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

• 0:05
  They started day I can pay school. Let's go get a backflip in the
• 0:21
  end zone. Let's go. Let's yeah, it's mine all right. Hey,
• 0:28
  Vikings fans, welcome into another episode of the Skull Hop. I'm Evan
• 0:31
  and I'm Austin. We're just a couple of dudes from Iowa. We like
• 0:34
  drinking beer and we like talking about the Vikings. Yeah, we do.
• 0:36
  It was your turn to bring the beer tonight. It was what you bring
• 0:39
  us, so I believe it was last week we had a single speed beer,
• 0:43
  the Prowl. I still got it on display over here. That thing's
• 0:46
  gonna be on display for a while. That fits right in with the purple
• 0:49
  and gold the Viking obviously panther stuff. But yeah, but tonight we've got
• 0:54
  another single speed beer. Ev we have what is it? They're worldwide Haze.
• 1:00
  It's old w h I r led world wide Yep, very very good.
• 1:06
  Not the traditional world. So if you have been keeping up with our
• 1:08
  TikTok, you may know that this was one of the early beers that I
• 1:12
  had in my wife's homemade beer Advent calendar, and I liked it so much
• 1:19
  that I saw it today and I was like, Yep, that's that's the
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  one. 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. And it's a
• 1:29
  hazy ipa fits right in your category of beer. Yeah, and I like
• 1:33
  it too. And if you want to know what we think other than we
• 1:36
  like it a lot, go check out our TikTok that we recorded right before
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  this episode School School. I always fear that we're gonna crack a glass.
• 1:45
  It might happen someday. That'll be the best like b roll video. All
• 1:51
  right, Well, we're sponsored of we Are we Are, and this episode
• 1:56
  of the School Hop is brought to you by Big Top Ventures. If you're
• 2:00
  considering taking an all inclusive trip to either Mexico or Jamaica, reach out to
• 2:06
  our friends at Big Top Ventures. You can do that by emailing Big Top
• 2:09
  Ventures LLLC at gmail dot com. That's Big Top Ventures LLC at gmail dot
• 2:15
  com. They can get you the lowest rate possible on several all inclusive resorts
• 2:21
  throughout the region. Big Top Ventures step right up to your next big adventure.
• 2:27
  So yeah, thanks Big Top Ventures. Yeah, we also have another
• 2:30
  reason to think Big Top Ventures they've given the school hop a gift. Evan,
• 2:34
  I've been waiting for this and you've built up the anticipation pretty well.
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  I know what it is and it's pretty awesome, but you do not know
• 2:43
  what it is. So with no further ado, I will present you the
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  gift. And if you want to immediately see what it is before we say
• 2:51
  the words, check out our YouTube videos that we post up. You'll see
• 2:54
  it on YouTube. And here we go. Don't spill the beer. Oh
• 3:02
  you're gonna let me open it. Yes, I'm gonna let you. Am
• 3:06
  I the official gift opener. Now, so this gift I believe will live
• 3:09
  in the skull Cave. Wow. Well look at this. This is Evan
• 3:19
  has opened the gift. This is something special. Is pulling it out of
• 3:22
  the box. So for the second time ever on the Skull Hop, Evan
• 3:27
  is pulling a Vikings jersey and it's a Culpepper jersey. Yes, and it's
• 3:31
  signed and it's signed. So yep, our friends at Big Top Ventures they
• 3:36
  have gifted the skull Hop. I think it's mostly gifted. Evan secondarily gifted
• 3:42
  the skull Hop and they were really happy and really excited to give that to
• 3:47
  us and to UV and I gave them the choice of being able to do
• 3:53
  it in person, give it to you in person, and they said,
• 3:57
  no, it'll be it lives in the School Hops, So we'll do it
• 4:00
  on the show. So we will find the perfect spot for this. If
• 4:04
  you're watching the YouTube video, you've seen the the actual gift, the signed
• 4:09
  Dante Culpepper jersey in all its glory, and it's glorious. I can say
• 4:14
  that. Yeah, that is pretty cool. That's awesome. Evan. As
• 4:16
  the owner of the school Cave and the recipient of the School Hops gift,
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  you you get to choose where it goes, what it looks like. Thank
• 4:25
  you very much, Big Top Ventures. Yes, thank you, Big Top.
• 4:28
  This is this is special. If this is cool, we will definitely
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  be putting this on display right here somewhere. Yeah, we'll find it.
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  The figure it out. There's a blank spot right behind me on this stage.
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  We'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll find a spot that is pretty
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  neat. It even has the sticker of authenticity. Yeah. Yes, everything
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  I've been led to believe that this is there's no question, this is one
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  hundred percent true. I've doubled my signed jerseys. Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
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  That is pretty cool. Fun fact about that jersey, the Robert Smith
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  jersey and the little display case there. I think we've talked about this before.
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  Yeah, maybe been in a podcast a long time ago. But that's
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  a legitimate signature, although there is no sticker of authenticity, but I can
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  I can guarantee that it's authentic because one of my family members used to live
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  down the street from Robert Smith. Interesting, and they bought the jersey from
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  a store and went down to his house, knocked on his door, and
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  got the signature. So and the rest is history. The rest is history.
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  It's been in that display case probably since I was like thirteen years old.
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  Yep. Maybe we need to make a new display case. Yeah,
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  well we've got means to do that as well, and we might need to
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  do that with this because this is this is pretty cool. That is pretty
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  much. It's pretty special. Yeah, thanks again, big Top. We
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  appreciate it. Yeah, all right, ev I think we need to maybe
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  briefly, we need to briefly talk about one of the most disapointing wins I've
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  ever seen as a Viking. I mean, what is there to talk about?
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  They scored three points Yeah, that's that's literally the highlight. That's it.
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  We talked about every scoring play. It was a field goal by Greg
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  Joseph and he missed one before the one he made man, So I think
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  had he made that field goal and had some receivers made a catch here and
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  there, there is a very unfortunate reality where Josh Doabbs does not get benched.
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  I think I think KOC needed to be shown a terrible game to finally
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  figure it out and bench Josh Stabbs, and for that I'm grateful. Yeah,
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  I think a lot of Vikings fans are are happy to move on from
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  Dobbs. I think Vikings fans were happy when Dobbs was playing well against the
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  Falcons and the Saints. We will always have those Pastronaut games. Yep,
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  We've got those two games, but they were short lived and he hasn't really
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  shown much of anything. I actually saw an interesting tweet out there. Somebody
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  screen grabbed the hit that he took right away at the beginning of the Broncos
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  game and kind of pointed out like that was maybe a turning point for him,
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  where you know, he just got scared, got skittish, maybe a
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  little rattled, literally and figuratively, and I tend to kind of agree with
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  that. From that moment on, we saw a very different Josh Dobbs.
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  And it's super weird that he looked so good without knowing the playbook, and
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  then the farther into the offense and the more familiar he was with players and
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  scheme and coaching and all that, he just regressed and looked worse. Yeah,
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  to that point, I think Dustin Baker has said, never have we
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  seen before a quarterback get worse the more they know the offense? Yeah,
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  which is crazy and very it seems accurate. I mean it's insane. So
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  I don't know if he got to know more so the leash got a little
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  bit longer and he got less help. I don't know. Yeah, no
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  clue. That's a good point about that hit early on in the Broncos game
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  being a turning point. You might be onto something. I would argue for
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  whatever reason, the second half of the Saints game. I don't know if
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  it's a mix of the Saints figured something out scheme wise, or he started
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  seeing ghosts or any combination of anything, but I think the downfall was starting
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  in that second half of the Saints game. Yeah, you're probably right.
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  And I remember watching that Saints game too and thinking like I man, even
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  Dobbs aside, like the Vikings just can't put together a full four quarters of
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  football and that's frustrating. Now, we would be remiss if we didn't talk
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  about the defense. Oh my gosh, this game against the Raiders, because
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  they were phenomenal. Yeah, this game produced the Vikings I think the fourth
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  Player of the Week award, Defensive Player of the Week award, and this
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  week it was Ivan Pace, the undrafted rookie who he's He's a Cinderella.
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  He is more of the amazing Cinderella story than Dobbs was for a game and
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  a half because this kid wasn't drafted. Every team had every opportunity to get
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  him, and nobody did it, and the Vikings got him an undrafted free
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  agency and he has never looked back. We haven't. I don't think we've
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  once said, man, what a terrible game by Pace. Yeah maybe not
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  every game we're talking about like how great he is all the time, every
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  single play, but like this Raiders game, he was pretty darn good.
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  I remember all the way back in pre season, Ben Lieber doing one of
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  his between the lines videos after a preseason game and he played the position,
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  so he knows. Like he commented, he's like, man, that Ivan
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  Pace kid was just flying around out there. He was fun to watch.
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  And so when somebody like Ben Leber says that, I think you perk up
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  a little bit and you're like, oh, maybe he's somebody to watch.
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  And he's has been somebody to watch all season, and he kind of had
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  a little coming out party, I think with his interception against the Raiders's great.
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  Oh yeah, and he I mean it was pointed out after the game
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  by coach O'Connell to Ben Leeber. Actually he said, Connell said something to
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  the tune of, I want fans to remember that Pace. He's the guy
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  calling the defense. So you talk about this Brian Flores defense and how how
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  huge it is and how particular it is and hard to learn it maybe,
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  but once you get it down, how great it can be. And here
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  we go. We got a guy who's a rookie and undrafted rookie and he
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  is making the calls on that defense, a defense that includes Josh Mantellis,
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  Daniel Hunter, Harrison Smith. 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 down?
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  I believe so. So it's a little bit out of necessity, but we
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  could be sitting here talking about, man, we need to get Ivan pace
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  off the field. He just hasn't been since since Hicks went out. I
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  don't know why they're trusting him, but no, we're saying the exact opposite.
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  And I hope that kid goes to the Pro Bowl. He deserves it.
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  So far, he's been playing lights out and defensive Rookie of the Year,
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  perhaps he could. I mean, there's probably a few other names that
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  would be hired just off of draft position alone, but that's a good question.
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  I wonder if there's ever been an undrafted rookie of the Year, either
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  on the defensive or offensive side of the ball. That would be an interesting
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  thing to look at and be something to ask Dustin Baker maybe. Yeah,
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  yeah, Yeah, we've said Dustin Baker's name a little bit on this episode.
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  You may you may hear that a little bit later. Yeah, if
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  you stick with us, and if you stick around to the end, Yeah,
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  there'll be a nice little interview that we got to do with Dustin Yeacker
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  and I'll just say it now. Thanks a huge thanks to Dustin Baker.
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  He kind of let went out on a limb here and gave us a chance
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  to interview him a little bit. And man, I don't know about you
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  have I had a ton of fun. He seemed to not hate us.
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  I think he had fun too, and it was a It was a really
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  good time. And I'm excited for you guys to hear that interview. Yeah,
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  definitely a lot of fun. I enjoyed it as Yeah. So all
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  right, so we talked. We talked the quarterback, we talked the defense,
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  we talked all every single scoring play in that game. I did I
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  did want to mention Mattellis. Yeah, at some point during the game,
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  they threw up the graphic and it's been floating around on Twitter now. But
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  I've been saying that you have for several weeks for you for several weeks now
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  that he's just all over the field and you just watch him. He looks
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  like a linebacker even though he's a safety. And I even like I couldn't
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  believe it for a little bit, Like I went and looked on the roster,
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  looked at his playing weight and height and stuff, and like he he
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  checks out as a true safety in terms of size, but he's just got
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  a little bit of a stockier build. He's not long and skinny like a
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  Harrison Smith or any those other guys. But he's been all over the field.
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  And the graphic just listed out all of the different spots, the different
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  positions that he's lined up at, and part of that's a testament to this
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  Brian Flores defense. But part of that, I think is just the players
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  that we have on the defensive side of the ball. Like we've we just
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  we just gushed about I've in pace, but I mean, shoot, Josh
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  Mattellus, he's been playing well too. You pulled it up. Yeah,
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  it's it's kind of funny to take nothing away from that point. You're you're
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  you hit the nail on the head. He is a Swiss army knife.
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  He's he's doing things that not everybody can do at positions that you know,
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  some some guys only play well at one position. He's doing it at a
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  handful. And the graphic that we saw on TV, and when we were
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  live streaming, you're like, oh, I wonder if we can maybe we
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  can go back and kind of do a screen grab and A few minutes later,
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  I saw another account had done that, so we kind of retweeted that
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  that account. But I pulled this this graphic up that was shown live on
• 14:00
  the Vikings Raiders game, and looking at it, if you spend a minute
• 14:03
  and look at it, it kind of gets a little funny because it like
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  really lays on thick the idea that he's playing multiple positions, to the point
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  that it lists out left cornerback and right cornerback rather than just saying corner corner
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  back. Even the last two are right defensive end, which this guy plays
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  safety mostly, so to line up at defensive end is a little crazy.
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  And craziest of all is left defensive tackle. I'd love to see the play
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  that he played defensive tackle at because I'm sure it's hilarious and he probably did
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  pretty well in that play. But yeah, it's a fun graphic. You
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  should check out our Twitter and you know, any other Viking content creator has
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  probably tweeted that graphic out too. But that was just really reaffirming, I
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  guess for me to see, like I've been saying this, and I've been
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  seeing him play and line up in all these different positions, so to have
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  concrete evidence of like, oh, yeah, someone out there sees the same
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  things I'm seeing, and now anybody who watched the Vikings Raiders game saw it
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  too, yeah, which there were also a ton of funny tweets about if
• 15:09
  you watch this game, you may be entitled the compensation because it was a
• 15:11
  pretty awful game. And to kind of lay thick the Mattellis idea too.
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  One of our early early tiktoks is a portion of an earlier episode of You
• 15:26
  saying just that how Mattellus is kind of an up and coming Harrison Smith in
• 15:31
  the sense that he's a Swiss Army Life Army knife like that. So there
• 15:35
  is precedent. You've been saying it for a while, and this year has
• 15:37
  been an explosion for mattellas he's been good in previous years. But this Flora's
• 15:43
  defense, I think it's just really showcasing him. And we don't need to
• 15:46
  spend a ton of time talking about this, because we talked about it last
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  night in our interview with Dustin. But man, if we can keep Rian
• 15:54
  Flores around, and if we can keep some of these players around, this
• 15:58
  Vikings defense could be something special for a few years to come. For sure,
• 16:03
  selfishly, I want Flores to not get a head coaching job. He's
• 16:07
  worthy of it. He'll probably get one, and good for him. Dustin
• 16:11
  kind of alludes to the fact that he can be even picky and choosy a
• 16:15
  little bit, which that's super cool, but I kind of want him to
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  be, like, you know what, we got something special here. Let's
• 16:22
  let's run it back with Minnesota just for one year and then then you can
• 16:26
  do whatever you want. No salary cap with coaches either, so and I
• 16:29
  guess he's he's taking advantage of that, and good for him. Let's pay
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  him. Yeah, all right, anything else from this Raiders game, I
• 16:37
  mean, other than the things we've already talked about, it was pretty much
• 16:41
  a dud. So but a win is a win is a win. A
• 16:44
  win is a win. And I just said win as many times as the
• 16:47
  Viking scored points, So yes, you did. You said skull like six
• 16:52
  plus times when Pace had that interception. Yep, yep. I may have
• 16:57
  blacked out there for a second. Even when I watched that video back of
• 17:02
  us reacting, I kind of rolled my eyes at myself a little bit.
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  But you know what, that's what sports are all about, you gotta have
• 17:07
  fun with it, right. We were definitely having fun and that was pretty
• 17:11
  much the only fun moment of the game. Yeah. So the weekend overall
• 17:15
  kind of went the Vikings way, which is hilarious because two weeks ago everything
• 17:21
  went wrong. Yeah for the Vikings. So every team that we needed to
• 17:26
  lose one and now this week the opposite happens. Every team that we needed
• 17:32
  to lose did lose. Yeah. We needed the Falcons, Lions, Packers,
• 17:36
  Rams, and Seahawks to all lose or yeah, to all lose,
• 17:41
  and they did. Capped off, I know, I just said it.
• 17:44
  But the Packers they lost on Monday night, which was delicious to watch.
• 17:48
  That was even after Saquon Barkley fumbled. He forced his own fumble, which
• 17:52
  I don't know how that happens, but it did, and it still didn't
• 17:56
  equate to a Packers win, which is so much fun. I love it
• 18:00
  when the Packers lose, and I know that makes me a less of a
• 18:03
  fan, but I don't care. It brings me joy. So many shots
• 18:07
  of the divida family and his agent, now that was fun too. Yep.
• 18:15
  Yeah. So with that though, I think what's interesting is before everything
• 18:21
  that happened this last weekend. The Vikings were in the sixth spot in the
• 18:26
  playoffs by virtue of several tie breakers. Now because all of these other teams
• 18:32
  lost and the Vikings won, the Vikings own that sixth spot outright, no
• 18:37
  tiebreakers well, and the tie breakers will only help because they're still there,
• 18:41
  they just don't need right right now. So I mean that just kind of
• 18:47
  pushes Minnesota just one step closer to a playoff berth. Not there yet.
• 18:52
  There's still four games to go, but they are in sole possession of the
• 18:56
  sixth seed currently with no tiebreakers being used. Which that's a pretty good spot
• 19:03
  to be in, especially considering a one and four start, losing your MVP
• 19:08
  level quarterback, losing your MVP level wide receiver for six games, seven games
• 19:17
  because you hardly played this last week, and all of the other injuries that
• 19:21
  the Vikings have sustained. It's just unbelievable. Yeah, I can't put words
• 19:29
  to the fact that we're sitting here, December thirteenth talking about the Vikings making
• 19:34
  the playoffs after everything that's happened, and all going back to something we said
• 19:38
  many many weeks ago, probably at the height of that one and four start.
• 19:44
  I don't remember who said it, maybe it was just we both kind
• 19:47
  of came up with it, but we said, if the Vikings end up
• 19:49
  making the playoffs after this, they're going to be a dangerous team because that
• 19:53
  means they have fought, scratched and clawed their way in and they're super dangerous.
• 20:00
  Yeah, maybe they won't be the best team to enter the playoffs,
• 20:03
  but they'll be a hard, fighting, you know, road hard team,
• 20:10
  and they're not going to be easy to beat. No team is easy to
• 20:12
  beat, but for this team that's basically been in playoff modes since week six,
• 20:17
  Like, yeah, it's gonna be tough for anybody to beat the Vikings.
• 20:22
  Yeah that's exciting. Yeah, that feels really good as a Vikings fan.
• 20:26
  Moving forward. Yep, another game this week, Yeah at Cincinnati,
• 20:30
  going up against former Viking Jake Browning. Yep, who, I don't know.
• 20:36
  That's a good story. That feels like a Cinderella story for him to
• 20:38
  get the opportunity and then excel, and you know, he's just putting tape
• 20:44
  out for other teams too, because the Begels aren't going to go away from
• 20:47
  Joe Brow from Burrow ever. But maybe another team will want Browning, you
• 20:52
  never know, so battle of the backups though, Browning and Mullins would be
• 20:57
  interesting to watch. And hopefully it sounds like Justin Jefferson will be back.
• 21:02
  He went to the hospital apparently in Las Vegas. Yeah, and the stuff
• 21:07
  I've seen from that and about that made it feel like it was very cautious.
• 21:12
  They wanted to do everything right, like he got this super valuable asset
• 21:18
  and you want to make sure it's perfect, Like, especially after losing him
• 21:22
  for seven six weeks before, you're gonna make sure it's okay because you can't
• 21:26
  risk can't risk it with anybody, but especially the best player in the league.
• 21:32
  So hopefully he's good. Apparently he did a charity thing yesterday the day
• 21:37
  before. A kid asked him like, hey, you're gonna play Saturday,
• 21:40
  and he didn't even question it, like yeah, for sure, yep.
• 21:42
  And then he confirmed that in his press conference later. But it was kind
• 21:47
  of fun that he kind of spilled the beans to a little kid while he's
• 21:51
  doing a charity thing. Yeah, that's before the press conference. I hope
• 21:55
  that kid is the coolest kid in school now and all his friends love him
• 21:59
  for asking that question. But yeah. Yeah, we all love him for
• 22:03
  asking that question, because at eight o'clock this morning, we knew, yep,
• 22:06
  before his afternoon press conference that he was going to be playing on Saturday.
• 22:10
  So yep. And the Bengals probably like it too. Now they have
• 22:11
  a little bit more time to prepare because even if he's seventy percent, seventy
• 22:17
  percent of Justin Jefferson is still better than but just about anybody else in the
• 22:21
  league on the other side of the ball, though, his buddy Jamar Chase
• 22:23
  is probably at least at this point questionable. Yeah, you have the injury
• 22:30
  Yeah, we've got the injury report. Let's see. To be honest,
• 22:33
  I haven't even paid attention to the Bengals injury report. Jamar Chase, he's
• 22:37
  got an ankle injury. He didn't participate in practice on Tuesday, but today
• 22:41
  Wednesday he was limited. Okay, whatever that means. On Wednesday, the
• 22:47
  Bengals have something like seven or eight players on the injury report, and they're
• 22:51
  all either limited or full with the exception of I'm gonna butcher this Joe Backy,
• 22:59
  a linebacker who did not participate today. But I mean even Jake Browning
• 23:03
  with a right four arm injury. He was a full participant yesterday and today,
• 23:07
  but he's on there too, so interesting something to keep in mind.
• 23:11
  Is he a righty Does he throw with his right arm? I don't know,
• 23:15
  that'd be an interesting thing to look at. Who else is on there
• 23:18
  for the Vikings I know on there still. Yeah, so as full participants
• 23:22
  on Wednesday, there was only one who landed on the injury report, and
• 23:26
  that was ed Ingram. So he went from limited yesterday to full today.
• 23:30
  So that's probably good news that I mean, especially when you have Nick Mullen's,
• 23:36
  you know, backup quarterback and Alex Madison who has yet to practice this
• 23:41
  week with an ankle injury. Yeah, it's it's good to think about the
• 23:45
  idea of getting at Ingram back. I think that line overall held up.
• 23:51
  Okay, it's just quarterback play and drops really severely hurt the Vikings in the
• 23:57
  Raiders game. One of the keys for Mullins. I don't know if you
• 24:02
  have this written down on our notes or not, but he's gonna have to
• 24:04
  get the ball out quickly, and I think that's really that was one of
• 24:08
  the downfalls of Dobbs was he just held onto the ball way too long.
• 24:15
  Yep. And I think right there is the experience is going to help with
• 24:18
  Mullins. And as Dustin Baker has said, Mullens in a great way is
• 24:25
  seventy percent of just a little junior Kirk. Yeah, of Kirk Cousins.
• 24:30
  So yeah, he won't be as mobile, but he knows the offense way
• 24:33
  better. In theory, you'd think Koc is just going to be like all
• 24:37
  the pressure, most of the pressure is off. We can just go back
• 24:41
  to normal play calling. We don't have to trains like plays in the huddle
• 24:44
  and up to the up to the center. So hopefully that is kind of
• 24:48
  not as much of a factor. But yeah, getting the ball out whether
• 24:52
  all the offensive line is healthy or not. Brian O'Neil, with an ankle
• 24:56
  injury, has not participated yet this week. He's another big one literally,
• 25:03
  but he when he went out in the Raiders game, he couldn't put any
• 25:06
  pressure on his ankle. And yeah, I don't know. I mean I
• 25:11
  feel like because who went in for him? Was it Quessenberry that went in
• 25:15
  for him? No brand new planned for Ingram yeh, yep. And then
• 25:19
  there was a few plays, not much, but a few plays where Reisner
• 25:22
  was out as well, so that line was getting pretty thin there for a
• 25:26
  minute, and then Reisner did come back and played pretty well. I think
• 25:32
  there's still a ticking time bomb with brad Berry in his back. Maybe he'll
• 25:36
  never miss a game for his back ever again, or it could be two
• 25:40
  plays into any given game. I mean, you never know when that's going
• 25:42
  to tweak up again. You got to think that he's still continuing to work
• 25:45
  with the trainers and the Viking staff to continue to get that back to full
• 25:52
  health. And at the center more than any other position, puts a lot
• 25:57
  of stress on their back. I mean, in and over the ball every
• 26:00
  play. So and then if you're in a lot of plays are nowadays out
• 26:07
  of the shotgun. I mean you're now then you know, exerting force on
• 26:11
  the ball. You're not just passing it, you're literally like throwing it.
• 26:17
  I'm not articulating that very well, but you know what I'm saying, and
• 26:18
  if you know football, you know what I'm saying. But like I don't
• 26:22
  know, there's there's a lot of pressure there. So yeah, there's something
• 26:25
  to that. And that's something that I hadn't thought of in a long time
• 26:27
  because it just seems like, well, he's back, he's good. Hopefully
• 26:30
  that's the case. But yeah, and he hasn't to my knowledge, Bradbury
• 26:36
  hasn't even been on the injury report for many weeks now, so hopefully he's
• 26:40
  behind that and playing fully healthy this week. But other than that, the
• 26:45
  Vikings injury report got Alex Madison with an ankle, Jalen Naylor, who I
• 26:49
  think is in the concussion protocol, he hasn't practiced yet this week, and
• 26:55
  then Dalton Riisner I said he came back, but he is on the report
• 26:57
  with his ankle injury. He's been limited yesterday and today. And then Chris
• 27:02
  Reid he was healthy yesterday on Tuesday, but he was out today with it
• 27:07
  just says illness. So Justin Jefferson and he's been limited. He'll probably be
• 27:11
  limited all week, but I expect him to be tagged with like a probable
• 27:17
  or I don't even know if probable is a tag that you use anymore.
• 27:19
  Yeah, I don't know, but I I everything I'm seeing, Justin Jefferson
• 27:25
  should play. And he's probably the biggest name in the league, let alone
• 27:27
  on the Vikings injury report, so well, we certainly need him and we
• 27:33
  need Mullins to find him and find him often. We need these other guys,
• 27:38
  Addison Hawkinson, We need them to get their hands figured out so they
• 27:42
  can secure some catches. Even some of those other guys, Brandon Powell and
• 27:48
  you know CAJKJ forget about him. He's had such a quiet year. Well
• 27:53
  he's up and down. He'll be really down and then have a decent game
• 27:57
  and then just kind of been normal for a little bit and then down and
• 28:00
  then you know, last week, I think he was down for a little
• 28:03
  bit. So yeah, so hopefully those weapons can kind of wake up and
• 28:10
  we can kind of really revitalize our offense, especially after an abysmal three nothing
• 28:15
  win, which I'm kind of wiping away a little bit. I'm I'm thinking
• 28:19
  it looks a lot better with JJ, with a few of those O linemen
• 28:23
  that are a little bit healthier than they were last week, and with a
• 28:27
  more confident I think Mullens makes KOC a more confident coach. I think it
• 28:33
  got to the point with Dobbs that we just can't take him out. He's
• 28:36
  a hot hand. And maybe the other guys they were not injured anymore,
• 28:40
  but maybe they weren't a hundred percent, yet I don't know. I think
• 28:42
  it takes some pressure off of KOC to have a guy like Mullens who his
• 28:47
  play style is very Kirk Cousins like, not that he is as good,
• 28:51
  but yeah, I think it. I think it's kind of a reset button
• 28:53
  in a good way. I think Mullins will breathe a lot of life,
• 28:56
  a lot of b d N into this offense, and it'll be pretty exciting.
• 29:03
  That will be exciting, and hopefully the results at the end of Saturday,
• 29:07
  because the game is Saturday this week, hopefully the result is a win
• 29:11
  for the Vikings and that will keep them on track for their playoff hopes.
• 29:15
  And I think the rest of the AFC is cheering for the Vikings too,
• 29:19
  because if the Vikings win, I think it improves not a ton, but
• 29:23
  it improves slightly other teams' chances at making the playoffs. So we'll just have
• 29:30
  to wait and see, and we'll keep monitoring that injury report and hopefully some
• 29:36
  of those guys, like I think re Reisner and O'Neill are two that we'll
• 29:41
  definitely want to watch, and you know, hopefully they can be back and
• 29:45
  healthy and playing on Saturday. I agree. Yeah, So where can people
• 29:51
  reach out to us EEV if they want to give us their thoughts and opinions
• 29:55
  or if they want a sticker. Oh yeah, we've got some new stickers.
• 30:00
  The stickers. The new stickers actually came to my door when we were
• 30:03
  live streaming the Vikings Raiders game this last week, so we showed those on
• 30:08
  air. I don't have them with me right now, but if you want
• 30:11
  a sticker reach out to us, the best way to do that would be
• 30:17
  an email The School Hop at gmail dot com, so you can shoot us
• 30:22
  an email there. But we're pretty much everywhere in terms of social media.
• 30:27
  You might be watching us on YouTube right now, We're on TikTok. We've
• 30:32
  been having some fun with different things on TikTok. We're pretty active on Twitter.
• 30:36
  You do a lot of stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, any
• 30:41
  of those places. Just search for the School Hop and you'll find us.
• 30:45
  Pretty much guaranteed to find us. And if you want a quick way to
• 30:48
  access all of our platforms, just go to www dot Theschoolhop dot com and
• 30:53
  all of our social links are right there at the top of our homepage yep.
• 30:57
  And you can also find every episode if you go to the podcast episode
• 31:03
  page, you'll actually be able to see a little picture of each episode,
• 31:08
  as well as the beer that we featured in each episode with links to the
• 31:14
  breweries. And yeah, it's been a lot of fun to promote some good
• 31:18
  Iowa beer on the show. So and this one, this one's pretty good.
• 31:22
  I mean we've only been talking for about a half hour here, so
• 31:26
  we're not all the way through this. But before we leave tonight, and
• 31:30
  once we get through some of the editing and stuff, we'll have these bad
• 31:33
  boys that yeah, go on, they'll be done. It's fair to say
• 31:37
  you like this this worldwide days. Yeah, for sure, I've I've had
• 31:41
  this before. In fact, I think I could be wrong, but I'm
• 31:45
  pretty sure I lived in the Waterloo Cedar Falls area when they came out with
• 31:51
  this beer. Nice, so I can maybe have a little bit of a
• 31:53
  claim to fame that I was probably one of the first to try it before
• 31:59
  it was can and distributed. So yeah, I've had it before. It's
• 32:04
  a really good beer, just a solid hazy ipa. So yeah, yeah,
• 32:07
  I enjoyed a lot too. Thank you very much, Single Speed for
• 32:10
  making such a wonderful hazy IPA. This is awesome. Cool. All right,
• 32:15
  Well we're going to school and get out of here and we're going to
• 32:17
  get you over to that interview with Dustin Baker. We hope you enjoy.
• 32:22
  Yeah, all right, till next time school school. So if you're okay
• 32:25
  with the Dustin, I thought for our listeners who I don't know how it
• 32:29
  would be possible, but if we have any listeners that don't know who you
• 32:31
  are, I thought we'd give a little brief introduction for you. We've got
• 32:37
  Dustin Baker here, and I was just going to read your whole bio from
• 32:40
  the Vikings Territory, but that makes me feel a little cheesy, so I'll
• 32:44
  kind of give a highlight from that paragraph. You graduated from the U the
• 32:49
  University of Minnesota, No. Seven. You're an editor for Vikings Territory,
• 32:52
  which is pretty awesome. And how kind of I first found you was you
• 32:58
  host a podcast with former Viking Bryant McKinney and a couple other people, the
• 33:04
  Believe In Viking Show. That's a weekly podcast every Wednesday, right, and
• 33:10
  you not terribly long ago you started doing a bunch of stuff on YouTube as
• 33:15
  well as other stuff. But one thing I find fascinating. Is pretty sure
• 33:21
  you switched to having this whole talking about the Vikings and sports in general to
• 33:24
  being your whole career. So that's pretty cool. So again, welcome on,
• 33:29
  thanks for coming. Hope we have a good time. Absolutely. Yeah.
• 33:34
  While I did go to the University of Minnesota and I got two degrees
• 33:36
  there, one of political science, one in history. And while I could
• 33:38
  still use those down the line, when you have those two majors, all
• 33:42
  you do is write. You write blue book tests and then you write papers
• 33:45
  and that's really all you're graded on. So thankfully I was trained pretty well
• 33:49
  I think as a writer there. And then yeah, just through a series
• 33:52
  of accidents in twenty twenty, turned into a writing gig and yeah, now
• 33:57
  it's full time. All I do between between family life and then recreation and
• 34:01
  work is Vikings football. Does that Does that get old? Ever? Does
• 34:06
  it ever get like? No, I don't want to deal with the Viking
• 34:08
  No, not really. There are there are stretches in June and July when
• 34:14
  it's dry and you're searching for content to you know, keep keep busy.
• 34:19
  That gets a little like tedious. But no, I would say when they
• 34:24
  when they lose. You take it with maybe a little bit more grain of
• 34:28
  salt because you know this is your job and you can't act like a four
• 34:30
  year old. Uh, And so there's there's a little bit of maturity on
• 34:35
  the fly there, but no, every day I wake up and it's like,
• 34:38
  what can I tweet today? What can I write? And that's that's
• 34:42
  the beauty of this. And I urge people to, you know, monetize
• 34:45
  your hobbies if you can, because if you work doing something that you're obsessed
• 34:49
  with like this, you don't even know. You never feel like you're working.
• 34:52
  I I probably work on Viking stuff like eighty hours a week, but
• 34:55
  it never, never, for a second, feels like I'm working. Yeah,
• 35:00
  that's awesome. Evan and I recently over the summer we started the school
• 35:05
  hop and yeah, everything we've done for the podcast, we're still growing,
• 35:09
  we're still at the first step of everything. But everything we've done there's been
• 35:13
  a lot of hard work, but it's really been a lot of fun.
• 35:16
  And just even once we get one more follower, it always feels great,
• 35:20
  and one more TikTok view, it feels awesome and it is kind of a
• 35:24
  good journey, but it has been a trying season to start this style too.
• 35:31
  Yeah, I don't know that I want my wife to hear what you
• 35:34
  just said, because she might kind of roll her eyes and kind of,
• 35:37
  you know, not believe that this could actually become something, which I think
• 35:42
  what Austin and I both want. So, Yeah, the Internet is the
• 35:46
  wild West if you know how to harness it, monetize it, if you
• 35:51
  get familiar with SEO optimization. Yeah, it's it's kind of like that meme
• 35:54
  where you know the YouTuber eight year older who makes like ten times as much,
• 36:00
  like what that would that meme is if you know the crevices of the
• 36:01
  Internet to monetize a website. Yeah, there's a lot of money to be
• 36:06
  had, and thankfully I got connected with a guy about three or four years
• 36:08
  ago that knew how to do that. That's what I've been doing ever since.
• 36:12
  It's awesome. Well, as a fan of yours, I hope you
• 36:15
  keep going and I hope you're as successful as you deserve to be. Oh,
• 36:19
  thank you, keep it, keep it going. So I will well
• 36:23
  to kind of tear everything down if nobody, if people don't know who you
• 36:27
  are, kind of want to ask like, how did you become a Vikings
• 36:30
  fan. 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. It was
• 36:37
  quasi geological. So when I started off getting into sports, the Minnesota Twins
• 36:43
  got me into sports. I was born in Sue Fall, South Dakota,
• 36:45
  so my mom was like a Sideways Twins fan. If she had to watch
• 36:47
  baseball, she cheered for the Twins. The nineteen ninety one World Series got
• 36:52
  me hooked on sports forever, Like the moment Kirby Pucket hit that home run
• 36:55
  forever, like something inside my body like jumped inside, and I was like,
• 36:59
  the TV can make me do that. I'm hooked. And then I
• 37:01
  played basketball. That's my number one passion. I played basketball all the way
• 37:06
  through high school and then football was always in the backdrop, but was always
• 37:08
  the most fun to watch. My stepdad was from Illinois, so he liked
• 37:13
  the Bears. I liked Randall Cunningham with the Eagles, and then we moved
• 37:16
  to Houston, Texas in nineteen ninety four, right at the end of the
• 37:21
  Warren Moon era when they were really bad with guys like Billy Joe Tolliver,
• 37:24
  and Cody Carlson, and we had season tickets because my stepdad worked at a
• 37:29
  hospital and we got to go to these miserable two and fourteen seasons and just
• 37:31
  go watch and play like clowns. Then three years later, my stepdad interviewed
• 37:37
  for got a job in Minneapolis, and at that time the housing market,
• 37:40
  it took us like a year to sell our house in Houston. But because
• 37:45
  I was moving to Minneapolis, my friends Oilers fans already liked the Vikings because
• 37:50
  that's where Warren Moon went and they were like, hey, that's so,
• 37:52
  that's so cool man, You're going to Minneapolis. And I was like,
• 37:55
  yeah, so, and so I was like, well, you know,
• 37:58
  the Vikings. That gives me cover. I'm gonna be in there. And
• 38:00
  I got there in nineteen ninety seven. They made the postseason, an underrated
• 38:04
  playoff game against the Giants that year, and then Moss showed up and he
• 38:07
  hooked me for life. And my mom had also, you know, being
• 38:12
  reared in Sioux Fall, South Dakota, she'd liked the Vikings, but they
• 38:15
  always got on her nerves when she was a kid, they'd always lose Super
• 38:19
  Bowls, So she like when, yeah, when she'd watch football, she'd
• 38:22
  be like, they're gonna break your heart. But there, you know,
• 38:23
  we still watch them, and so it was just a natural fit. Randy
• 38:27
  Moss I would credit everything. He was the one that really hooked me,
• 38:30
  and yeah, I have never deviated. I mean there have been years like
• 38:34
  twenty eleven where it was easy to have like a second team like the Patriots,
• 38:37
  to latch onto because that was part of their dynastic run. But yeah,
• 38:42
  it's always been Vikings front and center since nineteen ninety six. For me,
• 38:45
  that's kind of when I pressed the button. And so these oilers suck.
• 38:49
  My friends like Warren Moon, I'm moving to Minneapolis, Let's do the
• 38:52
  Vikings. There you go. Is that easy transition for you? Yeah?
• 38:57
  Well, kind of to move on to that transition a little bit. Evan
• 39:02
  and I were both dads. I believe your dad too. And my kids
• 39:07
  they're starting to get to the age where they're watching the games with me and
• 39:10
  they're starting to get a little involved in these games. I have a rule
• 39:15
  in my house. At any time the Vikings win, we have ice cream.
• 39:17
  We have victory ice cream for a Vikings win. We've had less ice
• 39:22
  cream this year than we did last year. But to focus on you a
• 39:27
  little bit, have you ever felt a little bad by entering your kids into
• 39:31
  this fandom a little bit? No, I haven't. I mean, it's
• 39:37
  certainly crossed my mind. But the last time there was genuine heartbreak. I
• 39:40
  mean, my son wasn't even born yet. My daughter hasn't shown any interest
• 39:45
  in football, but my son sure has. We got season tickets when the
• 39:49
  US Bank Stadium opened, two of them, and then last year twenty twenty
• 39:52
  two, Week one rolled around, my son's like, hey, are we
• 39:55
  going to the game? And I was like, well, you're not.
• 39:58
  We only got two tickets, figured out a way where he could come.
• 40:00
  I bought some other tickets at you know, premium value, and then the
• 40:04
  second game rolled around, he was like, so what time do we leave?
• 40:06
  And I was like, you want to go again? So we finnaggled
• 40:09
  ways to get it done last year, and then over the offseason I bought
• 40:13
  another batch of four season tickets, so now I have six altogether. And
• 40:15
  yeah, my kid for the rest of his life can go to Vikings football
• 40:19
  game so long as he wants to the way that I combat, how could
• 40:22
  you do this to your kid? You know? The sorrow is this dude
• 40:25
  is seven years old. He's going to be alive for seventy five more years.
• 40:29
  They're going to win a Super Bowl in the next seventy five years.
• 40:32
  If the Cubs can do it, by god, the Vikings will do it.
• 40:36
  So yeah, he's going to have to go through the heartbreak. That's
• 40:37
  fine. But I'll teach him like I did early on inadvertently, almost twenty
• 40:43
  years ago, I picked Lebron James on the draft night as my guy in
• 40:46
  basketball, and so that always hedged my sports fandom, like when I know
• 40:51
  the Vikings a gonna let me down, at least I got Lebron to go
• 40:53
  from there, so I'll teach him how to pick somebody from a different sport
• 40:57
  when he gets there to latch onto. But no, it's all positive memories.
• 41:00
  I know the Vikings are gonna let me down from time to time.
• 41:04
  You could feel it in your bones when it's about to happen. But no,
• 41:07
  it would be like it would be the ultimate betrayal. If I said,
• 41:09
  you know what saw and I don't want you to have to go with
• 41:12
  this, go cheer for the Texans or something. There's no way I would
• 41:15
  do that. And it's I hope that when I'm old or when I'm dead,
• 41:19
  he always remembers like these first seven years that we forged. Yeah,
• 41:22
  that'll be awesome for him. That's crazy. He's gotten to more games than
• 41:27
  I have, I think probably, Yeah, all right, what else we
• 41:34
  got here? Evan? You yet, what do you got of? So
• 41:38
  I think we've already kind of touched on this, but Austin and I are
• 41:43
  both interested in kind of making a career out of or not even just a
• 41:49
  career, but even just a side hustle out of talking about the vikings.
• 41:52
  It's something that our friendship has formed around. And and I have known each
• 42:00
  other since we were ten years old, and now we're in our thirties and
• 42:06
  we've gone to middle school together, we've gone to high school together, we've
• 42:08
  gone to college together, we were in each other's weddings, and the vikings
• 42:13
  have always just kind of seemed to be revolving around our friendship. And now
• 42:20
  that we've started this podcast, we've had a lot of fun with it.
• 42:22
  We've enjoyed it. Tell us about your experience just kind of again, we've
• 42:29
  touched on this a little bit, but getting into talking about the Vikings and
• 42:34
  making this more than just a hobby or a side hustle, but making it
• 42:38
  more of a job. Sure. So, like I said at the top
• 42:42
  of the show, I've always, since being a youngster and then high school
• 42:46
  and certainly college, been what I think is a decent writer. It's always
• 42:50
  just been a natural tool that I've had, but it was never front and
• 42:53
  center. It was like my wife knew, my mom knew, like,
• 42:57
  oh, we can need something written, just have Dust do it. He's
• 42:59
  awome at it. And I always like, well, yeah, cool,
• 43:00
  I'll do that. That's easy. I can have something written in a heartbeat,
• 43:04
  and that's It was always at my disposal. But I was like,
• 43:07
  you know, I from a very young age, at like age nineteen,
• 43:10
  I was a manager at Sears, and like every step of the way,
• 43:15
  I just became a manager somewhere else. So I ultimately settle on project management.
• 43:19
  But I always had the arder to write. And in twenty twenty,
• 43:24
  let's see the Viking Age that's a fan sided website. I started writing for
• 43:30
  them, which I thought was going to be that I sent. I had
• 43:34
  something to say about Stefan Diggs leaving the Vikings, and I think it was
• 43:37
  something about how that didn't have to be the end of the world for the
• 43:39
  Vikings and I sent that to them and I thought that would be like my
• 43:44
  thumb print on the Internet forever if they published that, and they did,
• 43:47
  and then it turned out they were like, yeah, where's your W two
• 43:51
  and all this, and I was like, oh, I'm need to get
• 43:52
  paid, Like I just want to I just want to get that out there.
• 43:54
  I think it's cool. And they're like, no, we want you
• 43:57
  to write more, and so I started doing that. I was only there
• 44:00
  for a few months. A guy named Joe Johnson, who founded purpleptsd dot
• 44:05
  com and bought Vikings Territory. He threw me this godfather offer in late summer
• 44:10
  twenty twenty and said, if you leave that other website in the dust.
• 44:14
  He's like, I'll give you a seventy five percent split of whatever you write,
• 44:16
  you can keep it. And I was like, I was like that
• 44:20
  sounds way too that's not right, is it, and he yeah, he
• 44:23
  backed. Unfortunately, Joe passed away in the summer of twenty twenty one.
• 44:28
  There was like a freak thing. He was my age and his family wanted
• 44:32
  to keep the site going. And my name was all over the place on
• 44:36
  the site. So we've we've continued that relationship. So yeah, it was
• 44:39
  always a bunch of happy accidents that got me to the next step. Right
• 44:45
  when I started writing at Vikings Territory, I got a message from the Believe
• 44:49
  Network on Twitter that said, we're looking for somebody to do a host with
• 44:52
  Brian McKinnie and I thought I was so new to the whole thing. I
• 44:55
  was like, this is gotta be a catfish thing or something. I completely
• 44:59
  thought it would being duped and I felt him out and then eventually I sat
• 45:02
  down on a Zoom call with Bryan McKinney right in the middle of the pandemic,
• 45:06
  and yeah, it was like, you know, I felt like a
• 45:07
  little kids and so yeah, we've been doing that show for three and a
• 45:10
  half years. I started the YouTube thing when I went full time Vikings Content
• 45:15
  because I was like, you know what, I've got their I've got their
• 45:19
  eyeballs from writing, I've got their ears in a podcast. I need a
• 45:22
  video arm And that's just a forum where I can go in and even if
• 45:24
  I'm by myself, I can just get on and say, hey, three
• 45:27
  nothing is a win, is a win. You know, I can say
• 45:30
  whatever I want there and get that out there. Yeah, I got really
• 45:34
  lucky that Joe Johnson and I had that relationship. And yeah, his like
• 45:38
  he wasn't. He died way too prematurely and I miss him dearly. But
• 45:43
  he's the one that really opened the door for He knew how to make a
• 45:45
  website profitable and he taught me how to do that. And yeah, it's
• 45:50
  it's through all. I write all the time, from the time I dropped
• 45:52
  my kids off at school to the time I sign on with guys like you
• 45:55
  in the evening. I write all day and it's like that mass production.
• 46:00
  That's kind of the money maker if you're like pumping content out constantly. So
• 46:05
  yeah, I love every minute of it. There's people that have to deactivate
• 46:07
  their accounts on Twitter because it gets to ruckus. I love every second of
• 46:10
  it, even the trolls. Yeah, I'm always excited to start a new
• 46:15
  day, even when the Vikings have lost. It's always interesting. I haven't
• 46:19
  what I haven't encounter is a true blue bad Viking season. Eventually that will
• 46:23
  happen and I'll have to see how life goes. I'm sure it won't be
• 46:27
  fun. But yeah, that's my little journey. Well that's exciting. Kind
• 46:32
  of depend on one thing. I feel like, if somebody emailed me and
• 46:36
  said, hey, we want you to do something regular with a former Viking,
• 46:40
  I feel like one of the crazier former Vikings for that to be would
• 46:45
  be Bryan McKinney. He just seems like he's got like that personality and that
• 46:50
  like almost off the ball stuff that it's got to be a little interesting,
• 46:54
  like gotta be exciting and something you'd never expect, right, And it's mainly
• 47:00
  because he knows everybody. If that if there is a football player who went
• 47:05
  to University of Mine Miami, Bryant knows him and then through network I can
• 47:08
  name drop. One time, I think I told him casually, I'd be
• 47:12
  like, yeah, it'd be really cool to have Randy Moss on when we
• 47:14
  get up and run, and he was like, yeah, I'll message him
• 47:15
  and see if he's available next week. And I was floored. I was
• 47:17
  like what. And so you have to be careful what you say abround him
• 47:21
  because then all of a sudden he'll have that guy show up and you're totally
• 47:23
  unprepared because you know he thinks it's funny. Yeah, oh yeah, he'll
• 47:28
  just have Like last week he had Donald Pinn just call in and I'm like,
• 47:30
  all right, yeah that works. A former Viking turned raider turned buccaneer.
• 47:36
  But yeah, he's gotten Yeah, he's got so many stories and he
• 47:42
  knows so many people. I went down to meet him in person for the
• 47:44
  Dolphins Vikings game and I got to sit in one of his friend's suites.
• 47:47
  That was pretty awesome. H One small final story about Bryant is when I
• 47:53
  first met him, I didn't know him and I didn't want to ever bring
• 47:57
  up love Boat because I didn't want it to be awkward. You know,
• 47:59
  if he would be like, yeah, we don't talk about that. I
• 48:00
  never knew how he reacted. I started having Sal Sal Spice Sally Spice on
• 48:05
  the show weekly. That was like one of the first things she did was
• 48:07
  ask him about it, and he loves talking about it. He always was
• 48:12
  just like, hey, that created the wind streak Man. We galvanized around
• 48:15
  that that year. So yeah, I was I was sheepish about love Boat,
• 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 time. You every time
• 48:25
  you interact with him, like ah, this will be the day I asked
• 48:28
  him about it, or like did we just stick in the back of yourn
• 48:30
  It stuck in the back of my mind because I didn't know how a player
• 48:35
  if they thought, oh that was a raw deal. It was just boys
• 48:37
  being boys. And I never really knew him off air. We would text
• 48:43
  every now and then, and so I was like, you know what if
• 48:45
  it comes up naturally, if he brings it up, then of course I'll
• 48:47
  pile on and ask the questions. And I remember the first time I had
• 48:52
  Sally Spice on, she was just like so bryant about that love boat,
• 48:55
  and I was like, oh, here we go, and he had the
• 48:57
  biggest smile on his face, and so yeah, I was. I was
• 49:00
  unjustly shy about it for like four months. And it turns out we basically
• 49:05
  talk about it every other week now in some capacity. Yeah, it is.
• 49:08
  It's a funny topic to hear about tune you guys, the guys on
• 49:13
  the Power Trip on KFA, and they bring that up every once in a
• 49:15
  while. It's just a it's kind of like a mood lightener, you know,
• 49:19
  you just know yeah, that crazy thing that happened. Yeah, so
• 49:23
  you've brought up Twitter, which is another one of the first ways I was
• 49:28
  introduced to you, and I wanted to ask, So, like you,
• 49:31
  you post a lot of like really interesting and kind of off the ball but
• 49:36
  not totally unrelated stats about the vikings. How did you first think to come
• 49:43
  up with that? Is that something you're always thinking about, like random numbers
• 49:45
  or is it just like, oh, this might be interesting and it took
• 49:49
  off. Yeah, that's another marvelous question. When I was about six seven
• 49:52
  years old, I was taught by my mom and dad how to do pretty
• 49:57
  advanced math, so like in kindergarten, three day a multiplication. It always
• 50:00
  clicked with me how numbers worked. And then they saw my love for sports,
• 50:06
  so they started buying me sports almanacs. When I was a kid,
• 50:07
  they had a yearly one and that had every player's batting average in baseball,
• 50:13
  points per game in basketball. So I had to figure out how those people
• 50:16
  got those averages, and so I learned. I didn't even have I didn't
• 50:20
  have the Internet back then, but I figured it out how they did that,
• 50:23
  and then it just transitioned into adulthood. Whenever and this is what I
• 50:28
  do to this day when I watch a Vikings game, And mainly this applies
• 50:31
  to Vikings because I watch every ounce of what they do, and to an
• 50:35
  extent, the Lakers. I watch most Lakers game. You see stuff and
• 50:39
  you can feel it in your bones, Like you know, every team seems
• 50:44
  to make their longest field goal against us, And instead of me just saying
• 50:46
  that, you know in just a big huff huff and puff, I have
• 50:51
  to figure out if that's true. And so I've learned how to manipulate statthead
• 50:54
  dot com pretty much. I mean, the all of the EPA per place.
• 50:59
  I have all of the go tos to figure out. If I have
• 51:01
  a preconceived notion of, like, you know what, it always seems like
• 51:05
  Cousins throws between twenty and twenty five, I want to go see how comparatively
• 51:08
  he does that to the rest of the NFL. So it was an early
• 51:12
  passion for math, which I thought I was pretty good at my mom's catalyst
• 51:16
  of saying, well, hey, this math stuff you like that goes hand
• 51:19
  in hand with this baseball stuff you like. And then once the internet Internet
• 51:22
  was born, I think this era of analytics has given a lot of guys
• 51:27
  like us and gals like us tools that say yeah, here's how you go
• 51:30
  find that out. So when I first got to Twitter, I certainly knew
• 51:32
  how to find your standard volume stats like yards per carry and passing passer rating.
• 51:37
  And then as I became more nuanced, I was like, all right,
• 51:40
  well, you got PFF, which is a decent baseline for how to
• 51:43
  judge a player, and you've got EPA per play, which is glorious.
• 51:45
  So I try to use them all. DVOA is pretty awesome. I try
• 51:49
  to use them all to paint a picture of how the Vikings are or how
• 51:52
  another player is. But at the end of the day, when it comes
• 51:54
  to the Viking stats, usually I can use my eye test to say,
• 51:59
  hey, you know what, on third down it feels like xxx, let
• 52:01
  me go check this out. Oh go figure they ranked twenty seventh or something
• 52:05
  like that. Usually your suspicions confirmed. And I got sick of people just
• 52:10
  regular casual saying like, oh, well, Kirk Cousins is a drink and
• 52:14
  dunker. And I would always say to myself, you know what, I
• 52:15
  don't really see that, So am I right or are they right? I
• 52:19
  go digging 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
• 52:25
  and then just a convenient hobby for numbers as well. Yeah. Well,
• 52:30
  and then in that case too, you present numbers like no, actually,
• 52:34
  Kirk is not just a dink and dunker, and then people come out,
• 52:37
  oh, you're just a Kirk Cousin's apologist, and nothing you say is true.
• 52:43
  You know, he can't win. Really, I've spent I've spent so
• 52:46
  much, so much time in the last five six years trying to figure out
• 52:52
  why that guy is such a lightning rod for criticism. And I mean I
• 52:55
  try, I've tried one million times to take a step back and be like,
• 52:59
  does the guy do I just like him? What's the deal? And
• 53:02
  I always arrived back at the same thing that he's a pretty darn good quarterback,
• 53:07
  a lot like Matthew Stafford. It's just that he's paid to the level
• 53:10
  that we are obsessed with him being in that top crust like one through five,
• 53:15
  and he's just not that good. He's about the the eleventh best quarterback
• 53:20
  on any given Sunday, and throughout the entire season that's usually where he ends
• 53:22
  up whether or not he plays for the Vikings. Again, we're probably gonna
• 53:25
  get into that. I don't know, but yeah, I Kirk Cousins has
• 53:30
  really that really dragged me into the twitters because I got sick of people saying
• 53:32
  that he only got good during garbage time. It's like, that's not true
• 53:37
  at all. He was good in garbage time. He was good in regular
• 53:40
  time. You know. Ultimately, I believe that the Cousin's narrative always comes
• 53:45
  back to money. Oh yeah, absolutely, And it's not it's only gotten
• 53:50
  less and less of a narrative the more other guys gets signed a big contract.
• 53:55
  I'm curious, Dustin, is there a particular stat that you pay more
• 54:01
  attention to, like you you reference pff DVOA, like, is one that
• 54:07
  you gravitate towards more than to like help you kind of decipher what's going on
• 54:13
  with specific players, specific teams things like that. Yeah, it is a
• 54:19
  so PFF I would normally say, you know what, I really like that,
• 54:22
  But then there's certain times where like Rocan Smith will have like a fifty
• 54:27
  one point two and I'll be like, you know what, that is not
• 54:30
  right whatsoever? Like I don't care what this thing says. So there's always
• 54:34
  a caveat with PFF that like, you know, wait a second, that
• 54:37
  that's not that's not completely clearly completely correct. So the ones that I would
• 54:42
  use most, especially evaluating a team, are EPA per Play Ben Baldwin's site,
• 54:46
  which is open source and free, and then DVOA. It's kind of
• 54:51
  weird that they like they were on Football Outsiders and then that just folded and
• 54:54
  now it's his own thing. But I think DVOA. If you combine DVOA
• 54:58
  and EPA per play to evaluate a team, and then EPA per play for
• 55:01
  some of the running backs receivers, that's fair. Yeah, PFF, I
• 55:06
  I don't totally or I certainly don't discredit, but I always get annoyed when
• 55:09
  there's something weird about a PFF score. So yeah, EPA per play is
• 55:14
  probably the future the expected points added per player or per team. And then
• 55:19
  I used DVOA to make sure that EPA per play is you know, behaving.
• 55:23
  Yeah, well on that PFF comment too, wasn't wasn't Dobbs one of
• 55:28
  the higher rated offensive players in the Raiders game. I think I saw something
• 55:32
  about Oh I haven't, I haven't looked at that yet. But those are
• 55:35
  the kind of things that, yeah, make me go what, Yeah,
• 55:38
  I think somebody said that on Twitter that yeah, just kind of highlighted that
• 55:43
  there were a few drops, so his his numbers may look better than it
• 55:46
  actually feels like it. Look, I was true, Yeah, there was
• 55:51
  some crucial drops that he probably wouldn't have got benched if Greg Joseph made that
• 55:53
  first field goal. But I mean, that's it's now it almost feels like,
• 56:00
  well, thank god they eked out the wind because now we got a
• 56:02
  little rejuvenated hope that it's so weird to me that there are some quarterbacks like
• 56:07
  Dobbs where they are so good for a game or two when there's nothing at
• 56:12
  stake, and then you talk yourself into this guy's gonna be a starter guy.
• 56:15
  I mean, come on, look at him, and then within a
• 56:17
  week or within three weeks, he's back to like, oh, that's why
• 56:22
  it's a QB two. Josh Doobbs is the first guy I've ever seen who's
• 56:24
  gotten worse when he started to learn the playbook, more like he doesn't add
• 56:30
  up. I thought it was funny you tweeted pretty early on when Dobbs I
• 56:37
  think it was when he got traded. You said something like, aren't we
• 56:39
  all super excited for the the exciting Mullins, Dobbs haul Hawkers that we all
• 56:45
  had when back in the Bullinger and Hooke Home Dance and stuff. Yeah,
• 56:51
  I could feel that because you we took. We took for granted five and
• 56:54
  a half years of Kirk injury free, even even the people that love Kirk
• 57:00
  put him on a pedestal. We took that for granted, like that was
• 57:02
  always his superpower was durability, and I just knew. I was like,
• 57:07
  we're not going to get away with just having some case Keenum come in and
• 57:10
  do this again. And then you know, Dobbs showed up that first game.
• 57:14
  I was like, oh, maybe maybe there won't be one. Maybe
• 57:15
  I was wrong. But the moment Kirk got hurt, everybody was deflated and
• 57:20
  I looked down. I was like, oh, Mullins is on ir Manion
• 57:22
  is still on this team. Jaron Hall, we have no clue what he's
• 57:25
  going to be. I didn't even know about the Dobbs trade at the time,
• 57:29
  and so, yeah, this is familiar territory. If you've been a
• 57:30
  Viking fan for longer than a decade have an honest to goodness quarterback carousel,
• 57:37
  which used to be pretty normal. Yeah, yeah, I think ever since
• 57:40
  Culpepper it was just a taroucel. After that, Well, we bring up
• 57:46
  Kirk. What do you think happens with him after this season and through the
• 57:52
  rest of his career? Is he a Viking? Is he not? What
• 57:53
  do we want? 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 Kaysiadafha Mensa.
• 58:05
  But the way what I keep going there's two things I going back. I
• 58:07
  keep going back to. It's that Kevin O'Connell and kaysy Afa Mensa, whenever
• 58:12
  they're in front of a microphone, they talk about their love for the guy,
• 58:15
  Like Kevin O'Connell said about a month ago, like, you know how
• 58:17
  I feel about her cousin. He's gonna be a free agent, but we
• 58:21
  hope that works itself out. So that leads me to believe they're going to
• 58:23
  try to bring him back. But then you look at the salary cap and
• 58:27
  you are certifiably going to play Justin Jefferson at least thirty million dollars per year.
• 58:31
  Danil Hunter is going to get at least twenty eight million dollars per year.
• 58:35
  Christian Dearrisol will be eligible this offseason. He's gonna get twenty something.
• 58:39
  Who am I missed to TJ Howkinson just got paid as rich as tight end
• 58:43
  NFL history. All of this is shaping up for a quarterback on a rookie
• 58:46
  contract to glide in. And you have that, you know, almost free
• 58:51
  quarterback for five years because I don't know how you can keep paying all of
• 58:55
  these guys close to maximighty. Now, cousins in theory come back and say,
• 59:00
  you know what, boys, well I'll pay I'll play for twenty five
• 59:01
  million. But he never does that. That's what everybody's asked of him since
• 59:06
  it started to look like the deal was too much in twenty eight, eighteen,
• 59:09
  twenty nineteen. That's one thing about him. He's he's this Kohle's dad
• 59:15
  persona lovable dude with Netflix documentaries. But he's shrewd, or at least his
• 59:19
  people are shrewd. He always gets the guaranteed money. And the final part
• 59:22
  of this, before I deliver an answer, is quazy a dopfamtsa Kevin O'Connell
• 59:25
  came aboard about two years ago. If you're not going to draft a first
• 59:30
  or second round quarterback, now, when are you going to do it?
• 59:34
  Are you really gonna attach your entire apployment to Kirk Cousins. I guess it
• 59:39
  could work like Stafford eventually Pit pay dirt for with the Rams. But it
• 59:44
  feels like you have two young thinkers, offensive minded that have the best wide
• 59:50
  receiver in football. You've got an offense that you've tailor made from heaven for
• 59:53
  a young guy like Jayden Daniels. I would say that because Cousins probably isn't
• 59:59
  going to to take a dinker deal, I would say that this is the
• 1:00:02
  time now to draft bo Nicks, draft Jayde and Daniels, and if you
• 1:00:07
  can get away with it for one more year of Cousins being back at thirty
• 1:00:09
  five, so be it. But I truly believe that he is close to
• 1:00:15
  done with the Vikings. And I mean it's it was five and a half
• 1:00:17
  years. You got to 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 the
• 1:00:24
  same thing over and over and over. So I fully endorse a divorce from
• 1:00:30
  the Cousins era and bring Mullens back, or if you even want to bring
• 1:00:32
  Dobbs back as the patch over guy and then draft your guy the future,
• 1:00:36
  because three years in and you still haven't drafted your quarterback, what do we
• 1:00:39
  do it? Do you think that is interesting? Do you think it's kind
• 1:00:44
  of like a best of both worlds kind of situation where like you bring Cousins
• 1:00:49
  back for a year, you draft your guy of the future and just like
• 1:00:53
  let Kirk kind of pour into the guy underneath him and see what happens after
• 1:00:57
  that. Or is it like, no, so we just we draft the
• 1:01:00
  guy of the future now and move forward, or we just let Kirk go
• 1:01:05
  completely, or we get Kirk for two more years. Let's see, let's
• 1:01:08
  see what can happen in two years. I mean, what do you kind
• 1:01:12
  of foresee happening in the next couple of years that way? So the ideal
• 1:01:15
  scenario to me and what I think would happen is so Jefferson's money probably won't
• 1:01:23
  fully kick in until the twenty twenty five season because he's on that that's somewhat
• 1:01:29
  sizable fifth year rookie option, and then darre Saw's money doesn't kick in until
• 1:01:32
  after that. I think you could get away if you really want to do
• 1:01:36
  this, you can get away with Cousins for a one year extension thirty five
• 1:01:40
  million or if it's got to be thirty eight or whatever. I hope they
• 1:01:44
  wouldn't go higher than forty or forty five for a thirty six year old on
• 1:01:46
  a bad achilles. I think you can do both. You bring Cousins back,
• 1:01:52
  and then you draft, hopefully for me, Jayden Daniels, and then
• 1:01:54
  I mean, there's so many that you'll talk yourselves into between now and April.
• 1:01:59
  I think I think that is probably the best strategy. But I'm I'm
• 1:02:01
  cynical. I really don't want to listen every time Kirk Cousins thills an incomplete
• 1:02:06
  past. U oh, yup, you got to put it in a new
• 1:02:08
  guy because you heal you'll hear that on the first drive of the season,
• 1:02:12
  because people don't have patience in the digital age. But I do predict there's
• 1:02:16
  got to be a hard cut off soon that you the guy who's notorious for
• 1:02:21
  getting guarants teed fat stacks of cash, he's not going to be He can't
• 1:02:24
  fit on this team in the budget anymore. When you have these rest of
• 1:02:29
  these these players who also want there if they have to keep to Neil Hunter
• 1:02:32
  for the next three years, because otherwise you're limping in the off season with
• 1:02:36
  no edge rushers, and that's pathetic. So yeah, I really think that
• 1:02:39
  Kirk is short for this Vikings world. If it's one more year, I
• 1:02:43
  can see that happening as you transition to the first round quarterback, which they
• 1:02:47
  I think they have to draft this year. Yeah, yeah, Dustin,
• 1:02:51
  I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you mentioned Quac and
• 1:02:54
  Koc. They're they're getting to the point that they need to stamp their season,
• 1:03:02
  their careers on a quarterback, And yeah, I don't think Kirk is
• 1:03:07
  the age and price to be that. Correct. Hey, I'm gonna attach
• 1:03:12
  my career to this guy. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a rookie,
• 1:03:15
  whether it's this year, next year, real quick, If there was
• 1:03:19
  ever a season for Kirk to do the team friendly thing, it would be
• 1:03:23
  this upcoming one. And you've got a bad leg. You're gonna be thirty
• 1:03:28
  six. You already know that we're looking to go on to the next guy.
• 1:03:30
  If you want one more hurrad this you come back for twenty eight million
• 1:03:35
  guaranteed, of course, will you do it? I doubt his people would
• 1:03:38
  accept that, but if there was ever an excuse or a case to be
• 1:03:42
  made, it would be this upcoming season to do that. From Kirk standpoint,
• 1:03:46
  do you think that kind of a scenario where he comes back for a
• 1:03:50
  one year could affect any Jefferson contract Because a sense I get is that Jefferson
• 1:03:58
  likes having Kirk quarter and if he even knows, like, Okay, I've
• 1:04:01
  got Kirk one more year, But then what could that affect like what he
• 1:04:05
  and his team would want to do or is it just all money at this
• 1:04:08
  point? Well? It was. This is really funny because I spent what
• 1:04:11
  the first two years hearing that Jefferson couldn't stand Kirk, and I'm like,
• 1:04:15
  really, you caught one hot mic where he's like, throw the ball.
• 1:04:17
  He heard that one time. People will try to start that and area that
• 1:04:20
  was so dumb. Uh. No, Jefferson, We've been told, or
• 1:04:24
  Jefferson's been told that he's going to be a part of the decision making at
• 1:04:28
  quarterback. And I don't think there is any shred of let's say it's Jade
• 1:04:31
  Daniels from LSU. Jefferson's not going to be like, oh, I'm not
• 1:04:34
  playing with that, guys. I mean, that would probably be the best.
• 1:04:38
  If you bring Daniels chilling waiting to take over in twenty twenty five,
• 1:04:42
  bring Cousins back his buddy for one year, that's probably ideal. But I
• 1:04:45
  think that they will do everything they can to keep Jefferson. They've said it.
• 1:04:49
  Every single leader since last January, from from the Wilfs to Quaycy to
• 1:04:55
  Kevin have said they smirk, They're like, yeah, you Knowquy said he
• 1:04:59
  doesn't want to he doesn't want to do the job as a Viking Zoutle manager
• 1:05:01
  if he doesn't have Jefferson on the roster. So it's a no brainer that
• 1:05:04
  Jefferson gets extended on. I think that in this day and age and player
• 1:05:09
  empowerment, that certainly Jefferson will be involved in the decision. So yeah,
• 1:05:13
  maybe it's both, maybe it's Kirk and the next guy, But I don't
• 1:05:15
  think we have to be paranoid that, you know, Jefferson walks if Kirk's
• 1:05:18
  not coming back. We spent a lot of time talking about the quarterback situation
• 1:05:23
  and just kind of what would happen next year? What do you think about
• 1:05:28
  Brian Flores? Where does he end up next year? Does he end up
• 1:05:30
  back with the Vikings? Do the Vikings invest in keeping this guy around?
• 1:05:35
  Obviously the defense has been really, really good, especially this last week pitching
• 1:05:41
  a donut against the Raiders on the road. I think he deserves a chance
• 1:05:46
  to come back. And I think given his history in the league with the
• 1:05:50
  Dolphins as a head coach, I don't know if he's going to be super
• 1:05:57
  open head coaching. I don't know what do you think? So on my
• 1:06:00
  YouTube show way back March April, I reveal the theory a paranoia that I
• 1:06:09
  said, I believe that the Patriots were going to struggle and slump because I
• 1:06:13
  never saw it with Mac Jones, and I believe that there would be a
• 1:06:16
  parting of ways with Bill Belichick. And I thought Brian Flores would turn the
• 1:06:21
  defense around to like fifteenth best and would that would have us all head over
• 1:06:26
  heels excited. And my paranoia was because Flores spent fifteen years with the Patriots
• 1:06:32
  and in my opinion, Belichick was going to probably move on. I thought
• 1:06:36
  the Patriots would be about seven and ten and that would cause the split man.
• 1:06:41
  Flores would be at the top of the list because you don't spend that
• 1:06:44
  much time with an organization and not accrue a good reputation. So I will
• 1:06:49
  maintain probably just stick into my dogg in theory that if Bill Belichick steps away,
• 1:06:55
  I don't think he'd be outright fired. I think they would sex it
• 1:06:58
  up to say, hey, he's he's moving into a consultant role, baby,
• 1:07:01
  and then I believe Flores would apply for that job. I have been
• 1:07:05
  told by some like folks, some insiders that Flora's is already handsomely paid.
• 1:07:11
  That's how they were able to get him, So I think it would be
• 1:07:14
  more a continuation of that relationship, or I guess in theory it could be
• 1:07:18
  a pay raise. But yeah, my fear is that Flores would jump for
• 1:07:23
  the Patriots job. I don't think he's just gonna go coach some more on
• 1:07:26
  team because he needs to be a head coach again. I think he can
• 1:07:29
  afford to be judicious about which team he wants to coach. I don't think
• 1:07:32
  the Steelers would fire Mike Tomlin, but Floraes just spent a year there and
• 1:07:35
  I'm sure that they loved him because 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 ring if
• 1:07:44
  it is a honest to goodness job, that it's not gonna be just a
• 1:07:47
  sham interview, or if he gets the bad vibe that the Dolphins ultimately provide
• 1:07:53
  a for him, and all signs to me point to the Patriots. Now
• 1:07:56
  that's just a theory. I don't have any intel that says that he's leaving.
• 1:07:59
  And if he does bolt, and then you're back to the drawing board.
• 1:08:00
  You got to maybe hope that hope that Deronte Jones has learned a lot
• 1:08:04
  this year. I don't, I don't. I don't know who else.
• 1:08:08
  They would go a lot of the good coordinators like Big Fancio and that a
• 1:08:13
  hero a Giro dude he got scooped last cycle. Ultimately, I'm with the
• 1:08:17
  both of you. I hope Flora stays for another year. But you would
• 1:08:20
  think that they would have been grooming some underling in this past year that says,
• 1:08:25
  hey, we don't want to go back to what it was with that
• 1:08:27
  shell. I think break, but Benba, don't break. That was so
• 1:08:30
  bad. Hopefully they've got some staffer if you will on Floras that they've identified
• 1:08:35
  as, Hey, just be a sponge because if he moves on, you're
• 1:08:39
  going to be the guy. Yeah, coaching waiting sort of. Yeah,
• 1:08:43
  I think he definitely deserves the chance to be ahead coaching, and he's obviously
• 1:08:47
  earlier today in your YouTube video you said you mentioned you'd'd be excited if he
• 1:08:54
  turned everything into like the fifteenth best defense, and all of a sudden he
• 1:08:57
  turned everything into the fifth best defense. Yeah, yeah, you can't.
• 1:09:00
  I mean, that's the whole reason we're still talking about playoff scenarios and why
• 1:09:04
  it even matters of Nick Mullen's plays is because suddenly Kevin O'Connell called it a
• 1:09:10
  championship caliber defense. That we thought this was going to be an offense first
• 1:09:14
  enterprise indefinitely because of Kevin O'Connell and Kirk. But now you're staring down the
• 1:09:17
  barrel of a gun that says, God, if we don't find a competent
• 1:09:20
  quarterback, we're gonna squander this thing, because this could be a defense that
• 1:09:24
  you ride the wave and win a playoff game or two. That's what they
• 1:09:27
  think, because you know, they're coaches and the ultimate competitors. So I
• 1:09:30
  think that's why you know they went and got Josh Dobbs with the flyer that
• 1:09:33
  yeah he can, we can really sculpt him. And that's why this that
• 1:09:36
  last game matters so much, and then these remaining four do is because this
• 1:09:41
  is a defense that if you had I mean, go figure, this happens,
• 1:09:44
  Kirk Cousins gets hurt, and the defense turns back into what it was
• 1:09:46
  in twenty eighteen. That's what it is right now by EPA per play.
• 1:09:49
  It's just a step down from twenty eighteen's defense, which is really good.
• 1:09:54
  Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Hopefully the offense can turn something around,
• 1:09:59
  we can have something magical. I don't know that that'll happen, but that'd
• 1:10:02
  be crazy. Hey, justin what's that? I got one final question for
• 1:10:08
  you, man. There were some rumors flying about, like yesterday the Browns
• 1:10:16
  Flacco down to the practice squad. Today, I saw some rumors about l
• 1:10:20
  Collins possibly getting scooped up by the Vikings. I think that might have been
• 1:10:26
  a little bit of clickbait maybe, But like all of that aside, all
• 1:10:30
  of the like hyped up rumors aside, is there anybody right now out there
• 1:10:34
  that the Vikings could pick up that they could just immensely help their case to
• 1:10:43
  make a playoff push and make a deep run in the playoffs that you know
• 1:10:46
  of that nobody's thinking of right now. I before Wanham decided that he was
• 1:10:54
  good against other teams other than just the Bears, I I had hoped that
• 1:10:58
  they would sign Robert Quinn. He's been a free agent. But that's when
• 1:11:00
  I thought that Wanham was just this third down specialist who was good against fields.
• 1:11:04
  He's turned into a true blue starter, or at least for this stretch
• 1:11:08
  up game. I would have endorsed an extra dresser like Melvin Ingram got scooped
• 1:11:12
  by his old Dolphins. Today, I saw I wrote about that Flocko rumor
• 1:11:15
  that came from a Pittsburgh or a Pittsburgh radio station, where a guy who
• 1:11:19
  has a huge following tweeted, Hey, if the Vikings throw eight million at
• 1:11:23
  Flocko, who says no? Like that would have been a great theory a
• 1:11:27
  month ago. But we are we're too deep in this thing that you have
• 1:11:31
  an incumbent, a guy who was the QB two last year, Nick Mullens
• 1:11:35
  Dobbs just kind of flamed out. Sorry to say, Jared Hall is who
• 1:11:39
  we all wanted because of the rookie upside, and you might as well if
• 1:11:42
  you're not gonna win the Super Bowl. I just don't see them taking a
• 1:11:45
  fly or another quarterback running back. We've already hashed that out. I mean,
• 1:11:48
  you've got Ken or not Kenyon Dre, you have Miles Gaskin on somewhere
• 1:11:53
  on the practice squad. I still think so if you needed one more body,
• 1:11:56
  everything I believe is what it is. Quarterback certainly couldn't come in and
• 1:12:00
  learn a new offense this fast. I did. I was dead serious when
• 1:12:04
  Cousins got hurt that night that they should have called Tom Brady and what's his
• 1:12:09
  name? Scott Zolak, a former Patriots announcer and quarterback, says that the
• 1:12:14
  Vikings called. They did do the diligence to figure out if Brady was interested,
• 1:12:17
  but Brady had to turn down so many offers because there's so many guys
• 1:12:20
  got hurt. I'm sure it's started with the Jets, probably continued with the
• 1:12:25
  Bengals. Yeah, the free agents. If they were going to sign another
• 1:12:28
  free agent, it would have been on the bye week. And I respect
• 1:12:30
  the clickbait for Joe Flacco because you know that would be kind of cool.
• 1:12:33
  But Flacco is going to turn back into a guy. I mean he sucked
• 1:12:36
  with the Broncos, he sucked for the Jets. He had a good game
• 1:12:40
  where he threw three touchdowns and a pick that's not going to continue. Yeah,
• 1:12:45
  Well, for our listeners, I would highly recommend going to check out
• 1:12:47
  that Vikings Territory article you had on Flacco. That was a good read.
• 1:12:51
  You don't just talk about the clickbait and maybe signing Flacco. You kind of
• 1:12:55
  give a reason why he'd be an interesting sign. He can give a little
• 1:12:58
  background on his career, so oh thank you. Yeah. I mean if
• 1:13:02
  you had nothing else, it was if it was Sean Mannion and like Nate
• 1:13:06
  Stanley, Yeah, then you'd say let's go get Flocko. But you've got
• 1:13:10
  Nick Nick Mullens. I think we're gonna end up being like, wow,
• 1:13:14
  this guy. I mean, because he goes down swinging, it's not gonna
• 1:13:16
  be ineptitude, like oh my god, he got twisted around and threw the
• 1:13:20
  ball up in the air like Dobbs would do. No, he's gonna take
• 1:13:23
  a sack like Kirk did. And when he's not doing that, he's gonna
• 1:13:26
  fling it. So I think we'll come to respect what Mullens brings to the
• 1:13:29
  table. And I have this hail Mary theory. You try to find these
• 1:13:33
  little like opiums that maybe those Niners years were just like his developmental phase.
• 1:13:39
  And you know that was a hell of a developmental phase to throw for almost
• 1:13:43
  five thousand yards in the seventeen games. Maybe he's just waiting for his chance
• 1:13:46
  now that he's grown up, you know, maybe maybe this is the chance
• 1:13:50
  that he gets where man he can, he can sling it. The only
• 1:13:54
  real knock on him is a lack of mobility, and he throws some risky
• 1:13:57
  balls which means interceptions. But I think it's kind of a moot point.
• 1:14:01
  If you're like Dobbs and you know it's gonna be a punt in the Raiders
• 1:14:04
  game, you have to try to go with the guy who can throw to
• 1:14:09
  Addison, hopefully, throw to Jefferson, and throw to Hawkinson because that's the
• 1:14:13
  lifeblood of the offense, dinking and dunking or getting him on the move to
• 1:14:17
  run for seven yards. Like with Dobbs, that's not gonna work. You
• 1:14:20
  have all of your red meat and Addison, who hasn't scored since Cousins with
• 1:14:24
  the quarterback Jefferson of course, and Hackinson. So I'm cool with the Mullens
• 1:14:28
  move. Yeah, and you said Mullens too is and I think you mean
• 1:14:31
  it as a compliment. Mullins is about seventy percent of yeah hurt Cousins.
• 1:14:35
  So yeah, Yeah, that's why it's gonna be so familiar to watch is
• 1:14:39
  because a he knows the playbook. The playbook's going to be the same because
• 1:14:43
  he and Cousins are the same human being. It's just Cousins is more cautious
• 1:14:45
  and surgical from what we saw in San Francisco. Mullins is that junior gunslinger.
• 1:14:51
  So yeah, I hope that that's seventy percent. By sundown Saturday night,
• 1:14:56
  We're all like, oh, that's eighty five percent, baby, you
• 1:14:58
  know, we'll take it. Yeah, Well, Dustin, we really appreciate
• 1:15:02
  you coming on. It's been a blast. I've had a lot of fun.
• 1:15:04
  I hope you've had fun too. Maybe maybe you can come on again
• 1:15:09
  in the future. We'd love to have you again. But real quick,
• 1:15:12
  is there anything you want to plug? Just in case? Like I said,
• 1:15:15
  there's one of our listeners out there who doesn't know who you are,
• 1:15:17
  any anything you want to plug really quick. Yeah, on Vikings Territory dot
• 1:15:21
  Com. I write on there daily, and so does my Homieyanic Eckhart.
• 1:15:26
  He's from Germany, and he and I we like to consider ourselves Kobe and
• 1:15:29
  Shaq every day writing the Viking stuff because it just flows so naturally between us.
• 1:15:32
  So yeah, I'd like to plug Yanik. We also have Ted Schwerzler,
• 1:15:36
  he writes for Twins Daily and Vikings Territory. Adam Knew he's from England.
• 1:15:42
  He writes on Vikings Territory. So yeah, every single day we're writing
• 1:15:45
  stuff on there, covering every aspect of the team. And you know,
• 1:15:48
  I mean we're we're objective, we aren't we aren't homers. We're also not
• 1:15:53
  take hot take merchants. We're not just gonna hey, here's what they should
• 1:15:56
  do. It should go get Flogo. You know, we're pretty even keel.
• 1:16:00
  So yeah, I would plug my co workers at the website, especially
• 1:16:02
  on get Khart because that guy he joined us about two years ago and god,
• 1:16:06
  he's good, awesome. Well yeah, yeah, thanks again, we
• 1:16:12
  really appreciate it. Thanks to your family for giving you up for a little
• 1:16:15
  bit so you can go yeah with us. You guys do this whenever you
• 1:16:18
  look down at your calendar and say, you know what, we really want
• 1:16:21
  to guess we don't know how to reach out to you, let me know
• 1:16:24
  because I love coming on shows and you guys really have a cool form here,
• 1:16:28
  the laid back and this of it all. I kid you not.
• 1:16:30
  Whenever you're like, you know what, it's time to talk to Dustin Baker
• 1:16:33
  again, do not hesitate to message me. Okay, all right, we'll
• 1:16:36
  take you up on that. You know we will, all right, you
• 1:16:39
  guys, take it easy. Hey, Vikings fans, Evan here from the
• 1:16:43
  School Hop and we just wanted to say thank you again. It's so much
• 1:16:45
  for listening to the School Hop and we also wanted to take one more opportunity
• 1:16:49
  to let you know that this episode of The School Hop has been brought to
• 1:16:54
  you by Big Top Ventures. If you're considering taking an all inclusive trip to
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