Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - A full breakdown of the Vikings' first day of practice

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Matthew Coller and Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated talk about the first day of Minnesota Vikings practice. Where was everyone lining up on defense? What did Justin Jefferson say at the podium and what kind of pressure is facing him this year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here along with Will Raggetts of Sports Illustrated. I guess this is the Will Raggetts show. Though we don't have a roundtable, but we will have roundtables. It's just early. Like we don't want to bring on all of our best beat friend guests on the first day when basically nothing really happened today. We've got to wait for that, Will. Yeah, there will be more eventful days, but it was good to just be back out there.

I mean, it wasn't too hot. There was a nice cloud cover, a nice breeze. We got to watch some football. There will be days the pads are going to come on pretty soon. We're going to be at U.S. Bank Stadium on Friday, which should be pretty interesting. But today was just about getting back into the swing of things and remembering how we do what we do. Take notes, watch football, tweet things. You know, a really hard job we have.

So we were out here doing it, and let's talk about it. Yeah, I took a picture of football on a stick, which was being used. That did not go with the Mike Zimmer era. They still have football on a stick they were wearing crazy things on their helmets that are supposed to be meant to reduce the bumping of the helmets into each other which is fine but they kind of look strange and I don't think that any of the players really enjoy the look but maybe they enjoy the safety and as far as that goes that's about the only thing that was different from a regular football practice like no on day one we couldn't pick up on all the nuances that are different of a new era with

kevin o'connell but i do want to talk about some of the lineup stuff because we've speculated on what the lineup looks like but we have an answer for a couple of depth chart things for at least where they start and i want to begin with jordan hicks who missed practice today alongside of eric kendricks and it was troy die who was filling in next to kendricks and it's not serious it's like a non-covid illness i was trying to remember like what the exact phraseology was but yeah non-covid illness for jordan hicks so it's not a big deal, but, or at least we don't think so at the moment, it was a tweak once for Danielle Hunter, but that doesn't matter. The linebacker room is interesting though, beyond Eric Hendricks and Jordan Hicks, because Troy die is the most experienced, but has at no point really shown anything. Brian Asamoah mixed in on some dime

package stuff, but not with the first team. And Chaz Surratt was out there because Chaz Surratt is a guy who exists. So I guess we should have expected Troy Dye to be that person. I thought maybe Blake Lynch, but that's where we begin with that depth chart. Yeah, the Vikings have kind of just poured like a one middle round pick in the linebacker for as long as I can remember at least the last few years in uh in 2020 it was Troy Dye who at one point in his Oregon career was talked about as maybe a possible first round pick and he was really productive early in his career and then he got to Minnesota and hasn't exactly done very much and then the year after it was Chaz Surratt

who was kind of a head scratcher of a pick at the time like I remember when that pick was coming up it was like 78th overall they had so many third round picks at 2021 and I was like oh maybe it'll be a receiver or maybe it'll be this or that or another corner and then they took a linebacker out of nowhere and a linebacker that I who like it's my job to study the draft prospects every year from January until April. I had never heard of Chassarat, I don't think. And he's like a former quarterback converted to linebacker, really athletic. But, yeah, we haven't seen anything from him. And then this year it was Brian Asamoah, new regime, still taking those second or third round shots at linebacker.

But definitely interesting. I would have thought that it would have been Blake Lynch, like you said, because when they have actually needed another linebacker to play in the games on the field over the past couple years, it's been Blake Lynch. And he's played pretty well. He's made some splash plays in the run game. He hasn't really looked completely out of position in the pass game. He hasn't been Eric Hendricks, obviously,

but I feel like he's been the best of that second tier. Anthony Barr obviously isn't here anymore. But yeah, interesting that Troy Dye got those reps. There's nothing that I can really report about what Troy Dye did today because he was just kind of out there and they weren't wearing pads and they're going through the motions. And I love watching the practices because every single run or catch or whatever, the player just takes it to the house. And then everyone on defense is like, I'm going to be near you and maybe punch at the football like a little jab.

But it's hard to tell when actual tackles would have been made if they were actually playing football. But yeah, Troy and I didn't do anything terrible. He didn't do anything super impressive either. But definitely an interesting note that it was him and not Blake Lynch and not Chaz Surratt in there with Jordan Hicks missing the day out of what the Vikings called an abundance of caution with his illness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I wish we would have left abundance of caution. Wait, or was that exactly what they used? That's not what they said. What was the exact terminology? They said for precautionary reasons. Precautionary, yeah. I mean, I wish we would have left abundance of caution. Wait, or was that exactly what that's not what they said? They said terminology. They said for precautionary precautionary. Yes. Abundance of precautions was why Jordan Hicks wasn't here. But no indication that there's any problems there as far as we just go through the different things, you know, roster wise for who is out there. Cornerbacks who you expected. Cam Dantzler, Patrick Peterson. No surprises there andrew booth working with the second team shannon sullivan is your nickel corner as he was signed to be and has

been a starter for the last two years for green bay but i think i expected to walk out onto the field and see lewis seen with the first team and from all the reps that i saw i don't remember seeing seeing lewis seen we're gonna have to work on that uh out there at all with the first team i And from all the reps that I saw, I don't remember seeing Lewis seen. We're going to have to work on that. Out there at all with the first team, I think it was exclusively Cam Bynum. Your take? I don't really have much of a reaction to that yet because that was the case all throughout the spring

with Bynum getting those reps. Mike Zimmer is not here, but Mike Zimmer is not the only coach in the NFL who is going to make rookies earn their place. I know that was a big talking point under Zimmer. I feel like we tried for years to tell people that, though. Like, this is not unique. Well, but there was probably a shred of truth to it that Zimmer was a little harder than others and would make you earn it more. I mean, there's no better example than Justin Jefferson not starting until the third game of his rookie season. But yeah, it's going to be true whoever the coach is. Kevin

O'Connell is going to make rookies earn it. There's no rookies working with the first team right now. Louis Seen is with the twos. He came close to making a couple plays. Didn't quite do it, but I mean, that doesn't mean anything. Just something I'll point out exactly yeah they blew the draft pick uh thanks Kweisi Booth uh the the second pick was he's behind Cam Dantzler right now that is going to be I think the maybe the single best training camp battle to watch I mean if you're a fan of of right guards as a lot of us are that's your preference I'm really excited to watch Booth against Dantzler I mean Booth made the biggest play of the day for what it's worth by undercutting a Kirk Cousins throw and making an interception and getting up and running I don't know if he was down or not but like I said they run everything

out and the defense got got super excited and celebrated with him he just looks really fluid to me I mean he looks like he closes on the ball really well has good hips is smooth with his movements and he's healthy now which is the big thing I mean I played through a lot of stuff at me. He looks like he closes on the ball really well, has good hips, is smooth with his movements, and he's healthy now, which is the big thing. I mean, he played through a lot of stuff at Clemson. He had hernia surgery this offseason. If he can stay healthy, I think he's a first-round talent. The Vikings just happened to get him at 42 because of all the injury stuff. But man, Cam Dantzler is a good player. He's been a little inconsistent. He's in his third year, but if Booth plays really well, it's going to be hard to keep him off the field.

I always hesitate with the he was supposed to be a first-round pick thing. But I will make an exception for this. For someone who was so injured in college that he had multiple surgeries and everything else and wasn't able to participate in OTAs. And in his own words, hasn't been fully healthy since high school. Right, right. Like, that's not what you want to hear but i will actually believe that when it comes to uh plus i heard other people in the league say that that was actually the case the teams loved his tape but were not willing to take the first round pick on him because the first round

pick is such a massive investment that if someone has that injury history it's going to make you hesitant unless they are a superstar caliber player which i don't think he is that level prospect but you can certainly see with the man's instincts there's something else there and i think like he's a high intelligence player with great footwork and all those things that has a chance to emerge quickly and this is where cam dantzler last year i think anybody who says zimmer should have pulled the plug on breland earlier is totally right but also breland earned that spot or i'm sorry dantzler earned that spot of being behind bashad breland yeah and if he does the same thing and doesn't have a good camp or preseason like andrew booth could come get that

from him um so i think that's like one to watch right away is how that develops. And it seems like there's no real competition for Sullivan. We know that Peterson is pretty much locked in. The only thing I noticed on the defensive line was just that Harrison Phillips and Armand Watts were kind of mixing in and out. And I think that's entirely going to be situational that those three guys are going to rotate because none of them play like 700 800 snaps they're all like 500 to 600 snap type of guys maybe a little bit more with Tomlinson but I think that's sort of your three-man rotation I wasn't really surprised to see that yeah I mean defensive tackles you want to keep them fresh and rotate them in and out

Phillips and Tomlinson I think will be at their best on early downs, stuffing the run. They're both capable of drawing double teams and maybe giving you a little bit of interior penetration in the pass rush. But Armond Watts is the guy in that room right now who is kind of the pass rush guy. And maybe Jalen Twyman, if he makes the team emerge, that would be a really cool story after everything he went through last year. But it's Watts as the kind of interior pass rush guy. Unless they sign Adama Kingsu, which is probably unlikely, but is still technically possible, I suppose. That's Watts' job for now. I didn't notice too much else defensively.

It's kind of what you expect. I mean, Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter are going to be the edge rushers on basically every play while they're healthy. I mean, they'll probably rotate a little bit because you want to keep those guys healthy. But just they are so far above everybody else edge rusher wise talent. Like you want you're going to want to have them on the field every single play because of how good they are and because of how steep the drop off is to the the uh dj wanham's and patrick jones of the world right and it was kind of as expected i think zach mcleod worked in which number 59 zach mcleod everyone i guess uh we'll figure out if we need to know more about zach mcleod as we go along but i did notice that when they rotated in second team that he was one of the guys that

out there uh so i at least put that in my little notes, as we do. Now on the offensive side, Jesse Davis season, everyone. We thought that immediately it would be a rotation. There was no rotation. So as of today, and only as of today, and this is totally up to change as we go along, it looks like Jesse Davis is the guy. Like that they signed him to be their right guard, and someone else is

going to have to unseat him but there was no rotation it was he was number one and Chris Reed was very clearly number two I don't think I saw a single rep that was different than that I think the offensive line was set yeah they had Davis taking all of the reps with the first team at right guard which is the the competition to watch the the one spot that's open there's never going to be any other reps at any of the other four spots with the ones unless somebody gets hurt it makes sense like I've kind of thought for a while that Davis is the presumed favorite just because he has the highest like salary this year so that kind of means something if if he doesn't play that well in camp it won't mean that much but just for now like he was signed for more than Chris Reed was

signed for and Eddie Ingram is a rookie so it makes sense that Davis is the presumed starter right now it might not be the most inspiring choice with some of the like PFF numbers and and things that he's had during his time in Miami but I will say that a lot of the the criticism he got from Dolphins fans was because he was playing out of position. Like, he's not a tackle. I think that much is pretty clear. So he's had some success playing at guard before. We'll see if that changes. With the second team, I believe it was Ed Ingram at right guard, and they had Chris Reid playing left guard. So we'll see how that all shakes out. Austin Schlottman, the backup center.

Reid, I think, could possibly factor in at center as well. But, yeah, Davis seems to be the guy at right guard for now. Right, and I didn't expect that. I thought it would be the same rotation. It was a rotation in the spring, if I'm not mistaken. No, it was. It most certainly was. And maybe there was something that they liked more about Jesse Davis, or maybe it's just today and we'll record a podcast tomorrow and talk about how it's totally different um because i know with zimmer's regime when guys were kind of in a spot they were in a spot and you could

pretty easily read it and they didn't do too much fiddling around it was like this is where you are and then if you unseated someone then all of a sudden someone would be getting first team reps. With the wide receivers, a lot of guys mixing in. Smith-Marset, B.C. Johnson, Albert Wilson. Have you ever talked in your life about Albert Wilson before? I have not. I don't think we've talked about him. Like not to friends or family?

I mean, I think I wrote about him very briefly when we signed him. No, I don't think I've ever said the words albert wilson out loud he's very noticeably short is is the one thing that jumps out very first he's like five nine but he's really quick i mean you have to be to be to be in your like seventh year in the nfl at five nine so um he's a guy to i guess keep an eye on in that mix for the for the fourth spot at the very least well that's what i was gonna say is like do you want to talk about elber wilson for a minute because i did notice that he was taking some slot reps he is a pretty much a pure slot guy although i looked at his career usage and there were times where he was an outside receiver and when you look

at his numbers for his career he's always a guy that's just kind of like in the mix where he's someone's third or fourth wide receiver he had a really good year in 2017 in kc decent start to a year in 2018 got hurt um that's kind of albert wilson for you the last two years he's been an extreme underneath threat but that was only with uh tua and they weren't pushing the ball down the field so i i guess i have become so cynical to the veteran wide receiver that just shows up here that i immediately dismissed it as not a thing but i have to remember it is not the old regime and maybe they signed him for a reason other than to be the tajay sharp who gets two targets in a year yeah the tajay sharp and jordan taylor and

kendall right everyone knows the names, yep. Yeah. No, I think there's kind of a pick-your-flavor situation with the people in the mix for that fourth receiver spot. I don't think anybody is going to really push K.J. Osborne for the number three. I think he's proven with what he did last year that he deserves to be that guy. He's got kind of the all-around game. Wilson is like the short, shifty slot guy who maybe could be interesting as like a gadget player.

Like we know that this offense wants to use a lot of motion. Like you can put him in motion and like hand the ball off to him. He, weirdly enough, like if you scroll down his pro football reference page, like has some rushing stats. I think he has a rushing touchdown. He has a passing touchdown in his career. So maybe he could be a little bit of a gadget guy, just a quick underneath option. Amir Smith-Marset, I think, would be the guy if you want to, like,

have somebody in there to run more deep developing stuff. Yep. Just because he has the speed. He has the, like, the hands and the ability to track the ball down the field. We saw a little bit of that late last season, last training camp, and then also when he was at Iowa. And then B.C. Johnson is, like, still there, kind of forgotten guy. He made some plays in 2020.

I think he was hurt last year, right? Who, B.C. Johnson? B.C. Johnson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ACL last year. So he's still there. He's kind of more of an all-around just possession guy, a little bit bigger, obviously, than Albert Wilson and a little sturdier than Amir Smith-Marset as well.

So they have some depth there. I mean, it's a wide receiver room that is absolutely loaded at the top with one of the best receivers in the league and then Adam Thielen, who's still a really, really good red zone weapon, K.J. Osmond. But it's got depth, too. I think people may not realize that. And there's some other deep, deep sleepers down the line as well. It's sort of like finger quote depth. Like every one of them is possible but also not inspiring. And that goes for your BC Johnsons or Albert Wilsons where they've been in the league, they know how to play football,

but are they needle movers past what you could have gotten with someone else that's what we're going to be asking as this goes along how many receivers at this moment after we've watched one practice that was unpadded do you think they keep because i was doing a 53 and it's always a struggle yeah it's like wait so you got wilson you got bc you got smith marset the guy we haven't talked about is is jaylen naylor right right right jaylen nate rookie who i could be the punt returner maybe um so that's where i i i've i've had six i think on my projections with with naylor being in over bc just because i don't know what BC Johnson does that well

that warrants keeping him. You know what I mean? I mean, it always, to me, sort of comes back to, like, I'm going to take the guy that this regime hand-selected. Sure. And in this case, that's Jalen Naylor in the sixth round and Albert Wilson as a free agent. So that's why I lean towards having those two guys.

And then Amir smith i just think the upside compared to bc johnson uh is a lot higher with his athletic skill set so those those are my six they could keep seven they could keep five this doesn't even talk about uh the legend dan chisinau who's been on the act yes people might not remember he's made the initial 53 in two straight seasons literally just to be a gunner. And in 2020 as a rookie, he wasn't even that good at it last year. I think he got a little bit better and he's absurdly fast,

but at some point I just, I couldn't justify while doing the projections to like keep a guy who just does one thing. Right. And maybe they'll do it again, but I I'm skeptical. Folks training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to soda stick.com and checking out all their Minnesota sports

inspired goods. The best football designs in my opinion are Randy Moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look, but look, there's lots more for you to check out at soda stick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com t-shirts hoodies hats whatever you're looking for use the promo code purple insider at checkout for 15 off your purchase they did have him running some routes today and last year. And I think he got in a game at receiver or two,

maybe Detroit when they had some injuries there with Adam Thielen going down. No way he has a career target, does he? I don't think he has a career target, but I know he has some routes. Okay. There's got to be stats. This is how much the analytics game has gone up, is that we can look up how many routes dan chisna may have run last year in actual games let's see uh this is the most compelling podcast content that you have ever

heard by the way are you on pff elite premium stats i'm trying to pull it up right now so he had yes nine plays that were passing last year okay three out of the slot had zero targets uh throw him the ball kirk right i know what are you doing right come on kirk um so anyway there's that but if he shows some development as a receiver then maybe there's an argument of a depth receiver slash fantastic punt gunner and now we're getting like so far away from what i want to be talking about, but I had them with five plus Dan Tracina, but I had him just as a special teamer specialist. And I'm not even really sure about that because I think that they have like three guys who

you could argue or four who are only special teamers like Josh Metellus. He's sort of depth, sort of special teams. I thought Chaz Surratt on special teams was pretty decent last year but is not a player you're going to have playing at linebacker and i don't think you want to keep all of these guys um at the same time so let's move on from that conversation though because there's you know it's just dan tracina yeah uh but shout out to him though a guy who had like no catches at penn state and then made an nfl team two straight. So I talked with Kellen Mond after practice and he told me that last year when he got COVID that he lost weight because it was bad for him.

He was very sick and that when he returned, he never got back to weight because I think, you know, we've heard this before. It's really hard to put on weight or get in shape. Once you've gotten to camp, you have to do it beforehand. And he said that he was thrown off by that and tried to do some overcompensating with his throwing motion, which caused problems. And he spent the off season trying to undo that. Do you buy into Kellen Mond looking better, feeling better under kevin o'connell and winning qb2 because today they were splitting and as i expect them to do pretty much the whole training camp is splitting the qb2 reps between him and sean manion yeah i'm on board with that and i think i'd probably be on board with that even without the whole story about him like being up 10 pounds or whatever from last year and I just like Sean Mannion what you watch him drop back and throw the football in drills or in live seven on seven

or 11 on 11 reps and it's just not much there and that's not to say that there's a lot more there with Kellen Mond right now but if he progresses from last year and is more comfortable with this new coaching staff which i think he's talked about in the spring um they have the assistant quarterbacks coach jarrod johnson who's a former a&m quarterback who's like working really closely with kellen mond uh i just think like the tools that made him a good quarterback in the sec for four years should on paper be enough to be the Vikings backup quarterback like he's athletic he has a big arm it comes down to a lot of like mechanics timing accuracy if he can fix

that up and then maybe if that was affected by um the COVID stuff last year and then the issues he had with that and maybe some maybe some stuff on the mental side too with with mike zimmer um yeah i'm i that's what i've got in my predictions right now i don't think like unless he's just so not ready still like you would i'm sure the vikings coaching staff and quacey adolfo menza would love for kellen mon to get to the point where sean manion is expendable like you don't have you don't want to have to use a roster spot on three quarterbacks when you can use that roster spot on another receiver or on another lineman or whatever the case may be. I think I would be willing to be patient with it because why not? Like, I mean, we all want to call our shot on players and things like that.

And look, it was not good last year in training camp. Not even close to good. The preseason games weren't good. And the whole thing was pretty much from the start, a mess with the COVID and then the close contact. And so he's in the doghouse with Zimmer, but not playing well either. I would be willing to say that the biggest jump for players generally in their careers is from year one to year two, because they can go back

and get feedback from the coaches and have an entire off season where they don't have to go to the combine and they don't have to do the pro days and they don't have to learn how to be an NFL player just from day one. I still think that there are shortcomings that won't allow Kellen Mond to be a starting quarterback, but you are like, if you're the team, you mon to be a starting quarterback but you are like if you're the team you have to be rooting for the younger player to emerge to be somebody who could be on a rookie contract for the next two years as a backup quarterback and then you can decide like what their future is going to be but if he has as rough of a time this year as he did last year then i mean there's really almost no reason to keep him then you have to look at who

else is cut being cut and if there's somebody else you could bring in as a backup who will be an upgrade over manion or just leave it at manion and know that you are completely in trouble if kirk cousins has to miss a single game i think with the backup quarterback see i've always said like oh you're screwed if kirk goes down so there's no reason to talk about it. I'll give one reason to talk about it, is if Kirk were to miss four games, you need someone who can win two. At this moment, they do not have anyone who can win two. What you want to leave this training camp thinking is that you have a gentleman who could step in and win two football games out of four. And as we've seen before, these backups they save seasons i mean cooper rush matt moore like these guys played big roles in their teams winning divisions and

playoff right beating the bike that's what i mean is these backups if they're good enough nick foals being the ultimate example but case keenum another ultimate example but even if you're not that level of shockingly great for a very short period of time, just be this mediocre backup, a Matt Castle who could come in and win a game. If you play really well or against the bad opponent right now, if you played the Detroit lions or whoever we think is the worst team now, Chicago, I'm not really convinced either one of these guys can beat them maybe Sean Mannion maybe but I think if Kellen Mond starts to prove it then it will be one of the better stories of training camp I also wanted to ask your opinion on the running back situation too because it seems like Alexander Madison still RB2 Kenny Wong will get in some work out there though and i just really want to see how

this develops because all offseason i've been thinking to myself like kenny needs to be on the field and even just today we saw him take off once it's like yep that is that man is extremely fast so i wonder what you think the new coaching staff just based on your one practice of information will be kind of how they're going to use them, split them up, and whether Kenne actually has a chance to be RB2. Yeah, I don't know if he has a chance to be RB2 because I don't know that the all-around skill set is there. I don't know if it'll ever be there. He's really flashy with the speed, and he bursts through the line of scrimmage, and he can catch passes.

But Alexander Madison, you need, like, if you're going to be the guy who has to come in when Dalvin Cook misses a game, you need a little bit of that physicality as well, and the vision and things like that, and just experience running the football that Kenny Wong doesn't really have. With that said, I would like to see him, and this has been the case since last year, I would like to see him get on the field in some sort of fashion.

Alexander Madison is a somewhat similar player to Dalvin Cook. He's like Dalvin Cook lite or like a poor man's Dalvin Cook with lacking a lot of the vision and the elite explosiveness that makes Dalvin Cook a star. But just from a build and play style perspective, they are somewhat similar. Kenny Wangu is not similar. So that gives you the opportunity, if you're going to put him on the field, to actually change things up and throw a different look at a defense and give them something that they aren't seeing on every other play and have a receiving option out there. So I don't know based off one practice, and we haven't really asked the coaching staff that much about this.

I don't know if that's in their plans, but in my mind it should be. And, I mean, it's interesting too that they drafted Ty Chandler as well, who's like more of a Wongu type of player. I don't know if he's even like on the roster this year. I assume he will be probably because they draft him in the fifth round but yeah it's gonna be interesting to see how that all shakes out at running back if if Dalvin Cook's workload is pulled back a little bit now that he's 27 and they want to maybe accomplish the impossible and have him play 16 or 17 games this year so yeah we'll see it Madison's role as well i mean it's his last

year as a contract year like is he going to get an opportunity to play a lot if dalvin cook is healthy we'll we'll find out soon i guess so i know i'm changing subjects uh rapidly here rapid fire will um justin jefferson talked today i thought it was very interesting that Justin Jefferson was muted on his enthusiasm and not like he isn't enthusiastic. But he's done some interviews this year where he's been a little bit hyperbolic about the Cooper Cup thing, the offense, trying to be the best wide receiver in the league. kind of wonder if it was whispered to him like hey buddy like let's just let's just cool off and let's just play some games first and and do all that sort of thing and not be like you know hyping it up all the time i do wonder if that was the case but he said that after this year he wants to be considered the best receiver in the league okay that's great i mean he's gonna have a good chance at it and that he wants to win and that money is not that important to him as far as the

contract although he he kind of i don't want to say misspoke but he said he wasn't fond of money which is like a weird way to put it because i think all of us are fond of money i think he's probably fond of money to some to some degree yeah i would say so i think what he meant is just uh that money isn't the most important thing to him. And I believe him when it comes to winning, like that he got the only time he sort of fired up was when he was asked about the fact that the team hasn't been over 500 since he got here. And he just said, I hate losing like really emphatically. And we've seen that from him, that motivation and drive from him that I think that's true. But I guess I just wondered about your thought of him kind of coming in with a little

less flair than maybe we expected and more of kind of a quiet attitude toward actually entering camp. Yeah, I thought it was kind of a normal Justin Jefferson press conference. He said some grandiose things in the past and but I mean even today he he did say a few times like I want to be the best receiver in the league and he has a he has a good chance to do that if he just has another season like he's had uh the first two years and he knows that um but he also thinks that like or he said that the best is yet to come and he can and he can even better. And that might be true with this offense, like if they find different ways to use him and just make sure that every single game, regardless of what the defense is doing,

he has eight to ten targets because there were stretches last year and there were definitely stretches in his rookie year where that didn't happen. So, yeah, I mean, if anyone saw the quote of Jefferson saying, I'm not fond of money and was like, oh, the Vikings love to hear that. That's not going to that. That will not mean a thing in the contract negotiations when he is going to get like millions and hundreds of millions of dollars. So but it was it was a funny little note for sure what do you think about just the general pressure on him though that i i mean some of it is brought on himself by talking this offseason in interviews uh loosely about the idea of him putting up cooper cup numbers and then when it was brought up today it was like well you know

i'm just trying to help us win but yeah man for the whole offseason though you've been talking about this like this is what you want i don't know that he's a guy that really feels pressure because he played at LSU and was a champion, and then he came into the league, and his first start, he goes off, and it's sort of been off and running then. But it starts to creep in, though, when the money is there. You could say you're not fond of money. You could say you only care about winning, but all of us would think about not only how much I could get paid if I could be the top paid wide receiver but also that reputation part where you know you're right on the cusp of being talked about with Cooper Cup

and Devante Adams and the best wide receivers in the league and then taking on an offense that created this monster receiver in Cooper Cup or helped create him. I think that there's a ton of pressure on Justin Jefferson. We just assume he'll handle it. I think he will. I would bet a lot on that if he's healthy, of course, that he continues to be him. But it's also in players' careers. There are reasons sometimes why guys have peaks and valleys or ups and downs or things like that that are

beyond health and one of them is pressure and situation you know the changing offense and things like that i think that we all are of the assumption that it's just going to continue and be perfect but and i'm not trying to rain on any parades i just had this thought today of like this guy is actually under a ton of pressure i I think this year, because it's also part of the group trying to put it on Mike Zimmer and be better than they were offensively, but also for his own personal perspective, there's just a lot that's going on him this year, especially not getting another wide receiver in the draft or something like this. It's like, this is your show, man.

Yeah. another wide receiver in the draft or something like this it's like this is your show man yeah i wonder like he hasn't really faced any individual adversity like in the league he's just kind of torn it up since he entered the league and uh there's been some times where like he hasn't gotten the ball quite as much as he might like and there was the whole like thing against i think it was against like the panthers where he was yelling at Kirk, like, throw the dang ball, and things like that. Is that how he was yelling it? Eh, throw the dang ball. No, it was a little lower than that, and there were other words used, I think.

But I wonder how much pressure he feels on a team level because this is a guy who went, I think, 34-7 at LSU, and now he shows up and the Vikings have not been 500, like you said, since he got here. Like, literally not even 1-0 or 3-2 or whatever. They haven't been above 500 since 2019. And, like, that's not his fault. He has done everything they could have possibly asked. The 2020 defense was horrid.

There were just weird things last year where they blew it at the end of halves and end of games. But, like, I wonder how much pressure he feels. Like, is it my fault that, like, is it a Ewing effect? Like, we haven't been that good as a team since I've been here. We're 15 and 18. And, like, can I do more? And are there other things i should be doing it like could that

lead to frustration if he's gonna get a ton of defensive attention if there's games where he's not producing the 100 plus yards because the bar is set so so high for him like anything where if he has like seven catches for 75 yards like that's a quiet game right right so i wonder if he feel if he's gonna feel at some point especially if the wins aren't there early in the season like i i need to do more and i you need to get me the ball and if that if that could lead to any any just kind of contention because he has set the bar so extremely high that if he doesn't continue to produce at an elite, elite level. I don't know.

Doubts could creep in or there could be – we'll see how he handles if it happens like a down stretch or just not continuing to be Justin Jefferson. That could get into his head. So I don't – this is all like unlikely I think because he just seems like a truly special, almost generational-level player. And I don't have any real doubts about his ability to keep producing at that level, especially with Kirk Cousins, who is not an elite quarterback, but has proven to be a quarterback who can get Justin Jefferson the ball, is accurate downfield, and he's got the offensive-minded head coach now. But yeah, it's an interesting point you bring up. Like, what happens if Justin Jefferson falls off ever so slightly?

Could that kind of spiral? I don't know. Or if just defenses play him in a way where it forces the ball to other places because Matt Stafford will throw the ball to a wide receiver no matter what. I mean, it even shows up in the data that Matt Stafford does not care and will throw it to Cooper Cup even if he's not open that is not the case with Kirk Cousins and this was the one area so I think when we talk about the pressure it's not like he's gonna forget how to catch football like no that's not gonna happen but could it ramp up to the point where the relationship between him and Cousins,

where it's like this was supposed to be my year, this is supposed to be where I get 130 catches, and you're holding me back. And then I get the massive, massive contract extension after the year. Right, right. Exactly. And even though he's going to get that either way, and I think that still the quarterback future is unclear, but Jefferson will be here is how i'm seeing it right now i still think that pressure creeps in of this is supposed to be my year i'm supposed to drive

this offense and win these games and you have to get me the football and if it's not happening because coverages are a certain way and we just know this with cousins it's like the digs thing or other receivers in the past where they're like just throw it anyway i mean even zimmer one thing you could say about zimmer where he was right last year was like just throw it anyway and then kirk came out and said uh no i'm good no i'm gonna not do what you say like that that could be an area where there could be um more pressure on justin jefferson not to not to scare everybody it's just like one of those, I thought of it today, of this guy has just put a lot on himself

with how he's viewing a new offense and the situation for the future with his contract because he is well aware of that regardless of what he says about money. And the Cooper Cup role is not just, oh, hey, let me go out and have 1900 receiving yards like that involves a lot of blocking in the run right yeah like that's something i think that's been overlooked a little bit like you're gonna be they're gonna be an 11 personnel a lot which means cj ham's not gonna be

on the field uh you the tight end might be on the other side like and they might run at justin jefferson he has to like lead the way and make a good block. Cooper Cup is the best blocking receiver in the NFL by a lot. That's a big part of why the Rams are so successful because when he's on the field, he's not necessarily going to run around and get targeted. He can also just be an incredible blocker. So there's got to be a lot of that as well. Jefferson is very capable of that.

He did that actually at a really high level at LSU when he was playing in the slot slot we haven't seen it that much because he's been an outside guy in the nfl but um yeah just another point i thought of yeah no i mean it is it's just it is different and adjusting to that is going to take some time and throughout camp do we feel that pressure at all because with diggs and i don't think they're a similar personality. Jefferson is much more chill than Stefan Diggs. But with Diggs, when you could tell something was starting to be off with him, it really started in camp. There was a lot of blow-ups with him in camp with other players and throwing of helmets and frustration. And when you got 14 straight days or whatever it is 13 of 14 and the 90 degree heats with the pads on and everything else like we really start to see is it thriving or are people

starting to get like a little tense about getting to the season and so you know we'll see as this goes along because i think that it could very well be awesome and everybody is like this is the greatest thing that's ever happened um before we wrap up will uh i want to quiz you because this is our first day out there taking attendance so by the end of camp you know everybody's number but i want to see how good you are right now with knowing vikings players numbers off the top of your head okay i'm i'm confident in myself okay you're good at stuff like this. This is why you play. If it was going to – well, now you have to live up to it.

That's true. Just like Jefferson with the pressure to catch the ball, you have to live up to this. It's the same thing. Okay. Who is number five on the Minnesota Vikings? Ty Smith. Correct.

Who is number nine? Tristan Jackson. That is correct. Wide receiver. Number 16. Ooh. 16. 16.

1-6. Louis Scene was going to be 16. Joe Montana, baby. Who is it? 6. Can I have a position? No, offense or defense? I'm not giving any hints.

That might be too easy. You were sitting dang i was talking a lot very confident the first two were easy 16 is not a receiver i don't think um it probably is a receiver though isn't it it is not it is jordan berry oh it's jordan okay i wasn't thinking about punters. Yes. Trick question. You know what?

That was good, though. You got me, Don. So you're two for three. Who is Harrison Hand? Wait. You mean what number is Harrison Hand? What number is Harrison Hand? Yeah.

Sorry. What is it? Jeopardy? Who is Harrison Hand? What number is Harrison Hand? We could do this both ways. Is he... Oh, man.

That's another tough one. i think he changed his number it's different yep he's not 31 he's not 31 nope he's not is he 20 getting warmer 26 he's number 20 number 22 for four that's that's harder though at the exact number you're right uh all right let me scroll a little bit here I think if you would have said 20 I would have got Harrison Hand But not the other way around I know that's a cop out

Who is number 31? Oh man these are harder than I expected Wow Just tanking I know What are you rebuilding for next year's game? I am rebuilding I saw

Okay I saw number 31 today too And then I Was like I don't know who that is for next year's game? I am rebuilding. I saw, okay, I saw number 31 today too. And then I was like, I don't know who that is. Because it's not Perry Nickerson because he's 35. Channing Sullivan's 39. It's not Amir Abdullah who was 31 for a long time. Man, I don't know. This is Andre Mincy.

Oh. What? Yes. He's a defensive, he's an edge rusher yes yes yes that's why i did not why is he not in the 90s i guess because all the 90s are taken an outside linebacker technically who played for the broncos briefly last year as an undrafted free agent who is them uh number 34 so what are you like two for five now i'm two for five i'm i'm i'm you're starting it off like a Viking season. I need to get hot again. Okay. 34 is rookie tight end Nick Muse.

All right. Good job. Good job. Who is number 44? Josh Metellus. Yep. Okay. I was trying to give you a little easier there.

That's a lob. I appreciate it. A little easier. Who is number, let's see scrolling scrolling okay so you're you're feeling your oats here who's number 61 is is that josh so cool that's a great guess he's number 60 you're very close 60 um vaderian low no he's 63 another great guess yeah you're close oh man um who else are like the third string oh timon paris you got it yes let's go that's right all right back to 500 as you're just like i give myself that one even though it was my third

try no you deserve it if you get it on a couple of tries, you get it. All right. A couple more. A couple more. Number 76. Number 76 is – I don't even know if that's an offensive lineman or a defensive lineman. I'll give you a hint.

It's on the defensive side. The reason I couldn't give you a hint before with Jordan Berry is because if I said specialist, you'd know you're right you're right um 76 defensive side uh man i see i'm are you a better call saul fan i'm not i i've heard it's very good i haven't watched breaking bad or better call so you have to watch i know i need to do but this guy shares a last name with a character so this is t.y mcgill t.y mcgill gotcha all right we last one here to be 500 which was just be absolutely perfect for this show number 95 okay that's that's another easy one that's generous robinson well i the way you performed here you beat the easy teams and you lost to the hard teams. Classic.

That's true. That was a very Vikings performance by me. Overconfident and came up a little short. All right. So if you're headed out to training camp, there's all your numbers that you're going to look for for T.Y. McGill and so forth. Will, thanks for your time. You'll be appearing regularly throughout training camp and beyond. So I appreciate that.

And hopefully all of you flailed at home with those numbers as well. And we'll talk soon, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me.