Vikings 5-0 at bye week, should fans emotionally invest?

All right, 5-0 start for the Minnesota Vikings here with a bye week now. So a quiet week at TCO Performance Center before they gear up to restart the season. What do we expect when it restarts? How much of this carries over? Let's bring in Pierre Nugent again to kind of dissect this. I don't know if you had a chance to listen to the coach's comments here a little bit ago or not, But he's continuing his KOC ways of saying we're seeing positive developments here. We're seeing Kyler Murray get more comfortable with the system, and that's paying off. Yeah, and I think he's absolutely right. And I know Jim and I joked about this on the Vikings Now podcast, which you can find on Fox 9 and Fox Local, by the way. We joked about this yesterday when we were discussing the topic. I was one of the individuals, when Kevin O'Connell was talking about how he believed the offense was ascending, he mentioned that after a postgame. I can't remember if it was after the Tampa game or after the Miami game. But when I heard that, I thought to myself, okay, you have to say that. I don't necessarily have to believe it. And I didn't believe it at the time. But after yesterday's game, I'm starting to buy into it a little bit more. Because you have to think about it, Rob. if they don't fumble inside the red zone twice who knows what the score might be i mean the vikings could have put up over 30 points in that game against new orleans if they don't fumble the ball inside the red zone two times so i do think that the play is getting better obviously they have to adjust without donovan jackson at left guard christian darrisaw didn't play in yesterday's game against the saints they do expect him to be back after the bye week once he clears concussion protocol you got to get jordan addison back you got to get tj hockinson back this offense has never been healthy for longer than what 15 minutes at some point throughout the course of the season so if this offense can be all healthy at the same time i know that's not going to happen entirely now with donovan jackson lost for the year but if everybody else can be in place at the same time for longer than a quarter of football then maybe we can see this offense finally reach its potential yeah um in terms of what we're seeing you know when last week's game it looked like Murray was struggling at some point i mean it it wasn't a great offensive game and you know you wonder okay is he just not being able to see over players to see his targets then yesterday we see him uh moving around so much more using his legs and his speed and being able to see his his receivers better i mean is that that's kind of what i took from what i saw i mean are you seeing the same thing i think something similar yeah and then he was asked really if using his legs was part of the game plan and and Kyler said you know sometimes there just needs to be a time to improvise and he's one of those quarterbacks that can improvise very well with his legs and you saw him especially on one play i think it was an 18 yard gain in the third quarter you saw him get around the corner and these guys just cannot keep up with him like you saw the speed is still there with Kyler Murray when he takes off running so that's another tool that he has that a lot of quarterbacks do not but at the same time too i know the Vikings are a little worried about him in that regard because you don't want him getting hurt and that's been the story of his career there have been plenty of times where when he's gotten hurt scrambling and running for his life so yeah let's hope that game one he was running and went into a slide and you know the quarterback slide but still got hit in the head yeah that's exactly what happened but i i think each of the last three games he's improved and i thought he's gotten better even though it wasn't an offensive showcasing against Miami last week if T.J. Hockenson doesn't slide before the goal line that's a touchdown you know that that even though it's not going to be a ton of points you probably finish the game 22 to 10 and Kyler Murray last week against Miami over 72 completion percentage no turnovers yesterday against New Orleans he completed 80 of his passes one touchdown no turnovers i don't know really what more you want from your quarterback and not every quarterback is going to be able to go out there and throw for 350 yards and three touchdowns every single Sunday i know people want to see that but that doesn't automatically equate to winning and right now whatever Kyler Murray is doing is equating to winning football all right uh and then lastly here as we look ahead post bye week uh what do you make of the schedule coming up what we got the Colts and then the Lions uh and what could be a tough stretch yeah this is kind of the critical part of the season Indianapolis looks like a winnable game at home you can never take anybody for granted obviously but Indianapolis looks like a winnable game at home and then you go to Detroit And then you have the Monday night game against Buffalo And then I think a couple of weeks after that is the Mexico City game against the Niners. So I think it's, this is, I think Green Bay is in there as well The trip to Green Bay is somewhere in there at that, at that point too But this is the stretch. You feel like these next five, six games are really going to dictate how the rest of the Viking season is going to go and could very well determine where they end up in terms of playoff seeding, if they eventually make it there. So yeah, this is a critical stretch hopefully everybody is healthy the first and foremost that's what everybody's waiting on just you want to take this bye week to get healthy and get ready to go for the second half of the season all right all right pierre we gotta run but thank you so much and the packers too you know i mean they they kind of dominated the bears so wasn't the bears yesterday yeah yeah everybody else is three and two in that division yeah if i ever know everybody else is three and two yeah so we're in a good spot hopefully you can keep it there all right thanks pierre all right all right uh we have been asking and now it is finally time to share what do you think about the 5-0 start uh does it rearrange the uh thoughts that you have about this team long term and and what is do we have any kind of consensus of the feedback i think mostly optimistic mark from wilmer here is going to be a little bit different here uh sorry seen this movie before pump the brakes uh he may not be wrong but completely understand that sentiment we know what that's like um sue though i'm 77 years old the sue from super bowl uh 77 years old a super bowl would be amazing sue i think that's an optimistic i think that sign us up for the super bowl uh marion from east buffalo buffalo i've been a Vikings fan since '61, you learn not to expect anything and gladly take what positives you're given, don't jinx them, just enjoy the moment, agree yeah and uh finally I think we have one more no maybe not, that's not it, did get some emails uh I think people are cautiously optimistic, well you have to be, that is the, I mean this is a great, it's again, it's money in the bank, you're ahead of the game in terms of the standings uh but as Pierre mentioned, I think he said Colorado, where they started out unbeaten, and then they only won three more games the rest of the season. You start out 5-0, and then you win three more. So anything can happen in this league. So same thing. Positive signs, but I'm not going to take anything to the bank just yet. Yeah, Pierre talked about that schedule. That is, after the Colts, those games could go 50-50 at best, really, with the 49ers and the Bills on there. Well, the 49ers, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't that be something if both the Niners and the Vikings were both undefeated when they met? We've got a long ways to go to get there. That would be fun. Yeah, the 49ers are looking good. They're looking pretty good. Yeah, big win over Seattle yesterday. We've got to get going, though, Rob.