It’s been a weird week as a Minnesota Vikings fan.
In just the span of four days, we’ve seen a lot of the back-and-forth rhetoric that has landed the Vikings amid the perpetual middle ground that we’ve seen over the last few decades.
Paul Allen Punches Back at National Pundit
Following Friday’s release of veteran running back Dalvin Cook, though, the topic of conversation has shifted a little more drastically between the two camps. One believes the move was inevitable, and the other believes it’s just the latest trend that showcases the Vikings are mailing it in for 2023.
The argument took a mainstream turn this weekend as Mike Florio from ProFootballTalk.com published an article titled, “A Year After Running It Back, The Vikings Are Tearing it Down.” Then, within the body of the article, Florio didn’t hold back throwing out words like “demolition” and “tanking” regarding the 2023 season. And then Florio wrote out what has since turned into fighting words saying that recent moves show that the Vikings are willing to take a temporary “visit to football hell” in order to work the long-term vision.
Given this rhetoric shared on the national scene, to know one’s surprise, when KFAN’s Paul Allen, the play-by-play voice of the Vikings, got ahold of Florio’s article, a bone to pick with it began to surface. Cracking the mic in Minneapolis on Monday morning, PA appeared to take umbrage with the words and spent a lion’s share of his program discussing the take.
“Maybe ‘tearing it down is too strong,'” Allen shared with the fanbase. “But I don’t think that ‘remodel’ is strong enough.”
Over the next hour, Allen continued to share these thoughts plus more, “He makes it sound like the 13 victories [in 2022] just blew the way of the cornfields like fairy dust. Like they just happened out of nowhere…he lays on the same narrative with the quarterback, which I think is in the rearview mirror a little bit…[Florio fails to mention] there’s even an iota of a chance that the addition of Brian Flores takes a liability-oriented defense and makes it significantly better…[he fails] to recognize that Darrisaw, Hockenson, Cousins, and Jefferson all are playing for new deals. All are high end and all wreck games for defenses.”
“Teams tearing it down win five games,” Allen explained. “When you tear it down, you don’t make the playoffs, and they will make the playoffs. When there’s demolition, you don’t win the division, and they absolutely could win the division.”
But it only gets better from here. You see, Florio is a regular Wednesday morning guest right out of the chute at 9 am during the football season. Allen already shared that they are efforting to get him on the line this coming Wednesday to debate the take and the article. So this may just be the beginning of what will surely be an entertaining and heated conversation!
Tune in Wednesday morning right away at 9 am central to hear the back and forth between the friends as they hash it out!
Aj Mansour is a member of The Power Trip Morning Show on KFAN and works for iHeartMedia and the Vikings Radio Network. He’s also a senior writer for VikingsTerritory.com. Be sure to follow him on social media for the latest Vikings news and big opinions – @AjKFAN
