Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What did Vikings HC Mike Zimmer mean when he said he 'miscalculated?' Ft. ESPN's Courtney Cronin

Episode Date: January 7, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin talk about all the things that Mike Zimmer may have meant when talking about miscalculating the offseason, namely relying on players that hadn't been proven in the past. We talk about his refreshing honesty in the postseason press conference but break down some of the explanations that don't exactly match up. Plus we talk about the fans being split between rosey views and very harsh negative views on the team's future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Well, welcome to another episode of Brooklyn Insider. Matthew Collar here, and joining me on the show, as always, ESPN's Courtney Crone. What's up Courtney? Just trying to stay focused on football right now. Just trying to keep my keep my blinders on and focus on football. You know it has been the hardest time in the entire history of the nation to just stick to sports but that's what we have to do I suppose. That was even harder with a pandemic going on and all the things that happened this year to do that.

But we did it, and we made it to the end of Viking season, and we had another Mike Zimmer end-of-season press conference. And there are two press conferences a year that I legitimately look forward to because they are insightful insightful and they are interesting and they are Mike Zimmer at, in my opinion, his best. And that is at the NFL Combine where he's usually relaxed and he's moved on from the frustrations or successes of a previous season. And then he's kind of looking forward and he's often very insightful

about how the team thinks about things and we learn a lot at the Combine there is a combine hopefully we have some access to that we'll see how that goes but the other one is the post-season press conference and this one was a little different because it's via zoom and it didn't have the same type of feel to it but i also thought that there was some introspection from the head coach of the Vikings and some news that broke of moving on from Marwan Malouf and a number of other things that he addressed that are key issues going forward. So maybe we can just start with your thought on what the most interesting thing to come out of Mike Zimmer's mouth the other day was well I think the most interesting thing was the fact that he finally admitted that he miscalculated how the defense was going to handle all of the changes uh from last offseason his exact quote was I probably miscalculated some things going into the season when we lost all the guys that we lost the year before and then he goes on to list the two corners

the nickelback the backup safety the backup defensive end starting defensive end the starting nose tackle like we've been saying this you and I have been saying this others on the beat have been saying this since March of last year when in a matter of a week you have nine players leave in free agency some that you cut some that you pushed out the door and others that you just weren't planning to keep anyways um it's just like because it makes you think when you know I know a lot of people are still not up in arms but like still a little irked by the maybe seven and nine was all like you know paraphrasing here maybe seven and nine was the best we could do quote that he ended his Sunday press conference against Detroit with.

And then you go a couple of days later and you say, well, maybe I miscalculated it. Like there's a couple of things that don't line up there because that makes me think, should they have changed their approach? If they are admitting now that they miscalculated it, why couldn't they see it in the moment when it was so clear to everybody else? That's just kind of like where I – it just feels very disjointed because, you know, I was always told die with the lie.

If you believe something, just hold on to it until the end. And I was honestly kind of surprised to see that Mike Zimmer kind of reneged on that and, like, went back on what he said because for so long they were trying to paint a different picture of this team and then when they came up short now they can admit that they miscalculated it that didn't make a whole ton of sense to me so i was thinking about the what it means to be um or to miscalculate because that's a word that you and i used a lot throughout the season and we accused them of that and for Mike Zimmer to say it in a way it was sort of refreshing because oftentimes he will have a long list of explanations

and sometimes they don't always point the finger in the mirror when it comes to Mike Zimmer sometimes it will be well it was John DiFilippo well it was the injuries well it was x y and z and of course yes he mentioned the players leaving. He mentioned the injuries at one point where he added up the number of players that were gone for X number of games and that sort of thing. And there's some legitimacy to that. But I think that the miscalculation was not that those players couldn't be replaced because the production of Everson Griffin, Linval Joseph, Xavier Rhodes, Mackenzie Alexander, and Trey Waynes, the production in 2019 was

just okay across the board from them. And in some cases like Xavier Rhodes, bad. So could those players' production have been replaced? Yes, but not with the group that they had. And I think the miscalculation, and I want to know who you kind of point this at, is entrusting players that they already had sample sizes on, and in my view should have known that it wasn't going to work. I'm going to give you the list here, and I alluded to this in another episode

with Sam Monson, but I didn't go through the whole list. I'm going to give you the list here of players that they had a sample size on, at least one season to evaluate, and they trusted for very big roles. Afadia Denebo, Jaleel Johnson, Jalen Holmes, Armond Watts, Holton Hill, Chris Boyd, Hercules Mata'afa, and Mike Hughes was trusted for a huge role, but of course got hurt for the third time in three years or whatever it is. And I'm just going to go through it, the rankings of where these players ended up by PFF. So Afadi Adenabo was 41st among defensive ends that were starting defensive ends. Jaleel Johnson, 71st out of 71 starting defensive attacks. Jalen Holmes, zero sacks, 109th out of 124.

Armond Watts, 79th out of 139. Holton Hill, 123 out of 136. Chris Boyd, 84th out of 136. And Hercules Mata'afa, 61st out of 124. And of course, Mike Hughes didn't play enough snaps to even qualify. So, you know, the way I look at it is who is to be blamed for that? Is it the general manager in the front office for saying, hey, we've given you these players through the draft and development,

now develop them. Is it the coaching staff for not demanding better players or cutting those guys? I don't know. I think it's a cumulative effort to get to that point where those players came up short because and I don't mean to just kind of go off the deep end here but I mean they drafted Jalen Holmes when he had no sacks in college I mean what did you expect him to do in the NFL and then you saw him do nothing the first couple years what did you expect him to do when he got a job in the NFL?

You know, I think that's the case for a lot of players. No, I agree with you. And I think that they took their backups this year. All these other guys were backups at one point. They took their backups and made them be starters. So they didn't have backups then. Like, because then your backups, which would have been like an Armond Watts, was not ready to be a backup yet,

not ready to be more than just a bare rotational player. And even he was playing more than he probably should his second year when he was, you know, a very green player when they got him out of Arkansas. A six-round pick who, you know, had only played really one season of college football, and now he's, you know, in a much bigger role in the NFL. Like, it's not his fault, but I agree with you that it's a cumulative effort that we got to this point with the Vikings, because what happened?

They didn't have enough money in free agency to go out and make big um you know big splash and you know bring somebody else in go sign a veteran defensive end go sign um you know a snacks harrison something like that i mean they spent their money on michael pierce but he opted out whatever but this we knew this was going to happen in the 2020 offseason dating back to when when Anthony Barr signed his deal when he jettisoned the Jets and said, I want to stay in Minnesota. And the Vikings, he took a pay cut, yet the Vikings kind of overpaid for him because they weren't going to do that initially. They were ready to move on.

He wasn't in the plans. And so I feel like the financial decisions that they made from 2018 on have put them in this position where they were never going to be able to get top tier free agent talent to replace guys that even Mike Zimmer said, you know, you've been here for seven years, you're gonna have turnover like that. Eventually, you had guys who were on the other side of 30. And, you know, players like Xavier Rhodes, like it is kind of amazing when I do that case study between who was the problem, Rhodes or Mike Zimmer. Look at how he's playing with Indianapolis. Look who he's going to be lined up against in the wildcard round against Buffalo. It's kind of telling, you know, Diggs-Rhodes matchup in the postseason, I'm here for it. So I just, I just look at this whole thing and think that everybody kind of played a role in miscalculating it. But from the players' perspective, none of these guys were supposed to be starting anyways. I mean, the one that you could probably say would have been, like, by now, like, it's on you at this point, is Mike Hughes. Because, and that's not, you know, I know you can't blame guys.

You cannot fault people for getting injured. But, like, it falls on somebody here. Even if it's not your fault, it's still, like like you got injured. That is the reason that you're not playing. It's not some, you know, something created out of thin air. That's the reason you're not playing. You got hurt and they can't trust you because you're hurt all the time. And the best availability is, or best ability is availability. You don't have that. You know, Holton Hill, for example, like he just, he just you know that was they gave him a long leash so that's also on him because yeah you know the the development part you're not able to

develop if you're constantly suspended and you're dealing with off the field issues and i mean he had a foot injury this year they put him on ir he's on the commissioner's exemplist for like just to be able to get around the roster rule, and then all of a sudden they release him. So I don't know. I think it's a situation that in, you know, in the bottom line is that this is a front office and a coaching problem. But you really, you know, these coaches knew. You can't – they tried to sell us on the fact that these guys were starting caliber players and they can do things.

But, you know, they knew what they were dealing with, they just, you know, out of respect for them, they didn't want to throw these guys completely under the bus and run the bus over them and be like, they're terrible. These are not starting caliber players. They were making the best of what they could with a really not so great bunch. And so as we pick apart what Mike Zimmer means to say that they miscalculated, I also think part of that is Michael Pierce opting out was a heavy crutch for them. I mean, they leaned on that a lot. It was in every sentence of while Hunter got hurt and Pierce opted out.

Here's the thing about Pierce opting out. That's problematic and about the Hunter issue too, about leaning on that and then miscalculating. Pierce gave you cap space and you didn't use it to fill the spot that he left. And so even though Pierce wasn't here, him opting out also gave you an opportunity to do something else. And you didn't do it. You trusted players like Holton Hill, as you mentioned, that had not shown anything at any point. I mean, a couple of games, a couple of throws against in 2018 was it for him for a sample size, and you said, yeah, you're our starter from day one.

I mean, you had some money to work with, and you decided to pour it into Yannick Ngakwe and take it from Riley Reif. And so that's a miscalculation too. And I think that if Zimmer comes out and says our front office miscalculated, then we've got serious drama. But there has to be something in there as well to say when Pierce gave you that cap space, you didn't use it to replace him and you trusted players that how did you not know? I mean, how did you not know that Shamar Stephan and Jaleel Johnson couldn't hold up for 16 games?

I mean, they could barely hold up for a game or two games against mediocre opponents when they had to do this in previous years, and now you're asking them to do it against the New Orleans Saints in New Orleans with that offensive line? I mean, what did you think was going to happen? Sorry, go ahead. No, the Jaleel Johnson thing's a great example this is his fourth year he's not coming back next year took you four years to like realize that you couldn't trust this guy to be your three technique and that like this was not going to work out like I can't believe that like they knew long before this that that was not the right fit at that position, yet they went with it anyways. And I can't fully blame the coaches because they're not the ones who are making roster decisions with this group.

And Andre Patterson's trying to do what he can with his defensive line group, but he's only able to do what he can with who they give him. So I don't really understand a way around that. But, you know, all of that said said how did you expect the result to be any different like you couldn't you couldn't like you can't tell me you can't you know you just can't tell me that it was supposed to be any different than the way it turned out because you'd be lying to yourself if you thought that you could really like force a square peg into a round hole here and something that wasn't going to work to begin with. Right.

And the defensive end point, there's another point there about the rushers is if you keep drafting guys who don't sack anyone in college because they vaguely reflect Daniel Hunter athletically. And I do mean vaguely because he is one of the, I mean, all time NFL combine performances. And so when you draft, and I don't know what will happen with this guy but DJ Wanham to me is not a huge part of the future for this team uh that's a that's

a guy who and he could prove me wrong he definitely could but he's a guy who didn't sack anyone in college and didn't sack anyone in the NFL and Jalen Holmes didn't sack anyone in college like if these guys it's sort of like a quarterback who has a, you know, 45% completion percentage in college. Like, it might work out. And every once in a while it does. But for the most part, are you trusting that guy? If he's not accurate in college, he's going to be accurate in the NFL? It's the same sort of thing.

Hunter is an outlier because he is one of the most athletic freaks. And he's also a really bright dude who puts a ton of work into his craft and he was able to maximize that in the NFL but if you think that you're just going to draft guys in the fourth round over and over again and have to rely on them that's going to be a miss so when I think about this defense and how it ended up how it ended up I mean I look at much more of the front office and how it was put together than anything else than the way it was coached or schemed, because I don't think there's an answer for getting your butt whooped up front. I think that it was the front office believing in a lot of the players that they drafted. And we know this has been a criticism before of this team that you just keep running Pat Elfline out there over and over again, right?

Because you drafted them. And so you got to do that. That's the same sort of feeling with, I mean, if they played Watts all season and not Johnson, it's not going to be different. But it's, hey, well, we got to keep playing the guy that we drafted. And then it all ties into when you put your money into five people. This is the thing that everyone, in my opinion, should take from the Patriot way. The Patriot way shouldn't be some goofy, weirdo culture thing where you're mean to everybody. It should be that you are smart and wise with your money. That, you know, when Jamie Collins wants a massive contract, you're like, nah, we can replace Jamie Collins. So let's let him go and spend that money on three other free agents instead.

That's what the Vikings didn't do here. So I think that I don't point this and say, oh, Mike Zimmer forgot how to defense. I don't think that. I think that they just tried to put a bunch of guys out there and hope and pray for a Hail Mary, and the Hail Mary came short. Yeah, I mean, there was nothing – like, Afadio Denebo made that comment on Monday that – and I think he was honestly the most poignant one that spoke of any of the players doing their extra interviews. You know, he was angry, and he was not happy with the way that things ended up this season.

And for him, you know, not knowing and he was not happy with the way that things ended up this season and for him you know knowing not knowing really what his future holds like I think that was a good embodiment and some other guys were like no I'm excited we have so much to build on yay I'm like no no like that's that's not I think for that fan for this fan base doesn't yeah of course you want to have some sort of like tangible uh belief that the team's going to get better and all that and have signs that point to it. But all of that said, I really appreciated the raw honesty when he said the comment about championship teams, it's not a matter of who's there and who's not, they find a way to get it done and yes that is a little short-sighted because it is incredibly difficult to form a championship roster when you don't have elite players to do it that's just you can't no no championships ever been won by backups i'm sorry just you know they're backups who play a very important backup role but not a starter so

there really wasn't much that they could do with the crop that they had they didn't go after the free agent pieces to help fix this instead like you mentioned with pierce like you know the the the smoking gun to all of this like you and i have talked about multiple times of pointing to the fact that they did believe they were all in was going to get unique in Gakue. And you spent $6 million for like six games for him to be here for two months. And what did that yield you? Absolutely nothing. So they just miscalculated some of the important moves. They had a knee-jerk reaction to certain things,

which made them pull the wrong lever and then there's nothing like there's nothing you can do about it at that point like you know I just I you know it brings me back to like you know the draft if you didn't if you didn't get so greedy with your draft capital would Trent Williams be here would Ezra Cleveland would you even have drafted him would you have been able to do something else I mean Trent Williams is the number one graded left tackle by pro football focus this season and I'm not saying Riley Reif I mean Riley Reif had an above average yet again above average season he's a middle of the pack offensive lineman he's really good for this team I honestly think you know that they

should extend him because he's got a high cap hit next year. You really don't want to cut him. I think at this point, because it seems kind of noncommittal from talking to Gary and Mike about what they want to do with Ezra Cleveland. So I think that's a smart thing to do, but it felt like a lot of times this off season, they got a little too much cart before the horse mentality with some of the moves, franchising Anthony Harris, and then having the intention of trading him. You never really were going to, you were never going to extend him. You were never going to give him a long-term deal. You wanted to trade him.

Giants were interested. Cleveland was interested. You weren't interested in what the offer was back. Same thing with Trent Williams in the draft. Like you had a chance. You were one of the front running teams going into Friday. And then what? So I don't't know I'm it's to me it's more than just kind of like what happened in training camp and then beyond and like once you know we found out there's going to be a season

in the opt-out and everything else it's more than just the injuries I think this goes all the way back to you know just around this time last year when they're trying to construct this roster, knowing damn well that they were going to be losing a ton of pieces on this defensive side of the ball. They didn't really have a good plan for it. I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There are many great designs.

Someone on Twitter recently sent their John Randall shirt, and there's the Can't Stop the Feeling hats, We'll be right back. Hook you up with free shipping on your next order. Use the code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Soda Stick, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. The other part of the calculation is that if you're going to make up for having a really bad defense, there's only one way to do it, and that not an edge rusher from jacksonville that you pay a second round pick for that is more offense it really is like the only and i know that this show sometimes turns into mash the offense button just like more offense more passing but it really is the only way if you look at the teams that succeeded through bad defenses, and Tennessee is the best example. Now, Tennessee didn't throw a ton of passes. They did play from ahead more

often. But when you look at their expected points added through the pass, just like San Francisco last year, a highly efficient passing game that really drove their success. And then, of course, having Derrick Henry helps a ton when you're up in games. But Tennessee finished the year fifth in terms of expected points added through the pass. The Vikings were 10th. And the estimated by EPA number of points that's worth is 48 points over a season. If you give the Vikings 48 points over a season, they're making the playoffs this year and not sitting at home and watching the playoffs.

So, you know, I guess I know that I kind of just lean on that a lot and we bring it up a lot, but as if we're going down the laundry list of when you were adding up the numbers, how are we going to get to the playoffs next year? That was maybe something that was missed.

And you went into the season with a guard situation that wasn't good without a number three receiver all these things that that we've talked about so that's kind of the miscalculation and I just want to say to wrap up the point that I do appreciate Mike Zimmer saying that because I do too I appreciate the transparency because I know that's not an easy thing to admit you do only admit that if you if you know your job is safe that's just that's that's not an easy thing to admit. You do only admit that if you know your job is safe. That's just the bottom line there. You wouldn't have said that. And I get it.

We're all in this to make sure that we have jobs and we're able to keep doing what we're doing and keep getting paid. I totally understand that. It's not something that he could – he couldn't admit that. It's like for anybody who gets frustrated, and I get frustrated kind of with the ideology that, like, you could have probably ended up with the same result and traded some players at the deadline and helped your cap situation, helped build for next year. Yep.

But if you commit to, hey, we're going to – and I'm not going to call it tanking because that's not what it is. It's rebuilding. If we're going to commit to rebuilding, you're kind of handing in your pink slip at that point, being like, if you're a GM, if you're a coach – I get it. I totally get it I wish that it wasn't like that I wish that owners could kind of see through to a long-term like build of something great but people want immediate results um so that's why you can't openly say that but I think that people would be a lot more appreciative of a forthcoming nature in sports by just kind of saying what it is instead of after the fact being like yeah what are we supposed to do our hands were tied this year

be nice if we could hear that in the middle of the season but I also understand reality and the optics behind not being able to do that and that's why Mike Zimmer's post-season press conference is the best one or the most insightful because during the season, I mean, what's he going to say? You're playing the Lions and he's going to go, yeah, we screwed up the whole offseason, but, you know, I guess our guys will go fight for me against the Lions. I mean, I thought he pushed the limits of that this year to begin with, so I wouldn't expect it.

I just thought it was a sort of a moment of clarity of like, okay, you know, this, we tried to thread a very, very small needle and it didn't work. And now we've got to learn from that going forward. And the lesson is probably, hey, you know, if a guy shows you three years of sample size as a fourth round pick that he can't really handle a big role, you can't start the season with him in a big role. I mean, if he's got to take it on eventually down the road or whatever, okay, because that's life. But if you have five of those guys or six of those guys in a unit that are borderline NFL players, I mean, you're probably, no matter how good of a coach you are, probably not going to succeed. So you shouldn't make win-now moves. That happens, but you shouldn't make moves to try to push for a seventh playoff spot or whatever like you should be realistic about who

you are i agree well it's a it's a and just to finish that point like pushing for the like you can you sacrifice too much sometimes pushing for the seventh playoff spot i think we can see that you know and that's why i talk about dalvin cook and the workload and, you know, Mike Zimmer is going to continue to reiterate that they want the best players on the field and critical moments, of course, but I feel like they really were eyeing that seventh playoff seed so much so that you hope it doesn't cost you next year with any sort of injuries or anything that comes out of this, that they got you know so locked

into that and being like do you really I mean what are you going to do with the seventh playoff seed you're going to win games or are you just going to be in the dance and you'll be happy to be there like that's you got to weigh what's worth it and what's not I totally totally agree and that's where you know I think they will look back as they have the 14th pick and say yeah maybe yeah maybe a couple of those wins against Jacksonville and Carolina they just didn't make a difference in the long run not that I wanted you to throw them like hey Kirk throw a couple picks on purpose or something or you know bench Kirk to play Mannion Philadelphia is taking a little heat from that with benching Jalen Hurts. So I'm not suggesting that that's a great plan if you want to stay as the head coach. Like you said, you start doing that, that's when your career as the Vikings head coach is over,

when you stop trying to win. From a front office perspective, I think that's where I look at it and say, somebody could have used Riley Rafe if you're not going to use him in the future. Tennessee could have. Remember that? Right. I mean, yeah them in uh Baltimore not that you want to trade with Baltimore anymore you keep keep losing keep losing those trades but

um yeah I mean Tennessee was definitely the the choice uh but you know there's a handful of teams out that even Dallas was still in a race and they needed a left tackle and you know maybe they get it if uh Riley Reif is their left tackle so um marwin maloof is out i have nothing to say about that other than like well yeah i mean once you can't necessarily you know you look at that and it wasn't just dan bailey this year like there were issues with the coverage units i mean you remember the lasting image I'll have is the screaming match. Mike Zimmer screaming at Marwan Maloof in Chicago week 10 when they kick a ball. The kickoff goes to Cordero Patterson and he returns it like 102 yards for a touchdown. As he does.

As one does if you're Cordero Patterson. But I look at that situation with special teams. Like their longest punt return this year was like somewhere between like 11 and 15 yards. Like they just didn't have any sort of like spark with special teams and the kicking issues compounded everything. So I wasn't surprised to see that one at all, but you know, do you promote from within?

Does Ryan Ficken finally get the chance that he probably should have gotten in 2019? I don't know. Zimmer had stability on special teams with Mike Prefer here. Yeah, they had some kicking issues, but he never had an issue on the coaching staff. Prefer was here long before Zimmer was. So that's the thing that kind of – I don't know if you'll be able to achieve that stability as easily as you might think because special teams can be very volatile.

I also thought that the moment Marwin in a Zoom conference said that, you know, when Zimmer yells at him, he's going to yell back or whatever it was like, okay, well, this is a go. I don't back down from anybody. Yes, I don't back down from anybody. Like, okay, well, you're fired then. I mean, like that was the moment it was over. I mean, I don't know why you'd say that about your head coach, but he said some things in those press conferences that made me think maybe he's a guy that shouldn't be doing press conferences.

But I am not – I don't know. I mean, I'm not willing to say that coaching was everything because personnel matters, and they've had guys like Steven Weatherly in the past who played all the special teams or eric wilson um you know who played all the special teams that were experienced and good at it they didn't have too many of those guys this year that played into it stop drafting punt returners i mean my gosh stop drafting all these specialists yeah that's that's the kj osborne pick um it handcuffs you into it absolutely no agreed because it handcuffs you into keeping a roster spot and then having to find to put either someone else on the practice squad or subject them to waivers like it just doesn't it's just I think it's it's not the right

strategy there like you can do this with your number four wide receiver somebody you actually could use on offense but also have them be your return specialist because you got the same result. You didn't get some, like, incredible punt returner in K.J. Osborne. Right. I mean, hell, he was inactive for a couple games. Then when he was active, games down the stretch, he didn't play. Like, what? Yeah, and don't judge how someone's going to punt return the NFL

by what they do in college. I mean, the college guys are moving at half speed in comparison. I mean, somebody can look. You see this with quarterbacks all the time. The best example, Baker Mayfield in college. Yeah, he looks like a pretty good athlete. He can kind of run around. NFL, nope, he can't run around.

Not a running quarterback. Not in any way, shape, or form. The dudes are so much faster. And that's the same case with KJ Osborne. Like, wow, he's punt returning pretty well in college. I mean, okay, that doesn't mean really anything to the NFL. And they need to probably just kill that forever. Like, stop drafting long snappers and kickers and punters. Like, you're not good at it. It doesn't work out. It's pretty much never worked out. So use those pick on guards and hope that it works out with somebody in the

offensive line. Anyway, the Gary Kubiak situation, he may walk away. It certainly sounded like he wants to walk away. When we talked to him last week, Mike Zimmer wants to keep the same scheme. He revealed that the other day, and I think he is very much right for doing it. I think it needs some adjustment, but I also think, like, hey, you're getting career highs out of Kirk Cousins and very good performances out of him. It's a great fit for him, and Zimmer even said that. Like, this system is a really good fit for Kirk Cousins.

I strongly agree. I don't think you want to do anything to fundamentally mess with what you have. You want to build off of it yeah no I agree with you but this is what happened last year in the press conference after the San Francisco game he said I don't want any changes and that's paraphrasing but everything was I want to run this back the same way it was and I agree with him do what your quarterback does best like build an offense around him for sure I. I agree with all of that, but you know, from Kirk's message on Sunday, which I know he was praising Justin Jefferson for being patient,

but also I kind of read that as a cautionary. This just because you were great this year and got 1400 receiving yards in effectively 14 games, doesn't mean that it's going to change. So if you're expecting it, don um that's what i read from that and then from what mike zimmer said you know he likes it the way it is and so if you like it the way it is probably the the path of least resistance to replacing gary kubiak should he retire would be to hire rick dennison or to hire clint kubiak um you know somebody brought up the j Jay Gruden idea to me. I mean, don't you remember what Jay Gruden said,

like on Kirk Cousins way out of town in 2017 about like being seven and nine and not getting the contributions you needed from your quarterback? The exact quote was, our record is reflective of our quarterback play. Yes. Yes. Like, I don't think that's going to work. And yes, there's some other names that you could infer Zimmer might want to look into because either ties to him or through Parcells or what have you, like people he's coached

with before. I get it. But I don't expect any wholesale changes on offense. And I don't think that that's the right move. Personally, I don't. I think that they need to admit we need guard help we need to be able to fix the interior pass protection because it didn't get any better from a year ago that's the thing like it's they've been in the same spot where it's an issue and you need to be able to give Kirk Cousins a clean and a

healthy pocket in order for him to be successful of course you're going to be able to give Kirk Cousins a clean and a healthy pocket in order for him to be successful. Of course, you're going to be like designing, you know, design runs for him here and there because he's shown he can do it this year. He likes doing it, whatever. And, you know, allow him to scramble from time to time. But also, I mean, the play actions, the bootlegs, the whole thing, changing where he throws the ball from. That's all important. But the pass protection to me, it's like when we talk about he's a top 10 quarterback by PFF, he does all these things great. He has 35 touchdowns, a career high for himself this year. If this is the best you're going to get out of Kirk Cousins, which is good, like that's

good. They found that he's not the problem. But you have to fix certain things around him, including the scheme, including becoming less predictable by not running the ball on second and long or second and short all the time where teams are able to pick that up. Like that comes with changing some of the ideology in the offense. You don't have to run to set up the pass. That is such an antiquated way of playing football.

You can still have a dynamic offense, an explosive offense with Dalvin Cook, but you don't need to be constantly running on first and second down. There's just, you don't need to be, you can target Justin Jefferson before you get in panic mode in the third quarter. Like, you can. It's possible. But, you know, I really don't expect a whole ton of changes, even though there's reason to believe that there should be. I wonder about how candidates for this job, if Gary Kubiak does indeed announce he's retiring, how they would view it.

Clint Kubiak, of course, would want to take a step forward from being quarterback's coach to offensive coordinator. But someone like Anthony Lynn gets brought up. And I wonder, does Anthony Lynn want to come to a place that turns over offensive coordinators a lot? Does someone brought up Todd Downing to me? He was here in 2018, but he's been working. I don't think so. I think that Todd was not retained on Zimmer's staff in 2018.

He was allowed to go. I mean, he was part of the DeFilippo group, and I think that he aligned more with john than he did with mike and i don't think todd downing would be coming back here just putting that out there the yeah the interesting part of todd downing and i have to check on this but someone on twitter brought him up only because he's working for tennessee now and that's kind of interesting that he's working yeah he's working for tennessee so that's kind of interesting because it's the it's the same type of system the play action and things like

that and there would be familiarity hard to say like who has what relationship and things like that when it comes to former assistants um Rich Scangarello is another guy who was the quarterback coach for Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco and he was briefly the offensive coordinator for the Broncos who knows how that goes um it the offensive coordinator for the Broncos. Who knows how that goes? It doesn't look like the Broncos are making huge changes, but, boy, it would have been funny if Pat Shermer ended up back here, right, if they had decided. I know.

I had a couple people ask me, like, can they get Shermer back? I was like, honestly, I think Zim would love that. Yeah, yeah. No, he definitely would. I mean, they ran the ball successfully. They did play action. They got the most out of their quarterback. It would be a fit for a lot of those guys, and there's great where this thing can go so um was there anything else for you before we play a little game um that came away from that final press conference the the eulogy of the 2020 season before we move on um was there anything else that stuck out to you

i just think the the idea that they're going to be back to back to the basics or back to back to normal once they get Barr, Kendricks, Hunter, and Pierce back I don't think it's going to be as seamless as that I really don't and let's let's be clear Kendricks missed five games he didn't miss the whole season like I just wish that that would have been over 800 snaps he played yeah like he whatever um if you want to lump him in, lump him in. It doesn't make sense to me. So there's, I have pause on this. I mean, yes, in theory, you should be able to be a good defense next year

when you have those players back, in theory. In theory, Yannick Ngakwe makes this defense better when you think about, oh, they will have Daniil Hunter, even if he is, you know, if it comes back in a couple games and you have, you know, two safeties on the back end. In theory, they should be able to, two veterans should be able to help the cornerbacks. In theory, the linebacker should be the strongest part of this defense this year. In theory, this defense should still be top 10 in efficiency.

There's all these things that look great on paper. And the idea of healthy guys coming back who you have trusted in the past and somebody that you signed in free agency who you think a lot of clearly, that should all lead to good things. But I also have a little bit of just like – I want to put a little bit of pause on that because that makes me think that it might just be a little too a little too positive on it in a way if that makes sense so I want to tell you about Blue Wire Hustle a brand new program where you can host your very own podcast here at Blue Wire Hustle was created to give everyone the opportunity to take your podcast to the next level or if you

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Check out the description box to find out more. That's bwhustle.com slash join. If you're talking about the lessons that you learned from 2020, I mean, one of them is you have to have a backup plan because stuff goes wrong in football seasons. It's just it's going to happen to you. Not always does it mean your best players out for the season, like Daniil Hunter being out. But at the same time, will somebody get hurt next year? Yeah, I'd probably guess that that happens I mean and the same thing goes for the offense is you know you really had Daniil Hunter as your meal ticket for the defense being decent again and you know Anthony Harris and uh you you expected him to play better you expected your

linebackers to stay fully healthy um but it was just resting on one or two people to be great or even good and with the offense it's kind of the same way. Now, that always exists with the quarterback, but set him aside, it's really resting on two guys, two wide receivers, and one running back to be great again next year as they were great this year. And so do you have a backup plan for that? They do at running back. They never use them, but at least they have it.

With wide receiver, do you have it right now? Absolutely not. Right. No. And I don't, I don't know what that's going to take. Like I really don't, it's not there on the roster and you just don't have the depth for it. Right.

And the, you know, the money to spend, we're going to find out soon enough how much exactly cap space they have and things like that. Cause now it's just guesses and at the moment it's not a ton but that might change to be a little bit more so let's play a game before we wrap up I just want to play too harsh or nah because well for one reason I think you and I have had a lot of this where people tweet us that we're too negative about this season, which is odd to me. I guess I would just say I'm as negative as the point differential. Like if they

were plus 100 points, I don't think we'd be breaking down the things that went wrong on the defensive side, but they're not. So that's part of it. You were 11th in offense. That's okay. You don't hang a banner for being 11th in offense. Like that's not that great. It's okay. It's not that great. So there's things to change. There's things to improve. So I guess that's part of me wanting to play this. The other part is on the other side, my Twitter every day, I won't even be on Twitter and I'll open it up three hours later and it'll be five people saying fire Mike Zimmer, fire Kirk Cousins into the sun. So there's this, there's this wide gap. And I'm sure that you found it as well between the people who think everything's

great and this team's going in an awesome direction. And then the people who think if you don't blow this up right now, you're never going to win anything it's kind of fascinating no i mean there's it's a complete scales the spectrum like of one side to the other where kirk cousins has never done anything wrong he's not the problem you people are idiots to kirk is the worst quarterback ever and they're never going to win a super bowl with him and this whole team's a joke burn it to the ground start over like where's the happy medium where are you people at I want to know where you people are what your opinions are maybe you're just not voicing them so uh 22nd in uh point differential by the way for this year sure you know I mean that's that's what you expect though because here one

thing I'll just say this before we play the game and i want the game to be funny or fun so uh you know just get off this in a second but um i don't think that it's um well i think that it's insulting to anyone to lie to them like if if we're breaking down how this went and i tell you no it's great it's great. If they had Hunter, they'd be, you know, 14 and two. That's, that's what's the, you know, that's one player, your intelligence. Yeah. I mean, there's not, you can't tell me a defensive end is going to change everything that much. Not at all. Like you can, I mean, if you had, if you had a pass rush, that's different than saying one player on the defensive line was going to fix all your problems. So I just want to say that the reason that I tell you the truth is because I I love you people and respect you.

We care. We do. That's that is that's the job. I mean, I just it's so odd to me when I see people call this season good or decent or commendable. It's like, man, you know, your 22nd in point differential and your wins came against Detroit twice, Houston, Carolina. I'm sorry, man. This did not go. It didn't go the way Mike Zimmer expected or the general manager or Las Vegas or the fans or the journalists or anyone. And then to say that it was all fine because there were a few injuries, I, you know, that's, to me, that's, that's uninteresting for one. It's just boring to be

like, oh, well, yeah, that's, that's the reason. So hang up the podcast, but it's also just not the truth. Like there's a lot of things that we went through that Zimmer admitted to miscalculating. So anyway, I just get that off my chest. So too harsh or nah, the people that think that you will never win with Mike Zimmer as long as he is the head coach. Too harsh or nah from those people on Twitter? Well, I mean, it's a blanket statement i'll say it's probably too harsh i mean i'm probably more in the middle there though because i think that i'm not saying that mike zimmer can't win you super bowl i just think that this team has reached its ceiling in certain respects and that unless you have some

changes whether it's to your decision makers about how to construct this team whether it's the philosophies that you're executing on offense or defense or whether it's personnel like I don't know if this team this team certainly cannot win a Super Bowl right now it's just going to depend what the pieces that they bring in but what is the focus and the priority going to be from the head coach that's going to tell you whether or not they can win a Super Bowl with him I think that it's too harsh but I don't know that this particular situation fits Mike Zimmer as well as it did a couple years ago sure that's that's the way I would put it is um in 2016 even going into 2017 i felt pretty confident that they'd be real good uh because

they had just so many good players and we came out of camp thinking like this team it's got a chance we didn't think 13 and 3 but this team's got a chance to be really good and uh it was built on a defense it was his guys and it was so much talent it was pro bowlers at every level on defense and it was an offense that had two great wide receivers. And now there's a lot still to go here on defense. And I think that if you want to build to win first with defense, you're a ways away from that. So the fit at this moment is not a good one.

Can you make it a good one? And that's what we're going to find out. So it's a complicated issue but i'm i'm gonna go too harsh uh too harsh or nah the vikings need to move on from kirk cousins because they have um solidified their fate as a seven and nine or eight and eight team in the future as long as he is the quarterback they need to move on from him if you don't and i'll say it's not too harsh if you don't improve the defense enough to where, because you have differing points of view here.

What Mike Zimmer wants to do in order to win games is probably very different from how other people, how other offensive minded people think where, you know, offense goes out, scores a lot of points, does their best. And this offense show that it can score at will with other teams like i think that's a really good takeaway mike zimmer said it's the most explosive offense he's had since he's been here there's stats to back that up there's other ones that i mean there were other times this offense was quite explosive but that's just you know not what the subject we're talking about is nonetheless you can win with Kirk but everything else you've got to factor in the defense has to be at a certain level in order for that to happen they've got to be able

to pull out stops it's got to be able to force more turnover to give the offense a better shot like that's what that is so I'd say it's probably too harsh if you're just basing it on the way that Kirk's playing because Kirk can win you a game or two in the playoffs can you win you a Super Bowl I don't I don't know but like I think that you can win with Kirk but you have to fix your defense first you have to fix parts of your offensive line you can't keep neglecting certain things and saying okay we got Kirk we're going to be fine um that's just not going to work that way I think that uh what we saw in 2019 was a good example of why it's too harsh and why it's not too harsh. I mean, he was by PFF, the fifth best quarterback in the NFL. They win a playoff game. They have a good defense. They've got a good running game. They've got receivers and an offense that's very

good. And you even felt like, boy, if you added a little bit of extra meat on the offensive line, that Kirk could have gotten them maybe a little deeper in the playoffs. But the roller coaster that is Kirk Cousins throughout a season, I was just looking at the distribution of his PFF grades and QBR. And it's always the same. It's always a couple of great games, a couple of bad games, and a lot of games in the middle where it's determined by whether you fumble a punt or not, or whether you play great defense or not. And so I think that you can both look at many other things on a roster and say, well, this is why it didn't happen. This is why it didn't happen, but then say, but is he good enough to make up for any of that stuff?

So how perfect do you need it to be? And we end up in almost a case Keenum situation where it has to be all right in line like it was in 2017 for a quarterback who's expensive. So I think it's both harsh because it's unfair to him as a player that he had a very good season. And overall, like you said, 10th best quarterback in the league. He's consistently in that ballpark but also um not too harsh in the reality of the super bowl depends on what you're looking through it i guess right and what level you expect him like you expect him to be a consistent playoff winner this team is not built to win a super bowl and i know that i've talked about this on the pod before

i don't know if that's the ultimate goal i really don't because the move a lot of the moves don't reflect it and yeah that's probably harsh people would be like wow we should throw too harsh at you Courtney for saying that but um I don't think that this current group the way that it's formed right now can win a Super Bowl I really don't but Kirk Cousins if in the right situation with the right philosophy and the right supporting cast around him can do that. But it's got to be so perfect. And it's so hard to form a perfect team in the NFL. It just is. Yes, it is.

And they do it like once a decade pretty much, right? 98, 2009, 2017. So I guess this means 2026 that's following. Okay, that was cheesy. It's a long ways away. It is, yeah, and maybe that's how it will go. So I think the answer on all of these things is usually it's complicated. It goes beyond just is it way too harsh.

So I'll give you one sort of fun one. Too harsh or not, Dan Bailey should just pack his things. It's just like, sorry, Dan, it's over. Because I saw people were actually being legitimately mean about Dan Bailey on Twitter. I'm like, come on, guys. I mean, when somebody's got a proven long career and has something wrong, that's not okay. To me, it's okay if it's a schmuck who comes into training camp and isn't any good or somebody who's proven nothing in the league.

Or a punter-kicker combo comes in and acts like he's got a gift of football. Somebody who has never played a game and has his own T-shirt. Goofy stuff that we've seen in the past where, hey, go nuts, right? That guy doesn't – he hasn't earned his respect. Someone like Dan Baker is one of the best kickers of all time. Like give the man his respect. So I'll just answer that one. I think you're being too harsh,

and I think he should be in a kicking competition next year. But let's not assume that the guy is done, because the minute you do that and you get on the kicker carousel, sometimes you never get off. I mean, they've been on that for a couple years now, right? Like, last year was supposed to be the year that everything was fine, and it was. That's, you know, for all intents and purposes, that's the reason that Bailey and Colquitt got three year extensions, thinking them both up to be here beyond this season. Well, I think it's too harsh to boot him out right now. Say, don't come back.

Like, you know, yeah, you could save a little bit against the cap, but it's also just kind of, you know, short sighted, like have a bring somebody else in don't draft a kicker don't do something stupid like that like sign a free agent you can you can manage um but have a kicking competition and go from there like if you can't figure it out from that point on then it's a bigger issue but he's also dealing with a back injury like who knows how long the back has actually been bugging him for um in terms of you know the health and and how that it's affected his kicking operation Mike Zimmer said he got injured in New Orleans we really don't know what happened he couldn't explain it what happened against Tampa Bay and what happened against Jacksonville and then obviously this last game against Detroit so who knows if Dan Bailey just needs a couple of months off needs to kind of clear his head, needs to work on the mentals.

I don't know, but we'll find that, that answer in training camp. Cause I think you should at least keep him around through August. Yep. Yep. I totally agree that, you know, if he gets it back together that he is one of the better kickers in the NFL. And it was really just a small, it wasn't like a full season issue. It was just like this, I don't know, light switch went off or something with Dan Bailey. So I think people are being much too harsh there.

So there you go. A positive note for Dan Bailey that we end on. And plenty to come. And I think we should get started pretty soon on our draft simulations, free agents. I saw PFF put out their top 100 free agency list. It is time. It is time. It is time for the offseason. And we're actually going to do this right now on a seven-hour podcast.

So off we go. No, I'm just kidding. But we will get into all of that. So, as always, appreciate your time, Courtney, and the full breakdown. And I am looking for some Courtney, our draft scout, maybe as soon as next week. I mean, she's ready to go.

She's been grinding some tape, getting ready to watch national championship game, trying to figure out if the jets are going to take Devante Smith. You know, she's just trying to figure out what the next steps are. Oh, it would be ready to draft scout. It'd be so Jetsy to take a receiver to help Sam Darnold as opposed to

if you're, if you're not ready to move on from Sam Darnold, I totally understand it, but it just depends kind of what you want to do. If you assume that the coach you brought in broke the quarterback, you should bring somebody else in to fix him. Well, there is the Ryan Tannehill thing who played for Adam Gates. Yeah, of course. I give everybody who's played for Adam Gates the benefit of course. I give everybody who's played right. Who's played for Adam Gates,

the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. I'll never forget Mike Zimmer saying that Adam Gates basically didn't scheme against them. And he was like, they did things. I don't even understand what they were doing. And it was like, Oh, okay. And, uh, in 2018. So anyway, well, thanks for your time. And, uh, we'll talk to you soon.