As the official ticket marketplace of the Minnesota Vikings and the NFL. Ticketmaster is the safest and most convenient marketplace to score fully verified Vikings tickets. So get those touchdown celebrations ready and score your tickets today at ticketmaster dot com. Slash Vikings Unreal is back with their limited edition Vikings drop. Head over to nurl dot com for more details. Hey guys, it's I and it is Bears week. Here on the tailgate, we have another fun show for you, comedian Brian Miller.
He is from He is a Minneapolis comedian, but I wanted to have him on because I wanted to talk Vikings big win last week against the Falcons. I wanted to enjoy the Viking miss instead of talking to the other fan base this week. Also, hey, he is at ACME this week, the best comedy club in America Thursday, Friday, Saturday two shows Friday, two shows Saturday. Ticketlink will be in the bio here. You'll love him. He's been on The Late Late Show with Craig Fergus and he's fantastic
tours all over the country. Check out him. Also, if you're listening on our podcast feed while you're here, make sure you give us a five star review. It really helps us out rating and review. Thank you guys so much, and in joy the show. The Rocket Rocket t here. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the tailgate.
It is Bears week.
Normally we have an entertainer who is a fan of the other team, but this week we're doubling down on the home team, ladies and gentlemen, because at ACME this week, well it's Brian Miller, fantastic comedian, Viking fan. I'm at the point where this is one of those weeks, Brian, where I didn't want to be troubled with the attitude and the trappings of another fan base. Sure, because of what happened on Sunday, I just want to exist in this moment with other Viking fans.
And also this is nice.
So people, there's a lot of people know you as a fantastic comedian. You're also a fantastic fiction writer. Sure, but you are also a talented sports editor and occasional sports writer for a local entity called Zone Coverage.
And I used to live in Chicago and you used.
To live in Chicago, which, well, let's not do it. Let's not let me dive into my opinions about the people of Chicago. Let's stick with how I'm feeling right now. Sure, there's this thing that happened on Sunday. So I was listening to Dan Barrero and Ben Lieber was on, and they played back the audio of a moment in Sunday's game. They started showing the Daily Leaders, the Sunday Leaders for statistics, and they showed Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson were one
to two in the whole league. Crowd goes, not Jefferson's up on the up on the bench right, and then they put Donald up there, and the crowd goes ballistic, and Donald, who is really even has a moment of emotion like a break and really has has a piece of it. And I watched it on the TV broadcast, but in listening to it back when Barrero played the audio, it just hit different. It was this energy in the building.
And our producer Jay, who's here today, he was in there, and I've talked to other people who are in the building. It was this thing that for me, as a Vikings fan, it felt so distant from the energy that has been
around this fan base for so long. You know, it was in this moment where our old quarterback was in our building, where the defense throttled him and our new quarterback had the performance of his life, and specifically one where these two great receipts, Like it just felt like this confident noise slowly on this podcast, Brian and I understand I'm giving a Ted talk to start the show.
This is like I was gonna.
Say, IM gonna pop out for a coffee, but I'll be back.
Yeah, how's the tailgate going?
Well?
You know, he had Jeff Foxworthy on last weekend, then this week turned into some weird like crowd noise manifesto that nobody really enjoyed. I think my point is anyone who's been listening to this show has heard me. I started the season. I'm not putting much on it. I just want to see some guys get better because all the cap space, like have the team and the roster go the right direction and we could be walking into
something really cool next year. Then they take off and they start doing what I go, Okay, this is kind of gravy. This is fun where like there's a little bit of house money here. Enjoy this, and then the expectations come around, like, well maybe we need to take advantage of it. Now, this thing that has been happening since the Tennessee game, I just am believing more and more, and in a way that is different in the way I've believed in some teams in the past, you know,
And I've heard other vikings say that. I just I don't know how to describe it or explain it. And it feels different than the belief in the FARV team. It feels different than the belief in ninety eight or the Keenom team that noise just like that noise just coalesced. This feeling I've had into like a more central ball in my gut where I went. I think this team believes in themselves in a confident way that is giving everybody.
I don't know, it's just different.
I don't know where it's going to end, but right now I have some weird different energy about what I think this team is.
Yeah, you know, when Atlanta took that early lead, you know, I think early in the season, or sometimes in my pessimistic fandom might have been.
Like here we go, here we go.
I was like, no, I was confident even when they looked really tough right right at the start. It was probably the worst stretch of the game for the Vikings really, and I was like, no, they're fun. They got this, and I just thought they would. And they they're playing like a really confident team. When you watch them, they just look credible. Like it wasn't just that the score reflect how much they won, and it wasn't like, oh man, they keep dropping those samsartal interceptions. He got lucky on
four or five. He looked great, and everybody looked great. There is a unit.
They're coalesced there as a team, and yeah, it's.
Funny you say that that you didn't, And I because I felt the exact same thing. I'm literally I was watching on my phone because I'm like half cleaning the kitchen and doing some stuff, and I normally watch it downstairs, but so it's kind of the in between moments when I'm upstairs, so I've got the phone sitting here, and then the phone's there and I'm watching and you hear something happen. I had the exact same thing. I was like,
why am I not worried about this? By the way, a game that historically for the Vikings, your old quarterback comes back to your building in a year where you're ten and you're like, oh, this is where it gets ruined for us. So I'm glad you felt that, because I it was almost an unrecognizable emotion for me during that game.
Yeah, we've often talked about how Packers fans like the Packers team plane could crash into the side of a mountain into a fireball and all the green people in green bagel. Well, we got a fresh start next. I think we got a real good chance at a division title. Like nothing bad that can happen. In the back, they're always just like, oh, will be great, We'll be great.
And as Vikings fans, I think we've been maybe and maybe we've conditioned ourselves because you look back and it's like you look at the Bears, for instance, and you go, no, that's a troubled fan base that sucks to root for that team.
But I certainly am a bit of a pest.
But they got a Super Bowl. I think it's Yeah, I talk about it all the time on this show. I think you know a personality around it's it's this is people are gonna puke in their mouth when I use this term, but uh, it's you know, they the term generational trauma. Sure, I do think it's I do think it's generational sports trauma. I think you grow up around a dad who you're eleven years old, and your dad goes.
We're gonna blow it. Yeah, this isn't gonna end.
Well, you're like, it just instills it in you, you know, and I think you have. It's kind of like if you grew up with a like an an alcoholic parent, you either Generally, people who grew up with like massive dysfunction, they don't kind of just all out. They either follow the dysfunction or they rebel against it really hard. So I think if you're a Vike, that's why there's not
a lot of middle ground and Viking fans. They're either the people are like, yeah, we're gonna We're gonna it's gonna be the worst ending ever, and then you have people on the other side who are like, how dare you question the guy who made the mistake?
Yeah.
It's like whenever I see an instagram of someone who made a really elaborate gingerbread house, I'm like, how much did your dad yell at you back?
And the day you know you have to go the other way, It's like I'm gonna be the most wholesome. But that's what this Vikings game was like.
Was like seeing your angry dad laugh in a movie and you're like, dad never laughs, he smiling.
What this feeling like? I think everything's gonna be okay, you know.
And I don't know how to project it forward. That's the problem. That's and I don't want to know how to project it for it. I want to be very clear, I'm still existing in this moment. I that feeling I had that doesn't necessarily make me think they're going to go on a deep playoff run. Sure, so you got a Bears team this week that is they look exhausted. Yeah, they like internally exhausted. Where I don't think people I think in sports we don't often think about it as
a workplace as much as we should. Where you think like, oh, the new coach, you get the bump and they do it. It's like, man, they fired their old coordinator, bumped their passing game coordinator up to their O coordinator, then they fired their head coach. The passing game coordinator, who is the O coordinator for three weeks is now the head coach.
The decordinator is calling plays for the first time in his entire like eba flus was the play card, and then you walk into Kyle Shanahan's building and Jay sent me a screenshot of the first half statistics during the game. Three hundred and nineteen yards for the Niners, four total yards on seventeen plays for the Bears. And so that's a team to me that seems in that moment exhausted. Now, I don't know what we're gonna get from them this week, but projecting it forward, I don't. I think you just
go take care of business. I don't know what you can take out of the Chicago game. If you go in there and you throttle them. You should throttle an exhausted team. If it gets close, who knows, maybe their back tock begins to like, I'm not going to look too hard into this one. Well, obviously caring about this game on sure, very interested in Seattle, But can we see a continuation or a progression of the sort of
execution we saw on Sunday? And if they do that, then I start going I really start to cement into this mindset of I think they can beat anybody on any given week, And then the question for me becomes can you do it four times against good teams potentially in other buildings, But I don't know. I'm in a weird place of confidence that I'm not quite ready to project forward with yet.
Sure I can see that. And then with the Bears, you're talking about them being exhausted. I heard this incredible stat on the way over here. This is unbelievable. So seven teams are eliminated from playoff contention in the whole NFL NFL six of them are from the AFC, because of course the NFC is insane. Right now, if you take those six, those six bad teams, Okay, in the AFC, they have a combined record of I believe it is
one in twenty five against the NFC. The only team in the NFC that has lost to one of those teams, the Patriots beat the Bears.
The Bears are the only one to give it up.
So like they're they're really in a tough spot because I mean, the NFC north unbelievable, unbelievable, and the NFC is so much better.
So we're in the best division because.
The NFC is so much better. But when you get to it's weird.
It's like you have a seesaw right, and on one side you have twenty five kids and on the other side you have three kids, and.
You're like, why is it balancing?
Well, it's because the Chiefs and the Bills and the Ravens are very fat. You know, switch out the Ravens and the Steelers. Like sure, That's the interesting thing of like the NFC seems like from a parody standpoint and from a highlight like way, the percentage of teams that are good and competitive versus the FC. But when you get to the top, it's really really difficult.
I think Detroit, Vikings and Eagles, though yeah, I have a lot of losses between those three teams.
Here's what I will like, and I'm not trying to I'm not trying to push off because Detroit is incredible. Yeah, the Bills obviously lost in a tough game against the Rams. If Patrick Mahomes didn't exist, Josh Allen, I truly think we'd be sitting around having the is this the greatest quarterback? Like? Is he on track to be the greatest NFL quarterback
of all time? He's bigger than a linebacker. He's three rushing touchdowns and three so like, I don't know, there's just a level of play on that side, and it's the quarterbacks, right, Yes, like the Lions and the Eagles, I'm very concerned about absolutely, but I just feel different
about having to face Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes. That just feels, in a one game scenario, like a different challenge than facing Jared Goff, even though ultimately the Lions might be the toughest out in the entire NFL.
Absolutely, but the NFC is man, They're stout, and I just it's so funny that everything everything. The Bears also make a perfect contrast for the Vikings because if you remember after the preseason, it was like they finally got their quarterback, They've got all these draft capital, Like we were both supposed to be kind of quote unquote rebuilding teams, but the Bears were really supposed to be on the
sweet side of the rebuild. This was supposed to be the like, well, they'll probably go to the playoffs, but like probably not make a deep run. And then the Vikings, I mean, we were like, man, it'd be nice to win six and a half, you know, the six games, seven games the Vegas was projecting didn't feel didn't feel disrespectful at the beginning of the season.
But what I would say, what was interesting, you could just tell from a vibe of the team. You could just feel it pretty early on. Because I've said this a bunch, I think teams know who they are, Like when guys when when rookie quarterbacks walk in a building, it doesn't take like the players a few months ago. This guy has it or this guy doesn't have it.
It's not like you know, in comedy, some comics are terrible for eight years and then at year eleven you're like, how are you the best comic in America?
Yeah, people do take that weird jump subtimes. That seems it's like you, why did you try that for all those years before?
It doesn't seem like that happens in the NFL. We're like, this guy was like, I don't know, the sixty eighth best linebacker in the league, and all of a sudden he's a Pro Bowl.
I just he figured it out in year nine, grew three inches.
Very strange at age twenty eight, but here we have it. He's now a massive man.
It's the other thing that's super odd about the Bears season, and you talk to any Bears fan. We had Daniel Vankirk on the show. You know, I think they were not. I think they all wanted to change at coach before this season. So there's probably a lot to unpack there. But if you just think about the trajectory of the season, right that hail Mary the jade and Daniels hail Mary, and which leads into the blocked field goal?
Right yeah?
If that, I mean, those are two so astronomically massively unlikely results in those plays, an end of game, game winning hail Mary and the important block I'm talking about that sent the Bears the wrong way. It was against the Green Bay Packers. It was forty six yards, which is even worse. By the way, this is your division number one rival.
With a famously bad special teams unit for the last many years too. I mean, getting beat by the Packers on special teams is like a special insult.
Well, so just think of that. Think of that.
You know that veer off right where you go the Jaden Daniels hail Mary goes off this direction. Then a couple weeks later you get a field goal blocked against the Packers. You win those two games, you're at the forefront of playoff conversations. Then you have the comeback against Minnesota, which falls apart, then you have the thing against the Lions. That's why they're just such an interesting team. I don't know that everybody in the preseason was wrong about the Bears.
I just think it hasn't come together. And that's why whenever I see Vikings celebrating the Bears misery or celebrate like, oh Caleb, you know he, I don't think you're shut your mouth like what you all your energy should be put into hoping that Ben Johnson doesn't take that job. All the pieces are there. I it has been ugly as of late, but I think this thing could have veered a different direction and they very much could be right now an eight and five football team.
I mean, Kayleb Williams made a couple of throws against the Vikings that were just out of this world, that were Josh Allen like to your point of him being maybe the best, and so yeah, as a Vikings fan, I'm not I'm definitely not gonna talk too much smack about Caleb Williams.
Assuming it might have been easy.
I still I still take him number one, and it's not even close. I know everybody loves Jayden. He's younger, he's got all some of the things he does. I
still he's still the guy. I take number one. And now that we now that we've talked our way all the way through Chicago, I think I'm going back to what going back to earlier and I was saying, you know, you got to take care of business with Chicago, and let's see if what happened against the Falcons can progress a continue or progress against the Seahawks.
I want to add to that.
I do think what the number one thing for me this week, and in addition, get a win however you need it, because that's where in the game of wins and losses, especially desperately begging for an opportunity for that last Lions game to mean something.
Absolutely, let's put this on it. I want this.
You know, if you're a fan, I think I want this game to look the way it should given what you saw. I get like, I don't want to see something weird. I don't want all of a sudden be like, ah, we gave up two flea flickers and we're.
Down eight and a half.
Like I don't teams have been running the ball a bit. I don't want them to come in and Caleb and the running backs and you do a couple you know, jet sweeps, and all of a sudden you're like, what's happening here? Make it look the way it should. I do think that's also a version of a progression of what we saw against.
The felasure out of Curre essay. Because we've talked a lot about Kirk over the years.
Don't do it. Don't do it to me?
No, did you did you feel like that Falcons game? Because I feel like for a lot of people it like gave them a sense of closure, like a positive closure.
Did you feel that closure?
Yeah?
Here's the thing I think Kirk has. You know, if you having been a part of the organization for longer than they should have let me at this point, you get a different energy, a different vibe, a different access to the way these buildings and teams and organizations work.
And it's a stark reminder that like just Kirk was such a good human being, yeah, and such a good thrower of the football, right, And I think I think he's so interesting in that I don't know where else in NFL history you find a certainly a quarterback who, amongst fan bases has been so heavily debated everywhere he's gone and start Like often when guys are debated, they either silenced the debate, Like at one point Drew Brees was debated, Sure, right, yeah, and then pretty soon we
all shut up and Drew Brees was no longer debated. And the opposite is app Sometimes guys are debated and then all of a sudden they ain't playing anymore RG three, you know, and it just stops being a debate.
Kirk is.
So it's so rare that you see a guy play for as many years and travel to three Because, by the way, I have friends in Atlanta, and prior to this week, prior to the four interception performance, people were having the exact same divide in their fan base as we were having here. They have the Penix thing on top of it. So I don't much traffic in the you know where some fans are running with like looking at Sunday as like a demise of a guy and a validation of a take. But I have always Jay
has heard me talk about this forever. I think the NFL is a math equation and it can be built a bunch of different ways, right, Like if you want, if you want a quarterback with a lot of money,
a couple of things are gonna have to happen. You're gonna have to spread it out the exact right, And I, Lord knows, I shouldn't comment on how to build a football team, but I understand mathematics, right, If you're gonna pay a quarterback a bunch of money, you have to spread it out in the right way, and couple it with hitting on draft picks. I just I think that's pretty basic knowledge, right. And conversely, which is why you
see all these guys. So many of these guys win super Bowls on Russell Wilson on rookie deal, Aaron Rodgers on rookie deal, Roethlisberger one on a rookie deal and
then another one on a reduced deal. You know, when Peyton Manning goes to Denver, he's not on a high level like That's why you see a lot of these non Brady guys, and it's why it's kind of frustrating that when we talk about Brady, we don't discuss that he made the decision to take low salary cap hits for nearly the entirety of his career and he had more top There's a stat out there he had more Top ten defenses than Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and like
two or three other Hall of famers in the entirety of their career. He had more by himself. And that's not a criticism or I'm just saying that is what happened.
Smart is what it is.
So to spin all the way out and come all the way back, like to me, what Sunday was was you know, I thought when they moved on from Kirk, it's I think this organization has such a high reputation with players. We're seeing that with why Daniel Jones, like the way Lewis Riddick and all these other analysts who were former players. When Daniel Jones signed here, you saw the way they talked about the grades that we get, like this is a place people will want to be.
And so I think the mutual parting of Kirk going this feels best for me, the Viking's going this feels best for you. At the same time, I do think seeing a talented guy come in on a one year deal and having our coach be who we thought he was and having that work that like that was the noise when you're feeling confident, like that's this thing, like, oh, this is just different. This is a math equation that works for this version of this team, and I revel in that.
That's That's what I meant.
I don't, Yeah, I don't take it as a stick in it to Kirk, But to me, it felt like a validation of.
Quasi's overall approach.
I felt like, this is, you know, you can see the other path we could have taken, and Atlanta is kind of showing us the other path with the penix thing. We would have had the same thing potentially with JJ and Kirk and what do you do? But yeah, to me, it was just like they're on the right path. They're doing they're doing the right things in general.
And I would I'll be curious.
You know, everybody talks about Coach of the Year, which O'Connell is near the top of it.
I'll be curious, And I don't. I don't read a lot.
I just I'm the sort of guy who just winds up in comment threads throwing an MF or at somebody whose like user name is like.
Packers star four four five.
I don't know if this buzz is happening, and I think it's really hard because Howie Roseman is just all world continuously, I meane, between the Saquon and the.
Cooper Cooper to Gen Cooper to John situation. But I wonder, I wonder if.
The case is building for you know, GM of the Year, if Quazy is going to get some rightful do in that conversation, because I think the thing I heard him talk.
In the offseason.
I think he appeared on maybe it was Barrero, he appeared on something on KF and and he talked about this the collaborative approach. And I think if you've ever been any part of corporate America, you've heard some of these buzzwords, but just the way he does it and the way he did it in that moment, like it was a genuine like I remember hearing it and I called Ben Lieber and I was like, I just like, I'm so bought in on this, Like maybe I'm drinking the kool aid, but I am so bought in on it.
And then I think what you're seeing in the season is an actual reflection of that thing that everybody when it first started happening, when they hired these guys and oh, you're going to be collaborative. I think you're seeing it because you trust your coach too. Instead of signing Kirk Cousins, who has this reputation, you trust your coach to have a journeyman that no one, no one thought would do anything close to what he's doing and a rookie. So that is you are collaborating with your coach.
You're believing him.
Lord knows they are collaborating with Brian Flores and what he wants. I mean, that's it's public record with some of the things that have been said. He loved Van Ginkel. He talked to the Eden Prairie coach about Cashman. So I just think how well all these new pieces Aaron Jones, how well they're all playing, and how it all builds into this version of the way this team is built and the way they're succeeding in the moment and the
way they did on Sunday. Like Sunday is one of those things like if he winds up in that conversation at the end that game where they go forty two, you know whatever, it was over the Falcons against their old quarterback in a bizarro world version of them, like it mattered I think that's kind of like this tipping point moment where if you weren't on board with Quacy,
you know, what are you doing? It's an eleven and two football team with like not a lot of pieces from this year that are missing, and and and like like again, I'm very ted talking to people are used to me being worried. Brian, I'm jacked and credit go, Like, I don't want to give credit to someone and not let anybody else have it. So let's kind of move away from the quaisy thing. But like, dude, the undrafted
free agent thing. Jalen Redmond, Jalen Redman's exactly, And after having the ivan pacing, like, what are we talking about? That's to have two guys on your squad when Pace comes back. If this Redmond trajectory continues to have two undrafted free agents that can perform at high levels, that is bananas.
That is something I've always been jealous about Green Bay about, was it right? They're always really good at finding those an undrafted guys are those really late round guys, but they've never been great with free agent signings.
And Graycy's doing them both. Yeah, whoa you put those together?
Yeah?
And I think that people who had an issue with the early drafts. You know, I think the draft is such a crapshoot, and so I think, to me, when you're looking at like how good of a drafter are you? I think it's tricky because there's this whole business, like this media business built around the draft where it's an event and all the like who should you draft? And then like we all know the comical nature of giving draft grades on the night of the draft.
I love it. I love it.
It's so funny. It is so funny.
It'd be like you have yourself and at the hospital they walk up to you your first kid and they're like a plus parenting for the next eighteen years.
Like it's it's bizarre.
It's funny.
Actually, it reminds me. I was at Thanksgiving. There's a new baby. I have a new nephew, and everyone's looking at the baby. He's like six weeks old, you know, and they're going, I'll look at those look at those long arms. He's gonna be a starting pitcher, you know. Look at those long fingers. He's gonna be a piano player, you know. And I'm like, we're doing his athletic measurables at six weeks old. They can't even tell if a guy is gonna translate from college to the pros, you know. And
also it's always so positive. No one's ever like a look at those long arms, He's going to reach the top shelf at the Amazon warehouse, you know, like everyone's always projecting with like, look at their positive.
Look at that lengthy Torso they're definitely gonna ask him why he doesn't play basketball when he's nineteen exactly.
Yeah, it's like the projecting it that soon is like, everyone, take a breath, let's see what happens, Like, give him a minute.
And so I mean, but I you know, a couple of that first draft, you got guys who are drafted.
In the first second round who aren't on the team anymore. Absolutely that's case.
But I think you have to, like, as a drafter, I think you take a larger sample because how hit and missed the draft is. You know, if JJ and Dallas Turner turn out, you basically have to take a three to four year run, yes, and then you wait five years and then you stack that up against all the other three to four runs in that time and the five years after that and so I'm not here to pump up or debate draft prowess, but I yeah,
I just I'm riding high on that performance. Obviously I'm over here, like but I think it's it could be a tipping point in the season. It could be a tipping point and a bunch of narratives and I don't know. I think it's really the former Viking fan in me that for some reason doesn't exist as heavy right now would be just sitting here going and then we play the Bears that we're supposed to beat on Monday night, and this will happen. But I just and that might happen,
but I'm just not feeling that. So everybody, everybody's gonna think that, like I got must have got a psychiatrist.
In the last couple of weeks.
Even if they drop one in the next two weeks, I'm not gonna feel doom and gloom, dooming and gloomy, Oh for sure not.
I mean no, I think I think it's how you lose.
Yeah. Absolutely, It is interesting.
Both Chicago and Atlanta, we're in this period where we kind of saw two different paths in each other team. Each team was kind of a bizarre version of us in a different way, and so I think that's what's making the last game so satisfying in this upcoming match so intriguing.
What I am very interested in is I would like us to win the next two games, and I would like the Packers to lose on Sunday to Seattle. I don't want to go into the last week of the season against the Lions having to win to keep Green Bay at Bay.
That is exactly I wrote an article about that exact same phenomenon.
I think it's either I want to be playing for the one seed or I want to be able to take it easy and press. Because Zach Martinez on the show and he warned us about this. He goes, teams who played the Detroit Lions often have a tough time the following week. Yes, very it's such a physic football team. And we lost the Lions and then short week Thursday. So here's the thing, like, Hey, we don't know what's
gonna happen with that game. It might end up like if it's for the money, right, but I don't like it might be flexed out. You never know, You never know what happens. But I don't want to play on Saturday and have to really fight hard to stay in the five seed.
Yeah, and then have to.
Turn it against a very physical football team and then have to and they here's the thing about Dan Campbell. I think you go, if, well, if they have the one seed locked up, are they gonna just I don't think so.
I don't think that's how Dan.
I think if Dan Campbell knows he has a bye week, I think Dan Campbell goes, let's run it out there and let's play real football and then we'll take our bye week.
He's like, not only are we not resting our starters, Jared Golf's gonna be on roller skates the whole time.
Yes. So I don't know.
I mean I think for this fan base, for this organization, and honestly for Sam Darnold, I can't imagine anything better than that Lions game being for the money.
Yeah.
I mean that, like, and that's that's the other reason you can tell I feel differently about this team. Is with right to change my mind over the next two weeks, uh is.
I I want that challenge.
I think, like I think back to the two thousand, the Minnesota Miracle year. That year we always felt like we got away with it every game. Yes, I remember the defense was so good. You're like, god, I just thank god they dropped that interception. We always felt like we got away with it. And so in the playoffs, I remember thinking, like I just want I want the Falcons to win over the Eagles because I want it
nar but like, I just want. I mean, don't get me wrong, if we have to win a super Bowl by other teams making mistakes, sign.
Daddy up, bring on a mistake train. Yeah, I will throw the I will throw a parade.
I'll tattoo mistake onto my my chest like I would just just horns coming out of each ends of the word.
But I want the challenge.
I don't want the And that's a rare position for my mindset for this team to be in.
Yeah, and what a great way to end the season two that would be you know, it's on a high point going against Campbell like that.
Yeah, it'd be great.
It's high risk, high reward. Yeah, because you win it. I mean you're gonna you're gonna pull out all the stops in that game. You win it, you get the bye week, you get home field throughout, you lose it, you just gave everything you had, and you have to turn around and go play.
I was talking.
People are not worried about Tampa Bay at all. I'm just here to tell you. I know their defense isn't very good. I know everybody's hurt. I don't know, man, I've watched a lot of Tampa Bay. I don't love the idea of playing Tampa Bay. And I don't like playing a guy like Baker Mayfield who has that weird like what they say, you know, that weird chip motivation. And Liam Cohen's a good offensive coordinator.
So I don't know.
It's high risk, high reward, but I would just I would just I would like some clarity going into the last week.
How selfish is that I'm over here.
I would just like my eleven to two football team to know their fate.
Could we just know our fate?
Would that?
Could you do that for me? Please?
That I agree with you on Baker though, And I've always been a Baker fan, and I like that. I like that he's basically can you know this big crotch grab move that got him so you know in college everyone wasn't mad about I like that he's just been like basically doing the crotch grab for seventeen games every year.
I love it.
I just think he's a he's a treat and I would much rather not face him.
Yeah, it's funny how just you know the NFL, so you work for a sports website, right, you know it's funny how the machine, how important narratives are to the machine, right, and and then how those narra's the machine is so big that those narratives overtake the part of the league that isn't the machine. Right, So like Baker's this guy, like both Baker and Darnold, you know, ousted out of situations,
both wind up in Carolina disaster, both of them. And like I would say before Baker went to Los Angeles, outside of the guy who replaced him, I don't know that you find much of a lower approval rating, sure for a starting quarterback in the NFL from a do you like this guy?
Not?
Is he good?
Do you you go to other fan bases who on his team? He goes, do you like this guy? And now I think you go, I think he has a It's like he rebuilt the football economy. He's got a
skyrocket at approval rating. Same thing with Donald I think you know, when Donald's sitting in San Francisco, if you take a fan poll of approval rating and he comes here, I just think that's so interesting that I don't know that Baker is much different of a guy, and I always worry about his ability to be like I'm just gonna. I mean, they did in the playoffs last year. They just they have the ability to do it.
He went from being Johnny and karate Kid to Johnny and coolbri Kai. Johnny's still the same, but the show's different around him, and all of a sudden he's the hero instead of the villain.
I love him for that.
I said at the beginning of the season, let's close on this, Well, no, because if we close on me talking about the progression of players that I like, this will be two hours more of a podcast and everybody back. I don't know if I can sign up for size narrative novel every week. What do you think, like if I'm I've puked for this whole show where I'm at mentally and you've sat side saddle right honestly in this moment as we sit here normally, I asked the opposing guest,
what's gonna happen this weekend. What's your score prediction I want from you because I'm not gonna do it. What is your real at this moment, with the information we have before we see these crucial next four games, where do you think this season is truly going.
I think they're gonna drop at least one more, maybe two considering you know, maybe maybe it's just one more. But I just I think you gotta purely enjoy the season. I think this is one of the most enjoyable football seasons in Minnesota in a long time, and it's one of the most enjoyable football seasons for any team in
a long time when you consider expectation versus reality. I mean, it's not quite greatest show on turf level, but certainly it was you know from the these guys are gonna be very good to these guys are super Bowl contenders. I think this the sky actually is the limit for once. Even it doesn't mean you're gonna get there, but it's not. We're not just hoping for like a whole team to get COVID all at once and maybe give us a chance, you know which, there was a time where I was
like COVID could be the way, you know. So, I think it's just really important to enjoy this season because it's it's just pure enjoyment. We are playing with house money to such an insane degree. But I also don't think it's just like freakish either. So I I mean, I think that I think they'll beat the Bears by at least ten this week. I think I think they beat the Bears pretty soundly because like I said, I
think the Bears are exhausted. I think then that the Seahawks and the Packers games are gonna be very interesting.
I wonder if those will be games that tell the tale.
I think so more because I think you the Lions that's gonna be tough, and that game who knows who starters are playing, that that game's two up in the air. I think the Bears game, I do think it's going to be I feel good about that. If the Seahawks and the Packers back to back, those are two interesting teams that they could beat, should probably beat, but are tough, and that are also defining their own paths in the
close of the season too. So you've got a lot of those narratives of teams on the rise, like all clashing right at the end.
Yeah, and that's what they say, last four games this season, right. It used to be December. Now the league is pushed back a week, so it's December January ish.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's I think it's fun. I think I will lean into this more and more because you know, you've got three or four division games down the stretch, which is a wild pace, and you see that around the league a lot.
They almost overdo it, I think to a slight degree where they like they try to cluster all the divisional matchups, like right at the beginning.
It feels more than I mean, I have no proof or evidence of this, but it feels heavier. The Steelers played all of their division games in the last like nine weeks of the season.
Yeah, Caago, Chicago, Green Bay, and Minnesota are just back and forth.
It's all division games in the North.
Yeah.
So I I think I'm I'm with you on the house money, but I'm teetering, like I said, in between that and a new set of expectations, which I think are fair, and I'm just trying to see where I land. Confidence. I really want what I felt after Atlanta. I want that to be what I feel going into Detroit. That's what I want. That That is selfishly again, Look, I just want to feel like we're one of the best teams.
But yeah, I want to That's that is my.
If I feel like that after Seattle and green Bay, regardless of how those games, because by the way, you can play a hell of a football game against a Seattle or a green Bay team and not have it go your way. Sure, So I want to see how I feel after those games, and then I'm going to reset how I how devastated I will be if and when this falls apart, even though I'm trying to tell people I won't be devastated that it's all house money.
Sure, I don't think you'll be devastated.
Well you don't.
That feels like you For somebody who's known me as long as you have. That doesn't seem like you know.
Me at all.
Ladies and gentlemen, that's gonna do it for us here on the tailgate.
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