize josh dobbs's strengths that there might be enough there with the playmakers you have on offense with kevin o'connell who's shown to be a good football mind that they could scheme together and cobble together some sort of offense that reflected well enough today to say this was an upward trajectory ramp towards something that could be at least a plucky team in the playoffs, but none of that exists.

And I mean, going back to the comment about us being dorks true, but not us, not wanting to admit that Josh Dobbs isn't very good, not true. We've pretty much admitted that from the jump. I, at one point, very, very wrongly said he kind of looks like Josh Allen. He doesn't. He looks like Josh Freeman, kind of.

To be clear, you said in playing style because that was when he was making plays. But clearly what's happened though is that the last two defenses which have great rushers were able to contain him in the pocket and that's where it really went sideways there they made plans for him and that's why he had a couple moments in arizona and then didn't have any more moments in arizona truly and that's a great point but that goes back to the entire scheme today, not making any sense. And it really not computing is that like Josh Dobbs probably is, isn't a very good quarterback in this league in really any circumstance.

He's a backup. I think he's a good, an okay backup quarterback in this league. But I think in order to maximize him today, it was on Kevin O'Connell and it's, it's especially on you when you say all week that I've found a way to put him in the best positions to succeed. And then you don't do any of that. So the story is done. Like the Josh Dobbs chapter in this franchise's history was fun for two games, but it's over.

Like if what we saw today was how they're going to use him moving forward and to be fair on the other side of the coin, how he's going to perform in the offense in any capacity, you cannot go back to him. So I guess that kind of pushes the conversation forward to, okay, are we going to head into next week now thinking about how we thought about this week? If they put together a good game plan for Nick Mullins and go out and perform against Cincinnati, do we think that maybe this is a team that can do something? They would have to be spectacular on offense for me to feel like that because of everything we've seen over the past two, three weeks here,

where the offense has been non-existent. And it's really unfortunate because you're not wrong when you say, this is the best defense we've seen since Zimmer in his prime. They're great. There's players all over the board making plays, developing into stars. And defensive coordinator Brian Flores is at the center of that. This is a horrible Las Vegas Raiders team with a rookie quarterback that should not be in there. Probably should have gone to Jimmy Garoppolo at some point today or even Brian Hoyer.

But shutting out an NFL team is hard to do. And they did it. And if you go back two weeks ago to the Bears game, they prevented that team from scoring a touchdown. It was for Cairo Santos, his field goals. So what Brian Flores is doing is amazing and should not be understated by any way, shape, or form. But it's just like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. As good as this defense is, it really doesn't feel like it's going to matter with this offense.

It really does. And so I guess this is where the Jaron Hall people might want to make their case. Let's do it. It'll be a little bit more challenging to quiet the Jaron Hall drum from beating. Here's the thing. They're going to go to Cincinnati, and it's going to be Nick Mullins. What we saw out of Nick Mullins was that he could throw an out route in the NFL, so that's good. Jordan Addison actually made a great play because even where he caught it, had he been taken down, it's a little spotty.

But, you know, he ends up like, you know, dodging a tackler, getting into field goal position and so forth. But even three or four of Nick Mullen's throws were nearly intercepted. And I mean, that like is going to happen in Cincinnati and they're going to pick it off and run it for a touchdown. I mean, he you could see I mean, the ball is really floating. It's a guy that is a career backup who's thrown a ton of interceptions in his career. The timing on a couple of screens and even like short passes was not very good. And they just sort of were able to grind their way and luck their way into, to not have a couple of passes intercepted, luck their way into a not have a couple passes intercepted luck their way into a situation where they could kick one single field goal and win this game and if jefferson has to be out for

multiple weeks which he did return from the hospital and did not have any internal injuries maybe there is some rib or something else bruising or it's just going to be really difficult but there is no confidence whatsoever that they could put up enough points to win even two more games like playing like this. This just so happened to be one of the worst teams in the NFL that they were able to, especially one of the worst offenses in the NFL that is completely incapable. And you have a great defense. You put those two together, you have a shutout, But they have scored 13 points in the last two weeks.

And some of it had to come on a last drive by Josh Dobbs against Chicago. So putting in Nick Mullins, someone who has had the same exact career as Josh Dobbs, does not give me a whole lot of belief that this team can make the playoffs. So if you're making that Jaron Hall argument, then you'd be saying like, they just can't make the playoffs with how beat up they are. And maybe they should bring in someone that could at least be exciting and interesting to watch. That's not how Kevin O'Connell is going to think of it. Kevin O'Connell is going to think of it as this guy gives us the best chance to make the playoffs. Maybe we can grit and grind our way to two more wins, which I believe is what they're going to need, especially since the Los Angeles Rams lost in overtime to the Ravens.

That was a big win to try to make the playoffs. But it does feel like the whole thing after today, it doesn't matter if you make the playoffs. I mean, did anybody watch San Francisco? You're going to take Nick Mullins to Philadelphia or something? Now, I guess, Hey, Detroit did look pretty bad. Um, but I don't know. I still wouldn't have any confidence that they could score or beat Detroit with this quarterback situation. And that, that is, you know, when you talk about, um, us, you know, and how much to criticize and everything else, it's something that I have tried very hard to toe the line on of understanding

that there is no quarterback here who can make them a juggernaut offense. And if they were going to try to trade for one of them, although maybe we should be saying, why didn't you sign Flacco? I don't know. Like he looks pretty good, but if you, you know, if you're going to try to trade for one of them would have been Andy Dalton, maybe Jameis Winston, then you would have had to give up something more significant if they wanted to do that. And now we understand why Arizona was fine just doing a little pick swap. And suddenly that looks a lot worse than it did before. But that is the, that is the tough part to battle with as we go forward. And as we fly to Cincinnati and we go to cover this game, it's like, well, they have a backup quarterback too, but this one feels so much more dire because of how poorly they've moved the ball. So how much do I put on O'Connell when I'm watching Zach Taylor do a really good job with his backup quarterback and Kevin Stefanski? with these types of coaches, the one thing that's supposed to be his thing is make the most out of the quarterback.

And they made the least out of the quarterback that I've ever seen today. So in the last two weeks, I mean, it took until the, did they get over a hundred yards passing total, like including sacks? I don't even know if they were over a hundred yards total pass. If you include sacks,

cause they got sacked 99 yards passing and yeah, it happens, but that's what you were supposed to be able they got sacked like crazy. 99 yards passing, and yeah, it happens, but that's what you were supposed to be able to do is to enhance that. Can we also just real briefly talk about K.J. Osborne? It has been a horrendous year for K.J. Osborne. I really thought that coming into this year, and this is where with Dobbs, if you were ever going to survive, you needed everyone to play at their absolute best. K.J. Osborne is not.

The offensive line has fallen apart. These things, and not just with O'Neal, but also when he was healthy, these were the things that needed to happen. You couldn't have any bad days, and they've had some bad days. But, I mean, Osborne, I think, he got benched in this game, and this is the last we're going to see of him as well. So I think we can check off

like you're not bringing back kj osborne you're not bringing back josh dobbs after this uh there's just there's just no way from what we've seen of those guys uh this year yeah you you brought up the point about like two months ago if you know when kirk goes down if they would have just traded for someone like andy dalton or jamis winameis Winston. And I think the revisionist history of Vikings fans now is going to say, we should have done that instead of trading for Josh Dobbs. But still a pretty good move to not do that, in my opinion, because you give up a third-round pick probably to afford one of those guys to throw your hat into that ring.

How much better are you now? You're not that much better are you now like you're not that much better and i think the goal is always to win the super bowl it's not to win a playoff game it's not to get into the playoffs they're they might still get into the playoffs but like if you can't win a super bowl with josh dobbs that's pretty clear you can't win a super bowl with nick mullins i'm near 99.9999% sure that you can't do that weird things happen in the NFL but I would be floored you can't win a Super Bowl with Jaron Hall but you can't win a Super Bowl the other guys that were on the table too so I don't

even know if you could have won a Super Bowl with Kirk if he stayed healthy. So all of those things that have kind of played out since then kind of feel moot because like, was this team ever in position to win a Super Bowl? And if they weren't, should things have played out completely different for the last two and a half months ago? Should you have maybe traded a couple of people and, you know, trying to throw it in reverse and get a quarterback that can maybe take you over that that hump? So, like the fact that the Josh Dobbs chapter, an era of this franchise is over and it didn't. Does he get an era? Sure. He can. Everyone gets an era. Taylor Swift. Everyone gets an era. The Josh Dobbs era being over and for how high it started to kind of fizzle out so quickly

and underwhelmingly, frankly, none of that matters because the quarterback, when he went down in Green Bay, when Kirk Cousins blew his Achilles, the season was probably done. But even then, I just don't know if this team was capable of winning a Super Bowl with what we've seen kind of play out since then. And it's just hard to kind of take this game and say, okay, they beat the Raiders 3-0. They should go with Nick Mullins moving forward. Maybe they can even beat Cincinnati because Jake Browning is still a backup quarterback at its core and Brian Flores can maybe make him uncomfortable. Maybe all that still happens, but what's the end goal here? I just don't know. And that's why those two weeks of Josh Dobbs were fun.

Because for a little bit, you thought like, this is something that could be exciting. But everything since then, especially tonight, with what we saw from across the board on offense, we could name every single player. It just kind of makes you take a step back and realize that this was never really a team to be feared in the first place. I hope Justin Jefferson's okay.

But, you know, like if once he went down to like all of this thing, like the season as a whole has just kind of gone up in flames. But I don't know if this was ever a super bowl contender from the start uh now what you have done is uh you've gotten the comment section into trent dilfer territory which is did you know trent dilfer won a quarter of a super bowl yeah that's about how dark it is right now i mean uh yeah i think it's uh not a shocking statement to say that if they're going to score three points against the Las Vegas Raiders and not be able to produce almost anything against Chicago, that, yeah, the Super Bowl chances have gone down a little. But but, you know, when you say, though, it doesn't matter necessarily. It might matter in the way that when Josh Dobbs wins two games in a row and I don't know how it looked so good and can look so bad.

That's the NFL for you. But my gosh, I mean, they what was it? 28 points in the first half against New Orleans. They absolutely lit them up. And Dobbs played so confidently and so on time. And there was a feeling of, well, maybe even though it probably won't always ride this high, it can at least be serviceable and there'll be a bad game mixed in. And I was even very much willing to believe the idea that Chicago was his one bad game

and he had played pretty well in three out of four of them. And maybe he would come back here and we'd be talking about week to week, like the playoff race and the different scenarios and how Dobbs was going to perform and O'Connell's going to use him in some different ways. And they're going to get him on the move and so forth. They're going to run the ball more, get it to Jefferson. Like I was willing to buy into all of those things. But now where I've shifted, because we know that's over is to thinking about Kirk cousins and not wanting them to sign Kirk cousins to a $45 million contract. Although maybe there's a text from his agent to quasi Adolfo Mensah saying, well, I, you know, I bet you would have scored more than three points with old Kirk, even if his Achilles is sore. But it made me wonder about them watching this and even

about Kevin O'Connell's own belief in him being the quarterback whisperer and how much he could do depending on the quarterback, right? Because there is only so much that you can do when you're a play caller. And as much as there's questions about reasonable questions about the game plan today and the game plan against Chicago, neither of which seemed to work or, or even make a lot of sense, honestly, or even match up with what they said,

honestly. But it's still is a little shocking to the system for them to see the quarterback play this bad, no matter what you dial up. And it makes you wonder if they're saying, you know, if we have this defense next year and you know how teams do this, don't tell me teams don't do this. If we just bring back this defense for next year,

then we're going to be able to go to the Super Bowl as long as Kirk Cousins plays the same. And hey, by the way, Jefferson will be healthy. And you can just sense that. So the way that the rest of this thing goes, we know it's not going in a Dobbs direction. We know it's Mullins and then maybe Jaron Hall if they get to a point where they're out of the playoffs.

But you could tell me all day long, well, they should have this decision made already. They shouldn't be making it based on what they've seen. But there are owners who who I don't know. I didn't see them today, but who probably flew here and watch this abomination and couldn't help, but thinking with Kirk, this is 27 to zero,

which it probably isn't because when their offensive line has been dominated in the past, they don't score a whole lot of points, but at least maybe 13. So, so I, I'm each week, I kind of go back and forth on how I feel about this, but if we were doing a meter, a game like this pushes the

meter right into the red, which is where Kirk is. And, uh, he's got the money signs in his eyes, like Mr. Crabb, if you're a SpongeBob fan. Yeah. And like, if they end up doing that, I will have think, I will think it's the wrong decision, but the, everything you've laid out, like it makes sense that when you try and get inside the brain of ownership, who wants to consistently put out a product that doesn't stink because stinking makes less money, but really in the NFL, it kind of doesn't like people are going to show up, but you can understand each passing game. And then now we've had two bad, really bad Josh Dobbs games. If they go with Nick Mullins next week and he's bad in Cincinnati, and then they go with Jaron Hall for three weeks to close the season. If it's bad,

bad, bad, bad, bad, the meter continues to go deeper and deeper into the red and in a like roundabout way i can understand that even though i think it's the wrong decision i can understand why it would end up happening because you just know how these guys think and it's okay well we're really close even if you're not that close i think they think

because they beat san francisco and because they looked really good in against green bay that well that our story from this season isn't fully told so we need to run it back and and unturn that stone i think there's like a way of kind of convincing yourself that because we didn't get to see the ending of the kirk cousins movie the script that was playing out this year um so yeah, I think that's fully on the table now. I really thought those two games of Josh Dobbs were proof, and I still believe this, were proof that if you find the right quarterback, this offense can function. But now we've learned that you have to find the right quarterback that can functionally run this offense and also do what Kevin O'Connell wants to do, because there's not going to be a lot of malleability to what how he's going to run his offense.

It's he's going to run the offense that got him to be a head coach. And today was a perfect example. There was a chance for him to kind of adapt to a guy who we all agree is not great, but adapt to him in a way that maximizes his strengths. And he couldn't do it. He didn't do it. I don't think he wants to do it. So whatever happens moving forward, if it's not Kirk, it's going to be someone that O'Connell feels like can do whatever he wants to do on the field.

You know who this offense is perfect for? Matthew Stafford, the guy that won the Super Bowl with it. And I was watching him today because we had time before the game and still looked great with Matthew Stafford running this. Mark Hammer went a little fuzzy there running this Sean McVay type of offense where McVay changed from running all those play actions and bootlegs and wide zones to the longer developing stuff because of his quarterback, Matthew Stafford, who has what great pocket presence, monster arm can fit into tight windows, has been around forever, understands football deeply. I mean, that's who this is built for. And that's where I wasn't just thinking about Kirk because there have been even times where I've felt this didn't fit Kirk and that they almost were getting Kirk killed because he wasn't mobile enough or able to evade the rush, which you saw last year on Netflix. And, but also even this year, I mean, he was getting hit still, even as they had a really good offensive performance because it does require the quarterback. And this was not changed today in my, to sit in the pocket, go through his progression,

find the right place, and throw on time. And you can't eliminate that in the bye week. But I was thinking that if the plan is to draft the quarterback, they really need to make sure they've got the right person. And maybe that is Michael Penix. Or maybe they feel that Jaden Daniels can do that and add his running ability. But you talk about not having a lot of malleability. And look, I mean, after today, what you'd give for a guy who put up 50 touchdowns in college football at the same time, it's like, I think this is built for a specific type of quarterback.

And what we really learned is that Josh Dobbs is not that type of quarterback. It probably is built even more for Nick Mullins, but he can't make the throws with his arm to make it be effective. But it's definitely not for Dobbs, and it's definitely not a situation where, hey, this coach can adapt. It's like the anti-Flores, where Brian Flores seems to be able to mold his defense with whatever happens. They lose Marcus Davenport. Okay, we'll put in DJ Wanham, and he gets another sack today,

thanks to Daniil Hunter. But Ivan Pace, who we'll get to, I promise, is a star coming in for Jordan Hicks. We've seen, I mean, cornerbacks who last year may have looked like they couldn't play at all, and now they're playing, and they're effective. And Josh Patelis, again again a star who makes another play but that's all about molding and shape-shifting that the defensive players talk about constantly and yet on the offensive side we just don't really see that and uh so but i also think when we evaluate the lens of what does it mean for kirk and if k Kirk is going to return, we also have to put

the backup quarterbacks and quarterbacks on kind of a spectrum of like, you know, of course you have like your Mahomes, your Josh Allen, your like greats of the era. And then Kirk is the next level down for, you know, good quarterbacks who can get you in the potentially top 10 offense. We've got backups who are really good. Teddy Bridgewater, Andy Dalton, those guys could win you eight games if you started them for a whole season. I thought that Dobbs might fall into that category. And instead, Dobbs is almost in the XFL.

And that's where Nick Mullins resides as well. So we also have to be careful about over-evaluating when you have a quarterback who may be playing for the St. Louis Battle Hawks next year or something, when we're discussing, can they change? What can they be like? But I tended to come away feeling like you did, that when you evaluate what you're going to do with quarterback in the future, you have to get somebody who's going to be a fit.

So maybe it was a good idea not to draft Will Levis. And there's a lot of roads we can go down down and I don't want to go down them for absolutely ever, because I do want to talk about on the defensive side and the way this has been built and the way this has been managed, it is nothing short of incredible. And I found myself in sort of disbelief at where some of these players have come from and how they've grown. Bynum is a fourth rounder. Metellus is a sixth rounder. Pace is an undrafted free agent.

Even DJ Wanham is a fourth rounder who sputtered for several years. Bullard is a guy they just found. I don't even know where he came from. I think he was with Atlanta and he was barely playing and they have put out a defensive product that is incredible. And I'm going to walk out of here feeling like they're going to waste this. It's just an Achilles is going to waste this. I shouldn't even say they're going to waste this.

An Achilles is going to waste this defense. But you also can't feel like this has to be over for this year because all of these players are young except for the Daniil Hunter situation. Yeah, the defense, like we've talked postgame for every postgame for the daniel hunter situation yeah the defense like i we've talked post game for the every post game for the past month and our feelings and the rhetoric with which we talk about this defense has has consistently changed where it was like well this team might be good enough to be a top half of the league defense but they couldn't possibly be a top 10 defense and now we're like oh like they like a couple weeks ago yeah they could be a top 10 defense now they're

like legitimately like just a very very good defense that should be respected week in and week out in the league and like a lot of it starts with daniel hunter because i i do think he's the only one on this defense that really stands out as a true star. But you mentioned all those other guys and how they are developing into kind of star roles themselves. I think a lot of it has to do with Brian Flores in the way, like you said, he's able to shapeshift in a way that maximizes certain guys skill sets, but also finds guys and kind of pours into them and makes them feel confident. We talked to Ivan Pace after the game, extremely confident kid does not need anyone to build him up at all. Um, he is someone who said the rest of the league screwed up. He used a different word,

um, by not drafting me and I'm going to prove everyone wrong. And so far through this is week 14. He is, he's proving them wrong. But he also, in that same breath, talked about Brian Flores and talked about how I was excited to come here and play for Brian Flores. You hear the same thing with Josh Metellus, who just would go on and on and on about Brian Flores if you asked about him. Harrison Smith, a guy who's been in the league for a decade plus and seen it all and played for Mike Zimmer when Mike Zimmer was at the peak of his powers he loves playing for Brian Flores so everything that you've you've seen like yeah Brian Flores is going to get at least conversations of being a head coach

somewhere else but if they can bring him back if they can find a way to bring him back and whether it's bringing back her cousins or bringing back you know bringing in a rookie or bringing in a bridge guy there's no reason this defense doesn't have it can't just continue to ascend because he's so good at what he what he does and I think this game obviously is proof of that because they pitched a shutout but it's been building towards this you know week in and week out all season long so this is kind is kind of the culmination of what they've been working towards. They haven't got a shutout yet, and now they have one. But none of this is actually that surprising when you kind of zoom out and look at what they've been able to do across the board

and the players that continue to grow into their roles and step up. I mean, Ivan Pace Jr. is, I mean, I'm sure he would have signed somewhere else and been good somewhere else, but the Vikings paid him way more money than you ever see an undrafted free agent. Like, they went all in on him. When a team used to give like 60K to an undrafted free agent, we'd be like, oh, this guy's the guy to watch. I think they gave like 300,000 to Ivan Pace to come here,

so they clearly identified him and also if you go back to the draft his numbers in cincinnati university of cincinnati were outrageous like he scored across the board the pff grades in the 90s for everything and the only reason that the league missed on him is because he's small and he looks like you except for more beefy i mean that like you stand next to we reporters i kind of tower over him standing next to him he did a backflip like this is not a big linebacker guy but he just fits so perfectly into the model that brian floris is looking for and not only that but sort of where the league has gone with

that position if the raiders put in a fullback and run 30 times today they probably win the game i mean because that's the vikings are basically saying to all the other teams with the way they play defense you won't do that you won't do that and so we're going to use this guy who's really quick and is really violent and can rush the passer and can make plays in coverage and so amongst the Ivan Pace Jr. post game where he was mostly telling us I'm a dog I don't know why anyone would have doubted me I'm like I feel you uh but he also mentioned that he knew the route that Devante Adams was going to run on that play he said they ran it on the first play of the game

he figured they were going to go back to it. And it was basically just about him making the play because he completely read it. And I think his football IQ is just out of this world. He's calling plays on the defense as an undrafted rookie. It's absurd. Like, honestly, this is never I've never seen this happen. Someone's going to have to give me an example of a undrafted rookie. He's leading the league coming into this week in PFF grade.

It's going to go higher after this, I would assume, because of the game he had. Just I can't think of too many examples of players showing up as undrafted free agents and playing this way. There are foundational pieces here to a defense for the future. And so as we're going down the stretch we're going to continue to watch these things but i think i've seen enough to feel like they have a lot to work with here and what if they got even more with money and like that's going to be the conversation too we've got a lot of time to talk about that though in the off season and everything else it's just a strange place to be

as coming off of a win which if people listen to the last 30 minutes you wouldn't think so but it doesn't feel like it like did anyone walk out of here that people went out of here to the bars to drink after watching this like there's no way that you could really celebrate what you just saw except for what we've seen from the defense and I I tend to think that the league's not going to give Brian Flores a job so I think this is something that they could build on for a number of years I wanted to ask you about just this situation in general because I want to talk about it as well because we could go on and on about how miserable the offense was and uh i will if you make me but it is the most awkward situation that i have ever seen outside of when the chargers were playing in a soccer stadium because there is nothing about the raiders organization's history

that says glitz and glam of vegas so they don't even know what to do. Like they're showing old clips of them playing with muddy jerseys and like bleeding and on the baseball field in Oakland. And they're just like, we're the Raiders. And then there's just like a cool band that you could figure they'd be playing at the Caesars palace or something. Like it was a, it was a very bizarre mix.

And the crowd was 75 percent vikings and the best moment i've never seen this before ever the best moment was when they walked off the field the whole crowd booed they both teams they booed both teams at the same time what brought america together in a divided nation was how bad the first half of the football game was and everybody booed but uh it was it was weird this is like one of the weirdest just in-game experiences that i think i've ever had yeah because you've seen places where, I guess like LA comes to mind, where it's a destination city location,

and the fan base in that specific market is not strong. So visiting teams, fans flock to it, and it's just loud and in chaos and crazy. And it was that today here. But the combination of seeing so many vikings fans it really feeling like a home game and it happening here in las vegas where like no one here seems to really care about the raiders it felt very weird um and it felt like almost like a sterile environment for a lot of the a lot of the time, like cheers happening when the board tells them to cheer and other things kind of happening throughout the game where it looks like nobody really cares. And the game obviously played a role in that, because if you want people to care about football in Vegas, you're going to have to score more than zero points. But your point about this franchise

not fitting this market is totally spot on because Vegas has two really good sports teams in this market, the Las Vegas Aces for the WNBA and the Vegas Golden Knights for the NHL. Both teams just won championships. And those two teams fit the market because they are organic to las vegas and it feels like the experience embodies what vegas is but yeah you're right the raiders are trying to hold on to this like legacy of like we are oakland but you're not anymore so there's going to have to be some sort of shift over you know the course of the next decade as they try to find their way here. Because you can't just exist as a franchise in a big emerging sports market like this town is becoming and just be like a place where you invite a bunch of other fans into your stadium that cost billions of dollars

to cheer against your team while you also have nobody cheering for your team. There's going to have to be a shift. But yeah, I don't know if I've ever experienced something quite like this in an NFL vein, because normally it's even if there's a takeover and there's been, you know, the Kansas City Chiefs, their fans traveled very well to Minnesota earlier this year, but there were still Vikings fans cheering. I just didn't hear a lot of Raiders fans caring today. And just walking around here the last couple of days it was purple everywhere every uber that i got in they were like man have you noticed like the whole town has been taken over by people

wearing purple and wearing short sleeves as opposed to the locals who are wearing jackets but uh it was a just a just a really fascinating atmosphere also in oakland when people would dress up and all the crazy stuff and the skull and crossbones and everything and you said you saw a raiders batman person it was intimidating in a way right so you're like whoa these people are very serious this is crazy they've been built over years and passed down from decades of uh grandfathers to fathers to sons of raiders fans and when you see it now you're like oh are you guys part of a show yeah it just looks like corny and cheesy vegas show stuff rather than any sort of intimidating and and you could you talk about going to oakland like what fans would ever want to go to oakland like what fans would

ever want to go to oakland because you'd be afraid of the fan base like i don't know i'm not gonna go sit with those people this i mean it couldn't have been more comfortable for vikings fans to take this place over which i'm sure had to help the defense as well but i thought you know that our listeners might be interested in what the atmosphere was like and the best i could do is weird i mean there's this great band that they have playing throughout the game which they're playing like covers but it's an orchestra so they're they're just like really unique and and it's cool and they also have this weird version of the everlasting ale davis flame that is made out of led lights and it's like the flame in flame in itself in Oakland is like a very gritty kind of thing.

It's a very special thing. And there's just like a shiny light version of it, which is the most L.A. thing ever. So anyway, I know that, you know, you're here for the Vikings postgame, but the atmosphere in general, it played in the Vikings favor on defense, I think quite a bit. And it was more uncomfortable than it was anything else. Also highest up that we've ever been. I think in a press box, uh, you could definitely see the whole field and it looked like it was a thousand yards long today watching them play.

Now let's push this forward a little bit. We've already pushed it to the draft next year. So I don't know, but as, as they go forward, the biggest thing is as we talk about the playoffs, which they are still all in and trying to make and how they do that and going into Cincinnati, which I doubt there is going to be a huge contingent of Vikings fans that have traveled to Cincinnati in December, uh, to try to cheer for Nick Mullins. But the health of everybody is really going to determine whether they have any chance for this. I don't think it's an overreaction to say that there's no answer on offense that's just going

to make them spectacular. But Justin Jefferson down the stretch, is he going to be healthy? Is it worth even playing him if he's banged up a little bit? Probably not at this point. And yet with the Rams losing, you're right there. It's like, who's going to chase you down? Maybe this is a best argument for an only having six playoff teams because this, this team is limping in. And so I'm thinking about, you know, justneill alexander madison had a good stretch here

over the last couple of games and then jefferson that will determine is it possible that they can get another win get to three wins over the last five games again in the playoffs or is it not because if they don't have o'neill if they don't have jefferson if they don't have even madison who's been good recently then i did you just, it's going to look like this. Yeah. Taking into account what we saw today, coupled with the injuries that just kind of piled up, obviously Justin Jefferson, Brian O'Neal, Alexander Madison, like you said, it is hard for me to see them winning any more games. I guess, I mean, it really is a week-to-week league. But I just think at a certain point, you hit this breaking point of,

you can't really stomach any more things happening to an offense that was already starting to really sputter before your starting right tackle goes down, before you get your star receiver back after two months and he immediately gets hurt again. There were things to look forward to over the past month and a half when the offense looked good, then it started to look bad. You're saying, okay, well, Justin Jefferson's coming back. Now, I don't know.

If he's done for the year, if O'Neal, which is a sprained ankle, according to Kevin O'Connell, if Madison, which is is a sprained ankle, according to Kevin O'Connell, if Madison, which is also a sprained ankle, according to Kevin O'Connell, if those guys all can't go, I just don't see how this offense is going to be able to move the ball at all. I was surprised they were able to do it for so long without Jefferson the first time around. Now, if you're going to be without him again, I just don't see how you're going to be able to score enough points. Even if your defense is awesome for the final month, you're playing good teams.

You're playing Cincinnati Bengals. Look at the last two weeks. I don't want to get crazy here, but Jake Browning hasn't looked much different than if you just put a Joe Burrow jersey on him and threw a helmet on, and you said, that's Joe Burrow, like a lot of the things he's been doing, like the offense is functioning fine.

Then you go to Detroit. You played Detroit twice and the Packers. I don't know to believe this Jordan Love resurgence, but so far so good, I guess. So there's four teams that are clearly better than you, I think, top to bottom. So, yeah, I don't know how once you look at what happened today the injuries as a whole this might have been it this might have been the last win three zero you have to win two out of four and can you do it with a quarterback who looked very creaky in nick mullins even coming out and playing and i give him credit i mean he made a couple throws at the end that were just enough and then nearly gave it away i mean he made a couple throws at the end that were just enough

and then nearly gave it away i mean he throws that little screen that goes for like a seven yard loss and then he's dropping back and he's dropping back and someone's coming after him and you're like uh if you don't get rid of it you are going to sack yourself out of field goal position and i will never leave here it will somehow be zero zero forever and we'll be stuck in some sort of time portal uh because this game it was probably only three hours but it felt like about nine hours trying to get through this slog it is hard to see them winning another game and what ends up coming to mind for me is what is seven and 10 get you in the draft. And, and that's, that is a hard place to be when you actually have a winning record at this point. And so how do you even like,

this is the struggle that I run into where I think now, and I get emails about it. Every time we talk about it, we talk about losing is better for you and so forth. But now if you can't see why losing out would be better than winning, you know, enough games to get in the playoffs. And I don't know what to tell you. I mean, it clearly would considering their draft status. If their plan is to draft a quarterback, that's not saying they should lose on purpose. That is speaking to the Jaron Hall people, I guess. But this one was the final frontier of, hey, maybe, right? Like, okay, hey, maybe after New Orleans,

Dobbs takes them and makes them dangerous. Okay, that's not really going to happen. But, hey, maybe they adapt and Jefferson comes back and then it's pretty fun and we'll see what happens. Hey, maybe is pretty much off the table at this point. And you are right that in any given week, pretty fun and we'll see what happens. Hey, maybe is pretty much off the table at this point. And you are right that, and any given week you can see any team beating any team, the New York Jets played great today, which, you know, nobody saw coming against a good Houston Texans team. So

that can happen, but you got to go on the road for two of these. And the other two are home games against division rivals who are better than you and who have their starting quarterbacks healthy i it's just very hard to see so if this team is who we think they are and this is what we'll end on here from las vegas much you want to talk about us hanging out last night watch a basketball that was fun fun times vegas is fun uh i walked through a place where there's a river inside of like a mall or something it was crazy so anyway uh but as far as this year as a whole if it goes the way we think it goes which i i would guess is like one in three and they miss the playoffs by a single

game or even make the playoffs somehow at eight, nine. And you know, it goes the way we think like, what, like, how are we going to look at this? Because there, every time I get down a road, a natural place of, I want to annihilate the coach who called the plays after a game like this. I just want to go, why didn't you just keep running? Or why didn't you just do something else? Uh, but it may just be that the deal with the devil that you signed last year to get 13 wins, all the things that went right, all the health that went right, all the game winning things that the football pendulum swings hard. And this team has been the most unlucky team in the league.

And if they were healthy this year, this might be a big picture thing. Because I asked you in the middle of the game, if Kirk hadn't gotten hurt, how many wins do you think they get? Your answer was 11. I think that's probably right. It's at least 10. It's probably 11. And we may just end up going down with the season saying

this was one of the most from fumbles to injuries to the uis which also happened uh to all to all sorts of stuff even off-field stuff one of the more unlucky everything just went wrong for them seasons that doesn't mean everyone's off the hook but at some point when you see brian o'neill go down you go like i don't know i don't know what they're supposed to do here. I just, I don't even know. Are they,

they're going to have to play Ty Chandler who doesn't learn the playbook well the whole week next week. Like what? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, this franchise has been one throughout its existence to give you seasons that are like, Oh,

it's one of those again. Oh, it's one of those seasons. This one feels like one of those seasons um where you know 10 years ago the the roof on the home stadium literally collapsed because there was too much snow and that was one of those seasons the us bank stadium pretty sturdy i think we're good there but you're right like everything on top of everything on top of everything else. I think it just becomes too much at a certain point. And if this team, like you said, fully healthy, Kirk Cousins never snaps his Achilles,

Justin Jefferson never gets hurt, the defense continues to improve at that rate because there's nothing that suggests if those other two good things happen, if Kirk stays healthy and Justin Jefferson stays healthy, that the defense wouldn't also continue to ascend. If all of that happens, maybe this team could have been a team that became a team that once you saw them in the playoffs, you didn't want to see them. But they're not. They're just not anymore.

I keep going back to that comment from i think it was after the bears game maybe it was after denver the denver game i know what you're gonna say yeah after denver where whoever the commenter was said are we sure that the season didn't end in green bay that day no we just didn't know it and at, I was like, kind of scoffed at the comment because they had looked really good. They had won five straight. And then they just kind of lost to Denver randomly. And Russell Wilson-Channard is in her, you know, Mr. Unlimited

and looked good for one drive after looking horrible. And I was like, no, we're reading too much into this one loss against Denver. This team's still pretty good. That guy was right. That commenter was right. Like the season ended in Green Bay. And even if they win two of the next four games and they make the playoffs,

the season ended in Green Bay. It just did. Or their route to Jaden Daniels started in Green Bay. Am I right? I just want to just real quick as it's running through my head. There is a what if list for this season that will take you to, they should be playing San Francisco for the NFC championship. Like think about if they hang onto a football from KJ Osborne,

who is allergic to football this year. If he goes into the end zone against Tampa Bay, catches that ball, goes into the end zone. They beat the Tampa Bay Bucs. If they hold onto a football in the end zone against the Los Angeles Chargers, they beat the Chargers. Okay, so Philadelphia beat them. Kansas City beat them. Pretty legit.

There's a flag in there. Whatever. Who cares? Whatever. They could have been then beating San Francisco, beating Green Bay at like six and two, and then going through a stretch of games where you are facing Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver, Chicago. Like maybe there's a couple of losses in there.

This game, all you had to do is, I mean, you could have got a safety and won this game the way that the defense has played and developed. And you could be talking about a team that feels like this close to being nine and four. And yet better. Yeah. I mean, or even better than that. It could even be like 10 and three. And they would have been right in that discussion with are they as good as the Cowboys? Are they as good as San Francisco? And yet, is there anything more Vikings than saying they were almost 10-3? But they're not. They're 7-6, and it's not over.

And guess what? It's not over for us. We're going to travel to Cincinnati, and Dane is not going to eat the chili at halftime like he did the last time we were in Cincinnati. And we're going to see what happens from there and i here okay one last question so we're we're pretty down on the way that the coaching has happened over the last uh three weeks if they make the playoffs somehow some way even if it's with eight will we still feel that way like ah whatever you made the playoffs they wins who cares or will we talk about them as like resilient or because it could still very much happen you might win one more game and make the playoffs so how are we gonna or just who cares

there shouldn't be a seventh playoff spot i i think it's a hard question to ask post game because i think post game today especially when you hear kevin o'connell talk about how he had this game plan that clearly didn't get run and then he benches his quarterback and then they win three zero your gut reaction is to say like the coaching hasn't been good enough on a micro level it wasn't good enough today and it didn't matter because they won because the Raiders are coached by someone who also did a poorly poor job and Antonio Pierce on the other end it wasn't good against Chicago so I think when you ask that question post game you say like okay no if they make the playoffs this was not a good coaching job um kevin o'connell did not do enough but i think if

things settle and say they do sneak into the playoffs at nine and eight or eight and nine even in that week heading into the playoffs i do think we're going to look back on this as it was still a pretty good job by kevin o'connell he had shortcomings in certain areas of being a head coach i think we'll be able to acknowledge those while also zooming out and saying, look at all the stuff that happened in this team. And they still made the playoffs. I don't think that that's the, in the best interest for this franchise,

but us theorizing what would be better for the franchise has absolutely nothing to do with the front, what the franchise is going to do, which is they're going to continue to try and win games they're not going to try and tank and if they make the playoffs i do think we'll probably look back on this as like that was a pretty good job because everything kind of went bad maybe or they accidentally played defense too good to draft i i think may also be it uh yeah i so i wanted to read one more comment because it's so blazing hot let's go that i you you see it and i'm gonna put it on the screen

i'm gonna read it and then i i want you to tell me how much truth you think to this skull city blues with one of the hottest comments i think i have ever seen on this stream says kevin o'connell is a frustrated, failed quarterback trying to prove he's an elite play caller instead of focusing on being a great head coach. Ego will derail his tenure in Minnesota. Now that is some post-game fire. You don't have a post-game show without comments like that.

What do you think? It's harsh. But I think it's harsh um but i think it's make giving me so much pause because they're probably i think it's it's overly harsh but i think there are elements of truth to that um i think there is part of kevin o'connell that thinks the the game at least in his mind good enough to have had an nfl career and he's 37 like i think in his mind in good enough to have had an NFL career. And he's 37. Like I think in his mind, in a different world, in a different life, he'd still be in the NFL. So yeah, I think part of being a young coach is probably checking part of your ego at the door and saying, okay, this isn't me playing quarterback in the NFL anymore.

This is me leading a head coach or being a head coach of a football team. So yeah, I think that's harsh, but I think there's probably truth to it. So I remember looking at, uh, when Kirk got hurt, the accumulation of what happened with Kirk cousins as the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings and sort of saying to myself, like, let's not go too crazy evaluating the coach when he doesn't have his quarterback. And I believe they had the seventh most points in the league during the time from he's Kevin O'Connell started until Kirk cousins got hurt. And that went down today because they scored three points with Josh jobs, having no idea what to do. I do believe that it is very hard to design an offense around a pocket quarterback

who is one of the best when it comes to timing and accuracy and change it to one who is not. And it is not even really close to good at it and is inaccurate either. And, and then say, well, you should run him more and you should, but the other team was dominating your, your offensive line, which makes it very hard to run. Now, does that mean that I think that it's perfect? No, we'd started this with a lot of criticisms and I'll stay with those. But I also think that a lot of it and a comment like that is purely, purely revisionist based on us knowing what it looks like with a bad quarterback. And if cousins was still playing, we might be talking about coach of the year because of how much they overachieved or came back from the 0-3. And the other thing is too about today,

it's really shaped it. And if I didn't know when your flight was and that we have time, I would have cut off the podcast earlier. So I know you still got it right. So I'll just make this point short. But if they don't fumble in Denver and they win the game in Denver and they lose the game against Chicago, but they win today and they are eight and five and they had 400 yards of offense against Denver. Then we would probably be like, this was hilarious and bizarre and stupid and ridiculous. And everyone got hurt and we'll remember it forever. But are we mad at it? Like, no, like survive in advance, keep on pushing everybody. And who knows what's coming on next? The, I think the Denver game, even more than the Chicago game was wind

out of the sails because it makes you much more of a 500 mediocre team. That's just kind of bled, just kind of existing. And over the coming weeks, you're a road cone for the teams that matter. And that's like, unfortunate, like that's not where you want to be as opposed to competing. And so a lot of this season, a lot of micro things have added up to really shape the whole direction of it. And the whole way we feel about a lot of stuff, I'm not going to change thinking out of this season, unless Kevin O'Connell goes nuts. I am not going to change that the franchise made the right decision and with the right quarterback in the future they can have an elite offense if you add a lot of cap space to it and a dynamic element as well that this was overall still if it ended here

today which it may have if it ended here today let me say this and i'll repeat it when it does end if they miss the playoffs this season took a big step closer to what they want to be in part because of the defense, but also depending on the quarterback situation. So that's how I'm going to feel about it. I'm not going to change that. And I think it's just a, I almost swore a crappy cheap shot. The frustrated quarterback thing. It's just a crappy cheap shot.

I don't know what you're talking about. There's lot of great quarterback former quarterbacks who coach i don't know is sean mcveigh a failed wide receiver like i don't know a lot of them like didn't kyle shanahan play receiver or something is that what he was supposed to be there's there's coaches in the hall of fame who were failed quarterbacks and you know i don't know anyway so i i think that there's criticisms to be had but when you bring it like that i'm impressed by your heat but i also think that if that's the opinion coming out of this then we've probably gone too far that's fair yeah totally fair okay we got stuff to do we got writing to do transcribing and so forth you gotta go over there but thanks everybody for watching this was uh interesting

an interesting day is the best i can do and uh we're gonna fly home so we'll see you back there and we'll pick this thing apart over the coming weeks and we'll see you all then so thanks so much everybody for watching and uh take care if you came to vegas hope you survived uh sunday night