October 8, 2025 • 49 mins
Dan Barreiro opens the show discussing the anniversary of one of our great accomplishments as a metro: Southdale Mall! Kevin Seifert from ESPN is back from his long trip overseas to cover the Vikings and gives Dan his impressions from the trip as well as the injury situation as the team enters bye week.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is your do we embrace it or run from it?
Leader Fan Fan Radio Network excuse me and k fa N.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Two minutes nine seconds past the hour of three o'clock
Central daylight time.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It is a midweek edition of the Bumper to Bumper program.
And what an emotional show this could be. Virtually from
start to finish. No fewer than two, well actually three
if you count Glen Mason of our world travelers are
(00:46):
with us on today's show, and two of them not
Glen Mason, no our returning home in studio.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Think about it. It's unbelievable. Pat Kessler, fresh.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Off spending forty eight hours in the Vatican City, who's
goal for challenging the pontiff security to a fight, will
tell us all about it and many other things regarding
his trip across the Pond to Italy. While he was
in Italy, our three p fifteen guest Kevin Seaffert, was
(01:19):
luxuriating in Dublin and then of course London, England. He
too is a world traveler, a weary world traveler who
is back as well. So no, I actually don't yeah,
do you a little bit? I mean, in the time
that they've been to Italy and Dublin and London. I
went to Columbus. So I mean I'm not feeling a
(01:41):
bad football I'm not feeling great. Yeah, not feeling great
about my lot in life. That's a fair point, Columbus.
One way to look at it, will you? You do
need to travel more?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I think. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My guess is as your kids get older, you might.
Oh yeah, When I say travel more, I mean internationally.
Oh yeah, I mean all over the place, not just
in the Winnebago I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I guess you could probably rent to win a
bagel in Europe. You could, but that might be problematic
because the roads are not the roads can be changed.
I get to go to Eugene in about a month.
It's beautiful. I've been to Eugene Olympic track trials.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Beautiful scenery, I mean beautiful backdrop there in Eugene. Not
the easiest place to get to, as I recall, or
is it near Portland? I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's like an hour and a half from Portland. That's
what They do. Have an airport that I think we're
flying into. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, well, yeah, that's not quite as romantic. It's hanging
out with George Clooney, Right, it's not Lake Como, that's it. Uh,
And even with Seafford, who, according to the latest piece
he's written, is I was obviously as ready as the
Minnesota Vikings to get back on United States Tarra Firma.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Do you think that what the Vikings just did?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Do you think that has ended all international games for
the rest of time? Given the stories that are coming
out of there, they're basically making this sound like Alcatraz.
We're going to talk to Seaford about it. I said
this yesterday. I have no sympathy for the Vikings because
I'm with you there raised there, no can do it,
not only can we do it?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Just watch us.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, all these suggestions about us two weeks in a row. Hey,
we know what we're doing. We're not like any other organization.
Now if you are talking about winning playoff games, we're
like several other organizations because we can't win any but
we're better at this.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
This is the one thing.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And now it's like, oh my god, what do we do?
So we'll get into all that with uh. With sever
who seems very sympathetic, maybe he too was worn down. Yeah,
I think he was ready to be home. Well, I
think Seaver was there longer than the team. I think
he left the way they left on a Thursday. And
for Dublin, I think he left on a Wednesday. If
I'm not mistaken, that's true. And and so he's probably
(03:49):
even wearier than members of the club as well. Didn't
show up in his writing. I can tell you no,
Are you kidding? He wrote better than the Vikings played
against Pittsburgh. Indefatigable Is that the word? That's how I
described Seaford, Sure, indefatigable. I think if you look it up,
it's a compliment. And I don't give them out very easily,
as you know, real quick, because Seaford is next segment
(04:10):
branch on Brian Cafe in text line six four six
eighty six.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Do we embrace it or do we run from it?
Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't. I might.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I don't know specifically though, on this date, in nineteen
hundred and fifty six, we proudly opened the first shopping
mall in the history of the United States of America.
Isstial world This, I mean Southdale opened on this date.
What's the date today? Six the eighth eighth ye in
(04:44):
the year nineteen hundred and fifty six. I think it
went through a few addition additions over the years. In fact,
they're still they've now just done have you been by
it recently? They've just done another major change with they stole.
I still don't get it. They stole a bunch such
a galleria store they did. I don't even know how
they must've I mean, there must have been some bonus
(05:04):
money involved there, something to get them to move over.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Some France Avenue crime right there. I'm not even sure.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I as a huge galleria snob, I'm not sure I approve.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But they did it.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
It all began in fifty six, and the question is
it's ours if we want to take credit for it
because we got there first. But do we do we
embrace that we were the first metropolitan community, any community
to build and open a mall or given the way
a lot of people feel about malls in general, shopping
(05:36):
centers of that sort in general, they kind of turn
their noses up and say, ah, god, what, oh no,
I don't like going there. There's nothing interesting about them.
There's nothing creative about them. There's nothing urban about them
at all. Do we run from our history or do
we embrace it? Well, if you're asking me, you know me,
I am very pro mall and I'm very pro DNA.
(06:00):
So I'm the wrong guy to has that's true. You're
not objective. I'm not objective in anyway. But I do
love and that mall in particular. You know how much
I love going to Mall of America and just walking her.
I could live in Mall of America. If they said
we want you to live in Mall of America for
a while, I could do it.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, here's what Here's the way I've described all of America.
See if you agree. Because a lot of people have
criticized and said, what's the big deal, It's just another mall,
only larger. I maintain that the closest in the metropolitan
area I feel that I am not in town or
in the area is when I'm at the mall hysteria.
(06:35):
I don't even know why, but I do. I feel
like it's someplace different. Yeah, I think that's what I like.
He eat Maui for me, But it's just it feels
like village.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
This is a trip. Yeah, yeah, it's a trip out.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You're you're out of you know, the Twin Cities, even
though it's in the Twin Cities. Well, yes, for you,
that's as close as you'll get to Saint Paul. Most
days you can see the skyline maybe years most years. Yeah,
I think that's a good way to put it. I
think because I feel maybe a little bit of a
departure as well. And you can get everything but Southdale.
I mean I grew up at that mall. That was
a big deal, right if you could go to South Dale.
(07:09):
It was the first anchor department store at Southdale. Do
we know Dan went to Soda Mike. I'm sure it's
probably easily found. I don't know, was it. I'm sure
Dats was there from the beginning, probably, but I don't
know for sure. All Right, somebody will know. I remember
Dan tickets there because he used to be able to
buy concert tickets. Yeah, like at Dayton's at the ticket Master,
a little kiosk there. I mean, I love that mall.
(07:32):
It's bougie now though, Well that's what the Southdale has
gone wondering, like Southdale's last stand. Yeah, that they are
in trouble and they felt like our only chance is
to do we did they got a Kowalski's in there? Now,
it's the biggest Kowalskis I've ever seen lifetime. It's massive there.
And then as well as you say the beautiful people
(07:52):
stores from Galleria are moving over right, you have a
fancy designer perse shops the whole bit. Yeah, I wonder
like I used to go to structure there all the
time and that went into Express. Yes, ra Rapercrombie. If
you're really feeling it, I mean it was great. It
was great. By the way, Dan Minnesota tells us that
he tried to tag Southdale on the tweet that he
(08:13):
sent out regarding on this day in Minnesota history, but
it says their tweets are protected. He asked, is that
any Dina thing guards? You probably wouldn't surprise you. But
they don't want just anybody tweeting about them. All right now,
You've got to have a certain cachet to tweet. You
want to tweet about the Southdale Center, you'd better bring
you You're not gonna do it with a pellic gun,
(08:35):
is what we're saying. What was the what would be
considered the hate? What what's the the salad days? The
is it the Halcyon years for Southdale because I don't
think there now, this was their attempt I think to
recreate mysels in general, right, but what would well, yeah,
some more than others though, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Mall of America is thriving, it is it not.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It is, but they had to recreate themselves, right, put
hotels in there. They've obviously got the amusement that they've
got the aquarium, that's got all the restaurants, and they
have the advantage that people will come from North Dakota,
South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, wherever to buy a bunch
of clothes with no state sales tax, which a lot
of people do, right, And you can go to any
you can go to any store, you go.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Back to school shopping.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
The Mall of America, you're running into basically the entire
Midwest because people are coming to take advantage of it.
The heyday of the I think the heyday of the
mall has to be eighties and nineties, right once everybody
started getting alady and the suburbs were exploding. In the nineties.
I mean, I think I grew up, well, it used
to be my mall when I lived in Minneapolis, that
was the one I was more likely to go to.
(09:37):
And then I mean Dayton's that became Marshall Fields. That's
what is it now? I don't even know what did
it become. It's it's north Strom. It's no, it's the
New York store. No, it's not very good. Macy's. Oh,
Macy's now it's Macy's. It's it's nowhere near what it
was according to most people. We're reminded. And I think
this rings a bell. The guy who invented the indoor mall,
(09:58):
because that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Obviously, an in door mall. We were aware. It's not
the first mall. We get it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That he's It's almost like the guy who was it
was it Oppenheimer who created the atomic bomb and then
regretted what he was involved in.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think this guy, whoever he was, spent the rest
of his life agonizing, causing him turning over what the
monster that he thought he created? Oh well, that's too bad,
because if I could speak to him, I'd say job
well done. He said, you did your job. A lot
of us had a lot of great memories there, and
now you know malls, are you ever see yourself when
(10:36):
you're like my age or older, retired, doing the walk,
getting your exercise around the mall.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Lot of older people do that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's how they get their exercise because it's really cold
out in the winter and so they just they put
their tennis shoes on and they just do fast walks around,
you know, the mall perimeters. I can see myself doing that, Dan,
because I occasionally do that.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Now I already do that sometimes.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Interesting because you knock out two birds with on scand
go get a nice three four mile walk in, go
do some shop easily done, find some things, go have
a nice meal.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I suspect our three point twenty three p. Fifteen guest
is not a mall guy. But we'll find out. I
will find out exactly what surprised him, regarding as he
chronicled the vikings back to back games across the Pond.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Questions for Seaffert six four six eight six.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That is the Bradshaw and Bryant got away money. But
first the fan and two men and a junk truck
want to give you a shot at bonus buch. That
is our national cash contest and the first keyword on
this Wednesday is win at wi N Go to cafe
dot com and enter the keyword Winn. The guy who
(12:17):
invented the K cup coffee maker has definitely expressed regret
because of the billions of tiny plastic cups. That's from Charlie.
I'm wondering if there are a lot of inventors who
regret what they invented, whether it was the atomic bomb
or the mall. Kevin Stefer, you do not strike me
as a guy who loves to just hang out, you know,
(12:38):
if the deal is we're gonna spend the next eight hours,
almost a full day, mosying through the mall. Maybe you
get some shop a little, grab some lunch, then we
shop some more. Maybe we even get an early dinner,
or we get a snack to go home. That doesn't
strike me as you.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Not anymore. I grew up in mallzone. My dad worked
at a department store and then and I would go
to work with him sometimes, and then I started working
at that department store, and all through high school and
college I worked there, and it was in a mall,
and so I have fond memories of being in the mall,
like when I go in there and smell the perfumes
(13:15):
and the fragrances that like Abercrombie puts out into the mall.
And when we first had kids, the only and it
was in the winter, like I would take them to
the mall just to walk there and have something to do,
and they'd fall asleep in the in the stroller. And
so there's definitely been lots of portions of my life
where I've spent a lot of time in malls. But uh,
the scenario you paint of going to hang out to
(13:37):
one right now at the top of your list, not anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
No, if your choices are State Fair or the Mall
of America, which way do you lean?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Oh, I'm headed to the Pineapple parking lot at the
Mall of America right now. It's not even a close call. No, No,
it's so it's a blow up.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeahs our comrades.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It doesn't want to go. He's just like you.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
We talked about it last time we had him on.
In fact, he thanked you. I believe I thought your
name came up. Yeah, I think it did. And somebody
is you know, somebody else who's staying of our guests,
who's staying strong. You're the last two holdouts basically, I'll
have to reach out to him, make sure we stay
in solidarity. Now's your last parking lot? P three, Hawaii
is your parking spot? It sounds one like that's that.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Part of the deal at the mal America is you
have to park in the same spot every time or
you'll never find your car. I do have a routine
as well. Yeah, yeah, can you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Get the breaking news sounder? I should have had it ready.
I'm going to trust that Lavelle is accurate with his information.
Here he passes along to us that via the athletic
Nico Storm is going to have back surgery now and
we'll miss what is described as a significant amount of time.
(14:51):
We talked about this with Louis yesterday, that he was
going to be put on injured reserve. But I don't
think injured reserve felt quite as damaging as this news.
Right back now, back surgery, I guess isn't what it
used to be, but still can be fairly significant. So
there you have it, more bad injury news for the
(15:11):
Minnesota Wild. Can you confirm Guardia. Do you find it anywhere?
Do you think Lavelle made it up? No, he read
it correctly. Yeah, Russo and Joe Smith put out of story.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Were you on the text a few weeks ago?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
A week or so ago when he texted us about
in the feast of Collier's injury. I don't know if
you were on that one. It was just to me
and he said, uh, Ramona Shelburn's reporting she has, you know,
a tear and but no break and blah blah. I said, well,
didn't Feast say that herself yesterday? And he's well more
annoyed at Ramona. Well, as I recall it, the head
(15:43):
coach said fracture Originally, well, that was after the game, yes,
after the game, and then in the exit interview after
she talked about her after the statement, the four minute
statement had the boot on. Yeah, she said I have
some tears, but no fracture. And so he breathlessly texted me,
I'm like, I'm pretty sure Feast said that. So you
got to double check everything you can report. Yeah, be sure,
you can't be sure, trust, but verified exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Let's get this out of the way first.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
My sources say things got speaking of the length of
the whole deal, which you wrote about extensively, very nice piece,
trying to you know, put the whole trip together. From
the Vikings standpoint and what you observed and a lot
of good quotes and what you reported on, it sounds
as if you get the Jackals and koc we're not
(16:28):
getting along the way we are accustomed to both parties
getting along.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
What the hell happened across the pond? Well, I mean,
you have pretty good sources, obviously, and so I wouldn't
dispute anything that of what you said, there was some
private conversations that were initiated by the team, and so
if the team wants to be public about it, that's
up to them. And we occasionally as reporters, use discretion
and don't actually lab everything out. But I'll give you
(16:55):
something some points of context. And the first is that,
as you know from being a reporter, like, it's not unusual,
over the course of a season of covering a pro team,
a college team, sometimes maybe even an intense prep type
team for the people doing the reporting and the teams
to run a skew of each other and to be
(17:17):
in disagreement on various things. And sometimes it's just a
matter of when the reportings reporters are doing their job
and the team is doing their job, you're just going
to be in different spots, and so when those situations happen,
you hope that you have done the work of building
a strong enough relationship that you can work through it
and you know, maybe not to have a resolution, but
(17:39):
be able to get to the other side of those
issues that pop up from time to time. And when
you get to the other side that then you can
go about continuing to do your job on both sides
and aware of how everyone feels. And so hopefully that's
where we're at once. Things, you know, we get back
after the buy, whether that's next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and
(18:01):
I fully expect it will. And the other point of
context is that, you know, the the overriding story of
the season and really of the past eighteen month has
been the quarterback and what the Vikings are trying to
do is really hard and really intense, and there has
just been a higher level of tension around everybody. You know,
(18:22):
it's not just the head coaches, you know, it's management, staff,
players and reporters because it's the biggest story we have
covered as well over that time. And when they drafted
JJ McCarthy, they got a prospect that a lot of
people loved, but was just objectively the youngest and the
least experienced, and so it wasn't explicitly said at the time,
(18:42):
but it was going to require a lot of development
capacity from JJ McCarthy and a lot of capacity to
develop from the coaching staff and the front office for
this to work. And you know, a year and a
half in, like, you can't say it's gone great because
for largely reasons that are not controllable, through the injuries,
(19:03):
didn't play, didn't you injured? His entire rookie year played
two games, less than one hundred snaps, most of them
didn't go that great. But then he's heard again and
so and from our perspective, like you look at that
entire class last year, he had as much name recognition
and there has many fans. When you go to the
University of Michigan and win a national championship, the country
(19:24):
knows you. So we can you know, we can feel
it anecdotally, We know it from our data that like
people are super interested in everything about him and how
it's working. And it's not just a Minnesota story. It's
that it's the most national story for this franchise, and
so we are probably covering it more aggressively and more
intensely than some other things that have gone on over
(19:47):
the years. And that's just the nature of the business.
And so those are the things that I guess I
would add to what you said last week, and in
hopes of trying to just give people an idea of
where things are while trying to, you know, keep some
of the details that were said in private, is it it?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Is it fair to say some of the tension is
also driven or maybe exacerbated by the fact that Sam
Darnald has been great, Danny Dimes has been great, and
even Aaron Rodgers has at least been good. That, whether
it's fair or not, because it's such an important position,
(20:27):
and because the Vikings were in a very unusual position
last year, having seemingly too many legitimate choices. Now some
of them might not have been financially viable, that that
adds to it. So my point is if McCarthy is
playing healthy, and he's playing well, not great, but even well,
that there's gonna be less of the inevitable man. Look
(20:50):
at what these other guys are doing that you chose
to move on from, maybe because you had to practically
in the case of Darnald, and whatever other circumstances going.
I think that enters into this, whether anybody there is
willing to admit.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It, it definitely enters in from the outside. Like people
and my friend Mike Sando from The Athletic wrote a
very well researched in long column. People were very bitter
for me with me for quoting from that piece. Oh,
and like, I guess everybody took what they wanted to
take from it, But what I took was that, you know,
it's too early to judge McCarthy, but like, it's just
(21:26):
the fact that Donald is playing very well and so
is I don't he mentioned Daniel Jones as well. He
did probably, but like it was Donald thing and a
Rogers thing, and so like, I don't think that the
Vikings are regretting any decisions. I think they know that,
like Donald was not going to sign here like no
matter what they unless they forced him by franchising. He
wasn't en franchised. They could have and through that again, Yeah,
(21:49):
but they I don't think that they regret sort of
turning it over to JJ McCarthy yet. It's just that
it just hasn't worked right as well, and so you
have to make a well reasoned decision, and you have
to live know what the potential consequences are. And that
was always a consequence that in the very in the
short term, it wasn't going to be the same as
it was with a Donald or it would have been
(22:11):
with a Daniel Jones probably or was with Kirk Cousins,
And that was a known potential consequence, and that's been
the reality of it. But like, I don't think that
they feel like other than forcing Sam Darnold to stay here,
or they could have franchised Daniel Jones, I guess I'm
trying to think if there was any reason why they
couldn't have. But both of those guys wanted to start elsewhere,
(22:31):
and they didn't want to be in a position where
they were competing with the favored guy because just the
way the NFL works is he was JJ McCarthy's drafted
number ten. That's just how it works. And so and
they got it and there was no hard feelings. And
I guess the part that you could you could roll
over in your head is the Rogers part, you know,
(22:53):
because that was just a free agent, you know, so
who wanted to be here and and was and kind
of wanted to supersede that processing for another year. And
then you see that what for most of the time
when JJ did play those ninety five plays, he looked
like a guy that wasn't quite ready yet. And so,
uh that part, you know, I guess there could be
some some people rethinking that, but for the most part,
(23:16):
I think it's just like disappointment slash tension that that
what they did decide on hasn't they haven't gotten enough
time to see it. Yeah, you can't really say that
they made the wrong decision yet, they just don't. I mean,
he hasn't, he didn't. I mean two games is not
enough for anybody with a with a fair out, you know,
mindset to make a judgment on it, Like they don't
(23:37):
know if they made the right decision yet, because there
just hasn't been enough out there.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
However, However, in your own piece, your own lengthy piece
on the trip, it sounded to me as if, based
on a say, a particular quote from KOC that you highlighted,
that we're seeing already some acknowledgment on the part the
head coach, whether he would get mad. In my interpreting
(24:03):
it this way, that I think the quote was something
to the effect of, well, Carson, you know, has been
able to get rid of the ball quick, He's been
able to process things quick, He's been able to go
through his progressions quick.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
I know he didn't necessarily intend that to be a
rip on the other guy, but given the context, I
think that's part of again what you know, the the
Magobos don't want to deal with this, but we're we're
we're evaluating in real time. It's not over for McCarthy,
but we evaluate on the basis of what we have.
And if in Wentce you're seeing a guy who's doing
(24:40):
some of that stuff that is vital to the way
KOC runs an offense better, then to me it's reasonable
that the head coach factored that in moving forward, at
least in the short term.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah. And I think the idea and the hope is
that McCarthy has seen you know, he saw his film
of him holding and we and I had the number
the other day. I forget I think is JJ McCarthy's
average throw was around two point nine three seconds uh
an eternity, Yeah, and then relatively right and so and
Carson Wentz. I think it's two point four. And people
(25:13):
are like really a half a second means, but it
does like that's like you could like the range is
not that high and and it's just that's just the
way it is. And so the hope in the I
think is that in watching Carson do that, that that
that there's if it was if the value of being
quicker wasn't already understood that it maybe it is now.
(25:36):
And so the question is like, is it was it
just a choice or is it just that he wasn't
throwing it because the processing wasn't happening.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well five h seven guy asks the question very directly,
I'll ask you because he wants your answer. Yeah, are
the Vikings a better team with McCarthy or Wentz?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
It would be hard to argue in the very short
term that that it's not with Wentz. But like I
don't think once Carson Wentz has played well enough for
us to make the flag down and say this is
his team and he is the guy that's going to
take them to the playoffs. I mean, he's played like
a pretty good backup. You know, if you look at
I mean the way you can say what we want
to by QBR, but if you look at the QBR rankings,
(26:18):
in the time he's played weeks three through five, he's
around twenty seven with a decimated offensive line. Decimate offensive line,
and and there's some ways in there in the QBR
formula to take it into account, like it's input. The
time that you have before the pressure is input and
some other things. And so and he's taken some sacks,
and he's you know, taking some hits, but he's largely
(26:42):
you know, like when you when you have your backup
quarterback coming into to play an extended period of time,
in reality, you're hoping for five hundred play. You're hoping
that he can run your offense. And he's done for
most of the part. He's run the offense pretty decently.
And and there's been progress. He even said, like I'm
still learning how to throw it to Justine Jefferson. Like
(27:03):
after this, you know, in Week one against Cincinnati, he
probably doesn't throw that ball up for grabs over the
middle and Justin just goes up and gets it. And
there's another play on the sideline, I think, and you
so you can see in real time him saying, oh
I can do this, I can do this. I didn't
know that, like and so maybe there's potential for it
to go from just good, you know, back up to like,
(27:25):
you know, better than expectations starter. I don't know, but
right now, you know, it's hard to argue that that
they would be better with the JJ McCarthy that we
saw the first two weeks. But I also don't think
that Wentz has done so much that you can just
definitively say they're a better team for the rest of
the season with him as their starter.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Historical question, just for the sake of accuracy, because I
feel like I missed this or maybe I forgot it
in the piece you were, like the Sando piece that
I think you were referencing. He mentions that the Vikings
actually offered Dananiel Jones more money than he ended up
with with the Colts. That the Vikings offered fifteen mil,
not even if it was for one year. I don't recall,
(28:08):
and that he I think the Colts it was fourteen.
He clearly knew he had a better chance to win
the job there made it an easy decision forget the
one million. I guess I don't so we did. As
far as you know, we did offer him one year
fifteen mil.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I don't even remember that you know, I knew that
they were in, that they were right there with the Colts.
I didn't Santo. Information was new to me and he
wouldn't put that out there if he wasn't very certain
of it. But again, a million out like they. I
think the fundamental thing that we understood, which is that
he wanted to go somewhere where he thought he had
(28:43):
the best chance of playing, still applies.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So is it your understanding that, let's just say, for
the sake of this discussion, Jones would have accepted whatever
reason he was not going to have a chance to
compete for the at least at the start of the
season correct or started training.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That would have been interesting because if JJ had had
the camp that he had, and Daniel Jones had the
camp that apparently he had with the Colts, that would
have been very interesting. And so, like I don't, I'm
not saying that they if they had signed Daniel Jones,
that he would have just been banished to the backup
no matter what. I'm just saying that he just knows
how it works. We all know how it works, and
(29:19):
so it would have been very interesting had that been
the case. I mean, there was no he was JJ
there was no quarterback better than JJ McCarthy in training
camp this year. But and then you saw what happened.
They had traded the backup that they had and so
that was kind of an acknowledgment of that. So it
wasn't as if they gifted him the starting position quote unquote.
But had Daniel Jones been here or even Sam Darnold,
(29:41):
I guess, and it had been even something that wasn't
totally rigged, it would have been very interesting to see
how that would work.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
A lot of good questions coming in Seaffert. Which food
do you prefer Dublin's or London's?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You know? And I don't know if it's just because
we got some good recommendation. The food in Dublin was awesome.
We had so we went to a place that somebody
recommended and it was like smoked meat and it was
like out of this world. The short rib kind of
dealing nice I did. I wouldn't say chicken out, but
I did get fish and chips in multiple places just
to see what it was like. And you know, that
(30:18):
was that is what it is. I am not a
big fan of peas, and and if you if you
get a traditional fish and chips platter. It has a
tartar sauce bowl and then a bowl of green stuff
which in America we would think is probably guacamole or something,
and it turned out to be pureaid peas, which they
didn't go over very too well. But I had some
(30:41):
great meals in Dublin, but it might have just been
been also in London, but like it might have just
been that we got some good recommendations.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Are we I'm trying to catch up on a lot
of stuff that are not the things that are not
necessarily related but important I think or or I'm curious
about is koc kind of a mift even without being
willing to say so. With Christian Darosol regarding this snap
count thing that went from seventy seven the week before
(31:09):
to because it sounds like, based on the quotes you got,
you got, I think that I saw that Derisol just
took himself out, and I'm wondering how much of a
surprise that might have been to the staff itself, because
then you're back to if there is an actual count,
don't you sit them, you know, like you do with
Addison first quarter and then have them available for late.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
It's not like I don't think there's a go into
it saying he can only play fifty snaps. I think
they've they've empowered him to when he starts feeling it
to take himself out, you know whether that's gonna be
after forty snaps fifty snaps. It's definitely an unusual situation,
but it would be really a tough spot to be
(31:53):
in if you empower the guy to do it and
then get mad at him when he does. And so
I don't I've had them scrambling. Yeah, I did. And
I think like if you ask anybody on the team,
like would you want Christian Darisa out there or not,
the answer would be yes. And I wish that he would.
I will say, like, I don't know if it shows
up on TV or not, but in the Pittsburgh game,
(32:14):
which was in Dublin, and then even in the beginning
of the parts of the of the London game, you
can see him like if he goes to the ground
in the process of his block, like he's like laboring
to get up, and then like if they have a
big play downfield, he's laboring to get down the field.
And I asked him, I was like, is this a
situation where you're having pain in your knee and he's like, no,
(32:36):
I'm just reconditioning my knee and I'm reconditioning my body
and I'm listening to it, and so, you know, it's
certainly unusual. I can't say it doesn't make any sense,
because we've heard plenty of cases over the years of
players who were coming back from injuries and tried to
push through things and either reinjured themselves or did not
(32:59):
meet the stand of play that they are used to providing,
or felt like they couldn't or whatever. I mean. They
you know, he played those seventy five snaps or seventy
six snaps against the Steelers, and they held him out
of practice two of the three days after that, and
he still, you know, didn't you know, didn't turn over
to the point. And so you know, it's a it's
a it's something that would not be happening in the
(33:21):
nineteen eighties or seventies or whatever. But I can't say
it's it's a wrong approach. And I don't think that
Christian Deisol is like taking advantage of somebody or a
policy or anything. I think he's just like it's he's
a big dude, and it was a serious injury and
everybody heals differently, and he's trying to be as smart
(33:44):
about it as best as he can.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What were Seaffert and Addison doing while the Vikings had
the infamous walkthrough.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Well, I we don't have access to walkthrough, so I
was not in the in the area. I don't I
don't have anything on the Addison more details in the
morning there or afternoon? When was the walkthrough? What time
they have typically have walkthroughs in the morning. On Saturday,
they have walkthroughs in the afternoon, and so I don't
(34:14):
know the one. What day they didn't say, and I
can't say with certainty which day it was, and so
I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
But you know, see Guardian, you were talking about this yesterday,
it seems like when you're in that environment, especially you
know you're not at home, but you're on the road
and everything is restricted and everybody's in it to get
all that, it seems almost impossible to miss a walk through. Well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The one thing though, is they were located way far
away from London from downtown line. Yeah, they were in
this like like it was like out of a hitchcock
movie they're in these like rolling It was Hanbury Manor
it used to it was once a a state owned
by the Hanbury's and the naturally became a convent man.
(35:04):
He had a huge manner somewhere, but his is like
it was remote, undisclosed, so that the bad guys couldn't
get us. But and so it was literally like like
we had some shuttle the NFL shuttles the media up
from the from the Media Hotel which is in London
up to the to their facility. It was a couple
(35:24):
of shuttle rises for like two hours. And if you
wanted to like take public transportation, which we did one time,
it was one of those U tube the you know,
subway to a train, you know, and transfer to a
train and then get to the closest station to them,
which you then had to call a cab and so
like it was not easy. And so if you were
(35:45):
going anywhere and trying to get back by a certain time,
you had to be very time conscious.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So so we don't really know. He hasn't really addressed it.
He I mean, he talked to us, but he referred
where he was. He wouldn't go there.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
He deferred all that to O'Connell, And what O'Connell said
is that he missed the walk through. All right, let's
get one more break in.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
We got one more segment with Kevin Seffert in studio
back from London slash Dublin, Glenn Mason Dayline Fargo. This
will be for the fourth consecutive week, right, you can't
make it up. It's his new home. Kessler will be
in studio as well in the five o'clock hour. But
more football. Some good texts coming in as well when
we return the obligatory. Do you know how bad Peyton
(36:45):
Manning was? His first game? Text has come in. I
get it about four times a week for a whole
season exactly. By the way, inheriting what the Colt's terrible?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Oh, he was the number one pick in the draft.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yes, when Troy Aikman took over in Dallas. Weren't the
Cowboys terrible? You do have to factor that in. This
is not a terrible team that was inherited Peyton Manning.
So look, the issue to me again is is it's
it's get I get to catch twenty two. If the
kid needs more experience, the only way he's going to
get it is to play. The disconnect has always been
(37:20):
you built this team. It seems in a way that
you thought it was going to accomplish two things. One
make it easier for him to succeed Allah maybe what
they learned about the way the Bears tried to do
it a year ago with Caleb Williams. But the two
we got enough other good pieces, and we got a
good defense where we think we might be able to,
you know, catch lightning in a bottle this year. And
are those things compatible for this season?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
That's the question.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of
giving him that experience if it is going to have
a significant impact on your chances to have a winning season.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, And the and the other question that wasn't hasn't
really been explored much, is were they in fact good
enough to win I want to say in spite of him,
but good enough around him to support the level that
he was at right And so I don't know if
you can look at those first two games and say
for sure that they're that good.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Fair Kevin, what week and or game would you presume
or speculate that the Vikings would be back to full force.
He's talking about offensive line he's talking about Aaron Jones,
he's talking about Van Ginkle, he's talking about Cashman, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
A lot of those guys I think are gonna be
ready after the bye for the Eagles. For the Eagles,
it sounds like Cashman is at least going to be
you know, they're having his window open. Donovan Jackson will
be back, I think, is the plan at Left Guard.
I don't know if Brian O'Neal will be ready, but
it'll be in the discussion for sure. JJ McCarthy I
(38:51):
think will be getting pretty dang close to at least
being able to have a full practice week. And Van
Ginkle don't know like they they said he was. I mean,
he hasn't done anything since that. He played like eight
snaps in the second game, and he really hasn't done
anything since then.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And so his wife came through on the love Boats time.
That was the best tweeted lers. Just amazing she was.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That was outstanding and I appreciate it because I remember
I still remember the feeling I had at the end
of the bye week of that twenty years ago when
I'm watching care Leven news on I think it was
Sunday night at ten o'clock and seeing this that the
attorney for the Alin Alma's group being interviewed and thinking, well,
my life is about to change here for a few
(39:36):
days and it turned out to be for a full
year almost What.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
About the so the center, How many concussions is it
now to here?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Two here in a total of at least five since
he got the NFL.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
It's you could argue it's the classic second guest after
the fact. But is it fair to ask whether the
Vikings did the proper due diligence and what kind of
risks are involved in investing in a player from another
team that has that kind of history.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah. No, I think that they knew all the information,
they decided to roll the dice, and they felt like
they had enough of a track record with their medical
staff that I mean, I don't think concussion, not from
a concussion standpoint, I don't know what you can do
to prevent concussions, but they he had also had some
other injuries, and I think that they felt like they're
(40:25):
pretty good at being able to to to minimize those
types of injuries, soft tissue type things and then and
or get them back at the right time. But the
concussion thing for any player is a roll of the dice,
and there's no I don't think. I'm not aware of
any strategies or approaches from medical staffs from various teams
(40:50):
that are better at preventing them than others.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
This is from Neil plans change injuries have ravaged the team.
It doesn't matter what they were planning on doing. I
don't know he means what I think he means there,
because part of it for me is the best laid
plans were McCarthy's going to be the guy from the
beginning of the season. We're gonna roll with it, and
we're going to see what he can do, and hopefully
it's going to build for something. But it it the
(41:13):
season's happen the way they do despite best laid plans,
and so then plan plans are allowed to change in
real time. On that basis, and I've said this to
a lot of the McCarthy fans, This doesn't the notion
that we've invested too much in him and we have
to play him.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I stay, I say yes.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Eventually, but I think plans are allowed to change during
the course of a season, and maybe it ends up
being delayed. That doesn't mean it's gonna it's gonna be
prevented from happening.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
No, And I actually think that that's a lot of
what O'Connell was kind of saying in his own way,
is that he I mean, I left Europe thinking that
he definitely wants to get McCarthy back on the field
in games, but he wants to do it in what
I would call an orderly fashion. And I know that's
kind of an old school term, and I think about
like fire drills when I was in elementary school, and
(42:05):
they wanted you walking quickly, but an orderly fashioned to
the door and not in a panic. He there's going
to be benchmarks that he's going to want McCarthy to hit,
and until that point, I don't think he's going to
be in a rush to play him. And so it
doesn't mean you can't hit all those benchmarks in one week.
You know, the first one is going to be that
(42:26):
he's one hundred percent healthy, and the second benchmark is
going to be that he shows he's one hundred percent
healthy by being willing able to push off that foot
and not be looking like his mechanics are all screwed up.
Because sometimes when you're hurt, you compensate, or you're not
mentally psychologically, there's all different ways that your footwork when
(42:48):
you have a foot in a you know, lower body
injury can change. And so then is he doing all
the footwork and fundamentals that they have you know, worked
on him with throughout training camp, and then he's at
that point, Then is he in football shape and all
those sorts of things, And when all those things happen,
he's gonna find a way to play him. I think
unless Carson Wentz does a turn to where he's playing
(43:09):
so lights out that you can't look the locker room
in the eye and say that. But I again, like,
we're not at that point with Carson Wentz, and we
might not know, we might be over projecting what he's
capable of at this point, but he's and we talked
about the level that we think he's playing at right
now and what he might progress to. But you know,
I don't think that they're like looking for ways to
(43:33):
keep JJ from playing. I think they're looking for the
right amount of progress before that they put him on
the field.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
By the way his shoulder injury, they're gonna further examine
it and I think Carson Wentz, I should say on Wentz, yes,
So is there any reason to believe that might be
there might be a bigger structural problem there that also
might enter into the decision making moving forward in the
short term.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I think entered the decision making on whether Wentz plays.
But I don't. I mean, and I know, well, we'll
go with this if I say this, But I I
think that he's that O'Connell and the rest of the
building is very committed to viewing JJ without the context
of what's happening with Carson Wentz or whatever. And so
(44:19):
if Carson Wentz just can't play, but JJ is not
hitting the benchmarks, then what's the answer. Well, I don't
like that's where he just perked up. I can't. I
don't know. I don't know, But like, that would be
not a great process if you have eventually essentially you're
putting JJ McCarthy back on the field before you would
(44:42):
otherwise have done so because Carson Wentz has this injury,
and so I.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Don't know what the don't let brose the field, man,
I'm telling you think Koc is ornery. Now, how authoritative
was he taking that knee at the end of the
first set.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I've never seen a guy doing cool as a cucumber.
I never, I've never seen a guy do that better.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Lastly, you had a nice, extensive piece kind of laying
out this is kind of the trip that the Vikings had,
you know, volunteered for, and that by the end of
it they may have been.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Regretting some of that.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So did they miscalculate something in your estimation? Is it
just the nature of it's unprecedented and it's just it's
they had to act added factors that you did initially
count on, regarding injuries and even getting people across the pond,
or what do you think looking back?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I think they probably miscalculated the extent to which playing
the Steelers in Dublin would neutralize a home field advantage.
And you know, the Steelers have great trap like their
fans are great. They like when you cover a Steelers
game on the road, if they were to come here,
I know it right, it's I mean and it's not.
I mean, that's just who they are. Everybody knows that,
(45:49):
and so it struck me as surprising that there would
be an expectation that somehow it would be not you know,
like a neutral site game and even if like the
the regardless of like the fan, you know, just you know,
the percentage of fans like there were still they do
this thing at the Steelers Stadium that the Renegade song,
(46:11):
and it just gets everybody fired up. And they did
it there and so and people were ready for it,
and it just really created an atmosphere that made you
feel like you were at a Steelers home game. And
so they probably missed. And then you can't say that
the Vikings play like the Vikings looked unsettled to me
throughout that game, and they kind of talked about that
as well, and so they probably missed. Calculated a little
bit the degree to which they would be the Steelers
(46:34):
would be losing their home field advantage because they definitely
felt like they were the home team in that game.
The rest of it, I think it's just you know,
you can you can go to Europe and get or
anywhere where the time difference is significant and get acclimated
to the point where you're tired that you sleep at
night and you're awake during the day. But and I
can just say this from a personal standpoint, and I
(46:56):
didn't have to do anything physical it's like you're still
like not as rested, and you're still tired, and you're
still out of sorts, and you've and you know, you've
been eating out every day, and in their case, they've
been eating with a team. But you know, people, football
is such a routine oriented, uh sport where like, you know,
(47:16):
the game is almost always played on Sunday. On Monday,
you do this, you know, you for your recovery as
a player, and you sleep this long and then you
go and they get up the next morning at the
same time. And both a lot of these guys, that's
how they get themselves from the one car crash to
the other, the car crash being the game, and so
there was a lot of like just not feeling like
(47:38):
themselves because they weren't able to do that. And people
might say, well that's you know, these are millionaires. They
but it's just the way it is. I don't know
how else to say, and so, like, you know, it
was totally natural human biology to feel out of sorts
and more tired and a little bit cranky probably and grumpy.
And everybody was feeling that, not just people who worked
(48:00):
for the team. Uh you know, I was feeling the
same way too, And so I get it. I can
empathize and I know what it felt like. And so
I don't think that they viewed it as this massive
mistake or like they should never have done it. But
it was just a lot and it was always going
to be a challenge and and but you didn't know
what it was going to be until the extent of
until you experienced it.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
There's all, there's only so much Shepherd's pie you could eat,
and Shepherd's pie is very bloating.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
So I think that there's somebody somebody ordered that once
when I was out, and it was your guy, Alec
Lewis actually and he you know, he's not I wouldn't
say he's like the biggest eater of the group. And
but he could only eat like five bytes of it
before he was full. And so I have a picture
of like a big shepherd Pie that got taken away. Yes,
But but yeah, they're for sure, and it's just and
(48:46):
they and they, the organization did a lot of things
to try to make you know, they had the food trucks,
they had they brought a lot of food with them
and they sent it on cargo ships and but and
so every effort was made to make it feel as
close as possible, but it's still is not the same.
Thanks for coming in, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Appreciate you coming in as quickly as since you just
got back the other day.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
We'll chat next week.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Okay, Kevin Seaford ESPN dot com. That in the background,
if you hear something rattling, it's probably a very anxious
and annoyed Glenn Mason because we have cut into his time.
He will join us from you guessed at Fargo next
This is your do we embrace it or run from it?
Leader Fan Fan Radio Network excuse me and k fa N.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Two minutes nine seconds past the hour of three o'clock
Central daylight time.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
It is a midweek edition of the Bumper to Bumper program.
And what an emotional show this could be. Virtually from
start to finish. No fewer than two, well actually three
if you count Glen Mason of our world travelers are
(00:46):
with us on today's show, and two of them not
Glen Mason, no our returning home in studio.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Think about it. It's unbelievable. Pat Kessler, fresh.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Off spending forty eight hours in the Vatican City, who's
goal for challenging the pontiff security to a fight, will
tell us all about it and many other things regarding
his trip across the Pond to Italy. While he was
in Italy, our three p fifteen guest Kevin Seaffert, was
(01:19):
luxuriating in Dublin and then of course London, England. He
too is a world traveler, a weary world traveler who
is back as well. So no, I actually don't yeah,
do you a little bit? I mean, in the time
that they've been to Italy and Dublin and London. I
went to Columbus. So I mean I'm not feeling a
(01:41):
bad football I'm not feeling great. Yeah, not feeling great
about my lot in life. That's a fair point, Columbus.
One way to look at it, will you? You do
need to travel more?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I think. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My guess is as your kids get older, you might.
Oh yeah, When I say travel more, I mean internationally.
Oh yeah, I mean all over the place, not just
in the Winnebago I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Well, I guess you could probably rent to win a
bagel in Europe. You could, but that might be problematic
because the roads are not the roads can be changed.
I get to go to Eugene in about a month.
It's beautiful. I've been to Eugene Olympic track trials.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Beautiful scenery, I mean beautiful backdrop there in Eugene. Not
the easiest place to get to, as I recall, or
is it near Portland? I don't remember.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's like an hour and a half from Portland. That's
what They do. Have an airport that I think we're
flying into. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, well, yeah, that's not quite as romantic. It's hanging
out with George Clooney, Right, it's not Lake Como, that's it. Uh,
And even with Seafford, who, according to the latest piece
he's written, is I was obviously as ready as the
Minnesota Vikings to get back on United States Tarra Firma.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Do you think that what the Vikings just did?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Do you think that has ended all international games for
the rest of time? Given the stories that are coming
out of there, they're basically making this sound like Alcatraz.
We're going to talk to Seaford about it. I said
this yesterday. I have no sympathy for the Vikings because
I'm with you there raised there, no can do it,
not only can we do it?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Just watch us.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, all these suggestions about us two weeks in a row. Hey,
we know what we're doing. We're not like any other organization.
Now if you are talking about winning playoff games, we're
like several other organizations because we can't win any but
we're better at this.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
This is the one thing.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And now it's like, oh my god, what do we do?
So we'll get into all that with uh. With sever
who seems very sympathetic, maybe he too was worn down. Yeah,
I think he was ready to be home. Well, I
think Seaver was there longer than the team. I think
he left the way they left on a Thursday. And
for Dublin, I think he left on a Wednesday. If
I'm not mistaken, that's true. And and so he's probably
(03:49):
even wearier than members of the club as well. Didn't
show up in his writing. I can tell you no,
Are you kidding? He wrote better than the Vikings played
against Pittsburgh. Indefatigable Is that the word? That's how I
described Seaford, Sure, indefatigable. I think if you look it up,
it's a compliment. And I don't give them out very easily,
as you know, real quick, because Seaford is next segment
(04:10):
branch on Brian Cafe in text line six four six
eighty six.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Do we embrace it or do we run from it?
Do you know what I'm talking about? I don't. I might.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I don't know specifically though, on this date, in nineteen
hundred and fifty six, we proudly opened the first shopping
mall in the history of the United States of America.
Isstial world This, I mean Southdale opened on this date.
What's the date today? Six the eighth eighth ye in
(04:44):
the year nineteen hundred and fifty six. I think it
went through a few addition additions over the years. In fact,
they're still they've now just done have you been by
it recently? They've just done another major change with they stole.
I still don't get it. They stole a bunch such
a galleria store they did. I don't even know how
they must've I mean, there must have been some bonus
(05:04):
money involved there, something to get them to move over.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Some France Avenue crime right there. I'm not even sure.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I as a huge galleria snob, I'm not sure I approve.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
But they did it.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
It all began in fifty six, and the question is
it's ours if we want to take credit for it
because we got there first. But do we do we
embrace that we were the first metropolitan community, any community
to build and open a mall or given the way
a lot of people feel about malls in general, shopping
(05:36):
centers of that sort in general, they kind of turn
their noses up and say, ah, god, what, oh no,
I don't like going there. There's nothing interesting about them.
There's nothing creative about them. There's nothing urban about them
at all. Do we run from our history or do
we embrace it? Well, if you're asking me, you know me,
I am very pro mall and I'm very pro DNA.
(06:00):
So I'm the wrong guy to has that's true. You're
not objective. I'm not objective in anyway. But I do
love and that mall in particular. You know how much
I love going to Mall of America and just walking her.
I could live in Mall of America. If they said
we want you to live in Mall of America for
a while, I could do it.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Well, here's what Here's the way I've described all of America.
See if you agree. Because a lot of people have
criticized and said, what's the big deal, It's just another mall,
only larger. I maintain that the closest in the metropolitan
area I feel that I am not in town or
in the area is when I'm at the mall hysteria.
(06:35):
I don't even know why, but I do. I feel
like it's someplace different. Yeah, I think that's what I like.
He eat Maui for me, But it's just it feels
like village.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
This is a trip. Yeah, yeah, it's a trip out.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
You're you're out of you know, the Twin Cities, even
though it's in the Twin Cities. Well, yes, for you,
that's as close as you'll get to Saint Paul. Most
days you can see the skyline maybe years most years. Yeah,
I think that's a good way to put it. I
think because I feel maybe a little bit of a
departure as well. And you can get everything but Southdale.
I mean I grew up at that mall. That was
a big deal, right if you could go to South Dale.
(07:09):
It was the first anchor department store at Southdale. Do
we know Dan went to Soda Mike. I'm sure it's
probably easily found. I don't know, was it. I'm sure
Dats was there from the beginning, probably, but I don't
know for sure. All Right, somebody will know. I remember
Dan tickets there because he used to be able to
buy concert tickets. Yeah, like at Dayton's at the ticket Master,
a little kiosk there. I mean, I love that mall.
(07:32):
It's bougie now though, Well that's what the Southdale has
gone wondering, like Southdale's last stand. Yeah, that they are
in trouble and they felt like our only chance is
to do we did they got a Kowalski's in there? Now,
it's the biggest Kowalskis I've ever seen lifetime. It's massive there.
And then as well as you say the beautiful people
(07:52):
stores from Galleria are moving over right, you have a
fancy designer perse shops the whole bit. Yeah, I wonder
like I used to go to structure there all the
time and that went into Express. Yes, ra Rapercrombie. If
you're really feeling it, I mean it was great. It
was great. By the way, Dan Minnesota tells us that
he tried to tag Southdale on the tweet that he
(08:13):
sent out regarding on this day in Minnesota history, but
it says their tweets are protected. He asked, is that
any Dina thing guards? You probably wouldn't surprise you. But
they don't want just anybody tweeting about them. All right now,
You've got to have a certain cachet to tweet. You
want to tweet about the Southdale Center, you'd better bring
you You're not gonna do it with a pellic gun,
(08:35):
is what we're saying. What was the what would be
considered the hate? What what's the the salad days? The
is it the Halcyon years for Southdale because I don't
think there now, this was their attempt I think to
recreate mysels in general, right, but what would well, yeah,
some more than others though, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Mall of America is thriving, it is it not.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It is, but they had to recreate themselves, right, put
hotels in there. They've obviously got the amusement that they've
got the aquarium, that's got all the restaurants, and they
have the advantage that people will come from North Dakota,
South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, wherever to buy a bunch
of clothes with no state sales tax, which a lot
of people do, right, And you can go to any
you can go to any store, you go.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Back to school shopping.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
The Mall of America, you're running into basically the entire
Midwest because people are coming to take advantage of it.
The heyday of the I think the heyday of the
mall has to be eighties and nineties, right once everybody
started getting alady and the suburbs were exploding. In the nineties.
I mean, I think I grew up, well, it used
to be my mall when I lived in Minneapolis, that
was the one I was more likely to go to.
(09:37):
And then I mean Dayton's that became Marshall Fields. That's
what is it now? I don't even know what did
it become. It's it's north Strom. It's no, it's the
New York store. No, it's not very good. Macy's. Oh,
Macy's now it's Macy's. It's it's nowhere near what it
was according to most people. We're reminded. And I think
this rings a bell. The guy who invented the indoor mall,
(09:58):
because that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Obviously, an in door mall. We were aware. It's not
the first mall. We get it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That he's It's almost like the guy who was it
was it Oppenheimer who created the atomic bomb and then
regretted what he was involved in.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think this guy, whoever he was, spent the rest
of his life agonizing, causing him turning over what the
monster that he thought he created? Oh well, that's too bad,
because if I could speak to him, I'd say job
well done. He said, you did your job. A lot
of us had a lot of great memories there, and
now you know malls, are you ever see yourself when
(10:36):
you're like my age or older, retired, doing the walk,
getting your exercise around the mall.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Lot of older people do that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That's how they get their exercise because it's really cold
out in the winter and so they just they put
their tennis shoes on and they just do fast walks around,
you know, the mall perimeters. I can see myself doing that, Dan,
because I occasionally do that.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Now I already do that sometimes.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Interesting because you knock out two birds with on scand
go get a nice three four mile walk in, go
do some shop easily done, find some things, go have
a nice meal.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I suspect our three point twenty three p. Fifteen guest
is not a mall guy. But we'll find out. I
will find out exactly what surprised him, regarding as he
chronicled the vikings back to back games across the Pond.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Questions for Seaffert six four six eight six.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That is the Bradshaw and Bryant got away money. But
first the fan and two men and a junk truck
want to give you a shot at bonus buch. That
is our national cash contest and the first keyword on
this Wednesday is win at wi N Go to cafe
dot com and enter the keyword Winn. The guy who
(12:17):
invented the K cup coffee maker has definitely expressed regret
because of the billions of tiny plastic cups. That's from Charlie.
I'm wondering if there are a lot of inventors who
regret what they invented, whether it was the atomic bomb
or the mall. Kevin Stefer, you do not strike me
as a guy who loves to just hang out, you know,
(12:38):
if the deal is we're gonna spend the next eight hours,
almost a full day, mosying through the mall. Maybe you
get some shop a little, grab some lunch, then we
shop some more. Maybe we even get an early dinner,
or we get a snack to go home. That doesn't
strike me as you.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Not anymore. I grew up in mallzone. My dad worked
at a department store and then and I would go
to work with him sometimes, and then I started working
at that department store, and all through high school and
college I worked there, and it was in a mall,
and so I have fond memories of being in the mall,
like when I go in there and smell the perfumes
(13:15):
and the fragrances that like Abercrombie puts out into the mall.
And when we first had kids, the only and it
was in the winter, like I would take them to
the mall just to walk there and have something to do,
and they'd fall asleep in the in the stroller. And
so there's definitely been lots of portions of my life
where I've spent a lot of time in malls. But uh,
the scenario you paint of going to hang out to
(13:37):
one right now at the top of your list, not anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
No, if your choices are State Fair or the Mall
of America, which way do you lean?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Oh, I'm headed to the Pineapple parking lot at the
Mall of America right now. It's not even a close call. No, No,
it's so it's a blow up.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeahs our comrades.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It doesn't want to go. He's just like you.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
We talked about it last time we had him on.
In fact, he thanked you. I believe I thought your
name came up. Yeah, I think it did. And somebody
is you know, somebody else who's staying of our guests,
who's staying strong. You're the last two holdouts basically, I'll
have to reach out to him, make sure we stay
in solidarity. Now's your last parking lot? P three, Hawaii
is your parking spot? It sounds one like that's that.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Part of the deal at the mal America is you
have to park in the same spot every time or
you'll never find your car. I do have a routine
as well. Yeah, yeah, can you.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Get the breaking news sounder? I should have had it ready.
I'm going to trust that Lavelle is accurate with his information.
Here he passes along to us that via the athletic
Nico Storm is going to have back surgery now and
we'll miss what is described as a significant amount of time.
(14:51):
We talked about this with Louis yesterday, that he was
going to be put on injured reserve. But I don't
think injured reserve felt quite as damaging as this news.
Right back now, back surgery, I guess isn't what it
used to be, but still can be fairly significant. So
there you have it, more bad injury news for the
(15:11):
Minnesota Wild. Can you confirm Guardia. Do you find it anywhere?
Do you think Lavelle made it up? No, he read
it correctly. Yeah, Russo and Joe Smith put out of story.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Were you on the text a few weeks ago?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
A week or so ago when he texted us about
in the feast of Collier's injury. I don't know if
you were on that one. It was just to me
and he said, uh, Ramona Shelburn's reporting she has, you know,
a tear and but no break and blah blah. I said, well,
didn't Feast say that herself yesterday? And he's well more
annoyed at Ramona. Well, as I recall it, the head
(15:43):
coach said fracture Originally, well, that was after the game, yes,
after the game, and then in the exit interview after
she talked about her after the statement, the four minute
statement had the boot on. Yeah, she said I have
some tears, but no fracture. And so he breathlessly texted me,
I'm like, I'm pretty sure Feast said that. So you
got to double check everything you can report. Yeah, be sure,
you can't be sure, trust, but verified exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Let's get this out of the way first.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
My sources say things got speaking of the length of
the whole deal, which you wrote about extensively, very nice piece,
trying to you know, put the whole trip together. From
the Vikings standpoint and what you observed and a lot
of good quotes and what you reported on, it sounds
as if you get the Jackals and koc we're not
(16:28):
getting along the way we are accustomed to both parties
getting along.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
What the hell happened across the pond? Well, I mean,
you have pretty good sources, obviously, and so I wouldn't
dispute anything that of what you said, there was some
private conversations that were initiated by the team, and so
if the team wants to be public about it, that's
up to them. And we occasionally as reporters, use discretion
and don't actually lab everything out. But I'll give you
(16:55):
something some points of context. And the first is that,
as you know from being a reporter, like, it's not unusual,
over the course of a season of covering a pro team,
a college team, sometimes maybe even an intense prep type
team for the people doing the reporting and the teams
to run a skew of each other and to be
(17:17):
in disagreement on various things. And sometimes it's just a
matter of when the reportings reporters are doing their job
and the team is doing their job, you're just going
to be in different spots, and so when those situations happen,
you hope that you have done the work of building
a strong enough relationship that you can work through it
and you know, maybe not to have a resolution, but
(17:39):
be able to get to the other side of those
issues that pop up from time to time. And when
you get to the other side that then you can
go about continuing to do your job on both sides
and aware of how everyone feels. And so hopefully that's
where we're at once. Things, you know, we get back
after the buy, whether that's next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and
(18:01):
I fully expect it will. And the other point of
context is that, you know, the the overriding story of
the season and really of the past eighteen month has
been the quarterback and what the Vikings are trying to
do is really hard and really intense, and there has
just been a higher level of tension around everybody. You know,
(18:22):
it's not just the head coaches, you know, it's management, staff,
players and reporters because it's the biggest story we have
covered as well over that time. And when they drafted
JJ McCarthy, they got a prospect that a lot of
people loved, but was just objectively the youngest and the
least experienced, and so it wasn't explicitly said at the time,
(18:42):
but it was going to require a lot of development
capacity from JJ McCarthy and a lot of capacity to
develop from the coaching staff and the front office for
this to work. And you know, a year and a
half in, like, you can't say it's gone great because
for largely reasons that are not controllable, through the injuries,
(19:03):
didn't play, didn't you injured? His entire rookie year played
two games, less than one hundred snaps, most of them
didn't go that great. But then he's heard again and
so and from our perspective, like you look at that
entire class last year, he had as much name recognition
and there has many fans. When you go to the
University of Michigan and win a national championship, the country
(19:24):
knows you. So we can you know, we can feel
it anecdotally, We know it from our data that like
people are super interested in everything about him and how
it's working. And it's not just a Minnesota story. It's
that it's the most national story for this franchise, and
so we are probably covering it more aggressively and more
intensely than some other things that have gone on over
(19:47):
the years. And that's just the nature of the business.
And so those are the things that I guess I
would add to what you said last week, and in
hopes of trying to just give people an idea of
where things are while trying to, you know, keep some
of the details that were said in private, is it it?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Is it fair to say some of the tension is
also driven or maybe exacerbated by the fact that Sam
Darnald has been great, Danny Dimes has been great, and
even Aaron Rodgers has at least been good. That, whether
it's fair or not, because it's such an important position,
(20:27):
and because the Vikings were in a very unusual position
last year, having seemingly too many legitimate choices. Now some
of them might not have been financially viable, that that
adds to it. So my point is if McCarthy is
playing healthy, and he's playing well, not great, but even well,
that there's gonna be less of the inevitable man. Look
(20:50):
at what these other guys are doing that you chose
to move on from, maybe because you had to practically
in the case of Darnald, and whatever other circumstances going.
I think that enters into this, whether anybody there is
willing to admit.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
It, it definitely enters in from the outside. Like people
and my friend Mike Sando from The Athletic wrote a
very well researched in long column. People were very bitter
for me with me for quoting from that piece. Oh,
and like, I guess everybody took what they wanted to
take from it, But what I took was that, you know,
it's too early to judge McCarthy, but like, it's just
(21:26):
the fact that Donald is playing very well and so
is I don't he mentioned Daniel Jones as well. He
did probably, but like it was Donald thing and a
Rogers thing, and so like, I don't think that the
Vikings are regretting any decisions. I think they know that,
like Donald was not going to sign here like no
matter what they unless they forced him by franchising. He
wasn't en franchised. They could have and through that again, Yeah,
(21:49):
but they I don't think that they regret sort of
turning it over to JJ McCarthy yet. It's just that
it just hasn't worked right as well, and so you
have to make a well reasoned decision, and you have
to live know what the potential consequences are. And that
was always a consequence that in the very in the
short term, it wasn't going to be the same as
it was with a Donald or it would have been
(22:11):
with a Daniel Jones probably or was with Kirk Cousins,
And that was a known potential consequence, and that's been
the reality of it. But like, I don't think that
they feel like other than forcing Sam Darnold to stay here,
or they could have franchised Daniel Jones, I guess I'm
trying to think if there was any reason why they
couldn't have. But both of those guys wanted to start elsewhere,
(22:31):
and they didn't want to be in a position where
they were competing with the favored guy because just the
way the NFL works is he was JJ McCarthy's drafted
number ten. That's just how it works. And so and
they got it and there was no hard feelings. And
I guess the part that you could you could roll
over in your head is the Rogers part, you know,
(22:53):
because that was just a free agent, you know, so
who wanted to be here and and was and kind
of wanted to supersede that processing for another year. And
then you see that what for most of the time
when JJ did play those ninety five plays, he looked
like a guy that wasn't quite ready yet. And so,
uh that part, you know, I guess there could be
some some people rethinking that, but for the most part,
(23:16):
I think it's just like disappointment slash tension that that
what they did decide on hasn't they haven't gotten enough
time to see it. Yeah, you can't really say that
they made the wrong decision yet, they just don't. I mean,
he hasn't, he didn't. I mean two games is not
enough for anybody with a with a fair out, you know,
mindset to make a judgment on it, Like they don't
(23:37):
know if they made the right decision yet, because there
just hasn't been enough out there.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
However, However, in your own piece, your own lengthy piece
on the trip, it sounded to me as if, based
on a say, a particular quote from KOC that you highlighted,
that we're seeing already some acknowledgment on the part the
head coach, whether he would get mad. In my interpreting
(24:03):
it this way, that I think the quote was something
to the effect of, well, Carson, you know, has been
able to get rid of the ball quick, He's been
able to process things quick, He's been able to go
through his progressions quick.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
I know he didn't necessarily intend that to be a
rip on the other guy, but given the context, I
think that's part of again what you know, the the
Magobos don't want to deal with this, but we're we're
we're evaluating in real time. It's not over for McCarthy,
but we evaluate on the basis of what we have.
And if in Wentce you're seeing a guy who's doing
(24:40):
some of that stuff that is vital to the way
KOC runs an offense better, then to me it's reasonable
that the head coach factored that in moving forward, at
least in the short term.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah. And I think the idea and the hope is
that McCarthy has seen you know, he saw his film
of him holding and we and I had the number
the other day. I forget I think is JJ McCarthy's
average throw was around two point nine three seconds uh
an eternity, Yeah, and then relatively right and so and
Carson Wentz. I think it's two point four. And people
(25:13):
are like really a half a second means, but it
does like that's like you could like the range is
not that high and and it's just that's just the
way it is. And so the hope in the I
think is that in watching Carson do that, that that
that there's if it was if the value of being
quicker wasn't already understood that it maybe it is now.
(25:36):
And so the question is like, is it was it
just a choice or is it just that he wasn't
throwing it because the processing wasn't happening.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well five h seven guy asks the question very directly,
I'll ask you because he wants your answer. Yeah, are
the Vikings a better team with McCarthy or Wentz?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
It would be hard to argue in the very short
term that that it's not with Wentz. But like I
don't think once Carson Wentz has played well enough for
us to make the flag down and say this is
his team and he is the guy that's going to
take them to the playoffs. I mean, he's played like
a pretty good backup. You know, if you look at
I mean the way you can say what we want
to by QBR, but if you look at the QBR rankings,
(26:18):
in the time he's played weeks three through five, he's
around twenty seven with a decimated offensive line. Decimate offensive line,
and and there's some ways in there in the QBR
formula to take it into account, like it's input. The
time that you have before the pressure is input and
some other things. And so and he's taken some sacks,
and he's you know, taking some hits, but he's largely
(26:42):
you know, like when you when you have your backup
quarterback coming into to play an extended period of time,
in reality, you're hoping for five hundred play. You're hoping
that he can run your offense. And he's done for
most of the part. He's run the offense pretty decently.
And and there's been progress. He even said, like I'm
still learning how to throw it to Justine Jefferson. Like
(27:03):
after this, you know, in Week one against Cincinnati, he
probably doesn't throw that ball up for grabs over the
middle and Justin just goes up and gets it. And
there's another play on the sideline, I think, and you
so you can see in real time him saying, oh
I can do this, I can do this. I didn't
know that, like and so maybe there's potential for it
to go from just good, you know, back up to like,
(27:25):
you know, better than expectations starter. I don't know, but
right now, you know, it's hard to argue that that
they would be better with the JJ McCarthy that we
saw the first two weeks. But I also don't think
that Wentz has done so much that you can just
definitively say they're a better team for the rest of
the season with him as their starter.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Historical question, just for the sake of accuracy, because I
feel like I missed this or maybe I forgot it
in the piece you were, like the Sando piece that
I think you were referencing. He mentions that the Vikings
actually offered Dananiel Jones more money than he ended up
with with the Colts. That the Vikings offered fifteen mil,
not even if it was for one year. I don't recall,
(28:08):
and that he I think the Colts it was fourteen.
He clearly knew he had a better chance to win
the job there made it an easy decision forget the
one million. I guess I don't so we did. As
far as you know, we did offer him one year
fifteen mil.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I don't even remember that you know, I knew that
they were in, that they were right there with the Colts.
I didn't Santo. Information was new to me and he
wouldn't put that out there if he wasn't very certain
of it. But again, a million out like they. I
think the fundamental thing that we understood, which is that
he wanted to go somewhere where he thought he had
(28:43):
the best chance of playing, still applies.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So is it your understanding that, let's just say, for
the sake of this discussion, Jones would have accepted whatever
reason he was not going to have a chance to
compete for the at least at the start of the
season correct or started training.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That would have been interesting because if JJ had had
the camp that he had, and Daniel Jones had the
camp that apparently he had with the Colts, that would
have been very interesting. And so, like I don't, I'm
not saying that they if they had signed Daniel Jones,
that he would have just been banished to the backup
no matter what. I'm just saying that he just knows
how it works. We all know how it works, and
(29:19):
so it would have been very interesting had that been
the case. I mean, there was no he was JJ
there was no quarterback better than JJ McCarthy in training
camp this year. But and then you saw what happened.
They had traded the backup that they had and so
that was kind of an acknowledgment of that. So it
wasn't as if they gifted him the starting position quote unquote.
But had Daniel Jones been here or even Sam Darnold,
(29:41):
I guess, and it had been even something that wasn't
totally rigged, it would have been very interesting to see
how that would work.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
A lot of good questions coming in Seaffert. Which food
do you prefer Dublin's or London's?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
You know? And I don't know if it's just because
we got some good recommendation. The food in Dublin was awesome.
We had so we went to a place that somebody
recommended and it was like smoked meat and it was
like out of this world. The short rib kind of
dealing nice I did. I wouldn't say chicken out, but
I did get fish and chips in multiple places just
to see what it was like. And you know, that
(30:18):
was that is what it is. I am not a
big fan of peas, and and if you if you
get a traditional fish and chips platter. It has a
tartar sauce bowl and then a bowl of green stuff
which in America we would think is probably guacamole or something,
and it turned out to be pureaid peas, which they
didn't go over very too well. But I had some
(30:41):
great meals in Dublin, but it might have just been
been also in London, but like it might have just
been that we got some good recommendations.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Are we I'm trying to catch up on a lot
of stuff that are not the things that are not
necessarily related but important I think or or I'm curious
about is koc kind of a mift even without being
willing to say so. With Christian Darosol regarding this snap
count thing that went from seventy seven the week before
(31:09):
to because it sounds like, based on the quotes you got,
you got, I think that I saw that Derisol just
took himself out, and I'm wondering how much of a
surprise that might have been to the staff itself, because
then you're back to if there is an actual count,
don't you sit them, you know, like you do with
Addison first quarter and then have them available for late.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
It's not like I don't think there's a go into
it saying he can only play fifty snaps. I think
they've they've empowered him to when he starts feeling it
to take himself out, you know whether that's gonna be
after forty snaps fifty snaps. It's definitely an unusual situation,
but it would be really a tough spot to be
(31:53):
in if you empower the guy to do it and
then get mad at him when he does. And so
I don't I've had them scrambling. Yeah, I did. And
I think like if you ask anybody on the team,
like would you want Christian Darisa out there or not,
the answer would be yes. And I wish that he would.
I will say, like, I don't know if it shows
up on TV or not, but in the Pittsburgh game,
(32:14):
which was in Dublin, and then even in the beginning
of the parts of the of the London game, you
can see him like if he goes to the ground
in the process of his block, like he's like laboring
to get up, and then like if they have a
big play downfield, he's laboring to get down the field.
And I asked him, I was like, is this a
situation where you're having pain in your knee and he's like, no,
(32:36):
I'm just reconditioning my knee and I'm reconditioning my body
and I'm listening to it, and so, you know, it's
certainly unusual. I can't say it doesn't make any sense,
because we've heard plenty of cases over the years of
players who were coming back from injuries and tried to
push through things and either reinjured themselves or did not
(32:59):
meet the stand of play that they are used to providing,
or felt like they couldn't or whatever. I mean. They
you know, he played those seventy five snaps or seventy
six snaps against the Steelers, and they held him out
of practice two of the three days after that, and
he still, you know, didn't you know, didn't turn over
to the point. And so you know, it's a it's
a it's something that would not be happening in the
(33:21):
nineteen eighties or seventies or whatever. But I can't say
it's it's a wrong approach. And I don't think that
Christian Deisol is like taking advantage of somebody or a
policy or anything. I think he's just like it's he's
a big dude, and it was a serious injury and
everybody heals differently, and he's trying to be as smart
(33:44):
about it as best as he can.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What were Seaffert and Addison doing while the Vikings had
the infamous walkthrough.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Well, I we don't have access to walkthrough, so I
was not in the in the area. I don't I
don't have anything on the Addison more details in the
morning there or afternoon? When was the walkthrough? What time
they have typically have walkthroughs in the morning. On Saturday,
they have walkthroughs in the afternoon, and so I don't
(34:14):
know the one. What day they didn't say, and I
can't say with certainty which day it was, and so
I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
But you know, see Guardian, you were talking about this yesterday,
it seems like when you're in that environment, especially you
know you're not at home, but you're on the road
and everything is restricted and everybody's in it to get
all that, it seems almost impossible to miss a walk through. Well.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
The one thing though, is they were located way far
away from London from downtown line. Yeah, they were in
this like like it was like out of a hitchcock
movie they're in these like rolling It was Hanbury Manor
it used to it was once a a state owned
by the Hanbury's and the naturally became a convent man.
(35:04):
He had a huge manner somewhere, but his is like
it was remote, undisclosed, so that the bad guys couldn't
get us. But and so it was literally like like
we had some shuttle the NFL shuttles the media up
from the from the Media Hotel which is in London
up to the to their facility. It was a couple
(35:24):
of shuttle rises for like two hours. And if you
wanted to like take public transportation, which we did one time,
it was one of those U tube the you know,
subway to a train, you know, and transfer to a
train and then get to the closest station to them,
which you then had to call a cab and so
like it was not easy. And so if you were
(35:45):
going anywhere and trying to get back by a certain time,
you had to be very time conscious.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So so we don't really know. He hasn't really addressed it.
He I mean, he talked to us, but he referred
where he was. He wouldn't go there.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
He deferred all that to O'Connell, And what O'Connell said
is that he missed the walk through. All right, let's
get one more break in.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
We got one more segment with Kevin Seffert in studio
back from London slash Dublin, Glenn Mason Dayline Fargo. This
will be for the fourth consecutive week, right, you can't
make it up. It's his new home. Kessler will be
in studio as well in the five o'clock hour. But
more football. Some good texts coming in as well when
we return the obligatory. Do you know how bad Peyton
(36:45):
Manning was? His first game? Text has come in. I
get it about four times a week for a whole
season exactly. By the way, inheriting what the Colt's terrible?
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Oh, he was the number one pick in the draft.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yes, when Troy Aikman took over in Dallas. Weren't the
Cowboys terrible? You do have to factor that in. This
is not a terrible team that was inherited Peyton Manning.
So look, the issue to me again is is it's
it's get I get to catch twenty two. If the
kid needs more experience, the only way he's going to
get it is to play. The disconnect has always been
(37:20):
you built this team. It seems in a way that
you thought it was going to accomplish two things. One
make it easier for him to succeed Allah maybe what
they learned about the way the Bears tried to do
it a year ago with Caleb Williams. But the two
we got enough other good pieces, and we got a
good defense where we think we might be able to,
you know, catch lightning in a bottle this year. And
are those things compatible for this season?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
That's the question.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
What are you willing to sacrifice in the name of
giving him that experience if it is going to have
a significant impact on your chances to have a winning season.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, And the and the other question that wasn't hasn't
really been explored much, is were they in fact good
enough to win I want to say in spite of him,
but good enough around him to support the level that
he was at right And so I don't know if
you can look at those first two games and say
for sure that they're that good.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Fair Kevin, what week and or game would you presume
or speculate that the Vikings would be back to full force.
He's talking about offensive line he's talking about Aaron Jones,
he's talking about Van Ginkle, he's talking about Cashman, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
A lot of those guys I think are gonna be
ready after the bye for the Eagles. For the Eagles,
it sounds like Cashman is at least going to be
you know, they're having his window open. Donovan Jackson will
be back, I think, is the plan at Left Guard.
I don't know if Brian O'Neal will be ready, but
it'll be in the discussion for sure. JJ McCarthy I
(38:51):
think will be getting pretty dang close to at least
being able to have a full practice week. And Van
Ginkle don't know like they they said he was. I mean,
he hasn't done anything since that. He played like eight
snaps in the second game, and he really hasn't done
anything since then.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
And so his wife came through on the love Boats time.
That was the best tweeted lers. Just amazing she was.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
That was outstanding and I appreciate it because I remember
I still remember the feeling I had at the end
of the bye week of that twenty years ago when
I'm watching care Leven news on I think it was
Sunday night at ten o'clock and seeing this that the
attorney for the Alin Alma's group being interviewed and thinking, well,
my life is about to change here for a few
(39:36):
days and it turned out to be for a full
year almost What.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
About the so the center, How many concussions is it
now to here?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Two here in a total of at least five since
he got the NFL.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
It's you could argue it's the classic second guest after
the fact. But is it fair to ask whether the
Vikings did the proper due diligence and what kind of
risks are involved in investing in a player from another
team that has that kind of history.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Yeah. No, I think that they knew all the information,
they decided to roll the dice, and they felt like
they had enough of a track record with their medical
staff that I mean, I don't think concussion, not from
a concussion standpoint, I don't know what you can do
to prevent concussions, but they he had also had some
other injuries, and I think that they felt like they're
(40:25):
pretty good at being able to to to minimize those
types of injuries, soft tissue type things and then and
or get them back at the right time. But the
concussion thing for any player is a roll of the dice,
and there's no I don't think. I'm not aware of
any strategies or approaches from medical staffs from various teams
(40:50):
that are better at preventing them than others.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
This is from Neil plans change injuries have ravaged the team.
It doesn't matter what they were planning on doing. I
don't know he means what I think he means there,
because part of it for me is the best laid
plans were McCarthy's going to be the guy from the
beginning of the season. We're gonna roll with it, and
we're going to see what he can do, and hopefully
it's going to build for something. But it it the
(41:13):
season's happen the way they do despite best laid plans,
and so then plan plans are allowed to change in
real time. On that basis, and I've said this to
a lot of the McCarthy fans, This doesn't the notion
that we've invested too much in him and we have
to play him.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I stay, I say yes.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Eventually, but I think plans are allowed to change during
the course of a season, and maybe it ends up
being delayed. That doesn't mean it's gonna it's gonna be
prevented from happening.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
No, And I actually think that that's a lot of
what O'Connell was kind of saying in his own way,
is that he I mean, I left Europe thinking that
he definitely wants to get McCarthy back on the field
in games, but he wants to do it in what
I would call an orderly fashion. And I know that's
kind of an old school term, and I think about
like fire drills when I was in elementary school, and
(42:05):
they wanted you walking quickly, but an orderly fashioned to
the door and not in a panic. He there's going
to be benchmarks that he's going to want McCarthy to hit,
and until that point, I don't think he's going to
be in a rush to play him. And so it
doesn't mean you can't hit all those benchmarks in one week.
You know, the first one is going to be that
(42:26):
he's one hundred percent healthy, and the second benchmark is
going to be that he shows he's one hundred percent
healthy by being willing able to push off that foot
and not be looking like his mechanics are all screwed up.
Because sometimes when you're hurt, you compensate, or you're not
mentally psychologically, there's all different ways that your footwork when
(42:48):
you have a foot in a you know, lower body
injury can change. And so then is he doing all
the footwork and fundamentals that they have you know, worked
on him with throughout training camp, and then he's at
that point, Then is he in football shape and all
those sorts of things, And when all those things happen,
he's gonna find a way to play him. I think
unless Carson Wentz does a turn to where he's playing
(43:09):
so lights out that you can't look the locker room
in the eye and say that. But I again, like,
we're not at that point with Carson Wentz, and we
might not know, we might be over projecting what he's
capable of at this point, but he's and we talked
about the level that we think he's playing at right
now and what he might progress to. But you know,
I don't think that they're like looking for ways to
(43:33):
keep JJ from playing. I think they're looking for the
right amount of progress before that they put him on
the field.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
By the way his shoulder injury, they're gonna further examine
it and I think Carson Wentz, I should say on Wentz, yes,
So is there any reason to believe that might be
there might be a bigger structural problem there that also
might enter into the decision making moving forward in the
short term.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
I think entered the decision making on whether Wentz plays.
But I don't. I mean, and I know, well, we'll
go with this if I say this, But I I
think that he's that O'Connell and the rest of the
building is very committed to viewing JJ without the context
of what's happening with Carson Wentz or whatever. And so
(44:19):
if Carson Wentz just can't play, but JJ is not
hitting the benchmarks, then what's the answer. Well, I don't
like that's where he just perked up. I can't. I
don't know. I don't know, But like, that would be
not a great process if you have eventually essentially you're
putting JJ McCarthy back on the field before you would
(44:42):
otherwise have done so because Carson Wentz has this injury,
and so I.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Don't know what the don't let brose the field, man,
I'm telling you think Koc is ornery. Now, how authoritative
was he taking that knee at the end of the
first set.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I've never seen a guy doing cool as a cucumber.
I never, I've never seen a guy do that better.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Lastly, you had a nice, extensive piece kind of laying
out this is kind of the trip that the Vikings had,
you know, volunteered for, and that by the end of
it they may have been.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Regretting some of that.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So did they miscalculate something in your estimation? Is it
just the nature of it's unprecedented and it's just it's
they had to act added factors that you did initially
count on, regarding injuries and even getting people across the pond,
or what do you think looking back?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
I think they probably miscalculated the extent to which playing
the Steelers in Dublin would neutralize a home field advantage.
And you know, the Steelers have great trap like their
fans are great. They like when you cover a Steelers
game on the road, if they were to come here,
I know it right, it's I mean and it's not.
I mean, that's just who they are. Everybody knows that,
(45:49):
and so it struck me as surprising that there would
be an expectation that somehow it would be not you know,
like a neutral site game and even if like the
the regardless of like the fan, you know, just you know,
the percentage of fans like there were still they do
this thing at the Steelers Stadium that the Renegade song,
(46:11):
and it just gets everybody fired up. And they did
it there and so and people were ready for it,
and it just really created an atmosphere that made you
feel like you were at a Steelers home game. And
so they probably missed. And then you can't say that
the Vikings play like the Vikings looked unsettled to me
throughout that game, and they kind of talked about that
as well, and so they probably missed. Calculated a little
bit the degree to which they would be the Steelers
(46:34):
would be losing their home field advantage because they definitely
felt like they were the home team in that game.
The rest of it, I think it's just you know,
you can you can go to Europe and get or
anywhere where the time difference is significant and get acclimated
to the point where you're tired that you sleep at
night and you're awake during the day. But and I
can just say this from a personal standpoint, and I
(46:56):
didn't have to do anything physical it's like you're still
like not as rested, and you're still tired, and you're
still out of sorts, and you've and you know, you've
been eating out every day, and in their case, they've
been eating with a team. But you know, people, football
is such a routine oriented, uh sport where like, you know,
(47:16):
the game is almost always played on Sunday. On Monday,
you do this, you know, you for your recovery as
a player, and you sleep this long and then you
go and they get up the next morning at the
same time. And both a lot of these guys, that's
how they get themselves from the one car crash to
the other, the car crash being the game, and so
there was a lot of like just not feeling like
(47:38):
themselves because they weren't able to do that. And people
might say, well that's you know, these are millionaires. They
but it's just the way it is. I don't know
how else to say, and so, like, you know, it
was totally natural human biology to feel out of sorts
and more tired and a little bit cranky probably and grumpy.
And everybody was feeling that, not just people who worked
(48:00):
for the team. Uh you know, I was feeling the
same way too, And so I get it. I can
empathize and I know what it felt like. And so
I don't think that they viewed it as this massive
mistake or like they should never have done it. But
it was just a lot and it was always going
to be a challenge and and but you didn't know
what it was going to be until the extent of
until you experienced it.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
There's all, there's only so much Shepherd's pie you could eat,
and Shepherd's pie is very bloating.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
So I think that there's somebody somebody ordered that once
when I was out, and it was your guy, Alec
Lewis actually and he you know, he's not I wouldn't
say he's like the biggest eater of the group. And
but he could only eat like five bytes of it
before he was full. And so I have a picture
of like a big shepherd Pie that got taken away. Yes,
But but yeah, they're for sure, and it's just and
(48:46):
they and they, the organization did a lot of things
to try to make you know, they had the food trucks,
they had they brought a lot of food with them
and they sent it on cargo ships and but and
so every effort was made to make it feel as
close as possible, but it's still is not the same.
Thanks for coming in, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Appreciate you coming in as quickly as since you just
got back the other day.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
We'll chat next week.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Okay, Kevin Seaford ESPN dot com. That in the background,
if you hear something rattling, it's probably a very anxious
and annoyed Glenn Mason because we have cut into his time.
He will join us from you guessed at Fargo next
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