Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What will the crowd be like for Vikings Steelers?

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom discuss what the atmosphere will be like at US Bank Stadium on Thursday night when the Minnesota Vikings play the Pittsburgh Steelers. They also talk about whether it's a good thing that the Vikings' owners are nowhere to be found when the team is struggling. Matthew talks with Mark Bullock, former Washington Post and Athletic writer, about the Vikings' playoff race with Washington and how Taylor Heinicke is leading Washington into the postseason. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

so uh i want to talk about this situation the vikings are in because you know where the irony exists to me is that there's still very much in the playoff race Sam um I just talked to a guy who covers Washington today which you'll hear later on the podcast and we were talking about this playoff race it does it feel like weirdly inappropriate to talk about the playoff race after you lose to Detroit. And yet it's very much in play. Like it's not out of the realm of possibility at all, particularly because Philadelphia and Washington play each other two times. And if they split those games, it leaves the door open for the Vikings to beat the Steelers, beat the bears and go into the post season. And I know that people have said, Hey, they couldn't beat Detroit.

Are they going to beat Pittsburgh and the Bears? I mean, look up Pittsburgh and the Bears. Like they're not good there. I mean, Roethlisberger has struggled all year long. And, uh, I don't know if it's Andy Dalton or Justin Fields, either one of those quarterbacks. I think Mike Zimmer has a decent chance of messing with defensively. There's no stout offensive lines here that are going to steamroll the Vikings defensive line. But yet I still feel very funny about switching from fire everybody, this all must end, which was our conversation the other day,

to, hey, but you know, they are kind of in the playoff race. Yeah, what's it called when you've got that little that little tracer that like you hook up to your pulse and it's like an echocardiogram i might be wrong about that not a doctor but like the viking season it's like yep they've got a pulse oh no they don't lost two one two lost two one two and they've just got this like pendulum that keeps on swinging and now we're facing i think another very realistic two-game where, yeah, they could win them both. And they could be going into a day after Christmas must win against the Rams at home. That'd be a fun game. It could happen. Like we could again, flip the narrative off of this doomsday present that we're in, look into the

future. and they could still have hope two weeks from now. I still think it's going to be hard to win these two games with the way this team operates, but it could happen. It could definitely happen. And you've pointed this out in previous shows too. It's weird when you're talking about, well, can the Vikings outgun the Taylor Heineke-led Washington football team? You know, can Gardner Minshew win enough games to get the Eagles over the Vikings? Like, they're going up against backups and teams who by the way huge favor um you know losing to Seattle in lose from ahead fashion the opposite of come from behind which makes the Lions loss hurt even worse I mean then the sixth seed is back in play and yeah just uh a devastating turn

of events there for the Vikings playoff hopes but still on life support and still they're they're gonna get plenty of favors from all the teams around them. None of them are going to win 10 games, which even gives you room to maybe even lose one along the way and still make the playoffs. So I think that the next couple of days for fans and for players is sort of reframing their vision, moving the goalposts a little bit and saying okay we lost that one but but there is still inexplicably hope for our season i mean that's been the entire year when they fall to three and five it was feeling very much like oh man they could go to los angeles get

beat down out there come back home lose to the packers and good night Vikings for this season. Everybody's getting canned, Kirk's getting traded and on we go. And then they win two games in a row. Now the difference between that and this is that the Vikings have these absences on defense of which it seems like they're going to get Anthony Barr and Eric Hendricks back, which is a big difference maker from Troy Dye being out on the field or Blake Lynch, who Mike Zimmer refused to say anything nice about today when he was asked about him. There's just no difference. I mean, there's no way to even put it into numbers, the difference between Blake Lynch and Eric Hendricks. There's no grasping that. It's gigantic. And so if you're Mike Zimmer and you know, you're likely to get those linebackers back,

you have a much better chance of going up against a team with Pittsburgh that throws a lot of short passes because Ben Roethlisberger can't move or do stuff anymore. He just takes the snap and tries to get the ball out quickly and not like hurt every part of his body, which opens the door for it. It might not matter if your corners aren't that good. It might matter if your linebackers can make plays. So I'm sure that he's looking at that saying, well, we should be better than it was against Detroit. But I also think there's another part where if you're watching this team and you're a Vikings fan, you're saying, I don't know, man, Pittsburgh is coming in here, highly motivated to stay in their playoff race.

They never have a losing season and they're not about to start. They're coming off a pretty big win against Baltimore in which their defense showed up huge. They have TJ Watt. They have Cameron Hayward. These are some of the best players in the NFL. And we've seen many times where the Vikings cannot get anything going when the opposing team has a really good defensive line.

Or even last week at times when the opposing team has a bad offensive line, or I'm sorry, defensive line. So I guess I don't know how to feel about this because I can easily talk myself into winning the games they're supposed to win, upsetting either Green Bay or Los Angeles and being in the playoffs. And then we go, huh, what a weird time that was when they lost to Detroit and still having the same conversations about changes, but being in that playoff race, it seems waking up today, still very plausible and yet also weird that that's the case. Yeah, it, it doesn't make any sense. The NFL this season doesn't make any sense. And the Vikings aren't the only team to lose a bad game either. They're the only team to lose to the lions, but Hey,

their upcoming opponent tied the lions, you know, like this is the, the, the, we almost, or did lose to the lions bowl brought to you by purgatory. Like that, that's what this Thursday night game is. And it could be an ugly one um and the vikings are going to have to to do what they often don't do it which is like find a way to win a potentially low scoring ugly football game um pittsburgh just won like one of the ugliest football games ever against baltimore but it, right? Like they came up with a clutch drive at the end and they caught a break when the tight end couldn't make a one-handed

catch on the two-point conversion. The Vikings need to win an ugly one. I mean, they've yes, done it this year, week five against Detroit, very ugly, but that's Detroit. This is Pittsburgh. And that defense is probably going to travel pretty well. Remember, Mike Tomlin's a defensive-minded head coach. I mean, we've seen him coordinate pretty good defenses over the years with a myriad of different talent with the Steelers. They're going to show up. TJ Watt's got 16 and a half sacks, I believe.

He could threaten the NFL record this year. That's the kind of player, that's the kind of game record that he is. So, and the offensive line might not have Christian Derrissaw, who is DNP today. On a short week, they very well could have another mishmash of Udo, Cole, Bradbury, out of position. It's going to be hard. So I guess the Vikings want advantages. They're at home. They don't have to travel. And the defense is about as intact as it could be.

You know, Sands, they're two defensive ends, but Peterson off the COVID list, linebackers back in the mix. You just have to hope that Roethlisberger gives you a couple gifts, because I think if he plays a clean game, Pittsburgh will be tough to beat, even if he's not lighting it up. If he just keeps them in control, they've got good work in the trenches, and they will grind you down. Isn't it funny to talk about this when it comes to opposing quarterbacks? Because I think that under all logic, we should say, well, even with a bad defense, the Vikings should be able to take care of Ben Roethlisberger. I mean, Ben Roethlisberger is by PFF standards, the lowest graded clean pocket passer. So that's been the thing, right?

That, Hey, look, if, you know, the Vikings can't pressure Jared Goff. He could still be competent, right? And if they can't pressure Cooper Rush, then he could still be confident, competent. And that's what happened. Daniil Hunter got hurt in the Dallas game, and then all of a sudden they couldn't pressure Cooper Rush. He made some plays. And the same thing goes for Jared Goff, especially on the final drive. They didn't pressure him. We have yet to get an explanation, by the way, from anybody about why they did not try to go after him. Xavier Woods was very coy about answering questions today about that, but I guess I'll just use their words and say it is what it is. Like you can't go back and blitz them. But I mean, that makes me think that no matter what you do or who's on the field, you always have to project that the

opposing quarterback the rest of the way is going to perform above what they usually perform. So if we think that Roethlisberger is horrendous, and he has been this year most definitely, but he's probably not going to be as horrendous against the Vikings because they don't cover well, that team has receivers, they don't pressure the quarterback well. And blitzing against Roethlisberger isn't the answer. It like, isn't the like, Oh, just snap your fingers, blitz him because he's got so much experience and things like that. And here's what I wanted to talk about though, is normally we might also say, well, look, that home field advantage is a big deal, but against Dallas, there were a lot of Dallas fans. Pittsburgh is one of the rare teams that is everywhere, right? I want to know what you

think this crowd is going to be like at US Bank Stadium on Thursday night. It's going to be dead. It's going to be dead if there's any sort of adversity early in that game. I think that football crowds, and maybe this is just the case here, or maybe this is the case everywhere, but I think they're at their strongest in the first quarter, first few drives of the game. They have the most kind of pent-up energy. And then there's usually a lull,

unless the home team gives you a reason to like stay at a fever pitch and I think that these fans are pretty smart they probably all watch the Lions game they understand the trajectory of this team I even think back to the Packers game Aaron Rodgers was asked after the game about the the crowd and the the impact it. And Aaron Rodgers said, and he's played there about five times, he said the crowd wasn't the same as usual, which I thought was interesting. So this home crowd is already on the edge. They were booing in the Browns game. They were booing in the Lions game.

So they've shown the capacity to sort of express their discontent with this team. Now, are we going to have fire Zimmer chance a la fire Childress 11 years ago? Because that was a thing. I could see boos in this game. If the offense doesn't get going early, I could definitely see boos and I could see a very muted home field advantage in this football game. How do you see it? I don't know if you felt this way this year or not, but I only have one way to judge. I don't really trust the decibel meter that they put up on the thing. You don't?

I don't know. Next thing you're going to say is you don't trust the Gallerhorn being real. What? don't thing i don't know like next thing you're gonna say is you don't trust the galler horn being what you mean they weren't really playing an actual galler horn when the guy puts his mouth up to it uh i can't believe it um that i'm sure is very cool thing to do though for the people who get that honor uh it i haven't felt it rattling my soul this year at any point. And I know that during the pit or during the Green Bay game, there were times where it got loud. There were a couple of third downs where it got loud and you could sort of, it does this thing when it gets loud, where it feels like it's sort of pulsating, where it's just like, whoa, like that. I don't know how to describe it, but it's so loud that that's what it feels like.

And maybe a couple of times in that game, it got to that point. But during the Minneapolis miracle game, that's the loudest I've ever heard it. Not just during that play, the whole thing, the whole second half, especially. Yeah. I just remember sitting there being like, my skull is rattling against my brain through this entire game. It was that way in the Superdome, the playoff game, you and I sat right next to each other, could not hear each other talking like through the Superdome game. There has been no point this year where I've felt that way, where it's like Courtney sits two seats down, where I'm screaming to her to say anything like it hasn't felt that way. And you know, that I generally talk loudly and more people have

overheard me this year saying stupid things, I think, than ever before in this stadium. And I agree with you that the discontent, if it doesn't get off to a good start, will be shown by the fans who are there. And I think that this has been sort of brewing all season, even going back to preseason when they were miserable on offense. There was this feeling of like, you guys, you're going to do this to us again, aren't you? You're going to be mediocre. And people were throwing their programs around in the stands and doing the wave. Just like there has been a feeling inside that building that I have not experienced before since covering this team, because at all points covering this team with fans in the stadium,

there were high expectations and every game was big for them. And this one feels like, yeah, it's big for what we just talked about, but it's not the same. It's not the same sort of like this really matters. And we've got to be here for our team. It's if you guys don't come out and blast these fools, then just boo and get out of here. And you've wasted my money. I think that there's a lot of edginess at this point. Once Minnesotans with their team become agitated and tired, we saw this with the Twins when people just stopped showing up. Once people get tired, they, I think, show their displeasure with these teams. Yeah. And early on in. Bank Stadium years, there was a true sense of pride that, like,

oh, we are part of the home field advantage because this defense feeds off of us. We're the best third down defense in the NFL. So all of that noise, all of that energy, which oftentimes is created on the defensive side, was so important to the 2017, 2018, and 2019 defenses. And now, like, people are probably saying, oh, another, it's third down and three yards to go. And people are saying, again, they just, they converted the last six. Do we really have to make noise this time?

Because they've been let down on defense so many times that that sucks the energy out of the building. And I think that has a genuine effect on crowd morale, crowd noise. If you get 10,000 fewer people yelling on third down, that probably makes a notable difference on the so-called decibel level, which is probably not accurate on the screen. But digressing, I think we're on the same page here. I think it's just a question of how bad does it get? If this team plays the Detroit equivalent of a first half, can you imagine running off the field to that? If Pittsburgh has another two-minute drive into halftime, like the Vikings have given up in almost every game

this year, think about the angst that we're going to experience. It's going to be bad. I mean, that's going to be another one of those, like write it down moments. This was another sign of the apocalypse and the end of the regime. Yeah. And I assume that for a game like this, Mark and Ziggy will be in the building, Wilf, and that it has to impact them. And I know it did in 2019. When they had that game in 2019 in week 16 against the Green Bay Packers, and people were leaving and people were booing because they just thought this team is kind of fraudulent, like in their record.

The record's not bad, but they're just not a good team. And they've had so many disappointments. You felt an angstiness in that building that night. Excuse me. And I think that it affected how the Wilfs were looking at that situation because we recall that there was consideration of making a change after that. And if they're in the building and it's half Pittsburgh Steelers fans who have, I don't know, traveled here or live in the surrounding areas. I mean, think about the surrounding areas. If you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, this might be in South Dakota. Like this might be your shot to see your team that you don't get very often is to come here. So I could see every Midwest Chicago or a Pittsburgh Steelers fan coming from all over to, to go to this game.

And if Vikings fans after last week sold their tickets, I mean, imagine what that looks like to the ownership you're in the playoff race and half of your stadium has taken over. This is the team that's supposed to take over other people's stadiums because your games are relevant when you go to Los Angeles and there's arms, right? Like that's what you're hoping to accomplish as a franchise. You don't want it happening to you. Um, I wanted to ask you also, so it's hard to say what, like how they would feel about that and how they'll watch that. Um, everything is hard to say when it comes to the ownership. And I've had, uh, people, you know, bring me on their radio stations this week to talk about, Hey, your team lost the lines. They're like, yeah, they sure did. Uh, but, um, uh, one of the questions that comes up is,

well, is ownership going to tolerate this or is ownership want to make a change? And it's always so hard for me, Sam, to say anything about it because of how, um, muted they always are. Right. Just like they are just not public and out there with their comments. And I guess I was wondering from you, should fans like that? Like, should they like that we don't hear from the owners almost ever, like once a year? Or should they want to know more

about what they're thinking about the direction of the franchise? So I tend to think that someone like Glenn Taylor, who's very accessible, maybe a little overexposed, but also I say that because I just don't think he's a very good owner. Like, I don't know if the things he's saying with that overexposure are good or helpful. Someone like Mark Cuban,

who I think has actually settled into his role really well. I mean, a lot of the things he says I think are worthwhile. So I go back and forth on overexposed ownership. I think that the perk of working for the Wilfs is that they're not meddlesome and they're generous, right? When they're spending the way they're spending, I think you deal with maybe sort of their absence in the public eye. I would classify them as good owners. So when they don't speak up about certain things, yeah, I think that it's probably good too if your ownership is not undermining what's going on in the field because that just sets a bad precedent. So I'm probably more okay with it, you know, maybe than some. Now, I consider sort of their desire for continuity that they've shown.

And they've, you know, obviously had a pretty long leash. And I think about the continuity with Pittsburgh, right? Like that's an easy comparison to make this week. They've had three coaches in half a century. And I'm sure that there were a lot of people that were worn thin by Tomlin and the records the Steelers were putting up, right? Like early 2000s, they had a couple of 500 seasons. And then 2018, 2019, a couple of 500 seasons.

And then they won 12 500 seasons. And then only won 12 last year. And now they're kind of back where they were. And, and I'm sure that when you go, you know, when you hold onto a coach for what, 15 years, you're going to have those down moments, but, um, they've typically been able to come out of them and, and be the better for it. And now their quarterback is probably the one getting in the way. But now I'm going down a bunny trail. I think the Wilfs desire that type of continuity more so than they do sort of chasing those quick changes every couple of years.

But I'm OK with the way that they've handled things in the public eye. I guess going out, I mean, if anything, I thought that having to go out and like send a message before the playoff game, defending Mike Zimmer, I thought that was even a little knee jerk. I don't know if they needed to do that or why they did that necessarily, but I'm pretty, I'm pretty much okay with their approach or where do you stand on that? I don't know about you guys, but I've gotten very good in my life at admitting when I need some help. If you are struggling to figure out how to navigate workers' compensation and disability laws, I've got a team that can lend you a hand. Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer are

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most important that's your recovery there is no fee or cost for reaching out to them you do not pay a single cent unless they are successful in obtaining your benefits. So make sure to go to their website, yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. That is yourminnesotaworkcomployer.com. This has been an attorney advertisement for Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer. I think that Vikings fans should be really happy about their ownership because of how much worse it can be when you have an owner. And this is talked about with Washington pretty often about how the scouts do their jobs all year long and they put together these massive reports and they just do the best they can. And you have front office people who are pouring through the numbers and the reports and everything else

and trying to come up with any little edge they could possibly get at the NFL draft. And then Dan Snyder walks in the room and says, we're drafting this guy. And this happened when I was younger in Buffalo. So the Bills, I forget the exact year, but you'll know the player. So the Bills were in need of everything one year, they

were just sort of, you know, middling and struggling and that kind of thing. And, uh, they were all ready to take whoever and their owner, Ralph Wilson at the time walked in and said, we're taking Willis McGahee. Now Willis McGahee turned out to be a really good NFL player. The problem is that Willis McGahee had shredded his knee in a college game right before the draft. I mean, like it was one of those, I think, um, you know, one of those big games, a bowl game or something that he was the championship against, against Ohio state. One of the ugliest injuries ever. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so the management is like, uh, he can't play this year. Do you know that? Like he might never turn into a good player

and it just, you know, that was the guy that he wanted. And so the owner took them. You don't have that here. And the Vikings have made their mistakes in the first round, most certainly, but they don't have Mark Wilf walking in being like, uh, take Bradbury. Like at least here's what it allows us to do. It allows us to evaluate the general manager and the coach on the merits of what's happened and not say, well, how much of it is their fault really? Or are they working around this guy or that guy and dealing with the whims of a goofball loaner? Like, could you really evaluate, I don't know who Washington's general manager is, but could you really evaluate anyone who's the GM of that team when this is the case? And I think that

the Steelers are that way where they've let their management and their coaches do their jobs and they've provided all the checks that you needed. And this is kind of actually an indictment on Rick Spielman is that they've given you all the cash that you need. It's really about cash. They've given you all the cash you need to restructure contracts and everything else. And to extend your very expensive quarterback. And this is still the result that they've come up with. But I think from the perspective of them being out there, you and I would really like better answers to tell fans about how they feel about their quarterback, their coach, their general manager, the general state of the franchise.

I'd love to have better answers for you. But if the trade-off for me not having better answers for you is that you get these sort of quiet owners who are not reactionary and not making your draft picks, I think it's one of the better ownership situations. Plus they built you a stadium. That's, you know, debatable about how the money got there. But like the, you know, all these things, they've pushed themselves to being a high-class franchise in the grand scheme of things, which they weren't always in the Metrodome days.

I think all of these things point to, you have a very strong ownership. It's just that not knowing how they feel and do they really fully get it? Like when it comes to evaluating these types of things is another question to ask that is very hard to answer. Yeah, I've said this before. I've always felt like they have other interests too. It's not a Mark Davis where I get the sense that he's kind of living and dying with every move, every game, and really into the minutia because of just the history with the Raiders and the football family. And I think the Wilves have business interests, right? Like buying the Vikings was as much of an investment as it was a passion project.

They identified like a sort of low-income NFL franchise and turned them into a behemoth. And they've delivered on everything they promised, save for the Super Bowl. But they come in, they spend half a dozen years negotiating this stadium. Then they get it built. They host a Super Bowl. They get a new practice facility. They reach a couple NFC Championship games along the way. So if there is any impatience with the Wilfs, it's now that they're looking at the state of things and they say, we've got no other cards to play besides franchise on the map. We positioned ourselves to have a practice facility that guys want to play at. We're going to woo them with this beautiful hotel next door that they can stay at. We've got great fans, a great stadium, great tradition. And I think that all the pieces are now in place. So their focus is no longer on constructing a stadium, hosting certain events. It's kind of all about the product now. And for that not to come to fruition, I guess I could see

that being maybe the final straw in their decision as to what to do next, because there's just nothing else to keep their attention and distract them. There's also something hard that we deal with when it comes to evaluating like an ownership is that one of the criticisms I think for them is, Hey, uh, look, uh, they've sort of settled for, you knew that this was going to be the case with Zimmer Spielman cousins when they extended him, that you were going to kind of just go forward with seven and nine, nine and seven, whatever type of seasons, eight, nine, now that kind of thing. And Hey, that's good enough since we're playing important games in December and that's it. And we've heard people say, Hey, just get in and you've got a

chance, which has not really proven to be true in the last two decades in the NFL, really, I guess, since, well, I last decade, I'll say, since the Eli Manning thing and all that. And that's, I think they're New York people and that's fair to look at it that way when that's what you've seen is a team go from eight and eight to win the Super Bowl or whatever it was. But that's just super unusual and doesn't happen very often. But I think that that particular criticism does not quite factor how difficult it is when you own the team to risk being bad, like really bad. And that's where a loss against Pittsburgh and this crowd ties into this conversation. Because if you lose to

Pittsburgh, you're bad with all these people that you have sort of had in place to give you a chance to get in and then make that run or give it, give a shot. And as an ownership, you're feeling much better about, Hey, we're this game is going to determine the playoffs in December. Like you feel okay about those games. You can hype them up. Fans come out. We've got to make the playoffs, help us out enjoyable seasons, make the playoffs, go to new Orleans, win a game, that kind of thing. But you go to five and eight and it seems over, over and fans are walking out and throwing their programs on the field on the way and booing and whatever else. I mean, then you're talking about, well, that's the reason that these people are in place was to give you that shot, to have a quarterback good enough to give you a shot, to have a coach good enough to give you a shot to have a coach good enough to give you a shot if you don't do that that's when it needs to change and rebuild be damned like okay

well what's the difference if we end up having a bad year next year because we changed everything well how is it different from now if you're five and eight next year with a rookie quarterback and an exciting new coach and some draft picks that you're playing and people want to see because it's a new direction that's a way different five and eight than the five and eight you're currently dealing with. And I think that this is a tipping point for that argument of, well, they're okay with being in the middle and don't want to risk going to the bottom. Well, if you're already kind of at the bottom, then that could push something to happen. And it's certainly, again, you mentioned the separation between ownership and decision makers. And then's certainly, again, you mentioned the separation between ownership

and decision makers. And then when the ownership also provides those decision makers with expensive, in many cases, high-end talent, and the decision makers and coaches still can't bring squeeze wins out of that group. Yeah. There's your answer right there. That's the move that needs to be made. And I think that that you can be at peace with that. You don't need to sweat and toil over, Oh, what do we do with an, with a nine and eight situation that creates the real conundrum, I think is if they do end up nine and eight, and then you have to decide, do we do the thing that the lions did you know and risk having a matt patricia situation that's always going to be the fear

or do we try to to keep them around and duplicate the stealer situation where they had down years with a defensive minded coach and then bounced back um i i say, no, don't do that. But I could see the rationale because I think there is a desire to be competitive and remain, you know, keep the fans invested and keep them interested late in the season. That's one piece of ownership that is going to change from owner to owner is your tolerance for tanking, right? And that the Wilfs, I would assume, would have a higher tolerance because they're not reliant on the gate money. They don't need to have sellout crowds to still make a fortune. They've got a million other balls they're juggling. But in their heart, maybe they want

that competitive team every year even if it means vying for the seventh seed uh tolerance for tanking is my indie band i think is right what what instrument well i mean i was gonna say banjo is very indie so that's the obvious answer monica um yeah and and that's that is where it gets super interesting because I could 100% see them taking care of the Pittsburgh Steelers in this game. It's one that looks on paper like it's going to be a little tough because of the defensive line of Pittsburgh, but it was just a couple weeks ago that the Bengals dropped like, what, 41

on this Pittsburgh team? They have been vulnerable. They don't have great corners. Minka Fitzpatrick is a good player, but he kind of moved all over the place. There isn't like, oh yeah, well this, this is how they're going to shut down Jefferson, especially on a short week. It's not like you can come up with some masterful game plan. Like the Vikings are going to know what they're doing. They're going to know what the Vikings do. And it's really like, does TJ Watt wreck this game? It's kind of the way that I look at it. And Cam Hayward, who's just as good. But you could see them winning it. And then you could see them going three and two and making the

playoffs because other things fall their way. And then that's where the decision gets so difficult. Because if you go eight and nine, then Mike Zimmer walks in your office and he says, look, Dalvin Cook doesn't fumble. We don't miss a field goal. Eight, nine turns quickly into, you know, 10 and seven. And then we're right there. And if you're Rick Spielman, you're going to walk in and be like, Hey, look, remember Irv Smith got hurt. So we could have had, instead of the 11th best offense, we could have the seventh best offense.

And if we had only had that, then we would write. And this is how you could see the wheels turning of them saying like, well, yeah, it is true that they were very close in a lot of these games. And if this happens and that happens and so forth. And I think right now you can feel people listening, getting frustrated by this line of thinking. But if you're the if you're the owners of the team and these people are telling you we're actually not that far away. It was just this that and the other thing went wrong this year the everson griffin deal and everything else i mean it's so hard and this is why it's taking coaches a really long time to get around to going forward

on fourth down it's so hard to go with kind of the unknown that carries risk versus what you know. If you punt the ball, you know the situation, you know what's going to happen. If you go for it, you don't know whether you're going to get it or not. And you also know how bad it could be if you don't. Just like this, if you fire Zimmer Spielman, move on from Kirk, it could be a horrible quarterback that you draft. It could be Adam Gase that you hire. It could be Joe Judge. It could be Joe Brady that gets fired a year and a half into his career after being touted as a genius. Somebody wrote the article, by the way. Remember I foreshadowed this on Sunday? Yes. I said, someone will write the article. And they actually wrote the article. They listened

to the show. They tagged me in their promotion of like promotion of the article. So it's, it's happening. The, the Joe Brady bandwagon is already off and running and they might be listening again. So thank you for, uh, for pointing me to that. Yeah, I appreciate that. But I mean, you're talking about a guy who wasn't even the offensive coordinator at LSU, but here's the thing. Here's the thing too, to Matthew is that I think that if you do look around the league there are enough examples of getting a young coach pairing him with a young quarterback and seeing success within like three years to to say okay this this might not be as risky right and i'm sure that you could come up with half a dozen examples where it didn't work, but Kingsbury's looking better. Lafleur's

obviously been a home run with Rogers. Stefanski turns around the Browns. Zach Taylor has the Bengals on the right track. There's four off the top. It can be done. There is life after a coaching change. And it's the NFL. Like, turnarounds happen fast all the time. And it's not like this team has a culture of losing. You know, I think that they will bounce back relatively fast because of the resources the ownership has set up. So I don't think it's as big a risk as it might seem on paper. But it still is an unknown. I will, I will confess that.

Well, this is really like going forward on fourth down, like on paper, it says it's not as big of a risk as you think. Um, just even for example, so Dan Campbell's decision to go for it on fourth down was fine. The play call was horrible, but the reason I thought it was fine is because you have probably an 85 to 90 chance of getting a qb sneak again really should have just qb sneaked uh and it didn't work earlier in the game so right you can never do it again something that's a one out of ten that failed but they and they screwed this up too but they allowed a touchdown quickly they could have allowed it even quicker and given themselves more time but but they allowed it quickly. And the whole point is going for it on fourth down, even though you

failed, like didn't ruin your chances. They always sort of think it's going to, but it doesn't like, or it doesn't always doesn't necessarily. And the same thing might go here. Like, yeah, this might ruin your franchise. And if it does, you're in a pretty bad spot. Like if you end up with the jets where it's just new coaches and new quarterbacks and over and over and over again, where your championship is basically the draft every year. And that's when you raise your banners as opposed to this, but the upside of it. And I was just like looking at franchises, just like on my phone, looking at the standings of like, okay, so who's done this? Like Buffalo did this good example team that went to the AFC championship last

year. They moved on from a coach that kept them in the middle. They got rid of a lot of veteran players, expensive players. Like that's a good example. The chargers, they're one, a team that sort of refused to do this was Denver. They said, no, we've got to get a quarterback that sticks us in the middle. And guess where you are. You're in the middle. And they talked themselves into, well, we've got this and this and this and this, but they're still in the middle as opposed to drafting the quarterback, Baltimore, Cincinnati, like these teams have hit

the reset button, even Cleveland. It's not a great season for Cleveland. This is a freaking incredible season for Cleveland compared to the, some of the things they've gone through. So the whole point is just that, like, if you are taking that safe route of punting the ball away, I think it's just as risky to punt the ball away than it is to go for it. But they never think of the risk because they're just two different things. Like you risk the other team driving slowly down the field and scoring versus scoring quickly. But sometimes scoring quickly might even be better. Like if you fail with a first round quarterback, you could draft another one and you're probably drafting high.

So like even failing helps you and that's Arizona's case. Right. So it's, I think these things are incredibly interesting and I would just love an opportunity to hear them talk about them, like honestly, but we won't. They don't do weekly things on the radio like Jerry Jones was, but, or does, but I think it would be so fascinating to just hear what they think about all these things. Cause it's so difficult to decide where you're going unless the Vikings lose to Pittsburgh to Sam. And then I think it becomes a lot easier. Yeah. And I'm curious to see how they would handle this search. I mean, I was not around to cover the previous coaching changes.

So this would be new for me. But the trendy thing now is to use a search firm. I can't recall. And maybe, you know, maybe you know this, maybe you don't, whether they used one in the past. I don't think they did. So like, would they, you know, who, who are the advisors in this case? Who is in their ear?

And even that, I don't know the answer to because of just sort of the, the privacy with which they operate. All, all very fascinating. It's going to make for some great speculation, my friend, if it happens. Or they could beat Pittsburgh, and we're back talking about a big soldier field curse the Vikings are trying to overcome. And you and I will be there. So do you think the Vikings will beat the Pittsburgh Steelers? No. No, I don't.

I think they lose by less than seven. Another one-possession game. Yeah, I have something like 23-16 just sort of imprinted in my head. But you think about how wrong we've been lately picking games. I mean... I don't want to see my record for picking. It's tough. It's tough because this team is just hard to put a finger on. I thought they would lose both games against Los Angeles and Green Bay and they won them. And then this last week, I thought they would just smack the lions in the face and they

didn't. I don't know. This team has been so hard to predict. I guess I would say that I just feel like anytime a team has a great defensive line, it makes their life so hard. And this team has that. Yeah, it's, you know, I'm a weird scores guy. I think it's going to be ugly. I think it's going to be about 19, 15, 12, 19 to 12 in some prime numbers in there. Um, 15 is not a prime

number. I'm smarter than that. 19 is. So there's safety mixed in last week. We came up with all the weird ways they could lose. And, uh, none of them really came true. It was pretty much kind of a standard. They let the lions get ahead, and then they lost at the end. So, Sam, great stuff. Appreciate you doing this. Either talking about how devastating the loss was or how the victory kept them around. So, we'll see.

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And hey, there's no risk. 15-day try-at-home boogie bike guarantee and an industry-leading five-year warranty. They're the best. Boogie bikes, boogiebikes.com. Joining me is mark bullock he writes markbullock.substack.com his own independent newsletter similar to what we do at purple insider formerly covered the washington football team for the athletic and washington post and uh comes to us from across the pond so uh mark i have to say that i never dreamed i would be asking you to come on a podcast to talk about how Taylor Heineke is ahead of Kirk Cousins and the Vikings leading a playoff race.

And we had initially planned this to like break down like who's going to win this race between these two teams. And then, of course, the Vikings lost to the Lions. So there's a lot of weird things that we're dealing with here. Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's definitely a very unique situation, a very unique season in terms of especially. I mean, I did not think we'd be talking about Taylor Heineke leading Washington in a potential playoff race. So, yeah, it's a very, very strange one. Yeah, for sure. Well, why don't we just start there? Because I want to get into the playoff race that still exists. It is definitely not over as we speak. It might be over on Thursday

when the Vikings play Pittsburgh, which is why we had to kind of rush to do this. Cause I've wanted to find an excuse to have you on the show, but, um, explain the Taylor Heineke thing to, to me, I saw him in training camp, 2017. And my thought was like, oh, okay, a guy. Lost the race to Case Keenum. Case Keenum's nothing particularly special. And, okay, he's a good athlete. He used to punt for his team in college, Old Dominion and stuff. Like, okay, whatever.

And then never really thought about him again. Popped up in the XFL. Oh, look, it's Taylor Heineke. Good for you, buddy. Keep the dream alive. And now he's winning football games. Tell me how he is winning football games. Well, so it's, yeah, I think the biggest benefit that he's had is that he's been in this system for years.

So he was with Scott Turner in Minnesota, or North Turner in Minnesota, and with both the Turners in Carolina, and now obviously in Washington Scott Turner's the offensive coordinator so he's been in that system for four or five years so he knows the system and that's why he's able to he was able to come in last year at the end of last year when Washington had a bunch of quarterback injuries and stuff that's why he was able to come in and be successful because he knows the system and he knows um exactly what scott turner and ron rivera are all about um and and that's kind of rolled over a bit to this year

in that he's kind of been the guy that's known the system and and executes the system pretty well um they've had some ups and downs uh he's been kind of a risky guy. He likes to make the big plays. He keeps kind of not subtly comparing himself to Brett Favre because he keeps calling Brett Favre as his favorite quarterback. And, you know, in terms of a play style, he likes to play like Brett Favre. He does like to run around and extend plays and try to be aggressive and take shots down the field. But doing that when you're Brett Favre is one thing. Doing that when you're Taylor Heineken, you don't have that cannon for an arm that Brett Favre has is another. But, you know, he's been entertaining for sure.

And the team has kind of rallied around him. And the run game's been very good. The offensive line's been very good. And then they've kind of been able to lean on that. And since the bye week, the defense has kind of picked up and Heineken's picked up. And they rattled off four wins in a row. So it's been kind of surprising, but it's certainly been entertaining.

I think to a certain extent, he's been a little bit lucky. He's been a little bit fortunate with some of his throws. But he also deserves some credit for taking some shots and in some clutch moments on third down and two-minute drills, he's led them on, I think, three or four late fourth-quarter drives to win games now. So he's doing his part, and it's been a very entertaining watch. Speaking of entertaining

i mean it is fun when a quarterback who has no business doing something like ends up getting on a run of in a way randomness and being willing and we saw this from case keen i'm willing to kind of throw the ball up to guys just because i'm not supposed to be here anyway i might as well just fling this ball to terry mclaurin And it seems like every time I've watched Washington play, like I'm seeing two or three of those plays where you're like, Oh no, don't throw. Okay. That works somehow that won't work for you. If someone else signs you as your, as the starting quarterback, but for whatever reason this year it's working for you. Yeah. It's I think it comes back to, you know, he does know that system and he's playing with that kind of mentality of each game could be my last and I need to try to claim a future in the

NFL. And so he's playing with that mentality of I've got nothing to lose, just try to make plays. And so far it's coming off for him. As I said, he's kind of been a little bit fortunate. There was in that last game against the Raiders this weekend, on that fourth quarter drive to win the game, he was late on a throw and could quite easily have been intercepted and it could have gone all the way back for the touchdown the other way and killed the game at that point. But, you know, the guy drops it and then two plays later, they're kicking a field goal for the win.

So he has been a little bit fortunate, but, you know, it's better it and then two plays later, they're kicking a field goal for the win. So he has been a little bit fortunate, but you know, it's better to be lucky and good sometimes. And they've been, they've been riding that wave. And as far as from my perspective, it's a lot more fun to cover that kind of guy than someone like Alex Smith that they had last year that, you know, he's methodical and he usually goes to the right place with the ball, but it's kind of a dull offense.

Isn't it interesting, too, that what the whole thought process was for this franchise in signing Ryan Fitzpatrick initially was, which, by the way, Taylor Heineke has now set himself up for a Ryan Fitzpatrick career for life with this performance. That's sort of coincidental there that he takes over for a guy who he can become if he can grow that kind of beard. But the idea was if Ryan Fitzpatrick could give them enough that they can defense their way into being a really good team. And yet they started out the season as a complete truck fire of a defense and they were horrible. And now they've started to come back around. And I think that that's interesting, too, because in the offseason, we always try to project these things while last year they had a good defense. So they're going to have a good defense again, and it doesn't always go that way, but defense is also morphed throughout seasons. Like the Vikings at the beginning of the year, I would have said we're pretty talented on

defense and now they're not because of injuries. And yet Washington was terrible to start. And now they are dangerous on defense kind of an interesting like how this transforms throughout a season yeah and it's been a very old one because as you say their defense um was incredibly talented last year it's still incredibly talented this year they have those uh four first round picks on the defensive line that everyone knows um and they added to that with another first round pick this year in jaymond davis at linebacker um and they went out in free agency and signed spent a lot of money on william jackson at corner so um it was anticipated that they would be a very strong

defense and i think it took them a while to kind of get everyone on the same page and um william jackson really struggled early. And I think they were trying to do a lot of different things. And as the seasons progressed, they kind of realized, okay, we can't really do this. We can't play this much man coverage. We have to go back to what we did last year and play more zone coverages, trusting that front four to get home and playing more together.

At the start of the year, it was very much a team of 11 pretty talented players, but very individuals and not playing together. And that's very hard as a defense to stop people if it's all just on individuals. Someone's going to lose the battle here or there. Whereas now they're playing a lot more zone. I think they went up from something like 60% playing zone before the bye week. And then in this sort of four game winning streak after the bye week,

that they are up to something like 83% zone. So they're playing a lot more zone coverages. They're a lot more often on the same page and they're playing as a team. And that's really helped the defense kind of solidify things and stop giving up huge plays and get off the field on third down a lot more often. And that's seen the defense kind of play kind of as we expected them to. As you said, at the start of the year, we expected them to be one of the best defenses in the league. And I wouldn't say they're quite there yet, that they've still got a ways to go, but they are definitely playing a lot better. And they're certainly trending up. so here's a question for you uh washington minnesota philly

they're all fighting for this seventh playoff seed and san francisco too i mean they lost to seattle so they're not perfect either uh what do you think the conversation would be in washington or about that team and even i think about about it here for the Vikings all the time. Like if the seven seed didn't exist, would this Taylor Heineke thing be like, ah, look who really cares. You're kind of still in it, but this isn't that is special. And for the Vikings, I think we'd be looking at their playoffs odds as almost nothing at this point, as opposed to, well, it's about one in four at this moment, but you still have a belief that they're better than some of these other teams,

despite just losing to Detroit. I guess I wonder about your thoughts on it because every year when it happens, I think, oh, why did they do this in the regular season? And then when that first round of the playoffs go, they go, ah, this is why they do it. Nine hours of football, football. So I wonder about your thought. Yeah, I think for Washington, it's slightly different because the NFC East is still accomplishable for them because the Cowboys are ahead of them, but they've got to play the Cowboys twice over the last five games of the year, and they basically finish out with five divisional games.

So they still have a chance. Technically, they hold their own destiny. If they beat the Cowboys both times, finish out with five divisional games so um they still have a chance they technically that they hold their own destiny if they beat the cowboys both times then there'll be level on wins with the cowboys and they'll uh hold obviously the head-to-head over them so that they'd be winning the fc east um so they still have something to play for in that they're probably currently aiming a bit higher than just this wild card spot if If that wildcard spot wasn't there, yeah, you know, it's always kind of, you're always kind of stuck in that place of you're not quite good enough to make the playoffs and compete in the playoffs,

but you're not quite bad enough to, you know, get a top 10 pick and get your franchise quarterback or a real game-changing pass rusher or an offensive tackle or whatever it is, your normal top 10 pick and get a your franchise quarterback or a real game changing pass rusher or an offensive tackle or whatever it is your normal top 10 guy um that really can set you up and set your franchise up to to compete and go the step further the next year um so yeah that that is always a tough spot to be in um i think from washington's perspective they what heineke is giving them right now is probably what they were expecting from ryan fitzpatrick um and so while they're in the playoff hunt they'd be happy with that i think if that seventh seed didn't exist you'd probably be looking for that they'd probably still be

giving heineke a chance because he's not playing he's not playing amazing but he's playing better than quarterback play they've had for quite a while and and so they probably want to see hey are we are we going with this guy in 2022 or are we going to have to spend the offseason looking at quarterbacks in the draft and free agency and trade options again um so I think they would probably be in a fairly similar situation as they are right now because they don't have that option, kind of that guy at quarterback that is set. So, you know, I think it's a slightly different situation for Washington as opposed to, you know, Philly.

They might be looking for a quarterback. They could be in kind of the same boat. You guys, I don't know what the situation with Cousins is, but he's a little bit more of an established quarterback that you're like, if he's on the roster, he's your starting quarterback. So he's, you're probably thinking that you're wanting to kick onto the playoffs or if you'd want to ditch Cousins and put in a reserve and lose some games and find your new quarterback in the offseason.

So, yeah, Washington's in a slightly different boat, I think. So I want to get to that and just where the franchises have gone since Cousins left Washington, because that is the thing that bonds us together, Mark. But what do you think is going to happen? Like, is Washington good enough to hold off Minnesota? I mean, the schedule. Now, I know that, look, when you lose to Detroit,

nothing is a guarantee. It's just how can I pick you for anything? But Pittsburgh's not that great. Chicago's not that great. The Vikings have three of their final five games against those teams. They've already beat the Packers once. The Rams are showing their flaws. So there's a chance that the Vikings can win three out of five still

and put themselves at eight, nine. Does that get it done? Does Washington do better than that? I mean, you mentioned two games against Dallas. It seems like usually those kind of split with division opponents. I mean, I guess how are you sizing this thing up? Yeah, I think from Washington, their last five games are all against divisional opponents.

So they've got to play Dallas twice. They've got to play Philly twice. And they've got to play the Giants in between that. So it's tough to really say exactly what's going to happen. I think this weekend they play the Cowboys and that that will really say where this team is. They're riding a high right now of this four game win streak. But kind of each game you can kind of caveat with oh well the bucks didn't have antonio brown and rob gronkowski and you know the seahawks russell wilson played probably his worst football in his entire career against washington um and

against the raiders you know they were without darren waller and you kind of can caveat each game individually and over a four-game win streak it kind of you you can't really do that but at the same time each individual one you can um i think this game this weekend against dallas really tells us what this team's about and if they can come through and beat the cowboys who are obviously favorites to win the division at this point um then washington's in with a chance of i would say washington certainly within a pretty good chance of winning that wildcard spot, if not winning the division. I think if they come out and lay an egg against the Cowboys and Dak drops

400 yards and five touchdowns, you know, then I think we kind of get brought back down to earth a little bit. And we see Washington is kind of, kind of in a similar situation with earth a little bit and we see washington is kind of kind of in a similar situation with you where they have you know two games against philly which would decide things they still have another game against the cowboys and the giants should be beatable in theory um so then we're talking about probably more that seventh wildcard spot and it'd be a very tight one i i would i would think they could certainly at least split with Philly.

I think they would beat the Giants. If they could split with Dallas, then I think that would put them in a – that would give them three more wins, so that would put them in a pretty close race with the Giants. Sorry, with the Vikings. But I think this weekend will go a long way to seeing exactly what this team is about. Yeah. I mean, when I think about to the schedule and how much it determines like where this is going to go, the games against Philly are kind of interesting too, because if you split those,

then the Vikings are kind of watching from far going like, Oh, that actually kind of helps us that neither one of you gains ground. But if Philly wins both of them, then all of a sudden they're ahead of the Vikings. That's why the odds are low on the Vikings because if one of those two teams, if Washington or Philly wins two of those games, it's kind of like that team is almost in just by doing that, by knocking the other one out. And that's why, oddly, this race for seventh place,

as much as it is unfulfilling to Vikings fans uh is really interesting to still look at now I want to ask you about the post cousins era in Washington what a time it's been for you Mark I mean following this team but here's the thing so we talk about this a lot with cousins if they come up short if they miss the playoffs again that's one time in the postseason in four years, just not good enough. You dealt with this in Washington where it was like, Oh, great numbers and Oh, not good enough success. And then eventually the roster around him fell apart. So it wasn't even all that competitive, which is kind of where we are right now. They drafted Dwayne Haskins. They tried the Alex Smith thing, but he got hurt. Like after Cousins, it has just been kind of a slog for that franchise.

And I think what you've lived out is Vikings fans' worst fears that without Cousins, you're not in playoff races every single year. You're in like, oh no, what the hell do we do with our team? And if you have a bust first rounder, it makes things pretty tough because that's a couple of years to figure that out that the guy maybe was not all that bright in Dwayne Haskins. Yeah, for sure. Like I,

I think having been through it with Washington, I, I, from a Vikings perspective, I would personally be leaning on the kind of cousins is personally, I don't see cousins as the guy that's going to put you through the playoffs and get you to a Superbowl. If everything around him is right, then maybe,

but from my experience with Cousins and what seems to have continued since he's left Washington in the biggest moments, he doesn't step up and that, you know the biggest moments are the playoffs it's the wildcard games it's the championship games you know i i just don't see him stepping up in those moments because in the regular season i haven't seen him step up in those moments not consistently anyway so i just can't see him being the guy that you can really rely on to take you to the playoffs. And you need to have kind of a perfect situation around him to get there and actually do some damage in the playoffs. So for me, if it's possible to move on from him, and I don't know where his contract situation is now,

but if it's possible to move on from him, I would be looking to move on from him, even having seen what's happened to Washington. What happened in Washington has kind of been the worst-case scenario because, as you said, they made the move for Alex Smith. That didn't work out because of the injury, though the front office at the time will point to the fact that they did have a winning record in that first season with Alex Smith before he got injured, which is true. But, you know, they weren't playing the best brand of football, but wins are wins.

But, you know, they went down that road and that didn't work. And then they tried, as you say, they drafted Dwayne Haskins, which in retrospect was not a good move at all and you know at the time it felt like an odd move because the the timing between drafting Haskins and the uh situation with the head coach with Jay Gruden going into his last year's contract it kind of felt like you know Jay Gruden needs to win right now and Dwayne Haskins everyone kind of agreed and even Gruden said in basically the the post-draft press conference they they kind of said he's not ready to play straight away. So that was kind of a first round pick that wasn't going to impact the team in a year that Gruden needed to win to keep his job. So that situation didn't play out particularly well. But if you have the chance to kind of reset a franchise, I don't know what Zimmer's situation

or the GM's situation is like, but if you have a chance to kind of reset your franchise and maybe a new head coach, maybe a new GM and a new quarterback, if you can kind of try to get to those three, just because Washington missed with Haskins doesn't mean that that wasn't the right way to go, I feel. And, you know, it has been a very, very tough situation since Cousins has left. They had some very bad quarterback play, and it has been hard to watch.

They've gone through so many guys. After Alex Smith got injured, we saw Mark Sanchez. We saw Josh Johnson. We saw Kyle Allen and Taylor Height. I think he's doing all right now, but who even really remembered who he was at this point last year. So it's gone through a lot of bad names um but at some point i'd rather be losing games and giving yourself the opportunity to find the guy with a top 10 pick than to be kind of in this middling era where you're with cousins but he's

not quite good enough to take you to the playoffs and he's not bad enough to get you his future replacement well that's what i was going to ask you about is whether washington has regrets and i even wonder about like the fans that you talk to that subscribed your newsletter and that ask you questions like do they do they regret that because there's always this thing i'm sure in the back of everyone's mind of like, well, if you move on from a quarterback who has proven to be good and you draft the Haskins and you go through the Mark Sanchez and stuff like that's a lot of pain to go through. And honestly, you just don't have an answer at this moment. Like the Taylor Heineke is not your long term answer. Neither is Ryanzpatrick and now you've sort of won your way out of um the ability to draft the top quarterback in the draft more likely than not because i don't care if dane

brugler has the guy 20th on his top 100 he's going high right like no matter who i don't know who it is right now maybe it's matt corral i'm not sure but they're going high you can guarantee it so um that i think it's like a weird position to put yourself in and i just wonder if there are fans with regrets of like if you just sort of stayed the course that with cousins and signed him and everything Gruden, mostly with Bruce Allen in charge, I don't think they were ever going to win anything with him there. But in terms of on the field with Cousins, there is certainly a lot of fans that did really like Kirk Cousins. And to his credit, he is a good quarterback.

He's just not, I don't think he's a great quarterback. And I think in the biggest moments, he kind of falls down and lets the team down a little bit um so for me he he's not the guy that's going to get you anywhere um and as kind of as i was talking about he he gets you into this position where you're you're not good enough to really do anything in the playoffs and you're not bad enough to find a quarterback who can get you there so you're you're stuck in this kind of middle ground where you're not really challenging you're kind of okay you're you're an 8-8 team or I guess a 9-8 team or an 8-9 team now um and I think that's what you've kind of seen in Minnesota

since he's been there um other than I think it's one playoff year you guys have had with him so you've kind of been seeing that he's not really good enough to elevate everyone else around him he's not an aaron rogers that can make up for bad a bad draft class or um you know receivers going down injured and and make plays on his own and he's not um you know a patrick mahomes that can just scramble around for five years and launch a ball 90 yards down the field and find Tyreek Hill. He's not those kind of guys, and those guys are hard to find. I understand where those fans come from that think it's either be okay

and kind of challenge for the playoffs every year but never quite get there or maybe get in and then get knocked out in the first round, and you feel kind of like, okay, well, we're just this away and we're just this away but you're always with the amount of turnover there is in the NFL and the salary cap you kind of you're always going to be short somewhere and you need some you need a quarterback that can make up for that and Kirk Cousins isn't that guy for me. So I kind of have felt for a while, he's not a guy that I would have as my quarterback, because as I say, you get stuck in this middle ground, you're not going anywhere.

And for me, you need to kind of reset and find someone that can take you somewhere. And it's been interesting to see it play out with fans here of, at first, it was exactly what you said. They just need this, they just need that. And as we've gone along now in year four of it, here of at first it was exactly what you said they just need this they just need that and as we've gone along now in year four of it uh i get a lot more people saying like i like the guy i think he's really good but i don't know how they can put enough around him with the salary cap hit

even when the salary cap goes up that's one thing i've heard well the salary cap's going up they'll spend more money well every team is going to have more money, though, and they're going to have more money than you still because you're going to have to pay him $45 million. So I'm not sure that the math ever ends up working out, and there is something missing there to be able to overcome that. So it's an interesting thing to hear from someone else's perspective who sort of saw a lot of the same things, a very good quarterback play that got you to 8-7 and one or, or whatever else. Um, last thing for you, Mark, uh, who do you think is

going to win the Superbowl? I guess. I mean, it's a, it's sort of fun to talk about like, right. Like we were always in the, in the horse blinders of like what happened last night in the football, but I have no idea right now. I don't even have have i'm not even sure like who are favorites in the afc and nfc aside from i'm always going to just lean toward kansas city but and in tampa bay because of the quarterbacks but i mean aside from that i think it's like super fun year that doesn't have an obvious two teams that like are on a collision course sure yeah it's definitely been a very interesting year because the guys that started off the year real hot, like the Bills and the Rams and what have you, they've kind of fallen away over the last few weeks. So there isn't an obvious front runner. Obviously, the Patriots look pretty good right now, but I wouldn't feel great about backing Matt Jones in the playoffs.

So you kind of default, as you say, to the Mahomes and the Bradys, and you back the quarterbacks to come good at some point. So I'd probably say Tampa would probably still be my pick as a favorite. Kansas City seem to have something a little bit wrong with them right now. I would still back Patrick Mahomes to kind of get them out of it, but I think Tampa has a little bit um in terms of a complete roster that it's it's pretty hard to look by tampa bay um and the bills also have a pretty complete roster but josh allen hasn't quite been the the josh allen of last year and um you know that that can hurt you in the playoffs so you need your quarterback to be on spot in the playoffs. And when you're talking about that, you can't really look beyond Tom Brady.

Yeah, I think, well, Minnesotans always think in terms of like what would hurt them the most. Aaron Rodgers against the quarterback they passed up on Mac Jones would really be something for a Super Bowl matchup. Mark, your work is tremendous. I subscribe to your Substack. And I don't even – your team doesn't even play the Vikings. And yet I'm always interested because you are – you just have a great vision for football and are really great at explaining like what's happening, why it's happening, and I appreciate that.

So it's MarkBullock, B-U-L-L-O-C-K,.substack.com. And I'm glad we could find an excuse to get together to talk football, man. Thanks a lot for your time. Yeah, of course. Anytime. It's always a pleasure.