Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will the final four games impact Kirk Cousins's future? Ft. Andrew Krammer of the Star Tribune

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

Matthew Coller and Star Tribune Vikings reporter Andrew Krammer discuss the Vikings' matchup on offense against Tampa Bay's strong defense and whether these final four games will change the way the Vikings feel about their future with Kirk Cousins. Plus they talk about the funniest Zoom moments of the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Andrew Kramer from the Star Tribune. Andrew, what are you doing for the holidays, my friend? Not too much, you know, just staying safe. Nothing, like everyone else. We just immediately start with an inside joke, and now we will go on to Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and we will finish with some of the silliest quotes from the Zooms this week,

which I think it's about time to make that a bit. I'm mad at myself that I didn't think of this before, some of the questions and answers that have gone on, because you and I have been on almost every Zoom call since, what, late July with this team? And I'm excited when we get vaccinations and get back in the locker room. I've just had my fill for a lifetime with Zoom calls. Yes, and it's actually going back to probably the draft, right?

It would have been even April, and then they had their June OTA availabilities where they would have the guys virtually taking part in meetings, and then they'd have Jaleel Johnson with his mobile phone sitting on his couch. It's just, it's the worst. Yeah, it's been very uncomfortable still. You'd think that everyone would be used to it by now, but there's still awkward silence, people talking over each other and some very odd answers and questions as well.

So we'll talk about those. But I want to start right out with the quarterback of the other football team that the vikings are playing and a broad stroke question for yeah i know bold right this is this is the most in-depth football show so i just want to ask your opinion on the other team's quarterback all right but really um what what do you make of brady arians the way that this has not really fused together super well so far this year, but Brady has good PFF grades. He has decent numbers, and he is still Tom Brady, but it isn't as scary as Tom Brady would have been in the past. Yeah, I don't think it's surprising in the least. Frankly, I think it's gone better than I assumed.

When we're talking about this team being 7-5, of course they're super talented. You would think, well, it should just work seamlessly. This is a 43-year-old quarterback who was used to one system, one way of doing things, had been with McDaniels for a long time in New England and obviously knew how Belichick operated things, but this offensive system that he was comfortable in orchestrating was very different than what they're doing now in Tampa Bay. And so when you don't have an off season to kind of get that down pat, then you've got an old head coach in Bruce Arians who not only has his own way of doing things, comes back to coaching with the stipulation

in 2019 that I'm not going to call plays. That's just not going to happen. I don't want to do it. It's going to be somebody else. So he shows up in Tampa Bay, and it's Byron Leftwich. So now you've got this kind of three-headed offense where it's Bruce Arian's foundation, but it's Byron Leftwich calling plays. And then it's Tom Brady stuck in the middle trying to orchestrate something that really at his age, I think you've heard the talking heads mention. I don't know if that's really his strength and what he should be doing.

I don't watch a ton of Tom Brady film, but I don't know if the deep ball, all these things that, you know, kind of holding on for five, seven step drops. We knew Brady is more of the Drew Brees type of get the ball out quick, kind of diagnose, do all those things. So I think it's actually gone better than I would have assumed because they're a winning team in playoff position. And really, I think it's just the talent that's kind of dragged in there.

They are. And what's another thing that's gotten in the way is that they've had people banged up. It seems the entire season. So they're coming off of a buy. And yet still, as we record this, Mike Evans was not practicing.

So if he is not in Chris Godwin had pins taken out of a finger or something. So that's not great either if you're Tampa Bay. And so now you're down to whatever is left of Antonio Brown, Rob Gronkowski, whatever is left of him. I think LaShawn McCoy is on this scene, which is just looking over their numbers.

It's like, wait, somebody made a typo, right? There's no way this team picked up LaShawn McCoy. That would be like, that's something that I would absolutely do on Madden when, you know, there's like an old guy in free agency.

I'm going to pick that guy up on my team. That's like half of their roster here. And so I guess that you were either on one side or the other when this thing happened of Brady going to the Bucs. You either thought he's going to step in with all these weapons and he's going to dominate and roll them to a Super Bowl, or it's going to blow up, and it's kind of been neither. It's kind of been somewhere in the middle,

and they're a very hard team to really put a finger on, I think. Yeah, and I think it's kind of, when you look at the offense, 18th in yardage, I think it is, they've just been really average when it comes to consistently moving the football. You'll have games like Carolina a month ago where I think they put up like 500 yards and almost 50 points, but then you'll have the games where the last three losses for Tampa Bay, it's been good defenses, but the Rams, the Chiefs, and the Saints, they haven't topped 24 points in any of those games. They've struggled to move the ball consistently. Tom Brady's turned it over seven times in the

last four games. I think that's his most since 2011. He just doesn't look comfortable right now. And you mentioned the injuries. They're bringing in guys off the street. They're signing Antonio Brown out of suspension. Gronk is literally half the person he used to be. I think if you lined him up sideways with the other Gronk from, like, 2015, I think it would be half the polar bear that he used to be.

It's just it's not the same guy. It's not the same team. It's not the same players. So in terms of the talent, these guys are older. And Antonio Brown, look, if that's your main guy, it might be good for you here and there, but I don't think it's going to be the consistent guy that Tom Brady's used to. And so I'm not too shocked. But right now, I think they've got the talent, and I think that's going to be a big problem for Minnesota

because there's just so many matchup problems. And if you're this Buccaneers offense and you're trying to get back on track, I think you can kind of pick where you want to attack in this Vikings defense because there's quite a few options. Well, that's what I was thinking about with this team, that Tampa is flawed. But for the most part, when they have played bad teams, they've taken care of business. They did have that disaster against the New Orleans Saints, but I think that New Orleans and the Vikings, in terms of their rosters, are on two different

planets. That New Orleans barely has a weakness on their roster to the point where they've got a Case Keenum situation going on with Taysom Hill coming in and winning a bunch of games, whereas the Vikings are allowing game time drives to Mike Glennon. And I guess I want you to give me, I don't know if it's a percentage or an andrometer or some way to describe how much you factor that they just didn't really take care of business against Carolina and against Jacksonville and against Dallas and really to a large business against Carolina and against Jacksonville and against Dallas and really to a large extent against Chicago where they dominate a lot of the game but only come away with a six-point victory are you looking at this last section of wins as

not that impressive or a win's a win and they should be able to match up with Tampa Bay because on paper I think there's a good case that Tampa Bay is far more talented. Yeah, I don't, it's funny because I was just on a radio station. I think it was in green Bay today. And they were asking me just that about looking toward kind of Sunday and saying like, boy, the Vikings really match up well, they're surging. And I'm like, are they, because I just don't, it doesn't feel like it for all the reasons you mentioned.

You and I have watched every minute of, unfortunately, every minute of that overtime Jaguars victory. and then every second of the Panthers game. They could have easily lost both of those games, easily. And to say that to two teams in the Panthers and the Jaguars that are just bottom feeders right now on either conference, it's not great. And then, of course, they lost to Dallas. We can't forget that. And this Dallas team, as talented as they are at wide receiver, it's inexcusable to drop that kind of a game. So I would have to put it as, I think this team is very much 500 or worse in terms of kind of who they are. And right now they've been kind of having the ball bounce their way. They've been getting very lucky. And that's not going to happen as frequently when you play against a team

like Tampa Bay that, as you said, is much more talented and is probably going to put themselves in position to have that better luck, as it were, in the NFL. I just don't think the Vikings are consistently like that. They've had a horseshoe, I think, a little bit up their butt here in the past few games. And I just don't think it's going to continue. I think at some point it's got to go the other way or around their neck as Mike Zimmer said once I think he adapted that phrase to make it

more safe for the children I guess I don't know back with with Case Keenum this is this is the hard thing about evaluating the entire team because I've gotten tweets from people and there's the PFF numbers and all those types of things about Cameron Dantzler and Jeff Gladney and hey look evaluating the entire team because I've gotten tweets from people and there's the PFF numbers and all those types of things about Cameron Dantzler and Jeff Gladney and hey look they're playing a lot better and here they're coming along and Mike Zimmer is saying well maybe we have two real nice corners here and again I mean look Jacksonville has NFL wide receivers who can catch footballs if they're thrown in the area but they they do not have even the old version of Antonio Browns better than most people on Jacksonville.

And the same thing goes for Carolina, that they've got a couple decent weapons and so forth, but it's not like, wow, you just shut down the best offensive weapons in the NFL or anything like that. So some of the players that we're talking about emerging and playing better, Ezra Cleveland is another one. Hey, look, he's playing pretty decent. Didn't Jacksonville have like 11 sacks the whole year before they played against the Vikings?

I mean, so I think it's one of the hardest things to do when you're evaluating a team or trying to pick a game or trying to figure out what's going to happen is looking at the past performances and trying to say, well, how much does this matter to what's going to happen on Sunday? One, and two, just looking past the result and figuring out, OK, what were they getting away with in some of these games that they were still able to win? And when you look at the Jaguars game, Kirk Cousins got hit 14 times. The fact that Kirk Cousins is getting beat up as often as he is and he's getting passes away just barely, he's throwing them away just barely.

And even though they took four sacks against Jacksonville, that was still mitigating much of the damage that he was facing. That damage is going to be a lot worse against Tampa Bay. We're talking about Dominick and Sue, Jason, Pierre, Paul. We're talking about guys who get after the quarterback with a four-man rush. And then you've got Todd Bowles, who's pulling the strings, and he likes to blitz as much as anybody. So with all of that, I just think it matches up so poorly for this Vikings offensive line.

And Riley Reif is banged up. Three of the offensive linemen are on the injury report right now for the Vikings. I just think when we're talking about the main issues that they've kind of been able to survive with over this 5-1 stretch, the biggest one's the offensive line, and that's the one that, in my opinion, is in the biggest crosshairs on Sunday. I just don't know how they're going to deal with it. The offensive line is a funny, tricky beast, because at one point, Drew Samia's in, and I'm like, they can't block anyone. I mean, at that point, they have three players in the middle that cannot stop a

pass rush, and then Ezra Cleveland comes in you go well okay now all of a sudden Garrett Bradbury doesn't look like he's struggling so much because his right guard knows what he's doing with football and his left guard is just problematic Brett Jones comes in they play fine for the most part a few handful of pressures there but then in Jackson Jacksonville comes back and it's like the same problems and anything that involved a stunt or a twist or anything unique, they just seem to be looking at each other going, wait, was that you? No, that was your guy? Oh, no, Kirk is sacked.

And some of it, though, is also on Cousins. There's one particular play against Jacksonville, I know you saw it on a third down, where he pump fakes with three wide open receivers in front of him in his line of vision exactly exactly where he's looking. And he pulls it down and takes a sack. And Cousins right now is the third most pressured quarterback per drop back of anyone in the NFL.

And at some point, I think we do have to say, like, this is a Cousins thing that every year the offensive line can't handle anything. Every year Cousins is pressured like this. And even when he was in Washington and they had good offensive linemen, he would still get pressured a lot. Like, I think this is just a thing that will always exist with Kirk Cousins. Well, and that's a cyclical thing, right?

And to play like armchair psychologist, but like when we're talking about Kirk Cousins and the big issues and the one and five start, it was turning it over. It was three interceptions or however many it was in the second quarter against the Falcons, forcing some of the over the middle throws to Justin Jefferson or whatever the problems were. And then when they go through the bye week, the whole thing they're beating into his head is take care of the football,

take care of the football. Don't turn it over. That's what, this is how we want to win. This is Mike Zimmer's thing. Just control the football, run the clock, win with defense. That's, it doesn't matter who the personnel is. That's what they want to do, and they'll try to match the personnel to that. So then Kirk is inherently going to get in his own head and then potentially hold on to a ball and pump fake it if he thinks, I don't trust that read right away.

Ah, nope, I'd rather take the sack than potentially turn that ball over. And then you're going to leave wide-open guys down the field if you're not trusting what you're seeing every single time. And I think, I wonder if that's what we're seeing with Kirk on some of these, because there was, there were issues where you need to trust Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen, even if it's not wide open, which Gary Kubiak, the staff does a great job of scheming guys open off the play action. Even if that's not open, these guys can go up and get it. These are not Tajay Sharp. These are not, you know, some of the receivers that you've had before in Washington or

whatever. These are guys that they need to trust. And I think Kirk's kind of always had that. That's why we see Kyle Rudolph, when he was healthy, totally disappear from this offense in the red zone because contested balls. That's just not really what Kirk's going to be doing a whole lot. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from Soda Stick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com

to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. So many great designs, especially the holiday sweaters. Make sure you check out the Let It Skol design. All their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. That's SodaStick.com, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER15 for 15% off anytime you purchase at least two items this holiday season. I think that's exactly what it's about for why Rudolph has overall disappeared out of this offense. His biggest play, maybe in the last couple years, outside of the red zone,

came against Carolina where they forgot him. They were just like, oh, yeah, we didn't expect him to get that far down the field at his speed, and they just let him get behind four defenders and stand wide open. But other than that, there was a play on third down that I thought maybe was the first third down of the game, looked like it was designed to go to Rudolph on a classic Rudolph box out, and Cousins just went off that quick and went to Delvin Cook instead, because, well, he's covered. I'm not going to throw to him. And the fact, I think, that he

won't do that has frustrated Rudolph, I'm certain of it, and probably is at the root of a lot of his inconsistencies. Because if you're playing an opponent like Detroit, say, who has the most clueless coach in Matt Patricia over a couple years, wants to play man coverage all the time, and Gary Kubiak is just hitting BP fastballs into the parking lot, I mean, that's perfect for Cousins. But when it is the pressure and some of these unique looks, and then when it forces the quicker reactions and he's getting hit, that's what we see.

And I think it was his maybe second worst performance of the year against Jacksonville. And they just got away with it because Mike Glennon was like, no way am I letting you top me for bad showings here today. I wonder what you think when it comes to Cousins. And we'll get back to kind of this matchup and everything. But this last four games and how it could influence the Vikings decision when it comes to that what is it three-day window when the league year begins on whether to keep Kirk Cousins or not or whether to draft someone in the first round I personally think it should not you should have

already made the decision because this man is who this man is going to be but we know that this ownership kind of blows in the wind a little bit. So how much influence do you think it would have? I don't think it's going to have any. And I say that and he could go on the worst four-game stretch of his life and it could have maybe an impact on him. But I think if he continues to play at a level where it's, you know, sometimes great, sometimes good, sometimes not great, you know, kind of what we've seen over the last five, six games.

Because you bring up the Jacksonville game. Some of the risk aversion when I brought up, you know, he's 15 touchdowns, two picks in the last six games. Some of that fact that he has a few interceptions is the fact that he does hold on to the ball. Sometimes he throws it away when he doesn't have to. Sometimes he does things to avoid risk that make his numbers look better. With that said, I don't know if you're going to be able to do that over the next three games. I think those turnovers are going to come a little bit easier against better defenses, and I think he's going to have to play a lot better. And so I just, I don't know if we're going to see, like, if they lose some games close, win some games close, I don't if we're going to see, like, if they lose some games close, win some games close,

I don't think we're going to see the pendulum swing one way or the other. Because this coaching staff, this GM, they've all made it pretty clear that they believe Kirk Cousins can be part of a team that wins the Super Bowl or at least can make a run at it. And Kirk Cousins right now is still only, I believe, 32 years old. He's still got three, four years left where you would think this guy's still capable of doing that if you're the Vikings. And I think if they're honest with themselves, I think they realize that this roster is not 500 worthy. It's probably worse than that. And I think they probably think then that Kirk Cousins is, hey, we can just get this roster back, get Daniel Hunter healthy, Michael Pierce, Anthony Barr,

maybe draft another couple offensive linemen to shore that up in front of them. just get this roster back, get Daniel Hunter healthy, Michael Pierce, Anthony Barr, maybe draft another couple offensive linemen to shore that up in front of them. Maybe that's all we need to get us over the hump. I really don't think it's going to matter. I think Kirk Cousins is going to be a Minnesota Viking for the long haul. And then with the draft, I think that answers that question. I don't think we're going to see them make a big commitment there in the draft. I agree with you. I would put his chances at being the Vikings quarterback in 2021 at probably 95 percent, and in 2022 even, I would still say it's probably 90 percent, because they could consider drafting someone in the next draft to have him sit behind him in 2022 and take over after his contract is up, but the contract is really set

up for an extension, which is my guess is how this will go, that we're going to be covering Kirk Cousins' games for a very, very long time in Minnesota. And it will kind of be like a Matt Stafford type of situation where the guy is the quarterback of the team. Matt Ryan is another one for just year after year after year. And then they hope when they fall into, is this a good roster?

Is the roster peaking? Can we have a 2017-like season where everything breaks our way? The only thing that I think of in terms of possibilities, because last year at the end of the season, they were probably thinking new quarterback, new coach, new general manager, the way that the last season ended. And if they had gone to New Orleans and lost by 30, I think that's what we're talking about.

I think we're talking about not extending Cousins. We're talking about potentially blowing out the front office and changing coaches, trading Mike Zimmer to Dallas. I think that was a real possibility from talking to people and everything else like that. That could have happened. I'm not saying for sure, but it could have. And so if this four games goes 0-4 and Cousins has a 48 quarterback rating or something, he has one of those classic just what was going on there kind of Cousins stretches,

I do think that they would start to have that conversation because it's just the most reactionary league that exists in the entire world. I mean, whatever just happened. Think about if they lose to Jacksonville last week. We are just flipping out and talking about how everybody needs to be fired now and how, you know, back on the hot seat for Zimmer after the worst loss of his era. All those things, if they had just missed that last field goal or Glennon doesn't throw the pick. So if that can happen, then I think that it exists in a world where we're having that

discussion as we go down the stretch if this doesn't go well. Yeah, we're talking about optics there, right? So then we would have to be kind of discussing how bad is it? And I think this team could still lose three straight, beat Detroit at the end, because I think we can write that one in, and be seven to nine. And I think at that point, if Kirk looked horrible through those three games, the question is, do you think he bought enough with this six-game stretch to weather three games against really good defenses?

Hey, we just didn't have the horses to get there. We just weren't very good. Pandemic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the excuses that you can kind of throw at this season. I just think everything in 2020 is kind of set up to where they're going to talk themselves into, let's run it back. It doesn't matter with the right circumstances, off-season practices, all the things coaches talk themselves into. You're 100% right on how reactionary everything is. I just think we're going to see them stick by Cousins because they've

got a GM specifically who has staked quite a bit on that guy. And I think they're going to continue to believe in him. I think that you're right, for sure, that that's how they think. And if they only go one for three here down the stretch, they'll say, well, seven and nine is not bad when you start out one and five. And then, of course, you could come back with, but you out one and five and then of course you could come back with but you were one and five like that happened to you and then you had an opportunity to get the playoffs and you didn't do it so and the other thing you would come back to also is uh look another sort of seven and nine season for Kirk Cousins I know there's lots of excuses but is there any other team that succeeds without a great defense is there any other team that succeeds when everything isn't perfect for them in 2020 which who what team has had everything perfect

in 2020 so that's it's always going to be this kind of back and forth and we go round and round in circles with this quarterback of like when everything goes bad you go seven and nine when everything goes good you go ten and six and that's kind of where you're just you know setting yourself up to be um year after year so well to me too the question the question also becomes like with dalvin cook like if you're pairing kirk cousins and cook together and thinking like this is what's going to help drive us you know to the playoffs how much how big is that window for dalvin cook And do you think you can go get the next Dalvin Cook if that window is not that big? Yeah, it's all part of it. Yeah, I mean, and right now, with his usage, I went through, by the way,

the guys who have run over 400 times or even like in that 380, 390 range just ever in history. And to a man, almost every single one fell off the next year. If Dalvin cook can continue to go forward like this uh i think it would be really impressive but historically it's just hard to see happening i mean you could go through the list of terrell davis's career was over the next year he uh started to uh you know get used like this by gary kub. Larry Johnson is the classic example. Sean Alexander is another example. Right now, Delvin Cook is on a pace since the bye week. He's on a pace that would clear the NFL record for rushes. So when this gets brought up, it's not like, oh man, they're

kind of using him a lot. It's like, no, they're using him at a historic pace here. This would be the NFL record, not only for rushes, but also touches if he continues to go like at that pace since the bye week. And they're heading toward the NFL's number one run defense again, without their backup running back, who's still recovering from an appendectomy. I don't know what they're going to do because I don't imagine Mike Boone getting a whole lot of run on Sunday. So I think we're going to see Dalvin said I might need 38 more.

I don't think he was saying that to boast his stick his Sunday. So I think we're going to see. Dalvin said I might need 38 more. I don't think he was saying that to boast to stick his chest out. I think he was serious. Yeah, and I don't blame him for wanting to get the ball and everything. I think it's just – it's not whether you play him, in my mind. It's whether you just lean so heavily on him and run him eight times in a row at the end of a game and stuff. Like, this adds up. To my point about you had a bad defense and so that's not just a free pass for an entire season

if you go seven and nine the Vikings right now are 26th in points allowed let me read you the teams ahead of them uh or yeah just like just around them I mean. So the Raiders are worse in points allowed. The Titans are the same. They're 25th. Seattle is 23rd. Cleveland is 22nd. All those teams have found ways to win. So it shouldn't be this thing where we just go, oh, well, you know,

they had a bad defense. So, of course, Kirk Cousins couldn't get them to 10-6 or something. Like he's got the weapons to do it. He's got the offensive coordinator to do it. Doesn't have a great offensive line. But I'm not going to say, oh, yeah, you couldn't be a top offense. Like, with these weapons, you should be able to be a top offense. It's a failure that you haven't been.

So now, down the stretch, I think that they need to prove against Tampa, against New Orleans, and Chicago again that they actually can be if they deserve to get in the playoffs. Yeah, how about Kevin Stefanski? That's the one where it's, you know, not only am I winning, I'm winning your way, if he's talking to Mike Zimmer, winning the way that he wants to win, not with great defense necessarily, but with the running game. And I bet you Mike Zimmer, that'd be an interesting hypothetical.

Would you swap backfields with, with Cleveland? Would you take Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt for Dalvin Cook? Because having two of those guys, man, that's pretty powerful in the NFL. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I would. I mean, of course I would. I think Chubb is every bit as good as Dalvin and the other guy, but we don't even know if Alexander Madison can be great or not because he's never allowed to play. And then his, what is it? What does he have in remove? What did he have in remove?

His appendix? His appendix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does that do? Apparently what it does is create the hole in your body. So if you get hit there, you don't want to get ripped back open. I think that's the problem. Okay.

All right. Yeah. Because I couldn't find my appendix, but I hope his is okay. So, um, question for you before we read some of the sillier things on zoom calls this week. Uh, can't wait for that. Do you think against a vicious defense that Tampa Bay has a very talented group, a great defensive line, great linebackers, some very good players in the secondary. Do you think that this Vikings offense rises to the challenge? I do not, and I do not only because this is the best defense they've faced since the Colts, and we all remember how that went. The Bears game, you could say, well, what about them? They've got some clear weaknesses, and the Vikings found them. They were like, we're going to throw on Buster Scrine all the time. We're just going to

pick on Jalen Johnson, the rookie corner. Like Gary Kubiak had a great plan. If you think Kirk Cousins is going to go like 10 for 14 on third down again, though, I got some, I don't know, what's the saying? Coastal property. Bridge, you want to sell somebody or whatever? Coastal property in Arizona to sell you or something. Yeah, it's one of those things where I think that Chicago game came together so well for them against a tough run defense. I don't bet on that happening again. I think Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen are so much more talented

than Tampa Bay's corners. But I think Tampa Bay's front seven is better than Chicago's right now, I think. I think Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul are two better bookends for a defense than Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn, who is not playing that well for Chicago. So the Vikings haven't faced a front like this in two or three months, and I think Kirk Cousins is going to be in for maybe a little bit of a rude awakening in terms of unless they're expecting just to get the ball out in two seconds two and a half seconds i think this could be tough for them um and dalvin cook man if you're the vikings you just need to hope dalvin cook emerges healthy

um because this is going to be a tough day against that defensive front um i i don't think they're going to and frankly i don't think it's going to be a close game i really don't uh to your point in terms of expected points added, which is a pro football reference stat, I like to just use it as an encapsulation of an offense or a defense. Tampa Bay is fifth in the NFL. New Orleans is seventh, so they're going to be tested twice. The only team that they have faced in the top 13 is Indianapolis. Chicago is 14th. And then you go down. I mean, this list is filled with bad defense that the Vikings have played.

They've played the bottom three in the league, the Jaguars, the Texans, and the Lions. The Titans and Cowboys are 26th and 27th. Seattle is 24th. Carolina is 22nd. I mean, that is a point to be made, by the way, when you're projecting the future offense of the Minnesota Vikings, that this has been about the easiest defensive schedule you could ever have in your life, and you probably won't have this again.

And I just don't think the matchups work up well. And Ndamukong Su, I know he's not the same guy he was, but the Vikings' interior offensive line has been so weak. I just think it's going to be another Akeem Hicks kind of situation and be a long day for him. And that's a point, too, that Akeem Hicks went out of that game and it kind of changed. So, all right, I had you grab your two funniest Q&As from the Zooms,

which have just gotten to the point of being ridiculous in a lot of ways each week. You know, I still enjoy getting to, you know, learn about football from some of the Zoom. I don't know. I'm trying to give some credit there, but it's gotten to be a little tough late in the season. So I'm going to start because I came up with the game by this. There was a question for Adam Thielen about Brad Johnson,

and part of the question was that Brad Johnson's son is playing quarterback for LSU. And so here is Adam Thielen's answer. He said, okay, yeah, I absolutely remember watching Brad Johnson. I think I had a Brad Johnson jersey at one point. So pretty cool. Was obviously fun to watch back those days. He was throwing to some pretty good receivers. So it was fun to watch. I don't think in your,

your listeners and viewers need to understand how funny the okay. Yeah. Is to respond to, because these guys are so polished. They do this so often. They do not respond that way. If this, if they think something's weird or off, especially feeling who does this multiple times a week,

right. He will, that will be, he will internalize the all right whatever and he just said it he was like all right yeah brad johnson yeah brad johnson yep definitely played for both teams that's the guy you could ask about but it wasn't just about him it was about brad johnson's son who's now max this was max johnson and i'm just going to leave that right there. So how about you? What was your favorite?

Maximus Johnson. Maximillian Johnson. Maximillian? Maximillian? Probably. We've got to ask Brad. I know a guy who might be able to ask Brad. We've got a question here to Mike Zimmer about letting go of Holton Hill.

Pretty typical question, justifiable, a great question. Why did you let go of a guy that started six games for you in three years? Mike Zimmer says, just a decision. And that one is by far one of my favorites because you can tell the vitriol that Mike Zimmer has for the subject of the question generally if it is just a short answer like that. Because he's let go coaches before, players, and it's the same theme. It's just like three words and just a decision. It's classic.

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I think it's just Max. So there you go. Should have gone Maximilian. We never really discussed it a lot on the podcast because I just don't care about Holton Hill. I mean, he was never really a big part of this thing. He got the starting job out of camp because he had played before, and then he did not play very well at all to start the season, and that was that. And, like, okay, UDFAs, they don't work out all the time.

Mike Zimmer's hatred for Holton Hill, though, was that. And like, okay, UDFAs, they don't work out all the time. Mike Zimmer's hatred for Holton Hill, though, was tremendous. I mean, all the way through, just like, what do you think about the way he's playing at practice when he was suspended? And he said something like, I don't think about him at all. I was like, this is going super well. That was a gem. I forgot about that one. Right. And look, if you come out, and this and this just i know these guys are young or whatever but no excuses in the nfl if you come out and the issue is weed and then you still get suspended

eight games i'm not confident you're gonna have a hall of fame career i'm just like that's just my thought that you know you're a udfa because of the weed and you weren't really that great to begin with and then you have a weed problem again come on man so uh my other one is from speaking of corners from texas chris boyd um was asked about playing tom brady you know like hey you're young tom brady's old am i right like as if every player in the league isn't young and tom brady's old so uh chris boyd says it's kind of hard to recall those memories because Brady has been in the league for a minute. In a minute, he means for a long time. But I don't know why his length of being in the league would be hard to recall the memories. Anyway, he said,

I was kind of a Patriots fan. Like whenever I would play him on Madden or anything, that was probably the number one team I was going to. But as I got older, I kind of didn't really pay attention to the NFL. I can tell how much this means to you, man. I love the underhanded though. They're my favorite team because I played on them in Madden. And I need to talk to Chris because do you like challenges? Do you like to challenge yourself? Why would you play as the Super Bowl winner on Madden every single time? red flag maybe that's why he dropped to the seventh round I just think it's great because it's like this is the ultimate example of a guy who has really no thoughts about playing against Tom Brady and so he's just some guys will tell you like I don't know I mean he's in the league so

am I so who cares but in this case it was like well uh I mean I don't really remember him growing up, and I didn't like football in the NFL, but I did play Madden. Well, just don't block anyone in the back this week, Chris. Oh, boy. My next favorite one, I'm going to call an audible on you here. I didn't tell you this one beforehand, but Chris Boyd was part of another favorite of mine where he brings up the fact that I think he called Harrison Smith and Eric Wilson Allstate as an Allstate insurance. And so somebody decided to follow that up with Eric Wilson and saying, hey, you got a you got a nickname, Allstate insurance.

And Eric goes, I'm not sure quite what that means. Maybe he means he maybe he means he can count on me i know i motivate him a lot and try to really make him be his best self and know that he can make plays and take advantage of opportunities that are there and then he goes on to say very nice things about chris um but i just love the comparisons i don't i don't know what he means he just calls me in shirts he's just been calling me stuff and i don't know why i don't know what it means. One of my other ones is a reporter asked about Devin Bush and playing against him. And Justin Jefferson heard Delvin instead of Devin, I think. And so he gave a full answer about how Delvin Cook and him, you know, go back and forth about college football games or whatever. And it was meant to be about his former teammate.

And it was like, this is not a great moment. Oh, wow. I missed that one. So you're talking about Devin White? Oh, Devin White. Yeah, not Devin Bush. Devin White. Yeah, sorry.

Gotcha. Gotcha. The LSU connection. He figures I'm making fun of him for getting it wrong, even though I got it wrong. Well, I can see. See, this is the thing with these Zoom calls is if it's like, what do you think of Devin, or do you and Devin go back and forth,

or do you and Delvin go back and forth? So he just misunderstood. It's a fine question, but, like, just misunderstood and gave this long answer about, oh, yeah, me and Delvin go back and forth with our college teams and all this stuff. You're like, not really what they were going for, but okay. Yeah, and it's so much easier in person to just be like, no, I meant Delvin, you know, instead of the Zoom call where it's like, no, digitally raise your hand or jump back in and get a question. It's just so awkward. It's a mess. Anyway, well, Andrew, you do great work for the

Star Tribune, and you are a wonderful podcast guest, and I appreciate you. And we should make fun of our own questions that have gone sideways, like me asking Marwin Maloof about analytics and he didn't really understand what I was trying to get at and I didn't understand what he was trying to get at. Or me asking Kai Rudolph about his longevity and now he's out. Oh my God, that's right. How was that not your number one pick? You asked him about getting to a games, and then he gets hurt.

What have you done? This is the Vikings. You can't say something like that and not know it's going to be a jinx. I should have known because I even prefaced the question with, Kyle, I'm not trying to jinx you, but. And then right then and there, he should have, like, logged out of the Zoom. He should have just ended it. He should have been like, nope, I'm not taking part of this question,

not answering it because I'm going to be out for the year now. Unbelievable. And he gave us the answer. He was like, well, you know, it's great. I feel great about, you know, having this long streak of not missing games. Thanks for ruining it, Andrew. Insanely long. The one main thing he'd done was be available,

and he had been really good at that. And now, unfortunately, well, we'll see. But he hasn't been able to practice this week, and it's my fault. You can blame me. It is your fault. And just like podcast guests, the best ability is availability. So I'm glad you're around for us to do this. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, we will do it again. The adaptation to the game is it should just be our questions and how bad they went because there's enough of those for sure that we don't have to talk about other people so uh well anyway thanks as always for your time andrew yep thanks for having me on