Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings win over the Panthers means they're in the playoff hunt, even if it was weird

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

Matthew Coller and intern Paul discuss Kirk Cousins's final drive, the incredible amount of mistakes by the Panthers that led to the Vikings winning and what it means for the overall direction of the team. Does this mean the Vikings will get into the playoffs? Or if they don't, will they stay the course? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, welcome to the post, what was that? Vikings, Panthers, Purple Insider Podcast, Matthew Collar, along with intern Paul. I'm going to start this out, Paul, just like this. I will go with one old take of mine that has turned out to be right. And I'm going to pat myself on the back for it. Here's what it is. Before the season, or maybe a game or two in, something like that, we talked about how this season, because the Vikings defense is such a disaster, could be

a lot of close games, a lot of crazy fun games that end up happening. And who knows if they make the playoffs? They're definitely not a Super Bowl contender, but there's going to be a lot of wackiness along the way. Maybe it was after Tennessee, and oh my gosh, there has been. And I will tell you, when the Carolina kicker lined up to boot a 54-yarder, I thought there is no chance this does not go in, but Carolina did absolutely everything they could do to allow the Minnesota Vikings to win this game, and thus, Paul, stay in the playoff race.

So I would like to also begin by saying this is why when Kirk Cousins does not succeed on a game-winning drive, I don't necessarily say, that's the reason he can't be your quarterback long-term because he doesn't win the game winning drives. Well, he did today. And it really depends on a lot of other things, including how much the defense wants to just sit back and let you do it. And let a bunch of wide receivers go wide open down the field. And so Carolina lost this game as much as the Vikings won this game. Paul, where do you want to begin?

Well, I think we have to start with the Kirk Cousins comeback because that was the narrative last week. Whether it was rightful, did Kirk Cousins blow another game for them after playing really well? He won it today. Uh, it, it came with Carolina having to inexplicably pass the ball several times, drop the ball several times, uh, not go for it on fourth down, uh, inside the, whatever the 10 yard line. Uh, it took a lot for the Vikings to be able to get the ball back to have a chance. Uh, after that Chad BB fumble, you just, you assume that was the way it was going to end. And then it didn't.

And Kirk Cousins deserves the credit that he's getting for orchestrating that drive. But are we impressed with it? Do we, is it vindication? Where do we land on the drive? I'm not going to say that any game winning drive against a team that is now four and eight is vindication for two and a half years of what? Basically 500 football is where we're at with Kirk Cousins as the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings so if you want to go big picture and you are the person that wants to say have Trey Lance on your team in the first round

which is less likely I guess but yeah every week we bounce back and forth between, should we be skull searching or not? You know, that kind of thing. But if you are the person that still wants Trey Lance or still wants Zach Wilson, or still wants Mac Jones played really well the other day for Alabama picked in the first round to eventually succeed Kirk cousins. I don't think you look at this game and say, well, I was wrong about them. You know, I, no, of course, because it's the Carolina Panthers. And as you said, they did so many things to allow the Vikings to get back in this game and then played very poor defense, didn't come after Cousins at all.

They treated it like Cousins had about 14 seconds to go down the field when he actually had two minutes. I mean, it was really remarkable to see Carolina that pressured him at times throughout the game, say like, no, no, no, now we're going to play the prevent defense. Well, if you play it with two minutes left to go, any team in the NFL can drive down and win the game. I would say, though, on the whole, aside from the fumble, and it's kind of the same story we're having as last week aside from the fumble and the fumble was bad um of course his offensive lineman did no favors on that one but uh aside from the fumble he played a terrific football game i mean there

was no time where you said oh what is kirk doing out there there wasn't like stagnation on the offense for the most part unless they put him in that situation by running too often or only throwing screen passes the drive where they get the touchdown to start the game. He has to run for it on third down. He threw on the move. He did things off schedule, which sometimes I had to rub my eyes and go, is this Kirk cousins actually doing this? But he did. And then when the chips were down and they gave him a chance to go win the game,

he did. Carolina absolutely gave him that chance by, as you mentioned, not going forward on fourth down and falling into the six-point trap. Well, you have to make them score a touchdown. And they will because it's the NFL in 2020. What are you thinking? You would be better off, and I don't mean to get off on this tangent, but you would be far better off missing on fourth down

because you know the Vikings, once they get in field goal position, will hand it off to Delvin Cook and kick the field goal. You know they'll do that. And if you don't know, then you didn't study your Vikings football this week because that's what they would have done. And instead, you forced Cousins to go down the field and score a touchdown he did he deserves credit for that does it change the entire narrative of Kirk Cousins no of course not because in a lot of ways he put them in a position where they have to be fighting back to 500 the game against Atlanta is a great example of right

from the very beginning it's over because your quarterback no-shows. The game against Indianapolis, they gave a chance to the Vikings in week two. Your quarterback no-shows. And so he puts you at one and five and then digs you back out from the one and five hole back to being where you're at. So you can maintain. Everyone gets to be right here.

People who think that Cousins is over-criticized are probably right, and he showed that today. The game-winning drive narrative is just not really that much of a thing. I looked at this a couple of different ways, and I think I'll investigate it further. that he's had an opportunity to either go down on a final drive and tie or win since he's become a Minnesota Viking and this is the fourth time that he's succeeded on that opportunity and if they have and this is the goofy thing again about the game-winning drive stat is if their their kicker makes it then Cousins doesn't get a game-winning drive even though he led a game-winning drive and the same thing happened against Dallas. You get your team ahead late in the fourth quarter, and you don't get credit for that in that stat. I also dug even deeper and looked at John Elway's percentage of game-winning drives, and guess what? It's not that much higher than Kirk Cousins.

It's about the same in terms of how many of his starts resulted in game-winning drives. Here's why John Elway was better starts resulted in game-winning drives. Here's why. John Elway was better and ahead in a lot more games. You have to be losing to get a game-winning drive. So, you know, anyway. I also think, with Kirk Cousins, that this is another old take exposed as being correct. When they were 1-5, i think we all felt this way the kirk coaster went to the very bottom and it was bound to go back up like this is who he is

it's there will be a couple games where you go how what what is he doing this is the worst quarterbacking i've ever seen and then there will be four games in a row where you go wow he looked like an mvp and you know when it especially happens is when the other team's defense is not good. And Carolina came into this game allowing the highest percentage of scoring drives. So drives versus how many times the opposing team scores, highest percentage in the league.

They can't cover anybody. And Kirk ripped them apart and played really well. So it's a very nuanced, I think, opinion when it comes to what this all means. That doesn't always play out every Sunday. It's either he's the worst quarterback of all time. And then those people get upset or it's, he told you he could come back and win. Like, of course he can.

He's a good NFL quarterback with good weapons, a good offense, and they're a bad defense. So I think a lot of things happened in this game to allow Kirk Cousins that opportunity, but when he got the chance, he did it. He, I don't know, kind of redeemed himself, but there's still a long way to go if this team wants to be in the playoffs, and they cannot play like that and win on a weekly basis. Yeah, and I'm more of a Kirk defender than I would be otherwise, but I mean, the Cowboys are the 28th ranked defense graded out by PFF. The Lions are the 30th. The Panthers are the 31st. So it's not a coincidence that the games that now we're seeing the Kirk coaster come back up on are also games in which they're playing bad teams and that's just kind of what we see when you have a

average to a little bit above average quarterback you're gonna get against the bad teams good performances you're gonna get not as good performances when you're against the better teams that's not necessarily a huge indictment on Kirk I think we know that by now but I think it's just fair to point out they're not he he wasn't going against a crazy defense. It looked like for a while the offense was going to sputter in the first half. They only had the 10 points. They were just feeding Dalvin Cook. I think he had 13 carries, four catches. Largely all of that was ineffective. Surprise, surprise when you started throwing it to Justin Jefferson, they got better. So yeah, I think it didn't really surprise me the way Kirk played. I'm not sure we can be surprised by however Kirk plays at this point, what we've seen this season, and how the whole team has played

this season, because we've seen them get really high, and we've seen them get really low, and the defense played well today. They only allowed seven points the other two were on fumble returns so the defense had a better performance but yeah I think we can net out as Kirk Cousins did what he probably was supposed to do against that defense the way they were playing the Vikings overcame some mistakes that they probably shouldn't have been like the Panthers should have let shouldn't have let them overcome, but they did. And they took advantage. And I feel like that's where we're at. And it leaves us with the Vikings, a game out of the playoffs, the Cardinals lost to the Patriots today. So they moved to six and five as of this recording there,

the Vikings are still behind the bears. If the bears lose tonight against the Packers, they'd be tied with them. They beat the bears. They'd be ahead of them. So really, they only have the Cardinals ahead of them for a playoff spot. So I guess we're talking about the playoffs. It feels weird with the way they played today because in a lot of respects, it was not good. If that kick goes in, we're doing a lot of yelling about how bad the special teams was how how bad the offensive line played how just weird the play calling was in the first half like there's a lot of things if that kick

goes in we start talking about and maybe we should still start should talk about them because the result shouldn't really like change the way that they acted there but we're talking about the playoffs i guess we playoffs i mean we are talking about playoffs and this sort of speaks to the mediocrity of the nfc i might even say as a whole i was going to say the middle class of the nfc but it might just be everyone in the nfc tampa bay does not impress you because tom brady can't throw downfield anymore. Taysom Hill is currently playing quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, and that's not going super good. And very, excuse me, predictable that you would see Taysom Hill, and I don't know what's since happened in the game since I stopped looking at

the updates to record this podcast. But, I mean, not shocking that Taysom Hill is not a quarterback or a good quarterback at all. And I think it will bite them to play Jameis Winston, but also Drew Brees might be back by the time new Orleans plays the Minnesota Vikings. So timing is going to play into whether they could be a playoff team. Arizona losing is a big deal, but they still have an easy schedule down the stretch.

I think they play three teams after this that they should absolutely beat, but they're just as mediocre as the Vikings. I mean, they have a defense that gives up a lot of points. They have an offense that is really centered around one player in DeAndre Hopkins and a quarterback who is less consistent than I thought he was going to be on a week-to-week basis. There are times where I kind of look at Kyler Murray and go, where is the arm? You know, where's the throwing? Like the arm strength is there, but the throwing and the accuracy has just not been that great this year. And he's relied heavily on his running game. So they're not

any better than the Vikings. They have losses that you can't explain. They lost to the Lions. They lost to the Patriots today. They also have wins that are pretty good. But isn't it amazing that a Hail Mary by the Cardinals to beat the Buffalo Bills has put them that one game ahead of the Vikings? So as we're trying to project whether the Vikings can get back in the race, I mean, now the race has been pretty much whittled down to the Bears, the Vikings, and the Cardinals. And it's hard to say that the Vikings aren't just as good as the Cardinals and definitely better than the Bears, but they also have to play the Bears again.

And they only beat the Bears by six, despite playing really, really well on defense and the Bears playing really, really bad on offense. We've seen disappointing games against the Bears playing really really bad on offense we've seen disappointing games against the Bears at US Bank Stadium before 2018 and I don't know whether to say now that they can make it I mean yeah you can but you also fumbled twice in a row to give the other team touchdowns today you also dropped a punt and by way, how about just not send anybody back? I really mean that. The number of fumbles that they've had, they have, I'm not making this up, 13 punt return yards this season. 13-1-3. That's your punt returning the whole season. And three

fumbles. 13 punt return yards, three fumbles. Stop bothering to send somebody back. Just try to block the punt. I mean, it's really gotten to the point of pure ridiculousness that, and Chad Beebe is just not good at this when it comes to the punt returning. So find somebody who can catch it, maybe Amir Abdullah, or just don't even bother and try to block it. They made so many mistakes to get down double digits to Carolina. Like you mentioned, they had points in the first half where you went, all right, we get it, you want to run the football. But my gosh, why are you running more than passing in the year 2020

when you have Justin Jefferson on your team? And I was about to send somebody to jail, Paul. Like early in this game, I was about to suggest that, sorry, Jake Browning, you must go to jail because they're not giving the ball to Justin Jefferson, and they didn't, even still enough in this game when he was the pure number one wide receiver with Adam Thielen out. So there were so many things that went wrong for them that it just feels like they're playing with matches and gasoline every single week, sometimes they light themselves on fire and sometimes they don't

and this week they didn't even or they put themselves out and the other team lit themselves on fire I mean it's just like yeah I don't know if you can lose to Dallas who is a joke but then beat Carolina am I supposed to say that I have any idea what's going to happen down the stretch? Is the Kirk coaster going to hit another dip at some point here against one of these defenses? That's pretty good. I have no idea. All I know is that right now they are back in the playoff race and that I think every game, the rest of the way is going to kind of go just like this. It is now a feature and not a bug of this team that they'll make a ton of mistakes. That they're going to give up still quarterback pressures.

That they're still going to have turnovers. That they're still going to make special teams mistakes. And that the defense is just bad. And this is now maybe the portion of the program. I want to ask you, Paul, what is the most hilariously awful decision by the Panthers? Like, is it, I nominate not going forward on fourth down at the goal line when you can end the game on one play. And the previous play, there was a receiver wide open, so you could just do that again. But there are many options. I mean, that's mine because the not going forward on fourth down thing drives me crazy but what do you got what's your number

one for oh my gosh panthers what that that has to be it just because because you know they're going to be backed up everything that we've seen about the vikings is they have struggled in these situations before you're taking goblin cook out it. They're playing for the field goal. It's the argument we were having with the Seahawks-Vikings game. You just go for it. You get the play, and the game's over. Give yourself a chance to win the game. Don't play scared.

Don't give the ball back to the other team because we've seen too many times what happens when you do. I think there were some other things, like when the Vikings gave away a couple of their timeouts and then suddenly the Panthers really if they if they were content on giving the Vikings the ball back like they decided they were later they should have run the ball earlier and let the clock bleed out because if they had just run the ball they were going to give the Vikings less time than they had after they kicked that field goal. Because if you were going to mathematically take it down, it was going to get you right around that one minute thing anyways. You were going to punt it. You were probably going to get it inside the 25. They were already going to start backed up. So if you were already coming from a spot of we're comfortable giving them the ball back, just let the clock go down or throw it like one time on third down don't have Mike Davis run nine yards and then run out of bounds to stop the clock when it looked like they were going to win then later you're throwing two passes I think on second and third down both of which are dropped by your receivers I I mean I don't totally fault the pass when you're backed up I think they were second and

12 you're trying to get some of those yards back, but they just didn't execute. So it was just over and over again that they didn't execute, and they gave the Vikings so many different opportunities to win the game. But I think the biggest one is they could have overcome all those things that they messed up if they had gone for it on fourth down. And if that would have taken away all the bad things that they did before, it would have made us not talk about those because they would have gone for it on fourth down. The Vikings defense, spoiler, hasn't been great this season. They were all right today, which is nice that they're improving.

But again, you're not facing a great defense. Let Teddy go make a play and see what happens. And so, yeah, I would agree with you. It has to be the fourth down call, but there are a lot of them to pick from absolutely I mean even Mike Davis okay you mentioned running out of bounds that was an atrocity like the one thing you cannot do in that situation of all the things in the entire world that you cannot do is either fumble or run out of bounds because the Vikings like you said they botched and this is great. It's like tennis for who screwed up more. I mean, the Vikings challenging a play that clearly was not going to get overturned

to give away a timeout when you're losing is just like begging to be defeated. So then Carolina gets the ball. The Vikings only have the one timeout. All you need to do is stay in bounds with your runs. He runs out of bounds. Also, I mean, maybe there's a reason we haven't heard of this guy before, even though he's a good runner. How about the alligator arms on the first interception by Eric Hendricks?

Just like, hey, guy, if you're not going to catch it, you have to at least knock the ball down so the other team doesn't intercept the ball on third down in the red zone and you get points but instead davis just sort of stopped and then eric hendricks caught it right to him so uh that wasn't exactly great either uh but i i think by far the most egregious is throwing the ball because if you run it you just drain the clock and drain the clock and this defense was not stopping you like they're even on second and 14 even when they got pinned back on a second and 14 on a bad run run it again you were getting eight nine yards on runs all day long because this Vikings defensive front

can't stop anything and it was clear to me that they had the right plan with that early in the game to kind of calm Teddy down. Maybe there was some nerves there at the beginning of the game. But they were spreading it out and they were handing off, which was making the front four take the pressure to try and stop the run. And, of course, this front four was not able to do it. So they're just running and running and running and cruising down the field. And yet when they get one loss, even though it's the best thing you could do is to keep handing off or even throw like a bubble screen or something like that, run a reverse. They've got playmakers.

Curtis Samuel's a great player, like a bunch of different things. And instead they throw and it's two drops too of all the things like two drops that hit their guys in the hands and they can't bring it in. And then they have to punt it away and give it back to the Vikings. So, I mean, there were all sorts of these. I agree with you that the not going for it on fourth down. Because especially what amazes me is that some teams just seem to not know who they are. Like you are the 4-7 Carolina Panthers.

You have a 0% chance to win the Super Bowl this year. You do have a chance to win a game here, stay in the playoff race and kind of be a bit of a good story considering that everyone thought you were going to win two games. And I could see why there's a lot of holes on their roster. And so you got a chance, put the game away one play five yards or whatever it was six yards and it's over and you win and if you don't the other team has to go 95 yards to beat you and they'll probably stop and hand off to Delvin Cook and kick a field goal to do you a favor and instead you're like no no let's go up by six and play defense with as said, a horrendous coverage unit.

Who are their corners? Nobody. Their corners versus the Vikings' corners is like an XFL battle, basically. It's those groups of players. And at least even the Vikings have like a first-round pick. I mean, they have terrible corners. It was Rasul Douglas, who I think was the guy who got roasted by Stefan Diggs last year against Philadelphia. I think it was the same guy, and he's getting roasted by Justin Jefferson, who, by the way, did end up with 13 targets.

No one goes to prison. So I'm just making that clear that he did end up with the right amount of targets just early in the game. Would have liked to seen more. So there's just this, this fountain of terrible mistakes by Carolina. And even then Teddy makes a great throw to set them up. And then another good throw that was caught by Robbie Anderson to set them up for a very makeable field goal indoors, us bank stadium, 54 yards,

not that far for today's kickers in that stadium. And you shank it a million miles left with no fans in the stands even. I mean, there's nothing even to throw you off. And you miss it way wide. They had a kick blocked. I mean, this podcast might go on for the rest of the night, breaking down all the things Carolina did wrong. And that's why I say that the rest of this season and today should just be YOLO. You only live once.

So just enjoy whatever is coming. Because I think that there's going to be at least half the games, if not more, that are just like this. And some, Kirk will fail on the final drive. Some, he might succeed some games he might throw three picks or fumble a couple times sometimes he might throw four touchdowns and play really well sometimes Delvin Cook might get stuffed sometimes he might run for 150 yards I really don't think anything that happens the rest of the way even making the

playoffs with a seven seed really changes anything that we're going to think about where this team is at, which holes need to be filled, whether they should draft a quarterback or not. I think that those things are kind of set unless they win out. And then all of a sudden they're a great team, but I don't see that happening. So just enjoy the roller coaster,

man. There's nothing else to do. It's 2020. Things are crazy. They play on Christmas for some reason, like just enjoy it because this has been insane and will probably continue to be so. Yeah. And I just would say, don't tell, don't like let the Viking staff go YOLO because if they do that,

they're just going to run down and cook into the ground. Like there is no next year. Because we've seen they're very content on running him over and over and over again in a season that in all likelihood is maybe going to give you the seventh seed, but nothing more. Probably a first round exit. And they're content on running back. They just gave him a multiple year contract to into the ground. He has now come up several games in a row with some sort of injury that he's had he's come back from them but there's only so many of these where he's going to continue to have them where he's going to get hurt we saw it with

Joe Burrow in Cincinnati he was just getting hit hit every game hit oh like every game he was just a punching bag and finally it happened and that's just what's going to happen so if we keep if they keep running Dalvin Cook over and over and over again he's going to get hurt and then like it's it's not going to be good for your team because he is an important part but what I would say is they didn't really use him in the fourth quarter when they were down 11 points and they came back they used Justin Jefferson they used Kirk Cousins and he helped them get back and I just want to clean up clean up one thing I want to give the Cardinals schedule because you're right they have two games they really should win they have the Giants or

they don't have yeah they have the Giants and the Eagles so two NFC East teams that you're thinking they can win they have two more against the Rams so So those are hard games. And then you have the 49ers who are currently beating the Rams. So those are three teams that are all kind of up in the air. But if you allow me to put my fan hat on for a second, what this just feels like it's going towards is the Vikings missing out by like a game or so. They're going to lose to the Saints and the Buccaneers because they're better teams. And we've seen over and over again, they usually don't beat better teams, especially ones with quarterbacks like Drew Brees or Tom Brady,

if those are the guys that are in there when they're playing. And then you're probably beating the Jags and you're probably beating one of the other two teams. You hope to beat two of them, but everything we've seen from this team is they've tried they've tried to hand games away against chicago against the panthers it feels silly to just say they're going to win those three games it feels like they're going to win two of those games then they're seven and nine that's not going to make the playoffs unless the cardinals just crater which i i don't really think is going to happen so for me part of these last couple

games when they've been close, I've actually been rooting for them to maybe like, oh, if slime it makes that field goal, like I'm not going to be that upset because we're going to have a little bit more of a clear direction of where this team's headed. And having the 10th pick is better than the 16th pick or the 17th pick because it gives you a better chance to hit that home run. It probably doesn't ensure you one of those quarterbacks. at this point we're just trying not to like we're trying to

help Kirk Cousins and this roster get better and that 10th pick helps you a lot more than the 16th pick and it probably forces your organization to not be okay with the status quo which is kind of what they felt like they've been okay with we just just need one or two more pieces. If you finish as the 16th pick and miss the playoffs by one game, that pushes you to say, we only need a couple more things. This team, in theory, only needs a couple more things. But once they get those other things, Daniil Hunter will be out of their price range. Maybe they have to get rid of him.

Then another hole opens up. Adam Thielen gets older. Then they need another wide receiver. You're going to keep plugging these holes, maybe you fill them but more going to open up and maybe you don't even fill the ones that you have currently so the way I'm seeing this is yes they won yes people can be excited about the fact that they get the plat to the playoffs and maybe that's all you want and if that's all you want then you're happy today but like the way that they're going just seems like they're in this

limbo where they're never really going to get out of it it's the cincinnati bangles thing that you talk about and this game was no different because they shouldn't have won but they did win and that almost feels like the worst case like if they had blown out the car or blown out the panthers and it felt good then i'd feel a little bit better about maybe their chances moving forward but they didn't look very good like they were not making the plays you need to make if you're beating good teams they didn't look like that when they played the cowboys they didn't look like that when they played the bears and so just as as someone who like is trying to look at this objectively it's it's just hard because it I don't know I've been finding myself okay if they lose these games because it at least provides

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And here's the reason to not want it to go the playoff route or the miss by one game would be exactly what you said with status quo like status quo is going to be what you get except for plugging the holes might be harder than you think it is i mean it's not just as simple as oh we get anthony bar back we get daniel hunter back and uh here is michael pierce for you that's what they'll say they'll say oh we've got these guys coming back and we only have to do this and look we had a great draft because of course every team loves their draft um but does it massively change who you are fundamentally can you do that this offseason with the salary cap going down a lot of money already poured into a handful of

players to the point where you might have to move on from a Kyle Rudolph move on from a Riley Reif and then you know especially if it's a left tackle you have to hope that your next guy if it's Ezra Cleveland if it's somebody else plays as well as he does this year and it's always this whack-a-mole thing of like you fill one hole but another one kind of pops up you solve one problem another one pops up and that's what problem, another one pops up. And that's what happens when you've run yourself right up to the very edge of the salary cap and you can't fill all the spots. Someone will get hurt who's important next year.

It happens all the time, right? So this year it's, well, we had that bad break with Daniel Hunter. Like is that never going to happen again in football? You're never going to happen. Another guy goes down. So anyway uh it kind of happened in 2019 but then they got to the playoffs and those injuries came and that ultimately played a role in costing them in in san francisco you know that um mckenzie alexander and mike hughes

and that kind of thing so it is uh i think frustrating for those who wanted bigger changes at one and five and then they've come back here with the softer part of the schedule doing exactly what they did in 2019, which was beat up on the terrible defenses and get wins. And in this case, they didn't really beat them up necessarily. They barely escaped with it. The,

the part about the draft status, I mean, yeah, I get you on drafting 10th versus 16th. Every draft pick that you don't get toward the top is worse than the one you could have had. I mean yeah I get you on drafting 10th versus 16th every draft pick that you don't get toward the top is worse than the one you could have had I mean that's like common sense but it's statistically true if you draft 10th you have a better chance at a superstar than 16th but is it a humongous gap like it would be 5 versus 15 or 16 probably not so the way that I would look at it right now is we may have just today crossed the threshold of status quo,

trying to project out how it's going to go. I have no idea. They could lose to the Jaguars. This team lost to the freaking Cowboys. I mean, wow, right? So they could lose to the Jaguars. I don't think so, though. The Jaguars are truly horrendous.

So they're going to beat the jaguars they've got a good chance to beat you know chicago again maybe even pull an upset against somebody on the road against new orleans or tampa bay i'd say it's within the realm of possibility and then you know you go to detroit at the very end of the season you should be able to win that game maybe that's the one that they lose and everyone is disappointed because that costs them the playoffs. I think it's like written in stone right now that that could happen. But I would say we've already cleared the threshold unless it goes stupendously bad for Kirk Cousins and Mike Zimmer from here on out.

If it goes, you lose to Jacksonville, you lose to Chicago, you lose those other games. I just don't see that happening. So I think today was the difference maker between could you push the needle more toward bigger changes? Could you push the needle back toward status quo? And maybe that missed field goal by the Panthers guy will be the thing that we're looking at and going, man, you know, if that guy makes that field goal or if Carolina has a clue of how to run a clock out or not get a field goal blocked early in the game or the hundred other things they did wrong.

If they, if Carolina just closes that Vikings game out after the Vikings give them two free touchdowns, then maybe we're talking about more of looking at it as, wow, you couldn't beat Dallas. You couldn't beat Carolina. You are in such bad shape that this team needs an overhaul. I think we crossed the threshold today of they're not going to overhaul this team, more likely than not. So if you're a Vikings fan, what you should do is just hope they make the playoffs

and see what happens. Maybe it ends up being a fun year because if you went from one in five to the playoffs, just on its surface, taking out all the other things involved that we're discussing with the future of the quarterback and so forth, all the future conversations, going from one in five to the playoffs means it was nuts in the second half. It means that you turned a lot of things around, even if it was against bad teams. It means that it was entertaining, which no shortage of that recently. So I guess that's what I would say, that after this, I will continue on this very podcast to discuss how everything impacts the future.

I just think from a bigger perspective of you've almost got back to 500, you probably will, and then the bigger narrative will be Zimmer got them turned around they're making progress look how well Kirk Cousins played so even if you get blips on the radar or you lose to the teams you're supposed to lose they'll say well Kirk just needs some more he just needs some help we just need a defense we just need this this this and the other thing and you may have oddly sealed your fate for that today on the stupidest game i mean somebody said it really well someone was like are you an intern paul just gonna laugh hysterically for like 40 straight minutes like yes at both teams i mean what is this mac-tion is this like tuesday night and they just had the different jerseys on? Like,

this is exactly what I expect. And the reason that I always watch the Mac conference, because every once in a while, a team might be up at the end of the game or need a game-winning drive and they fumble a punt at the five. Like, is Marcus Sherrill's around to just catch them? I don't need him to run him back. If his knees are even good enough to just catch the punts, they should bring him back and have him do that. yeah and i think the the part that's a little just confusing to me is the fact that any sort of major decision would be made because they won this game just because of how they won it like if this kick is what keeps them from like not they're like keeping the status quo then it's like how are we defining how like the success that should allow you to keep the status quo that I think that's my only thing like

again if they had one like really really convincingly then I say okay that shifts the narrative a little bit but it feels like you're playing almost the result more than you're playing maybe the process of well we won the game well you did yeah but are we making big long-term decisions because Joey Sly missed that kick and because Carolina didn't make some like simple plays down the stretch Joey Sly is a guy who misses that field goal like that's the name of a kicker who misses that field that's that is the name of a kicker who kicked one season or two seasons the NFL and then never was heard from again and you run into on pro football reference or Google search. You're like,

they had a kicker named Joey Sly. Like, what is this? The Sopranos? Like what is going on here? Uh, so any, put the jokes aside.

Uh, but it's a great comment because you're right that you shouldn't. And I'm sure a lot of people are yelling at the podcast when I'm saying all this, you shouldn't say, yes, we're judging it on this field goal that got made. They also judged this offseason on what happened in New Orleans.

And when they pull back, because you don't get to the end of the season and go, yeah, but Carolina threw on second down as an ownership, right? You don't. You're going to look at the bigger picture. You're going to look at the record. You're going to look at, well, we were one in five, and the team was way down and Zimmer brought them back and Kirk played really well and if we google sort uh with pro football reference or whatever the second half stats for Kirk Cousin well they look pretty good um that's the funny thing about litigating each game through

the lens of the quarterbacks like this isn't ever going to be different and it's sort of frustrating for me because i love talking about quarterback play but this is what it is this game here today was kind of like what they did against washington or detroit or uh the new york giants last year where cousins came out and played absolutely great and he had his down moments and he had you know some turnovers or three and out drives that the other team was bad and they beat them and we went okay well good job Kirk you played really well player of the month in October last year um and the thing that is amazing about Cousins though um just in general is that his overall body of work is very good comparable to the rest of the league but it does seem like you could sort it into games that really matter and games that are against teams like Carolina

and it's always those games against Carolina where it's really the ones you can count on him playing great so I was thinking when they got the ball back like and that's another reason to go for it on fourth down because Kirk is absolutely capable of shredding this defense and going down for a touchdown especially with one of the best receivers in the NFL what are you guys doing um so it's a funny place to be if we kind of say that we know now where they're going to go with this but then the question is do they do this next week and blow a game to Jacksonville do they do it the week after and blow a game to Jacksonville? Do they do it the week after and blow a game to Chicago? Like, is there another one of those coming? It already happened

before. It almost happened today. It could definitely happen again. I just think that if it plays out the way we think it's going to play out and they don't lose those games to those bad teams, then you get, hey, we only missed the playoffs by one game. Or, hey, what an amazing job to get into the playoffs at that number seven seed after going one and five. All we need is a three technique. All we need is one more corner. That's what we need. And, yeah, I mean, it's a little bit, from a big picture perspective, I'm sure it's a little bit frustrating to some people who want a lot more changes than that. I just think that when we look back at this season as a whole, this is the game that pushed them to that, oh, okay.

Because if they lose this one and it's Dallas and Carolina back-to-back, you go, a lot needs to change. So it's amazing how this happens in football and one of the reasons it's so fun to talk about football. Yeah, and I think the embodiment of what you were just saying with Kirk was I think I don't remember the I think this is the exact step that they said but it was like the only three quarterbacks to have 20 touchdown passes in their first six seasons are Tom Brady Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins and if that doesn't like embody where we're at with Cousins is that he puts up those numbers, but he's never going to be at that sort of level. And for obvious reasons,

but it's just the stats may show one thing, something that the ownership looks at later, like this year, the stats may say one thing, but the way that it felt and the way that it went might be a little bit different, but I want to ask. So if the Vikings are going to make some sort of playoff run here down the stretch and win the games that they should and maybe beat one of the Saints or the Bucks where it would really help if they picked up one of those games, what things need to change? What things need to stay the same from what's been happening? Because it can't be the performances that they've had against Chicago and against the Panthers, even though they've won those games. Yes.

Because when you're playing some of those better teams, like, it's just not going to work. So, yes, they've won a lot of these games recently, but it still seems like they're going to have to do some things differently. So in your mind, what are those things to maybe get them over the edge and push them to the point where they're in the playoffs? I think you can put it into two categories, like what is actually solvable and what is not solvable. It's not solvable that they're going to allow other teams to run them over in the running game. That's going to happen.

There isn't much they can do about it. They just are not good enough on the front four. And DJ Wanham, I think was a him who went down briefly and then you know came back today it made me think DJ Wanham has not been a superstar but he's he's made some plays and he's shown some potential you are one injury away on that defensive line from James Lynch in the game again and that was not a good thing so uh they. So that's not going to change. They're going to have inconsistent cornerback play where sometimes, and I know why this happened,

but Chris Jones doesn't realize the play is going on behind him. I know why because he's in man coverage, so he's keeping his eyes on his man where it should be. But there's got to be some sort of clock in your head that realizes if the quarterback hasn't thrown it by now, something else is going on behind me, Chris Jones Jones so you're going to have stuff like that you're going to miss tackles you're going to have missed assignments that will not stop but I do think at some point they stop fumbling all the time that has to stop right I mean the Chicago

game was ludicrous where it's Kyle Rudolph has never fumbled before. And then he fumbles and Adam Thielen has some of the best hands in the world. And he drops the ball right into Khalil Mack's hands. So the randomness of this Jeremy chin, picking up both fumbles and running them both back for a touchdown. There has been some negative plays that have been just purely bad bounces for them on some of these fumbles and that probably stops though I noticed Kirk hasn't thrown a pick that was his fault in a while so who knows whether that ends up you know kind of cropping back up that there's some bad picks the rest of the way

I do think that that is solvable just by randomness and luck and hold on to the ball I do think that even fumbling punts all the time is probably solvable. If you get someone, Amir Abdullah should probably be back there, someone who can catch them. I don't think that special teams mistakes end, but the new long snapper they got has been great. He's snapped them all, I don't know, properly, I guess, as opposed to bouncing them or flipping them back there hot, whatever.

It's been fine. Like, that's problem solved. So there is some of these things that have gone against them, huge mistakes, that will probably not continue. I do think that they will still, as a team, make a lot of mistakes. Ezra Cleveland coming back could help them quite a bit. I think Brett Jones, you know, he's more of a short-term type of fill-in player than he is a long-term solution. I'll have to go back and see just exactly what happened there with Brett Jones, but you know, there were some moments today where Kirk was clearly pressured, and what they really

need is the Kirk coaster to just stay up. If the Kirk coaster stays on the upswing and is even good, not even great, they can get it in very close to this playoff race, if not into the playoffs. If the Kirk coaster goes down, then you are talking about blowing one of these games that they should win. So it's a weird thing because there's just a lot of issues with this team still and holes in the roster that cannot be solved right now there's no waiver wire pickup there's no player who's coming back from injury or something on the defensive side that makes them good at covering people or at pressuring people and i i do think

that um carolina clearly solved something with the zimmer blitzes the last two weeks those third down blitzes have not worked the same way and that big touchdown by Robbie Anderson was definitely proof of that so you know what I think we're in for is just much more of this much more of who loses fumbles in a game who throws picks who screws up the clock management more I mean all the teams that they're going to play they all have their problems and the Vikings just have to hope that a lot of those things go their way that didn't against Dallas, didn't against Atlanta, did against, you know, didn't against Tennessee, didn't against Seattle,

did today, all those types of things. And that, and that's a little hard to kind of say because usually we're like, we have the answers and here's what you have to do better. And here's what you're, you know what I mean? But in this case, it's like flip a coin on every one of these, any given week, this team can be really good or it can be like, what? And then that goes for a lot of other teams. So I'm kind of excited about, I don't know about you, Paul.

Like I know that there are people out there who watch that win today and they were probably hoping that Kirk would screw it up at the end so that would just push the Vikings more toward drafting you know Zach Wilson or Trey Lance or whomever is um you know there in the draft in the first round but now that we're here in this situation it's all right well there's a lot of things that are still set to happen with this season this one is not over yeah i think i was i was simultaneously both um any second maybe i was oh like we we need to draft higher we need to get rid of we need to blow it all up and then i rationalized with myself and and and went the other way but i think that

that's just kind of been the whole like theme of this season is you can kind of view it in any way that you want to, you can view it as this shows their needs to be changes, or you can say, well, that they've recovered and that they're right in the thick of the playoffs in what was supposed to be a little bit of a rebuilding retooling year. And that's kind of what it has been. And you can still have a positive outlook on the future with the way Kirk Cousins has been playing and everything like that uh I do want to

ask you just about Teddy because I feel like we wouldn't be a true Vikings podcast if we didn't talk about Teddy it's true um how weird was it that he didn't get any sort of standing ovation when he came in the game and it was just silent to just his overall performance because it was pretty underwhelming I think Vikings fans probably hoped and didn't hope simultaneously that he played really well because everyone loves Teddy. But yeah, just the whole Teddy experience, how you thought he played and just how that went. 2020 has already reshaped how we work and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every hire is critical.

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It was weird because it would have been a huge standing ovation for Teddy Bridgewater. And I thought that in the first half, it looked like there were some nerves there. He looked a little bouncy. He looked a little bouncy. He looked a little uncomfortable. But in the second half of the game, he was just let down on numerous occasions by his team. I mean, whether it was coaching decisions or dropped passes or a number of different things.

And it was kind of setting up to be a classic Teddy Bridgewater win where he doesn't necessarily wow you with huge statistics, but he makes a couple of big throws at the right time. He hits the underneath guy that's wide open and he runs after catch for a touchdown and that sort of win by Teddy Bridgewater. And he doesn't screw it up. I mean, I think the interception is on the running back after I saw that back.

Cause when you see it in fast motion, you go like, why did he just throw it right to the linebacker? And then you go back and realize that the running back stopped running, which is not even in the name of his position. His position tells you keep running. So I thought overall he played really well. The throw in the end zone, though, to DJ Moore, I mean mean he's got a chance to end the game right there I haven't looked back at it a different angle or anything it looked like DJ Moore was wide open and he missed him and there might have been something else that happened there that I didn't see for a reason that he missed him but that's what it looked like so Bridgewater had opportunities in this game

to completely close out the Vikings he didn't't do it. They didn't do it. They tried everything they could to mess it up, including, I mean, getting a field goal blocked is just like, what? It's 2020. How many of those are there a year? Like five? The Vikings haven't even had one of the worst special teams in the world. So I thought that he gave them a chance to win, as he so often does.

He is not, you know, Patrick Mahomes or anything like that where he is going to himself put the team on his back but you know he gets the ball back and this is I'm sure if you're in North Carolina right now this is why you're so upset is he gets the ball back with 46 seconds left and he drops a dime a beautiful throw to Curtis Samuel, just right on the money in between four guys. And he makes another nice throw to set them up for a game-winning field goal. He does exactly all you can do with 46 seconds left and no timeouts. Because, of course, for some reason Carolina was calling timeouts. Why?

Why? Huh? Why is Carolina up in the game and calling timeouts? Like, why would you do that? Matt Rule has some work to do. I think Joe Brady is a guy. Joe Brady has some talent on that offensive coordinator side. I think Matt Rule has got to learn how to figure out what he's doing in terms of game management because you're calling timeouts. Anyway, so he set them up with

a chance to win and then their kicker shanks it i mean so overall it was kind of a teddy game you look back at the stats you go huh well i mean it wasn't a great game for sure but he did the job and set his team up to potentially win and just overall to see him though i mean to see him playing as a starting quarterback he ran a couple of times, he moved around the pocket. There was one throw that he made where he did the Teddy classic step up in the pocket, pass the rush and make the throw. I mean, stuff like that, considering what he went through, it's never not going to be great to see him play NFL football. And I also know just how many people in the Vikings organization, how many players who played with him, just feel wonderful for him to have a career again.

Big picture, I don't know if he can be, the version of him now, I don't know if he can be like a franchise quarterback anymore. He might end up falling ultimately into a Ryan Fitzpatrick type of, he goes to this team and competes with a young guy, and then he goes to another team and competes with their young guy. And that's kind of his career. But when you're in an ambulance and you think that you might never set foot on an NFL field again, and you end up having a long career, making a lot of money, like good for you, man. So yeah, I mean,

he should have won the game, but they, I mean, here we are. So let me just say this too, before we wrap up, here we are on a podcast where Matt Patricia is no longer an NFL coach. What a shame. Nobody earned their current job status more than Matt Patricia. I'm going to hold off on having a Matt Rule long rant about just being a bad coach because it's his first year. But if he does stuff like this, their rebuild is not going to work.

I mean, you're going to lose a lot of these games. If that's how you are going to manage again in the year 2020, because it's not going to work. And I just wonder why these coaches, they talk about how games are like their own entity. Every game is its own entity. Do you not know your record though? Do you not know you have to win this one to stay in it so you should take an option try an option

that means you win the game i don't know that was a game that was a day what an afternoon i i would say people thought the panthers were going to be like jags jets level bad with the roster that they had coming into this year. So they had four wins. They had a chance to get it five. They played Kansas City close. They played the Saints close. They have played Tampa close for parts of games. So I wouldn't say it's all Matt Rule or all bad for Matt Rule,

whether you want to say that's Joe Brady or Matt Rule is probably a different discussion. But I think this is just kind of what you expect from a first-year head coach who's just into the NFL. but yes i agree as someone who listens to plenty pj fleck press conferences that they're one and oh in the uh yeah every season um yeah i i could probably do without the every single game is its own entity but overall i think for a first year head coach he's doing all right i think his offensive coordinator is good that's as far as I want to go and that guy might be coaching somebody else if I'm one of these teams firing coaches if I'm Jacksonville or I'm Detroit that's what I want I want a guy who can take a roster with some playmakers and get playmakers the ball I mean

I really did think that today overall they did a good job of that of of finding Robbie Anderson for some big plays, Curtis Samuel for some big plays. I mean, they had three receivers who averaged more than 14 yards a catch. So their yards per completion today were really high. And, I mean, he's been doing that all season. They were one of the tops in the league in yards after catch. That means to me that the play caller is designing things that are good. So, yeah, I don't know if I'm willing to go there on rule. I'm to be determined on him after such a poor coaching performance.

And when the opposing coach thanks you for passing in the wrong situation, which is basically what Mike Zimmer said, he was like, well, we were thankful that they decided to pass there and incomplete those passes and give us more time. It's like, that's not what you want to hear. So what a day, what a crazy afternoon. So many times I've come home and dialed up this podcast in my sun porch to record with you and said, what just happened?

And that's made the season fun for us, I think. And we'll see if it's fun the rest of the way. Great job, Paul. We will do it again soon, man. Sounds good. Thanks.