Paul Allen | Minnesota Vikings Radio PxP Voice

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There's a lot to listen to, so get started and download the free Odyssey app today. We have such great announcers in the NFL, specifically in the NFC North. We've gotten to be friends, and so it's always an honor to have him on the show.

We had to accommodate his schedule. He's a little exhausted after that Sunday game in Orchard Park, New York, but pleased to welcome to the show now, here after ours. Paul, it was wild. It was total insanity. That was my NFL hashtag. Total NFL insanity based on the finish of the Vikings and the Bills, so take us inside the booth.

What were your emotional swings like from your perspective inside that radio booth? Highmark Stadium is honestly one of my favorites, and being a team from the NFC North, outside of the preseason, we never get to go there. And it's very close to the field, close to the fans, and there's not a bad seat in the house. And it's just a beautiful, wonderful environment. It snowed in the first half. That was kind of majestic and surreal. But the fans, they're not like Commander's fans, where we actually had a problem in the booth the week before with the fans, or Philly fans, where their reputation precedes them.

And it's legit. I've been there enough to know it's legit, including week two when we were getting blown out, and they kept telling me and the analyst Pete Bursage we were number one, but they were using the wrong finger. Well, you have a way in games like this, Amy, where the energy of the fans, the adoration for the team, and the recognition of how good this game has become, well, they all meld, and then you almost take it personally into the microphone that you want your team to win, but you want the fans to hear a loud-ass announcer guy blurt out, and he's alone. And so they all turn around, and they're still winning by double digits, but we just had to let them know that we were there and that we're just not some seven-to-one flim-flam operation, just happy to be here. So all of that played into the emotions. Then you get to some of the quirkiest and strangest plays that, honestly, I've ever seen as long as I've called Viking football. This old dog likes new tricks, but I was getting too many of them, and I was becoming overly stimulated.

So that whole thing just happened in about a 90-minute span of time, and it's something I'll never forget. I just have to know, why is it that the Vikings can't blow teams out? Why do they have to make it so dramatic every single time, Paul? Great question, and that's been a common thread and or refrain at Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, the Vikings practice facility. They wonder, too, and the new coach, Kevin O'Connell, Mike Patton is his right-hand man, associate head coach, former head coach of the Browns. He's been around longer than Kevin. So has the defensive coordinator, Ed O'Donnell.

He's been around longer than both of them, and their heads spin, too. But the bottom line is, it's a different year in the NFL. The NFC has a confluence of circumstances that we identified, at least I did, into the season where, okay, he's Brady, but he has a new coach. He's A-Rodge, but his bailout guy went to the AFC.

Russell went to the AFC. The Rams are the target at which to shoot, but they've experienced some injuries. Niners are always super tough.

I shortchanged the Eagles, and so on. So coming into the season, I felt the Vikings had a better chance than most to win a bunch of games, but I didn't know how it was going to happen. So whether you're coming back from two touchdowns down and home against Detroit, and the stadium is eerily quiet, or you're relying on a double-doink from Will Lutz from 61 in London, or you're down 17 to Josh Allen in Orchard Park late in the third quarter and you win, that's the bottom line.

Cliché as it is, it has to be the bottom line. They did kind of blow out Miami a little bit. Now, granted, it was without Tua, and that does matter, but they did win that one rather clearly. Paul Allen, that familiar voice from the Vikings Radio Network, some iconic calls already this season, and we're only halfway through as the Vikings move to 8-1. What was your special tagline about 8-1, Paul? Well, it plays off an old-school song by a band called Orleans. We're still having fun, we're still the one, you are still the one.

It was a little one-hit wonder-ish. So on my radio show on KFAM, Mondays when we win, the producer, Nordo, will put together a montage with highlights leading up to the hook. And when that hook came in like a month and a half ago, I just got into the microphone and started going, we're still having fun, bikes are 4-1, we are 4-1, and that was it right there.

So that was in my mind somehow, so we're still having fun, we're 8-1. Oh, it fits so perfectly. It's always exciting to have Paul here on the show after hours on CBS Sports Radio. Kind of funny how Kirk Cousins has all of a sudden become the rage in the NFL. I feel like I've seen him on literally every TV and radio outlet that covers sports in the last week. Going back to the trip to Washington, of course the shirtless videos with the bling, and literally everywhere.

How have you seen him show with the other side of his personality this year? That is a wonderful, wonderful question. And as you can imagine, when you're a shiny toy at 8-1 and the child-like announcer goes crazy on the mic, I've had a lot of interview requests over the last couple of weeks, and I've done most if not all of them, and I get a lot of Cousins questions. I never got one the way you laid it out. And I'm glad you did it that way, Amy, because that is an A topic with this team. The acceptance of Kirk Cousins, the Christian, Kirk Cousins, the awkward bookworm who sits in the first row of every single class, and Kirk Cousins, the 500-ish quarterback throughout his career who has only won one playoff game.

All right, so you got all that. So now, you and many people have seen the Kirk O'Chains bit that they created in first class after we won in London. He didn't do it this week, Patrick Peterson did, but nevertheless, in essence Kirk is the last person that's going to bring attention to himself. He's very awkward with it, very uncomfortable, and he's going to look at the world through the eyes of Scripture, where we are all the same, whether you make his money or you're the guy picking up the cups in the stadium.

So when you come from that standpoint, when you get a massive amount of positive attention, it flies in the face of who he is, if it's not handled right, and he's just uncomfortable with it. So this group, led by Christian DeRosa, the left jackals, Zadarius Smith, the former Packer, and I think Patrick Peterson and some others, well, they basically forced it on him, being like, we know you're humble, and yes, we know you're different when we have conversations with you, and you're incredibly smart. So we're going to force you into this Kirk O' situation, and we are going to celebrate you. I'm not comfortable speaking for players or coaches, but I'm going to speak for Kirk here, because I've been with him all of his career here, and I know him quite well. This is the most joyous, comfortable, fun time he's ever had in his professional career, because he's accepted finally for who he is, and he's heard so much crap about not being a leader. Well, I've always had a problem with that, because it's my belief leadership is anointed, and players and coaches and others put that leadership tag on you.

Well, that's what this team has done. Inherently, the quarterback is the leader, due to the complication and magnitude of what you do and how often you do it. But nevertheless, a leader doesn't have to be Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or some quarterback F-bombing the offensive line of receivers up and down the bench in the tight game caught on TV. It doesn't have to be that. Kirk is a born leader.

It just is not the way man or the public or certain people want to envision a leader. So this group has empowered him in a way no other group has since I've been here, no other group has in his career, and he's a fantasy football anomaly, in that his numbers aren't as good as they have been even last year. However, he's making the most cold-blooded throws and the best throws that he's ever made in his life this season, and he is the leader of the Minnesota Vikings.

It certainly helps when you've got the weapons around him that he does. And you mentioned Stephon Diggs. We see the relationship between Josh Allen and Stephon that's developed.

We know about the relationship between, say, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Well, now Kirk Cousins has Justin Jefferson that he can throw the ball to who can almost catch anything that is in the vicinity, his general zip code. What was your perspective on that fourth down catch in the fourth quarter where he goes up with the one hand and essentially has to muscle it away from the defensive back? First of all, the throw has to be perfect, and it was.

So that's off what I just said. Secondly, Jefferson's catch one-handed with the temperature of 28 degrees, and Cam Lewis, the DB for the Bills, has the ball, and Justin ripped it away. It truly is one of the greatest catches you're ever going to see. The fact that it was fourth and 18, you obviously had to have it.

So that plays into the confluence of circumstances that we've seen, Amy, through the first nine. One thing I say when I chat with players or coaches, either on the radio or not, is the fearless gene, not everybody has it. God has to give it to you. You can't just wake up one day and say, hey, I'm going to be a completely different person and just go in there and I'm going to have faith over fear and not be scared.

It doesn't work like that. This team doesn't panic ever. This team is fearless, whether it wins or it loses or whatever is going on.

This team does not fear any circumstance, and so far they're coming through basically every time. Paul Allen of the Vikings Radio Network is with us here after hours on CBS Sports Radio. You bring up leadership, the leadership of Kirk Cousins, and I also wanted to highlight the new head coach, because here's something that has stood out to me. I don't understand why Kevin O'Connell is not getting the same attention for what he's done in his first few months with the Vikings. What stands out about this new head coach? It's ridiculous if he's not, and it also plays into the common thread, Amy, where we're beating these teams that are perceived bad.

You know, the Saints, the Lions, Kyler in Arizona, and so on and so on. But nevertheless, they're still winning the games, and nobody around the facility cares what anybody around the country thinks of them. In fact, the cliché from the coaches would be they'd rather fly under the radar, and they're under the radar after that Buffalo win. So O'Connell is doing a coach of the year type job here. There's no doubt about that. And I think it truly is a childlike happiness and joy that the players, the coaches, and everybody intimately associated with the football program possesses. And that Kirk O'Chains bit is part of it. It's how players are handled in meetings when they're making mistakes.

You know, they're not going to be torn down in front of their cohorts. There's layer after layer after layer of things that were said into the season, and they have lived up to the hype. And, you know, being old school, I've heard a lot of things for a long time, Ms. Lawrence, and whether it's a prize fight or whether it's a big game or it's a culture change or whatever, it rarely lives up to the hype. There are so many things that I heard into the season that needed to be changed and will be changed and have been changed, and it's tangible, and I'm seeing it. And I'm seeing it every single week. And so that right there, the fact that you lay out a plan and then you execute the plan the way you laid it out and it's working, that not only is, I mean, that is not only underrated, it's rare when it happens, and it's happening here. What is unique about Kevin that they respond to him?

That's an excellent question. I think with Kevin, well, he's a first-year head coach, and the general manager, Kwesi Adofu-Mensah, is a first-year general manager. Now Kwesi's right-hand man is Ryan Grigson, who used to be the GM for the Colts. Kevin's right-hand man is Mike Patton, the former head coach of the Cleveland Browns, longtime defensive coordinator. Ed Donatell has coached football for many decades at a high level.

Then you have Wes Phillips, Bum's grandkid, and Wade's son. Well, this is his first year as an offensive coordinator. The quarterback's coach, Chris O'Hara, first year doing that. So you have a lot of newbies, Matt Daniels, with special teams first year.

So therefore, they're going to be learning on the fly too. Kevin delegates. He does not have to have the right answer. And if Kevin recognizes something that somebody else notices with a first-year play caller as a head coach or other things, he does not have ego. There's no ego. No ego around here.

And there's just a culture of joy and happiness. Even after that Eagles loss, because I do a weekly one-on-one interview with Kevin for KFAN and some other things with him. And after we got killed by the Eagles on Monday Night Football, everybody saw it. And so we're going to tape it the next day.

Of course, we had a mechanical with the plane. So we didn't get back to like 5.30 in the morning. Everybody's tired. And people are cranky that they just got killed. Well, he was the exact same in the interview later that day as he was the week before.

He's the same all the time. That's very important. Here they are. Same record as the Philadelphia Eagles after the Eagles lost on Monday Night Football. All right, Paul, before I let you go, it's a strange year for the NFC North, but you've seen this division for a lot of years. What are your impressions through the first half of the North? Green Bay losing Devontae.

I would tell everybody who would listen. And I'm not from Minnesota. I'm from Washington, D.C. I moved here full-time in 98.

Been voice of the Vikings since 02. So I want to beat Green Bay because that's always the target of which to shoot in the division. But I don't have that next door neighbor family Green Bay Packer shoe size contest thing that tens of thousands in this state have.

So I don't come at it from that point. But I told everybody that losing your bailout guy, Devontae Adams, this is not a one or two game thing. You know, that's a lot and it's going to be a lot. So that turned out was bearing its fruit.

That's helped a lot. And then they got hurt. And then we killed them week one. So from the NFC North Fields is running all over the place and and looking great at doing it.

But they're not winning. The Lions are improving, but they haven't improved enough. Green Bay took such a massive step back without Devontae. And then we take the Daria Smith.

We take their outside linebackers coach Mike Smith. That was a major, major move by these guys, the Vikings. And and Green Bay has had to kind of twist in the wind trying to figure it out.

And they just got so far behind in the division that, you know, I mean, it would be an absolute puzzler if the Vikings don't win the division. Can you believe it's been 20 years for you doing this gig? Yes, that's an interesting question, because, you know, over the last X amount of years through the pandemic, calling road games from U.S. Bank Stadium and just some other things, not only in my life with where my personal life has gone, but just just just, you know, I've done the job a long time where there was a side of me where I could kind of take it or leave it.

God gifted me in a way where when we push on and you get that boom. Well, the fans are going to get what the fans deserve. And I call the games for the fans to give them a diversion in their lives if they need it. But I'm I'm just completely bent with this whole thing. For the first time in my career, Amy, calling games in this Buffalo game, I said multiple times to the analyst, Pete Bursage, I love the scene.

I am so in love with this team. A lot of it really has to do with cousins finally seeing people from all walks of life embrace Kirk Cousins. I mean, he may be more interested in talking about the fall of Babylon compared to getting bombed at a bar. And guess what? That's OK. And it's accepted who he is. And to see him as happy as he is, that that brings me so much joy that it's reinvigorated my actual joy for the job.

A culture of joy and happiness, and it starts from the top and is filtered down. And no doubt that is a major piece of why the Vikings are eight and one, because the team has got that special chemistry. You can find Paul on Twitter at P.A. on the mic. And I see and not only is he the voice of the Vikings for 20 years, but also on KFA and in Minneapolis. Paul, it's always good to connect with you. We love listening to you every single week. And yeah, as long as the Vikings are winning, no doubt we get these iconic calls. Well, yeah, we got Dallas next.

They're going to be a handful for whatever the reason we were underdogs at home. I can't understand that. Then you can just put this in the back of your mind. We're still having fun.

I think we're going to be nine and one. Thank you, Paul. All right.

Bye, Amy. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurt people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season two, the Dixie Mafia available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Download the Odyssey app today. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurt people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season two, the Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.