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Minnesota Vikings play-by-play announcer Paul Allen tried to play partial when the Vikings faced their NFC North rival Green Bay Packers last Sunday.
But when a disgruntled Packers coach passed by Allen, commencing his Between the Lines postgame show for Vikings.com, and tried to slander the purple and gold, Allen showed his teeth.
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‘I Hope You Lose Every Single Freaking Game’
As the cameras aired, Allen and his co-hosts, Ben Leber and Gabe Henderson, on the field following the Vikings’ 34-31 triumph over the Packers, Allen opened the segment with a bit of background on what unfolded moments beforehand.
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“You know what, I’m going to take the high-road on this Green Bay Packers coach looking at me saying ‘You better not talk into that microphone and give your team any credit,'” Allen said before giving some credit to the Packers, who are battling an injury bug while sitting atop the NFC North standings.
“I’m going to take the high road on it and say I’m very impressed with the Green Bay Packers finding a way to win eight games despite all those injuries, [Aaron Rodgers’] toe, COVID, lying, and everything.
Then, Allen unloaded.
“So I’m not going to say to that coach what I wanted to say like, ‘You can go ahead and put Eric Stokes on Justin Jefferson [for] the rest of his career. And like [Jefferson] did in 2019 when he was with LSU and Stokes was with Georgia, he killed him, and he killed him again today, and he will kill him every single time they meet. So I’m going to end it right like that.
“Best of luck to you guys the rest of the way, and quite honestly, I hope you lose every single freaking game the rest of the year,” Allen added as a final sendoff for the green and gold, whom the Vikings will meet again in the penultimate regular-season game on Jan. 2.
Packers Coach Remains Unknown
The Packers coach remains unknown. However, there’s speculation that Allen’s mentioning of cornerback Eric Stokes could mean it was Packers cornerbacks coach Jerry Gray or assistant defensive backs coach Ryan Downard.
An original Mike Zimmer-staffer, Gray was the Vikings’ defensive backs coach from 2014 to 2019 before the team parted ways with him in the 2020 offseason. It’s unclear whether he was fired or left for a similar position elsewhere in the NFL, per CBS Sports.
The Vikings secondary underwent a hiatus in 2020 when the team decided to part ways with all three of its starting cornerbacks: Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes and Mackensie Alexander.
Rhodes saw a drastic decline after being made the top-paid cornerback in the NFL in 2017. Pro Football Focus ranked Rhodes 126th out of 135 cornerbacks that played at least 20% of defensive snaps in 2019. Alexander and Waynes ranked 55th and 60th, respectively.
Zimmer said that Gray’s departure was “probably for the best” when the two parted ways.
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