Sunday Sermons: The State of Minnesota Football

Dan is back giving the sermons ahead of Week 8 of the NFL kicking off, he discusses the state of both Vikings and Gophers football, and touches on the Wild and Wolves.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Be.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
We were supposed to be so far past this, weren't
we when it comes to college football, the local major
college football team, the local professional football team, so far
past we had in place. We've been told over and

(00:21):
over again, good to outstanding coaching at both the college
level and the professional level, or perhaps, in the case
the Gophers, as good as you could expect at a
place like this.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
More on that later. In PJ.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Flack, we had a with it and wow version of
what a college football coach is supposed to be in
twenty twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four to
twenty five, and in Kevin O'Connell there, let me be
clear about something there know there is not a single coach,

(01:03):
including the coaches who have won Super Bowls and gotten
the Super Bowls, who receive as much praise nationally as
Kevin O'Connell does.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I don't even think anymore. It's close.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
You cannot turn on a national show on a Saturday,
a Sunday or a Monday without hearing how I wanted,
I wish I could play for koc. This is the guy.
He's figured out everything at the quarterback position, et cetera.
And I'm thinking to myself, as the lost weekend plays out,

(01:37):
then how does thirty seven to ten happen? How does
forty one to three happen? How one thing is to
lose because you're gonna lose. You're gonna lose some games

(01:57):
you should win. That's part of the deal, even for
good coaches. But if we are in such capable, consistent,
professional hands, as we're told over and over and over
again we are, how does this weekend long weekend, if
you want to include Thursday night happen? Ratchean Brian Kafe

(02:18):
in text line six four six eighty six answer that
question or try to, because I you know, I've I've
alluded to a headline that was in the Start Tribune
before the college football season began, and I thought it
was a great headline. I wish the subject raised in

(02:41):
the headline would have been explored in more depth in
the actual story.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
But the headline was PJ.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Fleck has raised the Gopher's floor, but can he now
raise their ceiling? Vital question, crucial question. I think we
got our answer, boys and girls, He's not going to
all that much. He's just not so the floor is

(03:09):
going to be a lot better than it has been
under if you want to go back far enough, because
I lived through it, the Jim Wacker days, some of
the worst days obviously of Tim Brewster, et cetera. It's
not going to be that bad. But we're going to
be what we are, a cute little club. How many

(03:32):
times have we talked about we spent last week I
did lauding the complete nature of the Gophers destruction of
Nebraska the previous Friday night here well earned utterly and
completely out coached Nebraska and outplayed them.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
But what did we add? That victory has opened the door.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
To people in this town, that including casual college football fans,
because there's a bunch of them taking another.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Look at you and go, huh, maybe something's going on here.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Maybe not gonna make the national championship playoffs, but maybe
something's going on here worth watching.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
That was the moment.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
When the Golden Gophers had I think the attention a
little bit at least to the casual fan. And what
was the key following up? And by that, does that
mean you have to go to Iowa and win? Maybe
that's not fair, but is it really too much to
ask that you put on a representative performance? So as

(04:48):
far as I'm concerned, the Nebraska victory is already squandered.
You can't get to nine wins. You're gonna be in
the middle of the big ten pack. You're gonna be
what you've tended to be, be a cute little club.
And the question, I guess I should say, the question
that the start to be to ask before the season
is being answered. He's not gonna raise their ceiling that

(05:10):
much on a given weekend. He might get you feel
a little better. Well, that was the game they were
supposed to lose, at least according to the oddsmakers Nebraska.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
But we're not going to seize upon it. We're not
going to build on it.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
We've had that happen season after season where you win
a couple games, you go oh, and then they turn
around and can't close it. I was reminded during the
Gopher Football Sunday show the Gophers have not even won
on the They're zero and three on the road. They've
been outscored badly in two of the games now, one
of them is against Ohio State. You go out to

(05:44):
high a state, as Glenn Mason would say, and Iowa
is I think probably better than people give the people
always assume the worst about Iowa Y because of the
jokes about their offense. They can't score, they can't do
any thing. We're happy that you got a cute little defense,
but what difference does it make. Well, they might have
a little more going offensively just because they got a

(06:06):
really good offensive line. Nevertheless, forty one to three games
over obviously in the in the first half can't happen.
Shouldn't happen if you're capable of raising.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
The ceiling.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
And I don't want to hear the whining in the
case of the Vikings about injuries. We know they have
them if we spend maybe that's what I should do
one day this week, go around the league and concentrate
with the same emphasis that we spend every week on
this station whining about Vikings injuries, injuries at key positions

(06:52):
that a number of other NFL teams have been facing
from the start of the season. That doesn't mean every
team has an equal number of significant injuries, but it
means they're out there and for enough players and teams
over and over again, and at some point you either
do something with it or you don't. Can I broaden
this out a little bit too. During this lost weekend.

(07:16):
You can officially put me in the camp that doesn't
give a bleep about the stretches of a hockey game
in which I'm told after the game the Wild deserve better.
I don't care anymore if they deserve better. I care
if at the end of the game they have more
goals than the other team.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
I'm just done with that, Because do we think we're
the first team in history that, over a course of
an entire game, or let's say, a period and a
half of a game, should have gotten more out of
our dominance on the ice? Do we really think that
we're the only team that ever happens to What do
the good teams do?

Speaker 3 (07:56):
They figure it out, They find a way to win
the game. And I.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
So I don't even want to hear about that anymore.
I don't know was anybody even muttering it after last
night's loss. I can't recall. Probably, Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's just you know, that's great.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Pat yourself on the back if you want to about that.
Isn't that the nature of hockey? Hockey is a game
as I understand it. You know it a lot better
than I, even though I was watching Chicago Blackhawks hockey
in nineteen sixty five, long before you even were close
to existing. And and what I you know, get out

(08:37):
of it is like I said that, it doesn't Ultimately
you can you can kid yourself into what we had
the better end of the play.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
We got beat by better goaltending. That's hockey.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's why the position is viewed as as having such
a premium. So you can tell I'm not maybe in
the best mood because of what we're dealing with right
now in this town.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Of the Wild. They're back in action.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Today, right tonight. The Wolves are back in action. Tonight
Wolves got carved up. The Wolves, the team committed to
a new level of defensive intensity and excellence from you
know they're going to match from two years ago, got
carved up by a Lebron James less Los Angeles Lakers
of Anaheim. They are back home for their home opener

(09:32):
this afternoon. Later this afternoon, I believe, late afternoon. I'm
here to say that even if the Wolves win tonight,
as they should, ady if the Wild counter with a victory,
I don't think that's going to be enough to put
a bow on this lost extended weekend. I really do

(09:52):
think we need to stop congratulating ourselves and sending as
many any bouquets as we do to PJ Fleck and
to KOC. By the way, let's make it clear that's
not me calling for either coach's head. I'm just saying
we've gotten so much in the habit of that without

(10:16):
really paying close enough attention to the results. And in
the case of interestingly, the Wild situation, the Viking situation
aren't that different. They really aren't, except that they're perceived differently. Admittedly,

(10:36):
when you have a fourteen to three season, I don't
think the Wild have ever had a season quite like
that regular season. But let's face it, the Minnesota Vikings
under this regime have done nothing in the postseason zero.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
It's undeniable.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
And the Minnesota Wild haven't gotten out around one in
the ten years.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, So.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
This congratulation of boy, everybody wants to play for Koc
and man, what a great communicator he is.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
And and and we're.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Just lucky to have lucky to have him and PJ,
who are you going to get? That whole bit? Who
are you going to get? Maybe we should toughen our
standards just a little bit, because those were Let's face it,
it wasn't that the Vikings went to la and lost
to the Chargers. It wasn't that the University of Minnesota

(11:32):
football team went to Iowa City and lost to the Hawkeys.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
It was those weren't professional.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Well, I guess you could use professional with college now performances,
or you just scratching your head and you're saying, who
are we supposed to congratulate at this point?

Speaker 3 (11:51):
And exactly for what reason? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
So you know we're gonna get into this little later
Sunday Sermons is the name of the program. Barrero and
blakemore with you till eleven o'clock today. On the college level,
I really believe we're going to look back on the
Kurt Signetti era as being the worst thing that has

(12:16):
ever happened to the PJ flex, to the coaches of
programs who are kind of seemingly stuck in the middle
in the Big ten, that's ever happened to them. I
really do believe that, because forever you could just say, well,
what are you going to do? You know you got
blue bloods, You're never going to be able to compete

(12:38):
with Ohio State, and likely with Michigan and likely with
Penn State at least until this year.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
For Penn State. William come on places like.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Evanston, Illinois, even Champagne.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Illinois, Womington, Indiana.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
I gonna win a bunch of football games there, and
then signetti hits IU and people go, wait a minute, Now,
I thought this was impossible. Now, Indiana hasn't won anything yet,
they haven't won a Big Ten title, they haven't certainly
won the national championship, but they obviously put themselves in

(13:23):
very good stead in an historic in an historic fashion,
at a place that, trust me because I went to
school there and still know people.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
There was one of the.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Worst college football destinations in America, Minneapolis included. And so
people are gonna start scratching their heads and going, well,
I thought it was impossible. What's going well, wait a minute,
what do you mean? So we'll see how this goes.
I thought hard Blake Moore about going the other way

(13:57):
today in the open and trying to go poly day
on the bit, trying the trying to be philosophical Polydanna,
which goes something like this. You know why it's important
to accept, if not enjoy at least accept the lows
such as thirty seven to ten in La forty one

(14:18):
to three.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Is that the final in Iowa City? I think it was.
I believe so they're worthy because.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
When the lows get this low, it's only because you're
in so much pain now that when things turn you
truly appreciate and enjoy the highs. I was going to
try that, but I didn't think anybody would buy it.
At this point, I'm not sure anybody should to be
honest about it. I also owe the odds makers and apology.

(14:53):
I mocked and ridiculed the point spread Iowa Gophers. I
didn't pick Minnesota to win, but I said it was
like almost ten. What do we talk about Friday? It
was like ten nine and a half points, and I'm going,
what are you smoking? In Iowa City. Part of my

(15:13):
rationale was Nebraska was too heavily favored over the Gophers
the week before, and I assume if there was a
lesson there that would be carried over. I apologize to
as odds makers, who obviously did nail a significant belief
that one team is substantially better Iowha Gyes than the

(15:38):
Golden Gophers, and they didn't get their heads turned by
one very good performance against an overrated, as always Nebraska
Cornhusker team. That's why they're making billions of dollars getting
people to throw games as odds makers, or at least

(15:59):
prop bets, if not games. And I'm sitting here doing
a talk show on a Sunday morning in Minneapolis, Saint Paul,
this might be a good week. We don't usually use
much of the talkback on sermons, but today might be
the day. Might be a good talkback day for the
audience to either vet your spleen or to defend the

(16:25):
ground on which we tread. They say, it's not as bad, Dad,
as you're suggesting. I'm not even saying it's bad. I'm
saying we've got to stop romanticizing exactly what's going on here.
And in the case of I have kind of reached now,
there's been enough time has passed since what seemed to

(16:46):
be the breakthrough season was a twenty nineteen for the Gophers.
That's six years ago now, man, So no, we're not
going to be a weekly laughing stock the way we
once were. We'll be in the middle somewhere, but the
ceiling's just not gonna be significantly raised any one year.

(17:07):
So what have we said, go back to when there
was still a big ten West and big ten East.
Win it once, win it outright, at least once, shouldn't
be too much to ask. The way the teams are
separated at East and West. We didn't do it. We
had opportunities to do it. There was always we were
always that one game or one and a half games short.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
So at some point, how long has PJ been here?
Now he is what he is?

Speaker 2 (17:31):
And again that's not an incompetent coach by any stretch
of the imagination. But we're we're just we're not going
to see the ceiling raised, not in any sign, not
in a significant way. And unless he figures something out
that I don't know that rationally you can say the
light bulbs, what ten, twelve, fifteen years in the light

(17:53):
bulb's gonna go off in his head and we're gonna
like everything's gonna get raised up.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
No, we're not.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
And in the case of the Vikings, come on, man,
there's a million ways you can try to explain your
way out of it, the current condition of the club.
But they went to La to face the coach. They
turned down Jim Harbaugh, and let's be clear about something.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
He stuck it to them.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
He delivered a message to the Vikings that you might
be cute, you might think you got the with it
and wowhead coach who knows every sophisticated twist and turn
you could make on a passing game. But despite all
your moves of the offseason, at the line of scrimmage,

(18:48):
you're still not a physically sound.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Football team. At the line, you're just not.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
We're going to show you because we're going to run
without any running back ever heard of, and we're going
to we're going to deny you the opportunity to do
much of any of the same. Brashewan and Brian kampeon
text line is on fire right now.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Six four six, eight six.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I love these pj's the winning as coach and GOP
program history since nineteen sixty.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
That's not raising the ceiling.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Those folks, they emerge and they don't listen to what
I said. No, it's not raising the ceiling, not in
any real way. When the opportunity was the deal in
college football, when you're a have not should be every
once in a while you have a chance to have
a breakthrough season, not just a cute season.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
He hasn't done that.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
By the way, these folks also forget how many more
games are now being played each year, which also has
something to do with how many games you even have
a chance to win. I don't want to go down
that road, because I'm not here to suggest that PJ.
Fleck should be dismissed. It's not what I'm saying at all.

(20:16):
But what I am saying is we're just gonna have
to Maybe a lot of people already have come to
grips with this, but we're just we're not going to
see even once every three or four years, the kind
of man they're going for ten wins. They're serious about
this thing.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Not gonna happen every year here because they have disadvantages.
We're not going to see it.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
We just have too much proof of that fact, especially
in this case laid out on the road where they
had one. They've lost one very winnable game that they
should have again in a season where you want to
raise it, you beat cal period.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
End of story. On the road. And then obviously Ohio
State is Ohio State.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Although I still I still am more bothered by not
ether being even not even being competitive in that game.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Even if Ohio State's a very good team, twenty nineteen
was six years ago, the fan has learned. We're still
talking about that season.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Also, PJ. Fleck the winningest coach in Minnesota history. His
career Big Ten record with Minnesota from twenty seventeen when
he came here thirty seven and thirty eight. He is
sub five hundred in the Big Ten.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Still a better Big Ten record that some of his
compadres that came before, and I think including Glenn Mason.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Congratulations.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
So but it kind of is what it is at
this point. So you know, it's I don't know how.
I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings. I'm just reacting
to what we what we saw. And again I'm not
even grading on a curve that says go to Iowa
and win. I've given up on that. I know we

(21:53):
did it three years ago. We got lucky on a
call that we didn't deserve. But that's another story for
another day. That's the exception. Is that not even clearer
now that that's the exception to the rule was at
twelve to ten that game. That's what's ironic about people
who are getting who are upset with me and getting defensive.

(22:15):
I'm not even thinking about going to Iowa and winning,
although that is the way you actually emphasize and seemingly
give credibility to what you did at home against Nebraska
the week before. I'm saying, go to Iowa and make
it a hell of a ballgame. Make it a hell
of a ballgame. Make Iowa work from the first play

(22:36):
to the you know, the last three minutes of the
fourth quarter, and that the entire second half of that game.
They just should have called it at the half because
you knew how Iowa was going to play.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Game's over.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
At that point, you pivoted from Koc versus Harbaugh to
talk about failure in trenches. That's gm issue, not coaching, right,
It's both. Let's make no mistake, and people who cover
the Vikings know it. If you do not think Koc
is very much these days involved in general managing or

(23:13):
personnel decisions.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
You're not paying attention.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I know who's got the titles, and I'm not taking
the the onus off of the general manager. But you can,
you can if if you're you're being incredibly naive, if
you don't think he's got major input on every move
that that this team makes. So it's a combo platter
for sure. Six four six eighty six bratch on brad

(23:38):
kfan text line. As I said, hit the talkback if
you'd like. We got a full two hours to get into.
I want to get Blake Moore to file alive Minnesota
Wild Hockey report as well as we return home. And
it's still not going so well for us. We made

(23:58):
it a game afterget what we gave up three goals
and was it forty two seconds something like that, something
like that, and then we made it a game, but
then we couldn't get We never got closer than three
two correct, and then at that point things got out
of hand again and a couple of empty nets at
least one empty net goal and I think one breakaway.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
In any case, it's not working out really well.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
And somebody told me going to go for men's hockey
is another issue that we need to talk about with
with lou Nanny as well.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
So we'll get to some texts.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
We'll have blakemore fhile a live report from the Wild
game last night and mix and match with a number
of other conversations before we wrap it up at a lot.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Six one two. Guy doesn't quite get it. He thinks
this is.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
The what's the term I could go with here? The
I can't figure out the expression I'm looking for here?
He thinks, I am in all, I am being haughty

(25:47):
because the school I went to as a football program
for the first time in my lifetime, Dan, you went
to AYU.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Wow, do you ever mentioned do you ever mention it?
Six win two?

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Guy?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
You can go with that if you want, And yes,
I am enjoying what they're doing. But Glenn Mason will
tell you that regardless of whether you went to school
there or not, they represent one of the best football
stories in the country right now. It's not about though,
whether it happens to be Indiana.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
It could be, as it was.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
For a significant amount of time North Bleeping Western under
a coach now deposed. The message is, or you want
to go back further, go to the University of Wisconsin.
That was once an afterthought before Barry Alvarez came aboard
on college football. When we talk about raising the ceiling,

(26:48):
that's raising the ceiling. What happened at Wisconsin. Now they're
in a very different state. Right now we get that
no one knows that better than Bret Brett Blakemore. Raising
the ceiling is what north Western did for a number
of years before they kind of came back to the pack.
Raising the bar is what Indiana is doing now. So

(27:09):
it's not about where I went to school. It's the
message is being delivered to say, let let's stop pretending
that up can't happen here. We'll win, some, will lose some.
We'll occasionally beat a ranked team. Well, we'll storm the
field when we beat the twenty fifth ranked team in
the country. I don't have I seen one field storming

(27:34):
at Indiana University yet, I don't remember. Maybe I missed it.
I don't think so. When they beat Illinois, wasn't Illinois
a top ten team? Did they storm the field? Will
you double check if IU fans storm the field after
Indiana edged Illinois sixty three to ten earlier this fall
or late summer.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
Is you're.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
You can make it about me, and you can be
mad at me, but you're missing the point of the message,
which I've delivered for a long time before Indiana got
on the map.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
They did not They did not wait a minute.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
They didn't storm the field this season against Illinois. Yeah, no,
why not.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
I mean, if any place had a right to say
we don't ever have any success, we're strutting out. It's
a harder feel the storm from I'll grant you, because
the way the seats are situated a little bit difficult.
But Vanderbilt somebody mentioned it. Yeah, Vanderbilt's another mace brought
them up this week. Another great story. There's no question

(28:44):
there are some several stories in that classification. What happened
in the while last.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Night, same thing that's been happened in the wild for
the last like two weeks. It seems like when you
talk about did.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
We get down by bad goalten, bad defense, bad luck?
We were down three to nothing early?

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Correct?

Speaker 4 (29:04):
I mean to me, if you I mean, there's a
little bit of everything. I think I wouldn't put it
as much as bad luck as it is. Just yeah,
there's some bounces that could go. But that's just the game.
Like you said in the first thing, that's the game
of hockey. And you would think that, you know, when
you say, ah, we deserve better, you would think that
would even itself out as luck would go over the

(29:24):
course of time. You could you could write off a
bad weekend like that, you could even I'd even accept
writing off a bad road trip. Yes, with that, I
think we've gotten to the point now where it's too
many games happening and over and over and over again
where you can write it off completely. I think they
just have to play. It's simple, but they just have
to play better and more clinical and be up for it.

(29:46):
You can't give up goals. There was one a couple
of weeks ago at home where it was just right
off the drop in the second period goal. Last night
opening face off goal. It just it can't happen.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
No, And again, we're very early in the season. There's
plenty of time to recover. But when you come off
a road trip, as we talked about Friday, in which
you end up with three out of potential ten points,
the pressure's kind of on because now I think this
is the that was game one of a six game

(30:19):
homestand that you got to you got to obviously compensate
for it, right. The idea is you got to kind
of make up for it as well. What's the Utah nickname,
by the way, the mammoth. What do you think that
you what you're feeling about the mammoth? You're okay with it.
I think it's fine. I think the yetie would have
been better. I yeah, well, so what's do we know?
The rationale for the mammoth in Utah is the wooly

(30:41):
mammoth found there first, probably near Salt Lake or mountains
snowy the mammoth, the mammoth. I'm not sure I like
that any better than I've never liked the wild as
a nickname.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
I've never liked it. You do like it, well, but
I grew up with it. Yeah, that's true, so I
am biased.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
And I love the colors too. I don't even remember
what else we were we were thinking of doing.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Well, I can look it up. But the names were bad.
They were They were.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
Like the Blue Ox, the the Blue Ox.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
I don't like color qualifiers of the name. I like
the Golden Knights.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
I don't like that. Just just be the Knights, be
the nights. Anyways, would you.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Be okay if we were the Ox, the Blue Oxes
the Minnesota part of it?

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Obviously?

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Well, yeah, we're looking for Yeah, the wild is fine,
it is, it's good.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
I like it a lot, actually, I really do.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
And that green anyways, No, they're just not playing up
to snuff right now. Now, the good news is the
fan has learned. The season is eighty two games long.
You do get healthier, it gets a Gurello back, you
get Nico back eventually. Yeah, but in this league, particular,
the way the points work, you would much rather be
like we saw last year, get off to a star. Yeah,

(31:52):
and then if you stink in the midway season, it's
harder to fall than it is to chase. Chasing is
the hardest thing you can do in the NHL. It's
just the way the points work, because even if you're bad,
you can get a half, you can get half the
points from an overtime loss and still hang around in
the standings.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
But chasing is just difficult. So they have to turn
around in quick.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Thank goodness, Purdue handed the game to the Gophers, or
things would really look bleak. Gophers made Perdue look like
you look competitive on defense, punting seven times produce opponents
the previous in their prior three Power Conference games punted
combined three times. Yeah, that was I mean, that was
the gift. They took advantage of it. That was one
of those games where you have to I don't know

(32:34):
that Purdue left the Gophers with any choice but to
win the game. But he raises a good point. If
you do not get that one, then everything looks even worse.
You've got a gimme this week. Michigan State's awful. I
think Michigan State might be winless in the Big Ten.

(32:55):
You get them at home, and I think we get
to buy and then you got to go to Oregon.
That's the way to write the season, not write it,
but it too. You know, I guess put a signature
victory on a season because Oregon, although they didn't play
particularly well against your club, the Badgers.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Was it seven nothing at the half? In in Oregon?
It was close pretty much the whole time, pretty much
never scored again. Is that was it a shutout? They
had one touchdown? Oh, you did get a touchdown.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
It was the first touchdown for the Badgers in fourteen quarters.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
I mean, I think everybody expected, though probably a much
worse score, which tells you how far Wisconsin has fallen
from the glory of the Barry Alvareze days.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah, I mean, at one point the quarterback was one
for thirteen in passing attempts. It's just it's a miserable
I didn't even want to watch it, to be honest,
I was on my phone while it was happened to
be on in that place.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
I mean, it's that bad.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
So but here's the thing, and you can call them
spoiled because I argue about this with Guards the all
the time.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
With the Gophers.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Is the expectations, right, you talked about raising the ceilings. Yes,
we probably have texts like, well, we'll never be Ohio State.
You know, that's just our expectations, you know, we we
just will never be that. So let's be happy with
an eight win season. No, like Badger fans want Fickle
gone and the whole thing gutted to start over because
it's not working.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
So it's just exit.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
It looks like a good hire too. I I don't know.
I don't don't know what to make of it. Why
is this is from Brandon out of New Mexico? Do
you agree with this sentiment? Why has gus Bus been
terrible since the first game of the season Do you
accept that premise?

Speaker 4 (34:39):
He definitely, I think terrible is not the right word.
I would say not as sharp is what I would
He has not been as sharp as he was last year.
I think Walstad is just playing currently just as good,
if not better. I think obviously Gus still has the
higher ceiling, but we're just not seeing that right now.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Heck of a weekend for Menzo for Minnesota, Vikings get Trouns,
Wolves lose, the Lakers, Gophers get swept by UMD, and
the ice ghost destroyed at Iowa and wild Lows. What
a time to be Minnesota sports fan. That's from trail
ref guy who may be just joining the program. Missed
the first segment we have. This might shock you, trail
ref guy, but we did notice and did comment on

(35:21):
the lost nature of the weekend this morning. Thank god
Rose Bowl guys checking in and they're coming in so fast.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Here. Let me scroll down to get to.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
One of the most consistent Gopher homers outside of Justin Garden.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
At least I think he might be at the top
of the top of the food chain. You sound like
you've lost touch, all touch with reality this morning. Go
for a walk or something and reset your expectations for
the Gophers.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
There it is.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
I'd say more, but I think your hatred of PJ
and always taking the easy way out has been set
in too long.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
We are fine row the boat, Rose Bowl Guy.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Well, to be honest, as long as Rose Bowl Guy
carries water, he probably will be fine. I I walk
every day, Rose Bowl Guy, I will walk today. I
will enjoy the way I can. It's possible to do
two things at once. You can take a walk and

(36:26):
you can also acknowledge what just took place this weekend
and how In the case of the Gophers, it's a
symptom of what we kind of come to expect every year.
We're gonna there's a game we're gonna win where we go, hey,
maybe something's going on here, and then we'll follow that up,

(36:46):
not always the next week, but soon enough with a
game where you go, well, we kind of squandered that
what door. We seem to have opened a door, and
we shut it two or either the next week in
this case, or two three weeks later, with a performance
that took away a lot of the juice and momentum
that was established with it. Rosemold Guy, Yeah, I love you,

(37:09):
We appreciate that you. But I in all, with all,
in good conscience, I would say there's a chance you
might have lost touch with reality if you are surprised
that the day after the morning after the local football
team goes to Iowa and gets destroyed the way they did,
especially in the first half, that there might be some

(37:31):
pushback or some disappointment. Because if there can't be any
of that, then why are we bothering even to keep
the score. Why don't we just go ahead and give
PJ now the lifetime contract, extend it right now?

Speaker 3 (37:43):
My god, man, that's.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Not living, I would say in reality, now, rosebol Guy
probably needs to live in that environment. That's that's where,
that's his comfort zone. That's not our comfort zone. Because
I can't lie to listeners. I'm not good at that.
Because most listeners Rose Bowl Guy, they are rooting for
the local teams. But I think a lot of listeners

(38:09):
are the kind of fan I was when I grew up,
And I can tell you I didn't want pablom from
talk show hosts. I didn't want mealy mouthed excuses every
week if something wasn't going right.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
I was still going to root for the team. I
want to know.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
We'll give me this, what's going on here, how's that
happen that That's that's not sitting well with me. I
I'm not interested in having the comfort of everything's great
no big deal, these things happen. I didn't want to
live in that world at all. I wanted from the

(38:50):
from the players, from the coaches, from the broadcasters, from
the inkstain wretches. I wanted, come on, give me something,
give me a skinny. How do we explain this is?
This isn't terrible. I got to figure this out. All right,
let's get back on schedule. One more break. We've got
a full hour and fifteen minutes yet to come, Lots
more to get to.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Don't go away Sunday Sermons brought to you by jtr Roofing.

(39:32):
All right, let's get some texts coming in.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Anything to the talkback line yet any talkbackers yet of worth?
I guess you probably answered that question. I'll leave you
to be the editor. If there's something worthy, let me know.
If not, no big deal, I'll live with either. Here's
some texts have come in. Dan, You're spot on your assessments.

(39:55):
In fact, you're even being too nice. I live in Philly,
and they would not be as nice as you're being
about this. I grew up in Minnesota, worked for the
Vikes and bleed Purple and Maroon for that matter, and
these performances need to be called out for what they
are hideous. Yeah, they I mean we're getting a lot
of the old These things happen, they do, but rarely

(40:20):
at this level and rarely on the On the same weekend,
do we have to go back? We had several Vikings
talking points. Did the post mortem on the Vikings game
a Friday?

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Obviously?

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Do we really want to go back over the grizzly details?
I mean, I I called, well, here's here's maybe the
difference between the two disasters, the two debacles this weekend.
There's a there's an element of Vikings fans who are
able to wrap themselves into the quarterback cocoon, as in,

(40:57):
once we get our savior, we're gonna be fine. And
that I'm talking they're talking about obviously JJ McCarthy. And that,
by the way, is if he's healthy enough to play
against Detroit. Let me reiterate that if he is healthy
and enough. I take nothing for granted on JJ McCarthy
at this point in terms of his availability.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Zero.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
He has to prove to me he can be available
before I'm gonna believe he's gonna be available. I know
everybody assumes it because now you got the extra time
in between games, and everybody's talking good. But let's see
and once he's out there, let's see how long the
thing lasts. And you know, again, I the mcbobos are

(41:40):
weird in that they forget I endorsed the move, the pick,
the aggressiveness to go get him. I'm not anti JJ McCarthy.
I didn't like what I saw early, that's for sure.
But you're obviously not going to give up on him
after two.

Speaker 3 (41:59):
Games, teams.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
But what I've said repeatedly is that you're having these
debates with people about his worthiness when he's not playing.
He's not available as a choice, so there's nothing yet
to think about. There nothing, There's no real rational debate
until he can prove he's healthy enough to play. That

(42:24):
wasn't me standing tall for Carson Wentz. That was me saying,
Carson Wentz is upright, you got to play somebody at
the position. And we're going to get into more of
the quarterback thing as it broadens out in trying to
explain to people why the Vikings are in a position
where nationally you're hearing a lot of chatter about the

(42:48):
decisions the Vikings didn't make at the quarterback position or
the direction they ultimately chose to go when they seemingly
had a number of other options, some of them on roster.
We're going to get into that in the uh in
the ten o'clock hour. I've got a good Gopher talk
back for you.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Let's get it, Dan, Mike and Nurthman.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
I've done some work for a huge Gopher football booster,
and one thing I learned from him is that he
is one on board with PJ Fleck. They are fully
convinced that there's nothing that PJ can do with the
nil situation. So they are carrying his water and they

(43:31):
are fully convinced that he is the best thing we're
ever going to get. So you're right, this is how
the boosters feel. It's not good interesting, all right? Well
yeah that I I've.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
Said this a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
I'm not what I'm trying to get people to come
to grips with is it may well be true that
this is the best you're going to be able to
do here, even though blooming Bloomington, Indiana, Evanston, Illinois in
Wisconsin at various times would say history tells us something different,
but you want to grant the point grant the point.

(44:07):
I'm not here to give you another name or to
call for his head. All I'm here to say is
I'm now at peace with I think what is evident.
We've seen the bottom raised. We're not going to see

(44:28):
the ceiling ever raised here to a significant to that
next step. It's just never going to happen here. That's
all I'm That's all I'm asking you to do. And
maybe it would make it easier to accept the ebbs
and flows at that point that that's what this is.
So to the question the start to mute thought was
worthy of asking in the preseason, how much can he

(44:49):
raise the ceiling, I think we have the answer to that.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Not much. Floor, a lot better, a lot more respectable.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Although there was nothing particularly I mean, we were at
the floor yesterday I think in Iowa City. But overall, yeah,
the floor has been raised a great deal. I just
don't think the you're going to see what I think.
Any fan, even in a place like this, has a
right to expect. Let's just say once every three years
or four years, or forget three or four times in

(45:20):
five years. Let's just say once or twice every three
or four or five years. Hey, they're a little better.
For whatever reason, some stuff's coming together, so they're going
to maximize in that season without expecting them to repeat it.
What we get out of that season ain't happening. And
I think we just have enough evidence to say that
he is what he is, and that's what this thing's

(45:42):
going to be, and he's going to say his stuff,
and he's going to have players who want to play
for him, and it's going to be a very stable program.
There's no question about that. But that's sort of I
think where we are, our number two, our number two.
Why did you cut my talk back off earth? Because
I think that was the end of it right time.

(46:02):
There's a thirty second limit on talkbacks, which of course
means I would fail miserably in the talkback community because
I mean thirty seconds, I've barely cleared my throat. Well,
I'm viewed as the guy who wants us to run
the ball like seventy five times a game, So maybe
I wouldn't lead with that, even though I do think
it's a it's a salient issue that the head coach

(46:25):
has not handled the way he had told us in
training camp he was going to I guess my first
question might be weather at some point he has concerned
that all of the statements he tends to make about
the culture that's been built and you know, the the thinking,

(46:51):
the long game right, putting in place an approach, and
as much as I hate to use the culture World
War I will, does he have any concern that at
some point the words lose their meaning if they can't
be matched with success on the field. Now, you could say, well,

(47:13):
his comeback could be recently. As a year ago, Dan,
we were fourteen and three, which is true. What's working
against him right now is didn't we lose We lost
our last regular season game, correct, and then we lost
our only playoff game. So that's zero and two, and
our record this year is what three and four? I

(47:36):
think we've dropped a three and four? Yeah, so that
means we've lost six of our last nine games that mattered,
including the playoff game. And he's had some bad luck.
The guy they wanted to be the quarterback has not
been available after the second game. I grant that they've

(47:57):
had issues at the along the offensive line in terms
of injury, but again, we can play the game about
other teams and how they've handled those same injuries quarterbacks key,
but probably would be the concern about whether because he
even went with a very unusual approach after the Rams

(48:19):
or excuse me after the Chargers game, where he basically said,
I didn't have anybody prepared to play It's on me,
that cliche, which he doesn't usually play that card very often,
and even that can be dangerous because you can't play that,
You can't play it often. You repeat, you can play
that once maybe twice, and then all that does afterwards

(48:41):
is people are gonna It's almost the Pelfrey thing again,
where you can say, my bad man, I didn't get
it done today.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
It's on me. That was the whole point of the
pel scale.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
If you do that after every time you get routed,
and you're doing that almost routinely, at some point people
are no longer going to wow, you know, holding himself accountable.
At some point you got to make it about more
than the words. I guess it would be a little
bit of that at the start, but there'd be many
a number of other ways to go in that regard,

(49:16):
certainly including the not helping whoever he has at quarterback
enough by using more of the running game.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
And I I just don't like if you run the ball.
His comeback.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
I think after the game was well on one run
we ended up getting a holding call, and I'd say, yeah,
but there's times you get a holding call going back
to pass that doesn't You don't use that to say, oh,
I'm never going to pass again, right, I mean, you
have you have to be more consistent with it.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
And I if.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
He hands the ball off and it's minus three, it's
almost like, well, I got it now, I'm kind of
done with it. If he had stability at the quarterback position,
things established there, I think differently. But I'm just at
a point where even when McCarthy comes back, whenever that is,
I assume you'll come back this season, at some point

(50:09):
the ankle will be healthy enough. But I mean I'm
not promising. I'm just assuming at some point he will.
Then you help him out again by doing a lot
of what Michigan did running the ball. I mean, I
think you give him a chance to get out of
the gate better. Same if your quarterback's the backup quarterback

(50:30):
and Carson Wentz, I don't care who is out there,
so I think it would probably start there. I wanted
to follow up on the quarterback thing, because there's you know, nationally,
this is what tends to happen. Okay, the Vikings have
underachieved in the basis of what they did a year
ago so far, and they have had struggles at the

(50:53):
quarterback position. McCarthy played well and won. Let's remember this
eight quarters. He's played well in one of them thus far.
Now it was a big quarter and he won the
game against the Bears, but he has not looked good early.
Wentz has looked like probably what we expected, up and down,

(51:17):
back and forth. I definitely think he was an upgrade
over I think it was good Sam Howell was going
to be the backup. I think they panicked on that
and realized we're in trouble if we have to go
to Sam Howell, so let's kick the tires on Wentz.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
And we didn't hope.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
We didn't want to have to use him as quickly
as we did, but we have him, and so now
we've got to use him. And I think Wentz, all
things considered, given how late he arrived and what was
around him offensively and quite frankly defensively, I think you
got out of him about what you could expect, and
certainly not good enough to say, well, we're going to

(51:52):
keep Carson Wentz in even when JJ McCarthy gets healthy.
We all agree on that, but it's not a Rubik's
cube here. Why nationally people are going aw, wait a minute, now,
let me see. Let's think about the Vikings quarterback situation
they had last year Sam Darnold, who was great until
he wasn't and they let him walk. They probably didn't

(52:19):
want to sign him a long term deal. They could
have franchised him, which would have been expensive for the year,
but not as much love as a long term situation,
but chose not to.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
How's he doing in Seattle?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Well, it's not the playoffs, because I know he played
badly in the playoff game, but there's no playoffs right now.
What he has done is gone to another team and
performed pretty well for Seattle pretty well to very well.
Who else they have in that roster, Well, they had
Daniel Jones late. As it turns out, how's he doing well?

(52:55):
He went to the Colts, won the job and is
leading a team that probably has been the surprise story
of the National Football League through the first seven or
eight games so in the in the the National Knee
jerk world in which we live, it's not surprising they're
going to go I think it's uh rex. Ryan has

(53:16):
basically said, well, they blew it, not keeping Sam. I
don't know if he even if he says the same
thing about Jones, I assume he acknowledges that financially there
were some gonna be some challenges if you if you
try to bring back Sam Darnald. But the the I
guess the moral of the story nationally seems to be man.
They had, they had a lot of options. They had

(53:39):
more options and most teams do. They said no to Darnald.
Maybe they had the right financial thought doing that, but
they said no. They said no to Daniel Jones. Although
they offered him something, they couldn't convince him to stay
because they've decided they were going to anoint JJ as
the guy, and the guy they went with has been

(53:59):
health for exactly two games out of the first twenty
four in his career. Two out of twenty four. We're
really going to be surprised that people are nationally and go, well,
that what about I haven't gotten to Aaron Rodgers yet.
It's only natural that people are going to go down

(54:19):
those roads when there were alternatives. That doesn't mean McCarthy's
a failure. It doesn't mean McCarthy still can't be the answer.
But these analysts live in the world of now, and
the world of now is it doesn't look very good
right now. And I said this going back late in
the summer. If JJ McCarthy is progressing and playing, is

(54:42):
available and progressing, no one's going to care all that
much or as much about what Darnold is doing, what Jonesy,
Danny Dimes is doing, or even what your guy A
Rodge is doing, right, because again the Vikings played foot
seat with a Rodge and ultimately decided it's just not
going to work.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
It's not a match.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
He wanted to come here, there's no question about that,
and he too has played creditably. Now he might get
exposed tonight, we'll see, although you're telling me or Packers
defense might not be good enough to expose him.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Correct, Well, you're you're not confident. No, I'm not confident
at all time.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
So again, it's it's not surprising to me that in
that environment there's gonna be more talk about who they
didn't choose. All that goes away. If McCarthy is playing
and cruising or progressing. But when he's not, we're going
to be surprised that there's going to be conversation about well, god,

(55:41):
they actually had let me see, now, they went fourteen
to three. They spent a bucket load of money, making
it seem like they still think they're close. Now again,
some of that money could not have been spent obviously
if you keep Darnold. I think some of it could
have been spent, not all of it if you keep
Danny Dimes.

Speaker 6 (55:57):
But the.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
People are going to kind of scratch their head and go, eh, that's.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
They should have waited on JJ. They should have made
if necessary JJ wait another year. That's not surprising. All
that stuff. We've said this about every trade, right, all
that stuff goes away or much of it goes away
if the player you got back in that trade is

(56:25):
also doing well. It's when the guy you trade away
does great and the guy you get back does nothing
that there's going to be more conversation about it, whether
it's trade injury, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
Would you even throw Kirk Cousins into that mix? Well, yeah,
I guess is he starting today?

Speaker 3 (56:38):
Is that true? I think so because I think Penix
is out of the trade, realize hadn't arrived yet.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Well, if they just would have give him any more
than a one year, you know, year to your basis,
because it seems like, yeah, the money was a big
part of it, but he also wanted the year.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
See, I don't want to be a fraud on Kirkus.
I did not want to spend any more money on him.
I was ready to get past.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Look at up. I'm the guy who.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Said when the rumors were a while ago, Cleveland was
interested in Cousins. I And that's when they still had
who's the Tampa Bay quarterback now, Baker? They still had
Baker and they were done with him. They didn't want
anything to do with him. I said, I would give
me Baker. I want out from Cousins contract. I'd send

(57:22):
that if we can get Baker Mayfield. I'll take my
chances on either finding out that Baker Mayfield still has
some ball in him, or you just bite the bullet
with him for a year and if he's awful, then
you move on with the rest of your life and
you're out from under the Kirk Cousins deal. How'd that
work out well for Tampa Bay? It worked out very
very well.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Sunday sermon trought you by j cr Rufin.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Happy seventy fifth birthday to our guy, Chuck Foreman. How
about that seventy five years old born October twenty sixth,
nineteen fifty one of the greatest Vikings running backs of
all time, quite possibly the best pass catching running back

(58:23):
in Minnesota Vikings history. Big friend of this program as well.
Hope Chuck is enjoying his his birthday today. The kids
can look up his highlights among his nicknames, the spin Doctor,
referring to one of his patented moves, started in three

(58:46):
Super Bowls for the Purple was really their main running
back through much of the seventies. NFL Offensive Rookie of
the Year in seventy three, he was a Pro Bowler,
and that was back when Pro Bowl meant I think
a little bit more. For the first five seasons of
his career, first team All Pro twice, second Team All

(59:10):
Pro twice as well, and again he was part of
ushering in kind of a new age offense at the
time that kind of felt that a short pass was
as good as a run. And because he was such

(59:31):
a versatile pass catcher in addition to being a very
good runner that became part of the personality of many
of those Jerry Burns offensively run football teams. Named one
of the fifty Greatest Vikings in twenty ten as well,
and I think he's up again for the Pro Football

(59:56):
Hall Fame the senior class. I think he's got another
shot there as well, So we hope he's doing well.
Play for the Vikings from seventy three to seventy nine
and then was with the New England Patriots in nineteen eighty.
He is not surprisingly in the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor.
First round pick in seventy three, he was picked number

(01:00:17):
twelve overall, finished with three hundred and fifty he rushed
for almost six thousand yards. But what set him apart,
I think largely again was his versatility. Three hundred and
fifty receptions for three one hundred and fifty six yards
that included twenty three receiving touchdowns as well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
So we wish.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Nothing but the best continued good health for our guy
Chuck Forman, who we should probably try to have on
here fairly soon as as well. So we'll try to
put something in here that's a little more positive.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Going back into the Viking history. So what do we
got today. We've got the Bears.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Bears get the horseshoe because they're playing the Lamar Jackson
less Ravens. And there was a weird there was some
weird confusion late in the week that it appeared that
Jackson was going to play because he practiced, and then
they sent out another release saying he really wasn't practicing
in the in the conventional sense, and he's not going
to play. And you know how this is setting up

(01:01:29):
the Vikings have the Ravens in a few weeks, he'll
be ready, he'll be back.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
The only thing you can hope for is that maybe
if the Ravens are so buried, because I think the
Ravens only have one victory one five, that they might
be so buried that it doesn't matter at that point.
Maybe they even sit Jackson more to be sure he's healthy.
But the Bears get a massive I think that game's
in Baltimore too, a massive break. And then your club tonight,

(01:01:57):
right where is that game? Ted Pittsburgh, Green pitt So
the obviously, the I mean the story angles are are
made for themselves. I mean they're made for primetime TV.
A Rodge against his old team, the Steelers. Don't I
think blow anybody away this year, but they have a

(01:02:19):
good record. He has been he might have had his
best get And I did throw a couple of picks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
In the was it the Bengal? What was the game
they just lost? Was the Bangals?

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Yep, but that was the the Battle of the Geezers game.
And but I thought he looked great through much of
that game. Now, one of those picks was not good.
But you know, somebody had texted that, Dan, were you
in favor of going with Darnel Jones or Rogers prior
to the start of the season.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
That's from Kyle. I'm on record as saying that I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Wanted to try the Aaron Rodgers experiment, and I admitted
that it could blow up. I didn't even deny that
it was a risk, because there were times last year
when Rogers did not He kind of looked finished. But
I said, maybe I root for the story too much.
I just thought it would have been such a delicious

(01:03:10):
storyline here and that there's just a chance that it
could be a stroke of genius, just a chance, And
based on what we've seen of him with the Steelers,
I think we have more reason to believe that now.
I will add the Steelers have been really smart about
running the ball though, And I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
If you know Koc would be able to resist. I
got a rodge. See I can cook up in my laboratory.
Let's go at it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
But I was on record as saying I was willing
to hold off on the h there's no people get
weird about obligate with we owe it to the kid
to play.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
You don't know o the kid anything.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
You drafted him, and you can even say your best
laid plan was we're going to play you. But it's
not your fault that he was not available at all
last year, so you can adjust. It's not your fault
that you went fourteen and three last year. Where you go, well,
maybe we can be better or stay better. And we thought,
you know what, we're gonna take one shot at this.

(01:04:10):
And if McCarthy has to sit another year, he's got
to sit another year, where's he going not going anywhere?
It certainly happened in Green Bay, where they sat forever,
So yeah, I went. I mean, you could argue looking
at it now that the in between move was the
best possibility in Daniel Jones, and I wasn't clamoring for that.

(01:04:31):
I'll admit I was more interested in Rogers, but I
will say part of the rub is when you most teams,
when they draft a quarterback that high, they're not going
to make him fight for the position. So as long
as that's the case, I think Jones knew that and
that's why he wasn't going to stay. Eve though the
Vikings did make a good offer for him at fifteen MIL.

(01:04:54):
We'll never know whether he would have been given a
chance to win the job in training camp. I have
no idea, but.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
I still think Rogers would have in a good in
between moves because I agree he said this is pretty
much it right, Yes, that's it's more than likely going
to be it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
So it would have been one year.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Jat he wanted to be here none, There's zero doubt.
People think that was manufactured by the Jackals who cover
this team daily. You're wrong, as Glenn mas Won say,
you're wrong. They they definitely talk. Now ultimately the Vikings.
This was to me much more Vikings decision than a
Rodgers decision. If you're Aaron Rodgers, where.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Do you want to be?

Speaker 6 (01:05:29):
You want to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
Come on now again, the line's been a mess. Would
he be a mess as a result, I don't know,
But I also do know. The one thing he does
has done this year as well as he's done in
a long time. Hell it happened against the Vikings defense.
Is he's thrown fast. He's getting rid of the ball
super quick, even by his own standards, and he's always
been good at that.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
And so that vaunted Micah Parsons for Shuan Gary pass
rush means basically nothing today, which thinks. But I am
more than happy that he did not wear purple. That
would have made me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Yeah, yeah, that I saw it was hard enough on you.
Yeah that was bad.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
Thankfully I was little enough to where it wasn't too
too bad. But yeah, all right, one more break. We'll
come back and maybe talk a little bit of Wolves.
They're back in their home opener is later this evening.
A couple of early thoughts on them after a rather
disastrous game against the Lakers on National TV Friday night,
and maybe some more football of both Vikings and Gophers.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Conversation. The rest of the way stays.

Speaker 6 (01:06:53):
Dan the g.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
Man from Arizona. Too nice. That's what the whole media
is KOs. When are we gonna call him out for
his horrible play calling, his input on the roster. He's
gotten a pass for way too long. It's time we
held his feet to the fire and get this thing going.

Speaker 6 (01:07:15):
And right direction. Morton Brett more than Dan he took
from the range. Been alive for all four Viking super Bowls.
Remember watching three of them fifty some years later. Haven't
been back. I've got confidence in the staff, I've got
full confidence in the ownership. Let's enjoy the ride. Let's

(01:07:36):
not worry about winning the super Bowl. Before the first
preseason snap occurs.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
Scoll, I'm not sure what to make of the second one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
He certainly has been around the block, so I think
he's maybe saying, you know, I'm mist I'm staying the course,
which is great. I don't think anybody is demanding. Look,
we all understand the curves we great on here. I
don't think anybody's demanding super Bowl exactly. We're just not seeing,
you know, the It's it's easy to get hung up

(01:08:11):
on the way A lot of folks have that. Well,
we haven't had either of our offensive tackles the whole season,
which is false, by the way, right now we're in
that position. This last game we ended up being in
that position. But it's not been the case. We're not
the only team that loses key offensive linemen during a season.
But let's say you want to accept that argument and

(01:08:32):
that excuse to explain a lot of the offensive struggles
and inconsistencies. How do we explain getting obliterated at the
defensive line front along the defensive line front, you can't.
In the case of the the the Vikings. It's to

(01:08:54):
me the most disturbing trend is at varying times where
being the secondary get gashed for huge chunk plays and
in other times you are seeing the offensive line get obliterated,
or should say, the defensive line get obliterated in terms
of the run game. And I don't know, there's some

(01:09:16):
people think maybe the league is caught up to what
bflow is cooking up. I think in some cases it's
personnel not doing as well as was projected. We spent
a lot of money in the interior part of our
defensive line, and we don't have very much to show
for it at all. That's sort of the double whammy,

(01:09:37):
you know, because somebody had texted the Vikings didn't sign
Darnold to have a bunch of money spent on free agents.
The problem is most of those signings are a total miss.
Would have preferred Danny Dimes anyway. Yet right now it's
the worst of both worlds because you don't have.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
A Let's put it this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Way, if you had been able to sign for whatever
reason that no one else wanted Daniel Jones, if you
were able to sign him as your backup to JJ McCarthy,
I think we'll all agree you're going to be in
a much better position potentially than you were with Carson

(01:10:17):
Wentz as your backup. Again, you could say that's an
easy second to guess now. But to his point, it's
been the worst of both worlds in that we did
not give ourselves some better options. We did not go
the Aaron Rodgers way.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
And if your.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Comeback is but yeah, then we couldn't have spent all
this money elsewhere. The money does not look well spent
right now. Of the four linemen we signed, basically, one
looks legit, the other three not so much. Won the
center due to injury and the concussions obviously, but he's
not available either, So that's what makes it unfortunate in

(01:11:02):
that Yeah, okay, well then yeah you want Donald when
you can't sign all these other players, But not enough
of those players to this point at least have looked
up to the part about what they were expected to
bring to you could say to the organization. Another item
regarding the Gophers, it's a good stat that Randy Johnson

(01:11:28):
has via startibute dot com, and it's what should be inexcusable,
regardless of the week to week ups and downs, the
way things can change. Four possessions. Through four possessions, the
Gophers had one yard total offense. Iowa had already scored

(01:11:50):
thirty one points. I mean, that's just not acceptable. Now
your quarterback, who's been very promising, obviously has the big arm,
had his worst game. Drake Lindsay was off made a
number of ill advised passes. Throwing deep to a tight
end makes no sense whatsoever to expect a tight end

(01:12:13):
big lumbering lummocks of a guy who is going to
adjust on the ball on the sidelines. But they got
and they got nothing from the ground game. Taylor I
think ran once and left, So I don't know if
it's an old injury that has recurred. If it was
something else, it's been very mysterious. I don't know that
we've had an explanation on why he sat. The head

(01:12:34):
coaches said nothing about it. Three interceptions for for Lindsey,
and I certainly think there's every reason to think he
can be a good player all a quarterback, although I
thought analyst guy on TV made the point that needs
to be factored in here.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
He does not look he's a quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
He's a pocket thrower who needs the pocket, doesn't throw
particularly great on the run, and that's something you got
to hope he can get a little bit better about.
He's going to certainly have time to do it because
they're going to continue to invest in him. That's the
beauty of him being as young as he is, as
long as the the Gophers are able to keep him.

(01:13:14):
But there is some similarity to Linus Scrimmage conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
In both of these.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
Lost weekend blowouts thirty seven to ten in La Vikings
to the Chargers forty one to three in Iowa City
Gophers to the Iowah Hawkeyes. Linus Scrimmage was a mismatch.
The Gopher offensive line did not do a particularly good

(01:13:45):
job protecting. Gopher defensive line got nothing going against an
Iowa team that might be a little better offensively than
it's been, but still as largely, you know, they made
some plays throwing the ball. I'm pretty sure sure they
threw the ball once, and I think this must have
shocked the Minnesota defensive people on a second and two,

(01:14:10):
I mean second and two, Iowa throwing that's not supposed
to happen. I didn't feel like we were ready for
their wrinkles. We assumed it was on the QB. All
he does is run and they're not going to try
very much downfield, and we don't really have to worry
about that that sort of activity because it's Iowa. Well,

(01:14:32):
they had a good plan that we were clearly not
prepared for either. But again, Lione scrimmage stuff is so important.
Vikings defensive line got as I said, killed Gopher's defensive line.
Mismatch there as well, and the Iowa front offensive line
is considered once again to be one of the best.

(01:14:52):
It probably is, and maybe Iowa was gonna end up
being more of a factor the rest of the way
than we give them credit for, because we always did
count them as being so limited offensively. But I'm sure
there have been worst weekends involving the Gophers and Vikings,

(01:15:13):
but I think it's been a while regarding with these
kinds of blowout games where you're not even competitive. We
were really not in either ball game, not that I
saw in any case. A couple of texts have come
in here late. Oh well quickly on the Wolves. I

(01:15:35):
you know, they were awful defensively. Well, here's what's funny.
Game starts and the Wolves are having their way offensively early,
and the talk around the campfire was, well, a little
less pushback than the Portland defense was given. This is
the Wolves might end up with one hundred and seventy

(01:15:57):
five points. Well, what ultimately ended up happening, though it
was the Wolves offense a defense I should say that
looked even more casual, and Luca, Skinny Luca, had his
way with the club. Even with Lebron out, they had
no answer for Skinny Luca at all. And defensively, it

(01:16:19):
was a really really wretched performance, you know, very early.
A little troubling given that they all made this statement
about how we have to get back to the defense
that we played a couple of years ago. I didn't
see much of that Friday night. Now, the big story
tonight what the Pacer game is We're going to unveil

(01:16:40):
our new lighting.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
That's the deal.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
We got some new I don't know if we're going
to try to go Lakers on the Staples Center, Lakers
on the bit where what they do is it's almost
like a stage setting where everything's really dark except for
the court. Right, that's what you know. I covered endless
number of games at the old Forum in Englewood, and

(01:17:06):
that was their bit going on the back there was
you got darkness everywhere but on the court. That was
the the presentation that they preferred. And apparently we are
going to do that as well. Are something similar to that.
We'll see if it's the same or But that's that's
all the talk is lighting. We're going to dazzle people

(01:17:30):
with the lighting.

Speaker 6 (01:17:31):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
The beauty of it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Is, I think, as I understand it, is if the
if the Wolves play as badly defensively today as they
did against the Lakers, at some point they'll just turn
the lights off completely so you won't have to look
at him. That the beauty of these news, the versatility
of these new lights is they can turn on.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
And off on a dime, which used to be. By
the way, one of the.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
Pet peeves of the late Great Flip Saunders was he
was very bothered that we didn't the lighting set up
at Target Center. I don't know if it was a
technological issue or was something else. We couldn't just flip
the things on and off the way other teams did
because the Big Flip was a big pregame presentation kind

(01:18:16):
of a guy, right, That was a big part of
what he was up to, and eventually they finally got
taken care of. It is also worth noting on a
sad note, and this is stunning for me to believe
it has been this long. Ten years ago yesterday Flip
died ten years It's been ten years since he's been gone,

(01:18:38):
which is just astonishing to me that it's been that long.
Huge name here, of course the classic case of not
being one of us, but he kind of was grandfathered
in as one of us. Very few are in that classification,
but Flip obviously is one of them, there's no question

(01:19:01):
about that. And this he became Minnesota great friend of
the program. I still miss him terribly and like I said,
I can't believe it's been ten years ago since he
passed away.

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
Isn't that stunning?

Speaker 4 (01:19:18):
Very few people have been adopted as one of us
after you would know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
I would know because I ain't one of them as
for sure, and I'm fine with that. I can live
with that. I have no difficulty with that. But there
was nothing like the out of nowhere Flip Saunders calling
in to give me crap or to make a point
about something. And of course he was in our studios
time and time and time again.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
So I'm assuming.

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
We got a lot of Vikings programming, I should say
NFL programming the rest of well, no, we can't do
the rest of the day because we got missed it
a while.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Hockey. What time is the wild Game? I's at five,
that's a five the Wolves. We'll be on the Timberwolves channel.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Azed so correct against the injury riddle the Pacers, but beware,
we've tended to play down to the Pacers when they've
been hurt had injuries before.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
So here's what I've got for the day. So it
is NFL Giants Philly, Dallas, Denver. Then we'll cut to
Wild Game here on the fan. Nice Timberwolves on the
iHeart app on the Timberwlves channel, and then join in
progress the big game Packers, Steelers after the wild game.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
That's huge, it's big time, that's massive. Are the Lions
playing today, No, they're on By. They're on By, that's right.
And then so their next game is our next game,
not yours ours.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Vikings.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
I think that's a noon start a week from today,
Vikings in Detroit. Man's that's that's gonna be a rude
awakening for the kid if he's healthy enough to go.
But you got to throw him into the deep end
at some point, right I'm still I'm still wondering whether
we'll actually be healthy enough to play. Like I said,

(01:21:02):
I'll believe JJ is ready to play when I see
him out on the court or on the field, whatever
the case may be. Thank you very much for listening today.
Thank you for watching today. Good weather. I think h
I have like sixty two beautiful day to get out,
no Vikings to mess with, So perhaps a number of
our faithful listeners will do exactly that. Guards you back tomorrow,

(01:21:24):
Bumper to Bumper will start at three o'clock.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
We'll talk then