The Vikings have had a strange week, starting with the aftermath of Sunday’s loss to the Bears. And the guy who pushed down the first domino is pushing back against those who repeated and characterized his words.
“Everything’s good,” Thielen told Dave Lee of WCCO radio on Friday morning regarding Thielen’s relationship with quarterback Kirk Cousins. “You know, the media always tries to twist things and make things into what they’re not.”
Although Thielen disagrees with the manner in which his post-game remarks about the team’s passing game were interpreted, the full extent of his comments indicate that Thielen’s criticism of the passing game was directed not at play design or poor blocking or receivers failing to get open but the guy responsible for distributing the football.
“At some point, you’re not going to be able to run the ball for 180 yards, even with the best running back in the NFL,” Thielen said. “And that’s when you have to be able to throw the ball. You have to be able to make plays. You have to be able to hit the deep balls. You have to do that because otherwise it’s too easy for teams to just tee up and rush the quarterback. We have to be able to run the ball and pass the ball.”
Separately in that same session with reporters, Thielen was asked about his inability to connect with Cousins when Thielen was open deep.
“He made a great read of finding me open,” Thielen said, “and just didn’t complete the pass.”
Thielen also was asked whether he was having a hard time getting open against the Chicago secondary.
“It didn’t feel like that out there,” Thielen said. “I didn’t feel that.”
Although it wasn’t an obvious and overt shot at Cousins, Thielen said enough to invite fair questions and scrutiny as to whether he said more publicly than he should have said. Especially since Thielen, when discussing the Stefon Diggs situation on WCCO, incanted the mantra that is most closely associated with Bill Belichick but that traces to the mentor Belichick shares with Vikings coach Mike Zimmer: Duane Charles “Bill” Parcells.
“Something I remind myself every day, just do your job to the best of your ability and that’s the most important thing,” Thielen said when deferring comment on Diggs.
Belichick would say it’s not Thielen’s job to comment, directly or indirectly, on the performance of any other player. And it’s our job as the media to point these things out. It required no “twisting” or embellishment or anything other than ears, eyes, and common sense to understand what Thielen, one of the best receivers in the NFL, was really saying in the fresh rush of frustration that comes after a game in which the Minnesota offense couldn’t run, couldn’t pass, couldn’t score, couldn’t win.