Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What would beating the 49ers mean to the short and long term?

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about whether the Vikings are an interesting team, what happens if they beat the 49ers and the season is back on? What we think about Kevin O'Connell going forward and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Let me get my settings right. And look who it is! Paul Hodowanek returns to the show. And now, Paul, you're working for PGATour.com, so you're covering golf. So I just figured, well, you know, you're not going to be on the show anymore because you're covering golf. So I just figured, well, you know, you're not going to be on the show anymore because you're covering golf. And then I get a text while I'm in Chicago covering one of the ugliest games I've ever seen in my entire life. And you said you got takes. And I said, let's go. Why don't you return to the show? It is great to have you back. I love seeing your success. And I also love your Twitter humble brag, which is a picture of you walking next to

Rory McIlroy covering the PGA tour, which is very cool. So how you been Paul? What's going on, buddy? I'm great. I'm great, Matt. Yep. Down in Florida, which we're finally getting the weather where like when everyone says, oh, Florida's great. It's like, we're finally hitting it. Like I looked at my weather app today and it's 10 days straight of between 75 and 80 degrees. So I am loving life down here, been traveling a ton, but finally get to soak in some of the Florida sun. So excited. And I think, you know, not having to cover the Vikings every single day and follow every single storyline has rejuvenated me a little bit. So I'm excited to go. I have some takes that have been just bottled up for weeks on end, and I'm excited to get them out there in the world. So here's my only beef with you living in Florida, which is,

well, Eastern time for one, I just hate and despise Eastern time. It's terrible. It's terrible. I, you know, you'd be surprised, you'd be surprised how bad it is like that 12 to one period. I'm so used to football starting at noon and that that's 60 minutes might as well be like four hours. I'm just waiting and waiting and waiting. Literally, week one, I was pacing around my apartment. I just didn't know what I was doing. Like I was like, where is the football? It's the worst.

Not only that, but also like college football, Pac-12 after dark while we still have it for another year is, I mean, it's impossible if you're in Eastern time that even in central time, it could go to one or two in the morning. Uh, but Eastern time is ridiculous. Game started like 11 o'clock the NBA finals. If you like that ends up starting at like nine 30, who needs that in their life? Not you, but here's the real reason because the last time we played golf. So for the entire time I i've known you you and i were the same exact golf where we have a lot of really good holes and then uh-oh type of holes like vikings 2018 versus the bills holes but then the last time we played you're you're stringing them together i'm like what the hell is on? I thought we were the same golfer. Where's the double bogey? What, where's, where's the sand trap to sand trap? And it's because you live in Florida. And so now you're playing golf all the time and it's completely unfair. So I,

I think it's an unfair advantage and I get to handicap the next time we play, but you know, you have turned into a very like solid and consistent golfer. And I, and I'm proud of you. I love to see it. Yeah. That photo of me and Rory, he's just actually giving me swing tips. That's just me bugging him for swing tips. So that,

yeah, if I couldn't get better down in Florida with the people I have access to, then like, what am I doing? So I think if, if it, if I wasn't getting better, that's,

that's when it'd be an issue. Yeah, no, that's true. I watch slow motion Rory on YouTube and try to figure it out, but here's, here's just my golf story. And then we'll get into the football talk of course, and why you want it to be here. But, uh, every summer I try to work on something. I like to say, all right, I'm going to focus on putting, you know, I'm decent at putting, or I'm going to get better at chipping. And I, and I bought a

little chipper thing, or I'm this summer is like, all right, I'm going to get the drive consistent because I can really crush it. But you know, sometimes it goes all over the place. And by the end of the summer, I had to break the whole thing down. I think when we played, I was still looking a little gnarly by the end of the summer, 18 holes hit every fair way with the drives was absolutely crushing it. And then that was the last time I played golf basically before training camp or like of the summer. And then now I have no idea what I was even doing and we'll start again in April.

So that's where, that's where the edge is that you never have to have that happen. But as it comes to the Vikings, Oh, and you're enjoying your job. You like working for PGA Tour and everything else. How's it going? Things are good.

Traveling all the time. I was just in Vegas. I was in Napa. I can't really complain with where they're sending me. So having a good time. All right. Very cool. Very cool.

Well, I throw you a retweet every once in a while when I see your work up there. And I love to see it. Haley English, the other intern I've had on the show, she's working with the 5-1 Detroit Lions in their analytics department. You're doing this. We only have winners here on the show as the interns. But let's talk about why you wanted to come on the show as you were watching the Bears game. I didn't ask because I thought, I'll ask on the show.

What is it that is so pent up in paul otawanek that you would come on and work for free i'm not paying you for this uh for for an hour here and talk football what is it what do you want to say i might shock you because we were talking uh you know pre before us going on here and it was a bit different than what we were saying i'm actually this is maybe the most intrigued i've been about the Vikings in a long time. Most interested I've been in them, maybe not week to week, but big picture and just generally my thoughts. I'm just so interested because this is, and it has to do specifically with Kweisi and with Kevin O'Connell, because I think this is the first time legitimately in their tenure that they've had like any sort of adversity.

There was no adversity for them last year. Sure, Kweisi had a bad draft class. No one really cares when you go 13-4 and you're just winning all these games and having fun. No one really cares that the first round didn't go well. The second round didn't go well. Now they care. Now people are overanalyzing that draft. They're saying, what are you doing?

Not resigning Justin Jefferson. They're saying, what are you doing? Why does Kirk Cousins have a no trade clause in his contract? Suddenly the heat is turned up. And I think similarly for Kevin O'Connell, we're having questions about like, what's going on with the rhythm of the offense? Like, why is that not, why are you not figuring that out? Why do you have all these weapons yet?

Your offense is still somewhat middling. Why haven't you quite figured out if you're the offensive mastermind, why is this thing not just humming and humming? And even if you lose Jefferson, you have a first round pick in Jordan Addison. You have a highly paid tight end in TJ Hawkinson. You have an offensive line that's actually starting to play well. Like where is the production? And it's just not there.

And so I think it's going to be really, really fascinating is the production and it's just not there and so i think it's gonna be really really fascinating over the next few months to just follow how quacey and kevin kind of do their jobs and perform once the dials turned up on them a little bit because again i think not anyone can do the job when things are going well but like the culture stuff by both of them works a lot better when you're winning every single one score game and things aren't breaking your way. Like, or when things are breaking your way, now things aren't breaking your way. You have these weird turnovers. You don't know what what's going on. You're a little bit more snippy in the media. Like it's just how these things go. And we've

seen other regimes kind of get torn down by this. And so I'm really intrigued if they dig their heels in, if they fully go into the rebuild mode, like all of it is fascinating to me. I think especially if they would have lost to the Bears and lost to that game in dreadful fashion, like O'Connell has been telling us every week. I've still been following the pressers that like, no, no, no, this team's close. I believe in these guys. I mean, it's so much harder to do if you lose to that Bears team. And so I'm just really fascinated now that there is some adversity, how these guys, specifically the front office, the new regime, how they handle things. Because it's the first time where people are really, really questioning, hey, what's going on? And so just how they react, if they fold into pressure, if they stick to their plan, what is

their plan? All of that is really, really intriguing. And I probably haven't been this excited or intrigued maybe for the couple months when they were hiring and we knew they were going to fire Mike Zimmer. But even before that, like of the Kirk Cousins era, this might be the most kind of intrigued I am with everything that's going on. Yeah. So I did think that it would have been almost too perfect

if Tyson Bajent had been the one that like fully thrust them into the natural tank and just forced them to have to trade everybody away and lose a bunch of games the rest of the season. So there's a lot to get to with what you said there. The intrigue is so rooted in what happens after this that it's almost hard to focus on the games and by almost i mean actually kind of very hard and one of the things that i really love is we got a big game this week let's talk about their offense your defense your offense your coaches your players who's matching up who's taking advantage this lineman versus this d lineman. And when I talk about that stuff, I almost feel like I hear the audience hitting the snooze button.

All right, whatever. Talk about where they're trading Kirk. And I'm writing about it right now about Flores versus Shanahan. And I'm so interested in how do they send extra pressure? How do they deal with those motions? Flores is playing this really interesting five defensive lineman with this umbrella kind of thing. That's been working a lot. And yet again, I was like, who cares? Talk about like,

if Jefferson's going to sign or does he want to be traded or talk about, you know, what's coming next. And there's a part of me that wants to simulate the season and just give me the record. Let's go right to March, simulate the the Super Bowl. Don't care who wins. Let's get to March. Are they moving on from Kirk? Are they drafting a quarterback? Are they going to have the cap space to make moves to bring in talent? Do they keep Flores?

Or does somebody hire him? Because I'm so impressed by him that I think if you give this man a little more talent, he's barely had Marcus Davenport, which means he's got one pass rusher and they're in the top 10 and sacks. Like he's this man's doing his job. And, and so like, I want to see how all these things play out. And yet I also have all these football games to cover, but one of the things I want to go forward with, with the, you were talking about is the Kevin O'Connell dynamic to this as well. Because last year, they get the number one NFL PA survey spot. He goes 13 and four probably deserved more coach of the year votes. And I think all the discussion about it being good luck or whatever was part

of the reason he didn't, but what a debut, how many coaches in their first year when 13 games, regardless of how it happened. And they had to make plays to win those games as well. And their offense was good. It was eighth in the NFL and they passed the ball like Zimmer should have been leaning into Kirk cousins and passing the ball more often over those years. They stopped running on second down. I didn't think they were a disaster with fourth down decisions, if not pretty good. And so he's checking all these boxes, like culture fit in game decisions, decent,

you know, maybe sometimes overthinking it a little bit and like trying to throw Kirk cousins a pass, but okay. Don't just don't do that again. And maybe you should have fired at Donatello, but it's hard when you're winning that many games. Right. And so you go into this year. And then, as you mentioned, the offense is just sputtering, but you're also getting guys who seem to have motor oil on their hands and are just dropping every pass. But that, okay, fine. But like you had a bunch of third down and twelves in this last game. And you also have this other part that Kirk Cousins without a contract. I saw a stat today that when pressured, he's getting rid of the ball faster than anybody

else in the entire league. So when he's feeling the heat at all, boop, that ball is out. And I wonder if that's because he got pulverized last year. And I wonder if that's because he's got a contract situation, which I don't think he's playing for, but I think creeps into your head. Like I can't get hurt. And so there's all these dynamics. And then there's these insiders and like Jay Glazer and Jason Lock on fora who are trying to hint that they might bring him back, which seems like it's almost no chance unless they beat the 49ers and the Packers and they roll the second half of the season and go into the playoffs and with, you know, an incredible run like Case Keenum made or something

in 2017. So the interesting part for me, Paul, is how everything that happens, sort of every action has a reaction toward what it's going to mean for the future, including every win you watch on tankathon.com, your draft status goes down. That is the intrigue to this team, much more than the game to game type stuff. Yeah. And I mean, I think even as much as the Vikings wanted to lose the Bears game, the way they were playing, like they're just some completely inept teams in the NFL. And it is that way every year. And this year we've got the Bears, we've got the Panthers. Looks like we have the Patriots. Even if you thought Bill Belichick couldn't be like dragged to ineptitude it appears he has the Broncos are like the Vikings are just going to end up with even if they're bad like the eighth or ninth pick and I think that again adds to the intrigue of

okay does does that mean Kweisi is gonna try to trade some of these guys to get more picks to move up so I get I get what you're saying that the week-to-week stuff uh can get a little bit lost because we're all just looking towards the big picture. And I think that's warranted when you're probably going to lose to the 49ers and your playoff odds are going to drop to near zero. That's just where we're at. But I also think because Florida is probably is saying another year, just because of the talent of the defense, he's not going to be that good to, to really garner a head coaching

role. Like, I think you can watch that defense and you can be intrigued. I mean, it's, they don't have the talent, but it's fun to just see what he's going to dial up schematically, how much they're going to pressure, how things are going to look, who's going to be coming off the edge, who's going to be coming up the middle, who's going to drop. Like, those things are fascinating. And I think you see when you play a team like the Bears, like, the scheme is just designed

to eat up bad quarterbacks and you're going to get burned by justin herbert and you're going to maybe even get burned by a brock purdy who gets rid of the ball really quickly and does good things you're going to get burned by mahomes man you're going to light up justin fields and you're going to light up bryce young and you're going to light up some of the bad quarterbacks so that's fun to just watch and i think still schematically he's doing fun things where you can, maybe you're not as invested in the outcome because you're pretty sure they might lose, but you're invested in how it's going to look and how you can build towards it for the future. So I think you can look for the future by enjoying yourself game to game. You just probably don't want to get too bogged down in the results of each game to game, because if you do that, it's probably going to be sad,

just the way that we've seen this team operate. And if they're not going to have Jefferson, and we see the obvious talent deficiencies on the defense, like more often than not, it might end up in a loss. But I still am like fascinated by how the building blocks fit. Because finally, this team isn't just old guys where you know they're not going to be in the roster in a year or two. Like if Caleb Evans pops off, then okay, Caleb Evans might be part of this team for five, six years. If, like Brian Flores said in, I think his presser today, like Andrew Booth Jr. is showing something,

hey, now you can get invested in what Andrew Booth Jr. is doing on a game-to-game basis. So I still think, I mean, it feels sad because after 13 wins, we're talking about how you feel when it's a rebuilding team and the building blocks you're finding. But I think that's just the mode that they kind of have to transition to at this point. And I think that adds to it. So it's still in week in, week out.

I'm excited to see how those guys do. And I think that there's a major part of the fan base who when Tyson Bajent is driving, wants him to succeed and wants him to score and just put the bullet in the head of whatever thought there is to this making the playoffs and not trading Daniil Hunter for a second rounder and letting

Kevin O'Connell talk ownership into keeping players around and not making those moves. And, oh, hey, look, you beat the Broncos in Vegas to get to six and six until losing four straight at the end of the season and going whatever, six and 11. And that doesn't know that adds up. Yeah. So maybe it doesn't know that adds up. Yeah. So maybe it doesn't. But either way, like this, this we can see what's going to happen probably in going forward if they don't make these rebuilding moves. And I think we've seen it enough times to where it's a lot of people won't root against their team no matter what. Totally look like he has stone hands. You'd rather see him make a great catch. But a lot of it ties back into the quarterback.

And something you said to me before we went on was you said that I seem relatively positive about the direction of the overall team, even though they have not put the competitive and competitive rebuild so far this year, unless you count wins against Carolina and Chicago, which not in the way that they did them. I don't, but the reason is because of the quarterback situation. And this is what I mean about simulating the season is we're going to sit here and, and on pins and needles, wondering as Kirk Cousins inevitably in November lights up some bad defenses and has big games, gets Jefferson back and ends up with 4700 yards, 32 touchdowns, eight interceptions and 106 quarterback rating or something if that ends up being the case and of course they missed the playoffs to go seven and ten if that ends up being the case you are going to be very nervous that they're going to say all right kirk you played great why don't you come back at 42 million a year and we'll just draft the next pass rusher that's going to replace denille and hey brian flores says all he needs

is a nose tackle. And if we just get that right guard situation figured out and you are, if that, if they do that, this is the biggest fear I think of most fans is you are dooming yourselves to repeat history again with the same quarterback in the same situation. And yet we're going to sit here and watch all these games play out wondering with each week, what does this say about Kirk Cousins? And I've been looking with my radar antenna up each week about Kevin O'Connell and his statements about Kirk Cousins, and he does not seem to be showing any cards if they want to move on from him

or if they want to keep him. He hasn't been making like passive aggressive statements directed at the general manager, like, well, you know, got a good quarterback. Usually you sign them, but you know, he's a hard guy to read anyway, because he's always so overwhelmingly positive that he's not like giving us any indication of what they want. But I think that's, that's the biggest fear. But if we read all the tea leaves, and if they go 7-10 and they're moving on from Cousins in the same way Vegas did from Derek Carr, as long as you don't sign Jimmy Garoppolo like Vegas did and you draft a quarterback, to me that's the closest when they draft that quarterback.

Let's say it's Quinn Ewers. When they pick him, that'll be the closest they've been to the Super Bowl since they walked off the field in Philadelphia. And that's why it's exciting because at no point in the Kirk Cousins era, were they ever close to winning a Super Bowl. And you could talk about whose fault that is his Rick Spielman's, whether they overpaid this guy, or whether they missed a draft pick on that guy or whatever but the overall overarching point is it's never come anywhere close and it moving on gives you that spark of possibility that it could be and you also wonder if some of these guys who look like they're sort of underachieving from the receiver standpoint are underachieving in part because Cousins is not making plays and is not taking the hits he was

last year to make those throws and what they can do for a future quarterback, which I think when you look at the offensive tackles, the receivers, Jefferson, there's a lot there. So that's why I think I've been more positive. If they had re-signed Eric Hendricks, Adam Thielen, Delvin Cook, I would have been like, I don't know what the point of doing purple insider is. Well, I'm going to take a sabbatical for a year. I'll wait for y'all on the other side. Cause we have no reason to watch the season, but this has a lot more intrigue of all those things and a lot more possibility because of the way that they handled the whole roster and the quarterback situation. Yeah. And I think that kind of gets me back to my original point

about how they're going to handle some adversity because it feels like the way they kind of orchestrated this, if Kweisi planned this out two years in advance, is my first year, hey, we're going to have the same team. We're going to roll with Kirk, and I'm going to slowly shed the veteran contracts, and after two years, we're going to let him go, and we're going to see what happens.

And in my head right now, I'm just going to say, okay, ownership agreed. O'Connell agreed, Kweisi agreed. And so this year plan went great. Last year, you got about as good as you could have done there, but everyone still kind of realizes, you know, it's probably time to move on. Like, I think that's probably the best case for you. You had a really successful season. Everyone was happy. Your culture's built out. Ownership's happy. You're doing a great job, but everyone still kind of understands there's probably a cap ceiling on this. And so now you go into this year and you play it out, but now it's like, Hey, I don't know if anyone expected us to be this bad. Was this, did ownership think we were going to be this bad? And

so now it's, does it get unraveled anymore? Or like, does, does the plan get walked back? Is it suddenly, Hey, I don't know if we can run from anymore. Do we need to keep Kirk to keep some level of stability? Because we just waiting into the quarter rookie quarterback waters or the Jimmy Garoppolo waters tier of quarterback. Like that's a scary, scary proposition. And you know, what's a lot safer, Kirk Cousins, who is gonna provide you a level of stability, even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment that just so many, to go back to the word we used earlier, inept franchises just don't have. And so that's where I'm intrigued. Like, are they going to stick to the plan? That seems like it was pretty obvious given the way they constructed the roster, which was move on. We're going to tear it down a bit to

the studs. We're going to keep our bookend tackles. We're going to keep Jefferson. We're going to move through with Addison and Hawkinson, and we're going to create this offense. That offensive situation is really, really good for either a cheap rookie or kind of a bridge quarterback for whoever the next guy is. Like it's set up decently well for that, but now does it get antsy because the,

because the heat's turned up on them a little bit because things aren't going well. So that's again, why I think I'm a little bit intrigued of, are they going to stick to the plan or are they going to, is Quacey going to start looking and say, Hey, I only have a four-year contract. Like I, I, I can't be horrible in year three because then we're entering extension time. And suddenly I'm on the hot seat. Am I going to be the guy that gets to pick the way this team goes the next direction? So that's why I think it's just so fascinating the next few months. Folks,

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Originally I had thought when Sage Rosenfels texted me about coming on at eight 30, he meant at night, he meant in the morning. So we recorded this morning that will be on YouTube. It's already on the iTunes if you want to listen to it there. So if you can hang around for a few more minutes, if you're not a business call, that would be great to get your reaction to some of these good comments as well. But first I want to tell you about little caesars and why you should make little caesars the official pizza sponsor of the nfl and make it part of your game day order online during their pizza pizza pre-game one hour before nfl games and get ready for some football and fun choose your favorite little caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave.

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And also got to tell you about prize picks. And before the end of the show, we'll do our prize picks for the week. I had a tough week last week, but I plan on bouncing back. we'll do our prize picks for the week i had a tough week last week but i plan on bouncing back all you do with prize picks pick more or less on yardage totals or different stats sometimes it's field goals sometimes it's touchdowns between two and six players more or less so if it's three and a half field goals you go more or less and if you hit it then you win very very simple way to play. Doesn't take 24

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It's football. That's a good question. What do you think? I mean, the 49ers are a dang good football team. And if it doesn't feel fluky, uh, it feels kind of impossible for the Vikings to beat someone convincingly. We haven't really seen it over the last two years, but if they beat them convincingly, I think,

especially inside that locker room, they're going to feel like it's right back on your three and four. Uh, you can sneak in like, there aren't a ton of wild card teams just beating down the door in the nfc currently uh could you slip into one of those maybe but you would have to show something fantastic and this is more how i'm interpreting how they would feel about it uh for me i it's felt like the ship has sailed and it doesn't feel like they're going to beat the 49ers. But if they do it in a way that feels sustainable, they don't, Brock Purdy doesn't get hurt or something like that. And they're just playing, you know, left handed.

Then I think, especially as someone inside that locker room, you're going to convince yourself that we can beat anyone. And so I think they would feel like the season is still very much back on. And I guess they're not truly wrong. It just, it, it feels like that's the, that would be there. You know, rallying cry for the next four weeks until they're suddenly three and six. And suddenly the season is no longer back on because they've just lost to the Packers and they've lost to the saints and they've lost a game.

They shouldn't. And suddenly we're right back in this spot. They've completely eradicated any margin of error by losing to the Buccaneers, by blowing that game to the Chargers. Like there is just none left. They'd have to go, what, seven and three the rest of the way for it to feel like they have a chance. Like that's just not anything that we've seen from this team that they're going to do. But if they beat the 49ers, they're certainly going to convince themselves of it. And I'm not going to tell them that they're wrong necessarily, because that really has been the best team in the league so far

this year. And so you got to feel kind of good, I guess, but what does that get you? I think there's a real fear that they will within the Vikings fan base that it's going to upset the apple cart. And what I said before the Kansas city game was, if you want to chase the playoffs, you have to either beat Kansas city or San Francisco. Well, they didn't beat Kansas city. So now you have to beat San Francisco in order to make this argument that you can make the playoffs. And if they beat San Francisco, then I will think that it's very realistic because the schedule opens up even including green Bay where Jordan love is look competent at times and looked horrendous at times. And a lot of that's within the same game and throwing a bunch of blitzes at that guy, I think is going to work really well.

They can beat Green Bay. They can go down to Lambeau and win that game. That's where it gets really interesting within the coaching staff and front office is if they go one and one in the next two weeks and then you're having these big debates over, we're three and five, we can get back in it. We just have to go six and three the rest of the way

and we're a good team or whatever it might be. And the front office should look at it by the numbers and say, you don't have much of a chance to make the playoffs and you got a tank. But if they beat San Francisco, there's really no argument for the front office to tell the coaching staff and ownership that the season is over. If you have a very good chance to get to four and four then they're going to say well we're we're 500 i mean everything is in front of us now we could be a good team we'll get jefferson back we'll get rolling floris's defense is figuring it out and everything will be rosy and we know it doesn't work out that way all the time in fact it usually doesn't where i mean in 2020 they got to six and six and in 2021, I think they got to

either seven and six or six and six. And they still ended up with the same results because it's really hard to play playoff games every single week to try to make the post season, but a pop-up win like this against a really great team can absolutely shape the way everyone sees it. And, you know, this was the question from AbsoDefinitely here, where he said, Bajit beating the Vikings, would it have been enough to jolt the Wilfs into reality and would they advocate for change?

So I think that, yes, that would have been, but I also don't really love the characterization of the Wilfs as being what's holding them back. Because if the Wilfs wanted them to keep Kendricks and Thielen and Cook, then they would have, they would have restructured every one of those contracts. They wouldn't have gone out and got Byron Murphy and Marcus Davenport, and they would have just rolled on and they allowed them to do that. They allowed them to rebuild these major parts.

So I don't like them being talked about as, and I think it was true in the past of, hey, we got to bring back Kirk. We got to bring back Kirk. But also if the Wilfs wanted Kirk to get his extension, he would have had it. And that's kind of the point, right? So I think we need to give them more credit for understanding where they are in this timeline.

But you are completely right that if they get to four and four, a national TV win against the best team in the nfc there is no way they're trading daniel hunter and that's where the anxiety i think comes in because if they lose that game then they go to green bay best you can do is three and five pretty tough argument to say you shouldn't sell when your playoff odds are hovering around 10 but this this game could be a swing in the complete other direction and totally change the trajectory of where this team is going in the future. I mean, I agree.

And again, the sentiment coming out of it, I think, from analysts and fans is just how is it going to be? How is it going to look if they win? Because I think we've seen in the Carolina game and the Chicago game, they almost look worse in their wins than they have in some of their losses, just the way that they've barely squeaked by these teams. And so beating the 49ers takes a really good offensive line performance, which especially in the interior,

which this Vikings team has had a couple in the last couple of weeks, but it's still very shoddy, I would say. So if that holds up, you feel good about that long-term, it would need, it would, it would mean our defensive line, the Vikings is playing really, really well. It would mean someone has to cover Brennan Ayuk for long enough. Someone has to cover George Kittle. Like the recipe for how you beat this team just means you ball out. And again, I think that would be a positive sign both for kind of the, how these guys feel about Kevin O'Connell and his leadership and his ability to get them to, you know, row in the right direction to steal PJ Fleck ism. Uh, so I think that's a positive

sign, but again, I just, it just feels like fool's gold if they beat them. And as we've seen in other weeks throughout this year, like you can have fluky teams beating any team a weekend and week out. But I think we've seen a large enough sample size in six games to know that it's just not going to last for the Vikings. So I think they certainly convinced themselves of it, but I think it just only hurts detrimental to them long-term because I don't think they're making the playoffs either way. BJ says, Paul has some serious juice right now. Love it.

You know, it reminds me, Paul, the first time we did a podcast together and it sounded like you were podcasting in a library. And I said, you know what? I know the fire is in you. Spring it out. And that's the development. See, you know, quarterbacks don't always develop. But interns, you know, if you do it right, they should. But no, I love that, by the development. See, you know, quarterbacks don't always develop. But interns, you know, if you do it right, they should.

But, no, I love that, by the way. It's kind of a fresh perspective that you're bringing here since you haven't been on the show in a while, and I'm really enjoying it. But, you know, I was thinking about this, too, and this is bouncing a little over the place to answer your questions, but Tang says, watching the Lions offense is how I imagine the vikings offense this season should have been but we got some uh vanilla

bleep with butterfingers there has been a lot of butterfingers and i've had this theory about a bunch of guys who are feeling pressure kj osborne to get his contract tj hockinson to justify his contract and i've won and alexander justify being RB one and just how like these guys are all kind of facing something similar. And maybe that's part of why they've dropped the ball or maybe it's just random. I have no idea. But that's maybe a pot shot theory toward that.

I have felt like the offense this year has been a sputtery mess and they run a little bit against the chargers but then you know that was it and hockinson isn't as open as he was last year and so jefferson is still marvelous but the minute he goes out nobody can get open and there's nothing there kirk is definitely getting rid of the ball anytime he smells another football player near him which might be playing into this, but he's also made some great throws that have been dropped, had chances to win games that have been dropped. And as we tie all of this in, there is a, another conversation because part of my equation for, Hey, this is why I think you should draft a quarterback. This would be great.

And here's what you should do is giving them Kevin O'Connell. The guy's not being quite as open as I expected. And the offense being this sort of unevenness, you could definitely look at the quarterback. I have wondered if there's an offensive play caller element to this. I also think Jared Goff's better than Kirk and always has been. So there's that. I don't know how to weigh Kevin O'Connell's role in what has happened here and the confidence to have in him going forward as they draft another quarterback, if they do. Yeah, it's interesting because it shouldn't be that when you'd cobbled together, like you traded for Hawkinson mid season and you're in your first year as head coach and everyone's learning your playbook, that the offense looks better than it

does after a full off season of time to gel all these guys. Like some, I mean, statistically, the offense was better in the second half of last season than they are this year. And maybe that's just defenses didn't have time to figure them out. And now defense has also had a year to kind of learn what this team was in the second half of the season. And so now they're a little bit more ready for it, but I do think, I mean, hand up, I love to blame Kirk for certain things. Like we, we have not shied away from that this year, but I,

or in past years, but this year I have looked a little bit more at O'Connell and said, Hey, like you were billed as a Sean McVay disciple. You were billed as one of these guys. And we're seeing some of the guys come out of the Kyle Shanahan tree and look really, really good. Whether it's Mike McDaniel or even someone like Bobby Sloic with the Texans, who's already doing really cool things with CJ Stroud. And you see Sean McVay reinvent themselves without Cooper cup for a while. And they just find they pluck Puka Nakua out of the draft. And suddenly he's just this superstar that it seems like Sean McVay had a hand in

turning him into and they're running the ball with guys I've never heard of uh the Rams offense like so I think there is something to while we never expected Kevin O'Connell or it shouldn't have been a realistic expectation for him to be Sean McVay or for him to be Kyle Shanahan. We're seeing all those guys innovate. And I can't say the first word that comes to mind when I think of what we've seen from this offense is innovation. It feels like get the ball to Justin Jefferson, which isn't a bad plan. Like, Hey, I'm not going to deny that. Like anyway, you don't have to gimmick it up. If Justin Jefferson is just going to get wide open, but now if he's going to miss the game, can the offense score more than a touchdown and a couple of field goals

like they did to a bad Bears team? Like that defense is not good, but it looked good against the Vikings. Like you should be able to scheme and you still have enough talent. Like you should be able to scheme enough stuff up in that game to figure it out. And you knew Justin Jefferson was gone all week.

Like you have a first round talent in Addison and you have Hawkinson and Osborne has proven himself to be a solid and capable, like third option for an offense. So where is just some of that, you know, easy, easy button stuff.

It doesn't feel like it. It feels like everything, even since he's been here, has been long developing. Everything takes time. Everything takes multiple progressions. Like, and,

and it just feels like we could be pressing the easy button a little bit more, and the running game should be a little bit better if the offensive line is getting a little bit better. And it has been in recent weeks, but it hasn't been anywhere near explosive. And some of that is the talent you have. But I think there is a little bit more juice to be squeezed out of this offense that maybe is just not happening. And whether you want to put that on Kirk, whether you want to put that on Kevin O'Connell is up to you. But I think more so than I have in the past, I'm willing to open that discussion up to say,

hey, what is Kevin O'Connell doing to really, really help this offense? And I think we like him as a head coach and as a leader, but it just feels like there should be a little bit more success coming from this offense. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prize picks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet, or you haven't tried it yet.

Very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks you either pick more or less and boom you are playing so last week i'm gonna be honest with you i had a very tough week i went kirk cousins more than 250 yards justin fields more than 196 and jordan addison more than 54 and i went 0 3. This is by far my worst week so this week I have to bounce back. Each week has been a roller coaster ride of fun and the best part is that when I have a bad week I didn't lose much. It doesn't cost much to play. You can turn 10 bucks into 250 very easily and if things go sideways for you you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. But normally, I do much better than this.

So that is prizepix.com slash purple. Just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prizepix.com slash purple. The code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. Folks, there is no busier time for me than the fall, and that means I'm always running out the door and grabbing fast food on the way to cover football. Well, Factor is helping me stop doing that. Factor has convenient meals for my jam-packed days. They are America's number one ready-to-eat meal kit, and they can

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the field. You want them, whatever the hardest route in the world is, give it to Justin Jefferson because he'll pull it off. Each week when I watch the film, I go back and grab one or two where I'm just like, sweet Moses. I like this guy is just unreal and he could get open against anybody. And if he's not open, he still catches the ball. And then you take him out of the equation. You go, all right, who's Jefferson. You can't just scrap your offense. So now it's Osborne. Now it's Addison. They double team Addison on a third down. Now it's Powell. Okay. So it's a, I'm looking at that third down and long, and it's a deep corner to Osborne where he hasn't created a bit of separation or it's a double team to Addison or it's a double

team to Hawkinson. I mean, the bears understood what they needed to do and they did it. And I think that any team can, but to your point there, the drop by KJ Osborne was probably the greatest example of what you just said. So on this play, and I expect everyone in this room to have memorized every play from the Bears game and not wash it out of your memory because it was so exciting and memorable. But I'll just describe the drop for you. So they have kind of a cut split there where they got two guys lined up next to each other on the outside, and they're close, and one's behind the other. So they run this kind of cool off the line of scrimmage thing and Osborne breaks to the outside and it's like a, like a mini corner route. I don't know what they call the route, but he breaks to the outside and Kirk drops an absolute dime that is in the only place where his receiver

can catch a beautiful throw. I mean, this is as accurate as you can get in football. And he lays out sliding down and the ball bounces off scenes. Now, I expect an NFL wide receiver to catch that football. You don't see that caught on Saturday, but you usually do on Sunday. But that takes an elite throw and a sliding catch. And we're going, oh, come on, Osborne, you stink. It's like, OK, well, but let's just point out that KJ Osborne has always been a catch and run guy. His best plays are always him coming across

the middle of the field on relatively short stuff and run into a touchdown. It's not like making diving catches. And I feel the same way about Hawkinson where his thing was when they got him, we all did articles about yards after catch. He's going to catch it underneath. He's going to break a tackle and he's going to get 15 yards. And that has not been the case. And so I do wonder if there was so much focus in the off season on how are we going to break teams with Jefferson that the rest of it is maybe more high difficulty than it needs to be. And can you adjust from that? I think you can, but I feel the same way as you where it's a great way to describe it. There's just not enough easy. And so it's either a check down and the play is just over or it's some miraculously excellent throw that's required, but you can't really live on

that. And especially as defenses are figuring that out. Uh, Zalene says cousins, apologists love to say that he's not the problem. Why do we set the bar so low? He's the highest paid player on the team and he's not the solution. It's all, it's always been the discussion of how much is Kirk cousins to blame. And I think that Zalene Paul makes a good point. It's really no longer a relative, uh, or a relevant conversation. It's really just, it hasn't worked. So why would you keep doing it?

And that's not to say he's not good enough to win, but you've never been able to build a team good enough. And the years have run out of where you can do that. Even at a halfway, it's not been a great price, but a halfway decent price. And in his prime, his prime is gone now. So I think it doesn't even matter how much we blame him at this point for all the things that have happened. It's really about just the logic of not investing that money for that player. Matt, you know how happy I am to not have to do the Kirk Cousins argument all the time. Like

whether you're a Kirk Cousins guy or you want him off the team, everyone in that argument can agree they're sick of having that argument. The Cousins, the people the people that ride for cousins are tired of telling everyone how great he is. And everyone that doesn't think he's great is tired of dealing with those people and going back and forth. So for me to not have to do that conversation every single day feels good. I think where I'm at at this point is I'm kind of moving on to we know cousins is a known quality at this point so how can we evaluate the things around cousins to get an accurate assessment of hey how is the interior offensive line playing how is Jordan Addison developing how is TJ Hawkinson playing and I think you hear this phrase kind of being thrown out for rebuilding teams like you just want competency at quarterback so you can evaluate the

other positions around quarterback and that's kind of where I'm at with Kirk. Like we can spin ourselves in like circles, trying to decide if there's more left in cousins. And if we can eat a little bit more out of him, if the reason he's only won a couple of playoff games is on him or it's on his contract or it's on the defense or it's everything around him. But I've just kind of moved on to, he is who he is. I know who he is. At least I feel good about what he is. And so I'm going to see how all these other guys are playing and how this works around him. And so, yeah, I think

Kirk Cousins clearly hasn't been the solution. I think you come back to 2017 and you come off that 13 win season and you tell anyone that you're only making the playoffs twice, like you're only going to win like a playoff game or two. Like no one signs up for that, no matter what side of the Cousins debate you fall on. And you can say that's Kirk Cousins fault. You can say it's the general manager's fault. You can say it's the defensive coordinator's fault for all that. But regardless, it seems like this era of Cousins is coming to an end and it was not successful. And that's just undebatable by anyone. And so in my eyes, at least you might as well try something new because this didn't work. And whether it's again, consistently failing to put a team around

him or whether it's his fault, it just doesn't feel like it's going to be solved by this team, by this organization, in any timeframe that makes sense for Cousins' career or the talent around the Vikings. So let's just figure something else out and see what else you have. That's where I net out. And I think too, and this is why I still feel regardless of what any of the NFL insiders say that this is still, this train is still headed toward first round pick or another quarterback becoming a free agent or available and so forth. And they sign them, whether it's Kyler Murray in a trade or whatever, uh, is because if you bring back cousins and make the argument that you just need a nose tackle, then you

are just Rick Spielman. And they tried that and that didn't work. So why do that same thing again? I have to, I'm becoming better at self-promoting my book, Paul. So I'm going to throw a couple of things on the screen. Paul's got it. And I didn't even give it to him for free. So that shows he cares. I would have though, didn't I? Oh no, I did give it to you for free i signed it that's right but you should buy all of your friends copies um so i appreciate that paul thanks for bringing that but i'm going to put this up here as well alexander he read the book he says just reading not self-promoting just reading facts from uh a reader says finished collar's book football is a numbers Numbers Game. It's fantastic.

Everyone in the chat should read this book. Bought the audio version. It was a great way to kill traffic. I see where my funds are going. You're not paying me for this podcast. You're paying Alexander to just shamelessly plug the book in the comments. They're like that Chargers fan. These are plants.

These are plants. These people have been showing up here on this feed for months just for this reason. And Horse Feathers says, great book. Put the same level of detail and energy as he does the show. Don't forget to review it where you bought it. Thank you so much, guys. I appreciate that. And the self-promotion tour is far from over when it comes to – there's Christmas time coming, folks.

But let me scroll down here. We've got other things to talk about as well but uh do you think um so we talked with kevin o'connell the offense and and so forth and whether that's gonna go in a good direction or not but do you think that there should be more or like let me tell you a quick story that i was thinking about today. Doug Peterson in 2020 did the right thing. He tanked the last game of the season for a better draft pick, and he lost the locker room. So this is a very important thing when it comes to talking about the trading Kirk conversation. But do you think the results by the end of the season, this season are important to Kevin O'Connell for how the group that's going

to be here, particularly Jefferson, but he's not the only one. He's got two offensive tackles who are stars. Got a lot of young players on this team, how they feel about his competency, their results. So if they fight to the very end and they missed the playoffs by a game

versus they lose the San Francisco. They trade to Neil Hunter. They never pressure a quarterback ever again. And they end up going five and 12 to us. That doesn't make a difference. Do you think it does? Or do you think that every year is just so much its own thing that who cares? I think there's something to it. And I think this is when, when you're crazy, you kind of have to feel okay being the bad guy and you have to like feel okay taking the punches. Because I think as your head coach, as we know, like these most guys in the league are in and out in a year, in two years,

like they need to capitalize on the chance that they have and play well. And I think it's Kevin O'Connell's job to kind of stick up for them and fight for them. And so I think it's just, while we may agree on the outside, it's Doug Peterson did the right thing. It's just so hard when you're, when you have that job to tell that a locker room of guys that is getting there every day to work their butts off,

like that, we're going to kind of take a back seat. Like you just can't do that. And so I think if he's pushing them hard and they, and he's still saying the right things in the media which I think he's going to do and he says all the right things to them and they still go five and twelve like I think that's no skin off Kevin O'Connell's back didn't work and if the players want to get mad at Kwesi they can get mad at Kwesi and Kwesi just kind of takes it at that point like I think it's kind of like you're like levels of boss like you you know like the really high up boss like you can kind of takes it at that point. Like, I think it's kind of like you're like levels of boss. Like you, you know, like the really high up boss, like you can kind of hate, but if you're,

you're, you're superior right above you is kind of like you enjoy them. Like they, you can just always kind of deflect all the bullets up to the higher, higher management guy. And I think that's just generally what this team has to do. And I think it's just kind of the way it goes. And so I think people are worried about tension between Casey and Kevin. I think any like situation is going to have a little bit of tension just in the way that they look at things short-term and long-term. Like I'm not really worried about if it feels like those guys are a little icy. I think it's just kind of the nature

of the job. And I think when you get Kevin O'Connell outside of a season and you talk to him, like I think Casey can reasonably tell him, and I think they can kind of get get through any arguments they have during the season. But during the season, I just don't expect, especially with so much of it left for Kevin O'Connell to concede that this season's over, like he's going to push it to the brink. And I think that's where the players want him to be. They don't care about Caleb Williams or Drake May. Maybe Justin Jefferson does, but most of those other guys aren't going to be around to see it. Kirk Cousins certainly isn't going to be around to see it. And so they just want to win this game. Like you see them how happy they are to beat the bears and they're excited about that game. You know, that it's just what they want to do. They want to be successful game in and game

out. So I don't really have a problem with that. I think it's just the tightrope that kind of has to walk with Kevin O'Connell. And I think I see no way that O'Connell gives this season up in any respect. And I think if that still results in not much success, I don't, I don't think that affects him much in that locker room. I think that the players can all look at themselves in that case. And the only guys whose opinion really matters is Justin Jefferson. And if he and O'Connell are on the same page, then everything will fall into place after that. It doesn't matter what Ivan Pace Jr. thinks. Like he just has to do his job.

It honestly doesn't matter what Jordan Addison, like you're not losing Jordan Addison, young players like that. You know, I don't think they're going to just give up on the coach, but when you lose, people start pointing fingers. And this is where the one thing I think that in an ideal world, you'd have Kweisi and Kevin O'Connell on the same page. But if Kweisi disagrees with O'Connell on whether to trade Hunter and Kweisi wins out, there is going to be resentment there. And that's where that's where it ties back into the result of this week where in a way if they were to beat the 49ers it would clarify the direction where okay you're going to try to make the playoffs here and i think everyone would agree on that at that point if they lose and then beat the

packers that's why they should do it right after they lose if that's what happens and go hey you're two and five your odds to make the playoffs are 4% time to make that trade. Don't beat the Packers and go to three and five and go, ah, because that happened in 2020, except for in 2020, we were talking about trading Riley reef. What would he have really gotten back? You know, maybe a fifth round pick a pick swap. Now we're talking about someone who could get a second round pick. And that's an important distinction, I think. And I think there's a difference just like, if you're comparing it to the Mike Zimmer kind of resentment he was feeling towards the end. Like it was different because Mike Zimmer knew his job was on the line. Like I think there's probably a part of Kevin like he knows he's going to be here no matter how the season goes.

Like he doesn't really have to worry about his job security in this year. And so I think there's probably a bit less hostility when it doesn't feel like the gm's against you and if you don't play well you're going to lose your job like i think quay or kevin o'connell is keeping his job no matter how this season goes uh as long as he doesn't lose everyone in that locker room and it feels like he has nothing to gain so i think in that i don't feel like there's going to be as much built-up animosity just because i think everyone understands that they're here for the long term and that there's kind of a light at the end of the tunnel potentially with how young the offense is and how they're set up so I think that maybe mitigates some of the issues you're worried

about things kind of bubbling over people are mad at the mention of Kyler Murray well hey I just want you to go back and look at the 2021 season I just I just want to I just want you to go back and look at the 2021 season. I just, I just want to, I just want to say that like that's a, that's a pretty good quarterback play there. Also, if you say you read the book, I will put it on the screen. So Jamie, thank you for reading the book and Joshua.

Thank you. Thank you. It's yeah, no, it's a, it is really wonderful to have people read it and enjoy it. And I really appreciate that. Joshua also says Vikings need to grow up,

trade any assets that likely won't be back next season for draft picks and then trade up to get your guy. Let the chips fall where they may. Totally agree. And there's a lot of politics involved along the way. And that's why it's always harder than we think it is. So I want to not forget to include our prize picks, my prize picks. I didn't ask you for any prize picks, but I'll tell you for this week, what I'm picking. I am going with TJ Hawkinson

to have a bounce back game more than 57.5 yards. TJ Hawkinson has had a rough go of it, but I think that the defense of San Francisco will make life extremely hard on the outside wide receivers and that TJ Hawkinson will be relied upon a lot. I am going also a bounce back game for Gino Smith, who was miserable last week. They're playing Arizona more than 253.5 passing yards. And Stefan Diggs is going to go bananas against New England. I'm going more than 85 point or 89.5 yards. So there are my prize picks for the year. All right.

Well, we'll just end it on this, Paul. We need some sort of meter. I couldn't think of a pie chart, but maybe just maybe just a meter. leader where are you in the blue to yellow to orange to red on confidence this this works like that it that it falls into place like the eagles getting hurts and building this behemoth roster or detroit building their roster into whoever based on what you've seen from their leadership their decisions and so forth the blue is fire everyone the red is your howie roseman and bring us a trip to the super bowl how confident are you i think anti-climactically climactically i'm right in the middle um i think a lot of people for the vikings as the vikings would be right in the middle. I think a lot of people. Perfect for the Vikings.

I'm sorry. As the Vikings would be right in the middle. Right. Yeah. No, I think, I mean, I see in the comments, people are upset about Kweisi and I understand it to an extent, like some of the biggest decisions that have been made, they haven't signed Justin Jefferson, which is still just abominable to me. You got to sign him.

I don't like, he's only going to get more expensive. And so I, I know you have the franchise tag and you can keep them here, but you got to do that. And there are certain things that I'm like, why did that happen? But I also want to say it's only been a year and a half and you just, as with draft picks, what do we say? We try to give them two, three years, at least like at least let the general manager have

two years to fully bake through his ideas. You can not like the process of how things are going, but just feels very, very much reactive to after a season, a season and a half to immediately make your mind up. Um, I'm not, I'm not going to say it's not going to end that way for me and I'm not going to end up feeling like that, but right now I'm just not able to get there. And so I don't have the same pessimism that the Vikings just don't have the right guy in charge. That means whatever next phase of this just isn't going to go well. I think enough smart people recommended him.

He was interviewed by many different people. And by the way, the other people that they wanted to get, Ryan Poles, things aren't going well in Chicago. Joe Shane with the Bills or with the Giants, things aren't exactly going well there. So if you want to stack them up to the options that they could assign, things aren't going, it's not paradise over in all the other spots. Grass is always greener. Uh, so I think I'm right in the middle. I think with Justin Jefferson and the offensive line that, and everything that you've built, you have this ready-made if you can pull off that quarterback. And I think if you can be selectively aggressive in the draft, if you can trade up and kind of put all your eggs in a basket and go for it, I think it can work. And I think we've

seen with the best teams at some point, you just got to go do that. You got to push the chips in. And I still think they're set up to have the potential to do that. Now, if they stand, if they're, if they balk and they sit at 10 and they draft a defensive back, then I think you can start, you know, lighten your pitchforks and go in. But as of now, I'm just not ready to do that. And so I'm cautiously optimistic about how this season could go or how this thing could go after the end of the season.

And that's what I'm sticking with. I am more toward the orange than dead in the middle. I think they did a lot of things to help themselves in the future with the cap. And if they lose against San Francisco and the rest of the season goes the way it could go, they'll be in the middle with the draft where you can potentially trade up or have a pick of quarterbacks if they fall into the lower middle where we've seen you know Patrick Mahomes and I don't mean like real low but Patrick Mahomes Josh Allen Justin Herbert two of these were not number one overall picks and so that always becomes a possibility Tang says Detroit was able to build their roster because of many years of suck and they had a lot of first round picks right and the Vikingsikings have justin jefferson and christian derisaw and brian o'neill and jordan addison as their young foundation and

some of them will be expensive but if your quarterback isn't it balances it out and it's the same concept of drafting hugely successful players and then building around them uh also stephanie um has the book and said that she doesn't follow analytics, loves the book. Great stories of the people. Amazon. That makes sense. Yeah, that's right. No. Yeah. And Stephanie has been hugely supportive. She's a writer herself. So Amazon football is a numbers game. Or if you're an intern, then I will sign a copy for you. But no, anyway, this was great. Paul, I really appreciate you doing this, taking the time to jump on

in between PGA Tour events of which you'll never play in, but you can have a lot of fun writing about. And I hope that, well, fall golf is, I mean, it's waning. The weather's going down. Probably won't get another chance to get out, but we will play for sure.

75 every day. That's what I'm dealing with. Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway i'll maybe i'll stop down in the bye week and uh you know hack it up with you anyway so thanks for your time it's great to get back together you are free lifetime invite to invite yourself on anytime you want uh and and have a good time talking ball so thanks to you thanks to everybody for all of your questions comments you always make for a great show and keep buying the book so all right everybody we'll catch you next time football football