Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Why has Kirk Cousins' play dipped recently and does making the playoffs save jobs?

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Matthew Coller and Brian Murphy get together to talk about why Kirk Cousins' performance has been spotty in recent weeks. Is there something that Mike Zimmer is supposed to do in order to get Cousins back on track? Is it fundamental to him as a quarterback and will it turn around as they go into a key game against the Los Angeles Rams? Plus, Murph tells us what he thinks will happen if the Vikings finish 7-10, 8-9 or 9-8. Can he convince Matthew to keep Zimmer on as head coach? Get tickets to this week's game at TickPick.com/insider Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. I'm in Tuesday morning. It is Monday morning. Murph, Matthew Collar, Purple Insider here with you as always. Happy to be with you. And Murph, I woke up at 5.30 in the morning to fly back from Chicago today. And after watching that brand of football between the Vikings and the Bears and drinking far too much RC Cola in the Soldier Field press box, everything hurts. So how are you doing?

Well, hey, I had to endure the broadcast, which was as bad as the product on the field. I don't know about that. I mean, that was, I guess it was a win. They say it was a win. The numbers say it was a victory, right? But as far as entertainment value, as far as urgency, as far as team identity, I don't think we know anything different about the Vikings this morning than we did 24 hours ago, six weeks ago, July, anything.

What did you learn? Well, we don't get this too often because people on this show are generally very reasonable and people who listen to the show are reasonable about critiques of the team and performances. But I also would understand if there were people, either listeners, fans, media, who said, look, they won, it's a December football game.

But in this case, I would kind of redirect you to the head coach and the quarterback who both acted like they lost after the game. Both Zimmer and Cousins were basically just upset. Zimmer was talking about how we have to be better. We have to be better. And how he got after everybody this week heading into the game in their meetings. And they have to be better at a bunch of different things.

And he said, you wouldn't have wanted to be in that meeting. And here's Cousins, who has no answers to anything. I listened to Justin Fields' post-game press conference, and I thought that he won. If you just heard the press conferences, that's what you would have felt from the two quarterbacks. Cousins had the same tone that he usually has when it's a bad game and he loses.

So what does anybody take from all of that outside of the fact that they're still in the playoff race? They won their last two games against pretty unimpressive teams. They've got some tough ones to come up here with a chance to pull it off an upset, make the playoffs. And with this team, we could pretty much see anything any week.

Sometimes you throw for under 90 yards passing and you win. Sometimes your QB is great and you lose. And this is the season that we've been in all year long where we could see them get a bunch of sacks and have a good defense performance and create turnovers. We could see them get absolutely smoked on defense any given week, anything can happen. That's what I've gotten to with this team, predicting them, learning about them, understanding them has been probably more hard this year than it has been any other season covering the Vikings. And they know this too. I don't think Mike Zimmer knows who his team is.

Kirk Cousins has no idea who his team is. I don't even know if Kirk Cousins knows who he is at this point. I mean, he threw for 87 yards yesterday. He completed, was it 50%? 12 of 24? Something like that? I thought we had found the solution. I thought we had found the magic bullet. You know, they beat the Chargers. They beat Green Bay at home. They look really good. They got a downfield game. I mean, Justin Jefferson has been emerging, but boy, did he, he's an elite, game-changing, dominant receiver. Cousins is having a career year. The stats are tremendous. And here we are three weeks later going, well, why didn't they establish the run? Or why is Jefferson targeted three times in the first? Yeah, I get he's double teamed.

I get they're scheming to stop him. I mean, that's the NFL. I mean, at a certain point, you put the ball up and you let him go get it. You've got a coach ranting and raving on the sidelines, getting on sportsmanlike calls. You know, look, the officiating was awful last night. I mean, I don't blame Nagy for being upset, but, you know, it was an ugly performance. And, you know, 17 to 9, generally a 17 to 3 win. We got the entertainment product we deserve because we've been following this all along. But you are 14 games into a season. There's seven wins, seven losses, eight wins into a regime, four seasons into the Cousins reign. This is it. I mean, there's nothing left to discover. I don't believe, really, really don't. They would I would not be shocked if they made it to the playoffs. I would not be shocked if they looked horrible down the stretch.

I would not be shocked if they go out and maybe put up a fight in the first round because they have shown glimpses of being dangerous. But does anybody sober really believe that they're going to go in at nine and eight peaking or nine and eight and be a threat? I think we're just delaying the inevitable. I like your phrasing. Does anybody sober believe this? So last night, the Vikings, after last night, the Vikings are 12th in points. Last year, they were 11th. The year before, they were 8th, 19th, 10th, the two years before that. I mean, it's amazing how these games within a season have such different patterns, but they end up with the same thing at the end. Like if you wanted to add up two numbers to 89, for example, and you use 73 and 16,

or you used 40 and 49, like it's the same exact result, but it looks different about how you got there. I mean, that's this team and this quarterback, and you could take a bunch of different things and add it up and you still end up with the same results. I mean, Kirk cousins, for example, had a different look to his numbers this year. There was shorter passes early on. He was taking less sacks and then starts throwing deeper passes. And before yesterday was still not taking sacks and then takes four of them in one night. Then he's inaccurate all of a sudden for a long stretch of time. A few weeks ago, it looked like they found something with him, like after the LA and

Green Bay games. And then that quickly changes. And when that's happening, it's like, well, Kirk Cousins must be your quarterback if you're going back and forth and looking around and wondering, why is this happening? Since week 11, Cousins ranks 21st by PFF. His overall grade is still high. But in the last couple of weeks that number has just gone down and down and especially in terms of turnover worthy plays he has the fourth most in

the nfl since week 11 so all of a sudden he's all over the place the kirk cousins roller coaster has gone in different loops and dips and whirls but it's still the kirk cousins roller coaster and what we saw last night is usually a game that they end up losing but the Bears didn't have Chase Daniel game managing I guess I just wonder Murph if you have an observation or a thought about what has gone on here over the last four or five weeks and even Cousins in his relationship with Zimmer and now Zimmer saying he wants him to dink and dunk and And it's like, wait a minute, weren't you telling him a couple of weeks ago

that he's got to throw it downfield? But here we are, same as it's always been with the numbers and where they rank and all of those things, even though we've gotten there on different routes. Well, what's interesting too, is you see every post-game press conference, Zimmer says one thing,

then Cousins comes out and is asked, well, this is what Zimmer said. And they're totally contradictory, either in their reaction to what happened or in their reaction to what each other says, which says to me that they don't know who they are as an offense. I don't know if Zimmer can't get Kubiak to buy into what he wants or Kubiak can't buy into what Cousins is capable of doing or Cousins is incapable of executing what Kubiak wants through the Zimmer filter. I mean, are you confused? I'm already confused. So, look, we know the offensive line has been awful most of the season. The pass protection has been spotty at best. It's gotten worse again. That being said, that doesn't mean Kirk Cousins can't overcome that. He's being paid

$32 million to find a way to make some completions under pressure. He has lost Adam Thielen. Okay, but K.J. Osborne's not a bad option. And Justin Jefferson, all by himself, should elevate Cousins' game. You pointed out the accuracy. I mean, 12 of 24 last night, it was not a bad weather game. He hasn't had rain, snow, sleet, wind to deal with. his accuracy, I think, is the most concerning thing because that's the one true measure of whether or not he's throwing the ball well is completion percentage, and that has been nosediving of late. So, you know, take out the absence of Thielen, take out a contradictory play calling and offensive identity that the team has seemed to have week to week and take out even protection issues, his accuracy has gone down. And, you know,

you can point to a number of factors. Maybe the routes aren't quite as precise. The protection isn't quite there, but that's what quarterback's job is to complete the football. That is his number one job and he's not doing it well. So Cousins under pressure in the last two games is 0 for 18. And for the season, the only quarterback in the NFL that has lower yards per pass attempt under pressure is Trevor Lawrence, who is a rookie and was playing with Urban Meyer. I mean, this really stands out. His numbers historically under pressure aren't always like this. He's had some years where it's okay. And I think it bounces up and down a little, but I think it's really telling of his recent play that there are times when you can just

feel that something is off. You can feel it in the building and Brett Coleman, who does great stuff on YouTube. He's a friend of the show. He said yesterday on Twitter that it wouldn't be a national TV start for Cousins if there wasn't that underneath pass to CJ Hamm to start the game. And it's just like, we're not the only ones who notice this stuff. And it's puzzling when you're asking what happened to the guy who was in rhythm with Justin Jefferson just a few weeks ago, firing away. And there's something that gets a tick off and I don't think that the guy in charge on the sideline knows how to put that train back

on the tracks like oh look there's a wheel loose and it's wobbling and Mike Zimmer's answer that is to just always say whatever Cousins is doing is wrong zimmer's not wrong that you know when a team plays a deep umbrella coverage that you should be throwing underneath and getting 12 yard gains but zimmer he just he knows this look from cousins he recognizes it it's like a parent when their kid is lying like you know it right away and he knows immediately and it's for Zimmer it's oh no it's one of those nights uh we better just run Delvin and they ran Delvin over and over and ended up in third and long over and over and now that umbrella coverage on third and long is actually good and the Vikings go five for 17 on third down I mean this is not excuse cousins. It's just to say that I've never felt

like the coach could pull his quarterback aside and say, snap out of it, buddy. Instead, it's, let's just run, run, run, run, run, run. And that's what we saw last night against the Bears. And the Vikings still found a way to win, but normally you don't when this happens. And if it happens against the Rams and Packers the season is over well you talk about umbrella coverage I mean we're not talking about one of those PGA umbrellas right that can cover 14 people in a hurricane out on the 14th fairway we're talking about the the piece of junk you bought at CVS that blows away as soon as you open it that's the umbrella coverage the Chicago Bears put out last night. Look, I

don't know anything about football or X's and O's, but they were signing guys off the street. How do you not challenge that? How do you not just make them pay? Make them earn their interception. Make them earn their pass defenses. You know, put Justin Jefferson up in the air. Let him come down with everything. As opposed to, boy, Kirk's a hair off. I want to run the ball because I always want to run the ball. Let's run the ball. And you get to, I mean, every halftime interview or every halftime interaction with the sideline reporter Zimmer has is we got to run the ball more. Every single time. Every time. I don't know if he's just doesn't want to be bothered. And that's like a convenient thing say or if he truly believes it I think it's a little of both but he even said

last night we threw the ball too much he threw the ball 24 times I mean I Matthew you're the the stats guy what's the average drop back in the NFL these days 30 plus yeah probably I mean how do you say that that we're throwing it much? We need to run the ball more because your quarterback's a little bit inaccurate and they're playing an umbrella coverage that makes it riskier to throw downfield. Yeah, against an elite pass defense, not against the excuses they had for defensive backs in Chicago last night. What I think is when he says that, and that always happens every time they're playing poorly on offense and Zimmer's come out and told Lisa Salters or Aaron Andrews

or whoever that they need to run the ball more. What I think he's doing is, do you remember when Steve Nash used to shoot free throws and he'd wipe his hair out of his eyes. And he told his kids that that was the way he was saying hello to them. So he knew they'd be watching on TV. And he told them, every time I brush my hair out of my eyes, it means that I'm saying hello to you at home. What I think Zimmer is doing is when he says we need to run more, it means our quarterback is bad tonight, Lisa. I wonder if it's Zimmer's way of saying the

quarterback is off and I don't know what to tell you. And even from the start of the game, it's third and short and he throws a bomb to the tight end down the sideline. I mean, they're running a cross underneath on out of a bunch formation on the other side. And it's a pretty common short yardage play and he heaves it down the sideline for the tight end like okay i mean you just wonder if by the second drive zimmer had the sense of what was happening and just running more is his go-to answer for that i mean cousins it's got to drive z because Cousins is the type of hitter in baseball that's either 350 or 150. It's just who he is.

It's hot or cold. And if someone knew how to get him to hit 300 all the time, they'd make all the money in the world. But McVay couldn't do it. Stefanski, two Kubiaks. Zimmer doesn't know how to do it. And I guess I just think that you know maybe Zimmer should try making it look like he likes Cousins and wants him to get back on track and do something

to help that but I also don't know that there's an answer to this I mean Cousins averaged five yards per pass when he had a clean pocket last thing five yards per pass in a clean pocket is preposterous and And it's just unexplainable when he goes on streaks like this. And yet, yet we're still digging for answers. Again, four years into his tenure in Minnesota, 10 years into his career, eight years into Zimmer's reign, third offensive coordinator. We're still thinking like, there's got to be an answer there. Something like they can make it all work. Where's the missing piece? Just put it in and it'll all be fine. It's just not. It's square hole round peg and it has been for a while. You mentioned some of

these other weird passes. I mean, again, these are not, they weren't game changing, but they just wonder like what's going on in this, in Cousinsins head the Hail Mary at the end of the half 20 yards out of bounds like what I don't understand why are you taking a safe out I mean just heave the thing even if there's no one in the end zone just make it look like you're going for something I mean just the optics of that just I think enrages people or you know Justin Jefferson on on Cousins interception Jefferson was clearly assaulted on his route on his way to the middle of the field no flag despite a crew that was flagging every infraction they could find yet he was on the ground already tackled before Cousins let go of the ball I'm

still wondering like why did he just hit a fungo out to center field like how did that happen I just wonder about that you mentioned synapses it's like every once in a while there's just something not it's not a traditional NFL quarterback elite quarterback brain there's just something quite off whether again it's his comments his leadership is his look I don't know we all look for these things because we've been conditioned to to analyze cousinsousins to death. But when you just look at him beneath the face mask and he's got that grimace on his face or he's got that weird grin after a horrible loss

greeting guys at midfield at the game, there's just something you don't – you're just like, that's just not a guy I'm going to succeed with. I don't know. And you can't identify it, right? You're just like – you just feel a guy i'm gonna succeed with i don't know and and you can't identify it right you're just like you just feel it hey everybody minnesota football is in full swing and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for minnesota football tickets because tick pick that is t-i-c-k-p-i-c-k is the original no-fee ticket site. It's the only one you'll ever need as your go-to for football tickets.

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And make sure it's TickPick.com slash insider because you can save $10 on your first order for Minnesota tickets. That's TickPick.com slash insider. There's always been something that I don't understand with him. And even as long as I've been covering him, I've never quite put my finger on it. So last night they won and after the game he comes across as being upset and he didn't play well so i get it but in detroit they lost and he looks like he's fine after the game and the tv cameras show him giving out high fives to the lions players and it's like it's like in his mind he can only control how he played and even if he's

kind of said this uh in the past about you know the win-loss record and hey the great quarterbacks you know they win games and that's what i'm trying to do and everything else but he's also said look i i can only play how i can play and the chips fall where they may. I mean, I think that that's kind of his approach is that he just has this horse blinder thing and there are some blind spots there. And I even remember when, you know, you go back to week one, 2019,

he had 12 passes and they won. And he made a comment about how like, oh, well they'll need me to throw 50 passes at some point, like being defensive in a way. And it was like, dude, you just they'll need me to throw 50 passes at some point, like being defensive in a way. And it was like, dude, you just kicked the heck out of the Falcons. Are you okay? And so with the blinders on, it's probably one of the things that's made him in a way good because he could be criticized a ton from the outside and it'll be crazy all week. ESPN will be hammering him for a

loss or something. And then he just goes out there and plays the way he always does. There's also just these blind spots when something is a little off. It seems to kind of mess with him maybe more than it would others. And there's been years and years of this conversation about a Murph. And, you know, now we have a big sample to know that if you buy tickets to a Vikings game or you sit down with your diet RC Cola, I mean, you might be seeing everything work out great and some kind of awesome quarterback performance where he throws it all over the place. You go, wow, unbelievable. And if something is off, then it's just going to be a really tough day and you're not going to

really understand why all the time. And it's especially seem like at the end of these seasons, there's always something in common there, right? Like players get hurt. Games are played on different days. Things get weird in December and it asks for a lot of adaptation from players. And I can't say whether that's it or not, but it's happening again. And who knows when it stops? I mean, it could stop this week or not. We don't know. And it's baked in. I think I've used that analogy many times with Cousins.

It's baked in. You're not going to undo this. This is all fundamental Kirk Cousins. So how do you manage that, work around it, overcome it, leverage it. We, you, you just kind of lurch as they've been lurching week to week. And now what do we have? The gimme's are gone again, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and, and Chicago. Now you're all, now you've got a resurgent Rams team coming into town. You have,

and then you have to go to Lambeau January 2nd. We're thinking thinking you know obviously two out of three minimum just to get in uh I don't feel too good about splitting these games and relying on a home win against Chicago after the performance last night because you know by week 18 I mean Matt Nagy's already a dead coach walking. They're going to unload the toy box there. All trick plays, fake punts, nothing to lose, fields running around. I would not rely on a home game in week 18 to get in. I don't see how the scenario plays out where they win two out of these three, and then what?

You're going to go into Tampa or L. back to green Bay and steal a, an upset. Help me, help me, help me understand how that happens. Well, uh, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are hurt and maybe Tom Brady gets stomach flu. I mean, I don't know. Uh, no, look, I mean, you can actually really spot the teams that would be bad for cousins though. And that would be good. That would be bad or good matchups. I mean, the Bucks team is super violent upfront. Dallas is this way too. And the pressure just comes faster when you have these really quick or, or really strong players that are throwing your offensive lineman back into the quarterback. It's like, even when you technically have a clean pocket, you're throwing with four feet of space instead of eight. And I think that matters to him.

I think it speeds up everything around him. And that's why you see the pump fakes, the hesitation, the footwork change a little bit, the high throws. And if you think about the teams that they've played in, in recent weeks, you've got like Cam Hayward, Akeem Hicks, and here comes Aaron Donald and Kenny Clark. Those are tough matchups for him because I think that it's just like the pocket is closing in and it's not as stable as it is, or at least it doesn't even feel that way, even when he has a clean pocket. And I think that's what makes it tough for me to see them winning these next two games

because of those really, really good interior defensive linemen that seem to be his kryptonite. But how about you, Murph? What percentage chance do you give the Vikings of taking two out of their next three games? What would you give it? 25%. And I wouldn't even hazard which two they'd win because they could win two of the three against any of these opponents. They get rolled by all of them, too. I think we know where this is headed. They're likely going to split these games. And I'll just say they'll beat L.A. at home just because that seems the safer bet, even though it's a terrible matchup for them.

And they have yet to get over 500. You know, once again, they keep falling. Two games below, they get to 500, and then they fall again. So the odds are that, you know, the history shows that they're not even going to be able to climb that hill. But let's assume that they do beat the Rams. I don't see them going into Lambeau on a Sunday night and taking care of business, which means they're going to have to beat Chicago at home. And we know what happens when you have a must-win home game against the lame duck bears. It doesn't go well. And after seeing what I saw

last night, I think the bears are even probably going to be looser. And I just feel like they're not going to be that self-destructive. I don't know if any team could be that self-destructive as they were last night. So now you're looking at a coin toss home game against the Bears. And, you know, ask any Vikings fan on the street, nine to ten are going to say, no, they're going to lose that game. So I think we all know where this is headed. They're going to take it to the wire. Everything's going to be on the line against that home game, that home game against the bears. Look, they could win all three, lose all three, win two out of three. I wouldn't know which two

they could win because nobody knows who this team is, not even them. That sounds like a game we should play then, Murph. Let's go through these records that you just brought up and what would happen and how we would feel under each scenario. So you tell me how everyone would feel. Let's start here. If the Vikings were to lose out, lose all three games, and then we'll go to the other side of the scenario. But what if they lose all three? If they're to lose out, they all three games, and then we'll go to the other side of the scenario. But what if they lose all three?

If they're to lose out, they finish 7-10, then the house cleaning is inevitable. And I think justifiable. Because when the stakes were highest, they couldn't get it done. So I don't see any sense of status quo if they go 0-3 for keeping Zimmer, Spielman, and Cousins even at that point. Although Cousins, again, we've discussed as a more complicated situation. But I think that's clear. I think 8-9 probably leads to the house cleaning as well. Because you're going to miss the playoffs in consecutive years, which they haven't done under Zimmer.

And you're going to add up those nine losses and you're going to look at three or four of them and go, that's just brutal. That should not have happened. That cannot happen. And again, optics, you know, you know, an overtime loss at home to the Rams, a tough loss at Lambeau. And then whatever happens in a nothing game against Chicago. I mean, I think it depends on how it looks. I mean, if they get rolled,

if they play like they did last night in any of these next three games, they're not going to win. I mean, certainly the next two. There's no way they can play like they did last night or against Detroit or even from, you know, two-thirds of the game against Pittsburgh and expect to defeat the Rams or the Packers. So I think we've been saying optics mean a lot. You know, ownership is really looking at, I think, obviously results, but also is there anything, you know, I'm just speculating here, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Wilves, who are very loyal, are looking for any reason to not blow this thing up. Because that's not easy to do, and then you've got a ton of work to do. It may be what has to be done, but there's still a lot of blood on the floor, and I don't think

they want to do that. So I think they're looking for reasons to not have to do that. And I think, you know, a couple of wins, a couple of tough losses, some optics might give them a sliver but I just I don't see how seven and ten and eight nine you can't just wipe the slate clean and start over nine and eight in a first round loss that's complicated okay let's get to that in a second but your point about seven and ten and eight nine it's probably not different if you lose the next two and then beat the bears in week 17 it'll be kind of like their win last year to go to seven and nine against the lions

and i understood why that was important to mike zimmer because seven and nine it looks better than six and ten it looks much closer to the playoffs if you're a coach you want to be able to say after the season hey seven and nine were pretty close to the playoffs. Six and 10 feels really far away. Um, and, and no one remembers, Oh, it was Detroit at the end of the season. Just like they wouldn't remember if it was Chicago at the end of this year. Uh, but the record feels at eight, nine, a lot closer than it does seven and 10. So maybe there's an argument there.

If you go eight, nine, and you walk into the office at the end of the meet, uh, end of the year meeting and you say, Hey, uh, well, here's, here's an argument there. If you go eight, nine and you walk into the office at the end of the meet, end of the year meeting and you say, Hey, well, here's, here's my argument. Or why don't we, why don't we do this? Why don't we play this little game within a game Murph? So let's just say that you're Zimmer and you just went eight, nine, you lost to the Rams and Packers. You beat the bears and you have two minutes to convince me, ownership, that you, Zimmer, should stay. Two minutes.

Go. The guy above me, that guy named Spielman with his nameplate on the door, he's handed me a crap sandwich on the offensive line for the last, I don't know, five years. He brought in a quarterback I'm not necessarily sure I can win with and paid way too much money for him, and now we can't spend money elsewhere. We've lost Daniil Hunter the last two years, who was probably responsible for a couple of victories a season just single-handedly through sheer bad luck. So I, Mike Zimmer, I know football. I know defensive football. I know defensive football.

I know winning football. You build this thing around me. You hand me roster control. Not sure that he wants it, but you hand me roster control, and I can deliver the elusive ring that has eluded this franchise for 61 years. And I'll leave the rest to my attorney. Folks, I just want to say, Brian Murphy, what a masterful job right there.

You, my friend, have seen the blame game before. In the NFL, you've seen it many times. Well done. You nailed every part of that. You point the finger at the GM, which you've got a pretty good argument. I mean, hey, look, it's the guy who signed Brashad Breeland to, you know, tell me in the back of Zimmer's head the other day when they were cutting Breeland.

He wasn't going like, well, I could certainly use this to make my case at the end of the year. And Zimmer could say, look at these signings that I was left with in the secondary. We even had to cut a guy. I mean, look at the overall job that I did versus the overall job of signing players, drafting players. I mean, it just has not been good in terms of the roster construction defense.

And Spielman had to break up the brawl on the field. It was literally right in his face how bad that signing was. Amazing, right? And this is the guy who let the defense fall apart in 2019 and missed on the draft picks. One first rounder is under indictment at the moment, and the other one is playing well for Kansas City,

and they got nothing back for him. So there's the case. You could see also, though, as good as your case was, the Wilfs, me, I'm the ownership, saying, you know, look, everything that you just said there was right, but eight, nine is eight, nine. And that's it. Sorry, man, nine and eight though. You miss the playoffs because of technicalities and tie breakers, or you go to the first round, first round out. Um, the things that you said become more compelling

if you beat the Packers or you beat the Rams. Because if you beat one of those two teams, then everyone will say, oh, look at the Vikings. Look at Mike Zimmer's Vikings. They never quit. They were down, but they were not out and they fought back. And, you know, it'll probably mean also that they schemed pretty well. That if you beat Rodgers or you beat Stafford and McVay, that Zimmer will have schemed well. You hear Chris Collinsworth's voice in yours. Right.

This guy, Zimmer, this is a guy. And look at his team, man. They never gave up. I don't know what the Wills are thinking, but boy, I'd want to battle for that guy to the day I die. Boy, you are right that the football guys are dark about it sometimes, right? Like I would rather throw myself into a wood chipper than not play for this coach. It's always like that.

I'll tell you what, Brian Greasy literally threw Matt Nagy into a thresher last night and basically said three times the city of Chicago deserves better. But I, here's what, here's, okay, if they do, again, limp in at nine and eight, I don't know how you overcome that loss to Detroit. Now, granted, it looks a little bit better because Arizona got waylaid the other day, too. The supposedly dominant, you know, NFC top seed contenders just really got mauled. But I, I, it, it, again, optics mean everything.

What is cousins going to be throwing for 110 yards the rest of the way? Are they going to win on special teams? I'm talking about the Vikings. Are they going to eke in because their defense made some things happen? I guess at the end of the day, the results don't matter, right? But I think they do. I think Cousins has to have some kind of a signature on these wins if they do get into the playoffs, because otherwise, why are you paying the guy? I mean, you could have done this with Case Keenum, right? Folks, it's that time again where you're doing your online shopping for the holidays. And look, if you want free shipping, I can help you out with that.

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Again, that's S-O-T-A-S-t-i-c-k.com perfect for gifts and you can get that shipping free by using the code purple insider so this this is such a good point though because if you're zimmer and you're using your two minutes left to save your job and you're trying to argue that you're the guy who should stay. What you want is cousins to throw for 87 yards in every game and you go two and one and get in the playoffs. So you can say, Hey, look, I turned around that defense. I figured out a way to get all those sacks. Even though we lost Daniel Hunter, let the old league and sacks go find somebody else who will do that. Now, you know, the quarterback, well, look look maybe you should give me

a rookie quarterback maybe you should give me two more years and 35 million in cap space to spend on my defense now you are talking championship as long as you have me of course as your defensive coach um and the thing is that i know people are listening thinking like yeah that could happen and i i think that might be a scary proposition for fans who kind of want wholesale changes. If he really wants to go all in on 1982 football, he can play the Parcells card too and say, this is how Bill Parcells won games. And he knows the Wilfs have a soft spot for Bill Parcells because they grew up Giants fans. So if he really wants to go down that road, he could. But are you really going to

in January of 2022 stake your future as an NFL head coach on winning games 17 to 9? So that's not quite the case he's got to make. It's look how I won these games with a quarterback who is struggling. It's not me who is the problem. I found a way with my coaching savvy. So all you need to do is give me that old cap space, a quarterback who's a little more consistent, maybe a little more of a playmaker. Well, then I think then maybe the Wills peel back the curtain and Gene Rayburn comes out and says,

Mike, we have some fine parting gifts for you. Thank you for playing and being our guest for the last eight years, but we're going to, uh, we're going to go to this other, uh, contestant right now. I don't have any sense for this and I don't know anyone else who does either, whether it matters to them or not, where this goes in the final three weeks of the playoffs. I mean, it did before, but I don't know. I mean, the feelings from these fans are different now than they were in 2019. I mean, I don't remember the last time, the feelings from these fans are different now than they were in 2019. I mean, I don't remember the last time I got a tweet or an email of someone saying,

Oh man, I can't live without this coach. And even the cousin supporters, like the ones who want to see him succeed, think he's good enough, but think the team has let him down. I'm not talking about the people who just use cousins for debates to get people upset online to get attention i mean like you know general fans who think that cousins is good and think they can win all those people are aware that they've tried to build around them and it hasn't worked and aware that there are too many games like there were against chicago and it feels like they've even come around to the point where we're almost at a consensus that changes need to be made and at the same time who doesn't want to see their team make the playoffs right right but you also want your team peaking and you also want your team building

towards something and you want your team um you want to know who your team is going into a tough road game at Tampa or a tough road game at Lambeau and feel like, you know what? I feel like, you know, I can cousins could win this game today or the defense could win this game or their physicality could win this game. Do you, do you have any sense that anybody's going to think the Vikings going into a tough road playoff game have any advantage other than just being, we have no idea who's going to show up today. So maybe this will just screw everybody up. And they will come beyond the random roll of the dice.

I don't see, they're not peaking. I don't know if they've ever peaked at all this season. I mean, maybe the home green Bay win, but for every peak you, I could look at three or four valleys and be like coming out of the buy and losing at home to Dallas and Cooper rush, uh, uh, coming out of the, coming out, losing to Detroit. I mean, these are just blemishes. You can't just wipe away. Yeah. It's such a strange spot to be in where most people have this yearn for change with this franchise, which is my folk album, by the way. But you, you know, you don't have a lot of people who also like want to root against their team if they're in

the playoff race. I mean, there are probably some fans who really see all the ones and zeros and think like, okay, you know, they should miss the playoffs and then this, and then this, and then this, and all the dominoes fall. But I mean, most people don't want to see your team missing the playoffs and you know, you can't just like root against your team to, you know, miss the playoffs either. Right. You can't just be saying like, oh, well lose, lose, come on guys. Don't make the playoffs because you never know what can happen in the playoffs. But you know, this, it's not super uncommon to be in this spot, right? I mean, we've seen it before Mike Malarkey with the Titans,

they made the playoffs and then they fired him. So yeah, we, I mean, we have seen it before, so maybe you can have your cake and eat it too, but it does feel like if they win, they'll get rewarded. Well, that's why I think this, this could be an easier decision. I mean, I think back to the 2012 team Vikings team that finished 10 and six with Christian Ponder and Adrian Peterson running for 2000 yards. As soon as Ponder's elbow was unable to go in Lambeau and they had to start Joe Webb. I mean, it was clearly they were not a 10-6 team.

They were a 6-10 team. It's a little bit of that. The problem with this team is I just don't know who they are. At least 2012, we knew who they were. They were going to be underwhelming in the pass game. Ponder was going to protect the ball. They were going to run Peterson, and maybe they'd have a chance. I don't know what you would say going into a playoff game. What would give the Vikings the best chance to win?

Well, you could name a few things, but do you have any confidence that they would be able to execute any of that? Really depends on whether the ball goes accurately in the way of Justin Jefferson or not. I mean, I do think the Adam Thielen thing is a pretty big deal for cousins, but I don't think they have a tremendous chance to beat the Rams, probably 60, 40, but here we go. Right. In a lot of ways, it's appropriate that every game has been close. So why not have this thing come down to the final day and the percentage points of whichever team played the colder weather schedule and all those things. I mean, it's just like the perfect way to end this season is it coming down to, who knows, one game, one play, one other game that has to bounce one way or the other. I mean, it's just perfect.

We'll finally be back to a normal schedule. It feels like forever since we had a noon Sunday game and an actual Monday morning conversation. I've been trying to just watch my bowl games during college bowl season. And the, I think it's the Idaho potato bowl is going on. And I'm sitting here missing it because of the NFL. Like, come on. It's tragic. I'm going to check your freezer for human heads.

And that's how we'll end it. So thank you. All right.