Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - 17-game season and a live instant reaction to the Vikings re-signing Dakota Dozier

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

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when you want to hit the reset button, reach for the beer that is made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar and Sam Ekstrom on location at Birdie Golf in Woodbury. And I have to say, Sam, that this is our first time out at Birdie Golf, and it is amazing.

I've never been here before, and if you don't know what Birdie Golf is, it's indoor golf where they have these bays, and you hit the golf ball into the mat, which is like a golf simulator, and you don't lose golf balls in the woods. So we're here, and it's a very cool atmosphere and a fun place to be, and I'm glad that we have Birdie Golf along so we can come here more often. Yeah, no, this is the start of a great partnership, and I'm thrilled that there's an alternative for hacks like us who are constantly hitting it into the water, hitting it into the woods. And as people are getting vaccinated, you start hanging out with your friends more.

This is a great spot. You can sit at the bar. They got a bunch of tables here in the middle. They got eight bays around the facility. I mean, come over to Birdie Golf and just check it out. We're in Woodbury. It's a great mall over here, Valley Creek. I'm super, super impressed.

Yeah, so we're going to make this a regular thing where we come to Birdie Golf. So we'll have announcements to let you know when. We wanted to come here and see kind of what the setup was like, record a podcast here first, and then in the future, we'll have announcements when we're going to be here. And like you said, as things continue to open up more and you can hear the golf balls being hit behind us you can come out hit some golf balls and we'll do some events and things like that out here for all of you people who are golf fans or not good at golf at all and don't want to necessarily

get out on the course this is actually perfect for my wife because she loves hitting golf balls but gets really nervous on the actual course. And you know how this is, like people behind you and stuff like that. So this is cool. And they have it set up for social distancing purposes. We're social distancing presently. So let me just tell you about a little bit more

about birdie golf before we get into it, like where to go. So first of all, like it's sort of a family atmosphere type of thing there's food there's drinks all that sort of stuff um so um you know we're sitting here with our menu like waiting for some food and all that um but you can make it anything if you want to do fantasy football drafts or just make it like a night out with golf with your family you You can do any of that sort of stuff. So if you go to birdiegolf.com, that's B-I-R-D-I golf.com, or call 651-998-2200, make your way out here.

It's in Woodbury. It's very easy to find right off the exit. And, yeah, it took 20 minutes right off the exit of 494 valley creek and woodbury so anyway all right let's get into some football talk um sam and we'll try not to be distracted by how much we want to get out and golf on a day where it's sunny and also freezing which is perfect to be in here i want to talk about 17 game season so um whether you're for it or not, whether you're a player who's for it or not, everybody agreed to it. And now we're off and running 17 game season. Your reaction? I've got a few. Number one, I understand why the players are upset. But remember,

this was a thing before the pandemic. They were talking this so this is not a surprise this is not a the owners dumping this additional game on the players to make all the money back now that will help that will help the cap go up um that will help i think the players kind of recoup any of their lost money in free agency or restructures or what have you. To me, this is the first step towards an 18-game season. I don't think they're done at 17. That's too odd of a number. They're going to 18. We're going to have two preseason games.

So they're going to get their 20 total. I don't believe they're done at 17. I think this is just sort of the baby step on the way there. And that's going to be a whole other debate with the NFLPA. Andrew Brandt tweeted that same thing, that he thinks that this is on the way to an 18th game. And I think it's sort of like one of those whether you like it or not, it's happening.

So there's almost no use of talking about whether you like it or not. But let's do that anyway and talk about whether we like it or not, it's happening. So there's almost no use of talking about whether you like it or not. But let's do that anyway and talk about whether we like it or not. I think it's fine that they're going to 17 games because who am I to argue with a higher volume of football? Last year, we were having this same sort of discussion about, oh, you know, there's an extra playoff game, and what's that going to mean, and should they really be doing that? And then, who was upset when the first round of the playoffs came, and we all watched for 10 straight hours? Not I. Can't say that. The one

thing that keeps coming to mind for me is how weird the records are going to be, and how we now decide if something is a good record, Because if you listened to yesterday's show, just at the end I kind of threw it out there to Jason Wildey. Like, hey, is 10-7 a good record? Because we've just been so trained to know exactly what each record means. If you went 7-9, you either had a disappointing season or you're on your way there, depending on where your team trajectory is. If you went 8-8, then your name is Jeff Fisher.

If you went 9-7, you were mediocre. If you went 10-6, you were pretty good. Like all these things, everyone knows them in grain. Anything above 11, you had a really good season. If someone goes 11-6, I think that's pretty good. Is it good or is it great? I don't know. I think 11-5 is pretty great. 11-6, I think that's pretty good. Is it good or is it great? I don't know. I think 11-5 is pretty great.

11-6, I don't know. But also individual accomplishments, too. The 2,000-yard receiving season is going to become much more possible. The 2,000-yard rushing season, probably in 2005, yes, would have been very prevalent. Nowadays, it's still probably going to be hard to get, but you're going to see probably more 5,000-yard passers. Certain benchmarks are going to be met more frequently, and we got so accustomed to the same scale. For 42 years, we had 16 games in a season. That's the majority of the Super Bowl era. And when you look back at stats from guys in the 60s, do you give them any weight? Like, you toss them out, right?

Like, you don't really consider that a valid stat. That's an old era. So in 30 years, we're going to look back at the 16-game era, and we're going to probably have the same mindset. Like, I think we'll still take some time to adjust on the curve. Like, we'll still think in the same terms for a while, but pretty soon we're going to start to get used to inflated totals, just, you know, mass raw numbers.

We're going to have to start thinking probably more in averages, per game averages, especially when it's 17. That's so hard to wrap my head around. It's a prime number, Collin. Yeah, it is a prime number. How about that? So that is the nerdiest thing today that you'll say, so we'll try to top that as we go along.

Now, when it comes to the issue of personal accomplishments, this is where I don't have a huge problem with it because I think we've already been doing this. Like, if someone threw for 3,000 yards in the year 1994, you'd be like, wow, I mean, that must have been a very solid passing season. I remember when Warren Moon threw for like 4,200 yards, he was setting records. Chris Carter and Jake Reed were setting all-time records

for the most yards by a duo from a quarterback who had like 4,000. And, I mean, the only 5,000-yard passer was what, Dan Marino before that? And now it's like, eh, you can get to 5,000 if you really throw it a lot. Wasn't Jameis Winston? I think Jameis Winston was a 5,000 if you really throw it a lot wasn't james winston i think james winston was a 5,000 yard passer and then the next season he's a backup for somebody like already these numbers have had to be adjusted in our brains and when i do it i always look at how far above the average you were anyway so when we look at you know the vikings offense and we analyze them we're talking about oh okay they averaged whatever number of casting yards per game,

whatever quarterback rating above. We've already been using efficiency stats and sort of made that adjustment. For me, what's harder is trying to figure out for this upcoming season where to set the bar for the Minnesota Vikings with a 17-game season. Because if they win nine games and go 9-8, I don't think that's going to feel very good. I think eight losses is going to feel pretty bad. But if you go 10-7, which would be my projected record for them right now, Courtney was picking them as a, I think, 7-10 team the other day.

I thought she was a little harsh on their record for next year, at least where we stand right now. I would pick them as probably 10-7, and I can't decide does 10-7 get you anywhere? Well, with seven playoff teams, yes. And I think that begs the question, are we on the way to a 16-team playoff eventually? Because, again, seven's another prime number.

Let's get nerdy again. We've got 17 game seasons, 17 playoff per conference. That's just weird. It's going to even up at some point. But 10 wins definitely gets you in the playoffs, especially when the Bears got in an 8-8 last year, right, and got to play in a Nickelodeon game. I think that player rank, like, is just going to hold a little more weight. It's not going

to be, because we already know that if you say, oh, this team rushed for 100 yards in this game, okay, what was their yards per carry? Like, or this player threw for, you know, 4,000 yards. Well, where did he rank in, like, yards per attempt or passer rating or QBR. So just stacking you up against your peers, like you said, is going to be pretty critical going forward. I just don't know how to wrap my head around some of these records, like eight and nine. Yeah, what is it? Like, does that get you fired?

Do you have to be seven and ten to get you fired? Like the double-digit loss total? That's what I'm confused about and need to figure out. The other thing I thought about, too, with a 17-game season is when a team is out of the playoffs for a single week at the end and not in the playoff race at all, how miserable that is. I see last year, that Detroit game, I have never cared about anything less in my life than the Vikings at Detroit.

And I don't remember a single thing from it, except for they probably should have lost, if not for a bad call. That's all I remember. I mean, a bomb could have gone off in Ford Field, and I would not have remembered it because that game was so close. Chad Beebe went Stefan Diggs on the last play of the first half.

I can't believe you forgot that. I think Mike Zimmer's only had five meaningless games in his tenure, and three of them were the first year. We've been pretty spoiled as journalists not having to cover a team dead in the water. It's miserable. And I'm sure you're about to say, with 17 games, it just stretches on even longer. That's exactly it.

And I should use a more appropriate example and say if the roof collapsed mid-game, then I would maybe have remembered it. Or if someone had dangled from the ceiling as once happened at US Bank Stadium, that was a meaningless game, but remembered for the fact that Matt Barkley caught a touchdown. So I guess we do remember these

games and ran Philly Special, which was ultimately stolen by the Eagles. Yes, exactly. So maybe these meaningless games these games and ran philly special which was ultimately stolen by the eagles yes exactly but um so maybe these meaningless games become only for folklore purposes but the final couple of weeks of the season for half the league and this would be to your point about making it so it's eight playoff teams which seems like the next natural step I feel like they're not going to like that, that they're not going to like how many meaningless games there is for what percentage of the league.

We are not going to have half the league fighting for position. I mean, you could have teams that are set with their playoff position with two weeks to go in the season, so we're just like hanging out for weeks and weeks, waiting for a game to mean something again. I think that if you're a basketball team in the NBA and you're doing that for eight games or something, that's fine. But if you're an NFL team, do you want two, three, four weeks sometimes

of meaningless games for these teams? You know, I don't know. I feel like that extends it a little bit, and that might be a little bit of a drag. And maybe I'm saying for selfish purposes because it was miserable last year at the end of the season, just sort of like, okay, well, there's nothing to play for here, and we're just going to play out the string and not learn anything. The Chargers is who the Vikings will play for their extra game. Now, we haven't really gotten into the schedule.

That's a whole other event. Maybe here at Birdie Golf we should do a scheduled release party. I'm thinking that. I'm starting to think that would be a good idea. But the Chargers are not like a great pull, I don't think, for the Vikings. It's not like you got a Philadelphia Eagles game, you know. And now who is it that pulled Kansas City for this? Green Bay.

Oh, Green Bay. Right, they get Kansas City. So it's better than getting Kansas City. But it's still a team that I think you have to go on the road to play your extra game. And it's still a team that is considered on the rise because of who their quarterback is. So I think that as exciting as it might be for us if they put that game in December and I can go out to Los Angeles and cover it, I don't know that this helps the Vikings in their quest to get to how many ever wins we decide is good.

Yeah, it's probably the second toughest matchup in that division. I think Kansas City being number one, the Raiders are basically the Vikings of the AFC, and Denver doesn't have a clear-cut quarterback right now, and I don't think that Drew Locke is that intimidating of a matchup. So Justin Herbert, yes. But remember, he was also 3-9 at one point last year, and I don't want to rely too much on QB wins. I know the Chargers usually have injury issues,

but they are bringing in a new coach. The regression can often happen for these, you know, second year sophomore, quote unquote, quarterbacks. And Vikings fans just travel really well. Like, they could go to Los Angeles and create that home field advantage vibe that they had in 2019. So, I think it could be a lot worse. I think it's sort of in the middle of the AFC. I like that it is AFC, though. I'm glad that we can, even though it has less bearing on the playoff race, I just like seeing other teams.

I like getting some fresh blood in there, getting to cover new storylines. How many times have we had to write about, you know, the Aaron Rodgers matchup, you know, or the Vikings' lack of success? We'll see him again.up, you know, or the Vikings' lack of success. We'll see him again. Oh, I know, and I think he's coming to the Twin Cities this time. Yeah, that'll be the biggest storyline is they actually made the schedule so he comes here. But, you know, you're right.

I love Vikings versus Chargers because it feels like old, like, AFL, NFL or something. And when we went out there before before I covered that game before in Los Angeles that was insane how Vikings fans filled that entire place to capacity I do think it's going to be different this time though in Los Angeles now there will be some fans who still sell their tickets for a lot of money to traveling Vikings fans especially if it is in the wintertime. But I think Justin Herbert might change everything for the hype. And when you play the Chargers really is going to matter here. One, for my joy, if I get to go there in January or in December, that would be great to be able to leave Minnesota for that for a weekend.

But if you play the Chargers early and they you know they have a lot of energy and they want to have a lot of hype going into their season because of justin herbert i think that that means a lot fewer vikings fans will be there and the potential for a higher level of home field advantage for the chargers if i'm assuming if fans are fully in the stands again which i think they will based on the way that things are going, that stadiums will be back to half capacity or more as we go into 2021. But if you play the Chargers late, it's either they've done really well and they're in the playoff race and this game has a lot of juice to it,

or it's Justin Herbert has regressed, and I think that that's very possible that he does, and it just doesn't have a lot of energy, and Vikings fans want to go out there. So I know that we're kind of like breaking down this one game now that is a very far distance away from us, but I just think it actually could be a swing game for how we feel about the entire season and whether they make the playoffs this extra game because their schedule is difficult and there's a lot of NFC teams that are in the same type of boat as the Vikings.

So one win or loss here with this extra game could make a difference. Let me ask you this. Do you think the players have a beef to say they're not getting a second bye week. Does that need to be included? If they do go to 18 games at some point, does that need to be part of the equation for the players' sake? You know, I thought about this a long time ago when they were first starting to talk about 18-game season.

And the way that I thought of it was like, what if they played, and this is going galaxy brain, I understand, but what if they played like half the season in the brain on, I understand. But what if they played, like, half the season in the spring and then the other half season in the fall, and they were each nine games, and we had, like, a break in between for everybody to get healthy again? Like, that feels like something that a soccer league would do. Yeah, and maybe there is some soccer league in the world that does that same sort of thing. That would be my big concern is that we have seen what football teams look like when they

get a lot of injuries. The Vikings last year didn't even have a devastating amount of injuries, and by week 16 we were going, who are these people? Who the heck is Blake Lynch? That happens when there's a lot of injuries, and you add an extra week to this. The other thing I thought of, too, is that, you know, when teams win the Super Bowl the next year, they usually don't get back. Even the New England Patriots with Brady didn't often get right back the following season.

And I think a big part of that is just how many games do you have to play. If you're the Vikings and you played played 16 versus you know the tampa bay buccaneers who played 19 that is a lot of extra wear and tear that's a much shorter off season that you get and i think that it makes some difference so now you're talking about 20 versus 17 so i mean i i think that that's a lot of workload on teams that win and go deep in the playoffs that could ultimately have some sort of impact on them you know into the following season i don't think the players have much of a beef only because they negotiated it and it's like i'm sorry you don't have a whole lot of leverage here like that's kind of that's life sort of thing but you could have voted against

it you could have dug your heels in you could have fought against it because we know this that you know players are the ones that drive the league if Patrick Mahomes sits out owners are in trouble all of a sudden so you know they could have used maybe a little more of their leverage they didn't use it at all they signed up for this CBA right away boop it's our CBA so that's where I say sorry guys you signed up for it and if right away. Boop, it's our CBA. So that's where I say, sorry guys, you signed up for it, and if you didn't want it, you should vote against it. Well, the dangling carrot, too, which probably led them to sign, is that

if you increase the length of the season, you know, in this case by a 16th, but if it moves to, you're increasing it by an 8th from 16 games. Well, do the math on what that means for the cap. One 8th of $200 million suddenly becomes $225. You're making a lot more money. You're staying employed longer. That's a good

thing for the players. Back to your point, though, about attrition. Just look at what can happen in playoff games that can affect the following season. Like in the Vikings' 2017 playoff run, Pat Elfline got hurt. Remember? He had surgery. He was never the same. Anderson Dayhoe got a concussion in the Miracle game. He tried to play the next week, wasn't very good,

and it felt like he was really never the same either. Like in 2018, maybe that was just natural decline. But those extra games tacked on to an 18-game season potentially in the future. You're talking about a Super Bowl champion that could play 22 games. That is so many games. That's incredible. And there's going to be some guys that play all of them at demanding positions. Like, think about what that could mean for a running back.

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and check out the Marketplace for Sports today. You know, and this is actually going to be maybe a case for the players in a positive way is that a lot more guys are going to have a chance or should now maybe with Mike Zimmer is coaching. This won't be the case, but a lot more guys should have a chance to get in the game. I mean, to be rotational players, like I've felt in recent years that rotational players already,

their value has increased significantly. And, you know, running backs, think about like Elvin Kamara only ran the ball like 200 times last year and split those carries with Latavius Murray, despite the fact that Elvin Kamara is a superstar. Yeah, Aaron Jones, same thing, right. So all of a sudden you're seeing that these number three wide receivers

are more valuable. No one has let the Vikings know, but they are. And even like the Vikings using multiple tight ends. And I just think that there's going to be more opportunities for these players. And smart teams will look at this and say, we better have that extra running back. We better have that extra receiver. We better have that extra corner and rotate them in. Because by the time we get deep into the playoffs, our starters are going to be really worn down.

So I do think that, like you said, it is a large percentage of games, even though it feels like, oh, you're just tacking on one more. But if you're in the playoffs, it's adding quite a bit to this. So you brought up 2017. I wanted to talk about your article at Purple Insider's website. You wrote about the 2017 Vikings defense on paper versus the present version of the Vikings defense. And my biggest takeaway is and was and remains, how are you pressuring the quarterback?

Because you make some points that, you know, the Vikings didn't have a weakness in coverage. And we really don't know yet if they will or not. I mean, we knew then that they wouldn't because they had Waynes, they had Rhodes, they still had Newman. We knew that they wouldn't going into that season. This season they might still. But the pressuring of the quarterback thing is just until they make a move there is not going to go away as number 1A and 1B with the offensive line

for the conversations we continue to have about how they need to improve this team, because that's the biggest area from 2017 where the defense is way different. Yeah, well, let's first touch on the coverage, because last year they had weak links everywhere, right? And they're trying to eliminate that by signing Timothy Alexander, Patrick Peterson. From a PFF ranking standpoint, last year the Vikings had three players that ranked 100th or lower out of qualified corners, and Chris Boyd was 84th, right?

So by getting Peterson, they actually get, you know, the 90th ranked corner, which is not great, but his reputation obviously is why he was signed. He has, you know, the potential to be that Xavier Rhodes type if everything goes really well. Like that is – maybe that's a 5% chance of happening, but the Vikings are kind of taking that gamble. Pass rush. Two of your pass rushers right now of your top three were ranked 113th last year, Steven Weatherly, and DJ Wanham 115th.

So those are in the bottom 10% of pass rushers from 2020, and you're counting on them as of today in pretty significant ways. Even if you add a draft pick, you're probably still using four ends. Two of them are going to be 100th or worse from last year. That's a big concern for me. And your clear cut number one is coming off a neck injury. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dalvin Tomlinson ranked 22nd out of 138 of defensive tackles, had 28 pressures last year.

But, again, that's the career high between Tomlinson and Pierce. That's the most pressures any of them has ever generated in one given season. Usually it's around 12 or 15. Like, they're just not big pressureers. So I don't see where they're coming from at this point. I know you can create pressure by bringing blitz from the linebacker or safety spot or the nickel spot, but that's not sustainable. You still need to get pressure with four.

And even at the Vikings' best, they've never been amazing at that. Like the Griffin and Hunter tandem wasn't great at getting to the quarterback on first and second down. It was third down where they were actually pretty good. So something else that stood out in your piece was that the Vikings actually had a pretty impressive number of turnovers that they caused last year. An impressive number of interceptions that ranked 10th in the league, which they surprisingly did not have in 2017.

I don't recall that being much of a storyline because they kept beating everyone with their defense. But I think that it was maybe a game where Terrence Newman got a pick against the Bengals, and we talked about how, like, wow, that's their first interception in a while. And yet, of course, they were still a great defense without those but I I wonder if you think that like how would you factor regression into our conversation about the defense because I think from one perspective you could say all right like this turnover thing they actually did

cause a lot of turnovers in 2021 which is I think why DVOA likes them more like the the football outsider stat than I do um because I was always sort of confused by that stat like it was saying that the Vikings were like not terrible in DVOA and it's like I don't get this but maybe the turnovers were a part of that um so that might regress. They might get fewer interceptions, as weird as that sounds, from last year. But how are we factoring the return of people in U.S. Bank Stadium into this? Because right now, I would not put them anywhere close to 2017 in defense, especially with the fact that if you lose one or two players, you are still in deep trouble. You are still one guy going down away from Jalen Holmes starting.

So that's not good. Or Josh Mattel is starting. That's not good. And they seem willing to run that risk at this moment. But I don't know whether to say, hey, look, you're actually going to regress in some of these spots so you need to be better, or that the home field advantage returning will be a huge help for them so i wrote about a month ago about how luck played in and luck luck being very you know objective things like fumble recovery rate you know that's something that usually

averages out over time they weren't very good last year um man games lost uh something that you know crippled them on the defensive side of the ball. Offense, they were great. But, you know, I've seen in, you know, football outsiders and man games lost have both weighted their defensive losses among the five worst in the league. So injury luck was bad. Humble luck was bad. They didn't really have any outlier performances on the defensive side.

Like, a lot of people underachieved. And I think they're kind of bound for progression in those senses, and that doesn't even take into account the return of fans. I think that's probably going to be worth, like, one or two games, honestly. Like, a close game at the end where Dallas was just moving down the field at will does not happen, I don't think, with crowd noise. I mean, Andy Dalton shouldn't be able to carve you apart like that in the second half. Maybe the Tennessee game goes your way as well.

So I tend to think that like positive regression is in the Vikings' favor this year. Now, that being said, there is one area where it wasn't their favor last year was one-possession games. We all remember the Seattle game. We remember the Tennessee game. But they were actually better than average winning close games. They had no business winning the Carolina game and they did. The Jacksonville game could have gone either way,

like a coin flip in overtime, you know, that, that could have gone wrong too. So I don't think they're guaranteed like to improve, but there's more factors weighing that like in their favor than not. So something stood out to me about your piece. I'm really putting this diet Pepsi right next to where I'm going to hit it with my hand. Hold on one second.

Okay. Something stood out to me with your piece, which was what you wrote about Cameron Dantzler. That if you look at Dantzler's PFF grade, he was the best rookie corner in the NFL last year. But at the same time, he sort of had like two or three big plays that really bolstered that. And two or three big games, one bolstered that and two or three big games one against chicago one against jacksonville and you mentioned something that i didn't really think about when analyzing him going into the season and how patrick peterson and mckenzie alexander and xavier woods might ultimately help having some experience and the the two guys gladney and

dantzler having experience is that at the end games, Dantzler had big mistakes that cost them. And you would not expect in year two for that to change. And I think that our expectations of Dantzler, tell me if you think that they are, like, too high, or is that a thing you think he's going to do continually still, like struggle in these big situations when he's got to be man up on a guy and and make a play and the last year several times he didn't like how are we setting expectations for him because I think that there's some feeling that he's just going to be good and I don't if he stays healthy and I don't know where exactly to put it so I think it's a little too arbitrary to take his PFF grades post Packers injury and

then isolate that to say that he's going to be the best in the league. Like he was very good for about a five game stretch. He was great. But I don't, I think you need to look at the full body of work. In the full body of work, it looked like a rookie season. It looked like a lot of early season gaffes, mental breakdowns, and I don't think those are necessarily going to be part of his persona forever. I think he was thrust into a situation where he had to play and he did his best and was bound to make those mistakes. And unfortunately, like, you know, if DK Metcalf doesn't make a diving catch to win the game,

we probably aren't talking about his gap, but it was because he made a coverage breakdown that forced Anthony Harris to pick him up late. And then Metcalf made a catch. It ended up being Dancer's fault. And that kind of went on his resume. But I tend to think that those isolated plays will probably clean up over time. I'm looking at more of the body of work, and I think it was mixed.

I think having experience around him will help, but I also know that having a new guy in Peterson, a new guy in Woods, a returning player in Alexander who is pseudo-new, there's still a lot of new pieces that are going to have to mesh on that defense. So I don't think there's going to be instant chemistry there. There's still going to be miscommunication. There's still going to be breakdowns in the secondary.

And we say this about all these second-year guys. There's no guarantee they're better at all like i mean we've seen this many times right yep many times i mean laquan treadwell is a good example where everyone went into the offseason talking about oh he's got to take a big step he's got to take a big step and even in training camp i remember he took a huge step and we thought oh wow he's way better and ultimately it did not play out that way, even if he looked better all the way into camp. Now, with Dantzler, there's two things that concern me. One is the injuries when you're out three separate times,

and two is related to the injuries, and that's just his body. When you are getting ragdolled by someone like Julio Jones, I worry a little bit. I mean, you're just, Mike Zimmer mentioned about putting on the weight, but does that slow you down for a guy that already isn't the fastest guy in the entire world when it comes to tracking people deep? He, I think, has a lot of natural football skill of making plays on the ball, and he's got intelligence and things like that. But if he is able to be bullied, that's something the teams are going to take advantage of

and I think did take advantage of at times last year. So that kind of sticks in my head of how Julio Jones was able to just kind of run right through him. Everybody's not Julio, but there are a lot of strong wide receivers in the NFL, and you think about who they're playing in terms of wide receivers. NFC West, DK Metcalf, pretty big and strong guy, right? So, you know, Robert Woods is another strong wide receiver, and these are the guys that he presumably will still have to match up against.

Maybe some of this gets bumped down a little bit in terms of quality of competition because of Peterson. I guess we're going to have to find out how they decide to go with their matchups with Peterson. What do you think has happened to the free agent market, Sam? Because we were rolling along, it seemed. We were just getting signing after signing after signing. We couldn't record a podcast because we were worried that the Vikings would sign somebody. Still possible.

But it seems to have sort of come to a dead halt. It was like the first couple of safeties went off the board, and now there are still good players out there in free agency, yet it still feels like we've come to a stop, and this might be good for the Vikings. Like, they've got about $7-8 million left in salary cap, so they could try to carry this over as much as they could to training camp where guys start to get desperate and want to sign cheap deals,

like we saw last year from Logan Ryan and a handful of other players. I think with this extra salary cap space, they should wait. They should wait and see how things play out. With the drafts, take a look at their needs. And I think a lot of the players who are still on the market as we speak today will be throughout the summer. They're still two weeks away from this, but June 1st is a big day because they get $7.9 million in cap space when the Kyle Rudolph money kicks in. So they're going to more than double their current cap space. If this thing continues post-draft and into the summer, suddenly the Vikings are players.

Like, they could make that one. They could sign, for instance, Jadeveon Clowney to the same deal he signed last year with the Titans. One year, $13 million. I'm not saying they're going to do that, but that's the type of player they could attain late in the game. They could make one big splash or many small splashes. You look at the free agent list and you see their ages, 32, 33, 35.

It's all these older veterans who probably have a little more inflated sense of their value. Geno Atkins, Kwon Short, Melvin Ingram, Jarrell Casey, A.J. Boye, like all these guys are on the back end of their career. They don't want to accept those lower deals, and there's only so many, you know, one-year, $8 million Patrick Peterson-type deals to go around. They can't all get them. So now it's a waiting game. And some of them will get lucky and some of them won't. And they'll have to sign for really, really cheap.

And I think I would just want to be employed. I would just want to get to next free agency, have a team, have tape that you can put out there. Russell Okung, too, that's a left tackle that you could bring in late in the game.

Obviously, you're going to have to adjust your needs in the draft. You can't count on this as, like, a way to fill needs. But there are some pretty big names out there, and they're getting cheaper by the day. So this is the Rudolph money thing. I think the reason that they pushed it to June 1st is because they need to sign the draft class, of course. But the other part of it is the extensions. And even though we talk about how a Harrison Smith extension could lower the cap, which

could definitely happen, and a Daniil Hunter adjustment could also do the same, you're still talking about Brian O'Neill is going to need a contract extension too. Now they missed, you know, having to pay Mike Hughes potentially this offseason or fifth-year option in him for the future, you know, sign him to an extension or fifth-year option for the future. But they will have to pay Brian O'Neill. So things get a little tricky. But I think that they should stay on the path. Like, you kind of made your big splashes,

and you got some players with bigger names, and one guy that I think is going to be really impactful right away in Tomlinson. And then you started to get the guys who missed the first wave for very cheap. And look, if you spend $2 million on three more signings to use a lot of that cap space, you're probably better off with those bets than you are trying to get someone like Jadavion Clowney for one year or Melvin Ingram. But I even wonder if the NFL is going to wait on those guys and say,

look, if you were injured last year, I mean, we're just not going to pay you for next year because the salary cap is so tight. Before we wrap up here from Birdie Golf, are you enjoying pro day season? Yes. I am. I'm doing my guy Matt's on. Yes.

With the RAS. Relative athletic scores, which you mean, yep. So when we mention that someone is a 90th percentile athlete, that's where it's coming from is relative athletic scores. Oh, of course. Yeah, I always have my hand timer when I'm watching on NFL Network people's pro days. Isn't it really funny that,

like, two or three weeks ago, if someone had asked you, hey, how should you look at this year's pro days? You'd be like, look, it's not the combine, it's not really the most legit thing in the world, and you should kind of dismiss it. And then as soon as they come, it's like the combine. It's not really the most legit thing in the world, and you should kind of dismiss it. And then as soon as they come, it's like, oh, my God,

a guy had an amazing 40 or an amazing vertical. His draft stock is shooting up. It's like, we do this every time. It's almost like a breaking news item because, you know, I don't have on my calendar, oh, today is the Ohio State Pro Day. Like, I didn't know that my timeline was going to blow up this morning with Justin Fields 40 times. It's kind of exciting when it does, and it kind of just goes more viral than the traditional combine, which becomes white noise after a couple of days.

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They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. So I've been doing Thursday night draft sims. You're invited to do one of those soon. But I want to know, so people have probably heard me talk about different guys that I think would fit the Vikings.

It was really interesting to see Miami's pro day and just see what Jalen Phillips did where he dominated and Gregory Russo with his incredible wingspan, but not so incredible vertical jump. Like here's the things that we're breaking down, right? Like, would the Vikings really draft a guy with a vertical jump of 30 inches at defensive end? Like, do you have to jump a lot at defensive end? I don't know. But I want to know from you, because I don't think that I've heard this from you,

is, like, who's catching your eye? I don't know that we've really discussed which particular draft prospects you are interested in. So, the lack of a second round pick takes so much of the fun out of it, because I think the second round is where you can really kind of have crushes on guys, because they're

not the huge names. I think Samuel Cosby, and I hope I'm saying that right, is fantastic. I think he would be like a plug-in tackle. He can play right. He can play left. We're talking about athletic scores.

He's a 9-9-9. Super big, super athlete. Big 12, which the Vikings don't usually love. They typically avoid Big 12, which the Vikings don't usually love. They typically avoid Big 12, and the Drew Samia pick might throw them off the scent even more with drafting Big 12 offensive linemen. But Samuel Cosme is like my crush on this Tuesday afternoon. Tomorrow it'll be someone new. I'll move on to the next one. But, you know, I... But the thing with Cosme is it seems like he would be your Brian O'Neill or Ezra Cleveland of this year, where the guy has some...

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. The Vikings, as we speak, just re-signed Dakota Dozier. Oh, I can't wait for the internet, I can't wait for the internet. I can't wait for the internet. Do we have to do an emergency for this? Do we have to do an emergency

podcast for signing Dakota Dozier? I mean, they find somebody who likes you how much the Vikings like Dakota Dozier. More than Shamar Steffen. Yes, he is the opposite of Shamar Steffen. That's perfect. That's perfect.

Why would they sign up for a third year of this? I don't understand it at all. There's clearly a Denison, like, connection here. And I guess if he's your swing, maybe I can accept this, and sort of the large sample size is what really kind of messed with him. But you can find Dakota Dozers anywhere. You do not need to get the actual person Dakota Dozier. I'm at a loss for words.

So when Dakota Dozier was a rotational offensive lineman back when he, I think, was he with Denison in like 2016 in New York? He was fine. Like 2016, 2017, he played 144 and 248 snaps. And by his PFF grades, now those are small samples, but he was fine. He allowed a handful of pressures, graded in the 60s and 70s, and was okay. And even in 2019 for the Vikings, where he had to fill in for just a couple games, he was not by any means good, but was still sort of like what you'd expect from an offensive lineman who comes off the bench.

And if this ends up being his role, it's probably okay if that's his role, if he is your backup. But now, if we're talking about the offensive line room at this moment, at guard, right now you have Dakota Dozierzier who last year was the dead last graded pass blocker in the NFL you have Mason Cole who was 31st out of 36 remember when I said that it seems like they look at PFF and then they're like we're going to do the opposite

that's exactly how this feels yes for offensive. Not for a lot of other things, but for offensive line. So you have Mason Cole, who was not good on paper either. You have Drew Stamia, who was the most lost offensive lineman that I ever remember seeing in football games. Is Aviant Collins still around? You have Kyle Hinton, who definitely is a player who was drafted by them. Blake Brandel is, who definitely is a player who was drafted by them. Blake Brandel is, I think, a tackle.

Ole Udo, people send me messages about whether he can move to guard. Like, this is not inspiring confidence that they're suddenly going to take a huge jump forward at the guard position. So, as of today, the starting lineup would be the same as last year. Sands, Riley, Reif, and put in Rashad Hill. Like, it might be the Week 17 starting lineup against Detroit. Wow. Nice. Dakota Dozier never took heat from the Vikings coaching staff, and I don't know if that's just a sort of – like this is – Mike Zimmer in 2016

was very critical of his offensive line. And I remember him talking about how he learned about how to manage them in the media, like publicly. He didn't want to throw them under the bus again. He felt like he was too harsh in 2016. And now he is so hesitant. And a lot of times if you ask him about an offensive lineman's performance who's not playing well, he'll say, I'm not going to evaluate players in the media. Even though he

evaluates players in the media all the time. Intern Paul just said this might rise to emergency podcast levels for Matthew Collar. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh my gosh. Things are happening. Oh, wow. Austin Blythe, the guy who we had said you got to get him, goes to the Kansas City Chiefs. They have everything and the Vikings have nothing. Wow, wow, wow, wow. So who's the guard?

Who's playing offensive line? Who are the guards? Like, Austin Blythe is the last guy on the free agent market who could play guard and not be bad. I had another guy. Zach Fulton got signed, I believe. He's a giant. Wayne Taylor.

Wayne Taylor is my... If he can move still, like he's hurt, right? Like he's had all those injuries. Wow. Austin Blythe, the apple of our eye for so long that we brought up, I don't know, 50,000 times. And it was like, of all the things you could have named to do on the offensive line,

all the potential options, the dead last option would have been get Mason Cole and Dakota Dozier. I mean, of all the potential things that they could have done. Nick Easton is still available. Maybe I should pivot from Samuel Cosme to Kendrick Green. Yeah, the Illinois guard, yeah. So now that all the guards are gone,

are we betting that now a third-round guard ends up starting for the Vikings? Because if there's a competition between Mason Cole, Dakota Dozier, third-round guard X, which is usually a decent prospect, let's say like Wyatt Davis or something. He's not supposed to go super high, I don't think. That's probably what we're looking at. We might be looking at like kind of a Pat Elfline 2017 sort of guy gets drafted in third round and starts right away

because this situation has reached now dire. a Pat Elfline 2017 sort of guy gets drafted in the third round and starts right away. Because this situation has reached now dire. Like, as we speak here at Bernie Golf, whoever would have seen it coming today. I was just joking that they don't sign people during our podcast anymore. I guess we weren't finished. But now, now it's like red alert. Because I don't know who's playing guard.

James Carpenter, who's been bad for I don't know how many years. There's no one left, Sam. There's no one left on the free agent market that you can sign who can be good. Do you continue to be puzzled by their desire to spend $2.1 million on Mason Cole? Not only to

trade a pick for him for a guard who was bottom of the league last year, or center I guess, and then change him to guard, great, whoop-dee-doo, but to spend 2.1, like that's more than double the veteran minimum. You couldn't have held on to that six-round pick and just signed Tom Compton again, that would be preferable. And, frankly, preferable to Dakota Dozier as well. I'm at a bit of a loss. I mean, there's nothing wrong with Dakota Dozier as a backup player

because he has multiple positions that he can play. I think he's played even center before. If you had to fill him in a tackle for, like, half a game or something in case of emergency, he can do it. He is at least the impression I get from them, like a sort of first-class type of well-prepared conscientious is something that Mike Zimmer likes to say. Yeah, exactly.

Like all those things are fine. There's nothing wrong with Mason Cole or Dakota Godocher being your backups. But now it just feels like, all right, you haven't gotten any other pass rushers, so that's probably your first-round pick. Quiddy Paye, Jalen Phillips, okay, you can get behind that. But you're going to probably rely on Rashad Hill, probably rely on a big competition again in training camp it's like how exhausted are vikings fans of these guard competitions in training camp where we don't know who's starting until five minutes before the

season but it if this if the offensive line looks like this if it is let's say rashad hill at right tackle because i know that's what they were going to do last year. Rashad Hill at right tackle, and then Ezra Cleveland at right guard, Garrett Bradbury at center, Mason Cole or Dakota Dozier at guard, whoever wins the battle, and Brian O'Neill at left tackle. That offensive line is worse than last year, or just as bad. And your best piece is switching positions to a position that he's only done once in his career. I mean, that could be malpracticed as if they hadn't already committed it like 50 times on the offensive line in the past few years. Right, last year.

Can I just point out that when we woke up today, look at how many former Vikings floundering guards were still available. Dozier, obviously. He's been signed now. Nick Easton. Danny Isadora, sorry. Colby Gossett. Like, they're everywhere. They're all over the place,

these, like, flamed-out Vikings guards. And Minnesota just couldn't resist. If they had signed Austin Blythe, or they had gone all in on something, now Joe Tooney ended up being too expensive. That Blythe deal is going to be minimum, by the way. It's going to be so affordable. He's exactly the guy. Could you have offered Austin Blythe?

I don't know what his preferences are for his life. But, I mean, Kansas City has very good food. And maybe he wants to win a championship, and that's the only thing on Austin Blight's mind, or he thinks that that's the best place to go do it, is he can go to Kansas City and he can shine in the bright lights and play in the playoffs and someone will pay him a lot next year. That's always possible. And I think we've seen a lot of that this offseason. But would you not take back the money for a lot of people to give it to someone who's a decent offensive lineman? I mean, would you not take half of Patrick Peterson's money,

get another corner, and give it to Austin Blythe? Would you not take, I mean, Xavier Woods is fine, but like Mason Cole being worth 2.1, would you just triple what Kansas City was willing to pay and say, come here? I don't know. That was the last thread of hope that Vikings fans had, that their guard situation was not going to be a disaster.

And now it's almost hard to see any way out of it unless they draft Elijah Veritaker in the first round and he plays guard. That is the only situation that I see it. Like the drafts, Tim, where they trade down, take Elijah Veritaker, put him in at guard, but who's rushing the passer? Yikes. Can we hold Rick Spielman's feet to the fire on this? Can we make a vow that we will be as dogged as possible

when he does this pre-draft press conference? I was going to say, whenever he speaks to us and takes questions again, sure. Should we sample some questions? No, we'll do that off air. Okay, well, there you go. How about that? That is a first for recording the podcast and the Vikings do something insane on the offensive line.

There's never been more buzz about a veteran minimum one-year signing than that. No, there has not. And again, it's not personal to Dakota Dozier. It's just that you can still see the wheels turning for them. They're saying, I know, we'll trade for Mason Cole and we'll have them compete. Not a good idea. Not a good idea. Not a good idea. We are going to get, and I'll probably say this, I don't know,

50 times before the end of the Kirk Cousins era. We will get to the end of Kirk Cousins' time here and be like, why? Did they never give him a third receiver or a guard? Why did they not do that? I don't know. So, oh, I found a cool new stat just before we wrap up. Cool new stat. So PFF is now including where pressure came from in their statistics. So this is, this is very cool. So Kirk Cousins was responsible, by the way,

if you were wondering, for 15% of his own pressure, which is usually a number reserved for running quarterbacks. So that's a thing that is kind of interesting. But his, basically like 50% of the pressure last year came from guards. And that's not going to change, is the way that it looks. Yeah, that adds up. Since we're at Birdie Golf, how would you grade this acquisition of Dozier based on a golf score?

Eagle? Birdie? I know what it's not. It's not Birdie Golf. It is not a Birdie, no. But you know what? I will say this. We had a great time here at Birdie Golf. And now that we're wrapping up the show, we are going to grab our sticks,

whack away a couple of golf balls here. It's just such a cool place. They've got – they call it, like, the best golf simulation in the Twin Cities. And I totally agree. So you can make it, like, a whole night. If you go out to the golf course, I mean the actual golf course, it's going to probably be more expensive, weather dependent. Not that you and I won't be on the real golf course,

but you can't really make it like a family outing most of the time. That is what you can do here. So very, very happy to have been hosted by Birdie Golf. Again, birdiegolf.com. You can set up your time to come here and play in one of their bays, they call it. 651-998-2200. And, you know, lots of good food, good drinks, all that sort of stuff. So we are thrilled to be now partnering with them.

And because we are very much into golf and bad at it, we're going to be out here a lot, I think, which is very cool. So thanks for coming out, Sam, and, yeah, we'll do this again soon.