Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What should Vikings fans want out of the 2021 season?

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom expand on a question that Matthew asked Brian Murphy on Monday: What should Vikings fans want out of this season? Also Matthew and Sam talk about the unknowns that could still change the way this season plays out and how the Arizona game could swing the entire direction of the season. Visit tickpick.com/insider today and use the promo code INSIDER to save $10 on your first order of Vikings tickets! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hey everybody, welcome to another Purple Insider livestream with Bring Me The News, Matthew Collar, along with Sam Ekstrom here for an episode of Vikings Live. What is up, Sam? How are you? I am well. I would like to hear about your experience with Skyline Chili. I didn't have one. I totally passed. In the press box, they had the Skyline Chili and Chad Graff went for it. Courtney went for it. Everybody went all in.

Dane Mizutani was there to cover the game. He went all in. And I was like, no way. No, I need my stomach to be in a good place because we've got a lot of work to do after this game. So there's no way that I am trying noodles with onions and hot sauce all over it and a mound of cheese. Nope. So I just took two little hot dogs and that was my entire lunch. And I think that everybody had regrets except for me after

the skyline chili incident so even though i know that that is their delicacy there i was not into trying it uh i guess i don't blame you i lose a little bit of respect though i mean when you go to a different city you got to try their signature it's like getting a juicy lucy when you come here right it's not exactly like it's new orleans and you have to try the signature. It's like getting a Juicy Lucy when you come here, right? It's not exactly like it's New Orleans and you have to try the clams or something, man. I mean, this is just noodles and onions and some sort of sauce. So you can do that at home if you like, just look it up on the internet. I don't mind a mound of cheese, but I was not into it. So here's what is on my mind today, Sam, as we discuss the Minnesota Vikings losing to Cincinnati and then moving on to the Arizona Cardinals and the rest of this season. At the

end of yesterday's episode with Brian Murphy, I said to Brian, hey, just on the top of my mind, what do you think everybody should want out of the 2021 Minnesota Vikings season? And I think Brian gave a pretty good answer, but I want to hear yours like just broadly, what should Vikings fans be looking for out of this season? A resolution that they can be comfortable with. So whether that's so bad that you feel like you can comfortably move on from either front office or quarterback or both um or you do so well that you feel comfortable hanging on to them uh you feel comfortable like giving Kirk an extra year or not you know making a move at coach I don't think you want to be in purgatory um so I would say you want to be, you know, 11 and

six or better or seven and 10 or worse. And if you're in the middle, then you're kind of stuck right where you usually find yourself. Well, the comment that really stuck with me from Mike Zimmer made me think about the bigger picture when he said, we're not built to win with throwing a bunch of passes. And I guess I thought, well, all right, you know, there's some natural follow-ups there that, you know, you can figure out yourself about the quarterback and his salary cap and everything else. But I also thought, well, then are you built to win? Like you're not built to win that way,

but are you built to win to begin with? And I guess what you want to find out throughout this season is does this way actually work are you a few pieces away or a few players you know improving this year let's say as we go along ollie udo ezra cleveland like i'm not judging their entire seasons based on week one these guys are younger players who are supposed to be coming along and developing. Okay. The defense is supposed to be gelling. Everything has never been perfect in a week one of a season for any team ever, but the defense showed signs of being very good. If it's really what you needed was just to put back together the defense, and then you can be

legitimately competitive again with Kirk Cousins as your quarterback with Mike Zimmer as your head coach and playing this type of football where you want to run and try to get second down and short run play actions throw down the field if you can use Justin Jefferson this way and win then I think yes there's a chance that they would move forward with this. But doesn't it feel like after watching that game, like what are our odds of that all actually working? Because somebody made a great point on Twitter yesterday. They said, it's not week one. It's week 49 of Kirk Cousins, right?

It's we've seen this and we've seen this tried. And even if you make it 2019 is the unofficial Kirk cousins start. If we do a year zero thing, it's still weak. What would that be? 33, 33. There's my math skills, Joe Nelson. I know you're liking that. Well done. And that really stuck with me that our sample size is already kind of big on this style. And how much bigger does it need to be before we already kind of big on this style and how much bigger

does it need to be before we do know the answers on this team? I think that's a great point. Um, and there's a staleness about the Vikings right now. There's a deja vu to all of it. The patchwork offensive line, the skittishness of the quarterback under pressure, and really not a lot of light at the end of the tunnelittishness of the quarterback under pressure, and really not a lot of light at the end of the tunnel, at least for the quarterback. Maybe there's a savior on the way named Christian Derrissaw on the offensive line, maybe, but I'm not going to count on that. And philosophically, I guess we saw some things from Clint Kubiak that would indicate maybe a more modern approach, but they were also in such a pickle down 14. They were behind the chains all the time. Like

the run pass balance was so askew that Mike Zimmer pointed it out. Like he doesn't want that again. He wants it more 50-50. So I don't think we're going to see much different this year. And it's kind of the same old song and dance and I think that like you mentioned on Sunday's show there's an enthusiasm about the unknown with Cincinnati even though they haven't done anything yet and with the Vikings even though they've done a little bit with this group there is sort of a sense of well the the tread is pretty worn on these tires and we need a fresh set. Right. So I guess what came to mind for me is what would make it different?

Like, what could they do? Who could they beat? How could they operate in a way where you would say, OK, this is going to work as we go forward? Because I think that there's two separate conversations of this year in a bubble. They have a chance to be in the playoffs and have a chance to beat somebody. Because when you look at the NFC and how it's laid out, I'm going to give Green Bay the benefit of the doubt to say that they'll be better. But I'm also going to say that they're not infallible.

They kind of looked that way last year. Tampa Bay might be too good for everybody, but aside from that, every other team has their warts. And so the whole idea of get in and you've got a chance exists here. But what does it mean? Does it mean get in and have a chance at nine and eight? Does it mean get in and win multiple playoff games? Does it mean throughout the regular season, because the playoffs can be random as Blair Walsh proved to us unexpected things can happen. But does it mean beats teams on national TV that are good? Does it mean like beating Cleveland, beating Seattle, beating Arizona to build up an enthusiasm for this team that right now doesn't exist?

And that's the feeling that I have. And I've had for a lot of the off season is a lot of messages that we get comments and everything. They say like, when is this going to be different? What would force ownership to make a change? What would force the front office to make a change at quarterback? All those, those are the questions that come up all off season. And then even now into week one are still coming up after a loss.

So I guess what could wash that away? Yeah. I mean, I think a couple of things, you know, number one, either you have a dominant regular season or you go on an 87 like playoff run where the Vikings weren't much, but they kind of like capture the imagination with that that playoff run they had and nearly reached the Super Bowl. Because that would require you to win huge games on the road. And that's where you have to lean on your quarterback. And I think it all comes back to the quarterback, even though the offensive line's struggles year after year get so tiring that, I mean, that needs to be considered this offseason when evaluating the front office's future.

Like if that ends up being sort of the doom of this offense again for the umpteenth consecutive year I mean you got to reevaluate what's going on in the process that's being used but I think to sort of change the narrative about this team you've got to be convincing in victory at times like you can't just sneak by bad teams you have to beat them soundly you have to beat good teams on the road and the quarterback has to do it in a sustainable way. Like I think that Dalvin Cook could conceivably get hot for a month and just steamroll some teams and you win some games where Kirk Cousins isn't expected to do a lot. And that happens almost every year. But if your quarterback can win you some games and I think, you know, even if if they beat Cincinnati,

you could almost have qualified this as a bona fide Kirk Cousins comeback, even though the first half was so hideous. Didn't get the job done, obviously. And Delvin Cook's fumble, non-fumble was kind of the culprit for that. But we talk about it so often. Kirk Cousins has these semi-long stretches every year where he's really good, and then an equivalent stretch where he's pretty mediocre. You've got to raise the floor.

I mean, because the good quarterbacks, and you pointed this out on a multitude of occasions, the good quarterbacks just don't have the low lows. And Kirk Cousins can't afford to have that for any stretch of time this season. So you just need better work all around from him, I think, to give you any sort of confidence that you can make a playoff run. And then you've got to make the playoff run. I mean, one and done, that's probably not going to cut it. So Mike Zimmer also said yesterday that a player came to him and said, I think we could be pretty good. And I think so too, if it's a defensive player, like Mike Zimmer said, they have plenty of reasons to think that they could be pretty good.

Now, we don't know if Anthony Barr is going to come back, but Anthony Barr coming back would be a big deal toward that. And Patrick Peterson was fine. And Mackenzie Alexander, I think had a tough day. Bashad Breeland had maybe the worst day of his career. So you expect that things will go better from there that he's not the worst corner in the league but the results kind of looked like that at the end of the day now on the defensive line it was pretty much as advertised they got run over a

couple of times and gave up 149 yards on the ground but they were able to get after joe burrow at times they sacked him five five times overall as a team. And Michael Pierce looked pretty dominant. Daniil Hunter, as the game went along, started to look like he was getting back into the feel of it. I believe that it could be a good defense, but I think what you have to see is a performance like what they did against the Rams in 2017,

because that's your big season that's the season where you met and exceeded expectations but four weeks through that season I remember having a conversation with my boss at the time about whether we would travel to any more games because it was going to be such a blast season because Case Keenum was in and it was like well Delvin Cook's out look I this, this thing might be over. And if they lose the Chicago at soldier field, we're not going to travel to any other games because this is just a lost season. And then they get on their role.

They play, um, you know, some easier teams. They beat the Packers when they hurt Rogers, but it was not until late in that season that they beat the Rams and beat the Falcons that we said, okay, you are for real. And I think that it's very early, but this next three games where it's Kyler Murray, it's Russell Wilson, it's Kevin Stefanski and Baker Mayfield. Like this is your prove that you're different type of scenario because year in and year out even with a lot of same faces or different faces things change um and they have the pieces to be able to be a very good team but if you're only ever beating the lions and you're only going to beat carolina or something you know if you're only going to win the games you're supposed to win then it's really hard to convince people that

things are going to be different so i feel like this week is absolutely huge for swinging how we even feel about this team being different than the last couple of seasons. Yeah, even the 2017 team had a bad loss home against Detroit doesn't get much worse than that. I think the greatest likelihood is that this defense ends up being 2017-like, more so than the offense being different than what we've seen. That's my gut instinct. I really liked what I saw from the defense, and I think that there's a lot of meat on the bone there. The defensive line, I watch back every snap.

I'm going to write about that for Wednesday. I think they're deep, they're healthy, knock on wood, and they've just got a lot of talent there. I thought Nick Vigil was as good as you could have hoped as a backup linebacker. So maybe you've got a little more hope there. And if Barr comes back, then you have a really good third linebacker in Vigil. And even Breland, some of the missed tackles he made, and I watched some of this back and I changed ever so slightly my tune on Breland. like some of the missed tackles he made, and I watched some of this back, and I changed ever so slightly my tune on Breland.

Even some of those missed tackles were because he was, like, shooting a gap and making a play. That's a good thing. And he had some pretty key pass breakups as well, in addition to the pretty serious whiffs. And he was also playing hurt. So, you know, the injury could be a bigger problem than his actual performance

if he's not able to continue because the team doesn't like Cam Dancer anymore. So I don't know what what next in line looks like if it's Chris Boyd or Harrison Hand. But I think the defense, give him a few games could be really good. And I think there's just more potential for them to grow into that than the offense growing into like a top five unit. So that's another part of this conversation is asking question. Yeah, go ahead. What did Murphy say to the initial query? Yeah, he said the same thing. Like we need, we need answers about what this thing is. I mean, is it a team that could compete? Is it a strategy that can compete? And I'll just take it even a little bit of a different way, which is I was thinking about

the things front offices do. OK, so you have contracts, you have drafts and you have your sort of major overall philosophy. Right. And in the drafts in recent years, they have not had a lot of success. Your contracts and signings, they have had some very savvy signings. I think this year, they have also had some contracts where you went, ah, that's a lot of money. That's an inefficient type of deal. They've had some deals blow up. They've had some deals succeed and they have done things that don't necessarily match up with the, I guess,

analytical way of thinking about it, like signing a linebacker to the contract. They did signing a running back to the contract. They did having loyalty to players like Anthony Bard, Kyle Rudolph at one point and signing a quarterback who is mid pack to the second most expensive deal on the salary cap for this year so i think that there's another part of this too that it has to show in the results somewhere that these things that don't match up necessarily with what the finger quote smart front offices are doing are actually a good idea and can actually get you somewhere beyond just the first round of the playoffs. And so I think when it comes to answers, we already kind of know who Kirk Cousins is. We already kind of know who Mike Zimmer is, but the question is like, did this all work,

this strategy of how you built your team? Because it comes back to Zimmer saying how we were built. So that that's been kind of on my mind too. Yeah. You look at some of the problematic contracts and then you have to evaluate, okay, did, did Michael Pierce work out? Did Dalvin Tomlinson work out? Because not a lot of teams pay two defensive tackles, that kind of money. So that, that again is an anomaly. Like what are these anomaly contracts giving a 32 year-year-old safety massive money down the road. Is Dalvin Cook going to wear down again while making $12 million a year? These are all the questions that you're alluding to, I think. And then what are the stumbling blocks from years past and have you addressed them? And I think I brought up the offensive line. You've taken very, very weak

methods of trying to address that group the last two years. So if that continues, that's a problem. Not having requisite wide receiver depth, is that going to doom this team, right? So like all of these trends, are they going to be bucked or are they going to continue in 2021? And I think if they continue, then I think the ownership front office, everybody takes notice of that. They're not stupid. They've just at some point, too, you know, once they went down this path, they did kind of have to commit to it to some extent. So they've done their best. But I think they also have to know when to call it quits on a system that just isn't working.

Some of it's built around your quarterback. And if you decide that this is the end of the road for the quarterback, then you can start going about, I think, implementing some changes that can usher in a new era. Folks, Minnesota football is back and there's no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for Minnesota football tickets anymore because TickPick, that's T-I-C-K, P-I-C-K, is the original no-fee ticket site and the only one you'll ever need to go for NFL tickets. TickPick got rid of all those awful service fees like the other ticket

sites charge, which lets them guarantee the best prices of all of their NFL tickets. Don't believe it. If you can find better prices for the same seats on another ticket site, TickPick will give you 110% of the difference on your purchase price. We've got quite a slate of home games in downtown Minneapolis, including revenge game for Cleveland when they return to Minnesota and plenty more visit tick pick.com slash insider today and use the promo code insider to save $10 on your first order for Minnesota football tickets. So I was thinking about when you pay a quarterback and like what has to come next and how they did draft Justin Jefferson and they have drafted offensive linemen and that's part of it. And I think that's a good way to go, but you also have to keep spending

money on the offensive side. And it was like, there was a thought process of well we paid mike zimmer i'm sorry not mike zimmer we paid kirk cousins so let's give mike zimmer his defensive guys and let's put all the money there and if we get just enough offense so we get some really great defense then we're going to be good to go and you wonder if there would have been some other thoughts of other front offices that would have said and i'm thinking of the bills for this kind of what they did in signing emmanuel sanders like no we actually need to keep putting money into the offensive side even though they just signed josh allen to that contract that now that the guy costs more and i know allen doesn't cost more like this year but now that

the guy costs more he the defense is not going to be perfect so the only way to overcome that is by giving him everything he could possibly get so it's like counterintuitive but it sort of makes sense when you think of how you win football games and i was watching last night thinking about this like the raiders made some big plays on defense and that's what you need but for the most part that was a shootout that's what you need. But for the most part, that was a shootout. That's two great quarterbacks and offenses going back and forth. And the Raiders are throwing it to Darren Waller every play. And Lamar Jackson's running all over the place. Like that's kind of NFL now is if you have the defense who can make a few plays,

you've got a chance. Just shutting everybody down is not something that's going to happen. Now, let me turn the conversation a little bit and ask you this question, Sam. What are the things that could transpire that we don't know about yet that could turn this back in a different way? Does that make sense? Is that too convoluted?

In a positive way. Yeah, the things that we don't know yet, because I think that the theme of coming out of cincinnati is gosh we just know this team and and like that person on twitter said i'm sorry i can't remember who said it but like game number 49 like what makes it not that well christian derrissa coming to the rescue we don't know about that yet. I think the offense seeing what it did and becoming fairly efficient in the second half with a largely three wide receiver look sort of pivoting to a little more spread out offense in light of that, because they don't

trust their tight ends right now. They just don't. They don't trust Chris Herndon. He's too new. Ellefson didn't play. Brandon Dillon wasn't used, even though they said he would be. They just didn't use, they don't trust their tight ends right now. So if they pivot to more of a multiple wide receiver set offense and KJ Osborne continues to look that good, you might have three really good weapons at pass catcher. I mean, KJ Osborne, and I'm going to be the first one to bring this up. If he turns out to be really good, you might have something there and maybe that's enough to sort of pivot how you want to do things. Maybe you run the ball a little bit less because you don't have tight ends in there that you trust blocking. That could be a game changer.

And again, I'm looking for stuff we don't know about yet. So this is one possibility. Far, far out there would be, you know, if Kellen Mond were to come around and Kirk Cousins like gets hurt for one half, Mond comes in and just completely changes everything. But I'm not going to count on that. Um, what do you have? Yeah, I'm thinking within the realm of reality. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I shouldn't have even gone there. Well, Christian Derrissaw is definitely an answer to this question because

only Udo and Ezra Cleveland were playing their first games at their respective positions. So I'm not ready to say that those guys are just a wash and it's never going to work with those two. I think you should be concerned about Ezra Cleveland because he played guard last year and now he steps in and has the worst pass blocking day on true pass sets by the PFF statistic, the worst pass blocking day of anybody that should not be happening for someone who played last year. That's kind of a rookie type of performance and i'm just not sure that the guy is a guard uh but if you're talking about a world where this happens like the imagination land of all the scenarios that could possibly play out i think derisaw coming back and playing left tackle is at the very top of the list

and then getting more out of Cleveland and Udo than you expect, because I'm ready to say that my Garrett Bradbury is going to have a higher PFF grade than 70 immediately was blown up on Sunday. I'm and the fact that they're playing Cam Hayward and Aaron Donald this year, that's just not going to happen. But those guys improving throughout the season would be a huge part of it. I also was going to bring up KJ Osborne. I think that's a huge deal that suddenly, if you can have a real legitimate weapon who can create 25 yard plays on third down and long, or who can catch a big fourth down pass like he did, they have not had this player.

And if he can do that week to week to week, which we saw in training camp and as possible that he can, it adds an extra layer to the offense that hasn't been there. I don't know if that's enough to fundamentally change, but I think it's a combination of these things. And then on the defensive side, like DJ Wanham has to exist. I mean, you watch the tape back of the defensive line specifically. So you're going to have to tell me if you saw anything different from DJ Wanham than what we saw last year, but in Cincinnati, focusing on the defensive line during the game, I didn't see a whole lot from him. I think they have other players who made impacts in that game, including Everson Griffin flashing a little, but DJ Wanham has to be good. I think in order to have a great defense,

which I think we all believe they need to be a truly Super Bowl competitive team. Yeah, on the defensive line, I think Wanham might have been the weak link for how much he played because he played a lot and had very little impact. You know, Stephen Weatherly only played 17 snaps, but I thought he actually did some good stuff in those 17 snaps and they used him in more of a run stopping role. He was not in there to rush the passer, but they had him in late in the game. When Cincinnati was running the ball a lot, they had a key, the key fourth and one stop Weatherly was in for. I thought Griffin, you know, Griffin missed a wide open sack. You sack. If he lands that sack, obviously that's

six sacks on the day. So the pressure up the middle, I thought was quality. And if you look at the first Michael Pierce sack, he was all alone going at the quarterback. The tight end is looking at him and says, nope, I'm going to go to Daniil Hunter, who's already double teamed. They sent a tight end to triple team Daniil Hunter while Michael Pierce was barreling down on the just off of injury Joe Burrow and threw him down to the ground. That's how preoccupied they were with Daniil, which hopefully for the Vikings is a sign of things to come.

I think on the defensive side of the ball too, you hold out hope that this is a vintage Patrick Peterson year because he maybe only had kind of one noticeable gaffe in that game on a third down. Otherwise, I think it was a pretty solid performance for Peterson. And if he's back to who he was, that can be a game changer too for Mike Zimmer. If you're suddenly shutting down one side of the field and uh and Xavier Woods too you know other than that fourth and inches where he got lost um Uzoma got the 32 yard connection basically for the win thought he had a good game too I mean I think there's a lot of good stuff on that defense if you can uh you know just clean up that one that one bad stretch end of second quarter,

beginning of third. Okay. Question from Chris here worth answering. Chris says, not sure if you're taking questions, but I've been wondering something. Did Darisov fall in the draft due to the surgery, or is it him being out just bad luck and needing a second surgery? I don't know the answer to that without knowing what teams thought of his medicals but my impression at least from talking with brandon thorn who um you know

covers offensive linemen for his uh sub stack trench warfare and also writes for bleach report uh he said right after the draft that one of the concerns was just how much Darasol wanted it. Like the, is he got that meanness, that second level, that finishing blocks and that kind of thing. And so we don't know yet though. We haven't seen any of it. And until he's ready to come back, it's hard to say. But I don't know what exactly happened there. And we haven't gotten any indication from Mike Zimmer,

except for him to say, I don't really know either. And he doesn't gotten any indication from Mike Zimmer, except for him to say, I don't really know either. And he doesn't have a timeline and he doesn't have any idea of what Darisaw will look like when he comes back, which is why it's hard to rely on that. But also you could see it if Rashad Hill plays like this for a few weeks. The only problem is if Rashad Hill plays like this for a few weeks, Chandler Jones is getting 10 sacks and Miles Garrett is getting a couple of his own. I mean, it's going to be a big problem over the next couple of weeks. And Darisaw, that's the thing about the things we don't know and trying to learn as we go forward.

We've got to find out pretty quickly because there's really no time. There's no time to just say, well, we'll just kind of go throughout the season and maybe you're, you know, six and three or something. And we'll go from there. It's like, this could go to Owen for in a hurry. If these things aren't good, like this week against Arizona. And then it also means, you know, going on the road and going to a different time zone again and things like that. And that's what usually a week two game would not feel super pivotal. But this is kind of for me, Sam, this is like the second year in a row where I've thought, boy, if you go lose that one, even with 17 games, it just doesn't get easier from here.

And you remember how bad they looked week two of last year, they lost bar. I mean, that was just a that was a decimating performance. I mean, that and granted, they did climb back into the picture last year they lost bar i mean that was just a that was a decimating performance i mean that and granted they did climb back into the picture last year so give them credit for that but um oh and two this year would just feel way too much like deja vu after all you did to try to make this this group better especially the defense and this is how fast we change our tune, Matthew, when things went once the season starts, because I I've been saying, I thought Christian Derrissaw was so far behind the eight ball that Rashad Hill could almost not play his way out of the job at this point because Derrissaw wasn't even threatening him. And now I think it could happen after two

weeks, you know, like I, we don't know if Derrissa is necessarily ready to go full bore yet he's just getting going but it might not take him that long once he does and they could also do a rotation too I mean we have seen before like when Jake Long got to this team and they thought he could help them they used Jake Long a little bit that first game and sort of mixed him in. We could see that with Derrissa where he plays 20 snaps and they kind of get, they get his, his toe wet just to, you know, see if he can play. And if he can, then that, that transition could happen fast. So interesting that they didn't put him on IR and it's so hard to see him

playing within these first three weeks. And your scenario is the one that makes the most sense. But Mike Zimmer has given no indication that they have any feeling for what kind of player he is. At the same time, Rashad Hill taking on the NFL sack leader from last year is just an extreme mismatch. And you knew that that was going to be a problem. And this is where there's another part to this, too, that you alluded to with Clint Kubiak, where, yes, it's a lot of the same things from previous it out like you were aware of the people that you

were playing with from the very beginning and i think that part of the answer is if you don't start getting justin jefferson involved from the very first drive i just don't know how you can overcome the shortcomings that you have when you play good defenses. Last year, we saw it where they just could not get the football to Justin Jefferson early in games. And it's got to happen. It just has to happen. Like if we're making a list, stuff that's got to happen in order for you to survive and get to two and two through these hard first four games, that is at the very top of my list and the other part of it sam is like show us that you have a mentality to overcome a bad loss in week one they're not the only team that had a bad loss in week one lots of teams did uh the good teams will bounce back didn't

tampa bay have a pretty bad loss against new orleans last year in week one with tom brady and they won the super bowl um Now that's Tom Brady. That's the most mentally tough quarterback there is. So show us that, that that's my feeling of going into this week is show us that you know how to deal with Chandler Jones and work around the offensive line issues and show us that you have the toughness to overcome that kind of loss. Because I'll admit after the game where Adam Thielen is sort of begging

everyone not to overreact and saying, guys, it's one game. There's 16 to go. I guess my thought was, does everybody in there know that? Or are they feeling the same way that we saw in the preseason or that we've seen from this team when it's had opportunities like this in previous years. Yeah. You know, you look at the way they laid down in week two last year, you absolutely can't have that happen again, but you know that Mike Zimmer is going to come out heavy, wanting to run all the time, especially against a team that just sacked Tennessee a bajillion times,

they're going to run Dalvin Cook. And I think this team hangs on to the establish the run mantra about one quarter too long when they try to do it. Give it up after one quarter. You don't need to take this into the start of the second half and then make an adjustment because it's too late. They need to make that adjustment faster and, frankly, just have more balance in the beginning of the game. You know, there were a lot of times with Stefan Diggs, and this is why he got so frustrated, is that they would get to halftime. He would have one catch. They would open things up in the second half. He would have an amazing game and lead them back in it, Like in that Saints playoff game a couple of years ago,

I think he had two catches. That's unacceptable. That can't happen to your best receiver. And, you know, with Jefferson, he did open things up in the second half and had, you know, he was a big reason why they got back in that game. So I think if you make your pass catchers a priority early on in these games, I think good things are going to happen. But it just it doesn't jibe with what

Mike Zimmer talks about with trying to make sure Garrett Bradbury is not too exposed and the young guards and after everything that he witnessed on Sunday, that's not going to make him tilt more pass heavy. I think he's still going to dig his heels in. And I don't think he's upset with Clint for throwing 50 times because of the way the game went. But I don't think he's ever going to look at a game like that and say, hey, how about that? That kind of worked out all right. Let's change things up, Clint.

No. done all right let's let's let's change things up clint no fans are going back to stadium so you have to be ready with the best minnesota football gear that's why you have to check out soda stick i saw a ton of soda stick gear around training camp i expect to see it in the stadium as well there are so many cool designs on hats t-shirts and hoodies for the fall weather including the john randall design that is extremely cool there's also the straight cash homie randy moss homage can't stop the theelin hats and a personal favorite the old video game designs the tecmo fans will appreciate check it all out at sodastick.com that is s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-.com. Everything is screen printed here in Minnesota. And I can tell you that the shirts are comfortable and they last because half

of my closet is now soda stick at this point. Again, that's soda stick.com Minnesota sports inspired goods, and keep your eye out for our soda stick giveaways. If this thing doesn't go the way of bouncing back and making this season really interesting right off the bat which i think a win in arizona would do uh if they win in arizona uh it's not all sins from week one forgiven but it is much more it's like new season hit the refresh button okay 15 more to go long way for this season if they win that's how it will feel um but if they don't who do you like what things do you think we are going to say that

was understandable and that was inexcusable because i think that already we're to a point of well the way that the offensive line has been constructed has just been on the inexcusable side. The bad break with Delvin Cook fumbling the football, that's a bad break. There's nothing you can do about that. He looked like he was down, but the referees couldn't overturn it. That's just one bounce that didn't go your way for this year. Same with the kicking last year. It's like, well, you know,

nobody could have predicted that Dan Bailey was going to go wrong here. But how much, I guess I was thinking about this today. How much is it if Mike Zimmer says, this is the way we play, like how much of it is on that? That this is like a decided upon thing that you're going to play this way of football. And that is how you are going to win. And that is it. And I feel like we've just talked about this many times, like Kirk Cousins quarterback rating on first down and 10 is

because he's usually running by action. Everybody thinks Delvin is getting the football and Justin Jefferson can be stopped. And so we kind of come back to some of these same things over and over again. And I guess I wonder like, who are we going, are we going to put it on roster construction? Are we going to put it on maybe off the way till this happens? Cause it may be, it doesn't, but I I've just been thinking about all of these things of like, who, who is responsible for how they got to this point of having the same problems over and over and who is responsible for fixing it? Yeah, the, the offensive line is, I think number one with a bullet here, because that is the probably number one inexcusable decision this team makes is,

is the way they've gone about that. I don't think they intentionally draft run blocking only. I think they want guys that are good at both, but you're taking a gamble when you draft lighter guys. Now, they attempted to fix that. They got two big linemen with Derisaw and Davis, and Mike Zimmer said on draft night, we wanted to get bigger. So their attempt was, I think, correct to try to improve with their size up front. But the approach to rely on rookies was, I think, the inexcusable part without really having a fallback. And what's happened now is the rookies aren't ready, the rookies are hurt, and you're stuck with backup in-house options. So that's inexcusable. I don't see much inexcusable on the defensive side. I think last

year was. I think last year, thinking that they could fix things with rookies and patching it together the way they did, that was inexcusable. But the attempt to fix it, I think, was good. So I think the lack of depth may be a little bit inexcusable on the front office's part because of the contracts they've given out and the amount of money that they've spent in questionable places. When you give two defensive tackles big money uh two linebackers big money a running back big money even your fullback you pay more than most teams um that is where things get dicey for me so i think o-line contract allocation would be probably right up there for me and let me just bring this all back home which is doing things the way that the front office has done,

coaching the way that they've coached. And overall, it's been this change and that change and this player move and that player move. But a lot of along the same lines of thinking all the way through. And that, I think, is what to, to find out from this season is if you win, then that's great. And it becomes a special season and it's memorable forever. And this is what happened and how it goes. And people will be throwing huge parties outside of us bank stadium and all those things, right. They go along with a great season that will be happening and fans will have fun. If they win, uh, you have national TV games that you'll win and will be

exciting and you'll go to work super pumped the next day, right? That, wow, they won. Remember this play that play beat the Packers go on the road, beat Chicago. Like you're either going to have that, which is a great experience for fans when their football team has a great year. There's so much energy behind it, or it has to be different. It just has to be because they'll have so many bites at the apple at this point. And they haven't said, no, we're actually going to shift to a different type of football and a different type of decision-making since they haven't done that. This is a referendum on what it all means. These next, I think even this next

section of games but the next the rest of the season okay so before we uh call it a day let me play a little game with you sam i want to call it what you're thinking about that team so after games when we do this we'll just talk about what we think about teams now that we have more results. Chicago Bears, Sam, what you thinking about that team? I guess Matt Stafford is good. And our opinion on the Rams takes a hit in week one. But the Bears, 0-1, not good for Chicago, Matt. Okay. So you're aware also that green bay was blown out what do you think uh people should feel about green bay how much of this was on

rogers i mean was rogers was this like a bottom of the barrel rogers game or what happened yeah it was about as bad as aaron rogers is ever going to play. I mean, I, but you know, he had a game like this against Tampa Bay last year, early in the season and went to the NFC championship game. So there's a team that I would not at all overreact to their first week. And that happens all the time that just things go bad right from the very outset. And you never remember it as the season goes along. I think that's why when you get into this conversation of, well, what should you react to? What should you not react to when it's a first week?

It's if the things that took you apart were the things that we thought would take you apart, that's a little concerning. If it is a blowout of a team that's supposed to be a super bowl contender i don't know things just went wrong and that's how it goes and don't be surprised if aaron rogers reels off seven straight wins after that that that's where i'm at with his performance in the first week i think that the people are pulling out the knives and i saw what i saw somebody saying they should just play jordan love like come on people i mean they did play jordan love seven attempts right they should just play jordan love like come on people i mean they did play jordan love seven attempts right they should just bench rogers look you have one shot of winning it's aaron

rogers and that's it aaron rogers the whole answer so there's no it's completely senseless to talk about stuff like that and it's also completely senseless after one week and you know what if they go 12 and 5 instead of 13 and 4 at the end of the season because he was screwing around this offseason well what a shame it will be in green bay so i think anybody's getting cocky after that i don't think vikings fans are i think some media people do it to get a couple of clicks but like i don't think that vikings fans are getting super excited that aaron rogers had one bad game. He had two interceptions and he might end the year with like six.

Yeah, like that. That's how that's how well he will probably play going forward. Yep. OK, so we'll do this every Tuesday here. If you're watching this for the first time, also read our written work. Purple Insider at Substack dot com. I wrote about the things the Vikings offense needs to succeed. And Sam is going to write for tomorrow about the defensive line.

He watched back the tape. So lots of good stuff at purple insider.substack.com. And also listen to all of our podcasts that we do. We get special guests and have a lot of good conversations. So make sure you check us out there. If you haven't before, thanks so much for checking in and Sam, I will see you out there at TCO performance center tomorrow. Thanks caller. Thanks so much for checking in and Sam, I will see you out there at TCO Performance Center tomorrow. Thanks, Collar. Thanks everybody for watching.