Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What do the last two Vikings games mean for Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins?

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom of Zone Coverage talk attempt a hardcore breakdown of Vikings and Saints but it doesn't last very long as they quickly dive into what would happen if the Vikings come up way short against New Orleans and whether that would dial up the pressure on the Vikings' coach and quarterback. Plus whether we'll learn this week if the Vikings' offense is actually good or if it's been a product of the schedule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey, everyone. It's Lindsay Rhodes, and as always, celebrate. previewing games. We'll get you set for the weekend fantasy with our Fantasy Friday episodes, and we'll answer some of your questions as well. So subscribe to the NFL Roadshow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and from Zone Coverage. Joining me is Sam Ekstrom, who is super, super excited and pumped about this game.

Vikings, New Orleans Saints. And Sam, I want to do a hardcore breakdown of this game because playoff odds still exist. They may be small. They may be extremely tiny. do a hardcore breakdown of this game because playoff odds still exist. They may be small. They may be extremely tiny. They may only be 2%, but the odds still exist. And you could do the you're telling me there's a chance thing if you want to. But if the Vikings win two games, Arizona loses two games, and then Chicago wins one. The Vikings can still get in the playoffs.

So it does matter. They're not just playing for pride here. At least they can say they're not. So let's break this thing down like it matters, Sam. I can't tell if your tongue is firmly implanted in your cheek or not on this Zoom video, but you're serving your listeners and your readers by addressing every possible scenario. A one in 50 chance, crazier things have happened. I once rolled a Yahtzee on one roll, you know, with five dice. So that's way more unrealistic. So anything can happen.

Well, look, I mean, this has been the year of win probabilities gone wrong. Every week there's a crazy chart of this team had a 4% chance to win, and then they came back and won. So, look, I don't know. I mean, all these things falling into place. What makes it really tough is I think Nick Mullins isn't going to play for San Francisco, and so now Arizona is playing San Francisco with, who is it, C.J. Beathard? C.J. Beathard? Yeah.

Is Garoppolo on the verge of coming back, or is he done for the year? I thought he might be close. I think they're shutting him down, but I'm not sure. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think he's coming back. What a Super Bowl hangover, by the way, for the 49ers. I know they've had injuries like crazy, but it happens every year with these Super Bowl losers. It's insane.

You know, one thing I wonder about that is if part of Belichick's strategy of getting rid of guys, because we always gave him a lot of credit, like, oh, he didn't pay anybody, he just replaced people. But I wonder if that was helpful to fairly quick turnarounds to getting back to the Super Bowl for New England, is that their guys were not as beat up, and then they didn't overpay players because they were part of a Super Bowl team, which seems to happen every time. I mean, you look at the teams that made the Super Bowl over the last few years

and then what happened to them. I mean, Carolina never got back from 2015. Atlanta, they fell off big time the next year. They still made the playoffs. The Rams missed it the year after. Right, yeah, and then the number of injuries that have piled up on San Francisco. off big time the next year they still made the playoffs missed it the year after right yeah and then you know the number of injuries that have piled up on san francisco you lose your quarterback you're always pretty screwed um i know the internet fell in love with nick mullins for some reason but

he's bad and they lost but they lost i mean they started losing guys in camp like debo samuel went down um i think even before that and needed surgery. So it happens all the time. And even maybe to some extent, like the Vikings going to the NFC championship in 2017, just expecting to bounce back there, you know, that plays into it. So, but let's talk about this game anyway, right? I mean, so, you know, you have a game that I think the NFL would have expected at the beginning of the season would have had huge playoff implications. We've got rivals here. We've got former Parcells coaches.

We've got the Vikings beating the Saints in the playoffs last year and in 2017. And now we go into it going like, eh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a game. And I don't think the Vikings have a great chance to win because New Orleans is going to be their toughest team on the schedule by far. And actually, Sam, it's kind of remarkable how few really, truly tough teams the Vikings have faced along the way to be 6-8. Well, how many truly tough teams are there in the NFL right now? Like a lot of the so-called contenders are kind of fraudulent or declining

or worrisome in some way, usually because the quarterback is ancient. Like Pittsburgh on Monday night, you know, they're all trying to pull the Peyton Manning. Can they ride their defense to a Super Bowl, you know, at this age and then right off into the sunset. Breeze is trying to do it. I assume Brady's trying to do it. And Roethlisberger's trying to do it.

The only ancient quarterback I trust right now is Aaron Rodgers. But to your point, you know, the Vikings played Seattle at a time when I think they were considered to be maybe the best team in the NFL, and that's borne out to not at all be true. The defense is too weak. The offense sort of disappears periodically, as they did for one half against the Vikings. But I think there's an asterisk to the Packers game, which the Vikings won, and give their running game credit.

They had the better running game that day, but it was sort of the win neutralized Aaron Rodgers on that afternoon, and then it was just a slew of mediocre teams, Collar. I mean, the Vikings had a chance to beat Dallas and Carolina and Jacksonville in succession, and they could have been seven and five if they just beat Dallas, but there was a month-long stretch where it felt like every week you were sort of picking apart these opponents, these they're so bad they're so poorly coached and yet the Vikings were kind of flirting with all of them and losing to some of them which I think tells you all you need to know this is just this wasn't a very good football

team they were able to to kind of beat up on the mediocre now and then they got some bad quarterbacks who came across their schedule but um in the end you know this is kind of what they are six and eight your record is what you are so here's what i am kind of thinking about with this game could because they have not faced a team that ranks in the top 10 and points against this season or it currently ranks in the top 10 uh maybe uh somebody did when they played them but at this moment like you said as the sample size has grown there's nobody in the top 10. Maybe somebody did when they played them, but at this moment, like you said, as the sample size has grown, there's nobody in the top 10 in points against. Indianapolis has a good defense. Tampa Bay has a good defense, but they're not facing teams that are elite defensively,

and their offense has had, overall, a good season. I'm going to check that stat quick just to make sure I've got that exactly right, but they have just not faced defenses on their schedule yeah no that's right because okay Chicago is 10th after this week and Indianapolis is 11th so the best defense they faced all year ranked 10th in the NFL in points against and they've had a good year offensively overall I know that uh we've spent a lot of time on this here show breaking down those second down and 10 runs to Delvin Cook and the run-pass ratio that they seem to be obsessed with and how it kind of tethers them to being more of a mid-pack offense rather than, you know, kind of more of a truck than a Ferrari that I think they could be with the receiving talent that they have.

But they also have had circumstances that have helped, I even with the receiving talent that they have, but they also have had circumstances that have helped, I even want to say the last two years with their schedules of the way that they've played out and just not facing very good defenses. This is, to me, at very least, if you're trying to take something away, kind of a barometer for where you're going into next year with your offense and how much you're going to need to get better because this is the only look we're going to get of a great defense a highly talented defense a violent defensive line good team schematically against what you have on offense because my I guess thought about this offense is that it's still going to have to drive the bus of success for next year.

So how far away are you really? And how much of it has been smoke and mirrors because you played a lot of the bad teams. I mean, if you search them by quarterback rating against they've played all of the worst teams this year, Houston and Detroit and just, you know,

Jacksonville, all these teams. So do it against somebody good. And I guess show me a little bit that you can take this into next year and drive your success with offense. Yeah, I like the way you laid that out. It's a complete roster. The Saints don't have a lot of weaknesses,

except you might say quarterback at some point. But Cameron Jordan, Trey Hendrickson, who's sneaky, really good. Demario Davis in the middle. Lattimore on the outside. You're going to face talented at every level. And I got to push back a little bit on the offense because I've been harder on them this year than I have been the defense because I expect nothing from the defense. They don't have the personnel. I expected a lot from the defense. They don't have the personnel. I expected a lot from the offense, and particularly I expected them to realize that because of your inadequate defense,

your offense needs to play better than just like above average. It has to be elite for you to compete. And I felt like the Vikings were all too willing to accept slightly above average offensive performances. They never called plays trying to score 35. They called games trying to score 26. Like that's sort of the mentality you're taking when your goal is to grind the clock and to have eight-minute drives, even when you're trailing late in games and you're still kind of adopting that same philosophy. I always thought this offense had a chance to be really good. They've had really good injury luck, right? Like the only position that's had

significant time missed is the right guard spot. And they actually might have upgraded a couple times when they had, you know, guys filter in with Brett Jones. And for a while, Ezra Cleveland was really good. So the offense has been healthy. The offense has been productive at times, but they just never really seem to put the pedal down. So I'm more disturbed about the philosophy I think this team has taken. Like, I think the offense can be really good, but they just don't really want to unleash them to be that good. I'm optimistic more about the defense next year,

but we can't really see what they're going to be until they get the Bars, the Hunters, and the Pierces back. But let's see how the interior line holds up. I mean, if you're a Vikings fan, you would almost rather want to be exposed again on the offensive line, just so the front office takes that even more seriously than they have. I know they've drafted guys, but the philosophy that they just went into this offseason saying,

well, let's run it back with Elfline and Dozier, I think that's kind of bad. Like, I think you could have done way more, could have devoted the financial resources you gave Pierce to a better starting offensive lineman and gone that way. So let's see how they do against a really good defensive line. And I don't know if, if they hold up really well,

do you want the front office to say, Oh, well, I guess they can hold up against the saints. Let's not make a change. No, you don't want that. You want them to actually do something about it this off season.

Yeah. And I guess that's more of my point is that, you know, this is a game against the legitimately really, really good and really, really good and really, really talented defense where even when they played Chicago, they had no cornerbacks in both games, but especially in this last game. And yet they did not, in my estimation, take full advantage of that.

They failed in the red zone. They, on fourth and short a couple of times, came up short in the biggest situations because what has so often happened to this team is when they get in big situations or when they play tough teams, the offensive line isn't good enough to hold up and you don't have a quarterback. And I know that Cousins has been doing a little more scampering lately, but you do not have a quarterback who has escapability or an elite pocket presence. It's like the bar is so low that if he steps up in the pocket,

they're like, he's changed. He's different. It's like, okay, guys, I mean, there are quarterbacks who run 4-4 these days. You know, so, I mean, it's nice, but that's not really going to do the trick when you have the defensive line dominating the offensive line. So I think it's, for me, kind of a how far away are you? And like you said, I think it's a great point is the front office should see how far away are you? Because if they

start telling us this offseason, well, the offense was great this year. What's wrong with you guys? They were fifth in yards or they were fourth in yards per play. And yet those efficiency numbers sound great, but they were still 14th in scoring 14th in scoring does not get you into a Super Bowl it just doesn't like who's your Super Bowl favorites right now well I don't know Kansas City who has 435 points at this moment second the NFL only by one to Tennessee I mean right like your Super Bowl teams have always been, over the last number of years, the teams that are in the top five in scoring. So if you're 14th and you're only scoring on, I'm having to scroll down,

38% of your drives you're producing points, which is 19th, just below Dallas. You produce points as often as Dallas does on offense. That's bad. Your drives are getting killed so often by sacks, which, you know, in part are a Kirk Cousins feature for sure, the big situation sack. But at the same time, like I said, I mean, if you're building your offensive line to run block, it's no surprise. And you're making very poor decisions. Brett Jones is their highest graded PFF lineman this year. If you're making those bad decisions, then, yeah, I mean, this is where you're going to end up.

And this is the type of defensive line who can really show it because they are complete across the board. And I think Chicago did in the big situations last week as well, even though they ran over them at times. Still, in every big situation, Chicago's defensive line dominated the Vikings' offensive line. I don't know how many years we've been complaining about the interior of the offensive line with no real improvement, and I think the bummer is that you got the improvement from Garrett Bradbury that you were looking for. He became a league average center, you know, kind of league average center this year,

and he was a bad center last year. Right. So he upgraded to at least like a very serviceable. I think he does a really good job before the snap. I think he's fine. I think the right guard, which was constantly in flux. And then the left guard, which you stubbornly continue to send out Dakota Dozier week in and week out, even though you've got just as much investment in Brett Jones. It's not like Dakota Dozier was a second-round pick that you're trying to force the issue like you did with Pat Elfline. He's just a one-year deal guy, just like Brett Jones, who you keep hanging around on the roster, and they refuse to make a midseason move.

And this has kind of been the team's style over the years. The only time they make offensive line moves is injury. They don't make it because of performance, which is alarming to me. And Mike Zimmer would probably clap back and say, well, PFF can't grade my players. But I'll buy that in like a one-game sample size that, okay, maybe this grade was too low one given week, but over the course of a season using their criteria, that's usually going to be pretty accurate with performance.

So I, I'm not going to buy that. They don't recognize that Dakota Dozier is playing poorly, you know? So the fact that they're not making that move, it's really strange to me. And I felt like, you know, the last two weeks, I think, have been exactly what they deserved with the pressure that Kirk has faced up the middle against Tampa and Chicago in must-win games. They sent out sort of this ramshackle interior line,

and this is the result they got. And this kind of reminds me, Collar, of 2016, does it not, where you kind of overlooked the Colts and you got embarrassed at home and maybe this team overlooked the Bears and they lost at home. And now they had to play the Packers, you know, in sort of that you still have a slight chance to win, but you're going to place a really good team on the road. Feels exactly like that.

And remember against Green Bay, they got embarrassed. The cornerbacks went rogue that day. I'd be a little worried about that happening against the Saints because they have a lot to play for as I believe they're still in the number one seed hunt. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. So many great designs, especially the holiday sweaters. Make sure you check out the Let It Skol design.

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But if you're talking about somebody who is 118th out of 118 or whatever Dakota Dozier is and leads the league in the pressures allowed, that's pretty obvious that you have made a huge miss. And one thing I think is that they just don't properly quantify the impact of the pressures allowed by that one position versus what you gain in his ability to get to the linebacker in run blocking, which I do see Dakota Dozier being able to do, that he can do it better than Brett Jones. But what's that worth versus third down and seven

and you need somebody to pick up a stunt? It's like Dozier still doesn't get it. And still, you know, I was looking at their sacks of pressures for my film study this week. It's like, once again, here's another team in a key situation running stunts over Dakota Dozier because they know he's going to get turned or he's not going to use his leverage well or he's going to be off balance. And then right in the backfield. So that, I think, is maybe the issue is just the math equation of what is this worth well or he's going to be off balance and then right in the backfield so um that i think is

maybe the issue is just the math equation of what is this worth versus what that's worth um but to move forward to what you were saying um did did these last two games impact mike zimmer or kirk cousins status, do you think, at all? Not Cousins. I don't think Cousins is super culpable for either of the last two games. I felt like he, like, because we just said how, like, much he was pressured, especially on, like, big downs in the game. So I can't fault him a lot for, like, the fourth and one where he had to fade 20 yards back and throw because he doesn't have the escapability.

Now, I guess that's a bigger picture problem, but there weren't a lot of plays where I thought he was inept. He didn't force a lot of throws downfield, and maybe he should have taken more risks, and that's always a tough argument to have. But I felt like Kirk at least gave them shots in those games. I don't think two games are going to affect Mike Zimmer, and I think that the 5-1 stretch to get them back to 500 is probably enough to kind of paper over the 1-5 starts and give him another shot. And I'm sure that ownership appreciated being competitive through week 16 I'm sure that's all like in favor of Mike Zimmer and when you look at the progress

that the young players made that's another kind of feather in his cap for the development ability with Dantzler and Gladney and obviously Jefferson is a huge cornerstone for the future so if they weren't prepared to make a move at one and five, you know, I don't think they're going to make a move here at six and eight. It would be out of character. Now that doesn't mean it won't happen. Like there's always going to be kind of a, you know, I never thought that Glenn Taylor would fire Rick Adelman, for instance,

like to use another Minnesota, you know, analogy. But it happened. Like finally he reached a breaking point. So we'll see if the Wilfs reach a breaking point. But I think with Kirk being kind of contractually bound for the next two years, I think if you really want to shake things up, I think you wait until, you know, see if next year is equally disappointing and then make the move. You get your quarterback with one year left on Cousins' deal,

sits for a year, learns for a year, and then you unleash a new look team in like 2022, 23. So I totally agree with you. I don't see a scenario where any of these last couple of outcomes are influential at all. However, there was a trip that you and I made and sat together in the old press box at the Superdome where we were discussing pregame the possibility of the Vikings losing by

20 points and trading or firing Mike Zimmer because the reports had come all that week that they might trade him to Dallas, which I think Cowboys fans probably regret that result not happening for them and ending up with Mike McCarthy. But this ownership does react sometimes, I think. And they reacted to 2017 and said, we need to sign Kirk Cousins and give him all the money and we need the better quarterback in order to get back to the NFC Championship. And I think that they were reactionary to that win in New Orleans. They said, ah, that's it.

That's why Zimmer has to stay because he can stop Drew Brees in a playoff game. That's why we need him, which, hey, I mean, they did. It was a brilliantly schemed game and well played by Kirk Cousins. And so they extend Cousins, they extend Zimmer, they extend Spielman and say status quo going forward. I think they're still saying, I would guess, that 2021 is the year and hey, they showed a lot of progress on defense and everything else. But this is the only game on television on Christmas in the National Football League. Everybody is going to be watching Vikings and Saints and if they go down there and they lose

by 31 points to the Saints and they look like they're just not even in the stratosphere of a competitive team of truly one of the better teams in the NFL and Drew Brees throws all over them and Kirk Cousins gets sacked seven times and they look like they're just not giving the old college try I wonder if the heat gets turned up there i wonder if that starts to be that conversation and then we look at week 17 like if you no-show against the detroit lions in week 17 and they beat you the embarrassing detroit lions then i don't know that then i think the heat gets turned up if your final record is six and ten and you kind of just limp to the finish line.

You could get the wheels turning, that's for sure. It's interesting you phrase it that way because I think logically you think, all right, you're going to play the Saints in New Orleans. You could lose. You could lose by a lot, and the Saints are really good. What should alarm you more as ownership is when you no-show against Atlanta and you struggle against Dallas. Those are the ones that would seem to trouble me more is when you look worse than the worst teams.

Not when you look worse than the best teams, when you look worse than the worst teams, but a national TV game with all the eyeballs on them, that can carry some sort of intangible weight. I feel you on that. So I still think that all the patterns that they've shown and the patience they've shown, they're proud people. They don't want to go back on the decisions they made last offseason where they really entrusted this franchise to Zimmerman Spielman. But I would think that a loss here could maybe start the clock ticking

and go into 2021 more on the hot seat, because I do think that the expectations will rightfully be very high in 2021, even if you are 6-10 because of the defensive players you get back. You pretty much keep the whole offense together like who's leaving right who's leaving on offense other than maybe you make a move on Riley Reif but who's actually been really good this year but that's probably the only major change you have on offense um I guess Kyle Rudolph maybe but you know they've got plenty of tight end up so again high expectations next year that's probably it's probably a good thing to stay the course with your

current regime and system because of what the young players learn this year and then carrying it over in the next year i think would be important for them and not have to revamp your system i think that's important and then um you go into 2021 on on coach watch okay you know they they lose the first two games what happens now right because a lot of those coaching moves kind of get made in the first six to eight weeks right so um one thing i was thinking about here is just how much ownership cares about blank uh how much ownership cares about the fact that kirk cousins contract has not worked out. Like, look, it's a failure right now. What are they, 25-22-1?

They have beaten in the regular season, if they lose this game, they will have beaten three teams that finished with winning records in three seasons and won one playoff game as the sixth seed. That is not what they signed up for when paying Kirk Cousins this amount of money. They paid for NFC championships and did not get there. And their best season is 10 wins, which is what? Is that like a bad Aaron Rodgers season when the Packers end up with 10 wins? Like, oh man, tough year for Rodgers. I guess he's washed, which, you know, I've joked about, but I mean, right? So like the standard and the bar

has kind of been moved around. But if you pull back and remember the press conference in 2018, I mean, everybody in the world is thinking that the standard is now making a Super Bowl. The standard is winning multiple playoff games. It's getting to an NFC championship. It's winning divisions and going three years with Kirk Cousins and not winning a division to me is, is just an, is a failure. And so I wonder if they look at all of these things and say, cause you could look at them through two different lenses. One is, Hey, 2021 looking pretty good. Justin Jefferson, right. Or you can look at it through the lens of this overall didn't work. And people might trade for Kirk Cousins.

I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking. Are they watching each week and going, are we really running again? Is Delvin Cook going to survive until 2021? I don't know what they're thinking. Or if their trust is entirely on the football people and if it's entirely in Zimmer and what he says goes and that's the end and so all of our criticisms just kind of float into the air um and all the fans criticisms who comment on the website and tweet us and everything else who are seeing a lot of the same things if they mean nothing or if there is some thought to

you know paying this quarterback this much as good as he is and he like you said like it's it's never a hundred percent Kirk's fault he played well um you know in a lot of games that they lost this year I think this has been his best year uh in terms of just like watching him play but you know the bottom line is that it just hasn't hasn't been that good so I wonder how much you think that gets factored because we don't talk to ownership very often they talk once or twice a year and that's it and we don't get many answers when often. They talk once or twice a year and that's it. And we don't get many answers when that happens. It would be fascinating to be a fly in the corner around ownership because we

don't have any indication that the times we do talk to them, it's typically about a charity project or, you know, something, something not football related. And if we do get a football question in it's answered very vaguely. You wonder if they're kind of just along for the ride, like because they're not meddlesome owners. I mean, they don't seem to be overly involved like a Jerry Jones. But you wonder if they have people in their ear sort of explaining to them,

you know, like, because there are things that we know as coverers of football, like, yeah, you shouldn't pay running backs huge money. It's just not a good allocation of resources. Did they have that? Do they know that? Because they're probably not getting that from the football people. The football people in Minnesota love that. So are they getting it from other sources? I don't know. But your question, do they care about the quarterback being a relative bust compared to the expectations. Well, they didn't care after the first two years when they gave him the extension. So perhaps, like many people, they were wooed by that win in New Orleans

and were able to overlook the dud the next week in San Francisco. There is probably, though, some solace in that they're probably spending that money anyway. Like if you think about when they gave Cousins the first contract, well, that might have gone, two-thirds of that might have gone to Case Keenum if they'd chosen to keep Case Keenum, and then the other third probably gets spent on another player, a defensive player probably based on this coaching staff's decision-making. So it's not like baseball where you give a guy like Josh Donaldson,

you give a guy $23 million and then he's hurt the whole year and you feel like that's wasted money. It's not wasted money. It's just you spent the money in the wrong place, if that's the way you're going to view it. But I think that there's almost an admirable level of patience in the process with the Wilfs. And think about kind of the business they're in. They're constantly waiting on projects to be developed, land to be developed, stadiums to be built. They're used to their money being spent

and the returns not coming back to them for years. So I don't think they're super knee-jerk in their business dealings. And that's probably why they've been able to be so patient during this process and let things play out. 2020 has already reshaped how we work and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. Indeed is the number one job site in the world with more total visits than any other job site according to Comscore. Indeed helps you find quality candidates quickly so you can focus on hiring the person you need to keep business going.

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The problem was not Kirk Cousins necessarily. It was really the math equations. Like, can you fill all the holes that you need to fill around kirk cousins while he's taking up 15 of the cap and the answer has just been no um and if you're going to then you have to nail all your drafts then you have to make your most savvy of savvy signings it can't be tom compton starting a guard it can't be julio johnson starting at defensive tackle i can't you know it just it can. Like, those are things that can't happen with him. He's been exactly, and this is why, like, they messed up the math equation

because he's been exactly who he was in Washington. In fact, probably a little better. I think he's improved as a quarterback since Washington, and it still couldn't get you there. And so, I mean, we can relitigate the they should have drafted Lamar Jackson, they should have got this guy, or they should have done that. But I think that, you know, where we're at right now, it's like, so you doubled down on that thing that didn't really work the first two years.

It didn't really work the third year, but the fourth year, then, you know, that's the one that's going to work. You know, that, that's where I think it gets to eventually they're going to want to see the ROI. Right. And that, you know, even with Zimmer and even with Spielman, I think that they're growing more impatient, even though they signed them to the extensions, because of how long it took to get there. Like, normally those things would be done by the combine.

It would be all set. Oh, yeah, extend, moving on. But not this time. And the deal was not as long as I heard that Zimmer wanted it to be. So, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where, like, I think the pressure is up. Does it matter if they lose on Friday? Like, no. But does it matter if they lose by 35 on Friday?

Like, maybe. And you always wonder, like, how is this team going to continue to fight? Because that's the thing that he has praised them so much for. Well, we've continued to fight. Even though we needed overtime to beat Jacksonville, we've continued to fight. So how do you think the game plays out? Do you think that they go there and they play them tough and it's one of those, like, seven-point losses,

you just didn't have enough, Kirk's got the ball on the final drive and whoopee, sacked. Or do you think it is the scenario of the blowout? Yeah, I think it plays out probably a little bit like the Tampa game. I don't think that Drew Brees is going to kill you. I watched that entire Chiefs game. I don't think he, he looked very rusty early. Maybe he kind of got the cobwebs out early and he'll, he'll come into this one more prepared, but going to be short throws. They don't have Michael Thomas. You got to watch out for Alvin Kamara in the flat. He's got 80 receptions this year, so obviously he's a huge threat, but I don't think they kill you over the top. I think you have to be mindful of Taysom Hill because of

the way that, A, and they will because he almost beat them single-handedly in the playoff game. And I think that after seeing Breeze for a week, I'm guessing Sean Payton will have something planned for Taysom Hill. So if they catch you on a gadget play with Taysom Hill, just pack it in right there because you know it's coming. You know that Taysom Hill is going to be used in some way. You can't let that happen. But I don't think the Saints run away with anything. I mean, I think it's going to be the Vikings giving up a lot of yards, trying to kind of bow up in the red zone, as they tend to do, but holding them to field goals.

And then it comes down to, can you move the ball on the Saints' defense? We saw what happened against Tampa. They kept stalling out near the red zone. Dan Bailey missed kicks. So, you know, what's going to happen in this game? Can you finish a couple drives? Because if you finish a couple drives, I think it could be tight. I think it's probably a game in the 20s.

I think Mike Zimmer's always done really well against the Saints for whatever reason. He seems to have Drew Brees' number. I think his record is 3-2 against the Saints, and the Saints have usually been the better team in those matchups. Except maybe in the Miracle game. I think it's going to be fairly tight, and if the Saints do kind of run away with it, I'm guessing it's because the Vikings turned the ball over, they couldn't move

the ball on offense. I don't think it's going to be because the Saints ran them over offensively. I don't think it's going to be because the Saints, like, ran them over offensively. I just, I don't see it playing out that way. Follow him on Twitter at Sam Ekstrom. Read him at Zone Coverage. Sam, always fun to get together with you, and we will do it, I'm sure, plenty more times. There will be a lot to talk about as we go into this very exciting offseason. Thanks, man. Yeah, you bet. Thanks, Collar. Happy holidays.