Latest / The Skol Hop / A Disappointing Game, A Disappointing Season, A Busy Offseason for the Minnesota Vikings | TSH Ep. 22

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A Disappointing Game, A Disappointing Season, A Busy Offseason for the Minnesota Vikings | TSH Ep. 22 · The Skol Hop

• 0:29
  All right, Hey Vikings fans, welcome into another episode of the School Hot.
• 0:33
  I'm Evan and I'm Austin. We're's a couple of dudes from Iowa who
• 0:36
  like drinking beer. We like talking about the Viking we do school school.
• 0:42
  So, Evan, you brought the beer tonight. What'd you bring us?
• 0:47
  I brought us the Fire Trucker Brewery out of Anchory, Iowa. There Iowa
• 0:54
  i p A American i P A. I like the Iowa i P A
• 0:59
  Moniker better. So the name of it is Iowa i PA, but it
• 1:03
  looks like there the style is American quote unquote American IPA. Correct, But
• 1:08
  we'll just call it the Iowa IPA because we only drink Iowa beers on this
• 1:11
  show. On the show. Yeah, and uh yeah, I think it's
• 1:15
  a good name for a beer. Six percent. It's an IPA and it's
• 1:19
  just solid. Yeah yeah, I like it a lot. We we did
• 1:23
  our TikTok, which you hopefully you have already seen. I felt like I
• 1:29
  was kind of awkward on it. I don't know, I saw my my
• 1:30
  beardless face on the screen and kind of froze up. But we did our
• 1:34
  TikTok and we did our first taste and we both we both said we liked
• 1:38
  it. Right, Yeah, I liked it a lot. Like the foam
• 1:41
  for mine is finally dying down a few minutes later. I did a hard
• 1:45
  poor I don't know. Somebody needs to teach me how to pour. If
• 1:48
  you have tutorials on how to pour a beer, send them our way school
• 1:52
  Hop at gmail dot com. That's that's fine because I obviously need some help.
• 1:56
  But yeah, I like the beer. I like it a lot.
• 1:59
  It's good and I'll have a more well thought out opinion at the end of
• 2:04
  the episode. Agreed. Yeah, but so far, so good. Yeah,
• 2:08
  all right, Well, today's episode is brought to you by Big Top
• 2:14
  Ventures. To get the best rates on all inclusive resorts in Mexico and Jamaica,
• 2:21
  go ahead and send an email to Big Top Ventures LLC at gmail dot
• 2:25
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• 2:36
  any information you want. They got some really good rates over there. Yeah.
• 2:39
  Thanks Big Top for the sponsorship. We appreciate it. Thank you very
• 2:43
  much. Well. The Vikings season officially ended. It did this last weekend
• 2:49
  almost like put us out on our misery a little bit, kind of.
• 2:52
  I mean, we all knew that the Vikings weren't gonna go anywhere or do
• 2:55
  anything in the playoffs. I mean I was holding now hope. I knew
• 3:00
  if they made it, they probably wouldn't do anything. I had made that
• 3:05
  statement many many, many weeks ago, like in the first quarter of the
• 3:07
  season, saying like, holy cow, with these one and four Vikings,
• 3:12
  if they end up making the playoffs, could be a dangerous team. Look
• 3:15
  out because yeah, they will have fought and clawed their way into the playoffs
• 3:17
  and they'll be scary. But you could just see it even in the faces
• 3:22
  of the coaches and the players on the sidelines the last several weeks, not
• 3:25
  just this week eighteen game, but you could just see the deflated, uninspired
• 3:34
  play. Yeah, that they came out with. It kind of looked like
• 3:38
  what it felt like on the last day of school, you know what I
• 3:42
  mean, Like even if you liked that year of school and you made some
• 3:46
  new friends, you had a good time, like that last day of school
• 3:50
  in like middle school, you know, it's always like, oh, summer
• 3:53
  and I'm ready for the next thing. It kind of felt like that,
• 3:57
  like maybe some of the players were thinking, like oh or Mexico or Jamaica
• 4:01
  through Big Top Ventures, but it kind of felt like they were they knew
• 4:05
  it, and they were just ready to do what they needed to do,
• 4:10
  turn in their books, turn their pads, and go home for the summer,
• 4:15
  which I don't know, kind of feels merciful after how this season beat
• 4:23
  the crap out of the Vikings and Vikings fans. It would have been fun.
• 4:28
  I always, I've said it a million times. I root for my
• 4:30
  team to win. I wanted the playoffs and to even at kickoff, knowing
• 4:34
  like there's a reality where this isn't the last game of the season. However
• 4:40
  small that chance is, like that was still kind of exciting to me.
• 4:44
  But yeah, well, we were texting back and forth like we always do
• 4:47
  if we're not watching the game in person together, and the game clearly was
• 4:55
  not within the Vikings reach even from the get go. I mean, you
• 5:00
  texted me after the first touchdown and you were like, or the first Lions
• 5:03
  touchdown, whelp, that's it. And I was actually at my parents' house.
• 5:08
  I don't think I told you that. But I was helping my dad
• 5:10
  with the project, and I told my dad, I'm like, just give
• 5:14
  me a minute, and I watched the first touchdo I'm like, all right,
• 5:15
  now I can help you. Yeah, Like, we'll keep it on
• 5:18
  in the background. But anyways, we were texting later on in the game.
• 5:23
  We were kind of frustrated because all of the starters, including guys like
• 5:28
  JJ, were still in. Yeah, and at that point, not only
• 5:31
  was that game out of reach, but who was it was the Saints,
• 5:36
  No, the Bucks one of those two? Oh yeah, I had one.
• 5:41
  The Panthers needed to win, or I think the Falcons needed to win,
• 5:48
  and then yeah, the Buccaneers I think needed to lose. There was
• 5:51
  a few scenarios and one of those things the Saints won. Yeah, and
• 5:57
  I won't forget it because there was that infamous sneak at the end. Yeah,
• 6:00
  we can talk about that for a little bit. That's crazy. Yeah,
• 6:03
  that was kind of interesting. But anyways, the playoffs were completely off
• 6:09
  the table at that point. One of the key pieces to the puzzle of
• 6:13
  the Vikings getting into the playoffs had fallen through. It wasn't going to be
• 6:16
  possible. And yet you know, JJ's still out there, and we're thinking,
• 6:21
  like he could get hurt, just like Samuel Laporta did, and oh
• 6:25
  my gosh, you know he's our best player by far, yeah, JJ,
• 6:30
  Yeah. Can you imagine if he would have popped his achilles in the
• 6:32
  poor quarter of that game, Like, oh my gosh, Kevin O'Connell might
• 6:36
  not have a job today if that happened. People are yeah, heads would
• 6:42
  have rolled. That would have been crazy, And thank goodness. I don't
• 6:46
  think any Vikings really got injured. I know some Lions got Samlporto was the
• 6:53
  most notable one, but I wrote down too here that a few others got
• 6:56
  dinged up too, and Dan Campbell kind of got some flack for it.
• 6:59
  Yeah, never pulled anybody out. I think amen aas Saint Brown. Is
• 7:04
  he the bear of the Lion, Saint Brown for the Lions. Yeah,
• 7:08
  he's a lion. Yeah, he kind of a past receiver. He kind
• 7:11
  of got pulled up and was grabbing at his chest a little bit. He
• 7:14
  seemed to be okay. He's probably a little little dinged up, little hurt,
• 7:17
  but not He played the rest of the game. He'll play this weekend.
• 7:20
  I saw a video where he and JJ swapped jerseys after the game,
• 7:25
  and he looked he looked fine. Yeah, but yeah, it's always a
• 7:29
  tough it's a tough call. You know, do you keep your guys in
• 7:31
  do you not? And we know Dan Campbell to be a coach who's an
• 7:35
  ultra competitor and just you know, he's gonna fight till the end no matter
• 7:40
  what. We saw that when he was sixteen, and now last year they
• 7:46
  missed the playoffs. But barely are you saying, like, was he a
• 7:50
  player when they were own sixteen? No, he took over right after they
• 7:54
  were owing sixteen, didn't he The Lions were owned sixteen a while ago.
• 8:00
  Maybe they've been bad for a while, but they've been bad for quite a
• 8:03
  while. Yeah, he may have been on the sixteen were they won in
• 8:07
  fifteen his first season. I don't I don't know. They were bad.
• 8:09
  They didn't win very many games his first season, and then last season they
• 8:13
  kind of turned it around in the last half of the season and I think
• 8:16
  they ended up winning like eight or nine games. Yeah. Well, so
• 8:20
  I've been doing a little bit of a re listen to our podcast. I'm
• 8:24
  like, through the first seven episodes, I'm really conceded that way. I
• 8:28
  like to hear my own voice. But we've been saying since the first episode
• 8:33
  that the Lions were the team to be at the end of the twenty two
• 8:37
  season. It's just the Vikings had already set the foundation for winning the division.
• 8:43
  But yeah, and there was no question they were the best team the
• 8:46
  NFC North this season the twenty three seasons. So yeah, I mean,
• 8:50
  they're a good team now and Campbell seems to be a good coach. But
• 8:54
  yeah, like to your point, he's not one that'll give up. They
• 8:56
  could have been down four hundred points. He's not going to give up for
• 9:01
  better or for worse. And now we get to see the Stafford golf rematch
• 9:09
  in the wild card round of the playoffs, which will be they have the
• 9:13
  Lions and Rams played each other at all since that trade. That's a good
• 9:18
  question. I don't know. I don't know, even like preseason, I
• 9:20
  don't know. I haven't even really paid attention. Yeah, but it'll be
• 9:24
  in Detroit, So Matt Stafford has a chance to win a playoff game at
• 9:28
  Ford Field. I believe for the first time ever. And I am I'm
• 9:33
  written for the I'm written for the Rams. Lions fans have something to be
• 9:39
  happy about and root for this year. But at the end of the day,
• 9:41
  there's still an NFC North rival, and I'm not going to root for
• 9:46
  an NFC North rival just because they're in the same division. And at least
• 9:48
  somebody could know or we are anti NFC North other teams I am at least,
• 9:56
  so go Rams. Well, we can talk about the playoffs in a
• 10:01
  little bit. A few other just quick hitting notes from the lost to the
• 10:07
  Lions this last week. Mullins didn't play terribly. He still got his two
• 10:13
  sisions, two picks. Yeah, but two touchdowns and four yards shy of
• 10:18
  four hundred yards yeah, I mean thirty of forty four. Yeah, I
• 10:22
  mean that's not a terrible game. The ball moves when he's under center.
• 10:28
  The ball gets turned over a lot when he's under center, but it also
• 10:31
  moved down the field a lot. And it's funny because I texted you and
• 10:35
  I was kind of worried about my whole losing the turnover bat or committing a
• 10:41
  turnover. My prediction where I said the Vikings go whole game without turning the
• 10:45
  ball over, they're going to win. That was in jeopardy because the Vikings
• 10:48
  were clearly going to lose and they hadn't turned the ball over yet, and
• 10:50
  I hit send and he literally it's like me hitting send caused the defender to
• 10:58
  catch the ball like it. It was the next play after I hit send
• 11:01
  on that text to you and I don't know if you said it or off,
• 11:05
  I said it right away was like no, never mind. I think
• 11:07
  it was like one of those things where we both texted back at the same
• 11:11
  time. You were like whilp broop and it was like never mind. Yep.
• 11:15
  So anyways, I didn't think he played terribly. He found ways to
• 11:18
  get JJ the ball. It took a while, like it has taken a
• 11:22
  while the last couple of games with JJ back a while, as in like
• 11:26
  he had what eighty nine yards in the first half. Yeah, but like
• 11:31
  even in the first quarter, it was just frustrating, like find justin Jefferson.
• 11:35
  Yeah, he is your best player and they just weren't getting him the
• 11:39
  ball. He JJ finished the game with one hundred and ninety two yards and
• 11:43
  a touchdowns and still eclipsed one thousand yards. Yeah, which is crazy for
• 11:48
  only playing what I think he missed seven Yeah, he played ten games and
• 11:52
  not even ten full games because like his first game back after being on IR
• 11:56
  yep, he had to go to the yard. Yeah, and that was
• 11:58
  in at least the first half, if not their first quarter that Dobbs hung
• 12:03
  him out to dry yep. And I think that whole that whole thing not
• 12:07
  to go off on too much of a tangent. When they took him out
• 12:11
  in center of the yr, it was like, oh, he grabbed his
• 12:13
  side. If he hadn't gotten tackled that way and like grabbed his side when
• 12:18
  he hit the ground, he probably would have been in the next play or
• 12:22
  within the next couple of plays. They just rightfully so are so cautious with
• 12:28
  him, especially in a season that doesn't matter. Why go balls out if
• 12:33
  you're not going to even make the playoffs. Well yeah, and not to
• 12:37
  mention the fact that he's our best player and we want him back and we
• 12:39
  want to see him in purple. But all the armchair quarterbacks out there,
• 12:43
  the keyboard heroes, are whipping up a storm about well, trade JJ,
• 12:48
  get the picks, blah blah blah, let's just burn the whole thing down
• 12:52
  and there whether or not we agree with that, yeah, it is true
• 12:58
  to some extent like, yeah, you want to protect your assets and if
• 13:01
  if he is your greatest asset in terms of talent on the field, then
• 13:05
  yeah, take him to the er if he grabs his side, pull him
• 13:09
  off the field. If he comes up, you know, tell him he
• 13:11
  can't do the fake hamstring pull dance in the end zone anymore, like otherwise
• 13:16
  he's gonna get yanked, Like, yeah, you got to protect your assets
• 13:20
  a little bit. You have to make sure that he's good to go,
• 13:24
  because a we want him on the field and we want him to produce the
• 13:28
  way that he's produced all four years that he's played in Purple. Yeah,
• 13:33
  and if push comes to shove and we have to let him go, then
• 13:39
  we want top dollar sure right, we want you know, the picks or
• 13:45
  whatever we can get in return for I'm gonna pull us on a tangent,
• 13:50
  but please be our bumpers and pull us right back because this is only going
• 13:54
  to take a minute. Let's do it. How freaking awesome is JJ right?
• 14:01
  Like? On the field, absolutely, there's no question the guy's elite.
• 14:05
  He's on a hall of fame path. If he continues what he's doing,
• 14:09
  he will be a Hall of Famer. But off the field, this
• 14:13
  guy, I haven't seen a negative word thought. I mean, we've seen
• 14:20
  negative looks on his face during the Lions game, but that just seems like
• 14:22
  frustration, like, come on, let's win. He's got a he's got
• 14:24
  a very competitive energy on the field, and when things go wrong, you
• 14:28
  see that emotion bubble over. But I attribute that to just being a competitor.
• 14:33
  Yeah, and I think I think some of that is rubbed off onto
• 14:37
  him from Adam Thlen, which kind of makes me like warm and fuzzy inside,
• 14:41
  like huh, so you can pick something up from Adam. But for
• 14:45
  real, JJ, this whole time, he could have been He could have
• 14:50
  done the Stefan Diggs he pulled the hoodie over his face and tied the zip
• 14:54
  ties and like yeah, no, please, this is terrible. He could
• 14:58
  have done that. He could have trade me, send me something, send
• 15:01
  me the Eagles, send me somewhere that I'm gonna win and get the respect
• 15:07
  and get a Taylor Swift and do you know, get a ring. He
• 15:11
  could have He could have done that. He still easily could have And we'll
• 15:16
  never know what happens behind the scenes. Maybe he's terrible, but we've never
• 15:18
  heard anything about that. That guy every time he gets a chance, shows
• 15:24
  that he is a teammate. He loves the Vikings. Never once has he
• 15:30
  publicly said I want out or I want a different quarterback. He's only ever
• 15:35
  been in Kirk's court. He's only ever defended his team. And I mean,
• 15:39
  sure what a week or two ago, he he was very adamant about
• 15:43
  Kirk being the quarterback, almost to the point of making it sound like he
• 15:48
  was throwing shade on other guys, but he never actually did that. Like,
• 15:52
  he seems like such a guy to root for on this team, and
• 15:56
  it's awesome because we've seen deva wide receivers and he's not one of those so
• 16:00
  far. He's everything as a player on the field that Randy Moss was in
• 16:07
  terms of production, yards, touchdowns. I mean, maybe not exactly,
• 16:14
  but I mean he's like, give him a couple more years, he's going
• 16:17
  to be up there in the upper echelon of wide receivers. And he's everything
• 16:22
  off the field that you didn't want Randy to be, you know, So
• 16:26
  like, yeah, he's got that great reputation on and off the field.
• 16:33
  I think to further this tangent because I think it's a great tangent to go
• 16:37
  on. I think there are very few guys in that Vikings locker room right
• 16:45
  now that are that diva cancer. Get them off of our team as soon
• 16:53
  as possible. Type of guys, the loud mouth, the guy that you
• 16:56
  don't want in front of the media, the guy that's just saying I'm only
• 17:00
  here so I won't get fine. And it makes me wonder too, go
• 17:04
  way down this rabbit hole. It makes me wonder some of these thoughts are
• 17:08
  just kind of materializing as we talk. But it makes me wonder if,
• 17:14
  like Marcus Davenport and Lewis Seen are kind of that way and that's why they've
• 17:19
  been shut down and we just it's been like Marcus, who right, But
• 17:26
  we live near Davenport, Is that what you're talking about? But like it's
• 17:32
  been like like darkness for them. It's been like they haven't even been interviewed
• 17:37
  hardly. Yeah, Like it's just been like complete blackout nothing. They're in
• 17:44
  street clothes on the sidelines. I don't even think Marcus Davenport has been traveling
• 17:48
  with the team. And Marcus Davenport could walk into this room right now wearing
• 17:55
  his jersey reach out his hand and say hello, I'm Marcus Davenport, and
• 18:00
  I would not recognize him. I saw a video of him. I don't
• 18:03
  even know what he looked a while ago, so I kind of know what
• 18:06
  he looks like. But yeah, I get it. I mean, he
• 18:08
  is an anomin anonymous face. And I think he only appeared in like four
• 18:11
  games if that, I think really just two for the most part, and
• 18:15
  he had he had a big role in. I think it was the Carolina
• 18:18
  game. That's it. The Viking's paid I think something like thirteen million dollars
• 18:25
  for the Carolina game. Yep. And I think eventually we need to talk
• 18:29
  about the off season. We're still I think we'll transition first to the recapping
• 18:34
  the season, because that's the most present thing in the off season is a
• 18:41
  little bit farther off. But I think it'd be fun to cover both of
• 18:45
  those things in this episode, if we can squeeze all that in. But
• 18:49
  yeah, it's just been really interesting to see that. And I guess that's
• 18:53
  a theory that I've maybe developed since we've been talking that because the culture of
• 18:59
  the team overall is so good and you hear so many good things, perhaps
• 19:03
  they're trying to squash those cancerous type players. Yeah, and you're onto something.
• 19:11
  I think I'd never really thought about it. But maybe the PR department
• 19:15
  or whatever version of quote unquote PR department the Vikings have, maybe they're aware
• 19:21
  of it. Doesn't we don't even need to keep saying one player's name,
• 19:23
  but like, maybe there is a certain player that the media would talk to
• 19:30
  if they had the chance, but the coaches or PR department or whoever,
• 19:33
  it is no, like, no, we're gonna be on Sports Center if
• 19:37
  player X gets in front of microphones because he's a hothead or he's just gonna
• 19:42
  spout out some negative stuff that doesn't even matter. So we're just gonna find
• 19:47
  creative ways to not let him get in front of the media. I don't
• 19:49
  know that that could be could be a thing that's happening. And with the
• 19:53
  way this season went. With as frustrating as this season was, and maybe
• 19:59
  this is a good transit into recapping the season. With as frustrating as this
• 20:03
  season was, nobody really said anything that was like alarming or like, oh,
• 20:11
  they want to get off this team. Oh wow, I can't believe
• 20:15
  they just said that. Like, no bombs were dropped really by players,
• 20:22
  and we've known Kirk Cousins to be a very well spoken, carefully thought out
• 20:30
  communicator, right, And I think, honestly, I think the reason JJ
• 20:36
  is that way is because of Kirk's influence potentially, you know, and we've
• 20:42
  seen other players, like some of them aren't the most articulate, but they're
• 20:48
  football players. They don't have to be. But they're also not speaking out
• 20:53
  of their butts saying stupid stuff that is embarrassing for the rest of the organization
• 20:59
  we've had. I don't think we really have any of those moments. Maybe
• 21:03
  there were, and I'm just not aware of them. Yeah, but we
• 21:06
  follow enough that we would know like, oh, that we would be on
• 21:10
  Sports Center, like, oh, player X for the Vikings, man,
• 21:14
  what a loser. He really hates this team, Like, you know,
• 21:18
  we would hear something about that, right, and to double down on that.
• 21:22
  Through all of that, to throw out this hypothetical idea we just kind
• 21:26
  of formulated We've still seen the likes of Harrison Smith, JJ, Kirk as
• 21:33
  much as possible. Big name Vikings are still being put out in front of
• 21:40
  the media, in front of people and still not saying terrible things. So
• 21:45
  not only could it be possible that PR departments are kind of squashing guys and
• 21:51
  not letting negative guys get in front of people. The players they are letting
• 21:56
  in front of people are big name players. It's not like we're sitting He're
• 22:00
  saying, it's weird that we haven't heard JJ talk for weeks, because we
• 22:03
  have. He's talked every opportunity he gets to, and he says great things.
• 22:07
  So even when he was hurt, he was going out with kJ Osborne
• 22:11
  and doing like shopping sprees with little kids and stuff like that, Like he
• 22:15
  was just doing cool stuff and being a great guy off the field. And
• 22:21
  Harrison Smith to kind of piggyback on that a little bit, Like Harrison Smith
• 22:26
  doesn't sit in front of the camera and just you know, shoot the breeze,
• 22:30
  and he doesn't you know, talk sunshine and rainbows the whole time.
• 22:33
  Like he'll sit there and kind of like wear his heart on his sleeve a
• 22:37
  little bit. And even this last like locker room presser that he did after
• 22:42
  this loss to the Lions, he's kind of like, yeah, I'm frustrated.
• 22:47
  Yeah, and then the way we wanted it to and potentially his career,
• 22:52
  Yeah, and I don't know what's next for me if I retire.
• 22:53
  He I think he was quoted as saying like, if I retire, you
• 22:56
  won't know about it. I want I'm not going to tell you which I
• 23:02
  I mean, if you sat down and asked me right now to say what
• 23:06
  I think, will he retire keep playing? I genuinely don't know, Like
• 23:11
  I really would be both surprised and not surprised by anything that he comes out
• 23:17
  and says, whether he's playing or not, I don't know. Yeah,
• 23:21
  that's it'll be interesting. I mean, I mean, there's there are a
• 23:25
  couple of huge bombs dropped in football world today. Oh yeah today, like
• 23:30
  Pete Carroll getting fired and then that that was less surprising. But Nick Saban,
• 23:36
  that was crazy. I texted in the front of the show Forrest when
• 23:40
  I saw that, because Forrest is a diehard Michigan fan. So I was
• 23:45
  to Michigan by the way, yeah, as even though I'm an Iowa fan,
• 23:48
  I was definitely in that game rooting for for my friend and rooting for
• 23:52
  his team. So I was, I was rooting for Michigan, and I
• 23:56
  texted him, I was like, did you see Nick Saban's retiring? He's
• 23:59
  like yeah, I just saw. I was like I heard, I heard
• 24:03
  Harbaugh's going to Alabama totally just yank in his chain. I haven't actually heard
• 24:07
  anything like that, and I'm sure I'm not the first person to make that
• 24:08
  joke. But he just said ha ha, like like he knows I was
• 24:12
  joking. But that's funny. Crazy, Yeah, Saban, Mike Mike Vrabel
• 24:18
  was today or was that yesterday? Crazy? And who knows? We could
• 24:23
  I mean, could have happened already on Twitter, like Bill Belichick is not
• 24:29
  guaranteed to be a coach next season, like at least not with the Patriots,
• 24:33
  Like that could happen in any moment or not at all. It's kind
• 24:37
  of crazy. Yeah, well, we'll get to the off season and all
• 24:42
  of that, because those things affect the Vikings with a former head coach on
• 24:48
  the coaching staff right now, those coaching vacancies could look somewhat attractive to Brian
• 24:55
  Flores for the right price and the right setup and and all that. But
• 25:00
  Vikings seven and ten overall, yep, on the season, losing record two
• 25:08
  and six at home. That's crazy, which stinks. Yeah that Yeah,
• 25:15
  US Bank is such a nice place and something that I would would assume to
• 25:18
  be a great home field advantage to only win two games there, like,
• 25:25
  yeah, that's that's demoralizing. Five and four on the road, and they
• 25:30
  were just the Vikings were streaky as all get out. Started one and four,
• 25:37
  zero and three and then one and four and then ended with that four
• 25:45
  game losing streak. Yeah, I absolutely when they beat the Raiders, they
• 25:49
  squeaked it out. It wasn't a beatdown. I mean they won three nothing
• 25:53
  when they beat the Raiders. That was their last win, and I definitely
• 25:59
  did not expect that to be their last win. I mean, I think
• 26:03
  they played the Bears after that game, They played the entire NFC North after
• 26:08
  that game, Like, yeah, you just don't expect it was. I
• 26:15
  don't need to tell you guys, if you watched, if you're a Vikings
• 26:18
  fan, you watch the team. This year was a roller coaster ending with
• 26:22
  such a disappointment, and I was surprised. And obviously in the preseason,
• 26:27
  you and I we made our predictions and we're always going to be a little
• 26:32
  homersh. I don't know if I will ever go and predict the Vikings to
• 26:36
  win only two or three games in the season, but I said they'd go
• 26:41
  ten and seven, and I was wrong about a handful of games. You
• 26:45
  were closer than I was. I said twelve and five, but going off
• 26:51
  of thirteen and four, like and all that to say, like, yeah,
• 26:56
  Kirk went down, and at the time he went down, he was
• 26:59
  on a trend and I think there was like a four game streak where he
• 27:02
  was looking he was MVP, Like yeah, but he still started. I
• 27:06
  mean he was the starter for that one and four start, so I mean
• 27:10
  it still started a little rocky for the whole team, not just Kirk,
• 27:12
  but he was a part of that. And we talked previously about how he
• 27:17
  played really well in those first handful of games. Yeah, they lost,
• 27:21
  and then his worst game in the early part of the season was the first
• 27:25
  win at Carolina. Just kind of odd. Yeah, And who's to say,
• 27:29
  I mean, yeah, we can, you know, put it on
• 27:32
  a pedestal and say what could have been and Kirk should have been MVP.
• 27:34
  You know, we can say stuff like that, But who's to say he
• 27:37
  wouldn't have gotten cold or teams would have figured out, oh, he can't
• 27:42
  do this. So we're just gonna defend him this way, and you know,
• 27:45
  totally shut him down. I don't know, but man, it sure
• 27:51
  seemed like he was figuring things out. When JJ went down, Addison really
• 27:56
  started to take a step. And then Addison kind of went cold once once
• 28:00
  Kirk went down. Just a season that what could have been? Yeah,
• 28:04
  oh for sure something that I was surprised by as I reflected on the season.
• 28:14
  So I'm pretty sure I was pretty vocal about this when Kirk first got
• 28:18
  injured, that he'd be very present and he would be very active on the
• 28:25
  sidelines, like visibly active, like coaching almost We thought that would be the
• 28:30
  case, and I thought, you know, maybe there was an outside shot
• 28:33
  that he would hang up his cleats and grab a clipboard and retire at the
• 28:38
  end of the season and take up coaching. I thought, for sure,
• 28:41
  man, like he's just such a good guy. The players rally around him.
• 28:45
  Maybe this is that transition for him and he becomes the next Kevin O'Connell
• 28:51
  and he gets a shot at coordinating somewhere and then he goes on to coach
• 28:55
  somewhere. I don't know, maybe that's not what he wants, but like
• 28:57
  he was just like noticeably absent for a while on the sideline. Wasn't traveling
• 29:03
  with the team, and then when he did come back, he just kind
• 29:07
  of stood there. Yeah, and we've already talked about whatever version of the
• 29:11
  quote unquote PR department the Vikings have. Maybe they were a part of that
• 29:17
  and were telling him like, hey, we don't want you like in the
• 29:21
  huddle, you know what I mean? Like right, I'm just totally guessing
• 29:23
  here. I don't know why you would tell Kirk to kind of back away,
• 29:27
  but I know that if he's not in the fire with the players,
• 29:30
  like maybe it would be a distraction. I don't know. We know that
• 29:33
  he was in the quarterback room during the week, in the meetings and things
• 29:37
  like that, and I saw him a handful of times during games. I
• 29:40
  saw him talking to Dobbs at one point one of the games that Mullins was
• 29:44
  starting and Dobbs was just on the sideline. I think it might have been
• 29:47
  the game that Dobbs was the third string, he was the emergency guy.
• 29:52
  But anyways, I saw something on some social media platform that basically just kind
• 29:57
  of said, like, you know, a lot of people are calling for
• 30:03
  the Vikings to re sign Kirk, draft the QB of the future and let
• 30:07
  that new guy sit behind Kirk for a season or two, and their point
• 30:12
  was, well, shouldn't he have mentored the existing young quarterbacks on the roster.
• 30:19
  Yeah, shouldn't. Shouldn't that have had an effect? And who knows,
• 30:23
  maybe maybe Kirk isn't the Brett Favre or the Aaron Rodgers that trains up
• 30:30
  the Aaron Rodgers or the Jordan love Well. It's funny you say that,
• 30:33
  because I think both Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers in the past have said something
• 30:38
  to the tune of it's not my job to train up this guy, and
• 30:44
  both of them, I'm pretty sure, unless I'm misremembering, have said like
• 30:48
  I'm gonna go and play and Aaron and or Jordan can figure it out,
• 30:53
  like I'm not his coach. Like I think being in the backup behind a
• 30:59
  great play, just seeing and viewing by osmosis how that guy goes around doing
• 31:06
  things is extremely valuable. And I don't know that it's Kirk's job to sit
• 31:12
  down with Nick Mullins and say, hey, when you take this job over,
• 31:18
  make sure you do this. And I don't think that's what you're saying.
• 31:21
  No, yeah, I'm not necessarily saying like, hold his hand until
• 31:25
  he's literally, you know, about to go on in the field for his
• 31:29
  first snap. But I don't know. I guess I kind of hoped as
• 31:33
  a fan of Kirk Cousin, I hoped for a little bit more that way
• 31:38
  in the wake of his injury. I had hoped to see him a little
• 31:42
  more active visibly on the sidelines where we can see because we can't see what
• 31:48
  happens at the TCO Performance Center week in and week out day to day.
• 31:53
  We don't see those things. And I'm sure he is still a vocal leader
• 32:00
  all aspects of the team, not just in the quarterback room. Oh,
• 32:02
  I'm sure. And I heard Brian O'Neill say, I was just about to
• 32:06
  bring that up. Yeah, Brian O'Neil was just praising Kirk Cousins up and
• 32:09
  down, like, yeah, I want him back ten million percent, like
• 32:15
  he used every extent of hyperbolely known demand to make it known to the media.
• 32:20
  Yes, And I think Brian O'Neill could probably speak for most of the
• 32:23
  team. Yes, we want him back. And Quaycy has also today,
• 32:30
  I think, in an interview, said we have every intention of bringing him
• 32:34
  back. Yeah. I watched that hole they had like a half hour press
• 32:36
  conference Quaycy and excuse me koc together. They were sitting next to each other
• 32:43
  taking questions at the same time. And if you haven't seen that, you,
• 32:45
  Evan or anybody listening, it's it's a good I mean, it's a
• 32:50
  lot of coach speak and a lot of They don't drop any bombs saying anything
• 32:53
  we wouldn't expect to hear, but it is nice to hear it from them
• 32:59
  in a voice that doesn't sound rehearsed or planned or fake. I was gonna
• 33:05
  bring that up to that whole press conference up to later in the podcast,
• 33:07
  but and I'll save it for them, but for you to talk about Brian
• 33:13
  O'Neil and JJ again, Like recently, there have been many leaders on the
• 33:22
  team that have given their vote of confidence for Kirk. And yeah, maybe
• 33:28
  we haven't seen it on TV or on the sidelines. If Kirk wasn't around
• 33:31
  or wasn't a continued at the moment leader. I don't know that Brian O'Neil
• 33:38
  would have to feel like he would go out of his way to open his
• 33:45
  heart out for Kirk cousins into the media. I don't know that JJ puts
• 33:50
  his foot down and says Kirk's my guy pretty much, you know. In
• 33:53
  other words, but if Kirk wasn't there, if he had just flown to
• 33:58
  Michigan and we hadn't seen him, so it's the Green Green Bay game.
• 34:00
  Like, guys aren't feeling that way. He's not like Marcus Mariota, where,
• 34:07
  yeah, got benched by the Falcons a couple of seasons ago and then
• 34:09
  he was just he's no longer with the team, and that's all they said.
• 34:13
  He got a surgery and had a baby and moved literally moved away.
• 34:16
  Like I just listened to you and I talking about that in like episode I
• 34:22
  don't know, we were talking about the quarterbacks three or four or something.
• 34:24
  Yeah, because that's really where like, as fans we got to see that
• 34:29
  whole thing kind of laid out for what it truly was, and from kind
• 34:34
  of both sides of the equation, from the Falcons as an organization and Marcus
• 34:38
  Mariota the player. And just to kind of stick along this theme we've been
• 34:44
  going about players saying things in the public. If Kirk and I've said it
• 34:49
  too, unless it's all an act, the whole quarterback on Netflix thing,
• 34:52
  unless it's all an act Kirk is a like good dude, I guarantee you
• 34:58
  there are you know, they're would be quote unquote anonymous teammates from the Vikings
• 35:02
  that would have come out and said, like, dude, Kirk is not
• 35:06
  that way. He is not the guy that you know reads books to his
• 35:10
  kids at night or blah blah blah, like they would say, like he
• 35:14
  is a terrible person. We haven't heard a single thing about that. If
• 35:16
  anything, people have doubled down and said, I love Kirk. He is
• 35:20
  that way. Like, so it's not an act. He is that dude.
• 35:23
  And even some of the new guys, Like I've talked a lot about
• 35:28
  Dalton Reisner because I watched a lot of his locker game in locker game,
• 35:32
  locker room post game is what I was trying to say. It is interviews,
• 35:37
  and you know he was signed what two games into the season or something
• 35:42
  like that. Yeah, it was after the Philly game. I just listened
• 35:45
  to you and I talking about that earlier. So like, the dude had
• 35:49
  no training camp, no previous experience with any of these guys, and all
• 35:54
  he's done is talk about the culture of this team and Kirk Cousins and how
• 36:00
  good of a leader he is, and oh, this is gonna be a
• 36:05
  good poor, I can tell. Can you hear it? I probably won't
• 36:08
  come on the morn. You'd hear that trickle liquid sound on the microphone and
• 36:13
  people would have to take bathroom breaks. That was a better poor than your
• 36:17
  TikTok. There's still some in here. What you're supposed to do is once
• 36:22
  you get just like maybe half an inch on the bottom. My brother in
• 36:25
  law David will be proud of me for this. You're supposed to swirl it
• 36:29
  around. Oh I'm not talented enough to do that. You gotta swirl it
• 36:31
  around a little bit, and then you pour the rest of that in there?
• 36:34
  Oh in the can can? Got it? And then pour it in
• 36:38
  I'll demonstrate because I'm getting close here, you better and just the moment,
• 36:42
  I really hope this is hilarious. But yeah, I I did. I
• 36:45
  remember after Kirk got hurt dalton Eisenery, he had one of those locker interviews
• 36:52
  and he said something to the tune of like I've only known the guy for
• 36:57
  like the past five weeks, and even now I can tell you this is
• 37:00
  a huge blown He's a great leader. And that was like after the Green
• 37:05
  Bay game. So yeah, Kirk is him. He is that dude,
• 37:09
  and it sucks that there's a chance he's not a biking. After the season,
• 37:15
  I think they signed him. So I've got like maybe this much left
• 37:19
  in there. Okay, hey, hold on, this is our listener's chance
• 37:22
  to switch from the audio version of Spotify to either the video of Spotify or
• 37:29
  YouTube just to watch this masterful act here that is not going to go wrong
• 37:34
  in any way. I've done this many times. I just don't do it
• 37:37
  as well as David. So David, if you're out there, thanks for
• 37:39
  teaching me and thanks for watching David. Yeah, well you just give a
• 37:44
  little swirl. Oh I talked to the stuff way too much, and then
• 37:46
  you just dump thrust in. Interesting. I think it's more important to do
• 37:52
  on wheat beers and other beers with like setiment, yeah, unfiltered IPAs and
• 37:58
  stuff. Yeah, because that sediment settles, and so you pour most of
• 38:02
  the beer and then you shake the rest of it up and dump it in
• 38:06
  and that just churns that sediment into the beer. But yeah, there you
• 38:10
  go. That's how you're supposed to do it. Nice and after that great
• 38:15
  transition, I think maybe we can start talking about the off season. Yeah,
• 38:20
  yeah, we can. You want to talk about the playoffs first?
• 38:25
  Just quickly hit on who's in the playoffs. I feel like most people out
• 38:29
  there that listen to us probably know who's in the playoffs. Yeah, So
• 38:32
  I mean we can kind of quickly go through it and maybe give like a
• 38:36
  this team or that that team, depending on sure who we think wins.
• 38:39
  Maybe give like a two minute playoff bracket, and then our super Bowl picks.
• 38:45
  Are we good with that or should we hold off on super Bowl picks
• 38:47
  for a while because we're gonna keep recording weekly. Can I just tell you
• 38:51
  who I'm rooting for sure, regardless of my pick? Yeah, okay,
• 38:54
  I'm going with the Ravens. I am a Ravens supporter of this offseason well
• 39:00
  or this playoffs as well. Well, not even so much. I think
• 39:02
  I think they're the team to beat. I don't know who's going to beat
• 39:06
  him outside of injury or fluke plays beat him for the refs. So yeah,
• 39:13
  the Ravens there. We'll go down AFC really quick. Ravens are the
• 39:17
  number one seed. The two seed is Buffalo and they will host the seven
• 39:22
  seed Steelers. Three seed is Kansas City, who will host the six seed
• 39:29
  Dolphins, and then we have the four seed Texans, which is kind of
• 39:34
  crazy after being so bad for the last few years, they're going to host
• 39:38
  the five seed Cleveland Browns. They found their guy though, Houston. Houston
• 39:43
  found a couple of guys. They have two high profile They made two big
• 39:47
  hits on rookies in the second overall pick and the third overall pick, c
• 39:53
  J. Stroud And do you know the guy the defender I can't think of
• 39:57
  his name, the third overall pick talking about I just can't remember his name
• 40:00
  off the time Brooks something. I don't know. That's terrible. I should
• 40:04
  know this, but I know he's good. But yeah, that's I mean.
• 40:07
  And obviously they're coaching is working. They have a new coach. Did
• 40:13
  they get a new GM or I don't remember GM. They're coaching Steph Demiko
• 40:17
  Ryans is proving. You know, anytime you get hated the second and third
• 40:22
  overall pick, that's that's a big heave, you know, that's that's a
• 40:28
  nice boost for you. Yep, But you still have to do it,
• 40:31
  like, you still have to coach and win. And they won their division
• 40:35
  and they're gonna host a playoff game and good for them. Yeah, agreed,
• 40:38
  I can run down the NFC really quick. Forty nine Ers are the
• 40:43
  one seed with the first round. By wild Card weekend, we'll have the
• 40:46
  Cowboys taking on the Packers in Dallas. So the Mike McCarthy revenge game a
• 40:53
  little bit. There's a couple of revenge games. Yeah, and the next
• 40:58
  one is Detroit hosting the Rams, and I already said who I'm rooting for
• 41:04
  in that game? Go Rams, Go Rams. And then I think the
• 41:08
  worst matchup in the playoffs both sides AFC, NFC, I think is Tampa
• 41:14
  Bay and Philly. Interesting, tell me why, Well, Philadelphia has laid
• 41:17
  an egg. They what did they go? Like? Oh and two?
• 41:21
  Oh and three? And there's a fun stat that I think I heard on
• 41:23
  the Power Trip on k Fan, but like it's probably been bounced around everywhere.
• 41:28
  Philly, I believe, is the first team in NFL history to start
• 41:35
  with ten and one or better and not hit twelve wins. Really, Yeah,
• 41:42
  well that that's a crazy stat. That's a good stat and that just
• 41:46
  makes me feel good for Yeah, I hope Anti Eagles. I said it
• 41:52
  on a previous episode one of the first seven because I've been doing a re
• 41:57
  listen. I hope Eagles fans never have another good thing to root for.
• 42:02
  Well, they've they've been bad. And I think I said this on my
• 42:07
  little pick them video that I did on YouTube where I kind of picked the
• 42:15
  Vikings to the number one seed back when that was still the possibility, which
• 42:19
  is laughable nowtical possibility. Yeah, anyways, I just made a very what
• 42:25
  I thought was funny passing comment that somebody's got to win the NFC South because
• 42:30
  they were pretty bad all the way around this year. I mean, they
• 42:34
  had the worst team in the league, and the Panthers as well as who
• 42:38
  else, the Saints, the Bucks and the Falcons, and all three of
• 42:43
  those were kind of vying for that divisional title. Half of that division is
• 42:50
  searching for a new head coach right now. Yeah, that's true. So
• 42:52
  anyways, you've got the Bucks hosting Philly. I think, I don't know,
• 42:59
  it'll be interesting to know what NFC I'm rooting for Tampa Bay. Just
• 43:05
  Baker bawling out, and obviously I think the AFC is gonna be run away.
• 43:09
  The whole thing's gonna be taken by Baltimore. I should probably put money
• 43:14
  on that right now. But you know what, why not Tampa Bay they
• 43:16
  wanted a few years ago, but that was kind of a layup with Tom
• 43:19
  Brady. Yeah, if it's got to be anybody in the NFC, go
• 43:23
  Tampa Bay for me at least. Right well, the the Super Bowl colors
• 43:30
  were red and purple, so maybe maybe, maybe maybe we do have a
• 43:36
  Bucks Ravens Super Bowl. See, I forgot about that. We'll see.
• 43:42
  We've mentioned it briefly. But a lot of coaching vacancy is already seven at
• 43:47
  the moment. Seven at the moment. I mean a few of them happened
• 43:52
  during the season, like the Raiders fired Josh McDaniels. Who else was fired
• 44:00
  mid season? Oh oh yeah? And stokely in La Frank Reich. I
• 44:07
  think for the Panthers he is the only coach ever another NFL history trivia thing
• 44:15
  for you guys, right, well, he's the only coach to be fired
• 44:20
  mid season in the first season with his team two seasons in a row back
• 44:27
  to back. That's rough. Yeah, So I think there's been a couple
• 44:31
  of coaches that have been fired mid season twice in NFL history, Like at
• 44:37
  some points in their career, they've been fired during the season. He's the
• 44:42
  only one back to do it in back to back years in the first year
• 44:46
  with his prospective teams. So and I don't think he's that bad of a
• 44:52
  coach. Yeah, I don't think so either. I might be wrong on
• 44:57
  the first year thing. I don't know. It does matter, We'll have
• 45:00
  to check it out. Will correct me on that. Anyways, some big
• 45:04
  bombs coming down like this evening. Just yeah, within the last twenty four
• 45:09
  hours, vrabel got fired yesterday in ten crazy and then today Pete Carroll and
• 45:17
  that whole thing is I think they did the thing where it's like, hey,
• 45:22
  Carol's going to be an advisor. They give him the Bruce Arians treatment,
• 45:25
  where it's like, yeah, he's not he's not fired, but he's
• 45:30
  not going to be the coach. We're going to elevate him to a different
• 45:32
  role away from coaching. So kind of wonder if the Patriots will do something
• 45:38
  similar, because correct me if I'm wrong. But isn't Bill Belichick also in
• 45:45
  some sort of management position with the Patriots. I think he fills the duties
• 45:50
  of the general manager, so he is guy. Effectively, he's the head
• 45:54
  coach and the GM. So if, yeah, if the Patriots were to
• 45:58
  all out give Bill Belichick his walking papers, they would need at least one
• 46:05
  person to fill the role of coaching the team and doing all of the personnel
• 46:10
  decisions that the GM would do. So interesting. I think it's been proven
• 46:15
  that the teams run better when there's a guy who gets the players and there's
• 46:22
  a guy who coaches the players, and yeah, those guys need to be
• 46:24
  hand in hand working together. But like, he ultimately need one guy to
• 46:30
  say I'm going to keep this guy and cut that guy, and then the
• 46:34
  coach. You know, maybe he wanted the guy that got cut, but
• 46:37
  ultimately he's going to have to coach who he has. So the Patriots,
• 46:43
  if they were to fully kick Bill Belichick out and boot him give him his
• 46:47
  walking papers, they would need at least one guy to fulfill both roles,
• 46:52
  if not two guys. You know what movie I always think of when it
• 46:54
  comes to that Moneyball Moneyball, when he goes in, he's like, we're
• 46:59
  Nutstick Smith tonight. He's like, yeah, of course we're starting that guy.
• 47:04
  He's like, no, I can't, you can't, you can't,
• 47:06
  I'm telling you can't. Well, fine, I'm the coach. I'm gonna
• 47:07
  start him if I want to. No, you can't because he plays for
• 47:10
  Tampa Bay now or whatever. I totally butchered that scene, but you captured
• 47:15
  the essence of the scene pretty well. Not accurate in terms of details,
• 47:20
  No, I totally butchered it, But in terms of the essence, you
• 47:23
  got it. Yes, and yeah, that's totally what I think of,
• 47:27
  and I agree with you. I think there has to be that system of
• 47:30
  checks and balances almost of like, yep, you're the guy on the business
• 47:36
  end of things that brings talent in, and then there's another guy who makes
• 47:39
  the decisions of where do you fit in this puzzle and how do we get
• 47:44
  the most out of you on the field. Well, and I think that
• 47:47
  just I can understand the like pie in the sky dream of Well, yeah,
• 47:52
  the guy who coaches and who puts players in his scheme and designs everything
• 47:58
  should be the guy who decides who who's on the team and who gets you
• 48:01
  know, traded for traded away. I can see that mindset, but ultimately
• 48:07
  it just it doesn't work. In the Vikings press conference today with the general
• 48:13
  manager and the coach, somebody asked Quacy. I think it was a question
• 48:19
  about like some high profile guys like Lewis Cene and I think Andrew Booth that
• 48:25
  Quacy made big decisions and drafting pretty high, but then we're not getting playing
• 48:34
  time. And Quacy his answer was something to the tune of like, I
• 48:37
  mean, obviously those guys work their tails off and they're doing everything they can
• 48:43
  behind the scenes, but like as far as playing time, he kind of
• 48:46
  pointed it off to Koc, like that's up to the coaching staff in their
• 48:50
  direction. And it wasn't like a it's not my fault, they're not playing
• 48:53
  against the coaches. It was more like, hey, Koc has his job,
• 48:58
  and his job is to play the guys and make those decisions, and
• 49:00
  my job is to bring the guys in so comfortable to stay in is lane.
• 49:04
  Almost yeah, this is my lane, that's his lane. We do
• 49:07
  what we do, and yeah, that is what it is. But yeah,
• 49:10
  all that to say, there's some at the moment, what a fourth
• 49:15
  of the league, almost just under a fourth of the league, is looking
• 49:21
  for a new head coach. The Vikings have at least one guy that in
• 49:25
  their coaching staff that has been a previous head coach, and we've been talking
• 49:30
  about it ever since we started this podcast in May of twenty three. Brian
• 49:35
  Flores, he's a head coach caliber kind of coach and he will get his
• 49:39
  chance. I just hope, selfishly they keep him on the Vikings. Well.
• 49:45
  I don't remember who I was listening to, but we had a snow
• 49:47
  day earlier this week, because we were in Iowa and we had that big
• 49:52
  snowstorm rolled through early this week, and I was listening to some sports talk
• 49:57
  show. I can't remember which one was, but they were talking about these
• 50:02
  new vacancies, and I think it was yesterday actually, when right after Vrabel
• 50:09
  was fired. Yeah, and somebody brought up the fact that, well,
• 50:14
  maybe this is actually good for the Vikings because perhaps Rabel's the guy to take
• 50:22
  over for belichifs in New England, and perhaps before Rabel got fired, maybe
• 50:30
  Brian Flores was the guy that was maybe the front runner for that position.
• 50:34
  And so now that Rabel's kind of entered the picture, maybe there aren't many
• 50:38
  attractive options out there for Flores, and maybe he's more comfortable to stay put
• 50:45
  for another season and see what develops. Maybe next season. There's also a
• 50:49
  mindset too, And I think you've said it, and I've heard it said
• 50:52
  around other outlets too, that the trend right now is to hire a young,
• 50:58
  up and coming off mind for your head coaching position. And I can
• 51:04
  see that. Obviously it worked with McVeigh and that's why they're doing it.
• 51:07
  Shanahan's got the number one seed in the NFC right now, and then like,
• 51:13
  who's the Cardinals coach again? And I think he's a defensive mind,
• 51:16
  defensive focused head coach, and obviously the Cardinals are not great, so that
• 51:21
  could be proof that like, yeah, no, go for the offensive mine
• 51:22
  and then hire a good coordinator for the defense to run that. I don't
• 51:27
  know, but maybe that means flora stays for another year. I don't know
• 51:31
  what his contract looks like. I've seen schefter tweets and stuff that, oh,
• 51:37
  this team has requested, you know, to interview this coordinator from another
• 51:43
  team, and I haven't seen anything about Flora as being requested to interview.
• 51:47
  But I don't know. Is he still under contract. I don't. I
• 51:52
  tried to look it up when he got signed last offseason, Flores did.
• 51:57
  I couldn't see anywhere where it said like, oh, floraes the coach is
• 52:00
  being signed on a three year contract or a one year contract. I couldn't
• 52:04
  see anything about the years, which makes me kind of question, like,
• 52:08
  is he even technically still under contract to do teams have to request to interview
• 52:15
  him? Or are the Vikings competing for him the same? I may be
• 52:20
  way off. Maybe he's still under contract. I don't know. It's an
• 52:24
  interesting question, and I don't know the answer to that. I do know.
• 52:30
  In the press conference today, Sorry I totally cut you off. Oh
• 52:31
  you're good. I think it was. Koc today fielded a question about the
• 52:38
  defense and about Flores. It wasn't necessarily about like what do you think about
• 52:43
  the idea of him leaving, but it was like what do you think of
• 52:45
  how he did and how the defense did? And Kaos said something to the
• 52:50
  tune of like, thought, he did well. There were ups and downs,
• 52:52
  but I'm really excited to see what he does from here on out,
• 52:57
  which alluded to the idea that at least Koc thinks there's a possibility Flores doesn't
• 53:02
  leave and he's still the coordinator here. I don't know, we'll see.
• 53:07
  It'll be exciting to see how this all plays out. It's kind of the
• 53:09
  soap opera of the NFL and following your favorite NFL team, I mean,
• 53:14
  and there are just so many aspects to it. Who are the coaches,
• 53:16
  who are the players? Will they stay? Will they go? You know
• 53:21
  they stay? Probably can't even say so. I texted you an idea.
• 53:28
  I think this was inspired by my snow day research that I did when I
• 53:32
  was sitting at home and I was bored, but I I told you that
• 53:37
  I wanted to come up with three keepers and three gonners in free agency.
• 53:44
  And if you didn't know, the Vikings have a whole slew of free agents
• 53:50
  coming up here, let me count really quick, one, two, three,
• 53:52
  four, five, six, eighteen, nineteen, two three, twenty
• 54:01
  four, twenty four free agents in twenty four. That's easy. I should
• 54:06
  have counted that before because the year and the number would have been easy to
• 54:09
  remember. But anyways, twenty four free agents. We're not gonna go through
• 54:13
  all twenty four of them, although I started to. I want to know
• 54:20
  who you think the Vikings should keep and who you think the Vikings should get
• 54:24
  rid of. Well, I'll just go down. I'll say some of the
• 54:28
  biggest name free agents that the Vikings have go for after the season. So
• 54:32
  if nothing changes, nobody's resigned anything like that. As of right now,
• 54:37
  these guys are the biggest ones that are gonna be lost. You got Kirk
• 54:45
  Cousins, his contract expires, Daniel Hunter, let's keep going. Greg Joseph
• 54:52
  has kind of a sneaky name on that. Brandon Powell is a little sneaky.
• 54:55
  Jordan Hicks starting middle linebacker or inside linebacker. I guess Daltons huge,
• 55:05
  kJ Osborne which could be a controversial one. DJ Wanham who's injured. So
• 55:12
  those are some of the big, big name, at least decent players that
• 55:16
  are on the block. If nothing changes, they will not be on the
• 55:21
  team next year. They're not under contract after the season. So, yeah,
• 55:27
  you've already written down your keepers and gonners. Yeah, I didn't intend
• 55:30
  for you to see this until we recorded. Well that's all right. Well
• 55:34
  we have a shared drive, so we share a Google drive. Yeah,
• 55:37
  that's that's fine. Do you want me to start, Yeah, go for
• 55:42
  it, all right, I'll start with my gonners. So I think my
• 55:45
  first gonner is, like I think any Vikings fan that's at least somewhat educated
• 55:50
  on the roster would agree with me on this. But Marcus Davenport has got
• 55:54
  to go. He committed highway robbery thirteen as much as thirteen million dollars for
• 56:05
  a handful of games. Yeah, two sacks. I think maybe a sack
• 56:07
  or two. I don't know. And again, my theory could still stand.
• 56:12
  You know, maybe he's one of those cancers guys in the locker room
• 56:15
  that they just shut down earlier early in the season and they were like,
• 56:19
  Nah, we're not going to deal with you. We're not gonna make a
• 56:22
  big deal of it. We'll eat the thirteen mil that we sorry spent on
• 56:27
  you. But like, yeah, he's got to go. Send him out
• 56:30
  of this. The centimon I've heard about him is you just can't make somebody
• 56:34
  want it. I think Darren Wolfson has said, like, you can't force
• 56:38
  a player to want to play and want to be good. Yep. And
• 56:43
  that's that's all I need to hear. Yep. So bye, get out
• 56:47
  of here. We want to go back and forth on this. Yeah,
• 56:52
  let's go back and forth, all right. So we're going gonners right now.
• 56:54
  Yep. So I'm spitballing here. I'm just looking at names. Man,
• 57:00
  I don't even know who John Reid is. So that's unfair to say.
• 57:08
  Yeah, I don't I don't know. This is this is very okay.
• 57:12
  I've got a goner, Jonathan Boullard. I think he was a a
• 57:19
  depth defensive lineman a cheap ish contract. I don't know. He didn't make
• 57:27
  a huge impact. Maybe a couple of you know, non stat sheet plays
• 57:31
  he made. But it feels like with the right draft pick, you can
• 57:35
  you can replace a guy like that pretty quickly. He didn't make my keeper's
• 57:38
  list, but I did put a check market you did him, like,
• 57:43
  yeah, maybe keep him for depth. You know, he would come in
• 57:45
  every once in a while, and I think he saw more playing time once
• 57:51
  Davenport was officially out out and yeah, wasn't coming back. So anyways,
• 57:57
  yeah, I would agree with that to some extent though, Like he was
• 58:00
  kind of a fringe player for me, Like, yeah, you could take
• 58:02
  or leave him. Maybe My second goner is maybe kind of controversial because he's
• 58:09
  been with the team for a little bit. But I think you gotta let
• 58:13
  Greg Joseph go. I can see that, and I think this is the
• 58:15
  time to do it with his contract expiring. Statistically, he is a bad
• 58:21
  kicker. He is in the bottom half of the league in every statistical category
• 58:25
  and I looked it up. He's twenty second in field goal percentage. No,
• 58:32
  sorry, I stand corrected. He's thirtieth. As of the end of
• 58:37
  week eighteen. He's thirtieth in field goal percentage. He's twenty second in extra
• 58:43
  point percentage. So it's time to move on. And the Vikings have historically
• 58:51
  struggled with kickers. I don't know what you do. I don't know what
• 58:54
  the answer is, but I don't think he's the answer. Moving I think
• 58:58
  at least you're getting his value back in any name name, any incoming rookie
• 59:06
  or you know, previous kicker on another team. I think you're at least
• 59:09
  getting a replaceable name, maybe at a lower salary, unless he's like essentially
• 59:15
  free, you know, like if yeah, that would be the only way
• 59:20
  I would say, yeah, keep him. But I agree with you.
• 59:22
  They were. They were like five or six kickers in the league this year
• 59:25
  that were one hundred percent from extra points. I know they moved the extra
• 59:29
  point back like what five years ago now, I was probably been closer to
• 59:32
  ten years ago. At this point, it's been a while. Maybe Walsh
• 59:36
  was the kicker for the Vikings when they made that change. Okay, well,
• 59:39
  point being like, at this point, when you're an NFL kicker,
• 59:44
  you shouldn't have anything less than a ninety percent from extra point, Like it's
• 59:49
  best assuming you know indoors and you know assuming. Yeah, yeah, like
• 59:53
  I don't know, And I don't think he was ninety percent. I think
• 59:57
  Greg Joseph was like eighty eight or something like that. To me, that's
• 1:00:00
  just it's not acceptable. You can't win games, especially with as many close
• 1:00:05
  games as the Vikings seem to find themselves in. You can't win games with
• 1:00:08
  a kicker like that. You can't. We've seen it. Yeah, you
• 1:00:12
  can't get out of a season with a winning record with a kicker like that.
• 1:00:15
  And you've got to you gotta do better. And I think the Vikings
• 1:00:19
  need to find better. I think Greg's good guy, oh sure, yeah,
• 1:00:22
  and he made that incredible sixty one yarder, But yeah, you don't
• 1:00:29
  have confidence in him, right, I say you we the school hop does
• 1:00:34
  do not have made it, and I don't think so coaching staff really showed
• 1:00:37
  that they had a ton of confidence in him. Yeah, I just think
• 1:00:40
  he was kind of hidden this year amongst the rest of the poor team agreed,
• 1:00:47
  all right, my turn, YEP. So I just want to iterate
• 1:00:52
  that I do agree on the let Marcus Davenport walk. He's He's not the
• 1:00:55
  guy that I'm gonna pick right now, but absolutely had a hundred agree with.
• 1:01:00
  I will say my next one to let walk is Josh Dopps magical four
• 1:01:09
  four to five to six quarters that we had with him. I just think
• 1:01:14
  keeping him kind of muddies everything up. And that's I mean, it's more
• 1:01:22
  for the other quarterbacks in the room. If you draft a quarterback high and
• 1:01:25
  you keep Josh Dobbs, because if you keep him, that means you've you've
• 1:01:29
  signed him, You've made You've gone out of your way to make sure that
• 1:01:32
  he's still on the team. It's not like you keep him because he's a
• 1:01:36
  cheap option or something like, No, you you had to sign him.
• 1:01:39
  So does that hinder the confidence or development of a young guy? Does it
• 1:01:46
  kind of let everybody know that like, yeah, we've got this guy that,
• 1:01:51
  yeah he was a disappointment, but we could we could bench you at
• 1:01:54
  any second, whether it's Kirk or whoever, because we do have this electric
• 1:02:00
  weapon who's proven he can come in on a second's notice and do something.
• 1:02:04
  So yeah, all that to say, I let Josh Dobbs walk and he
• 1:02:07
  may be ready to like this season, he might just need a refresh and
• 1:02:12
  some other team's gonna sign he's going to be an NFL quarterback next year.
• 1:02:15
  But yeah, I just let him do it somewhere else. I would agree
• 1:02:20
  with that. My third gonner would be Cam Akers. I don't think a
• 1:02:24
  running back can recover from two achilles tears on It's tough. He is young
• 1:02:31
  though, but yes, that he's young, and he's proven he can come
• 1:02:35
  back from one, but he tore the other. And when you're in a
• 1:02:39
  position where you've got to shift and move and plant and juke and do all
• 1:02:45
  that stuff that I don't even know, like because I'm not a running back,
• 1:02:50
  I don't even work out and recover. Yeah, I loved what he
• 1:02:54
  brought to the offense. I thought it was a great pick up at first.
• 1:03:00
  He electrified the running game when the running game was stagnant. Had he
• 1:03:05
  not been injured, he wouldn't be on my list. And even if he
• 1:03:10
  hadn't injured his other achilles, he might still be a keeper in my eyes.
• 1:03:16
  But because he injured that other achilles. I don't know that you can
• 1:03:21
  justify bringing him back. Yeah. I think the Vikings running back room at
• 1:03:25
  the start of the twenty twenty four season looks significantly different than it did at
• 1:03:30
  the start of the twenty three season. I think it needs a pretty big
• 1:03:34
  overhaul. Yeah, and I think the injury to cam Akers, I agree
• 1:03:37
  with you, almost disqualifies him for being in that overhaul, if nothing else,
• 1:03:46
  just for the fact that he's not under contract. So again, another
• 1:03:50
  guy that if he's on the team next year, you would have had to
• 1:03:52
  go out of your way. And maybe because of his injury, let's just
• 1:03:57
  say Pine the Sky, let's assume he is physically able to fully come back
• 1:04:01
  to one hundred percent. I mean with that injury, he could be a
• 1:04:05
  cheaper option as well. Nobody's gonna sign any running back to big numbers.
• 1:04:10
  Cam Akers could be a cheap option. But that also means there's gonna be
• 1:04:15
  some names out there this offseason that the running backs tried to, you know,
• 1:04:20
  start a coup in the NFL and force their way to big paydays.
• 1:04:26
  There's gonna be some high quality guys that are not going to get big paydays,
• 1:04:30
  and the Vikings might be able to reap the benefits of that. So
• 1:04:32
  all that to say, I can see and slightly agree with your your thought
• 1:04:35
  on cam Akers. If I had to tend to go one way, I
• 1:04:41
  wouldn't mind having them back. But that injury is tough. Yeah, that
• 1:04:45
  is tough. Who's your third goner? All right? My third might be
• 1:04:47
  a little controversial, maybe not, and it has no bearing on the kind
• 1:04:54
  of person he is. But I think kJ kJ Osborne already hopefully about to
• 1:05:01
  drop a record breaking amount of money on the league's best wide receiver, one
• 1:05:12
  of the league's best players. And kJ he's not going to be like veteran
• 1:05:17
  minimum. He's also not gonna be JJ money. But he's gonna be a
• 1:05:23
  chunk of change. He's a good number two or a number three somewhere.
• 1:05:27
  Yeah, and this year, I again, I've listened back on our off
• 1:05:31
  season episodes from last season. We talked about kJ and that he's gonna step
• 1:05:38
  up. And that's even after the Vikings drafted Addison, before we knew anything
• 1:05:42
  about Addison. How kJ he's going to be that number two. He wanted
• 1:05:46
  him to be that. I wanted him to be that so badly. Yeah,
• 1:05:49
  never materialized. I think he did too. And he has always had
• 1:05:54
  flashes throughout his entire career when he's been the number four guy, the number
• 1:06:00
  five guy, the number three guy, He's always had flashes where you think
• 1:06:02
  he could be a number two or even a number one. He just I
• 1:06:06
  mean, he's been behind Adam Thlen and JJ his whole career. Even B.
• 1:06:13
  C. Johnson was ahead of him for a little bit, like he
• 1:06:16
  never took that next step. And then this year when he had that opportunity,
• 1:06:21
  he probably entered the season on the depth chart as the number two guy,
• 1:06:29
  he still only had those flashes, you know, like he never was
• 1:06:32
  the number two, He never had number two receiver numbers. He wasn't the
• 1:06:36
  Adam Thelen mister consistent. Yeah, every time he throw it my way,
• 1:06:41
  I'm gonna get it. He had a couple of decent games and then a
• 1:06:44
  couple of games where it's like, how did you drop that? I think
• 1:06:47
  he's good and I think he's He's not done in the NFL by any means.
• 1:06:51
  I just he's gonna cost what a halfway decent veteran wide receiver costs.
• 1:06:58
  And I think the Vikings have seen enough to know that they can draft a
• 1:07:02
  guy, or they can give a guy like Jalen Naylor an opportunity to step
• 1:07:10
  up and be the guy. So yeah, all that to say, he's
• 1:07:13
  my let's let him walk. He can find another opportunity. I think the
• 1:07:16
  good news for the Vikings as an organization is, even if you do pay
• 1:07:21
  Justin Jefferson a lot, which he deserves arguably being one of, if not
• 1:07:27
  the best offensive player in the league, even if you pay him, you
• 1:07:32
  have Jordan Addison playing second fiddle who's on his rookie contract. Still, like
• 1:07:39
  you're gonna save a few dollars at wide receiver even if you do pay JJ,
• 1:07:46
  because you're gonna make up for that on the other side with Jordan Addison.
• 1:07:50
  And I think Jordan Adison has proven already in one season he is at
• 1:07:58
  least as good as Kate. Yes, and I would venture to say he's
• 1:08:02
  better. Well, there's a reason why Jordan Addison had that little spurt when
• 1:08:08
  JJ went down and it wasn't kJ. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing,
• 1:08:14
  Like we still had Kirk when JJ went down. Expect Yeah, you
• 1:08:16
  would have expected Kirk to find kJ like, oh, they've known each other
• 1:08:20
  for several seasons now they've got that chemistry developed and they've had flashes. But
• 1:08:26
  yeah, right right, So yeah, anyways, I think that's a good,
• 1:08:30
  good pick. I will be sad to see kJ Yeah. I like
• 1:08:33
  him as a player, as a Viking. He seems like a good guy.
• 1:08:38
  I just think, and maybe he goes somewhere else and having a different
• 1:08:43
  scenery, different quarterback, different scheme, maybe he does turn into a thousand
• 1:08:48
  yard receiver and a pro bowler. I don't know. And if that happens,
• 1:08:51
  it's not like we can say, ah, darn it, we should
• 1:08:54
  have kept him, because obviously he's proven that's not what he's going to do
• 1:08:58
  in Minnesota. Moving on to the keepers. Yeah, so we've given our
• 1:09:02
  three goners. Let's talk about our three keepers. I'll go first, Hold
• 1:09:08
  on, you kind of cherry picked a little bit here. You kind of
• 1:09:11
  took what do you mean you took the obvious guys. You're right, I
• 1:09:15
  can see your three keepers. I'm gonna choose different guys just because that's how
• 1:09:19
  we should do it. Let me just be clear. I actually came into
• 1:09:23
  this prepared and I feel like you're just kind of spitballing here. So yep,
• 1:09:27
  okay, you are a trillion percent right, and I love you,
• 1:09:30
  But you did you stole the good names? Well? Maybe I did,
• 1:09:35
  but I did some research and I actually have like facts to back use up.
• 1:09:43
  Absolutely, they're not just my opinions. Yep. Well this first one
• 1:09:46
  might be my opinion, but it's hard to beat. So all that to
• 1:09:49
  say, I'm sorry you cherry picked. We're friends, go for it.
• 1:09:55
  Sorry you didn't come to this conversation I was. I didn't even know we
• 1:09:58
  were gonna do this segment. I texted you about this. I do not
• 1:10:01
  remember when did you text? Was it during the game, No, I
• 1:10:04
  think it was during the snow day the other day. I was like,
• 1:10:06
  hey, we'll do with all these free agents. We should do the three
• 1:10:11
  keepers and the three conners. I'm not saying you didn't, because you absolutely
• 1:10:15
  did. And if I could pull up my phone right now, there's probably
• 1:10:17
  that text right there. It's there. It's on me that I don't remember
• 1:10:20
  this. But I don't remember this, you can keep throwing me under the
• 1:10:23
  bus. It's fine. Hey, you started multiple packers in our playoff.
• 1:10:28
  I'm just if you can't take it, don't dish it. That's all I'm
• 1:10:32
  saying, okay, all right, okay, so my first keeper, Jerk
• 1:10:39
  is a very obvious one, but we've also dissented on this issue. There's
• 1:10:45
  some controversy here. There's a lot of Vikings fans that will argue with you,
• 1:10:48
  and we haven't agreed on this either. Yeah, sure, okay to
• 1:10:54
  some extent, and we could go back and listen, you haven't made it
• 1:10:57
  all the way to episode twenty and twenty ye, but I'll get there.
• 1:11:00
  I work from home. I think my first keeper, and I think the
• 1:11:04
  keeper that the Vikings go after more than anybody else if I were in that
• 1:11:10
  GM seat, is Kirk Cousins, because I think he's the best option at
• 1:11:15
  quarterback to win this coming season. As of right now, he's the best
• 1:11:20
  option. I don't know that there's any well I can guarantee you that no
• 1:11:26
  rookie quarterback coming in from the draft is going to net you ten plus wins.
• 1:11:31
  I don't think that's reality. Nope. And I don't know that there's
• 1:11:35
  going to be any free agents on the market that are going to immediately fit
• 1:11:41
  into this system and fit into the culture in this locker room and win over
• 1:11:45
  the locker room the way that Kirk Cousins has immediately and lead this team to
• 1:11:51
  a playoff berth. So I think it's going to cost money. We know
• 1:11:57
  that Kirk has said this week, even in interviews, that he's willing to
• 1:12:02
  take less money. He's implied that he's willing to take less money. Slightly
• 1:12:08
  less money, but still less money than maybe what he could get elsewhere to
• 1:12:14
  stick with the Vikings. And I think the Vikings milk that for whatever they
• 1:12:17
  can. If that's a season, two seasons at I don't know, thirty
• 1:12:23
  five million dollars, thirty seven million dollars. If they can get him down
• 1:12:29
  to a number in that range, I think they've opened themselves up to a
• 1:12:33
  whole new set of possibilities in the twenty four season and in the future.
• 1:12:42
  Yeah, and so all that to say, I agree with you before I
• 1:12:45
  react in any other way. I agree with you. I want kirkback.
• 1:12:50
  Maybe it's not my I think having kirkback is my one B. But I
• 1:12:57
  want him back. So you have some here, And one of your notes
• 1:13:01
  about Kirk Cousins and resigning him is almost like identical to a tweet that I
• 1:13:06
  saw from Dustin Baker today. It's probably because I got it from it.
• 1:13:10
  Okay, well, hey it's a it's a good thought. So I don't
• 1:13:14
  have it right in front of me Dustin Baker's tweet, but it's something he
• 1:13:16
  tweeted something like, yeah, Kirk did say he would He kind of implied
• 1:13:23
  he would be open to a quote unquote hometown discount. And Baker also goes
• 1:13:29
  on to say that discount probably means something like thirty to thirty five million dollars
• 1:13:34
  a year, not ten million dollars like, which I think is a very
• 1:13:40
  accurate thing. I if the Vikings sign him and there's not this whole fanfare
• 1:13:45
  where there's ten other teams that are competing neck and neck for Kirk cousins,
• 1:13:48
  like, if whenever that news report comes out that the Vikings sign him,
• 1:13:55
  I expect it to be somewhere between, you know, thirty thirty five,
• 1:13:59
  somewhere in that range, somewhere under forty, which is we're just throwing out
• 1:14:03
  just life changing numbers. You and I could combine, we could combine our
• 1:14:09
  lifetime earnings, we would quadruple that number, and we're not talking about forty
• 1:14:15
  million dollars like. But what's interesting is like, since Kirk signed his huge,
• 1:14:23
  record breaking, fully guaranteed contract with the Vikings in twenty seventeen, was
• 1:14:28
  it? I think it was after the seventeen season, so it would have
• 1:14:31
  been like in the off season early twenty eighteen. Sure, yeah, whenever
• 1:14:36
  that was like, that was a record breaking contract at the time. Yeah,
• 1:14:42
  well, and notable because it was fully guaranteed. But it's kind of
• 1:14:47
  chump change, I think summer around fifteenth right now, compared to like Joe
• 1:14:51
  Burrow and Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Ryon Hurts. Yeah, like those
• 1:14:57
  guys have just eclipsed him infinitely, almost, it seems, in terms of
• 1:15:04
  contract amounts and things like that. And I think Kirk realizes that too.
• 1:15:09
  I think he's really realistic. I think what's gonna need to happen is both
• 1:15:15
  the team and the player will have to get in a room and say,
• 1:15:19
  listen, this is what we need out of each other, and this is
• 1:15:24
  what it's gonna take. And if both parties agree, let's do this.
• 1:15:28
  If not, let's make an amicable split right now and let's just let bygones
• 1:15:31
  be bygones and let's move on. Yeah. Well, and the reality too,
• 1:15:35
  I think that the true nature of this quote unquote hometown discount is the
• 1:15:41
  fact that they can sit down in a room and talk to each other as
• 1:15:45
  people that respect each other and have worked with each other for years and know
• 1:15:48
  each other. And Kirk's he said, like, you know, if I
• 1:15:54
  go somewhere else, my kids love their kindergarten class. Like, I'll just
• 1:15:57
  have to find a good kindergarten class somewhere else. That idea too, Like
• 1:16:01
  this isn't Nike trying to sign Michael Jordan and throw anything that can at him
• 1:16:06
  just to get him to agree. Like this is people that are working.
• 1:16:13
  They're coworkers, and they've had success together, and they have a level of
• 1:16:17
  respect for each other. I think that alone opens up the idea of a
• 1:16:24
  true and fair conversation negotiation. It's not just Quacy walking in saying all right,
• 1:16:30
  what's the cheapest we can get you for. It's Kirk, we love
• 1:16:33
  you, and Kirk saying, yeah, Vikings, I love you guys too,
• 1:16:38
  what's the best deal. And I think just starting off from that point
• 1:16:44
  means that that is as much of a value of the quote unquote hometown discount
• 1:16:48
  than anything else. So I wouldn't be shocked if I'd almost be a little
• 1:16:54
  surprised if he's not a Viking next year. All that to say, I
• 1:16:57
  agree with you, keeper, number one keeper, cherry picked, but keeper,
• 1:17:02
  well, who do you got? All Right? So we disagree on
• 1:17:08
  this one, but I don't think we're gonna come to blow us my keeper,
• 1:17:13
  my number one keeper if it can't be Kirk Daniel Hunter. He's an
• 1:17:18
  under thirty elite pass rusher who is another guy who enjoys Minnesota, loves this
• 1:17:28
  team, and I don't want to represent anybody wrong here. Kirk's a savvy
• 1:17:34
  guy and he's gonna get his dollars. I don't want to say, oh,
• 1:17:38
  Daniel, just because he's been here his whole career and he likes Minnesota,
• 1:17:41
  he likes his coaches, that means he's gonna take a lesser deal that.
• 1:17:45
  I don't think that's the case. But I also don't think he's a
• 1:17:47
  jerk that's gonna demand every penny he can ever get. I think Daniel is
• 1:17:54
  my number one. I think he's probably gonna cost around twenty million. That's
• 1:17:59
  what he got this year. That's probably the starting because he earned I think
• 1:18:03
  all are most of his incentives to bring him up to twenty million dollars.
• 1:18:08
  That's the first step. Like, all right, at least twenty million,
• 1:18:12
  which is a lot of money for one guy that's not the quarterback. But
• 1:18:16
  he's a top tier player in the league, and pass rushers are coveted.
• 1:18:21
  You notice that there's something wrong with the defense when they don't have an elite
• 1:18:27
  pass rusher. So yeah, and I don't disagree that he is worth keeping.
• 1:18:35
  I think he's too expensive to keep. And you mentioned that he's under
• 1:18:41
  thirty. I think he turns thirty this, Yeah, he might turn thirty
• 1:18:44
  before the season or during the next season, So I don't know. I
• 1:18:47
  think there's plenty of good young edge rusher talent in the draft. If that's
• 1:18:53
  really a concern, you go after him. I guess I did. Actually
• 1:19:00
  on my full list of free agents before I gave up on keeping and cutting
• 1:19:09
  everybody on the list, I did indicate letting go of DJ Wantum and Daniel
• 1:19:15
  Hunter, both Daniel because he's too expensive, in DJ Wantam because of the
• 1:19:23
  injury. I just I don't know that he'll be the same guy coming back.
• 1:19:28
  I mean, valid thought and valid point. I'm less concerned about that.
• 1:19:32
  They're not in Neither of them are in my top three. They are
• 1:19:35
  not like they're on the chopping block. Get him out of here. First
• 1:19:40
  guys out like Danielle, like gosh, if we could make it work.
• 1:19:44
  Heck yeah, keep that guy around. He's like you said, he's a
• 1:19:48
  locker room guy. He loves the organization. The organization loves him. He's
• 1:19:54
  produced pretty much every season he's been on the field for us, Like yeah,
• 1:19:59
  gosh, we can work it. Let's do it. Yeah. Well,
• 1:20:01
  and to kind of address Daniel's age too, he sure, let's just
• 1:20:05
  say he's thirty. That seems to be the age of complete downturning for NFL
• 1:20:13
  players. And I'm going to reference to that press conference that Quaycy and KOs
• 1:20:17
  had today. Somebody at one point early in the press conference talked to ask
• 1:20:23
  Quaycy about like, you know, Kirk's sure, you've said you want Kirk
• 1:20:29
  back, but what do you think about the injury? And Quacy said something
• 1:20:32
  to the tune of like, well, you kind of see how a guy
• 1:20:35
  takes care of themselves and you see like what they do, so even injured
• 1:20:42
  or not, you can kind of know like, Okay, this guy does
• 1:20:45
  the right things, or he you know, eats ten cheese riggers a day,
• 1:20:47
  and he doesn't he sleeps an hour a day, Like you know,
• 1:20:50
  if a guy is doing the right things or the wrong things. A little
• 1:20:54
  bit later on, somebody asked Quaycy about Daniel literally this same thing, like
• 1:20:59
  he's you know, a free agent. If you keep him, he's gonna
• 1:21:01
  be you know, expensive, and he's about to be thirty. What do
• 1:21:06
  you think about that? And Daniel or Danilkoaci kind of referenced his earlier answer
• 1:21:12
  about Kirk and saying like, well, I said, Kirk is a guy
• 1:21:16
  that takes care of himself and you know, does the right things to take
• 1:21:18
  care of his body and stuff. He said, I think Daniel tends to
• 1:21:25
  be like Kirk in that idea. He even said something like all you have
• 1:21:29
  to do is walk by the guy to know that he takes care of himself.
• 1:21:33
  I mean, Daniel Hunter, his biceps are bigger than like my freaking
• 1:21:39
  head. Like the guy probably looks like Superman. You know, he's just
• 1:21:45
  jacked. And if you see him work out, which I'm sure they do,
• 1:21:47
  and you see like how he takes care of himself, which I'm sure
• 1:21:51
  they do, the age becomes less of a concern. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:22:00
  I can see that. Yeah, all right, you're you're are we on
• 1:22:02
  number two for the keepers? You said Kirk, I said to Neil,
• 1:22:06
  yep, so my number two would be Dalton Reisner, Okay, for the
• 1:22:12
  simple fact that he allowed zero sacks this year Pro Football Focus. Yeah,
• 1:22:18
  I did see something like, hey, the Vikings don't sign him. Somebody
• 1:22:21
  else is gonna sign a guy that went almost four hundred snaps and didn't allow
• 1:22:25
  a sack. He had an incredible season, and he's just again, a
• 1:22:30
  culture guy, a locker room guy, like is a good fit. And
• 1:22:35
  he was vocal from the get go, like, yeah, I love this
• 1:22:39
  team, I love this culture. I love this locker room. And I
• 1:22:43
  don't know, I think you you pay a little bit to keep guys like
• 1:22:46
  that, to keep that culture going. I've heard multiple players say the Vikings
• 1:22:51
  have the best or one of the best cultures in the league. Culture doesn't
• 1:22:57
  mean much if you don't win, So there's that. But I think it
• 1:23:01
  starts with culture, and I mean, we're in this competitive rebuild and I've
• 1:23:06
  I've got a little bit of an opinion on that, Like, I think
• 1:23:10
  this next season is make or break for Quacy especially and probably Kevin O'Connell by
• 1:23:15
  extension. Year three tends to be a hot year for new coaches. Well,
• 1:23:20
  I think it goes for GMS. Gms too, but GMS tend to
• 1:23:24
  get maybe a little couple of coaches before they get fired unless it's just a
• 1:23:29
  toxic situation. I think Koc, which he's already been to the playoffs,
• 1:23:34
  and but yeah, year three tends to be a regardless of how the record
• 1:23:41
  works, you kind of we need to see what we need to see.
• 1:23:44
  But all of that to say, Riisner is a guy that Quays brought in
• 1:23:48
  after we've bullied him on Twitter a little bit. Yeah, but still took
• 1:23:56
  the guy to negotiate and make it happen and drop the paperwork and actually get
• 1:24:00
  the guy. And then not only get the guy, but get him on
• 1:24:03
  the field. I mean, that's Koc more than Quacy at that point.
• 1:24:08
  But yeah, once he found his way onto the field, he was he
• 1:24:13
  never got off. He was an incredible offensive lineman. Ezra Cleveland got injured,
• 1:24:17
  opened the door for Reisner to get on the field, and he never
• 1:24:23
  stepped off the field. They they literally traded Cleveland away, yep, And
• 1:24:29
  they wouldn't have done that if Reisner was garbage. So I think he's a
• 1:24:32
  guy you have to bring back and that that offensive line needs to be fortified.
• 1:24:39
  It it needs strength, and he brings that. For sure. I
• 1:24:44
  agree, Yeah, let's keep him. I want him. All that to
• 1:24:47
  say is like, depending if you signed Kirk to forty million dollars, are
• 1:24:53
  you able to give Dalton three, four or five million dollars a year?
• 1:24:57
  I don't know what he don't Maybe five million is laughable to him. I
• 1:25:00
  don't, I don't know, but yeah, the numbers have to work,
• 1:25:02
  and we just get to play maddened and act like we were just marionettes here,
• 1:25:10
  sure, playing with our puppets. All right, My number two,
• 1:25:14
  my number two keeper might be a little bit of a surprise. But I
• 1:25:20
  think Johnny Munt tight End has proven that he's good to keep, and I
• 1:25:28
  think there's a slight wrinkle for this episode. I think two or three maybe
• 1:25:33
  two. You and I we talked about are like for the twenty three season
• 1:25:38
  surprise cuts and like, who could be a big name that gets cut that
• 1:25:43
  might not be you know, known about that. You know, it'd be
• 1:25:45
  a surprise if this guy got cut, I said, Cam bind him and
• 1:25:48
  you famously said c J Ham famously. So c J Ham did not get
• 1:25:56
  cut, but they did kind of do the thing where they like signed find
• 1:26:00
  him back for one year and kind of gave the fan fare, but it
• 1:26:02
  almost felt like a farewell tour. I want CJ Ham on the team.
• 1:26:09
  I do. However, if you do not employ a full back, that
• 1:26:16
  role when it has to appear in the backfield as a full back, gets
• 1:26:23
  filled by a tight end, deferably a good blocking tight end, Yeah,
• 1:26:29
  Josh Oliver or you know something like that, or you know, a big
• 1:26:32
  backup running back. So fullbacks are not utilized a whole ton, even less
• 1:26:41
  so for the Vikings once Koc came in. So if you let CJ Ham
• 1:26:46
  walk, I think that makes Johnny mund all the more important as a as
• 1:26:53
  a good tight end rotational depth because even if he doesn't fill that tight end
• 1:26:59
  role, uh Oliver might fill that tight end role, which leaves the door
• 1:27:03
  open for Munn to kind of get some more snaps as a tight end.
• 1:27:09
  So I think it gives you a little bit more flexibility to have one more
• 1:27:13
  good tight end. And then who knows how TJ is going to enter the
• 1:27:18
  season having done some major damage to his knee, he might, you know,
• 1:27:24
  start off the first few games either on IR or the pup list,
• 1:27:29
  or less available than otherwise we would think. So I think Johnny mun he's
• 1:27:35
  my number two. Yeah, I think that's a good pick. And I
• 1:27:39
  think obviously the pecking order at tight end is TJ, Josh Oliver, Johnny
• 1:27:46
  Munt. Yeah, unless the Drafter sign a different guy. That's this is
• 1:27:50
  all with an asterisk. But yeah, well, Nick Muse the only other
• 1:27:55
  tight end on the roster. He caught his first pass of the season.
• 1:27:58
  I think it was the Dally Norseman on Twitter tweeted something. I think it
• 1:28:03
  was PFF rankings or you know, some statistical ranking and their tweet was something
• 1:28:11
  to the tune of I present to you without you know, further analysis,
• 1:28:17
  the total rankings of all tight ends in the NFL, and it was like
• 1:28:23
  by you know, yards and average and stuff, and it had names like
• 1:28:29
  you know, TJ. Hockinson and and Travis Kelcey and all the big name
• 1:28:33
  tight ends, and at the top of the list was Nick Muse solely because
• 1:28:41
  he had one catch for I think like thirty four yards, so his average
• 1:28:45
  was like thirty four yards of catch off by whatever metric they were they were
• 1:28:50
  measuring, he was the best in the league based off of one catch,
• 1:28:56
  and he retweeted saying like I love it. That's awesome. We love you,
• 1:29:00
  Nick. Yeah, that's funny. That is funny. No, I
• 1:29:04
  think I don't disagree with you at all, Johnny Munt. He'd be a
• 1:29:10
  great pick for depth, and like you said, and it's a possibility that
• 1:29:15
  I haven't even considered, but if C. J. Hamm is gone,
• 1:29:19
  I'm still gonna need some sort of blocking presence in the backfield and you know,
• 1:29:26
  a good tight end, a good blocking tight end could bring that.
• 1:29:29
  Yep. So that's your number two. That's my number two, my number
• 1:29:31
  three keeper in free agency. Jordan Hicks, Oh, I thought you were
• 1:29:38
  gonna say Phil load Hole. No, it's been a few years, more
• 1:29:43
  than a few Jordan Hicks. I think he's a defensive leader the way that
• 1:29:47
  he rallied after his horrific injury, got surgery and then came back and played
• 1:29:56
  for what the last two or three games something like that, Yeah, season
• 1:30:00
  East level too, and played well. Yeah. I think he's a guy
• 1:30:03
  that proved his value the entire season. He played well up until his injury,
• 1:30:12
  and then he proved that he's willing to do whatever it takes to get
• 1:30:15
  back on the field. And he did. And then when he got back
• 1:30:17
  on the field, it wasn't like ah Man, good for him. He
• 1:30:21
  got back on the field. He played well despite any of that. So
• 1:30:30
  I will say last offseason, I was surprised when the Vikings not only let
• 1:30:35
  Eric Kendricks walk, they cut him and on top of that kept Jordan Hicks.
• 1:30:43
  I was a little surprised by that. But yeah, you hit the
• 1:30:45
  nail on the head. He proved Jordan Hicks proved that he was capable and
• 1:30:50
  a valuable member of the defense. Well then they brought in Ivan Pace As
• 1:30:55
  that undrafted for you, anytime you get a UDFA, you don't expect that
• 1:30:59
  guy to a Rookie of the Year candidate or a starter in any capacity,
• 1:31:04
  and he was. That just made it so much better. Yeah, it
• 1:31:08
  was incredible. Actually, all right, my last keeper, I agree with
• 1:31:12
  you, Jordan Hicks. I want him back. My last keeper, Brandon
• 1:31:15
  Powell. Knowing you're probably gonna make some moves in free agency, letting guys
• 1:31:21
  walk like kJ Osborne, hopefully as far as like the numbers work, maybe
• 1:31:28
  drafting a guy or two, definitely getting some undrafted guys, getting back Jalen
• 1:31:31
  Naylor. But Brandon Powell proved his worth. He had a major fumble as
• 1:31:41
  a punt returner against the Eagles, but it seemed like he seemed like he
• 1:31:46
  dropped off the last three four or five games. But before then, every
• 1:31:51
  once in a while he'd pop up and make a catch on a third down
• 1:31:55
  and get a first down. It's like, oh, Brandon Powell when he
• 1:31:58
  had the game winner in Atlanta. Oh from Dobbs. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:32:02
  So I think he's definitely worth keeping. He's probably gonna be cheap. I
• 1:32:08
  don't know his age, how young he is, but I think he's worth
• 1:32:12
  keeping at least one more season. I think he's worth keeping purely as a
• 1:32:15
  returner and then you know, throw him in as a receiver when needed.
• 1:32:21
  And he's been with Koc in the Rams and now KOs brought him to the
• 1:32:28
  Vikings, so there's obviously some connection there and it's worked. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:32:34
  Well, I think he's a good pick, and I think he's one
• 1:32:36
  that I identified too, is like if you can keep him, yeah,
• 1:32:41
  do it. And I think his contract won't be it'll be cap friendly,
• 1:32:45
  it won't be too much, so well, no one's going to demand as
• 1:32:47
  much money as Kirk Cousins and d'aneil Hunter and and JJ. Yeah. But
• 1:32:54
  I think the nice thing too is the Vikings do have some cap space into
• 1:32:59
  the twenty twenty four season, and they have even more in twenty twenty five.
• 1:33:04
  So if they really wanted to, I think Quacy could make it all
• 1:33:10
  work out to where some of the dead money ends up in twenty five.
• 1:33:15
  And I don't understand how all of that works. There's some I'm pretty sure
• 1:33:19
  there's actual like magic involved or something. The cap is a myth. I
• 1:33:27
  saw a tweet today. Somebody tweeted like, yeah, I know money is
• 1:33:30
  tight and the Vikings are up against the cap, but darn it. The
• 1:33:34
  Saints somehow enter every off season like one hundred million dollars over the cap and
• 1:33:40
  they still field a team, So you'll sign everybody. Yeah, maybe there's
• 1:33:45
  something to that too. I don't know, but yeah, it'll be a
• 1:33:49
  super interesting off season with twenty four free agents. Yeah, some pretty good
• 1:33:56
  draft picks coming up. The Vikings are picking as of right now, eleventh.
• 1:34:00
  I'll expect them to move up like get a earlier pick and not move
• 1:34:05
  down in the draft. But that's that's a hot pic for another day.
• 1:34:09
  It's a hot take. We'll have to talk about that in future episodes.
• 1:34:13
  The draft's not too far off. We're a couple months away, Yeah,
• 1:34:16
  a couple months, so we'll definitely be talking about it. Yeah, coming
• 1:34:21
  up. But we probably better put the kebash on this one. We've been
• 1:34:25
  talking for yeah, quite a while. Our longest one yet could be,
• 1:34:29
  but perhaps our best one. Yeah, what'd you think of the fire trucker
• 1:34:33
  Iowa IPA. Mine is gone, Yours is completely gone. Mine's basically gone.
• 1:34:40
  I was just saving mind for the final squaw. Yeah you didn't do
• 1:34:43
  No, I'm sorry, but that's okay. We can still do it and
• 1:34:45
  I'll finish. But no, I liked it really good, solid solid IPA.
• 1:34:51
  Would have again would recommend to anybody out there looking for a good i
• 1:34:56
  PA from Iowa. And with that name, it's like it was made for
• 1:34:59
  our podcast. We can adopt it. Yeah. Yeah, so fire truck
• 1:35:03
  or hit us up if you want us to have more of those. Yeah,
• 1:35:08
  oh yeah, because we will. Oh absolutely, All right, man,
• 1:35:12
  good conversation today, good beer as always, till next time. Till
• 1:35:15
  next time. School Hey Vikings fans, Evan here from the School Hop and
• 1:35:35
  we just wanted to say thank you again so much for listening to the School
• 1:35:40
  Hop, and we also wanted to take one more opportunity to let you know
• 1:35:43
  that this episode of the School Hop has been brought to you by Big Top
• 1:35:46
  Ventures. If you're considering taking an all inclusive trip to either Mexico or Jamaica,
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  reach out to our friends at Big Top Ventures at Big Top Ventures LC
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