Latest / The Skol Hop / TSH Ep. 18 - A Win's a Win and an Interview with Dustin Baker

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TSH Ep. 18 - A Win's a Win and an Interview with Dustin Baker · The Skol Hop

• 0:27
  Right. Hey, Vikings fans, welcome into
• 0:29
  another episode to the skull Hop.
• 0:30
  I'm Evan. And I'm Austin.
• 0:32
  We're just a couple of dudes from Iowa.
• 0:33
  We like drinking beer. And we like talking about the
• 0:35
  Vikings. Yeah, we do.
• 0:36
  It was your turn to bring the beer tonight.
• 0:38
  It was. What'd you bring us?
• 0:40
  So I believe it was last week we had a single speed beer, The
• 0:43
  Prowl. Still got it on display over
• 0:45
  here, yeah? That thing's going to be on
• 0:47
  display for a while. That fits right in with the
• 0:49
  purple and gold, the Viking, obviously.
• 0:51
  Panther stuff. But yeah, but tonight we've got
• 0:54
  another single speed beer of we have What is it there?
• 0:58
  Worldwide Haze it's. World WHIRLED worldwide.
• 1:04
  Haze. Yep.
• 1:05
  Very, very good. Not the traditional world.
• 1:07
  So if you have been keeping up with our TikTok, you may know
• 1:11
  that this was one of the early beers that I had in my wife's
• 1:15
  homemade beer Advent Calendar. And I liked it so much that I
• 1:20
  saw it today and I was like, Yep, that's that's the 1.
• 1:23
  So it's an Iowa beer, and it's one that I liked a lot.
• 1:26
  So we're having it whether you like it or not.
• 1:29
  And it's a hazy IPA Fits right in your category of beer, Yeah.
• 1:33
  And I like it too, yeah. And if you want to know what we
• 1:35
  think other than we like it a lot, go check out our TikTok
• 1:38
  that we recorded right before this episode School.
• 1:41
  School. I always fear that we're gonna
• 1:44
  crack a glass. One of these.
• 1:45
  It might happen someday. That'll be the best.
• 1:47
  Like B Roll video. All right, well, we're sponsored
• 1:54
  EV We are, we are. And this episode of The School
• 1:57
  Hop is brought to you by Big Top Ventures.
• 2:00
  If you if you're considering taking an all inclusive trip to
• 2:03
  either Mexico or Jamaica, reach out to our friends at Big Top
• 2:07
  Ventures. You can do that by emailing
• 2:09
  bigtopventuresllc@gmail.com. That's
• 2:13
  bigtopventuresllc@gmail.com. They can get you the lowest rate
• 2:18
  possible on several all inclusive resorts throughout the
• 2:22
  region. Big top ventures, step right up
• 2:24
  to your next big adventure. So yeah, thanks Big top
• 2:28
  ventures. Yeah.
• 2:29
  We also have another reason to thank big top ventures.
• 2:32
  They've they've given the school hop a gift.
• 2:34
  Evan. I've been waiting for this and
• 2:36
  you've built up the anticipation pretty well.
• 2:39
  I know what it is and it's pretty awesome, but you do not
• 2:42
  know what it is. So with with no further ado, I
• 2:47
  will present you the gift. And if you want to immediately
• 2:50
  see what it is before we say the words, check out our YouTube
• 2:53
  videos that we post up. You'll see it on YouTube and
• 2:57
  here we go. Don't spill the beer.
• 3:03
  Oh, you're gonna let me open it? Yes, I'm gonna let.
• 3:05
  You. Am I the official gift opener
• 3:08
  now? So this gift, I believe will
• 3:10
  live in the skull cave. Wow, wow.
• 3:14
  Look at this. This is Evan has opened the
• 3:19
  gift. This is something special.
• 3:21
  Is pulling it out-of-the-box. So for the second time ever on
• 3:25
  the skull hop, Evan is pulling a Vikings jersey.
• 3:29
  And it's a Culpepper jersey, yes, And it's signed.
• 3:33
  And it's signed. So Yep, our friends at Big Top
• 3:36
  Ventures, they have gifted the Skull hop.
• 3:39
  I I think it's mostly gifted. Evan secondarily gifted the
• 3:42
  skull hop, and they were really happy and really excited to give
• 3:48
  that to us and to UEV and I I gave them the choice of being
• 3:53
  able to do it in person, give it to you in person.
• 3:56
  And they said no, it it'll be, it lives in the school hop, so
• 4:00
  we'll do it on the show. So we will find the perfect spot
• 4:03
  for this. If you're watching the YouTube
• 4:06
  video, you've seen the the actual gift, the signed Dante
• 4:09
  Culpepper jersey in all its glory.
• 4:12
  And it's glorious. I can say that.
• 4:15
  So yeah, that is pretty cool. That's awesome.
• 4:17
  Evan as the owner of the school cave and the recipient of the
• 4:20
  schoolhop's gift, you you get to choose where it goes, what it
• 4:23
  looks like, Thank you very much, Big top ventures.
• 4:27
  Yes, thank you Big top. This is this is special.
• 4:29
  This is cool. We will definitely be putting
• 4:32
  this on display right here somewhere.
• 4:35
  Yeah, we'll find it. They'll.
• 4:36
  Figure it out. There's a blank spot right
• 4:37
  behind me on the the stage. We'll we'll figure it out.
• 4:40
  Yeah, we'll we'll find a spot that is pretty neat.
• 4:43
  It even has the sticker of authenticity.
• 4:45
  Yeah, yes, Everything I've been led to believe that this is,
• 4:48
  there's no question this is 100% true.
• 4:52
  I've doubled my signed jerseys. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
• 4:55
  That is pretty cool. Fun fact about that jersey, the
• 4:58
  Robert Smith jersey in the little display case there.
• 5:00
  I think we've talked about this before.
• 5:02
  Yeah, maybe on the podcast a long time ago, but that's a
• 5:07
  legitimate signature. Although there is no sticker of
• 5:10
  authenticity, but I can I can guarantee that it's authentic
• 5:15
  because one of my family members used to live down the street
• 5:20
  from Robert Smith. Interesting.
• 5:21
  And they bought the jersey from a store and went down to his
• 5:26
  house, knocked on his door and got the signature.
• 5:29
  So. And the rest is history.
• 5:31
  The rest is history. It's been in that display case
• 5:34
  probably since I was like 13 years.
• 5:37
  Old. Yep.
• 5:38
  Maybe we need to make a new display case, yeah?
• 5:41
  We've got means to do that as well and and we might need to do
• 5:44
  that with this 'cause this is, this is pretty cool.
• 5:47
  That is pretty. It's pretty special, yeah.
• 5:48
  Thanks again, Big Top. We appreciate it.
• 5:51
  Yeah, all right, EV, I think we need to, maybe briefly, we need
• 5:57
  to briefly talk about one of the most disappointing wins I've
• 6:00
  ever seen as a Viking. I mean, what is there to talk
• 6:03
  about? They scored three points.
• 6:05
  Yeah, that's that's literally the highlight.
• 6:08
  That's it. We talked about every scoring
• 6:09
  play. It was a field goal by Greg
• 6:11
  Joseph. And he missed one before the one
• 6:13
  he made. Oh.
• 6:13
  Man. So I think had he made that
• 6:16
  field goal and had some receivers made a catch here and
• 6:21
  there, there is a very unfortunate reality where Josh
• 6:25
  Dobbs does not get benched. I think.
• 6:28
  I think Koc needed to be shown a terrible game to finally figure
• 6:36
  it out and bench Josh Dobbs, and for that I'm grateful.
• 6:40
  Yeah, I think a lot of Vikings fans are are happy to move on
• 6:44
  from Dobbs. I think Vikings fans were happy
• 6:47
  when Dobbs was playing well against the Falcons and the
• 6:50
  Saints. We will always have those
• 6:53
  Pastronaut games. Yep, we've got those two games.
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  But they were short lived and he he hasn't really shown much of
• 7:03
  anything. I actually saw an interesting
• 7:05
  tweet out there. Somebody screen grabbed the hit
• 7:08
  that he took right away at the beginning of the Broncos game.
• 7:11
  Oh yeah. And kind of pointed out like
• 7:13
  that was maybe a turning point for him where, you know, he just
• 7:17
  got scared, got skittish, maybe a little rattled, literally and
• 7:22
  figuratively. And I I tend to kind of agree
• 7:26
  with that. From that moment on, we saw a
• 7:28
  very different Josh Dobbs, and it's super weird that he looked
• 7:34
  so good without knowing the playbook.
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  And then the farther into the offense and the more familiar he
• 7:40
  was with players and scheme and coaching and all that, he just
• 7:44
  regressed and looked worse. Yeah, to that point, I think
• 7:47
  Dustin Baker has said never have we seen before a quarterback get
• 7:52
  worse the more they know the offense.
• 7:54
  Yeah, which is crazy and very it seems accurate.
• 7:58
  I mean it, it's insane. So I don't know if it he he got
• 8:01
  to know more. So the leash got a little bit
• 8:03
  longer and he got less help. I don't know.
• 8:06
  Yeah, no, no clue. That's a good point about that
• 8:10
  hit early on in the Broncos game being a turning point.
• 8:12
  You might be on to something. I would argue, for whatever
• 8:15
  reason, the second-half of the Saints game.
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  I don't know if it's a mix of the Saints figured something out
• 8:21
  scheme wise or he started seeing ghosts, or any combination of
• 8:26
  anything. But I think the downfall was
• 8:28
  starting in that second-half of the Saints game.
• 8:31
  Yeah, you're you're probably right.
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  And I remember watching that Saints game too and thinking,
• 8:36
  like, man, even Dobbs aside, like the Vikings just can't put
• 8:41
  together a full four quarters of football.
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  And that's frustrating. Now, we would be remiss if we
• 8:47
  didn't talk about the defense in this game against the Raiders
• 8:51
  because they were phenomenal. Yeah, this this game produced
• 8:55
  the Vikings I think the 4th player of the week award.
• 8:59
  The third defensive player of the week award and this week it
• 9:03
  was Ivan Pace the undrafted rookie who he's he's a
• 9:07
  Cinderella. He is more of the amazing
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  Cinderella story than Dobbs was for a game and 1/2.
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  Because this kid wasn't drafted. Every team had every opportunity
• 9:16
  to get him and nobody did it. And the Vikings got him in
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  undrafted free agency and he has never looked back.
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  We haven't. I don't think we've once said,
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  man, what a terrible game by pace.
• 9:27
  Yeah, maybe not every game. We're talking about like how
• 9:30
  great he is all the time, every single play.
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  But like this Raiders game, he was pretty darn good.
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  I. Remember all the way back in pre
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  season Ben Lieber doing one of his between the lines videos
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  after a pre season game and he played the position so he knows
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  like he commented. He was like man, that Ivan Pace
• 9:49
  kid was just flying around out there.
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  He was fun to watch. And so when somebody like Ben
• 9:54
  Lieber says that, I think you perk up a little bit and you're
• 9:58
  like, ah, maybe he's somebody to watch And he certainly has been
• 10:00
  somebody to watch all season and he kind of had a little coming
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  out party. I think with his interception
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  against the Raiders, he looks great.
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  Oh yeah, and he, I mean it. It was pointed out after the
• 10:11
  game by coach O'Connell to Ben Lieber, actually, he said,
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  O'Connell said something to the tune of I want fans to remember
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  that pace. He's the guy calling the
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  defense. So you talk about this Brian
• 10:24
  Flores defense and how how huge it is and how particular it is
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  and hard to learn it may be, but once you get it down, how great,
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  how great it can be. And here we go.
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  We got a guy who's a rookie, an undrafted rookie, and he is
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  making the calls on that defense, a defense that includes
• 10:43
  Josh Matellis, Daniel Hunter, Harrison Smith.
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  Was was Hicks making those calls on the field?
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  Was he kind of the quarterback on the field before he went
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  down? I.
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  Believe so. So it's a little bit out of
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  necessity, but we could be sitting here talking about, man,
• 10:57
  we need to get Ivan Pays off the field.
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  He just hasn't been it since since Hicks went out.
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  I don't know why they're trusting him, but no, we're
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  saying the exact opposite and I hope that kid goes to the Pro
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  Bowl. He deserves it.
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  He so far and he's been playing lights out.
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  And Defensive Rookie of the Year, perhaps?
• 11:12
  He could. I mean, there's probably a few
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  other names that would be hired just off of draft position
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  alone, but that's a good question.
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  I wonder if there's ever been an undrafted Rookie of the Year,
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  either on the defensive or offensive side of the ball.
• 11:26
  That would be an interesting thing to look.
• 11:28
  At it would be something to ask Dustin Baker, maybe.
• 11:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've said Dustin Baker's name a
• 11:32
  little bit on this episode. You you may, you may hear that a
• 11:35
  little bit later. If you stick with us and if you
• 11:38
  stick around to the end, yeah, there'll be a nice little
• 11:43
  interview that we got to do with Dustin.
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  Baker and I'll just say it now, thanks a huge thanks to Dustin
• 11:48
  Baker. He kind of went out on a a limb
• 11:52
  here and gave us a chance to interview him a little bit.
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  And man, I I don't know about you EV, I had a ton of fun.
• 11:59
  He seemed to not hate us. I think he had fun too and it
• 12:03
  was a it was a really good time and I'm I'm excited for you guys
• 12:05
  to hear that interview. Yeah, definitely a lot of fun.
• 12:08
  I enjoyed it as well so. All right, so we talked.
• 12:12
  We talked the quarterback, we talked the defense, We talked
• 12:16
  all every single scoring play in that game.
• 12:19
  I did. I did want to mention Mattelis,
• 12:22
  yeah, at some point during the game they threw up the graphic
• 12:26
  and it's been floating around on Twitter now.
• 12:28
  But I've been saying that you have for several weeks for you
• 12:33
  for several weeks now that he's just all over the field and you
• 12:37
  just watch him. He looks like a linebacker, even
• 12:41
  though he's a safety. And I even, like, I couldn't
• 12:43
  believe it for a little bit. Like I went and looked on the
• 12:46
  roster, looked at his playing weight and height and stuff, and
• 12:49
  like he he checks out as a true safety in terms of size, but
• 12:53
  he's just got a little bit of a stockier build.
• 12:55
  He's not long and skinny like a Harrison Smith or any of those
• 13:00
  other guys, but he's been all over the field and the graphic
• 13:04
  just listed out all of the different spots, the different
• 13:06
  positions that he's lined up at. And part of that's a testament
• 13:11
  to this Brian Flores defense. But part of that I think is just
• 13:16
  the players that we have on the defensive side of the ball.
• 13:20
  Like we've we just, we just gushed about Ivan Pace.
• 13:24
  But I mean shoot Josh Matellis, he's been playing well too.
• 13:28
  You pulled it up. Yeah it's it's kind of funny to
• 13:31
  take nothing away from that point.
• 13:32
  You're you're you hit the nail on the head.
• 13:34
  He is a Swiss army knife. He's he's doing things that not
• 13:38
  everybody can do at positions that you know some some guys
• 13:42
  only play well at one position. He's doing it at a handful.
• 13:45
  And the graphic that we saw on TV and when we were live
• 13:47
  streaming, you're like oh I wonder if we can maybe we can go
• 13:49
  back and kind of do a screen grab and a few minutes later I
• 13:53
  saw another account had done that so we kind of retweeted
• 13:55
  that that account but I pulled this this graphic up that was
• 13:59
  shown live on the the Vikings Raiders game.
• 14:02
  And looking at it, if you spend a minute and look at it, it kind
• 14:05
  of gets a little funny because it like really lays on thick.
• 14:10
  The idea that he's playing multiple positions to the point
• 14:13
  that it lists out left cornerback and right cornerback
• 14:17
  rather than just saying cornerback.
• 14:20
  Even the the the last two are right defensive end, which this
• 14:25
  guy plays safety mostly. So to line up a defensive end is
• 14:28
  a little crazy, and craziest of all is left defensive tackle.
• 14:32
  I'd love to see the the play that he played defensive tackle
• 14:35
  at 'cause I'm sure it's hilarious and he probably did
• 14:38
  pretty well in that play. But yeah, it's a fun graphic.
• 14:41
  You should check out our Twitter.
• 14:43
  And you know, any other Viking content creator has probably
• 14:46
  tweeted that graphic out, too. But that was just really
• 14:50
  reaffirming, I guess, for me to see, like I've been saying this
• 14:53
  and I I've been seeing him play and line up in all these
• 14:56
  different positions. So to have concrete evidence of
• 14:59
  like, Oh yeah, someone out there sees the same things I'm seeing.
• 15:02
  And now anybody who watched the Vikings Raiders game saw it too,
• 15:06
  which there were also a ton of funny tweets about.
• 15:09
  If you watch this game, you may be entitled to compensation
• 15:12
  'cause it was a pretty awful game.
• 15:15
  And to kind of lathic the Mattelis idea too, one of our
• 15:21
  early early tik toks is a portion of an earlier episode of
• 15:26
  you saying just that, how Mattelis is kind of an up and
• 15:30
  coming Harrison Smith in the sense that he's a Swiss army
• 15:33
  knife, army knife like that. So there is precedent.
• 15:36
  You've been saying it for a while and this year has been an
• 15:38
  explosion for Mattelis. He's been good in previous
• 15:41
  years, but this Flores defense, I think it's just really
• 15:44
  showcasing him. And we don't need to spend a ton
• 15:47
  of time talking about this 'cause we talked about it last
• 15:49
  night in our interview with Dustin.
• 15:50
  But man, if we can keep Ryan Flores around, if we can keep
• 15:56
  some of these players around this Vikings defense, it could
• 15:59
  be something special for a few years to come, for sure.
• 16:03
  Selfishly, I want Flores to not get a head coaching job.
• 16:07
  He's worthy of it. He'll probably get one, and good
• 16:09
  for him. Dustin kind of alludes to the
• 16:12
  fact that he can be even picky and choosy a little bit, which
• 16:16
  that's super cool. But I kind of want him to be
• 16:20
  like, you know what? We got something special here.
• 16:22
  Let's let's run it back with Minnesota just for one year.
• 16:24
  And then then you can do whatever you want.
• 16:26
  No salary cap with coaches either.
• 16:28
  So, and I guess he's he's taking advantage of that and good for
• 16:32
  him. Let's pay him.
• 16:33
  Yeah, all right. Anything else from this Raiders
• 16:37
  game? I mean, other than the things
• 16:39
  we've already talked about, it was pretty much a dud, so.
• 16:42
  But a win is a win is a win. A win is a win.
• 16:45
  And I just said win as many times as the Vikings scored
• 16:47
  points. So.
• 16:50
  Yes you did. You said score like 6 plus times
• 16:54
  when Pace had that interception. Yep, Yep.
• 16:57
  I I may have blacked out there for a second.
• 17:00
  Even when I watched that video back of of us reacting, I kind
• 17:03
  of rolled my eyes on myself a little bit.
• 17:05
  But you know what? That's what sports are all
• 17:07
  about. You got to have fun with it,
• 17:08
  right? We were definitely having fun
• 17:10
  and that was pretty much the only fun moment of the game, so.
• 17:14
  So the weekend overall kind of went the Vikings way.
• 17:18
  Which is hilarious, because two weeks ago everything went wrong.
• 17:22
  Yeah, for the Vikings. So every team that we needed to
• 17:26
  lose won. And now this week the opposite
• 17:30
  happens. Every team that we needed to
• 17:32
  lose did lose. Yeah, we needed the Falcons,
• 17:35
  Lions, Packers, Rams and Seahawks to all lose or yeah, to
• 17:40
  all lose. And they did.
• 17:42
  Capped off. I know I just said it.
• 17:44
  But the Packers, they lost on Monday night, which was
• 17:47
  delicious to watch. Even after Saquon Barkley
• 17:50
  fumble, he forced his own fumble, which I don't know how
• 17:54
  that happens, but it did and it still didn't equate to a Packers
• 17:58
  win, which is so much fun. I I love it when the Packers
• 18:01
  lose and I know that makes me a less of a fan, but I don't care.
• 18:04
  It brings me joy. So many shots of the DeVito
• 18:08
  family. And his agent now?
• 18:12
  That was fun too. Yep.
• 18:15
  Yeah. So with that, though, I think
• 18:18
  what's interesting is before everything that happened this
• 18:22
  last weekend, the Vikings were in the sixth spot in the
• 18:26
  playoffs by virtue of several tiebreakers.
• 18:30
  Now, because all of these other teams lost and the Vikings won,
• 18:34
  the Vikings own that sixth spot outright.
• 18:37
  No tiebreakers. Well, and the tiebreakers will
• 18:40
  only help, 'cause they're still there.
• 18:42
  They just don't. Need it right now.
• 18:43
  So I mean, that just kind of pushes Minnesota just one step
• 18:49
  closer to a playoff berth. Not there yet.
• 18:53
  There's still four games to go, but they are in sole possession
• 18:56
  of the six seed currently with no tiebreakers being used.
• 19:02
  Which that's a that's a pretty good spot to be in, especially
• 19:04
  considering A1 in four start. Losing your MVP level
• 19:10
  quarterback, losing your MVP level wide receiver for six
• 19:16
  games. Seven games 'cause he hardly
• 19:18
  played this last week. And all of the other injuries
• 19:21
  that the Vikings have sustained. It's it's just unbelievable.
• 19:28
  I can't put words to the fact that we're sitting here December
• 19:32
  13th talking about the Vikings making the playoffs after
• 19:35
  everything that's happened. And all going back to something
• 19:39
  we said many, many weeks ago, probably at the height of that
• 19:42
  one and four start. I don't remember who said it.
• 19:45
  Maybe it was just we both kind of came up with it.
• 19:48
  But we said if the Vikings end up making the play offs after
• 19:51
  this, they're going to be a dangerous team because that
• 19:54
  means they have fought, scratched and clawed their way
• 19:58
  in and they're super dangerous. Yeah, maybe they won't be the
• 20:02
  best team to enter the play offs, but they'll be a hard
• 20:05
  fighting, you know? Road hard team and they're not
• 20:10
  going to be easy to beat. No team is easy to beat.
• 20:13
  But for this team that's basically been in playoff mode
• 20:16
  since Week 6, like, yeah, it's going to be tough for anybody to
• 20:20
  beat the Vikings. Yeah, that's exciting.
• 20:23
  And that feels really good as a Vikings fan moving forward.
• 20:26
  Yep, another game this week. Yeah.
• 20:29
  At Cincinnati. Going up against former Viking
• 20:32
  Jake Browning? Yep.
• 20:35
  Who? I don't know.
• 20:36
  That's a good story. That feels like a Cinderella
• 20:38
  story for him to get the opportunity and then excel.
• 20:42
  And you know, he's just putting tape out for other teams too,
• 20:45
  because the Bengals aren't going to go away from Joe Burrow, from
• 20:48
  Burrow, ever. But maybe another team will want
• 20:51
  Browning. You never know.
• 20:53
  So. Battle of the backups though.
• 20:56
  Browning and Mullins. It'll be interesting to watch,
• 20:58
  and hopefully it sounds like Justin Jefferson will be back.
• 21:02
  He went to the hospital, apparently in Las Vegas.
• 21:06
  Yeah, and. The stuff I've seen from that
• 21:09
  and about that made it feel like it was very cautious.
• 21:13
  They wanted to do everything right.
• 21:15
  Like you got this super valuable asset and you wanna make sure
• 21:19
  it's perfect. Like, especially after losing
• 21:22
  him for seven, six weeks before, you're gonna make sure it's OK,
• 21:26
  'cause you can't risk, you can't risk it with anybody, but
• 21:29
  especially the best player in the league.
• 21:32
  So hopefully he's good. Apparently he did a charity
• 21:35
  thing yesterday or the day before a kid asked him like,
• 21:38
  hey, you going to play Saturday? And he didn't even question it.
• 21:41
  Like, yeah, for sure. And then he confirmed that in
• 21:45
  his press conference later. But it was kind of fun that he
• 21:48
  kind of spilled the beans to a little kid while he's doing a
• 21:51
  charity thing. Yeah, that's before the press
• 21:54
  conference. Yeah, I hope that kid is the
• 21:55
  coolest kid in school now. And yeah, all his friends love
• 21:59
  him for asking that question. But yeah, yeah.
• 22:02
  Well, we all love him for asking that question because at 8:00
• 22:05
  this morning we knew, Yep, before his afternoon press
• 22:07
  conference that he was going to be playing on Saturday.
• 22:10
  So, Yep, and the Bengals probably like it, too.
• 22:12
  Now they have a little bit more time to prepare, because even if
• 22:15
  he's 70 percent, 70% of Justin Jefferson is still better than
• 22:19
  but just about anybody else in the league.
• 22:21
  On the other side of the ball though, his buddy Jamar Chase is
• 22:25
  probably. At least at this point,
• 22:28
  questionable. Yeah, you have the injury
• 22:30
  report. You got the injury report.
• 22:31
  Let's see. To be honest, I haven't even
• 22:33
  paid attention to the Bengals injury report.
• 22:36
  Jamar Chase, He's got an ankle injury.
• 22:39
  He didn't participate in practice on Tuesday, but today,
• 22:42
  Wednesday, he was limited. Whatever that means.
• 22:46
  On Wednesday, the Bengals have something like seven or eight
• 22:49
  players on the injury report, and they're all either limited
• 22:54
  or full, with the exception of I'm going to butcher this Joe
• 22:58
  Backey, A linebacker who did not participate today.
• 23:01
  But I mean even Jake Browning with a right forearm injury.
• 23:06
  He was a full participant yesterday and today, but he's on
• 23:08
  there too. So interesting.
• 23:10
  Something to keep in mind. Is he a righty?
• 23:12
  Does he throw with his right arm?
• 23:14
  I. Don't know.
• 23:15
  That'd be an interesting thing to look at.
• 23:17
  Who else is on there for the Vikings?
• 23:18
  I know Reisner's on there still. Yeah.
• 23:21
  So as full participants on Wednesday, there was only one
• 23:26
  who was who landed on the injury report and that was Ed Ingram.
• 23:28
  So he went from limited yesterday to full today.
• 23:32
  So that's probably good news that I mean especially when you
• 23:34
  have Nick Mullen's, you know, backup quarterback and Alex
• 23:39
  Madison who has yet to practice this week with an ankle injury.
• 23:44
  Yeah, it's it's good to think about the idea of getting Ed
• 23:47
  Ingram back. I think that line overall held
• 23:50
  up. OK, it's just quarterback play
• 23:55
  and drops really severely hurt the Vikings and the Raiders
• 23:59
  game. I think one of the keys for
• 24:00
  Mullins, I don't know if you have this written down on our
• 24:03
  notes or not, but he's gonna have to get the ball out
• 24:06
  quickly. And I think that's really that.
• 24:08
  Was one of the downfalls of Dobbs, was he just held on to
• 24:14
  the ball way too? Long, and I think right there is
• 24:17
  the experience is gonna help with Mullins.
• 24:19
  And as Dustin Baker has said, Mullins, in a great way, is 70%
• 24:25
  of. So just a little junior.
• 24:27
  Kirk, Yeah, of Kirk Cousins. So yeah, he he won't be as
• 24:31
  mobile, but he knows it the offense way better.
• 24:34
  In theory, you'd think KOC is just going to be like all the
• 24:38
  pressure. Most of the pressure is off.
• 24:40
  We can just go back to normal play calling.
• 24:42
  We don't have to translate plays in the huddle and up to the up
• 24:45
  to the center. So hopefully that is kind of not
• 24:49
  as much of a factor. But yeah, getting the ball out
• 24:52
  whether all the the offensive line is healthy or not.
• 24:56
  Brian O'Neill with an ankle injury has not participated yet
• 24:59
  this week. Yeah, he's another big one.
• 25:01
  It literally. But he when he went out in the
• 25:04
  Raiders game, he couldn't put any pressure on his his ankle.
• 25:09
  And yeah, I don't know. I mean, I feel like because who
• 25:13
  went in for him? Was it Questenberry that went in
• 25:15
  for him? Brandon No, Brandon was playing
• 25:18
  for Ingram, right? Yep.
• 25:19
  And then there was a few plays, not much, but a few plays where
• 25:22
  Reisner was out as well. So that line was getting pretty
• 25:26
  thin there for a minute. And then Reisner did come back
• 25:29
  and played pretty well. I think there's still a ticking
• 25:33
  time bomb with Bradbury and his back.
• 25:35
  Maybe he'll never miss a game for his back ever again.
• 25:38
  Or it could be two plays into any given game.
• 25:41
  I mean, you never know when that's gonna tweak up again.
• 25:44
  You gotta think that he's still continuing to work with the the
• 25:48
  trainers and the Vikings staff. To continue to get that back to
• 25:53
  full health and the center more than any other position puts a
• 25:57
  lot of stress on their back. I mean, they're heading over the
• 26:00
  ball every play, so. And then if you're and a lot of
• 26:05
  plays are nowadays out of the shotgun, I mean you're now,
• 26:09
  then, you know, exerting force on the ball.
• 26:11
  You're not just passing it, you're you're you're literally
• 26:15
  like throwing it. I'm not articulating that very
• 26:18
  well, but you know what I'm saying?
• 26:19
  And if you know football, you know what I'm saying.
• 26:21
  But like, I don't know, there's there's a lot of pressure there.
• 26:24
  So yeah, there's something to that.
• 26:25
  And that's something I hadn't thought of in a long time,
• 26:28
  'cause it just seems like, well, he's back, he's good.
• 26:31
  So hopefully that's the case. But.
• 26:33
  You know, and he hasn't to my knowledge, Bradbury hasn't even
• 26:36
  been on the injury report for many weeks now, so hopefully
• 26:40
  he's behind that and playing fully healthy this week.
• 26:43
  But other than that, the Vikings injury report got Alex Madison
• 26:47
  with an ankle. Jalen Naylor who I think is in
• 26:51
  the concussion protocol. He hasn't practiced yet this
• 26:53
  week and then Dalton Reisner. I said he came back but he is on
• 26:57
  the report with his ankle injury.
• 26:59
  He's been limited yesterday and today and then Chris Reed he was
• 27:04
  healthy yesterday on Tuesday but he was out today with it just
• 27:07
  says illness. So Justin Jefferson and he's
• 27:10
  been limited. He'll probably be limited all
• 27:13
  week, but I expect him to be tagged with like a PROBABLE or I
• 27:17
  don't even know if PROBABLE is A tag that use anymore.
• 27:20
  Yeah, I don't know. But I I everything I'm seeing,
• 27:24
  Justin Jefferson should play, and he's probably the biggest
• 27:26
  name in the league, let alone on the Vikings injury report.
• 27:30
  So. Well, we certainly need him and
• 27:32
  we need Mullins to find him and find him often.
• 27:37
  We need these other guys, Addison, Hawkinson.
• 27:40
  We need them to get their hands figured out so they can secure
• 27:44
  some catches, even some of those other guys.
• 27:47
  Brandon Powell and you know KJKJ, Yeah, forget about him.
• 27:53
  He's had such a quiet. Year, well, he's up and down
• 27:55
  he'll he'll be really down and then have a decent game and then
• 27:59
  just kind of be normal for a little bit and then down and
• 28:01
  then you know last week I think he was down for a little bit,
• 28:04
  so. Yeah.
• 28:06
  So hopefully those weapons can kind of wake up and and we can
• 28:10
  kind of really revitalize our offense, especially after an
• 28:13
  abysmal 3 Nothing win. Which I'm kind of wiping away a
• 28:17
  little bit. I'm I'm thinking it looks a lot
• 28:20
  better with JJ with a few of those old lineman that are a
• 28:25
  little bit healthier than they were last week and with a more
• 28:28
  confident. I think Mullins makes KOC a more
• 28:31
  confident coach. I I think it got to the point
• 28:34
  with Dobbs that we just can't take him out.
• 28:36
  He's a hot hand and maybe the other guys, they were not
• 28:39
  injured anymore but maybe they weren't 100% yet, I don't know.
• 28:42
  I think it takes some pressure off of KOC to have a guy like
• 28:46
  Mullins who his play style is very Kirk Cousins, like not that
• 28:49
  he is as good, but yeah, I think it, I think it's kind of a reset
• 28:54
  button in a good way. I think Mullins will breathe a
• 28:56
  lot of life, a lot of BDN into this, this offense, and it'll
• 29:00
  be, it'll be pretty exciting. That will be exciting and
• 29:04
  hopefully the results at the end of Saturday, because the game is
• 29:08
  Saturday this week. Hopefully the result is a win
• 29:12
  for the Vikings and that will keep them on track for their
• 29:15
  playoff hopes. And I think the rest of the AFC
• 29:19
  is cheering for the Vikings too, 'cause if the Vikings win, I
• 29:22
  think it improves not a ton, but it improves slightly other teams
• 29:27
  chances at making the play offs. So we'll just have to wait and
• 29:31
  see and we'll keep monitoring that injury report and hopefully
• 29:36
  some of those guys like I think Reisner and O'Neill are two that
• 29:41
  will definitely want to watch and you know, hopefully they can
• 29:44
  be back and healthy and playing on Saturday.
• 29:48
  I agree. Yeah.
• 29:50
  So where can people reach out to us?
• 29:52
  EV if they want to give us their thoughts and opinions or if they
• 29:55
  want a sticker? Oh yeah, we got some new
• 29:59
  stickers. We the stickers.
• 30:01
  The new stickers actually came to my door when we were live
• 30:04
  streaming the Vikings Raiders game this last week.
• 30:07
  So we showed those on air. I don't have them with me right
• 30:10
  now, but if you want a sticker, reach out to us.
• 30:16
  The best way to do that would be an e-mail the school
• 30:20
  hop@gmail.com. So you can shoot us an e-mail
• 30:23
  there, but we're pretty much everywhere in terms of social
• 30:27
  media. You might be watching us on
• 30:29
  YouTube right now. We're on Tiktok.
• 30:31
  We've been having some fun with different things on Tiktok.
• 30:35
  We're pretty active on Twitter. You do a lot of stuff on
• 30:37
  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, any of those places.
• 30:42
  Just search for the school. Hop in.
• 30:44
  And you'll find us. Pretty much guaranteed to find
• 30:46
  us. And if you want a quick way to
• 30:48
  access all of our platforms, just go to www.theschoolhop.com
• 30:54
  and all of our social links are right there at the top of our
• 30:57
  home page, and you can also find every episode.
• 31:01
  If you go to the podcast episode page, you'll actually be able to
• 31:05
  see a little picture of each episode, as well as the beer
• 31:11
  that we featured in each episode with links to the breweries.
• 31:15
  And yeah, it's been a lot of fun to promote some good Iowa beer
• 31:20
  on the show. So, and this one, this one's
• 31:22
  pretty good. I mean, we've only been talking
• 31:24
  for about 1/2 hour here, so we're not all the way through
• 31:28
  this, but before we leave tonight and once we get through
• 31:31
  some of the editing and stuff, we'll have these bad boys done,
• 31:35
  gone. They'll be done.
• 31:36
  It's fair to say you you like this, this worldwide haze.
• 31:40
  Yeah, for sure. I've I've had this before.
• 31:42
  In fact, I think I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I
• 31:46
  lived in the Waterloo Cedar Falls area when they came out
• 31:51
  with this beer. So I can maybe have a little bit
• 31:54
  of a claim to fame that I was probably one of the first to try
• 31:57
  it before it was ever canned and distributed.
• 32:01
  So yeah, I've had it before. It's a really good beer, just a
• 32:06
  solid, hazy IPA. So yeah, yeah.
• 32:08
  I enjoy it a lot too. Thank you very much Single
• 32:10
  Speed, for making such a wonderful, hazy IPA.
• 32:13
  This is awesome. Cool.
• 32:16
  All right, well, we're gonna scroll and get out of here.
• 32:18
  And we're gonna get you over to that interview with Dustin
• 32:21
  Baker. We hope you enjoy.
• 32:22
  Yeah, all right. Till next time scroll scroll.
• 32:25
  So if you're OK with the Dustin, I thought for our listeners who
• 32:28
  I don't know how it would be possible, but if we have any
• 32:31
  listeners that don't know who you are, I thought we'd give a
• 32:34
  little brief introduction for you.
• 32:36
  We've got Dustin Baker here and I was just going to read your
• 32:40
  whole bio from the Vikings territory, but that makes me
• 32:43
  feel a little cheesy, so. I'll.
• 32:44
  Kind of give a highlight from that paragraph.
• 32:47
  You graduated from the from EU, the University of Minnesota in O
• 32:50
  Seven. You're an editor for Vikings
• 32:53
  Territory, which is pretty awesome.
• 32:55
  And how kind of I first found you was you host a podcast with
• 33:00
  former Viking Bryant McKinney and a couple other people the
• 33:04
  Believe In Vikings show. That's a weekly podcast every
• 33:08
  Wednesday, right? And you not terribly long ago
• 33:13
  you started doing a bunch of stuff on YouTube as well as
• 33:16
  other stuff. But one thing I find fascinating
• 33:19
  is pretty sure you switched to having this whole talking about
• 33:23
  the Vikings and sports in general to being your whole
• 33:25
  career. So that's pretty cool.
• 33:28
  So again, welcome on, Thanks for coming.
• 33:31
  Hope we have a good time. Absolutely, yeah.
• 33:34
  Why? I did go to the University of
• 33:35
  Minnesota and I got 2° there, one in political science, one in
• 33:37
  history. And while I could still use
• 33:40
  those down the line, when you have those two majors, all you
• 33:42
  do is write, you write Blue Book tests and then you write papers
• 33:46
  and that's really all you're graded on.
• 33:47
  So thankfully I I was trained pretty well, I think, as a
• 33:50
  writer there. And then, yeah, just through a
• 33:52
  series of accidents in 2020, I turned into a writing gig.
• 33:56
  And yeah, now it's full time. All I do between between family
• 34:00
  life and then recreation and work is Vikings football.
• 34:05
  Does that does that get old ever?
• 34:06
  Does it ever get like, no. Don't wanna deal with the
• 34:08
  Vikings? Either.
• 34:09
  No, not really. There are.
• 34:12
  There are stretches in June and July when it's dry and you're
• 34:15
  searching for content to, you know, keep keep busy.
• 34:19
  That gets a little like tedious. But no, I I would say when they,
• 34:25
  when they lose, you take it with a maybe a little bit more grain
• 34:27
  of salt because you know this is your job and you can't act like
• 34:31
  a four year old. And so there's there's a little
• 34:34
  bit of maturity on the fly there.
• 34:36
  But no, every day I wake up and it's like what can I tweet
• 34:39
  today, what can I write And it that's that's the beauty of
• 34:42
  this. And I I urge people to, you
• 34:44
  know, monetize your hobbies if you can.
• 34:46
  Because if you work doing something that you're obsessed
• 34:49
  with like this, you don't even you would never feel like you're
• 34:52
  working. I I probably work on Viking
• 34:54
  stuff like 80 hours a week, but it never, never for a second
• 34:58
  feels like I'm working. Yeah.
• 35:00
  That's awesome. Evan and I recently over the
• 35:04
  summer we started the school hop and everything we've done for
• 35:08
  the the podcast, we're still growing, we're still at the the
• 35:10
  first step of everything but everything we've done.
• 35:13
  There's been a lot of hard work, but it's really been a lot of
• 35:15
  fun and just even once we get one more follower it always
• 35:20
  feels great and one more TikTok view.
• 35:22
  It feels awesome and it it is kind of a a good journey, but it
• 35:27
  has been a trying season to start this.
• 35:32
  Yeah, I don't know that I want my wife to hear what you just
• 35:34
  said because she might kind of roll her eyes and kind of, you
• 35:38
  know, not believe that this could actually become something,
• 35:41
  which I think what Austin and I both want, so.
• 35:44
  Yeah. The Yeah.
• 35:45
  The the Internet is the the Wild West.
• 35:48
  If you know how to harness it, monetize it.
• 35:51
  If you get familiar with SCO optimization, yeah, it's it's
• 35:54
  kind of like that meme where you know, the YouTube, the
• 35:57
  eight-year older who makes like 10 times as much like what that,
• 36:00
  whatever that meme is, if you know the crevices of the
• 36:02
  Internet to monetize a website, yeah, there's a lot of money to
• 36:06
  be had. And thankfully, I got connected
• 36:07
  with a guy about three or four years ago that knew how to do
• 36:10
  that, and that's what I've been doing ever since.
• 36:12
  It's awesome. Well, as a fan of yours, I hope
• 36:14
  you keep going and I hope you're as successful as you.
• 36:17
  You deserve to be and keep it, keep it going.
• 36:20
  So I will well to to kind of tear everything down if nobody,
• 36:26
  if people don't know who you are, kind of want to ask like
• 36:28
  how did you become a Vikings fan?
• 36:30
  Was it like a geological thing or was it this one day something
• 36:34
  hit you on the head and you decided to enter this fandom?
• 36:37
  It was quasi geological. So when I started off getting
• 36:41
  into sports, the Minnesota Twins got me into sports.
• 36:44
  I was born in Sioux Falls, SD, so my mom was like a a sideways
• 36:47
  Twins fan. If she had to watch baseball,
• 36:49
  she'd cheer for the Twins. The 1991 World Series got me
• 36:52
  hooked on sports forever, like the moment Kirby Puckett hit
• 36:55
  that home run forever. Like something inside my body,
• 36:57
  like, jumped inside and I was like, the TV can make me do
• 37:00
  that. I'm hooked.
• 37:02
  And then I played basketball, that that's my number one
• 37:04
  passion. I played basketball all the way
• 37:06
  through high school and and then football was always in the
• 37:08
  backdrop but was always the most fun to watch.
• 37:11
  My stepdad was from Illinois, so he liked the Bears.
• 37:14
  I liked Randall Cunningham with the Eagles, and then we moved to
• 37:17
  Houston, TX in 1994 right at the end of the Warren Moon era when
• 37:22
  they were really bad with guys like Billy Joe Tolliver and Cody
• 37:25
  Carlson. And we had season tickets,
• 37:28
  'cause my stepdad worked at a hospital.
• 37:29
  And we got to go to these miserable 2 and 14 seasons and
• 37:32
  just go watch and play like clowns.
• 37:34
  Then three years later, my stepdad interviewed for got a
• 37:38
  job in Minneapolis. And at that time, the housing
• 37:41
  market. It took us like a year to sell
• 37:43
  our house in Houston. But because I was moving to
• 37:46
  Minneapolis, my friends, Oilers fans already like the Vikings
• 37:50
  because that's where Warren Moon went.
• 37:52
  And they were like, hey, that's so that's so cool, man.
• 37:54
  You're going to, you're going to Minneapolis.
• 37:55
  And I was like, yeah, so And so I was like, well, you know, the
• 37:58
  Vikings, that gives me cover. I'm going to be moving there.
• 38:01
  And I got there in 1997. They made the post season an
• 38:04
  underrated playoff game against the Giants that year.
• 38:06
  And then Moss showed up and he hooked me for life.
• 38:09
  And my mom had also, you know, being reared in Sioux Falls, SD.
• 38:14
  She likes the Vikings, but they always got on her nerves.
• 38:17
  When she was a kid, they'd always lose Super Bowls.
• 38:19
  So she'd like when she watched. Yeah, when she'd watch football,
• 38:22
  she'd be like, they're going to break your heart.
• 38:24
  But they're, you know, we still watch them.
• 38:25
  And so it was just a natural fit.
• 38:27
  Randy Moss, I would credit everything.
• 38:29
  He was the one that really hooked me.
• 38:31
  And yeah, I have never deviated. I mean, there have been years,
• 38:34
  like 2011 where it was easy to have like a second team like the
• 38:37
  Patriots to latch onto because that was part of their dynastic
• 38:41
  run. But yeah, it's always been
• 38:42
  Vikings front and center since 1996.
• 38:45
  For me. That's kind of when I I pressed
• 38:47
  the button and said these Oilers suck.
• 38:48
  My friends like Warren Moon. I'm moving to Minneapolis.
• 38:51
  Let's do the Vikings. There you go.
• 38:53
  It's that easy transition for you.
• 38:54
  Yeah, well, kind of to to move on to that transition a little
• 39:01
  bit. Evan and I were both dads.
• 39:04
  I believe you're you're a dad too.
• 39:06
  And my kids, they're starting to get to the age where they're
• 39:10
  they're watching the games with me and they're starting to get a
• 39:12
  little involved in these games. I have a rule in my house that
• 39:16
  any time the Vikings win, we we have ice cream, we have victory
• 39:19
  ice cream for for a Vikings win. We've had less ice cream this
• 39:22
  year than we did last year. But to to focus on you a little
• 39:27
  bit. Have you ever felt a little bad
• 39:30
  by enter entering your kids into this fandom a little bit?
• 39:35
  No, I haven't. I mean, it's certainly crossed
• 39:37
  my mind, but the last time there was genuine heartbreak.
• 39:41
  I mean, like my son wasn't even born yet.
• 39:43
  My daughter hasn't shown any interest in football.
• 39:46
  But my, my son sure has. We got season tickets when the
• 39:49
  US Bank Stadium opened. Two of them.
• 39:52
  And then last year 2022 week 1 rolled around my son's like,
• 39:55
  hey, are we going to the game? And I was like, well, you're
• 39:57
  not. We only got 2 tickets.
• 39:59
  I figured out a way where he could come.
• 40:01
  I bought some other tickets at, you know, premium value.
• 40:03
  And then the second game rolled around and he was like, So what
• 40:05
  time do we leave? And I was like you want to go
• 40:07
  again. So we we we we finagled ways to
• 40:10
  get it done last year. And then over the offseason I
• 40:12
  bought another batch of four season tickets.
• 40:14
  So now I have 6 all together. And yeah, my kid for the rest of
• 40:18
  his life can go to Vikings football game so long as he
• 40:20
  wants to the way that I. They combat the How could you do
• 40:23
  this to your kid? You know, the sorrow is this
• 40:25
  dude is 7 years old. He's going to be alive for 75
• 40:29
  more years. They're going to win a Super
• 40:31
  Bowl in the next 75 years. If the Cubs can do it, by God,
• 40:35
  the Vikings will do it. So yeah, he's going to have to
• 40:37
  go through the heartbreak. That's fine.
• 40:39
  But I'll teach him like I did early on, inadvertently, almost
• 40:43
  20 years ago, I picked LeBron James on the draft night as my
• 40:46
  guy and basketball. And so that always hedged my my
• 40:49
  sports fandom. Like when I know the Vikings are
• 40:51
  going to let me down, at least I got LeBron to go from there.
• 40:54
  So I'll teach him how to pick somebody from a different sport
• 40:57
  when he gets there to latch onto.
• 40:59
  But no, it's all positive memories.
• 41:01
  I know the Vikings are going to let me down from time to time.
• 41:04
  You can feel it in your bones when it's about to happen.
• 41:06
  But no, it would be like it would be the ultimate betrayal
• 41:09
  if I said, you know what, son? I don't want you to have to go
• 41:12
  with this go cheer for the Texans or side.
• 41:14
  There's no way I would do that. And it it's I hope that when I'm
• 41:18
  old or when I'm dead, he always remembers, like these first
• 41:21
  seven years that we've forged. Yeah, that'll be awesome for
• 41:24
  him. That's crazy.
• 41:25
  He he's gone to more games than I have.
• 41:27
  I think probably that sucks. Yeah, all.
• 41:33
  Right, what else we got? Here, Evan, you got What do you
• 41:35
  got EV? So I think we've already kind of
• 41:41
  touched on this, but Austin and I are both interested in kind of
• 41:45
  making a career out of or not even just a career, but even
• 41:49
  just a side hustle out of talking about the Vikings.
• 41:53
  It's something that our friendship have has formed
• 41:55
  around and we've Austin and I have known each other since we
• 42:01
  were 10 years old and now we're we're in our 30s and we've we've
• 42:06
  gone to middle school together, we've gone to high school
• 42:08
  together. We've gone to.
• 42:09
  College together, we were in each other's weddings and the
• 42:12
  Vikings have always just kind of seems to be revolving around our
• 42:17
  friendship. And now that we've started this
• 42:20
  podcast, we we've had a lot of fun with it.
• 42:23
  We've enjoyed it. Tell us about your experience.
• 42:27
  Just kind of, again, we've touched on this a little bit,
• 42:30
  but getting into talking about the Vikings and making this more
• 42:35
  than just a hobby or a side hustle, but making it more of a
• 42:39
  a job. Sure.
• 42:41
  So like I said, the top of the show.
• 42:44
  I've always, since being a youngster and then high school
• 42:47
  and certainly college, been what I think is a decent writer.
• 42:50
  It's always just been a natural tool that I've had.
• 42:53
  But it was never front and center.
• 42:55
  It was like my wife knew, my mom knew, like, oh, we're gonna need
• 42:57
  something written. Just have dust do it.
• 42:59
  He he's he's awesome at it and I always like, well, yeah, cool,
• 43:01
  I'll do that. That's easy.
• 43:02
  I can have something written in a heartbeat and that's it was
• 43:05
  always at my disposal. But I was like, you know, I I I
• 43:09
  from a very young age at like age 19, I was a manager at Sears
• 43:13
  and like every step of the way I just became a manager somewhere
• 43:16
  else. So I ultimately settled on
• 43:17
  project management and but I always had the the the ardor to
• 43:22
  write and in 2020 let's see the Viking age that's a fan sided
• 43:29
  website. I started writing for them which
• 43:31
  I thought was going to be that I sent.
• 43:33
  I had something to say about Stefan Diggs leaving the Vikings
• 43:37
  and I think it was something about how that didn't have to be
• 43:39
  the end of the world for the Vikings.
• 43:41
  And I I I sent that to them and I thought that would be like my
• 43:44
  thumbprint on the Internet forever if they publish that.
• 43:47
  And they did. And then then it turned out they
• 43:50
  were like, yeah, where's your W2 and all this?
• 43:51
  And I was like, I don't need to get paid.
• 43:53
  Like, I just want to. I just want to get that out
• 43:55
  there. I think it's cool.
• 43:56
  And they're like, no, we want you to write more.
• 43:58
  And so I started doing that. I was only there for a few
• 44:01
  months, a guy named Joe Johnson who founded purpleptsd.com and
• 44:05
  bought Vikings territory. He threw me this Godfather offer
• 44:10
  in late summer 2020 and said if you leave that other website in
• 44:13
  the dust, he's like, I'll give you a 75% split of whatever you
• 44:17
  write, you can keep it. And I was like that I was like,
• 44:20
  that sounds way too that's not. That's not right, is it?
• 44:23
  And he, yeah, he backed. Unfortunately, Joe passed away
• 44:26
  in the summer of 2021. There was like a a freak thing.
• 44:30
  He was my age and his family wanted to keep the site going
• 44:34
  and my name was all over the place on the site.
• 44:36
  So we've we've continued that relationship.
• 44:39
  So yeah, it was always a bunch of happy accidents that got me
• 44:44
  to the next step. Right when I started writing at
• 44:47
  Vikings Territory, I got a message from the Believe Network
• 44:49
  on Twitter that said we're looking for somebody to do a
• 44:52
  host with Brian McKinney. And I thought I was so new to
• 44:55
  the whole thing. I was like, my, this has got to
• 44:57
  be a catfish thing or something. I completely thought it was
• 44:59
  being duped. And I felt him out.
• 45:02
  And then eventually I sat down on a zoom call with Bryant
• 45:04
  McKinney right in the middle of the pandemic.
• 45:06
  And yeah, it was like, I felt like a little kid.
• 45:08
  And so, yeah, we've been doing that show for 3 1/2 years.
• 45:12
  I started the YouTube thing when I went full time Vikings content
• 45:16
  because I was like, you know what?
• 45:18
  I've got their, I've got their eyeballs from writing, I've got
• 45:20
  their ears on a podcast. I need a video arm and that's
• 45:23
  just a forum where I can go in and and even if I'm by myself, I
• 45:26
  can just get on and say, hey 3, nothing is a win is a win.
• 45:29
  You know, I I can say whatever I want there and get that out
• 45:32
  there. Yeah, I got really lucky that
• 45:34
  Joe Johnson and I had that relationship.
• 45:37
  And yeah, his like, he wasn't. He died way too prematurely and
• 45:42
  I missed him dearly. But he's the one that really
• 45:44
  opened the door for he knew how to make a website profitable and
• 45:47
  he taught me how to do that. And yeah, it's it's through all.
• 45:50
  I write all, all the time. From the time I drop my kids off
• 45:53
  at school to the time I sign on with guys like you in the
• 45:56
  evening. I write all day.
• 45:58
  And it's like that mass production that's kind of the
• 46:01
  money maker if you're like pumping content out constantly.
• 46:04
  So yeah, I love every minute of it.
• 46:06
  There's people that have to deactivate their accounts on
• 46:08
  Twitter because it gets too ruckus.
• 46:10
  I love every second of it, even even the trolls.
• 46:13
  Yeah, I'm always excited to start a new day, even when the
• 46:16
  Vikings have lost. It's always interesting.
• 46:19
  I haven't. What I haven't encountered is a
• 46:20
  true blue bad Viking season. Eventually that will happen and
• 46:25
  I'll have to see how life goes. I'm sure it won't be fun, but
• 46:28
  yeah, that's my little journey. Well, that's exciting.
• 46:33
  Kind of depend on one thing. I feel like if somebody emailed
• 46:36
  me and said, hey, we want you to do something regular with a
• 46:39
  former Viking. I feel like one of the crazier
• 46:43
  former Vikings for that to be would be Bryant McKinney.
• 46:47
  He just seems like he's got like that personality and that like
• 46:50
  almost off the ball stuff that it's got to be a little
• 46:54
  interesting, like got to be exciting and something you'd
• 46:57
  never expect. Right, and he's actually.
• 46:59
  Is. And it's mainly because he knows
• 47:02
  everybody if that. If there is a football player
• 47:04
  who wants the University of Miami, Bryant knows him.
• 47:07
  And then through network I can name drop one time I think I
• 47:11
  told him casually I'd be like, yeah, it'd be really cool to
• 47:13
  have Randy Moss on when we get up and running.
• 47:14
  And he was like, yeah, I'll message him and see if he's
• 47:16
  available next week. And I was floored.
• 47:18
  I was like, what? And so you have to be careful
• 47:20
  what you say around him because then all of a sudden he'll have
• 47:23
  that guy show up and you're totally unprepared, 'cause, you
• 47:25
  know, he thinks it's funny. Prepared for Randy Moss.
• 47:27
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 47:28
  He'll just have like last week he had Donald Penn just call in
• 47:31
  and I'm like, all right. Yeah, that works.
• 47:33
  Former Viking turned Raider turned Buccaneer.
• 47:36
  But yeah, he's got Allen Finder. Yeah, he's got so many stories
• 47:42
  and he knows so many people. I went down to meet him in
• 47:44
  person for the Dolphins Vikings game and I got to sit in one of
• 47:47
  his friends suites. That was pretty awesome.
• 47:50
  One small final story about Bryant is when I first met him,
• 47:55
  I didn't know him and I didn't want to ever bring up Love Vote,
• 47:57
  'cause I didn't want it to be awkward, you know, if he if he
• 47:59
  would be like, yeah, we don't talk about that.
• 48:01
  I never knew how he reacted. I started having Sal, Sal Spice,
• 48:04
  Sally Spice on the show weekly. That's like one of the first
• 48:07
  things she did was ask him about it and and he loves talking
• 48:10
  about it. He always is.
• 48:12
  Just like, hey, that created the win streak, man.
• 48:13
  We we galvanized around that that year.
• 48:16
  So yeah, I was. I was sheepish about Love Vote,
• 48:19
  but it turns out it's one of his favorite topics to talk about.
• 48:22
  Were you just kind? Of thinking about that the whole
• 48:24
  time, you every time you interact with him like this will
• 48:27
  be the day I asked him about it or like did he just stick in the
• 48:30
  back of your mind. It stuck in the back of my mind
• 48:32
  because I didn't know how a player if if they thought, oh,
• 48:36
  that was a raw deal, it was just boys being boys and I never
• 48:41
  really knew him off air. We would text every now and
• 48:44
  then. And so I was like, you know,
• 48:45
  what if it comes up naturally? If he brings it up, then of
• 48:48
  course I'll pile on and ask the questions.
• 48:50
  And I remember the first time I had Sally Spice on, she was just
• 48:53
  like, So Bryant about that Love Boat.
• 48:56
  And I was like, oh, here we go. And he had the biggest smile on
• 48:58
  his face. And so yeah, I I was, I was
• 49:01
  unjustly shy about it for like 4 months.
• 49:04
  And it turns out we basically talk about it every other week
• 49:06
  now in some capacity. Yeah, it is.
• 49:09
  It's a funny topic to to hear about between you guys, the guys
• 49:13
  on the power trip on KFA and they they bring that up every
• 49:15
  once in awhile. It's just a, it's kind of like a
• 49:17
  mood lightener, you know, You just, Oh yeah, that crazy thing
• 49:21
  that happened. Yeah.
• 49:24
  So you brought up Twitter, which is another one of the the first
• 49:27
  ways I was introduced to you. And I I wanted to ask.
• 49:31
  So like you, you post a lot of, like, really interesting and
• 49:35
  kind of off the ball, but not totally unrelated stats.
• 49:39
  About the Vikings. Yeah, how did you?
• 49:42
  First think to come up with that, is that something you're
• 49:45
  always thinking about like random numbers or is it just
• 49:47
  like, oh this might be interesting and it took off?
• 49:50
  Yeah, that's another marvelous question.
• 49:51
  When I was about 6-7 years old, I I was taught by my mom and dad
• 49:57
  how to do pretty advanced math. So like in kindergarten, 3 digit
• 50:00
  multiplication. It always clicked with me how
• 50:02
  numbers worked. And then they saw my love for
• 50:05
  sports. So they started buying me sports
• 50:07
  almanacs when I was a kid. They had a yearly one and that
• 50:10
  had every player's back batting average in baseball, points per
• 50:13
  game and basketball. So I I had to figure out how
• 50:16
  those people got those averages. And so I learned I didn't have,
• 50:20
  I didn't have the Internet back then, but I I figured it out how
• 50:23
  they did that and then it just transitioned into adulthood
• 50:27
  whenever. And this is what I do to this
• 50:29
  day when I watch a Vikings game. And mainly this applies to the
• 50:32
  Vikings because I watch every ounce of what they do and to an
• 50:35
  extent the the Lakers. I watch most Lakers game you see
• 50:39
  stuff and you can feel it in your bones.
• 50:41
  Like you know every team seems to make their longest field goal
• 50:45
  against us. And instead of me just saying
• 50:47
  that, you know in in a just a big huff, huff and puff, I have
• 50:51
  to figure out if that's true. And so I've I've learned how to
• 50:54
  manipulatestathead.com pretty much.
• 50:58
  I mean the all of the EPA for play sites, I have all of the go
• 51:01
  to's to figure out if I have a preconceived notion of like you
• 51:04
  know what it always seems like Cousins throws between 20 and
• 51:07
  25. I want to go see how
• 51:08
  comparatively he does that to the rest of the NFL.
• 51:11
  So it was an early passion for math which I thought I was
• 51:14
  pretty good at. My mom's catalyst of saying,
• 51:17
  well hey, this math stuff you like that goes hand in hand with
• 51:19
  this baseball stuff you like. And then once the Internet,
• 51:22
  Internet was born, I think this era of analytics has given a lot
• 51:26
  of guys like us and gals like us, tools that say, yeah, here's
• 51:29
  how you go find that out. So when I first got to Twitter,
• 51:32
  I I certainly knew how to find your standard volume stats, like
• 51:36
  yards per carry and passing passer rating.
• 51:38
  And then as I became more nuanced, I was like, all right,
• 51:41
  we got PFF, which is a decent baseline for how to judge a
• 51:44
  player. And you've got EPA per play,
• 51:45
  which is glorious. So I try to use them all.
• 51:48
  DVOA is pretty awesome. I try to use them all to paint a
• 51:50
  picture of how the Vikings are, how another player is.
• 51:54
  But at the end of the day, when it comes to the Vikings stats,
• 51:56
  usually I can use my eye test to say, hey, you know what, on 3rd
• 52:00
  down it feels like XXX. Let me go check this out.
• 52:03
  Oh, go figure They ranked 27th or something like that.
• 52:06
  Usually your suspicion's confirmed.
• 52:08
  And I I got sick of people just regular casual saying like, Oh
• 52:13
  well, Kirk Cousins is a dink and dunker.
• 52:15
  And I would always say to myself, you know what?
• 52:16
  I don't really see that. So am I right or are they right?
• 52:19
  I go dig it up and I'd be like, no, that's not true at all.
• 52:22
  So yeah, it was it was really a search for the truth.
• 52:26
  And then just a convenient hobby for numbers as well.
• 52:29
  Yeah, well, and in in in that case too, you you present
• 52:33
  numbers like, no, actually Kirk is not just a dink and dunker
• 52:36
  and then people come out. Oh, you're just a Kirk Cousins
• 52:39
  apologist? And nothing you say is true.
• 52:43
  You know he can't win. Really.
• 52:45
  I've. Spent so much time.
• 52:47
  I've spent so much, so much time in the last 5-6 years trying to
• 52:51
  figure out why that guy is such a lightning rod for criticism.
• 52:55
  And I mean, I try. I've tried 1,000,000 times to
• 52:58
  take a step back and be like, does the guy suck?
• 53:00
  Do I just like him? What's the deal?
• 53:02
  And I always arrive back at the same thing, that he's a pretty
• 53:06
  darn good quarterback, a lot like Matthew Stafford.
• 53:09
  It's just that he's paid to the level that we are obsessed with.
• 53:13
  He and him being in that top crust like one through 5 and
• 53:16
  he's just not that good. He's about the the 11th best
• 53:19
  quarterback on any given Sunday and throughout the entire
• 53:21
  season. That's usually where he ends up,
• 53:24
  whether or not he plays for the Vikings.
• 53:25
  Again, we're probably going to get into that, I don't know.
• 53:27
  But yeah, I Kirk Cousins has really, that really dragged me
• 53:31
  into the Twitters because I got sick of people saying that he
• 53:34
  only got good during garbage time.
• 53:36
  It's like that's not true at all.
• 53:37
  He he was good in garbage time. He was good in regular time.
• 53:41
  You know, ultimately, I believe that the Cousins narrative
• 53:45
  always comes back to money. Oh yeah.
• 53:48
  Absolutely. And it's not.
• 53:50
  It's only gotten less and less of a narrative the more other
• 53:53
  guys gets signed a big contract. I'm curious, Dustin, is there a
• 53:58
  particular stat that you pay more attention to, like you re
• 54:04
  reference PFFDVOA? Like, is there one that you
• 54:07
  gravitate towards more than another to, like, help you kind
• 54:11
  of decipher what's going on with specific players, specific
• 54:15
  teams, things like that? Yeah, it is a.
• 54:19
  So PFFI would normally say, you know what, I'd really like that.
• 54:23
  But then there's certain times where like Rokon Smith will have
• 54:26
  like a 51.2 and I'll be like, you know what, that is not right
• 54:30
  whatsoever. Like I don't care what this
• 54:33
  thing says. So there's always a caveat with
• 54:35
  PFF that like you know, wait a second that that's not, that's
• 54:38
  not completely, completely correct.
• 54:40
  So the ones that I would use MULT especially evaluating
• 54:44
  A-Team are EPA per play Ben Baldwins site which is open
• 54:47
  source and free and then DVOA it's kind of weird that they
• 54:52
  like they were on Football Outsiders and then that just
• 54:54
  folded and now it's his own thing.
• 54:56
  But I think DVOA if you combine DVOA and EPA per play to
• 54:59
  evaluate a team and then EPA per play for some of the running
• 55:03
  backs receivers that's fair. Yeah PFF I I don't totally or I
• 55:07
  certainly don't discredit but I always get annoyed when there's
• 55:10
  something weird about APFF score.
• 55:12
  So yeah, EPA per play is probably the future, the
• 55:16
  expected points added per player or per team.
• 55:18
  And then I use DVOA to make sure that EPA per play is, you know,
• 55:23
  behaving. Yeah, well, on that PFF comment
• 55:26
  too, wasn't, wasn't. Dobbs, One of the higher rated
• 55:29
  offensive players in the Raiders game, I think I saw something
• 55:33
  about, oh, I haven't. I haven't looked at that yet,
• 55:35
  but those are the kind of things that, yeah, make me go what?
• 55:39
  Yeah, I think somebody said that on Twitter that, yeah, just kind
• 55:42
  of highlighted that there were a few.
• 55:43
  Drops so his his numbers may look better than it actually
• 55:48
  feels like it looked I I was true yeah there was some crucial
• 55:51
  drops that he probably wouldn't have got benched if Greg Joseph
• 55:54
  made that first field goal but but I mean that's it's now it
• 55:59
  almost feels like well thank God they they eked out the wind
• 56:02
  because now we got a little rejuvenated Hope that it's so
• 56:05
  weird to me that there are some quarterbacks like Dobbs where
• 56:08
  they are so good for a game or two when there's nothing at
• 56:12
  stake. And then you talk yourself into
• 56:14
  this guy's gonna be a starter guide.
• 56:16
  I mean come on look at him. And then within a week or within
• 56:19
  three weeks he's back to like oh that's why it's a QB two.
• 56:23
  Josh Dobbs is the first guy I've ever seen who's gotten worse
• 56:26
  when he started to learn the playbook more like it doesn't
• 56:30
  add up. I I I thought it was funny.
• 56:34
  You tweeted pretty early on when Dobbs, I think it was when he
• 56:38
  got traded. You said something like, aren't
• 56:40
  we all super excited for the the exciting Mullins Dobbs Hall
• 56:45
  hawkers that we all had when back in the Bollinger and Hoke
• 56:49
  home days and stuff? Yeah, I could feel that.
• 56:53
  Because you we took, we took for granted 5 1/2 years of Kirk
• 56:56
  injury free. Even even the the people that
• 56:59
  love Kirk and, you know, put them on a pedestal, we took that
• 57:02
  for granted. Like that was always his
• 57:04
  superpower was durability. And I just knew I was like,
• 57:07
  we're we're not going to get away with just having some Case
• 57:10
  Keenum come in and do this again.
• 57:13
  And then you know, Dobbs showed up that first game.
• 57:14
  I was like, oh, maybe maybe there won't be one.
• 57:16
  Maybe I was wrong, but the moment Kurt got hurt, everybody
• 57:19
  was deflated and I looked down. I was like, oh, Mullins is on
• 57:22
  IR, Manion is still on this team.
• 57:25
  Jaron Hall, we have no clue what he's going to be.
• 57:26
  I didn't even know about the Dobbs trade at the time, And so
• 57:29
  yeah, it this is familiar territory.
• 57:31
  If you've been a Vikings fan for longer than a decade, you will
• 57:35
  have an honest to goodness quarterback carousel, which used
• 57:38
  to be pretty normal. Yeah, yeah, I think ever since.
• 57:41
  Culpepper. It was just a carousel.
• 57:44
  After that. Well, we we, we bring up Kirk.
• 57:47
  What do you, what do you think happens with him after this
• 57:50
  season and through the rest of his career?
• 57:52
  Is he a Viking? Is he not?
• 57:54
  What? What do we want?
• 57:55
  I don't know. This one I also think about a
• 57:59
  lot and I there is no right answer right now unless you're
• 58:04
  Kwesi Adafa Mensa. But the way what I keep going,
• 58:07
  there's two things I go on back. I keep going back to.
• 58:09
  It's that Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adafa Mensa, whenever
• 58:12
  they're in front of a microphone, they talk about
• 58:14
  their love for the guy, Like Kevin O'Connell said about a
• 58:17
  month ago. Like, you know how I feel about
• 58:19
  her cousin, He's going to be a free agent, but we hope that
• 58:21
  works itself out. So that leads me to believe
• 58:23
  they're going to try to bring him back.
• 58:25
  But then you look at the salary cap and you are certifiably
• 58:28
  going to play Justin Jefferson at least $30 million per year.
• 58:32
  Daniel Hunter is going to get at least $28 million per year.
• 58:35
  Christian Darasaw will be eligible this offseason.
• 58:37
  He's going to get 20 something. Who am I missing?
• 58:41
  TJ Hawkinson just got paid as the richest tight end NFL
• 58:43
  history. All of this is shaping up for a
• 58:46
  quarterback on a rookie contract to glide in and you have that,
• 58:49
  you know, almost free quarterback for five years
• 58:52
  because I don't know how you can keep paying all of these guys
• 58:57
  close to Max money. Now Cousins in theory could come
• 59:00
  back and say, you know what boys, Well, I'll pay.
• 59:01
  I'll play for 25,000,000, but he never does that.
• 59:04
  That's what everybody's asked of him since it started to look
• 59:07
  like the deal was too much in 2018-2019.
• 59:12
  That's one thing about him he's he's this Cole's dad persona,
• 59:15
  lovable dude with Netflix documentaries.
• 59:17
  But he's shrewd, or at least his people are shrewd.
• 59:20
  He always gets the guaranteed money in.
• 59:22
  The final part of this before I deliver an answer is quasi
• 59:25
  adoptomentsa. Kevin O'Connell came aboard
• 59:27
  about two years ago. If you're not going to draft a
• 59:30
  first or second round quarterback now, when are you
• 59:34
  going to do it? Are you really going to attach
• 59:36
  your entire employment to Kirk Cousins?
• 59:39
  I guess it could work like Stafford eventually pit pay dirt
• 59:43
  full with the Rams. But it feels like you have two
• 59:46
  young thinkers offensive minded that have the best wide receiver
• 59:51
  in football. You've got a offense that you've
• 59:52
  tailor made from heaven for a young guy like Jayden Daniels.
• 59:56
  I would say that because Cousins probably isn't going to take a
• 1:00:00
  dinker deal. I would say that this is the
• 1:00:03
  time now to draft Bonex draft Jayden Daniels and if you can
• 1:00:07
  get away with it for one more year of Cousins being back at
• 1:00:10
  35, so be it. But I truly believe that he he
• 1:00:15
  is close to done with the Vikings.
• 1:00:17
  And I mean it's it was 5 1/2 years you got.
• 1:00:19
  The playoff twice. You want to playoff one playoff
• 1:00:21
  game at the when it's all said done, you're kind of just doing
• 1:00:25
  the same thing over and over and over.
• 1:00:27
  So I fully endorse a a divorce from the Cousins era and bring
• 1:00:31
  Mullins back. Or if you even want to bring the
• 1:00:33
  Dobbs back as the patch over guy and then draft your guy.
• 1:00:36
  The future because three years in and you still haven't drafted
• 1:00:39
  your quarterback, what do we do it?
• 1:00:41
  You think that is interesting? Do you think it's kind of like a
• 1:00:44
  best of both worlds kind of situation where like you you
• 1:00:49
  bring Cousins back for a year, you draft your guy of the future
• 1:00:52
  and just like let Kirk kind of pour into the guy underneath him
• 1:00:56
  and see what happens after that? Or is it like, no, we just, we
• 1:01:01
  draft the guy of the future now and move forward or we just let
• 1:01:04
  Kirk go completely or we get Kirk for two more years.
• 1:01:08
  Let's see, let's see what can happen in two years.
• 1:01:10
  I mean, what do you kind of foresee happening in the next
• 1:01:14
  couple of years that way? So the ideal scenario to me and
• 1:01:18
  what I think would happen is so Jefferson's money probably won't
• 1:01:24
  fully kick in until the 2025 season because he he's on that
• 1:01:29
  that somewhat sizable 5th year rookie option and then Dara
• 1:01:32
  Saw's money doesn't kick in until after that.
• 1:01:34
  I think you could get away if you really want to do this you
• 1:01:37
  get away with Cousins for a one year ext 35 million or if it's
• 1:01:42
  got to be 38 or whatever. I would, I I hope they wouldn't
• 1:01:44
  go higher than 40 or 45 for a 36 year old on a bad Achilles.
• 1:01:49
  I think you can do both. You bring Cousins back and then
• 1:01:53
  you draft. Hopefully for me, Jayden Daniels
• 1:01:55
  and then I mean there's there's so many that you'll talk
• 1:01:57
  yourself into between now and April.
• 1:01:59
  I think that is probably the best strategy.
• 1:02:02
  But I'm. I'm cynical.
• 1:02:03
  I really don't want to listen every time Kirk Cousins sells an
• 1:02:06
  incomplete past. Oh Nope.
• 1:02:08
  You got to put in the new guy, 'cause you'll heal.
• 1:02:10
  You'll hear that on the 1st Dr. of the season 'cause people
• 1:02:13
  don't have patience in the digital age.
• 1:02:16
  But I I do predict there's got to be a hard cut off soon that
• 1:02:19
  you the guy who's notorious for getting guaranteed fat stacks of
• 1:02:23
  cash, he's not going to be. He can't fit on this team in the
• 1:02:26
  budget anymore. When you have these rest of
• 1:02:29
  these these players who also want their if they have to keep
• 1:02:32
  Daniel Hunter for the next three years because otherwise you're
• 1:02:34
  limping in the offseason with no edge rushers and that's
• 1:02:37
  pathetic. So yeah, I I really think that
• 1:02:40
  Kirk is short of this Vikings world.
• 1:02:42
  If it's one more year, I can see that happening as you transition
• 1:02:46
  to the the first round quarterback, which they I think
• 1:02:48
  they have to draft this year. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:51
  Dustin, I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you
• 1:02:53
  mentioned Quasi and KOC. They're they're getting to the
• 1:02:58
  point that they need to stamp their, their season, their
• 1:03:03
  careers on a quarterback. And yeah, I don't.
• 1:03:06
  I don't think Kirk is the age and price to be that correct.
• 1:03:11
  Hey, I'm going to attach my career to this guy.
• 1:03:15
  Yeah, I think it's going to be a rookie, whether it's this year
• 1:03:17
  or next year. Real quick, if there was ever a
• 1:03:20
  season for Kirk to do the team friendly thing, it would be this
• 1:03:24
  upcoming one. You've got a bad leg, you're
• 1:03:27
  going to be 36. You already know that.
• 1:03:29
  We're looking to go on to the next guy.
• 1:03:31
  If you want one more hurrah at this, you come back for 28
• 1:03:35
  million guaranteed. Of course.
• 1:03:36
  Will you do it? I doubt his people would accept
• 1:03:39
  that, but if there was ever an excuse or a case to be made, it
• 1:03:42
  would be this upcoming season to do that from from Kirk's
• 1:03:45
  standpoint. Do you think that kind of a
• 1:03:48
  scenario where he comes back for a one year could affect any
• 1:03:53
  Jefferson contract? Because the sense I get is that
• 1:03:57
  Jefferson likes having Kirk as his quarterback.
• 1:04:00
  And if he even knows, like, OK, I've got Kirk one more year.
• 1:04:02
  But then what could that affect, like, what he and his team would
• 1:04:06
  want to do? Or is it just all money at this
• 1:04:08
  point? Well, it was.
• 1:04:09
  This is really funny, 'cause I spent what, the first two years
• 1:04:12
  hearing that Jefferson couldn't stand Kirk.
• 1:04:14
  And I'm like, really? You?
• 1:04:16
  You caught one hot mic where he's like, throw the ball.
• 1:04:18
  He heard that one time. People were trying to start that
• 1:04:20
  narrative that was so dumb. No, Jefferson we've been told or
• 1:04:24
  Jefferson's been told that he's going to be a part of the the
• 1:04:27
  decision making at quarterback. And I don't think there is any
• 1:04:30
  shred of, let's say it's Jane Daniels from LSU.
• 1:04:34
  Jefferson's not going to be like, oh, I'm not playing with
• 1:04:36
  that guy. I mean, that would probably be
• 1:04:38
  the best. If you bring Daniels chilling,
• 1:04:40
  waiting to take over in 2025, bring Cousins back his buddy for
• 1:04:44
  one year, that's probably ideal. But I think that they will do
• 1:04:48
  everything they can to keep Jefferson.
• 1:04:50
  They've said it. Every single leader since last
• 1:04:52
  January, from from the Wilfs to Quasi to Kevin, have said they
• 1:04:56
  smirk. They're like, yeah, you know,
• 1:04:59
  Quasi said He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to do the job as
• 1:05:01
  a Vikings Google manager if he doesn't have Jefferson on the
• 1:05:03
  roster. So it's a no brainer that
• 1:05:05
  Jefferson gets extended. And I think that in this day and
• 1:05:08
  age and player empowerment that certainly Jefferson will be
• 1:05:11
  involved in a decision. So yeah, maybe it's both, maybe
• 1:05:14
  it's Kirk and the next guy. But I don't think we have to be
• 1:05:16
  paranoid that, you know, Jefferson walks if Kirk's not
• 1:05:19
  coming back. We spent a lot of time talking
• 1:05:22
  about the quarterback situation and just kind of what would
• 1:05:25
  happen next year. What do you think about Brian
• 1:05:28
  Flores? Where does he end up next year?
• 1:05:30
  Does he end up back with the Vikings?
• 1:05:32
  Do the Vikings invest in keeping this guy around?
• 1:05:36
  Obviously the defense has been really, really good, especially
• 1:05:39
  this last week pitching A doughnut against the Raiders on
• 1:05:42
  the road. I I I think he deserves a chance
• 1:05:47
  to come back. And I think given his history in
• 1:05:50
  the league with the Dolphins as a head coach, I don't, I don't
• 1:05:54
  know if he's going to be super open head coaching.
• 1:05:58
  I don't know. What do you think?
• 1:06:00
  So on my YouTube show way back March, April, I reveal the
• 1:06:06
  theory of paranoia that I said I I believe that the Patriots were
• 1:06:11
  going to struggle and slump because I never saw it with Mac
• 1:06:14
  Jones. And I believe that there would
• 1:06:16
  be a parting of ways with Bill Belichick and I thought Brian
• 1:06:21
  Flores would turn the defense around to like 15th best and
• 1:06:24
  that would that would have us all head like head over heels
• 1:06:27
  excited. And my paranoia was because
• 1:06:30
  Flores spent 15 years with the Patriots and in my opinion
• 1:06:34
  Belichick was going to probably move on.
• 1:06:37
  I thought the Patriots would be about 7:00 and 10:00 and that
• 1:06:39
  would cause the split man, Flores would be at the top of
• 1:06:43
  the list because you don't spend that much time with an
• 1:06:45
  organization and not accrue a good reputation.
• 1:06:49
  So I will maintain probably just stick, stick into my dog.
• 1:06:53
  In theory that if if Bill Belichick steps away, I don't
• 1:06:56
  think he'd be outright fired. I think they would sex it up to
• 1:06:59
  say hey, he's he's moving into a consultant role baby.
• 1:07:02
  And then I believe Flores would apply for that job.
• 1:07:06
  I have been told by some like folks, some insiders, that
• 1:07:09
  Flores is already handsomely paid.
• 1:07:11
  That's how they were able to get him.
• 1:07:14
  So I think it would be more a continuation of that
• 1:07:16
  relationship or I guess in theory it could be a a pay
• 1:07:19
  raise. But yeah, my fear is that Flores
• 1:07:22
  would jump for the Patriots job. I don't think he's just going to
• 1:07:24
  go coach some more on team because he needs to be a head
• 1:07:27
  coach again. I think he he can afford to be
• 1:07:29
  judicious about which team he wants to coach.
• 1:07:32
  I don't think the Steelers would fire Mike Tomlin, but Flores
• 1:07:35
  just spent a year there and I'm sure that they loved him because
• 1:07:38
  he's so, so awesome. I would be.
• 1:07:41
  I would be fearful next month that he'll throw his hat in the
• 1:07:44
  ring. If it is a honest to goodness
• 1:07:46
  job that it's not going to be just a sham interview.
• 1:07:49
  Or if he if he gets the bad vibe that the Dolphins ultimately
• 1:07:53
  provided for him and all signs to me point to the Patriots.
• 1:07:56
  Now that's just a theory. I don't have any Intel that says
• 1:07:58
  that he's leaving. And if he does bolt, then you're
• 1:08:00
  back to the drawing board. You got to maybe hope that hope
• 1:08:03
  that Durante Jones has learned a lot this year.
• 1:08:06
  I don't. I don't.
• 1:08:07
  Good coordinators like Big Fanchio and that avero Agiro
• 1:08:12
  dude. He got scooped last cycle.
• 1:08:14
  Ultimately, I'm with the both of you.
• 1:08:16
  I hope Flores stays for another year, but you would think that
• 1:08:18
  they would have been grooming some underling in this past year
• 1:08:22
  that says, hey, we don't want to go back to what it was with that
• 1:08:24
  shell Dink dar break, but Bemba don't break.
• 1:08:27
  That was so bad. Hopefully they've got some
• 1:08:30
  staffer, if you will, on Flores that they've identified as, hey,
• 1:08:34
  just be a sponge because if he moves on, you're going to be the
• 1:08:36
  guy. Yeah, the coaching waiting, sort
• 1:08:39
  of, yeah. I think he definitely deserves
• 1:08:43
  the chance to be a head coach again.
• 1:08:44
  He's obviously earlier today in your your Yeah YouTube video,
• 1:08:48
  you said you mentioned you'd you'd be excited if he turned
• 1:08:51
  everything into like the 15th best defense and all the sudden
• 1:08:54
  he turned everything into the 5th best defense.
• 1:08:57
  Yeah, yeah, you can't. I mean, that's the whole.
• 1:08:59
  Reason we're still talking about playoff scenarios and why it
• 1:09:02
  even matters of Nick Mullen's plays is because suddenly Kevin
• 1:09:06
  O'Connell called it a championship caliber defense.
• 1:09:09
  That we thought this was going to be an offense first,
• 1:09:11
  Enterprise indefinitely because of Kevin O'Connell and Kirk.
• 1:09:14
  But now you're staring down the barrel of a gun that says, God,
• 1:09:17
  if we don't find a competent quarterback, we're going to
• 1:09:19
  squander this thing because this could be a defense that you ride
• 1:09:22
  the wave and then win a playoff game or two.
• 1:09:24
  That's what they think because, you know, they're coaches and
• 1:09:26
  the ultimate competitors. So I think that's why, you know,
• 1:09:29
  they went and got Josh Dobbs with the flyer that yeah, he
• 1:09:31
  can, we can really sculpt him. And that's why this, that last
• 1:09:34
  game matters so much. And then these remaining four do
• 1:09:37
  is because this is a defense that if you had, I mean, go
• 1:09:40
  figure, this happens. Her cousins gets hurt and the
• 1:09:43
  defense turns back into what it was in 2018.
• 1:09:45
  That's what it is right now. But EPA for play, it's just a
• 1:09:48
  step down from 2018's defense, which is really good.
• 1:09:52
  Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Hopefully.
• 1:09:55
  The offense can. Turn something around.
• 1:09:56
  We can have something magical. I don't.
• 1:09:58
  I don't know that that that'll happen, but that'd be crazy.
• 1:10:02
  Dustin. What's that?
• 1:10:04
  I got one final question. For you, man.
• 1:10:08
  There. Were some rumors.
• 1:10:09
  Flying about like yesterday, the Browns Flacco down to the
• 1:10:16
  practice squad. Today I saw some rumors about
• 1:10:18
  Lael Collins possibly getting scooped up by the Vikings.
• 1:10:23
  I think that might have been a little bit of clickbait maybe.
• 1:10:25
  But like all of that aside, all of the, like, hyped up rumors
• 1:10:30
  aside, is there anybody right now out there that the Vikings
• 1:10:33
  could pick up, that they could just immensely help their haste
• 1:10:40
  to make a playoff push and make a deep run in the playoffs that
• 1:10:44
  you know of, that nobody's thinking of right now?
• 1:10:46
  I before Wanham. Decided that he was good against
• 1:10:52
  other teams other than just the Bears I had.
• 1:10:55
  I had hoped that they would sign Robert Quinn.
• 1:10:57
  He's been a free agent. But that's when I thought that
• 1:10:59
  Wanam was just this third down specialist who was good against
• 1:11:02
  Fields. He's turned into a true blue
• 1:11:04
  starter, at least for this stretch of game.
• 1:11:06
  I would have endorsed an extra edge rusher like Melvin Ingram
• 1:11:09
  got scooped by his his old Dolphins.
• 1:11:10
  Today I saw I wrote about that Flacco rumor that came from a
• 1:11:14
  Pittsburgh Pittsburgh radio station where a guy who has a
• 1:11:17
  huge following tweeted hey, if the Vikings throw 8 million at
• 1:11:20
  Flaco, who says no Like that would have been a great theory a
• 1:11:24
  month ago but we are we're too deep in this thing that you you
• 1:11:29
  have an incumbent a guy who was the QB two last year, Nick
• 1:11:32
  Mullins. Dobbs just kind of flamed out.
• 1:11:34
  Sorry to say Jaren Hall is who we all wanted because of the the
• 1:11:38
  rookie upside and you might as well if you're not going to win
• 1:11:40
  the Super Bowl. I just don't see them taking a
• 1:11:42
  flyer. Another quarterback running
• 1:11:44
  back. We've already hashed that out
• 1:11:46
  and you've got not Kenyon, Dre. You have Miles Gaskin on the
• 1:11:50
  somewhere on the practice squad. I still think so.
• 1:11:52
  If you needed one more body. Everything, I believe, is what
• 1:11:55
  it is. Quarterbacks certainly couldn't
• 1:11:58
  come in and learn a new offense this fast.
• 1:12:00
  I I did. I was dead serious when Cousins
• 1:12:03
  got hurt that night that they should have called Tom Brady and
• 1:12:06
  what's his name, Scott Zolak. The former Patriots announcer
• 1:12:10
  and quarterback says that the Vikings called.
• 1:12:12
  They did do the diligence to figure out if Brady was
• 1:12:14
  interested, but Brady had to turn down so many offers because
• 1:12:18
  there's so many guys got hurt. I'm sure it started with The
• 1:12:20
  Jets, probably continued with the Bengals.
• 1:12:23
  Yeah, the free agents. If they were going to sign
• 1:12:25
  another free agent, it would have been on the bye week.
• 1:12:27
  And I respect the clickbait for Joe Flacco because, you know,
• 1:12:30
  that would be kind of cool. But Flacco is going to turn back
• 1:12:33
  into a guy. I mean, he sucked with the
• 1:12:35
  Broncos. He sucked for The Jets.
• 1:12:37
  He had a good game where he threw 3 touchdowns in a pick.
• 1:12:40
  It's not going to continue. Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Well, for our listeners, I would.
• 1:12:44
  Highly recommend going to check out that Vikings Territory
• 1:12:46
  article you had on Flacco. That was a good read.
• 1:12:49
  You don't just talk about the clickbait and maybe signing
• 1:12:51
  Flacco, you kind of give a reason why he'd be an
• 1:12:54
  interesting sign. He'd give a little background on
• 1:12:56
  his career too. So that was a good read.
• 1:12:58
  Well, thank you. Yeah, I mean, if you had
• 1:13:00
  nothing. Else if it was, if it was Sean
• 1:13:02
  Mannion and like Nate Stanley, yeah, then you'd say let's go
• 1:13:06
  get Flacco, but you've got Nick. Nick Mullins.
• 1:13:09
  I think we're going to end up being like, wow, this guy.
• 1:13:12
  I mean, because he goes down swinging.
• 1:13:14
  It's not going to be ineptitude. Like, Oh my God, he got twisted
• 1:13:17
  around and threw the ball up in the air like Dobbs would do.
• 1:13:20
  No, he's going to take a sack like Kirk did.
• 1:13:22
  And when he's not doing that, he's going to fling it.
• 1:13:24
  So I think we'll come to respect what Mullins brings to the
• 1:13:26
  table. And I have this Hail Mary theory
• 1:13:30
  and you try to find these little, like opiums that maybe
• 1:13:33
  those Niners years were just like his developmental phase and
• 1:13:37
  you know that was a hell of a developmental phase to throw for
• 1:13:40
  almost 5000 yards and 17 games. Maybe he's just waiting for his
• 1:13:44
  chance now that he's a grown up, You know, maybe, maybe this is
• 1:13:47
  the the chance that he gets where man he can he can sling
• 1:13:50
  it. The only real knock on him is
• 1:13:52
  the lack of mobility and he throws some risky balls, which
• 1:13:55
  means interceptions. But I think it it's kind of a
• 1:13:58
  moot point. If you're like Dobbs and you
• 1:14:01
  know it's going to be a punt in the Raiders game, you you have
• 1:14:04
  to try to go with the guy who can throw to Addison, hopefully
• 1:14:08
  throw to Jefferson and throw to Hawkinson because that's the
• 1:14:10
  lifeblood of the offense. Dinking and dunking or getting
• 1:14:14
  him on the move to run for seven yards like with Dobbs.
• 1:14:17
  That's not going to work. You have all of your red meat
• 1:14:20
  and Addison, who hasn't scored since Cousins with quarterback
• 1:14:22
  Jefferson of course, and Hawkinson.
• 1:14:24
  So I'm cool with the Mullins move.
• 1:14:26
  Yeah, and you said Mullins too. Is.
• 1:14:28
  And I think you mean it as a. Compliment Mullins is about 70%
• 1:14:32
  of Pert Cousins. So yeah, that's why it's going
• 1:14:35
  to be so familiar. To watch is because a, he knows
• 1:14:37
  the playbook. The playbook's going to be the
• 1:14:39
  same because he and Cousins are the same human being.
• 1:14:42
  It's just Cousins. It's more cautious and surgical
• 1:14:45
  from what we saw in San Francisco.
• 1:14:47
  Mullins is that junior gunslinger.
• 1:14:49
  So yeah, I I hope that that 70% by sundown Saturday night, we're
• 1:14:53
  all like, no, that's 85%, baby, you know we're we'll take it.
• 1:14:57
  Yeah, well. Definitely.
• 1:14:59
  We really appreciate you coming on.
• 1:15:01
  It's been a blast. I've had a lot of fun.
• 1:15:02
  I hope you've had fun too. Maybe maybe you can come on
• 1:15:05
  again in the future. We'd love to have you again, but
• 1:15:09
  real quick. Is there anything you want to
• 1:15:10
  plug, just in case? Like I said, there's one of our
• 1:15:13
  listeners out there who doesn't know who you are.
• 1:15:15
  Any anything you want to plug really quick.
• 1:15:17
  Yeah, on vikingsterritory.com. I write on their daily and so
• 1:15:21
  does my homie, Yannick Eckhart. He's from Germany and he and I,
• 1:15:25
  we like to consider ourselves Kobe and Shaq everyday, writing
• 1:15:28
  the Viking stuff because it just flows so naturally between us.
• 1:15:31
  So yeah, I'd like to plug Yannick.
• 1:15:33
  We also have Ted Schwarzler. He writes for Twins Daily and
• 1:15:36
  Vikings Territory. Adam New he's from England he
• 1:15:39
  writes on Vikings territory So yeah every single day we're
• 1:15:43
  writing stuff on there covering every aspect of the team and you
• 1:15:47
  know I mean we're we're objective.
• 1:15:48
  We aren't we aren't homers. We're also not take hot take
• 1:15:52
  merchants. We're not just going to hey
• 1:15:53
  here's what they should do they should go get Flaco You know
• 1:15:56
  we're we're pretty even keeled. So yeah, I would plug my Co
• 1:15:59
  workers at the website, especially on like Eckhart
• 1:16:01
  because that guy, he he joined us about two years ago and God
• 1:16:05
  he's good, awesome. Well, yeah.
• 1:16:08
  Yeah. Thanks again.
• 1:16:09
  We really. Appreciate it.
• 1:16:11
  Thanks to your family for for giving you up for a little bit
• 1:16:14
  so you can be on with us. You guys do this whenever you
• 1:16:16
  look down at your calendar and say.
• 1:16:18
  You know what? We really want to guess.
• 1:16:19
  We don't know how to reach out to you.
• 1:16:21
  Let me know, because I love coming on shows.
• 1:16:23
  And you guys really have a cool forum here, the laid back in
• 1:16:26
  this of it all. I kid you not whenever you're
• 1:16:29
  like, you know what? It's time to talk to Dustin
• 1:16:31
  Baker again. Do not hesitate to message me.
• 1:16:33
  OK. All right.
• 1:16:34
  We'll we'll take you up on that. You know we will all.
• 1:16:36
  Right. You guys take it easy.
• 1:16:38
  Hey, Vikings fans, Evan. Here from the School Hop and we
• 1:16:41
  just wanted to say thank you again so much for listening to
• 1:16:44
  the School Hop. And we also wanted to take one
• 1:16:46
  more opportunity to let you know that this episode of The School
• 1:16:50
  Hop has been brought to you by Big Top Ventures.
• 1:16:53
  If you're considering taking an all inclusive trip to either
• 1:16:55
  Mexico or Jamaica, reach out to our friends at Big Top Ventures
• 1:16:59
  at bigtopventuresllc@gmail.com. Once again, that's Big Top
• 1:17:04
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  possible on several all inclusive resorts throughout the
• 1:17:11
  region. Big Top Ventures, Step right up
• 1:17:14
  to your next big adventure. And thanks again for listening
• 1:17:17
  to the Skull hop skull.