Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - You will remember that Vikings Packers game for a long time

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom break down the Minnesota Vikings' offensive explosion against the Green Bay Packers in a 34-31 win at US Bank Stadium. How Kirk Cousins and Klint Kubiak finally got in the mode to force the ball to Justin Jefferson. While there were some close calls, Jefferson finished with one of the best receiving days in Vikings history and now the Vikings appear to have found themselves on offense. Do we think they can keep it up? Was that one of the best Vikings-Packers games of the Zimmer and Rodgers era? What happened to the defense in the second half of the game? How does the NFC playoff race look now that the Vikings beat Los Angeles and Green Bay? Oh, and thanks Greg Joseph. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Can You Believe the Football Game? We just watched post-game Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, 34-31 Vikings in one that you will remember for a very long time. These games between the Vikings and the Packers, Sam, are always memorable in their own way. I think there's a lot of people who you could go up and ask hey uh what happened in the 08 game between you know the vikings and packers and they would know they would say which one you mean home or away and then they could tell you all the details but there's a couple that stick out obviously farves return farves first

game against the packers things like that the tie that we talked about the other day this one will go down is a Randy Moss level all-time great Justin Jefferson performance in which he essentially single-handedly won this football game for the Minnesota Vikings and it was the game that everybody has been waiting for and dreaming of and talking about. Everyone had been pushing Kirk Cousins for this. Please throw it to Justin, whatever his middle name is, Jefferson, anywhere he is on the field, deep, short, out of the backfield. And they did it all today, Sam. And you know what? It worked unbelievably well.

He goes for 169 yards. Nice, of course. An incredible game from Jefferson. Kirk Cousins has one of his best performances as a Viking. And we won't discuss a whole lot, I'm sure, about letting the Packers back in the game and all those things and how Rodgers played because the overshadowing part of this game is that they have found what they were hoping for on offense and what took them nearly half the season or more than half the season to find and they were able to carry it over from Los Angeles if they can continue to do this they

can win a lot of football games and make the playoffs. I think that's my big takeaway from today. So I'm going to bring this up first because it's fresh in my mind. I just wrote the definitive ranked Aaron Rodgers games on the website. All 25 Rodgers versus the Vikings games. I think this is three. I think this is a top three Rodgers game. I think it gets beaten by Favre returning to Lambeau and week 17 Peterson going for the rushing record, which was also a walk-off field goal. I think this is third. I think this beats the Carlson game, the tie. I think it beats the 2008 game, which oddly enough, you alluded to

a few seconds ago. This was unbelievable. And the fact when you get to see two good, well-functioning offenses, just go back and forth, punch, counterpunch at the end. Does it get any better than that? You can dissect the defensive issues later. Patrick Peterson was pretty blunt. He said they got too aggressive at the end. I think I agree with them, but Kurt Cousins, to his credit, bounces back from a massive break. Not one, but two interceptions in this game overturned, and validly overturned by a roughing the passer call and a dropped interception. So nothing amiss there with the officiating or the way that was ruled, but comes back and mounts a game-winning field goal drive with some gutsy completions.

The Vikings caught a lot of breaks in this game, but I didn't feel like Cousins ever got deterred, and he had a lot of pressure in his face. That usually spooks him. It didn't today. He made some mistakes with those interceptions. It didn't deter him today, which is kind of uncousins like. And now we're talking about two straight games where the offense was sort of the best part of the team. They scored early. They scored late and they got the job done and played their best in the fourth quarter.

And they finally let loose to Jefferson. I thought like the Chargers game was a start. And this was sort of it all coming to fruition where I mean, not only did they complete it to him downfield, but just by throwing it to him, they got a big pass interference call. If you include those yards, we're talking about a 200 yard day for Justin Jefferson. Unbelievable performance. Adam Thielen had clutch catches when they targeted him. KJ Osborne had a big catch. I mean, everyone kind of got involved. And this passing game just looks miles different than it did even three weeks ago. Unbelievable.

What a football game. It's one of those things where sometimes we just say something so many times that you ever say a word a bunch of times in a row and then you're like, wait, is that a word still? You've had that happen? Word has lost all meaning. Right, yeah. And I have felt that way about the word aggressiveness or i was like does it mean anything anymore like aggressivity am i are we all just taking crazy

pills here where we're talking about this week in and week out the average depth of target the short throw short of the sticks not throwing it down the field to Jefferson. And so then there's always a part of you that goes, well, maybe there's a reason, or maybe he's not as open as I think, or as spectacular as I think, or something like that. Like, yes, he is. He is every bit as spectacular as any receiver in the NFL over the last 20 years. I mean, aside from Randy Moss and maybe Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, the next level down is the talent of Justin Jefferson. Like, no, he's not a transformational all-time great player like Randy Moss yet, but a performance like today was so Randy Moss, Dante Culpepper, or Randall Cunningham-ish, where a single player takes over the game. And we saw that at times from Stefan Diggs.

But this is something that should have been happening and can continue to happen. It's like they needed to see it last week against the Chargers to believe that this is what the offense can be. The way that he changes the game, not only with his catches, but with his emotion too. Like you see how much he cares about it. You see how much he thrives on being given opportunities. That when the ball goes his way, I mean, it's almost, and I know that they did intercept one ball that went his way, but he's so good at creating that late separation that there's so little risk at throwing the ball deep to him.

It's, it's incredible what he is able to do with the ball in the air. And I think he's slowly getting better at tracking the football as well. But today, you know, it was those deep crossers. He had a, you know, and just as impressive sometimes are those catches where he'll haul it in over the middle and then sort of burrow ahead for yards and absorb hits. And he's not really that bulky of a guy, but he's able to take contact really well. He had a catch right at the sticks, which was really impressive right as he was getting smacked. It was everything today. Today was exact. And not only was he impactful as a receiver, but how many times did they use him as window dressing? He was

jet motioning constantly. He was running like a lap around the quarterback at one point. They were going to use him, I think they used him on a reverse, on a pitch that didn't really work very well, but he was everywhere at the line of scrimmage. And you have to account for him every play. He takes a couple of defensive backs out of the picture, opens things up for other guys. Truly a jaw-dropping performance. I'm trying to think if this was the best Jefferson performance that we've seen in his 25 games. If not the best, certainly the most important considering the opponent and where we are in the season. There was only two passes that were thrown his way that were not completions, two touchdowns,

including one, you're talking about the creativity, where they put him in the backfield and then he runs out from the backfield and there's nobody around. It was like the Packers did not identify who it was in the backfield and then were surprised when he had, he called it the choice route.

So he comes out and I would assume he's got a choice between going in or out based on the coverage. So he goes inside. He's wide open for a touchdown. And these are the types of things that everyone has been begging for. Use him in creative ways. Get the ball in his hands by any means possible. And it all came together today, and it seemed like it was a group effort of pushing Clint Kubiak to do these things offensively, pushing Kirk Cousins to believe that he could throw it down the field. because he ran Stefan Diggs out of town by not throwing him the ball enough to Zimmer has been leading the charge in blaming everyone else for Jefferson, not getting the ball. Like he realized that and had a come to Jesus moment about Justin Jefferson. Like if I don't find a way to

throw the ball down the field to him, or if my quarterback does not find the way to do that, and we don't use a little more creativity. We're just going to lose these games. And this guy can take us to a completely different level. And that's exactly what he did today. And I agree with you that, you know, other people are made better by him. You know, even Delvin cook in the second half after a slow first half was consistently being able to run the ball. I think that the Packers were terrified of Jefferson, not that that helped them stop Jefferson. And there was another one too, just like small things. Yeah. He had 56 yarder, which is an incredible play where he gets a big separation and then he catches the touchdown, all that. So there's a lot to say there, but even there was like a six yard pass

where he just needed six yards and he got open and he made the play. And there's, there's no situation where you should not be looking toward him. And they did it on first down. They did it on second down. And I would say throughout this whole game, there were maybe only two times where I said, Oh, and maybe you kind of checked up a little bit there when you shouldn't obviously the CJ ham pitch on third and one that is senseless there is no reason to have that person moving side to side if you run them up the middle i get it but like side to side did not make any sense and then there was a second down run to alexander madison for nothing and then they get sacked on the next one that kind of opened the door for aaron rogers to come back and score so there were some nitpicks in this game, and you make a good point that the Vikings got breaks.

They definitely got breaks in this game. There was a missed field goal. Let's check on the old final score, 34-31, an easy missed field goal. So there's break number one, two interceptions, break number two and three. No penalties on the Vikings, basically. A lot of penalties on the Green Bay Packers today so all the people who say oh the Packers get all the calls well not today that was the exact opposite today it was one-sided when it came to the penalties I'm not saying they weren't deserved

it's just when we talk about the breaks other things had to go their way to win this game because of Rodgers performance but ultimately what this tells you is that if you continue to push it to these two wide receivers, Adam Thielen also had eight catches, 82 yards and a touchdown, and you continue to force the ball in their direction, that it will pay off way more often than it ends up hurting you. And now the question is, can you do this every week? You play a difficult San Francisco team next week. Then after that though, the red carpet is laid out for you after this game to just start smashing fools. I mean, you have after San Francisco, you've got the lions, the bears, the S the Steelers will be tough. No question about that. But the Rams, you you know there's another difficult game but aside from

that I mean it's a lot of very winnable games down the rest of the stretch here and they are in a playoff position right now you look at the other teams Sam after this win all of a sudden this is the season turning its tide if they can take advantage of it and it's essentially because they said we're going to these two players finally. And of course you have to wonder, where would you be record wise had you done this earlier? But I guess that's a different conversation. Yeah, you use the red carpet idiom.

I'll use the Red Sea idiom. The Red Sea is parting for the Minnesota Vikings. The Panthers lose. The Saints lose. There's nobody. There's backup quarterbacks everywhere. There's poorly constructed teams. The Falcons are getting shut out on Thursday night football. The only teams I'm maybe worried about are the Eagles, who are playing way better. And I like Jalen Hurts. And I guess I do have some respect for Shanahan and what he can do with a healthier Niners team. And that game next week is big.

But the Red Sea is parted for the Vikings, who are now in the sixth seed position. And I go back to a conversation that we had. I think it was on our Tuesday podcast with Bring Me the News, where you said, overreaction or not, the Vikings will now incorporate these explosive plays for the rest of the season to Thielen and Jefferson. And I think we both agreed that we weren't ready to commit to that yet. We both said, ah, let's see what happens. Let's hold off on crowning Clint Kubiak for figuring this thing out. I might be more prepared to give him credit for now making this a staple. And I know that there are going to

be days where the coverage doesn't allow it and Kirk Cousins will still fall back on sort of those comfortable shorter throws. It won't always look like today. It can't possibly always look like today because that would be the greatest player and the greatest offense in NFL history. So there will be days when it doesn't look like this, but this was not a bad Green Bay defense either. Like we saw him do this against Seattle, but Seattle's defense is wretched. I mean, we saw them do it against the Cardinals, but the Packers defense is good and missing a couple of pieces might've had a factor, but I felt like even without Rashawn Gary, their defensive line still

played great and they got to Kirk Cousins. So the fact that the Vikings still accomplished this, and I'll be really, really looking forward to seeing the pressure numbers on Kirk, that they still were able to play this well against that kind of pressure was really impressive to me. So imagine if they could protect a little bit. To me, I thought like the play action shots were called at the correct time. Green Bay typically sniffs those out a lot better. I mean, they always have someone like Dean Lowery, I remember, setting the edge and just being in Kirk's face on every rollout. And today, I didn't sense that.

I sensed that every time the Vikings sort of went to that, they had time to throw. The routes developed downfield and Kirk sort of had the whole menu in front of him that's a credit to Clint Kubiak for picking the right spots and Kirk for sort of hanging in there against a team that usually pressures him and did again today and he had just a terrific game folks football season is in full swing but we've got basketball and hockey getting rolling as well. And SodaStick has got you covered. You have to see the moose t-shirt designs for Marcus Foligno. You can also get your hands on the very popular Dollar Bill Kirill shirts as well.

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Check that out today. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. And also follow myself and SodaStick on Twitter for our giveaways. So I think that, and we're going to talk about the defensive issues today. And you have to say, before we get to that, that Aaron Rodgers is still Aaron Rodgers. He is not washed. He is absolutely spectacular. And we saw him make some plays that were just, he even threw like a seven yard out, but it was from the complete opposite hash and the defender had a beat on it.

And it was so flawless. It's like, oh my gosh, how is this even possible? But we'll get to more of that in just a second. But I want to ask you in terms of overreactions, I don't think it's an overreaction to say that the bar is now set at you should do this all the time the rest of the way. That's where we set the bar now for expectations. If I'm trying to make a prediction on whether they can do it each week, like you said, I don't know that anyone can do exactly this each week. Some of these deep shots will be overthrown

or will be broken up by a defender or something like that. They won't all hit like they did today or turn into a 37-yard pass interference. But the idea is that if you have more of them, if one goes wrong, you hit the next one and you hit the next one. And that is a great point to make about the interception from cousins where you got the feeling, oh, are they going to kind of be conservative here now? Are they going to kind of start, you know, getting a little nervous about it after that? And they didn't. And it was really, it seemed like they came out in the

second half with the mentality to continue doing this and that was where not exactly the game changed but you knew that they could continue to do it because what we've seen so many times is well for the second half of the chargers game they're pushing it to jefferson but the first half it's slow and it's a lot of conservative play and it's the same stuff and it's check downs and then okay now we're forced to put the gas pedal down. So we're going to do it. Well, they weren't really forced coming out of the half, but it was almost like we need to do this and they were able to go do it. And then the rest of the way they did start to get forced by Rogers. So I would tentatively say that I think that they all agree on it. The only thing that would hold me back, Sam, though, is that Kirk Cousins will

just not admit this. He will absolutely not acknowledge it when we ask him, no matter how many different ways we ask him about being aggressive, forcing the ball. He clearly did it today. There were several instances of double coverage, which he almost never throws into. And yet he still, after the game was like, well, they were playing this or that coverage. And that's why I did it. It's not because I'm actually trying to or because Mike is saying I should or anything like that. And it was kind of interesting that he still won't go there. And I don't know if he's trying to not like give any information or what.

And interestingly enough, he sort of contradicted himself after the game when then he later said he was too aggressive at one point. He was referencing the final throw to Thielen, which was a very, very risky throw that the defensive back had blanketed. And Kirk made a couple trust throws to Thielen in this game. One of them was the touchdown where he just is assuming Thielen's going to be in the right spot. And he was. That's something that you cultivate for years of being with a guy. The second throw, probably he had no business throwing at all. And Thielen makes an amazing catch. He turns around, late hands, and it's right there.

And then he's running for the end zone. And you're like, score. No, don't score. Should they let him score? I don't know. And then you're caught kind of in between. Did you agree with the Vikings decision to just kneel it down at the end and not give it back to Rodgers?

Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Anyone who's ever played a game of Madden would have done that. In fact, what the Packers did now, I understand it's your first inkling to push a guy out of bounds, but they should have let him score. If they let him score, they've still got a decent chance to go tie the game and win the game, especially the way the Vikings' defense was playing. But I agree 100% with setting up a field goal. Make sure it's under 30 yards. Make sure you get to that range where it's like a 95% kick.

And it's not like in Arizona where they played it a little too safe. But Delvin Cook going down early and setting up that field goal, I thought was perfectly played. That's all you need to win the game. And even if something crazy happens and you miss it, you still are tied. I mean, that's way better than we've seen them fumble. We've seen them make other mistakes and you don't want Rogers to have any other chance to touch the ball. So I totally agree with that. Now we have to talk about what happened on defense today. Cause my question for you is, was it Aaron Rogers being Aaron Rogers and just putting on an all time show? I mean,

146 quarterback rating that 148, 148 quarterback rating, four touchdowns, 385 yards. And here's the crazy thing through like a quarter and a half. I think I tweeted, man, he just looks off. Like there was a man, his toe must really be bothering him. Or maybe he took the playbook from Joe Rogan or whatever. It's just, he just doesn't look right. And then all of the sudden they gave him the one opening and he just blew the doors down for the entirety of the rest of the game. It was a masterpiece from him outside of maybe the first quarter where they, you know,

kick the field goal, punt it, and then missed another field goal and punt it again. But then after that, it was just all scoring for Aaron Rodgers. So how much, give me percentages. We won't do a full pie chart, but just like what percentage do you assign to Rodgers' greatness? And what do you assign to this vikings defense has some problems yeah so first of all i don't think i realized this in the moment the packers scored a touchdown on their final four drives yeah they're ending in the first half and then three in the second half wow um i think that when you face rogers in a dome, especially where, I mean, he's going to have perfect conditions to throw, you hope to slow him down for a long enough stretch

that you can build a lead like the Vikings did. Mike Zimmer has usually been pretty good at that. You know, I think even last year in the week one game where he ended up putting up 43 on them, but 35 of those points came in the final 31 minutes of the game, right? Like you can slow him down, and then you ask yourself, well, can we build a lead? Can we take advantage of that moment? And I thought the Vikings played great defensively for the first 28, 29 minutes, and then the final two-minute virus virus again, gets them where they just seemingly can't stop anyone in, in front of halftime. And you felt the game turn at 16,

three, the pitch to ham. I mean, that was the, the doomsday play right there. You go three and out when you could put the boot on the throat, give it back to green Bay. You knew they were going to go score. They did. The Vikings did nothing before, before halftime because of Osborne's catch getting overturned. And from there on, yeah, Green Bay, extremely good. So what, what are the Vikings have to work on defensively? They ran out of pass rushing juice today. They had nothing left. I mean, their defensive ends were so shot. They clearly don't trust DJ Wanham when they have Sheldon Richardson playing defensive end. That's not really his comfort zone. Kenny Willekes was borderline to play today. He didn't play. You know, I don't know what his status is health-wise. Maybe in retrospect, you would

have liked to activate him and have at least another body because they had nothing left. They had nothing left to get to Rodgers. They were trying to bring blitz from Harrison Smith. When they dialed it up today, actually had a lot of success. One big sack, another big hit. That play worked really well. But I think they lacked the pass rush. Rodgers had two touchdowns where he ran around for six seconds. And I think Rodgers is just really good. I felt like they did stymie enough of those downfield throws where I can say, yeah, the defensive backs actually played pretty well for a good stretch of this football game. And then what happens? Rodgers identifies, okay, they're playing this deep. A.J. Dillon, 10. A.J. Dillon, 12. I'm just going to take what they give me,

started with the shorter throws. And from that point on, everything changed. Packers couldn't be stopped on third down, huge chunk after huge chunk, great adjustment. And Rogers is, you know, he was going for the home runs early and then he started taking singles and doubles and just wore this defense down. I think that it's for me, it's probably 60% this Vikings defense just isn't all that good. And 40% Rodgers was absolutely phenomenal. And that's not to take away from how great some of those throws were, but Valdez-Scanley was wide open. And so was Devontae Adams for the touchdown. I mean, the plays where he rolls around and fires one in there,

I mean, those are really great. Those are super special plays that only certain quarterbacks can make. But there were far too many situations where they had no pass rush whatsoever. And we saw Mike Glennon one time have a good stretch of football with no pressure, like any quarterback in the NFL. We, as we speak right now, the game that's on TV right behind us is Colt McCoy shredding the Seattle Seahawks because they're horrible on

their defensive line and cannot get any pressure whatsoever. I think that goes for almost any NFL quarterback that if you don't pressure them, they're going to succeed. And then here you have one of the all-time greats with no pressure almost whatsoever in the second half of this game. And the fact is that Patrick Peterson, Bashad Breeland, Cam Dantzler, Mackenzie Alexander, it's just not all that good. And Xavier Woods had a tough day today. That's what average players do.

Sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down. They use Cam Bynum on the first play. It didn't go well. We never saw him again after that, which is kind of a staple of Zimmer sometimes, where if he tries something, it doesn't work right away, just kind of go away from it. But I mean, this secondary is very flawed. And without Daniil Hunter, they have to manufacture pressure.

And so when Patrick Peterson says we got a little too aggressive and they did the all out blitz on one of the touchdowns where they sent everybody, I mean, that's the things that you have to do as a defense that is so severely flawed in in your roster and so last week against a quarterback who's young and sort of up and coming and trying to figure it out it worked this week it didn't work not through the whole game there were were times where they got, you know, Harrison Smith got on him one time. And like you said, Sheldon Richardson, but as we go forward, there are not a lot of quarterbacks on this level, aside from playing Aaron Rogers again, who can take advantage quite to this level. But I also don't think you go into any game where you say, oh, you're going

to win it with defense. This has to be an offense first team that also has to ride the wave of variance which is you throw it down the field and sometimes they throw that flag and sometimes they don't and sometimes that guy catches that pick and sometimes he doesn't but that's to me is your only chance to be a really good team in the second half as opposed to just this mediocre team that plays up and down to its competition because playing the defensive style and i think zimmer has realized this in the recent weeks or playing this oh we got ahead now we could just run the ball i don't think it works and zimmer said something really interesting after the game he

basically said that he told cousins i'll decide if we need to dial it back. You go try to score touchdowns. And I thought touchdowns, right? Touchdowns. This is maybe Mike Zimmer having to change just how he thinks about the game because he knows he doesn't have Daniil Hunter and this defense is not going to be special. Yeah, I respect it. You know, at 23-10, did you think that was enough to win today? No, I didn't.

Absolutely not. You knew you were going to need more. You knew you were going to need at least 30. They needed 34. They needed to have the ball last. Um, and defensively, I think they're going to have trouble against good quarterbacks. That's what we've seen most of the year. And that means your mindset, you know, maybe if you're playing Tim Boyle in Detroit, assuming he's the quarterback, maybe you can slow play it a little bit more, although they

have messed around with Detroit and almost gotten bit. But if you're playing a legitimately good opponent with a good quarterback, this has to be your mentality. And frankly, it should be every week because you're constantly in these close games that you would love to avoid once in a while and take a little bit of stress off that defense and a little bit of stress off that offense. But this just might be the nature of this team and the nature of this season in the NFL, because I don't know if we've ever seen this much parody. This Vikings team is sort of the epitome of 2021 National Football League, where home field doesn't really mean anything. Record doesn't really mean anything. The quarterback matchup doesn't even mean anything. Every game just comes down to the wire because of the parity and the

crazy finishes. And as an entertainment product, it is is incredible and i think it legitimately has to play into how you approach games to say well we can't take anybody lightly so we may as well just try to like score as many points as we can and you know come out on top of the end it's really something to think about just take a second and go they put up 34 on green Bay to out-duel Aaron Rodgers in a shootout when Green Bay, after this loss, is still way up in the division. They've been one of the best teams in the NFC all year. And Rodgers, outside of that early part of the game, did not look rusty at all after that. But just a couple weeks ago, they're taking it down to the very last moments with Cooper Rush and they're also you know playing down to their competition and and leaving Carolina in a game that Carolina had

absolutely no business being in and so that we aren't so far removed from that that you want to like I guess if your Vikings fans gets your hopes up that all of a sudden Mike Zimmer has become the next like Don Correale or something, uh, or Sean McVay, if we want to use for more recent football reference. Uh, and, and you, you don't want to say, well, this is what they will be week in and week out. The one thing we have not seen that almost every team has had this year is everything go extremely right or everything go extremely wrong like i think today was the closest to everything went extremely right but they also allowed 31 points and got smoked on defense in the second half but we also haven't seen the game where everything goes wrong and where there's three picks and you just lose by 24 points because

it's a bad break type of game where you just can never get your wheels spinning. And so as we look toward the rest of the season, it's like, will every game really be this close? I mean, maybe it is, and maybe that's what we'll remember this season for, but you kind of wonder, all right, you still are in a position where you can't afford too many bumps in the road because of the spot you put yourself in by getting to three and five. And if those happen, if you have a letdown game at some point, then this thing becomes harder. And that's where it has to be

balanced out by what is the thing that is most consistent, usually in the NFL, that is passing the football on a week to week basis, even year to year. If you have a good passing game, it's really likely that the next year you'll have a good passing game because it's so much based on the weapons and the quarterback and everything else. This is the one thing that can overcome that up and down that variance, that randomness. And I mean, that's why they have to continue to do this. And when we talk about that cousin's quote, that's where I go, Ooh, like, does he, is he just like putting on for us and just being kind of that way because we gave him a hard time about stuff earlier in the year? Or is he really thinking that way? That it's, that, that it's not the case that he has to do this, that he's just going to

play each game as its quote own entity. I think that's the thing that makes you nervous where after this game, you walk out, if you're a Vikings fan who came to the game today and you go, they found it. They've got it. This can be like the Culpepper version where they would just throw it to Moss all the time in the Randy ratio. And then you wonder, but wait, is it creeping around the corner that they kind of go back to who they were? Yeah. I could see the Vikings maybe not wanting to broadcast that this is who they are because there is, I think we've learned, a level of paranoia in the way they present things to the media. And that's why Mike Zimmer got upset with Clint Kubiak for even alluding to the fact that

they would push the ball to Justin Jefferson. I wouldn't have guessed otherwise. Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty big revelation. But today, I think everything, this is about as good as the offense can look. Third downs, 9 of 13. Wow. Red zone, perfect. Because the one failure in the red zone was the kneel down at the end. So they did exactly what they wanted to do. So basically perfect in the red zone.

Did they have an offensive penalty? I don't remember one. They had three penalties and I think they were defensive. And that's what I mean about like, you always talk about how the Packers get all the calls and the whole thing. The Packers got a call for holding constantly today and the Vikings didn't at all. Yeah. They were, you know, didn't really have to deal with injury issues on offense. I mean, the protect, the protection is what failed today. And something's always going to go wrong. Like last week I thought was the most well-rounded three phase game. They

played still needed to clean up third down, still need to clean up penalties. Um, today offense comes through special teams, little hit or miss. Um, also like DD Westbrook, almost muffing a punt and having it bounce into his hands, like one of the forgotten but crazy plays in the game. And then obviously the defense sort of falters at the end. So you got about one and a half phases out of three today. But that's what you're going to have. You have inconsistencies in every phase. None of them are elite. As of now, I think the offense has the most potential to be elite, which we saw today, which is what you need to hang your hat on.

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Packers. Like that doesn't look good for winning both of those games and they were able to do it. But I think if we had taken a poll, do you want a new head coach, a new quarterback? It probably would have been like 90% or, or one of the two. There are certain people who maybe feels whatever way about either one of those two. But if you said, do you want at least one of the two. There are certain people who maybe feel whatever way about either one of those two. But if you said, do you want at least one of those two guys replaced? It would have been 90%, if not more than that. I think two weeks ago. Now I think that it's still probably pretty high because they went to 500. You don't look up in the stands and see banners that say got back to 500. They beat the Packers last year in route to getting back to 500 at one point. And that was celebrated as,

hey, look what we can do kind of thing. I feel like this team is much better than the last year's version. And the playoff situation is better for them with the other teams. But how much of an overreaction would it be to say that those conversations, at least after today, are on hold?

I think that it's fair to say that they're probably on hold. Certainly no in-season decisions on Zimmer, which I think we said last week. Right. I wouldn't say they're on hold for the duration of the year. I mean, I don't want to be the guy who changes his mind every two weeks. And I know that we're in this league that constantly is making decisions quickly. Like, you know, as a head coach, you get two years, doesn't work, you're done. Quarterback, you get a year or two, doesn't work, you're done.

Like, we're constantly judging people on small sample sizes and sort of the wins change about every two weeks in this league. And a two-game winning streak makes you feel like you can win a Super Bowl, and a two-game losing streak makes you feel like you can blow everything up. And while that may seem knee-jerk, we're also playing in the shortest season in professional sports. Like every game represents almost 10% of the season. So it's crazy, but two games like that can legitimately shift the conversation. And it's not unfair to say that when you see, you know, a piece that is foundational to your franchise get utilized properly and you see what the impact can be when you do that, yeah, I think that legitimately does change the conversation.

If they had seen what happened against Baltimore and against the Cowboys and not made that change, right, that's when you have grounds to make change is when the answer's in front of you and you don't embrace it. They embraced it. They made the necessary adjustment, and now they're back on track. So I think that does have validity, and I think that, you know, I think you probably still have a conversation about Cousins in the offseason. Zimmer probably gains a little bit more footing. But, again, two weeks from now, Matthew, Detroit and San Francisco,

that's your next sort of two-game sample that, again, could turn the whole thing around. Right. If you lose these next two games, although losing to Detroit now in their current state seems almost, I don't want to say it, but I mean, it seems like that should very much be a win. What are the Browns doing, though? I mean, the Browns almost lose to them, right? Yeah, you're right. They fight. The Lions definitely fight, and you've got to go there. But, I mean, that's just a horrific team. But San Francisco, I mean, the conversation could change right back

when you go to San Francisco because every week everything looks different in this league. It's crazy. It's like waking up out of a dream each week when you wake up on Monday and just being like nothing, I believed on Saturday is the same on Monday. And that's how this feels. But I mean, this is the one, if you end up in the playoffs and you end up winning in the playoffs that you look back on and we go, that's where the season really changed second half of Los Angeles and then against the green Bay Packers but if you only split the next two games and then you're talking about being a game under 500 once again the race is hot with a

bunch of other teams you lose ground to San Francisco like every game becomes so huge and that's what I'm talking about with what if the variance doesn't play in your favor in San Francisco where the interception doesn't get overturned or whatever else. And then we're talking about something very different. So it's required that they continue to do this. And now San Francisco knows, I mean, this is how you're going to approach it. Now, this is how you're playing offensive football now. And there's going to be another team and another defensive coordinator and everything else who are set to stop it. So can you continue to go forward with this? That's where the conversation will be shaped

of new coach, new quarterback, because that can all change. Like you said, in two weeks, it could be right back to where we were after the loss to Cooper rush, where it just feels like the walls of the stadium are caving in. Today, it feels like they have found something that can guide them the rest of the way and make them legitimately dangerous, even in the playoffs against very good teams. But we won't know that until we have a bigger sample size. I will say, though, for now, for now,

it is everything is about the next game, at least from my perspective, because there's no conversation to be had about the next game, at least from my perspective, because there's no conversation to be had about the coach and quarterback at this moment and whether they would change the way that Cousins has played on the whole and the way that Zimmer has turned around what I thought was a miserable coaching performance early in the year. I think in the last few games, he out-coached Justin Herbert and then pushed everybody to actually be aggressive offensively these last two weeks to change their philosophy. I mean, I think that he's done well to do didn't know that yeah well the floor has lost nine games now in three years which and zimmer's given him two but let me just frame this up um vikings 2020

they climb back to 500 it feels like the super bowl what happens after that lose three out of four fall flat completely collapsed earlier this year big dramatic win against Carolina you're back to 500 emotional letdown yeah two game losing streak so Mike Zimmer said after the game we can't be satisfied with five and five and I think that's correct and that this team has a history of following up big emotional wins with ugly uninspired losses no you're right going to San Francisco where you've had a tough time so this is a really tough game, I think. Let me say this before we wrap up, because this is going to be fun to kind of deconstruct when we get the film,

the stats, all those things, and talk about what worked and what's going to happen against San Francisco. All that's going to be great. Good for you, Greg Joseph. Good for you, man. Because I couldn't take that. I just couldn't do that again. If he lined up for a 29-hour field goal and then they run the clock out

and then he hits the post or something, it's just like, oh, come on. I could not handle spending all the – well, first of all, another overtime. I mean, my gosh. I was doing the instant reaction for the website today. I just was like, come on, man. Felt bad for you. And that was all over the place. I couldn't have done that. So good job, Greg Joseph, kicking that very easy field goal that won the game. Because if we had to talk about the kicker curse and everything else for the whole week, or the, you know, is it something that they built

the stadium on that makes the other teams kickers make them and you miss them and all that stuff? Like, I just could not stand that. And good for Greg Joseph for not even, like, entertaining that question postgame. Like, come on, man. I made a 29-yarder. What are you talking about? Blair Walsh was outside, at least. So good for you, Greg Joseph.

I think, is it too much of a statement to say Greg Joseph has become reliable too much right well did miss an extra point today so there's that it happens but I mean yeah it's still to me it's kick to kick with him I don't trust him I don't kick to kick league I don't you've always said that I don't think he's Justin Tucker I don't think he's uh Adam Vinatieri yet I still have my doubts he pushes every miss to the right that's a clear flaw but um they set him up with a low stress short kick in a tie game which is different than being behind where i mean you really can't that's shorter than an extra point so if he misses that um you're running out run him out of town thank god he made it and it would have been a nightmare

i mean it's just it's just it would have been too much uh not even this team is cursed enough to have that happen so uh all right well you and i will be doing our usual tuesday we got monday morning murph we're gonna have searles courtney all sorts of things going on this week so it will be lots of fun to break this one down and talk about the next one as this season continues us on the most roller coastery of roller coasters and thankful that all of you have come along with us so we'll be here for you and uh we'll catch you next time