Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - We can learn a lot about the 2021 Vikings by comparing them to 2017

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Former Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to dive deep into the Minnesota Vikings' struggles to get over the hump by comparing his experience with the 2017 Vikings to this year's club. Why was Pat Shurmur a successful offensive coordinator? Why Case Keenum wasn't asked to be "the guy," versus the pressure on Kirk Cousins. Why did the 2017 offensive line hold up rather than falling apart like this year's group has done? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD, ready for you. Reminder before we start the show that TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Tick Pick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. All right, let's get to the show. What's that sound you hear coming from the trenches? It's former Minnesota Viking offensive lineman Jeremiah Searles. It's time the tuesday morning left guard show on purple insider

hello welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and it is tuesday morning left guard time with jeremiah searles who is sad after watching another game that went exactly the same way and resulted in the Vikings losing. Hey, but Nebraska played hard against Ohio State. And I guess in college, you can say that team played hard against another team. Good for them. In the NFL, I find that less convincing. But here's where I want to start, Jeremiah.

I want to talk about your feelings. Let's talk about your emotions. This is a team you played for. This is a team you bled for. You got hurt. You went out there. You grinded. You gave them everything you had.

It's a team that traded for you, right? That wanted you there in the building. You know some of the players who play for the team now, especially the last few years, you knew them quite well when you're watching this week after week and now they've fallen to three and five and in their last 12 games they are four and eight with two wins against the detroit lions or just what are you feeling i mean what are you this is this is your team this is the team that had you on it like what are your emotions i mean i just got done talking with my wife before i was coming up to do the podcast and i was like

all my football teams are in shambles i was like my huskers pure shambles viking shambles the bills lost to the jaguars shambles and it's just i don't understand why they can't be good and especially for the vikings too because like i look around and i can look at the huskers be like yeah whatever but you look at the vikings especially on offense and you're like why like you're you have so much talent you have so much and it's just frustrating to watch i can't imagine how frustrating it is to play it i mean this kind of has pseudo 2016 vibes but not quite it's getting close like I mean it's close but it's not quite there but I just it's confusing like I just it's such a confusing team for me to watch because I love him at times I'm watching him do cool things but then at the end of the game

it's like what the just happened like that's kind of how you feel after every vikings game is just like wtf man like why does this have to keep and i don't know i'm just i sometimes i'm at a loss for words so i'll tell you uh mine yes please let's share we're sharing we're sharing safe place now i am uh a soulless reporter so i mean look mean, look, they, when they lose, I, and I will do everything I can to break it down the best I can. That's, that's how I view everything, right? Like my focus is not on, Oh, I feel happy or sad. It's I have to think about everything that happened and why it happened and what it means, right? That's my focus. So when that happened, when, when losses like this happen, I think, okay, what did I expect? What like, what did I expect going into the season? What did I expect for this week? And then how did it play out? And when I looked

at this team going into the season, I, I saw several paths. I saw the path to where a lot of things went right. And they went 11 and six or 10 and seven. And they were a very good team because of the things that you just laid out. But I also saw this path as well. Now, not losses like this, but the path where guys get hurt, Daniil gets hurt. You know, somebody gets COVID saw that, um, the quarterback has his ups and downs where you didn't win when he had his ups, which means when he has his downs, you're also not going to win where there's some frustration and confusion with a first year play caller and where we get to a point in the middle of the season that fingers are being pointed.

Like this was, this was possible. This was not just possible. It was kind of likely in a lot of ways and so when you talk about well they've got the players they do but it's when you play with variance sometimes it strikes you the wrong way right yeah i mean that that's the thing is you have to look at the nfl the nfl is so complete right when you when you look at the good teams of the nfl they're all complete they have dudes at every spot and i think like we touched on last week there's still holes in the day you you look at the vikings and and they're still i mean water, if not pouring water out at some spots in the dam. And when you add in the factors that you added in of injuries, COVID, whatever,

the dam's almost kind of empty at this point because we can't lose much. And you can go all the way back to when Zimmer was talking about our lack of depth. I mean, that was preseason, right? He was like, we're going to be okay, but if guys get hurt. And I mean, for example, I'm watching the tape and I'm like, dude, going to be okay, but if guys get hurt. For example, I'm watching the tape and I'm like, dude, they're just sliding to Everson every time. They're sending the back to Everson every time. Watts had a sack and Wanham had some splash plays. But when you take away Daniil Hunter and you just watch the way that this offensive line for the Ravens game planned for Everson

Griffin, you can see why Everson's really good when Daniil's out there and Everson's just a good player. Like he's an average defensive end. I'd say above average when the other guys aren't out there and you look on the other side of the football and what's glaring, if you want to talk about it Garrett Bradbury is not on the offensive line Mason Cole comes in and there wasn't that big of a drop off I I went through the whole first quarter and I was like oh wow Bradbury's not doing anything too crazy today and all of a sudden I just see this Cole flash across I was like oh that's amazing Cole and that's an issue when you see a guy who's a really good player go out on defense, you see the decline.

You see the drop-off. When your first-round pick center goes out in a fifth round, I don't know, what did we decide, fifth-round free agent, something like that, who basically got given to the Minnesota Vikings, there's not a huge drop-off. You can see that we're not a complete team. You can see the glaring pieces that are not there to complete it. And when that happens, when you see that visibly,

you're going to lose more games than you win. That's right. And I think that's what was going through my mind this last week is just that even Mike Zimmer saw it in camp and Cameron Bynum. I mean, major credit to him. There's a guy who I would not have expected. And I was high on Cam Bynum, but I would not have expected to play that well

in place of Harrison Smith and finding out that morning. And then Mike Zimmer said he was playing the opposite position that usually he had played Xavier Woods' position in practice. and then he's having to play the role of harrison smith and played phenomenal so that's a good sign for them in the future but aside from that like behind daniel hunter is a guy who is just on the practice squad and a guy who has nine pressures all season despite rushing the passer more times this year than everson griffin that's dj want him so you're talking about somebody who has never shown any flashes of success in the NFL versus a guy who is a, I mean, I think, I don't even think it's a hyperbole to say a hall of fame

talent with the track that Daniil Hunter was on before having these injury issues. So that's a, that's a massive drop off. But you mentioned, I think holes in the dam is a great way to put it that like, if you patch those up and you cover them up, you can be good, but it was always there in the cards that you couldn't and they haven't. And I think it's more than just, well, we didn't get this break or get that break or, you know, whatever. I think we've seen that more and more as the season has gone along that who they were early on is kind of who they're going to be. I want to play a game with you though, since this is kind of where we're at with this. I want to play the comparison game where I'm going to ask you about somebody that you were playing with or coaching or was coaching you in 2017 when the

Vikings were last a great team and then compare it to what we have now and then maybe we'll learn things okay I want to I want to compare I want to compare Pat Shermer like tell me tell me what it was that worked for Pat Shermer that may not be working for Clint Kubiak or just tell me what what worked and compare those two with Pat Shurmur. The thing that I thought that Pat Shurmur did a great job was he was able to put his pride and put his ego aside and say, I'm going to call the best players for the players that I have. The best plays for the players that I have. Not my plays. I'm not calling my offense.

I'm calling the offense that best suits the pieces that I have. When you have Case Keenum and you have certain receivers that, you know, do good things, you got, I mean, we had three different running backs back there and McKinnon and Asiata and all kinds of different stuff. He just found things that we were good at and we just kept running inside zone to the weak side out of the gun with split zone thrown in there over and over and over. And then we'd run double teams over and over because we were good at it. And it showed versus now. I think Clint feels a little bit along the lines of, well, I got to run my stuff or I got to run what I know, my bread and butter, because I'm a first time play caller. And that's all I really know. And I've got a quarterback back there who I feel like I can let cut loose, but I don't

know if he will cut it loose. So I kind of feel like I might have to scheme up for him to cut loose versus we knew exactly what case Keenum was. There was no secret to what case was. He was a game manager, but he was also kind of a baller like that year specifically. I'm talking specifically 17. Like he was kind of like just let him out there, do his thing. He's going to scramble around a little bit, and he might throw one up there for 500 and get his picked off.

But he's going to be a baller and a little bit of a gamer. But there wasn't a lot of pressure put on him versus I feel like now there's a lot of pressure. 78 million reasons why there's a lot of pressure put on Kirk Cousins. And it just, you look at it, and I just feel like Clint kind of rocking a hard place almost of, do I call my stuff? Do I let Kirk talk stuff? Or what do I look at?

Versus we knew exactly what we were in 2017 and what our identity was, versus I don't think this offense knows what its identity is right now. Well, the other thing that has really stuck out to me too is like you mentioned, the run game was very effective in 2017. The run game was very effective these last two years under Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak and Rick Dennison, by the way, who is not around now. And that might make a difference. The guy was the run game coordinator and now they're getting yards per carry, but they're not getting an effective expected points added to it. And it just seems to me like Clint Kubiak may not understand like how to balance his quarterback on one side of him

and his receivers on one side of him that are desperate to get some footballs thrown their way and his head coach on the other side of them, him. And it just feels like, I mean, this, this was a hard position for Gary. This was a hard position for Stefanski, much less somebody who has less experience than those guys in Clint Kubiak and Stefanski. I mean, that guy had been through everything, right? He had seen Childress and he had seen Wes Frazier. He has just been, and he'd been with Zimmer forever. He's been through the wars. He was ready for that. And he had been behind Patrick. This is, I think this is much harder on Clint Kubiak where everybody wants something from him and everybody's pointing to, well, Kirk gets sacks too much. So why don't

you do quick game? Then they do quick game. It's like, well, where, where the explosive plays go? And then, and then you got, you know, your receivers going like hey what aren't i a superstar shouldn't you just maybe do the you know and then and then zimmer's like well but hey delphin you didn't run them enough at this i think that it's a very very tricky position where pat schirmer the guy had been around and i think that if mike didn't like something he was doing he could be like i don't know man you call the plays then like you already lost one oc what are you gonna do fire me yeah i think i think that i think you're exactly right man i think he's getting pulled in a billion different directions and he doesn't have the he doesn't have the experience to understand which which mouth to feed first right like where

do you where do you okay we'll do a little this we'll do a little that and then eventually circle our way back to everyone's happy again. It's almost like he takes his attention and diverts it solely to one thing, but then everyone else gets increasingly more angry. And then it's like, oh, okay, this fire's put out. Like, let me go over here. And then it's just, it's all over the map for him. But that also kind of goes back to the fact of when you're a coordinator,

I feel like you always have to feel like your head coach has like your back in a lot of things. Like he'll go to bat to fight you against those receivers or he'll go versus, I don't know the relationship, how good of a relationship, at least it is with Zimmer and Clint. Like, does he feel like he can go to Zimmer and be like,

dude, I'm, I need some help. Like I need some help trying to like help me, mentor me, work with me. I don't know if those two have that kind of relationship versus you look at teams that have good head coaches that aren't necessarily brilliant football minds, right? I mean, I think of like Pete Carroll.

I don't know how much that dude's breaking down X's and O's like with the best of them. I'm sure he can't. But like that dude is such a good manager and hires people that he trusts and helps and works of helping keep personalities in order that he seems like he's a really good football coach in that regard too. I think of guys like Sean McDermott who, again,

very smart, very, but he understands that he is work side by side with Dable and Leslie Frazier, and those two guys, like three minds working as one, right? I don't necessarily think that's the case in Minnesota right now where you kind of have Zimmer and defense, and then Clint's over here on his island. And I think that that island's getting harder and lonelier for him,

and he has no lifeboat to go try and find help. And I don't know how he saves the situation or how he tries to resurrect it all, but it's starting to get ugly. Like you said, finger pointing, it only is going to get worse as the season keeps going if it stays this course. And think about this situation has taken apart better men than Clint. I mean, Gary retired and Gary was on the older side and I think it was a lot for him. And then the COVID year was really tough and he had to be away from his family and all this stuff. That was hard. But, you know, Gary retired.

Norv just straight up left. DeFilippo ended up fired. I mean, Schirmer and Stefanski fought it out, but there were moments. I mean, think about the end of 2016 got pretty messy with the offense even. And then especially that game against Indianapolis. And then you think about, yeah. And then you think about 2019 where through week four, you have a wide receiver. Who's not showing up to practice because there's truth to all rumors. It's like, there has never been a year where start to finish, except for 2017, where it felt like it was sort of smooth ground. And even then there was some Rocky moments early on when, uh, you know, Sam Bradford got hurt compare, but I want you to

compare and you started to get to it a bit, but just Keenum, Bradford, Kirk. And even if you want to throw in Teddy in there, just like the comparison game, the quarterbacks who have been here and where Kirk sort of fits among that group. You know, for me, this is tough. Cause I didn't actually play with Kirk, but when I look at being with Sam and Teddy and case,

they all, when I first got there, it was Teddy's second year. And so he was still a young cat, right? Like he was still figuring it all out. He was still kind of got, had the handcuffs on, wasn't really sure. And then when he gets, when he goes down, you bring Sam in. Sam came in as the trusted vet, but also kind of trying to find his way through. And then you bring case who is obviously the backup quarterback and then came in and played really well and earned the respect.

But all three of those guys weren't looked to as the guy, right? Like even when Teddy was a young guy, like he was the guy, but like, it was still like young man, young guy is still figuring it out. Versus you bring Kirk Cousins

in and you already anointed him with his paycheck as the guy. You are the man that makes the wheel go. You are the captain of the ship. You are going to be looked to for every decision, good, bad, or ugly. You'll be blamed for everything, good, bad, or ugly.

That's what we're paying you for and i think that i never was with a quarterback in minnesota that had that much pressure on his shoulders and had that much blame thrown at him or had that much praise really thrown at him in that regard and so if we're comparing and contrasting in that i think that's the biggest difference between those three guys is sam and those guys were there to they were there to be game managers let's let's call it like it was like case was there to be a game manager teddy was developing but at the point in time he was a game manager cases your role as a backup quarterback is to always be a game manager put your team in a position to win and

don't turn it over and those were the three quarterbacks that i played with and then you bring in kirk cousins and he was supposed to be the missing piece to the Super Bowl and when that doesn't pan out you're going to catch a lot of flack for it folks Minnesota football is rolling along and there's no need to exhaust yourself looking all over the internet to find Minnesota football tickets anymore that's because TickPick that's T-I-C-K-P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need for your go-to for all NFL tickets. TickPick got rid of those awful service fees that the other sites charge, which lets them guarantee the best price on all of their NFL tickets. Don't believe it? If you could find better prices for the same seats on another ticket site,

TickPick will give you 110% of the difference on the purchase price. So we've got lots of big games going on in downtown Minneapolis and lots of road trips for Minnesota football fans to take. So you want to go to TickPick.com slash Insider to save $10 on your first order for Minnesota football tickets. Again, TickPick.com slash insider to save $10 on your first order of Minnesota football tickets. That's a great observation, just how much different that is. Because even with Case, it was like, look, they've got the number one defense.

So please don't throw that interception against washington and just let the defense defense and we'll go places if you just do that win that atlanta game 13 to 9 and then like we've got a chance and you'll score whole drives by just running the football um that's that's what that team was able to do and that's uh interesting because you're right teddy was starting to become that in camp 2016 and preseason. But then he went down and Sam Bradford. I mean, it's very hard to just plop onto a new team and say it's mine. But even then, he was a guy who was a journeyman at that point, more or less.

I mean, he had been with a couple of franchises. He wasn't Heisman Sam at that point. Right, right. He had, I mean, in a lot lot of ways like he resurrected his entire image i think with the vikings because they showed oh actually this guy could be a pretty darn good quarterback he's just had a lot of bad breaks but um with cousins it's like when he was in washington though how interesting is this though in washington he was the guy you just described he was the like execute the offense game managed for us, get the ball to

the playmakers and, and we'll sort of figure out the rest. And they did and didn't cause they didn't have a very good defense. He came here with a completely different view of who he was supposed to be starting with the way that the organization presented him as the final piece. That first press conference is like, yeah, we knew we had to be better at quarterback than case. Sorry, case. And, uh, but here he is, here's the guy that's going to take you to the super bowl. And it's almost like nobody outside of Kevin Stefanski really even knew how to deal with that because John D Filippo came and was like 500 yards passing a game, baby. And Mike Zimmer's head just imploded. And it was like really Stefanski. And obviously Gary, who's just been around done this a million times, but those guys,

I think we're just better suited to handle what their quarterback was sort of thought that he was supposed to be with who he really is. And that's where they develop like downfield passes, play actions, and the things that teams do around your Jared Goffs and Ryan Tannehills to try to get the most out of what they have. And I just feel like Clint has not found his way with that. And to be fair, I mean, not, I would say 16 out of the 32 quarterbacks can be that. I mean, you look at it in love case to death, but he got anointed that guy when he went to Denver, right? When he moved out of the role, like Kirk Cousins moved out of Washington and love case to death but he got anointed that guy when he went to denver right when he moved out of the role like kirk cousins moved out of washington and he goes to denver and they said

hey you just led your team to an nfc championship come do that for the broncos here's 36 million reasons why and it didn't work out for him it's hard to do and we can sit here and the reason that we're we the reason that we feel entitled as soulless reporters, as I wear my Husker Media shirt, is we look at what, especially in the NFL, you look at what someone is being paid. You look at what someone has been guaranteed, and you put an expectation on them of you must live up to this. And when they don't, sometimes it's not their fault. Sometimes it's the fault of the organization. And sometimes it's the fault of what we put them in this image of what we are. And we can go all the way back to Washington days and look at Kirk Cousins and be like, yeah, this is who this guy was. Why did we think he was going to be something different when he

came to Minnesota? Why did we believe that he was going to come here and turn into Aaron Rodgers or turn into Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or down the list of the greats that we really hoped that he was going to turn into I think that we thought there was the chance but we knew it was in a kind of a two-year window right I think we all knew that when when they signed Kirk Cousins we had lightning in a bottle for two years before that team was going to have to blow up. And now it's blowing up and Kirk can't put everything back in the bottle that was those two years because it's just not the same team anymore. And had they taken the approach of rebuilding after 2019, even if it was around Kirk, you can do it. But they didn't they've franchise tagged anthony harris had traded for yanni kagakwe and then this year after that didn't work they more

or less tried the same version of that like oh let's sign a delvin tomlinson and a patrick peterson and whatever whatever whatever and their defense is better but not so much better that it was ever going to make this team like a Superbowl contender in the snap of the fingers. So the desperate sort of got to win because we got Kirk got to win because we got Kirk. It wasn't a slow rebuild and that probably hurt them as well. And I think that's a great point that, um, you know, when we, sometimes when we talk about Kirk critically, you'll get, and I know this isn't from many people but some will like you hate the guy what's your problem why do you hate him so much and it's of course i mean you know this i

covered you like i we're only friends after you played man right when you played i would go up to your locker i would ask you questions in a professional manner and then i would go talk about it and there were probably you know some games where you didn't play well and i said you know searles heard him today or something right like that's that was it's always going to be that way philadelphia 2016 i'm not going to point out specific games that were troubles but um uh look uh i don't know why you jumped off sides against Dallas, man. Like what the hell? That was not my fault. And if I will defend myself to the death. Here we go.

All right. We'll save that till the end. I got to hate to see it for you. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, so the point being that that's how I cover everyone. And I think when we criticize cousins, it's also through the lens of the football team and their record and what they've done as a whole with him

as the quarterback. Like that's what it's really about. And it's about the decisions that have been made around him and regarding him versus what, as you just explained is the reality of him. And so I think that sometimes that gets lost a little bit when we're breaking down, like, look, he doesn't have ability to escape when he makes a mistake up front or when you don't have the offensive line. And I can't of course say, oh, it's just everyone else's fault. Cause it's not, it's like, this is the, this is the shortcoming of what you have at quarterback, but you can go back to the other side and go, however, you spend a bunch of money on two nose tackles and not two guards. And you do deserve to be held responsible for

that. Um, I want to continue with the, um, with the comparison game though, because I, I want to talk about the offensive line for a bit because you know, Tuesday morning left guard and figured compare the 2017 offensive line. That was, I think solid would be a good way to describe it. Uh, you were not 93 Dallas, but you were good enough to get the 13-3. Compare that to what is happening now where they rank 30th in pass blocking by PFF again. I think the biggest thing, that 17 offensive line, one of the things that was so great about it is we had a true veteran. I mean, true, true veteran in joseph berger i mean

a guy who was a journeyman who had been almost like through the ring with vikings or they almost didn't pay him and like he always used to joke like i'm a backup in otas and then all of a sudden here comes the fall and i'm a starter but i'm still getting paid like a backup but yeah but like he he was kind of the the temperature of guy, right? Like you could kind of gauge where he and then you had Riley Reif, solid left tackle, didn't say much, came into work. You had the young guy in Pat F line who was a good player at that point. He hadn't gotten all broken and tattered. And then you had Nick Easton.

And then over there, right tackle was, oh, my gosh, it was me. And then you had rem dog yep right and rem dog as we all referred to him as yeah rem dog sorry remmers and everyone really blended really well together but honestly tony sperano is a hell of an offensive line coach i mean that dude could coach some offensive line and he got the best out of the guys that he had and i don't know enough about this offensive line coach to say, oh, well, he's not. But what I knew what we had is we all were held to a very high standard

of knowing what we were supposed to do all the time. And Tony was not afraid that if you didn't know, he was just going to take you out of the game. Like he was just going to take you out of the game. But we had a really good mixture of offensive linemen in there that all wanted to be really good and all work together. And none of us were really the guy. Like we didn't have like a dude.

We had a dude in 16, our lovely friend, Alex Boone, who they brought in. Right. But he didn't fit well. Like I love Alex to death, but he caused kind of more issues than the team saw fit. And so they let him go and they let him move on and they moved ahead with Nick Easton. And as we just kind of went through, we all just kind of piggybacked off each other.

We all just kind of worked our way. Hey, one guy's nicked up here. Cool. Let's move some guys around. Rashad Hill rolls in there a couple of times. I roll in there. Easton rolls in there.

Like we still just kind of put this whole melting pot together. But again, that goes back to what pat schirmer was able to do and say okay here's my pieces here's some things like okay we're gonna have to max protect a little bit more this week hey okay well searles is in there and he's better at doing inside zone than he is pulling so let's run some inside zone this week hey okay we got to move east into center move Joe out to guard. This is what that combination does best with. And I think that, again, it goes back to the play calling of Schirmer was able to,

he's done that for so long that he was able to navigate that because he also wasn't like, okay, and I really got to make sure I get the ball to Diggs and Thielen because naturally it just went to them. And at that point, Diggs was still pretty young and not really yelling and throwing a fit at that point digs was still pretty young and not really yelling and throwing a fit at that point right yeah and feeling was still kind of emerging as the the all-star that he was and again it was luck the nfl's a lot of luck sometimes when you have the kind of perfect combination of all that stuff where you don't have angry wide receivers and angry tight ends

you got o-linemen that kind of just exist like we're just kind of there like we're not lighting the world on fire but we're doing our job and you got quarterbacks who are not making mistakes and you got running backs who there's no superstar in the room so it's kind of running back by committee i mean you look at that 17 team and there's no one on there that's playing on a max contract right now right there really isn't like you look across the board of that 2017 team there's no one that's still playing right now that's on a max super deal that left besides digs sorry excuse me yeah stefan digs but he's really the only one and i think that that was kind of a big piece of that offensive line but else kind of existed versus now you look at this offensive line there's really big time issues at almost every position besides right tackle and when you

have four out of the five that are still trying to find their ways in life and derisaw is going to be really good he's he's really impressed me but again he's a rookie and he's still kind of going his way through and you've got your first round pick at center who you can't find the difference between a first and a fifth rounder and then you got a tat you got the guard positions which ezra cleveland is hot he's cold he's horrible he's decent he's had some flash plays but just not consistently i feel like there's a lot of tension in that room because since 16 seasons zimmer puts and he harps on the offensive line and joe berger and those guys were able to kind of calm us all down. I don't know who's the calming voice of reason in that offensive line room. So when we go through it, one thing that really sticks out to me is this. Riley Reif had been through the NFL ringer for a bunch of years.

He'd played left tackle, right tackle. He'd been the high draft pick who had all the pressure in Detroit, all that sort of thing. So he got here with a lot of experience. Nick Easton had had some experience in the NFL before and then had played the year before that in 2016. So even though he wasn't really a guard necessarily, like he'd played in the NFL, had some experience. Of course, Pat Elfline was the rookie there, but then on the right side of him is an extremely experienced player. And then on the right side of Joe Berger is another extremely experienced player. And then you were an experienced player as well. So you had all guys who had played before in mostly in the positions that they had played outside of Elf line, who was the center, which, you know, there were his,

there were moments of good and bad with him, but it's much easier to kind of mitigate that with the center. If he's getting beat up at times, I think then it is, um, you know, there were his, there were moments of good and bad with him, but it's much easier to kind of mitigate that with a center. If he's getting beat up at times, I think then it is, um, you know, like with your tackles or guards where you're just getting pressure a lot, uh, from those positions. I think that's a big difference is they've just looked at this and said, well, only Udo good luck, my friend. Yes. You don't know how to play guard, but what difference does it make? I mean, and that's where I think there's a lot of fair excuse for Cousins of how has this never even reached the 2017 level, which as you laid out was not a superstar, wasn't

Philadelphia 2017 offensive line. It was just guys who knew what they were doing. And I think when I look at it you pointed this out um there's a play where even my eye just from talking to you enough can spot oh man ole udo was supposed to kick out the blitz came from the corner that goes to the tackle then that means someone's got to go to the right like even i can figure that out and and ole udo takes a double teams the nose guard eats the hell out of that nose guard he had he'll never forget it he had no shot but but you just like that's a thing that an inexperienced player does and to not bring in a veteran at guard to either guard really to not

give yourself any like parachute that to me is is the biggest comparison of not being the 15th best line, but instead being the 28th best line is just that you have so much inexperience on the offensive line that it's hard. I mean, we talk about this all the time. Guys don't even reach their peak until they're like fourth year in the NFL that are high draft picks. And you're expecting a sixth rounder to change positions right before camp it just never really made sense yeah and I mean if you look at offensive lines

across the league right now that's a big issue for a lot of teams I mean for example look at Jalen Hurts right I don't still not believe her that Jalen Hurts is an NFL quarterback I just don't see it but the dude's got a pretty salty offensive line in front of him at times. You look at Rush, our guy Rush from Dallas. You think he beats Minnesota without that offensive line that's in front of him? Like you can mitigate a lot of mediocre quarterback play with a good offensive line. Because if you have an offensive line that can give you three and a half to four seconds in a pocket nfl wide receivers are good enough to get open and when you look at the vikings the under center pass game has just i don't understand why we're so married to it like

getting the shotgun man get kirk away from those guys up front give him three four more yards of space and i mean i saw one where he's dropping back and i mean they're running a split zone concept or a split zone boot out where cj ham's coming to try and come all the way across the ball and is tripping over the center because the center's gotten pushed three yards in the back yes right like those are the kind of things that you look at it as if you're just watching the old line like that's not good like that's really bad that doesn't look like it's not a sack but like you should have to be able to run straight down the line of scrimmage on a naked as a fullback or tight end and not trip because the dudes are getting so much penetration if it's an

under center play you shouldn't have the guard where kirk cousins is jumping to throw it over his head because he's in his lap on a three-step drop and so this offensive line it's got just so many pieces but the other problem is when you put young guys out there like that that aren't quite ready their career is kind of dead yeah like like you know like they can't it's really hard for guys to recover from that and some guys make great careers out of it because they take advantage of that opportunity and they were ready enough that they could do it other guys struggle at it and they don't quite get going and before you know it they're out of the league

because you put a year and a half of bad tape on it, you're never going to play in the NFL, a la Drew Samia. Right? I mean, the guy was not ready to play. Obviously, you can say, oh, he's a bad player, or was he just not ready for the NFL? I mean, and that's a very legitimate question to ask, is how ready are the guys that are on the Minnesota Vikings offensive line now? How many of them are truly ready to start in the NFL for 16 to 17 plus

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and uh wyatt davis couldn't get in the game when only utah got hurt yeah which is also telling i mean pretty telling pretty telling that means he's not ready and that can mean a minute but the thing that like you can say he's not ready but when you hear you're not ready because you're fat is difference than hearing you're not ready because you're developing there's a difference right there's a difference i'm not just saying well everyone who's bad just isn't ready no let me clear there's a difference between being not ready because you're developing and being not ready because you're either physically out of shape or that muscle between your ears just doesn't work like those two things happen.

And as far as his being in shape, I don't know if they're still running the gassers with him at the end of practice, but the fact that that was even happening was really not acceptable for the NFL. So that's makes sense for why Blake Brandel would get the chance to play, but big difference there. Okay.

One more. And then we'll do love to see it. Hate to see. I's a long episode but this is emotional um so we've yeah a lot of feelings here uh so compare to me what you see and i know you're not in the locker room playing for the team this year obviously but you were in 2016 at the end of that season. And Holy moly, was it ugly in that, in that locker room and with Mike Zimmer compare what you're seeing now to what you saw then with the coaching situation here and the pressure and the hot seat and all that. It's distracting.

It's really distracting. I think at that point we weren't, there wasn't really a cry for Zimmer's head at that point. I agree. So at that point, there wasn't the overlooming cloud of, is the head man gone? And then what? It was more along the lines of kind of, wow, this thing really went off the rails quickly right you start five and oh and then you just you kind of go down versus i feel like now with the more close losses that you have the less time you spend on focusing on winning and you start you really focusing on on the problems i think when you're when you're focused so much on

fixing problems you lose focus on winning games if that makes sense like you're constantly worried about okay this went wrong that went wrong this went wrong that sometimes you forget to just show up and win the football game and that can happen to you as a player it can happen to you as a team and the other piece too is the leaders on this team will be asked questions by the young cats of like well why do you do this why do that but then the young cats of like, well, why do you do this? Why do you do that? But then the young cats will also question, well, are you a winner? Like, are you the guy I want to hitch my wagon to if I'm trying to learn how to be an NFL winner and starter?

And then that just kind of spirals. But that's how teams go from being really, really good to really, really bad in a short amount of time is because of all of those things i just mentioned take away from the ultimate focus of when it all costs and when you're not focused at when it all costs do everything right but you're focused on bad tweets or you're focused on other stuff distractions of covid or whatever it might be that is not football related it compounds over

the course of a season. And by the time you get to the end of the season, you can be completely so thrown off track that it doesn't even really feel like football anymore. You kind of feel like you're showing up trying to just survive. And this kind of feels like this is trending in that direction of survival mode. Everyone look out for yourself a little bit versus band together. Let's go out, have good practices, stack good practices, and go win games on Sunday. And that's why I think, and I am wrong at predicting games all the time. So, you know, take it for what it's worth. This one feels like it's got a Coltsy 34 to six type of 2016 thing where it just everything piled up and eventually it just broke.

And that's what it feels like. 98 plays for your defense. Now fly to the West coast, play Justin Herbert, a pretty tough team, decent offensive line that like, they're going to're gonna they're gonna hit you pretty hard and but also like even just the disposition of everyone where adam thielen's like i think we're good enough but i don't know why we're losing and i'm not sure what to tell you guys anymore and the fans are done with us and what like saying the fans are done with hearing us say these things it's like really self-aware but also like wow man

even everyone inside the locker room's like yeah fans are done with us after that loss i mean that's a tough place to be i think for a player and all the and also all the fans tagging him in the tweets being like yeah bro we are done with you that i mean you can't miss that yeah i mean i don't care how much you mute your phone one of those one of those or like one of your boys is screenshotting something like damn dude did you see this like yeah and that's distracting that's a distraction and the league is so good from top to bottom i mean jacksonville beats one of the best teams in the bills and because they weren't ready to show up and play on sunday like it's not college it's not, we're playing the sisterhood of the blind,

deaf and dumb D three today. Like we can just roll our dudes out there and we're going to win. Like that's not how it works in this league. And every single thing that is not about winning football games is a distraction. And when you have too much of them, you just lose. It's that simple.

Okay. So love to see it. I hate to see it what what a discussion honestly so this has been one of my favorite episodes truly yeah no i've really enjoyed a good one i've enjoyed a good one i mean i just think like from the perspective of being able to do this every week and and get your real life experiences and comparing them is why I love doing this show every Tuesday morning. Definitely always on the same time that we record it. But yeah, so I have a great appreciation for that. I thought it was terrific. So let's finish up with a quick, because it's been a long one, a quick love to see it, hate to see it. I will let you go first on that.

So my love to see it is the old seven-year extension for old row the boat up there and then you go drop one to brett bielma and the terrible illinois line i had them picked to win the west so all before all you haters come at me here go back listen to what i had them picked after we lost to them. And I looked at the remaining schedule. I was like, Minnesota is going to run the table and win the West. I really thought they did. Now they leave it open for the old freaking Iowa Hawkeyes to go do it.

What I don't understand about that is what exactly someone explain it to me like I'm five. What PJ Fleck has done to deserve this extension i just i just want like tell me why i'll tell you tell me why someone else couldn't coach the team like oh oh my gosh someone else hired him oh no you're going to go six and three and have some disappointing losses like explain to me how someone else couldn't scheme a better offense than just the we run up the middle of the shotgun or heave it to whoever like that's this is the offense they have what because minnesota no offense gopher fans are okay with being eight and four every year that's that's what they've come to be good hey Hey, eight and four, go to a bowl game, maybe win, maybe don't.

But hey, we did it. Versus you look at some other programs in the Big Ten, Michigan, Ohio State, I mean, even Nebraska, even though we're terrible, that's not okay here. We ran off nine and ten win coaches because they only won nine or ten win games. That's just not how it works here and so i think that minnesota is like hey i like what we got we're good like we're gonna have a couple 10 win seasons they're iowa kirk ferentz is forever eight and four but he'll have one or two years where he's like 10 and two and they're okay with it and that's that's why he got the

extension because that's what they like in gopherville well if they don't mix in a bootleg from time to time they're not going to be eight and four i mean my gosh i've just never seen anything worse than this offense um my love to see it is cordero patterson 126 yards on six catches he mixed in nine rushes for 10 yards so i I guess that didn't work out, but Cordero Patterson with the essentially game winning catch against the new Orleans saints, just running them straight down the sideline. The Atlanta Falcons have figured out that Cordero Patterson is really damn fast.

And if you hand him the thing, he runs and it's amazing. I mean, the Patriots figured this out as well but it's amazing how chicago couldn't figure out what to do the raiders the vikings they just the vikings in 2015 were like no you can't play what the guy is the best player with the football in the whole league and he just no you must not touch it you can't be in charles johnson will be the guy or whatever his name was.

So, yeah, that's pretty cool. Good for him. I mean, this is the role he deserves. Yeah, he's amazing. He's a great dude, too. I mean, you covered him. I mean, just a fascinating human being. Fascinating human being. I mean, Cordero Patterson's a guy I'd walk in the sauna at 5 a.m.

He's in there listening to Rascal Flatts. And you're like, hello. He's's like love these guys front row there like he's been front row front row at a rascal flats concert before nothing you told me would surprise me this guy high-fived an official after a touchdown wore socks with his own face on them on a national tv game yep he one time he was getting dressed in the locker room and he had no clothes on and i mean no clothes on and he went chains first so we were all waiting he had a big game and it was chain chain chain other chain and then sid hartman pushed past all of us and asked cordell as he has nothing on uh because we're all like hanging back because you don't want to be weird and give some space sid's like are you the best receiver in the league i was like yeah might be

just the best it's like nothing but chains on and here's sid pushing forward that's how they did it back in the day um i'll give you a i mean a quick hate to see it is all the conjecture about Aaron Rogers just, and I don't want to talk about it, but just like everything, it's just so painful. You favorite something and you get like a bunch of bots that are, you know, Roy six,

nine, six, nine, nine. It's just attacking you. And you're like, Oh my gosh, just make it all stop.

Howard Stern is commenting on it. The free game shows are freaking out. It's just like, make it all go away please and then and then having to watch jordan love play football that was even worse bad i had all my buddies are texting me like give him whatever he wants give him whatever he wants who cares bring him back if only rogers listened to purple insider instead of joe rogan this all would have been fine he could have gotten all the information about his rival and not said those things so anyway he's immunized leave him alone

um my quick hate to see it is the poor poor rams offensive line coach his poor room that he's gonna have to have after watching jeffrey simmons just poorly just demolish everyone up and down that offensive line the entire football game. I haven't seen a bull rush that effective in a very long time where you literally have a guy standing up, grasping at you to stop him and you just throw him to the side and then sack a quarterback. That was such a poor offensive line performance by the Rams, who all rights are very good offensive line. And they just, I can't imagine that that offensive line coach has slept much since that day. I'll just finish with this take.

That if a good defensive line dominates an offensive line, it's just hard to win. You can't win. You can't. You cannot win. It's really, really hard. Yeah. You have to let a lot go your way. And we've just seen that over and over here.

And I feel like the things that are increasing for how much they matter to the win each week are the single defensive linemen. It's like there's 18 lawrence taylors instead of one and game wreckers are especially wrecking games and then just like offensive coordinators i just there's just this huge gulf it feels like between the ones who are doing it right and the ones who are not and i'm not sure vikings fans are on the right side of that. And I just feel like the quarterbacks can almost all play. So who's scheming it up? And then who's defensive lineman is kicking the offensive lines ass. Like these are the things that are determining every game.

Yeah, that's a great take. That's a great one to end on football. Great take Matt. I appreciate all of your time. This was a long episode, but you are the man and this was great and a very insightful stuff. So I appreciate it. And good job to your Huskers, not getting killed.

And.