Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - We made it, it's finally Packers week for the Minnesota Vikings

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the Minnesota Vikings finally beginning their season. What will Week 1 tell us about the Vikings? If something is going to hold the Packers back this year, what will it be? What advice would you give Kevin O'Connell heading into Week 1? What does the Vikings' wide-open offense tell us about the future of Kirk Cousins? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with WCCO Radio's Paul Hodowanek and Paul, football, football has arrived. We have an actual regular season game. This isn't fifth wide receivers and right guard number three folks. This is the real deal. This isn't ridiculous overreactions to preseason games and all sorts of uh talk about how all 32 teams are headed to the championship weekend this year anymore now the real results hit the field and i could not be more excited paul how are you feeling i'm i'm excited that next sunday the next time i'm on this podcast, we will be breaking down an actual game. We'll be able to talk about things that are happening on the field

that mean something, not that the last couple weeks necessarily haven't, but not fully, and we won't be talking draft or offseason or kind of trying to talk in hypotheticals of what this team might do. We'll actually be able to see the Kevin O'Connell offense and see if it's much different than what they've been running we'll be able to see this defense in a 3-4 scheme and it actually if it's that much different and so i'm excited for those things because there's more than pretty much any year that you've or we've been doing this you've been doing this like unknowns going into the season about how they're going to play that has always

pretty much been the same thing every year and while it might not change drastically there's going to be small little nuggets of things that change that's going to be interesting to break down and talk about and figure out so that's that's what i'm most excited about heading into this season all right so i have a couple of vikings Packers questions on my mind that I want to ask you as we go into this week. And then also a couple of fans only questions that I haven't gotten to that I think are worth bringing up just before we get into the nitty gritty. returns here to Purple Insider. So let's start off with this one, though, because Brian McFadden said on the show the other day that the first two weeks are going to tell us everything we need to know about this team. However, I do recall week one overreactions in my life watching football that there have been just maybe several

in the history of the national football league after week one when we want to decide whether every team is good or bad for that year or whether every player is is good or bad uh for example uh what was it 38 to 3 that the packers lost in week one to the new orleans saints and aaron rogers skipped the entire off season so he was clearly washed. He was clearly done playing football and the Packers were going to whoop. He won the MVP and they won 13 games like Chris Winky. Here's a local connection. He beat the Minnesota Vikings in his first game as a Carolina Panther, Minnesota football legend. And then they lost the next 15 in a row so i mean it's but but at the same time

this is absolutely huge for the vikings and at the end of the year you're going to look back just as it was last year you know they blew week one a mysterious fumble that maybe wasn't and it ended up costing the Vikings. That one more game might have put them in the playoffs had they won against the Cincinnati Bengals in Cincinnati last year. So how do we figure out, Paul, how to have reasonable takeaways from a week one game where anything could happen, but also it's pretty big that you have to play the Green Bay Packers in week one.

Yeah, it's difficult because we do this so often, just make big generalizations or big takeaways. We make big observations on things that hinge on one deep pass being completed, one blitzer getting to the quarterback. We do it with the Super Bowl all the time. The Rams almost didn't make it to the Super Bowl. Now they're Super Bowl champions. And it's just how this sport works. So overreactions are going to come. Like you can't replace the fact that the Saints beat the Packers 38 to 3.

But clearly there was maybe some overreacting that was done that didn't need to be done or wasn't quite how how things go and so i think this team in particular with the new head coach is going to be ripe for those because we're going to have nothing to base it off of with the packers losing 38 to 3 i think a segment was still like packers are really good like lafleur's won 80 of his games like we don't know vikings i mean we don't know what this coaching staff's going to bring. We don't necessarily know a lot of these things. So I think it, it really is a ripe situation for overreactions,

both negatively and positively, no matter how that game game goes. But I think some of the things that can stay consistent are, does this offense look like, and defense look like they've picked up everything from the Kevin O'Connell offense and the Ed Donatel defense like are there mass miscommunications obviously there's the one Kirk Cousins practice that we've talked about a ton which he said we gotta fix a lot of things if the offense kind of looks like that they look like they're miscommunicating they

look like they don't quite know what's going on I don't know if that's an overreaction then to say they're not, they don't know what's going on right now. That doesn't mean they can't figure it out later. But I think some of those general things, it's not whether Kirk Cousins' deep pass goes two yards further than Justin Jefferson and they don't win the game, but it's, is Kevin O'Connell, is his tendencies, are they changing? Are they, is he not running a ton on second and ten or is he not doing these sorts of things that are pretty sticky from situation to situation guys are going to drop passes guys are going to catch balls guys are going to miss blocks like those those are the random things that course correct throughout a season with so when you look back in week one you

say wow those things happened but it didn't mean a whole ton. But I think at least for the viability of this team in the first half of the season and to get themselves moving forward, you just want everyone on the same page. Them look like they're picking up the schemes and the personnel, which in many cases is from a previous regime. You want to see that those pieces fit. You want to see that. Oh God, is Patrick Peterson going to be able to play in this defense is, is Eric Hendricks fit to be one of these linebackers?

Like I think we can start to make those observations after week one, more kind of that process based instead of the results based. If the Packers win 28 to seven, it's okay. How did it look during that? Maybe not necessarily the score. So I think it's those just making sure they're off on the right foot and can see a progression for this team. I don't think necessarily it's wins, wins and losses. Well, let's think back on the recent week ones and whether they were actually indicative of anything or not. So, uh, 2016 week one, probably not because they went to Tennessee with Sean Hill,

a quarterback. I mean, Sean Hill gave everything in that game to get a win, but also Marcus Mariota just threw an absurdly hilarious interception that Eric Hendricks ran back for a touchdown. The one thing that we did take out of that game that ended up being true the rest of the year is they could not run the football. That the offensive line was awful at run blocking. And Adrian Peterson ran like 10 times for 26 yards or something. And it was very clear that was going to continue to be a problem because if and Peterson wasn't him same self at that time. But if Peterson can't get anything going with this offensive line and he was coming off leading the NFL and rushing,

maybe they're not going to be able to rely on him throughout the year. Cause if any game was going to happen that they were going to want to rely on Adrian Peterson, it was that opener and it ended up being the defense in a couple of passing games. 2017 I think was also indicative because Bradford came out, lit up the New Orleans Saints. It was clear that the offensive line had improved, that the defense was going to be really special, that the receivers were going to rise to the

challenge. We didn't know how it was going to happen, but you could tell that there was a lot of talent there. 2018, I would say no, that it was not, it didn't really tell us anything. That, you know, they kind of got ahead against San Francisco. There were a few surprisingly dropped passes in that game. I think George Kittle dropped a touchdown and the offense was pretty okay. 2019, was it the Falcons? That one, okay, so here's what that told us, that the Vikings were much better than the horrible teams in the league the falcons were starting their descent right falcon like descent the nosedive what i don't know we're getting there you're not quite in mid-season form but

we're getting yeah anyway okay i that was that was better in my head than it was out loud but the falcons were starting to fade as a team and the vikings came out and beat the heck out of them 2020 the offensive line was going to still be a problem we could tell that and i think the biggest thing was the secondary is not good that they got smoked in that game and there was no solution coming so it was pretty obvious that anytime they played a good quarterback, they were going to have trouble because Aaron Rodgers just annihilated them. And he does that to good defenses, but he did it in ways in that game where people were wide open.

It wasn't just Rodgers blowing them away. It was, oh, these guys really don't know how to cover. And last year, who did they play a leak on last year oh yeah oh i just talked about it yeah the bangles um and that one i don't know about that one i mean other than the fact that it was like this game this game is close and all the games turned out to be close um but i'm not sure that that said a lot it maybe said more about the bangles that they were a legitimate team and they like joe burrow looked great in that game until he kind of got banged up a little bit in the second

half and they played too conservatively and let the vikings back in jamar chase right off the bat so i guess uh in conclusion as every high school paper ends in conclusion yeah i would say that, yeah, that you can. Not everything, but you can get hints about how this thing is going to go. And we have it in years past. It just certainly isn't something that you want to draw all of your conclusions out of, which does contrast with the fact that it means so much or could potentially mean so much to where they end up in the standings at the end of the year. Yeah. And I was just going through the whole 2021 slate of all the teams from last year, because obviously you brought up the Saints and Packers. Honestly, most of the

games, the team that won or the team that won kind of later on in the season proved to be the better team. I mean, the Chargers beat the football team. The Cardinal, well, the Cardinals beat, blew out the Titans, which was the start of the Cardinals big run. But the only other one that was surprising was the Steelers beating the Bills. And so, you know, that we have these weird games and it also is a team has weeks and weeks and weeks to prepare for you. Like they don't have to prepare for another team so that kind of throws a different wrench into these types of matchups just because the Kevin O'Connell has had pretty much two weeks of full planning for this game and I'm sure they've been planning deep into the offseason for this stuff as well so that can kind of throw a few more wrenches into this game that isn't quite there for every other game.

But yeah, especially against a division rival, I think it's important to see how this team plays against Aaron Rodgers, against the Packers. And just like you can take takeaways from the Vikings, I think you'll probably get a good sense of where the Packers are in terms of are they untouchable in this division or are they not? Because in previous years, they've pretty much been the class ahead. Now with Devontae Adams departing, Rogers a year older,

like there seems to be maybe a crevice where people think could the Vikings unseat them in the division? And I think this game will tell us a lot of, okay, is this kind of a Vikings-Falcons situation like you just mentioned earlier where the Packers establish themselves and say, no, no say no no we're still the kings of this division and I think the Vikings whether it's a close loss or a close win can prove to us to the fans to the general national audience that maybe this division will be a little bit closer than we thought so as far as the numbers go on this subject the first three games tell you more as far as are you going

to make the playoffs so if you go oh and three even oh and two but now with 17 games that's probably changed like historically even going oh and two was very hard to overcome but if you go oh and three that's pretty much a death knell even with 17 games and it's proven to be the case with the vikings you're just trying to come back from so far away. 0-4, a couple of teams have done it. But obviously, I mean, if you're 0-4, you're mostly terrible at that point. But it does happen quick that two or three games can really start to tell you who you're going to be in a season.

And I think that was the case with the Vikings last year, where it was like, there's something here with them talent-wise, but it's not going to be enough when, when they have close games, you can't just win them all because you probably don't have the quarterback or the defense to, to do that, to shut teams down when you get a little edge or to always rely on one player to just bail you out. So I, yeah, I think that week one maybe offers some hints, but certainly not all the answers and where it reflects how strong a team is going to be in the playoffs is actually not the end of the season. It's like the third quarter of the season because the end of the season can get weird. Um, players can sit longer for injuries if they're already going to the

playoffs to make sure they're a hundred percent healthy instead of grinding it out. I don't know, the end of the season just gets a little strange, but three quarters of the way maybe is a little more telling about a team's strength if you're going to be a playoff team. So that's kind of what the research has told us about that. But week one will definitely matter to the long term if the Vikings are competing with the Packers. My other question is the receiver topic has just been talked about a lot with the Green Bay Packers, and it seems to be like everyone's best case for why the Packers won't be as good. So I would challenge you, Paul, to make a different case, a case that has nothing to do with Romeo, Dobbs, Dubes, however they're saying it now, Sammy Watkins, Alan Lazar has nothing to do with Aaron Rodgers wide receiver, but something else that could be maybe a little hole in

the boat for the Green Bay Packers. Yeah, I mean, already this year, they're very injured at this point in the season. If we, I'm just pulling it up right now, they have some kind of big injuries to the offensive line that they're still kind of nursing back. David Bakhtiari is a question of whether he's going to be healthy. Elton Jenkins, sorry, I'm struggling to pronounce that, is also hurt, both kind of questionable to play week one and beyond. So that's where I would look.

I think the offensive line unit has historically been one of the top units. And if all healthy, they're another really good unit. But I don't see a ton of holes in them on the defensive side of the ball. I think why everyone still thinks they can be really good, despite the wide receiver struggles, is the defense they're rolling out yes they lose zadaria smith but they still have rishon gary they still press and smith they still have jair alexander one of the best corners in the league like they pick up a couple they use their first two first round picks on defensive guys they have devondre campbell like

the defense is stout and still loaded And so you look for questions outside elsewhere. And I think right now it's the offensive line, because that can be kind of the, one of the biggest reasons why they win is that offensive line. If they're fully healthy, David Bakhtiari, when he's fully healthy, he's really, really good, but we haven't seen him healthy in a little bit. And so I think those are the questions they might be starting. Zach Tom, I believe who's a fourth rounder on the offensive line at tackle it's not usually what you want to be doing week one is starting a fourth round pick there so I think if we're picking one other spot where there seems to

be a little bit of a crack in the foundation it's the offensive line and I think that can be one of the ways that the Packers falter if Rod Rogers is just getting pressured right away and then he doesn't have a safety blanket, like Devonta Adams to just throw the ball and expect that he's going to catch it regardless of who's on him. And regardless of how quick the ball's out, like they just have a sixth sense connection. Like that's gone now.

I don't think Christian Watson, Romeo dubs, Dobbs, uh, Alan Lazard. I don't know if that's going to be the case. So I think if you're trying to poke another hole, it's the offensive line might be not healthy.

And when those guys return, are they the same type of players that made them a top five, top 10 offensive line team, which they have been in the past couple of years. So I think that's really the only other chink in their armor at this point that I can see. I think that the Packers and they could very well succeed with this because they have Aaron Rodgers, but they are relying on several things that historically can be unreliable. Number one is an old quarterback that, I mean,

Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl with the stat line that he put up there will probably never happen again. But almost every old quarterback, save for Tom Brady or John Elway, went out while he was still playing great. But they usually have a final season where they have to be really told that it's over. And you never know when that's going to be. Peyton Manning, the year before 2015 and 2014 was unbelievably great for the Denver Broncos. And then all of a sudden he wasn't, uh, you know, other guys have had slower, uh, you know, declines like, you know, someone like Troy Aikman, he had a really, really bad final season where you knew it was absolutely, uh, over with him. And I mean, when just thinking of like legendary quarterbacks,

it's always kind of been this way. It's either they go out just before it happens or they go out after it happens, but right after, and they don't hang around for too long. Dan Marino was another one. Dan Marino almost became a Minnesota Viking, but instead decided, nah, I'm washed. It's time to go. And that was probably the right choice.

And with Rodgers, it could happen at any time. We don't know when. It has never happened to Tom Brady. But even he had a year where he kind of faded a little bit. And it's like, okay, we need to put him now, instead of him carrying the whole thing with like the best supporting cast, an incredible offensive line, great wide receivers, an arid out coach in Tampa Bay. So it's worked to kind of hold off some of those things. But sometimes when you have the supporting cast drift a little bit, it can have more of an effect

if somebody is starting to get impacted by age and we don't have a good sense for when that's going to happen, like at what age exactly with legendary quarterbacks. The other thing is defense is just not very predictable. I remember last year, my memory is very sharp, Paul, except for when we were trying to remember the team from week one that I had literally just mentioned, then it went blank, but very, very sharp when it comes to last year and last offseason, because I never forget an old take that goes wrong. A lot of people were talking about the Washington football team defense and how Chase Young and the Washington football team defense had added,

I forget who, because my memory is sharp. I forget who in the secondary, but it was somebody, some corner that they added that was going to change everything for them william jackson i think it was and they were terrible i mean so like and everybody had every reason to think that their defense was going to be good but then chase young mysteriously doesn't play well and then he gets hurt and then jack del rio doesn't know what he's doing in a lot of different ways. And then like, it just goes downhill and their defense wasn't good. And so with the Packers, we were making this assumption that their defense is good.

But last year they lost Jair Alexander. They lost it, Aries Smith. And suddenly it was like, eh, pretty blit, uh, and running the football with a running back who has mileage. Uh, that's another thing with Aaron Jones that he doesn't have quite Delvin Cook mileage, but he has some mileage. And A.J. Dillon is kind of a guy that plows into the line. They'll probably be okay,

but a lot of success of running backs is reliant upon the offensive line. So when you're relying on old quarterback, in conclusion, when you're relying on old quarterback, running backs backs and defense there's just always a lot of room for this might not work for you and i think that's the best case now that doesn't mean i believe in that it's just that i think that for the first time since lafleur got there they are walking on a little bit more thin ice than they have been in

previous years. Yeah, I would, I mean, I would say that's fair. Uh, and we're finding other reasons other than the wide receiver group, but I think if none of those were compelling, the most compelling is that wide receiver group. And that's why you're going to look to them. And if any of these reasons come true, I guess Aaron Rogers might fall off a cliff, but we thought we were there a couple of years ago. and then he seemed to be rejuvenated by this offense um so maybe that happens again but i'm not gonna bet against like two reigning two-time mvp to to do that uh but yeah i mean when espn ranked all wide receiver groups the bottom three are baltimore atlanta and then green bay and then it's Chicago and Houston and Cleveland and Tennessee.

Like there aren't a lot of good teams in that bunch. Like generally the good teams have really good wide receivers. And the only way that you get around that is if you have a really, really amazing quarterback and two teams that are taking a bet on that this year that haven't in the past is the Packers and the chiefs. And I think it'll be really interesting to see how those two teams fare. They're betting on Rodgers and on Mahomes, and they're kind of like cast of wide receivers to fill in the gaps of what

Devonta Adams and Tyreek Hill can do. And I'll be interested to see if their gambles pay off and they actually work or if having really good wide receivers is a nice thing to have. And even if you are a great quarterback, you might want it. Aaron Rogers' worst season, I think it was 2015. That was like Devontae Adams' first year. He wasn't very good. It was Randall Cobb and James Jones were the other two,

an older James Jones and then Randall Cobb. And you, at that point, started to kind of see the limitations that Randall Cobb wide receiver one could have that I think we then realized over the last couple of years. but that was his worst, uh, year in terms of PFF grade, uh, statistic, uh, statistics wise, it just wasn't one of his better years. And it correlated with not having a great wide receiver unit. So I think there's some other options, some other reasons, offensive line, running back defenses along the, or injuries along the defense that could cause it. Um, but I think the most obvious and the one that could cause it um but i think the most

obvious and the one that seems to make the most sense for biting them in the in the butt is is that wide receiver group but with any i mean to the injury point i think any team really can't sustain those so if the packers can't i don't think any team can but that is kind of the formula for how you do these things and they may look like they don't have a ton of downsides and then one injury happens and suddenly jair alex Alexander goes down in that whole secondary forgets how to cover because they don't have that guy or I mean maybe that's a bad example because he was there he was gone last year but you know what I mean um so yeah well and and it wasn't as good last year when you went down and they had um you know a player to step up, but it wasn't the same as having somebody who is an island corner.

And that matchup, I'm sure this will be a show later in the week, but the best matchups in this game, I mean, that's got to be number one, Jair Alexander against Justin Jefferson. So here's my next question for you. How many players do you think in all of pro sports are named James Jones? No, I'm just kidding. But there's got to be like, there's got to be like there's got to be like does a lot like eight nine to have the i mean historically uh there's got to be dozens of james joneses in the nfl nba maybe even uh maybe even a stay-at-home defenseman in

hockey i haven't even i haven't even google searched it yet but just in the populated list i have a wide receiver. I have a basketball player. I have a baseball player and a basketball coach. All in the populated list. I haven't clicked on anything yet. So I think you're onto something there. I mean, imagine how many wrong numbers they get.

So here's actually my real question. Going into week one, you have a new new head coach i don't know if you've heard about this but let's say that uh let's say kevin o'connell called you uh wrong number but he says like oh who is this oh you're the purple insider guy cco radio okay the good neighbor like right still around huh and uh he says well hey well i got you here because i just punched in the wrong number i got paul hodowanek it's my first game man just uh never done this before as a head coach what what advice can you give me as a uh as a long time understander of vikings football what what can you tell me to help me with my first game?

Yeah. Let's hope this doesn't happen because then the Vikings are in a bad spot if Kevin O'Connell is asking me for advice. Well, he's making small talk. He's trying to become like a Minnesotan. No matter where you are, who you're talking to, before you say goodbye, even if you called someone for a wrong number, you'd have to be like, oh yeah, it looks like it's going to you'd have to be like, Oh yeah, it looks like it's going to be a nice weekend for weather. Oh yeah. Yeah. I got my first football game. What do you think? Got any advice? Like that's just a Minnesota goodbye. He's not calling you specifically.

Okay. All right. Well, you know what I would tell Kevin, Kevin, what I want from you really truly is to just like, I think some coaches when they become head coaches can kind of freak out by the fact that they're a head coach and they start doing things that they've haven't done before. They start calling plays and doing things they haven't done before. Cause they have control. I would just,

Hey, Kevin, you're a handsome guy. You've ran a couple offenses. You've gotten to this point. Just keep doing those things. You know where you came from you came from the rams that offense is pretty good you seem to pick that up pretty well

uh i know you may want to add your own new little wrinkles here but if it ain't broke don't fix it my man i would say call the plays that you see fit like try not to reinvent the wheel here you have justin jefferson you have Dalvin cook, you have Adam Thielen, you should have Irv Smith back and you have a capable quarterback. Who's very well equipped to put the ball in their hands and let them do the work. I would say,

let them do the work and we don't need to do trick plays. We don't need to get fancy. Like Justin Jefferson is going to be open. I'm like 80% of his routes. Just tell Kirk to find him and dial up plays to get him the ball I don't think it has to be very difficult and I think the best coaches are a lot of the times the ones we don't have to talk about for doing these crazy scheme things remember when we loved Kellen Moore because he was doing some weird scheme things did he get a head coaching job I don't think so. Like some of these things don't have to be that hard. And so I would just tell Kevin, you know, Kevin,

I really just want you to run the offense and kind of facilitate this. And if you're not a storyline, that means this team's winning most likely. So I just keep it simple. Okay. Follow-ups here. Yep. On the phone with Kevin O'Connell, Keep it simple. Okay. Follow-ups here. Yep. On the phone with Kevin O'Connell, Hey,

would you call him my man? As you just did, like, would you refer to, would you be like my man? This is what you need to do. Or are you just saying that now? Cause he's not actually here. And the other thing is,

would you tell him you're a handsome guy as far, like you're trying to pump him up and tell him to believe in himself. But like, that would be part of your like way of pumping him up is telling him that he's handsome right yeah no one that watched the youtube or the podcast knows what matt and i do to pump each other up before the podcast but we're just showering each other with compliments so this right and maybe ones that we keep off off air we might not. But yeah, so I'm just, I'm trying to get my man confident. Again, my man.

And so, yes, I would call him my man. It's better than like, I don't know. Yes, Mr. Kevin Sir, head coach of the Vikings. I think we got to make him feel comfortable here. We got to make him feel like he's one of us. You know, that's our favorite thing to say. Oh, is he one of us? I don't know kevin you

can be as long as you don't run it on second and ten a ton so let's let's just get that out of the way um and yeah make him feel comfortable any way you can i mean your first game coaching at home against the packers and aaron rogers it's not the easiest place to just enter in like i think any of those games we just rattled off, I think he probably would have liked those better Falcons, Bengals, saints, like that doesn't come with the pressure and what Vikings fans expect when

they play Aaron Rogers. Like they want to beat him, especially at home more than any other team. So it's not exactly the easiest, easiest start to a head coaching career. That's for sure. Do you know what match game is? You ever see that on the game show channel?

Big game show channel guy when I was young. Oh, OK. So, I mean, this sounds like a match game of like, yeah, Paul and I always give each other weird compliments to pump each other up. It gets so crazy that I tell Paul he's good at blank. Dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude. My answer would be putting. I can putt. I tell Paul he's good at putting.

You're a great putter, Paul. Just keep your eye on the hole or the ball. Whatever makes a good putter. However it's going in. I appreciate that. I picked the wrongest thing you could say about that. About you. Okay. Well, I, I played today. No one, no one cares.

I made some putts though. So, you know, I was feeling my, I was, you know, I took that as, as a true statement because I was putting well today. So, Oh, okay. Well, I didn't know that you were putting once again. I was, I feel really good about it right now. And I'm going to choose to take your compliment in truth and not in jest. So thank you. Okay. Well, it gets so crazy before the show as we pump each other up that you say that I am good at blank. Oh, wow. Yeah. See,. This is when it gets hard. Matt is good. Matt's good at Matt's good at coming up with random jingles throughout a podcast. I would say that. And so when he goes on one, just know that I've told him he's really good at doing these.

So he has extra confidence to do the random jeopardy music or whatever um weird um song that comes out i can't wait to see what comes up this year i'm sure there'll be tons of new ones oh uh what does that stat mean is definitely coming back see you gave a a nice compliment that's actually true i was mocking you on the golf course but either way that that kind of man really yeah kind of defines the bit here yeah um so let me ask you this before i get to a couple of interesting fan questions that people have sent uh do you think wait for it yeah the minnesota vikings pause yep dramatic win the game do you think they'll win what do do you think? What do you think is going to happen this week, Paul?

I don't think they're going to win in week one. For all the reasons we've kind of subtly talked about, I don't necessarily think the Packers have a ton of holes specifically on defense, which is where the strength of this Vikings team, I think, is going to be the offense. I think they can have a top 10 offense and the Packers defensive unit might not stay healthy all season, but they're healthy most for the most part there. They might miss Darnell Savage on the backend, which would be, you know, a miss on someone they'd want to have, but I think they're going to be relatively healthy and i think that defense with jair alexander on uh justin jefferson matches up pretty well and just aaron rogers has a history of in

big games at us bank stadium um kind of taking the air out of the out of the tires here and so and i don't necessarily think the vikings have the pieces on defense in terms of the secondary pieces to necessarily lock down the alan lazards and the Romeo Dobbs. Like I think they can still get open against Patrick Peterson and Chandon Sullivan and such. So I think the Packers win. I think it's relatively close. I think the spreads Packers minus two. So I would probably take the Packers there by a field goal or a little bit

more. I, I just think, I think we think too much in like the day-to-day granular uh position but first year head coaches a lot of them don't do well there's gonna be a couple that don't do well that we don't expect and a lot of them get off to slow starts as they're trying to figure out their ability of coaching when they're going to use their challenges when they're going to use their timeouts when to go for the deep shot when when to not, when to do all these things.

And I think it's just going to take time. And the Packers are much more experienced with Aaron Rodgers, much more experienced with Matt LaFleur. And so I think the Packers win the game, but I don't necessarily think it's one of those blowouts where you're deflate, where Rodgers walks off and you feel deflated about your team. I think this Vikings team can be competitive with the Packers in the division, but I think the Packers are just better roster-wise. They have a better quarterback. Right now, they have a better

coach, and usually when those things line up, that means that team's going to win, so I think the Packers win by a couple. Well, I'll say it all week, and people can old takes expose me if it turns out to be wrong, but I think the Vikings will win this game because Aaron Rodgers is making that adjustment with his new receivers inside U.S. Bank Stadium, one of the few places in the NFL that still actually has an impact on the opposing quarterback that hasn't been solved. I mean, they've sort of found by studying it

that a lot of home stadiums aren't really doing a whole lot anymore, but I think this one will. And the other thing is that even though you always get concerned about Kirk Cousins sort of getting too wired up, he hasn't done that really against the Packers. He's had a lot of really good performances, especially at home. Last year was fantastic. 2018 was terrific. I mean, he's had some good showings against the Packers at US Bank Stadium.

And even, I mean, that first week they took like a safety and there was a bad Kirk pick. He ended up with good numbers in 2020. But just overall, when you analyze the games against the Packers, it's not like, oh, Cousins always melts down. Like, I think he has some pretty good performances there. The fact that they can game plan for as long as they can, that the Packers offensive line might not be all perfectly set and good at this moment going against the Darius and Daniel Hunter. Those guys are completely healthy. I think the Vikings are in a slightly better position here and that they will win a very close game against the Packers. That's how

I'm going to pick it. And, uh, you know, neither one of us are, don't take your gambling advice from us. Like we have a lot to say about the team, but whether they win or lose, uh, each game, uh, there's probably people who know how to hack systems and understand how to pick games better than us. So anyway, or at least against the spread and things like that, but that's how it's forecast. If you need betting advice, don't take it from us. Yes. Those, those guys know mathematically much better than we do. Okay. So there was at least one, I think we've got time for here. One really interesting question that was sent to me after my conversation with Tyler Dunn about Mike Zimmer and you know, Kevin O'Connell's new culture and all that. If you didn't catch that. And if you didn't catch the interview with Matt Daniels,

he was super fun. Brian McFadden was also on that show but matt daniels the viking special teams coordinator is just go back and find it i mean he it was super great to talk to but just my observation about him in general is kind of has like head coach vibes someday so the younger coach now doing the special teams but thinks about the game game in sort of an analytical way and is really smart and went to Duke. And we talk about that a little bit. So anyway, all right, here's the question. This came to me on Twitter from at the hill rat heard the last podcast about the Vikings unleashing the McVay offense. And let's see, you have to agree with you that you need to see if Kirk Cousins can actually do it. So what I said, just for context, was that they're giving him the whole Stafford offense

instead of the training wheels version is how it looks to me. And so this is sort of endorsing the idea. Everything Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomensa does this year is to see if Kirk can handle it. I have to imagine the competitive rebuild part was based on telling the Wilfs, we'll see what we have with Kirk, but if it's not there, we can jettison him and then have cap space and draft capital. So the competitive is this year, and if Kirk can do it, then they add to this roster.

Otherwise, it's a rebuild. You know, I think that there's definitely truth to that for sure that you have to put it all on him because if you go training wheels, then why'd you bring him back? You could have done training wheels with Marcus Mariota or Jameis Winston or whoever else you could have signed for way the heck cheaper in free agency. You decided to pay for Kirk because you wanted to go full offense. So you have to do it. And then if it doesn't work, you certainly have the plausible deniability of like, well, we had to make a call and we made a call, but whoops, he can't handle it. Now we have to trade him. That could result in not the most

fun season though, of course. And that's the hard part of it is they're kind of taking the wide variance swing. If it works, it could be the best offense they've had with Kirk. If it doesn't, it could be the worst. Um, because then you're talking about turnovers and frustration and everything else. The downside of that is that your coach immediately looks like he doesn't know what he's doing now. It may be 3d chess, but he, but we'll be going, uh, why aren't you just running the boots? My friend, my man, why aren't you just running the boots? my friend, my man? Why aren't you just running the boots? I also, I don't watch a lot of college football during the season, but my wife was broadcasting the Florida game on radio. And so I had TV on, on the game, and I had her broadcast on radio.

So I watched myself some Anthony Richardson. I'm going to tell you what, I don't really care how Kirk performs in this offense. Anthony Richardson. That's the guy. That's the guy we'll be watching because he made this play where he jumped up in the air, like he was going to throw it.

And then he pulled it back. And then he ran away from a dude and threw a touchdown. And that wasn't even his best play of the day. His best play was a 45 yard touchdown run. And then he leads a game winning drive. And it's like against one of the best play of the day. His best play was a 45-yard touchdown run, and then he leads a game-winning drive, and it's like against one of the best teams in the country that has a really good defense and a lot of returning players. It's like, okay, so remember,

this draft class is not Kenny Pickett, and it's not Sam Howell. It's dudes, so let's not lose sight of that. If they are trying to play 3d chess with like let's find out if he can really do it i suggest not i suggest staying at at very most on this course no matter what happens and if kirk is great then play out the final year of his contract in 2023 and turn it over to another quarterback unless he joeacco's and wins the Superbowl because the Kansas city chiefs moved on from Alex Smith after he led the league in quarterback rating.

And they were in the playoffs. Like it's just the way of the world. Uh, when you don't have one of those freight quarterbacks and he will also, he'll be 35 by the start of next season. Like, I don't think that it should change the course. I don't think they should play 3d chess. Like I think that they should try to go all out for the best they can, but if it doesn't work right away, put the training wheels on and try to win because I think your long-term plan still needs to be Anthony Richardson or someone of the like, I just was, wow, like that guy can play. Uh, but someone of the like, I just was, wow, like that guy can play. But someone of the like, who's going to be the 10 year quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings,

not, oh, you know, maybe we could do some more things for Kirk. There's nothing more you could do for Kirk, by the way. There's no more receivers that you can get them. You decided not to Jamison Williams, but the guy's got three good ones. One unbelievable one. There's nothing where you've improved the offensive line. You draft everyone you can, and you got them the most offensive coach in the world. So yeah, I don't know. Like even, even if it works, that setup will also work for someone else who can run or throw it harder or make plays outside of structure. Right. So, uh, and, and like look the los angeles rams were in the playoffs and they said jared goff's not good enough like i think that that this if they're if they're doing that that is a dangerous game that's what i would say right and i i would say you want koc to find

kirk's limit like find kirk's or his limited, what his limitations are, his upper echelon limitations and figure out if he's comfortable with those. Like that's, that's the point of this season in a lot of ways, because if we go back to kind of the places that Kweisi and KOC have been, we've seen that happen recently. Kyle Shanahan figured out what Jimmy G's limitations were, and he still wasn't comfortable with that despite them going to the Super Bowl

and them getting really close. He said, I did absolutely everything I could for Jimmy, and I still think we need to do something else. So it doesn't necessarily need to be on the results of what Kirk does or does not do in terms of guiding them to the playoffs. It really, in Kevin O'Connell's and Kweisi's mind, need to be like, can we live with Kirk's limitations

and how far do we conceivably think that can go? Because Kyle Shanahan saw Garoppolo's and said, going to the Super Bowl might not be enough. We're still going to start Trey Lance the next year. And Sean McVay, similarly with Jared Goff, said, I can scheme Jared Goff to the Super Bowl, but we're going to take this opportunity. If it's going to come to move on from him and get another guy.

And in, even in Cleveland with the Deshaun Watson situation, like that's where Casey just came from. They had Baker. They made it to the second round of the playoffs last year. They were trending well, then he gets hurt and they saw another opportunity they saw kind of that dangerous limitations and decided off him despite the success so i don't

necessarily think like this can needs to be results based in terms of wins losses for this team it really has to be for kevin o'connell how comfortable he is with kirk and his ceiling and his whatever his limitations are and what he deems them to be and Kevin O'Connell, how comfortable he is with Kirk and his ceiling and his, whatever his limitations are and what he deems them to be. And if he thinks that's a viable strategy moving forward. And so, yeah, it seems like most of the question marks around him, like in science, you've got like all, you're trying to control as many variables as possible. So you can evaluate one of them. Like they're trying to do that on the offense. There's still kind of these loose ends on the offensive line and at other spots that make it a little bit hard for you to i don't necessarily know what if anything results will dictate as much as the process and them kind of seeing kirk and what they think they can do

with him that that's ultimately going to be the biggest factor i don't know if it's a playoff birth or anything like that see i don't think of this season at all as competitive rebuild just because you say it doesn't mean I have to agree with you. You have to show me how. And cutting the entire 2021 draft class is not competitive rebuild stuff. I think that, not that I disagree with any of the cuts, I just think that you don't do that if you're doing anything rebuild-wise. Then you move on from older players and stuff like that.

They didn't do any of that they signed all older players this is not a find out season i don't think for me for me it's not for me it's entirely win the games go deep in the playoffs and then you know you get to the end of that road and then we'll talk about where you're at and what you have to do i mean but in my mind there's about a 10 chance or less that they go to the nfc championship that's probably a little rich for this team i mean consider all the seasons in vikings history they've been to the nfc championship only a handful of times so like it's hard to get there if they go to the nfc championship it's probably like five percent seven percent chance that they could actually do that then we can talk about extending him under almost every other circumstance it's really hard because you don't

you don't copy and paste the season before i know i say this all the time but like you have to it's going to be a new scenario it's going to be a lame duck quarterback who you have to probably extend again or not after after next year then it's going to be the age thing. It's going to, like, it's got to, we have to assess that it's sort of the end of the rainbow there and decide what you want to do. But if you told anyone, you have one of the most expensive quarterbacks in the league,

quarterback prices are going up after Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins is taking no less if he has a good year again than a gazillion dollars and his agent is a Greek god of negotiation, just draft a quarterback. I really think that all roads lead to draft a quarterback that aren't NFC championship. All roads lead to Anthony Richardson or CJ Stroud or Bryce Young. They all take you you there so win games like that's that's it like this year is it because otherwise you're having to take a different direction after this season that's kind of how I look at it I don't see it as be I do think that they if they were indeed

told to keep Kirk Cousins for this year by the Wilfs if he can't handle what O'Connell wants him to do offensively, then of course you can go back to them and say, well, I don't think we should extend them again because everything, right? But I don't need to know more myself. I think if they have a really good offensive year, that's great. And if they put themselves in a place where they can go into the playoffs, trying to compete for a Superbowl, that's great. That's my expectation, but it doesn't change my mind about where they should go in the future because we've seen other teams do the same thing. And you brought up San Francisco, like Jimmy was going to be expensive and he's beat up and he's older now. He's not super, super young. So you got to move

on. But it's a really interesting discussion. I think now we flip the switch to every single week and there's a lot of pressure on Kevin O'Connell. And this isn't a typical year one where it's like, Hey, my, maybe Brian Dable won't be a complete joke. How about Dan Campbell last year? Hilarious. I mean, Dan Campbell's out here winning two games and the media is like, dude, he's doing so much better than the last guy. It's like the bar was not set that low and you didn't act like, oh, we're resetting the whole thing like Dan Campbell did. Or I mean, with the New York Giants, like they if they win seven games and look reasonably decent, they're going to be like, oh, OK, we'll just get a quarterback and put it with this good coach. The Vikings, I don't think, are in that situation. So there's a lot of pressure going into week one.

I just thought that that was a great question, and there will be more fans only as we go along. But that was just a really good question. So anyhow, football this week, we will have you completely covered top to bottom, as you might expect on the show. Paul, thank you, as always, for a fun and entertaining show. week we will have you completely covered top to bottom as you might expect on the show paul thank you as always for uh a fun and entertaining show and you know what paul i'm just gonna set the record straight you're a good golfer you're good like you play well uh you've got a really nice

swing and you have your poor moments as all amateurs do but as far as golfers i know you are uh you're one of the better ones i would say well i i really appreciate that um thank you so much you're much better of a driver of the golf ball than i am so i'm a beast about that yeah yeah i mean let's just be honest here i think what the valuable thing we've learned this episode is my man is Kevin O'Connell. Your man is Anthony Richardson. I can foresee that name being at the top of your list for most of the season. So I'm excited for that. I will actually be watching Florida Gators football just for him,

the same way we watched Zach Wilson once upon a time. Yes. Better results, hopefully. Well, as they say, stay tuned there. There will be a big announcement in the purple insider world this week also. So if you made it to 49 minutes and 30 seconds into this podcast, then congratulations.

That's coming. And we'll talk to you all later. Football.