Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - A reasoned conversation about competitive rebuilding and a live mock draft

Episode Date: March 26, 2022

CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso talks about how the Vikings can both compete and rebuild at the same time and then does a mock draft analyzing the first 12 picks. Why does Chris love a certain surprising position for the Vikings? And Matthew Coller and Chris do a draft report madlib. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso. Chris, so much happening in the NFL right now. I want you to tell me right now, this second, how every single thing that's happened this offseason affects the draft go uh man that would be probably an entire series of episodes uh that we'd have to probably spend from right post draft until the start of the season that's what i was saying uh to a cbs sports producer i i did a hit today and it was like being a draft analyst i i love it for football season because it's like by the time we get to September, it's like I have to know a lot about almost every roster in the entire league. But now it's like talking about draft needs and prospect fits.

I'm like, wait, so the Dolphins have Tyreek Hill and Devonta Adams is not on the Packers anymore. There's like more layers to the free agent and trade market that I've ever can remember. So it's like, I need to kind of brush up not only on the prospects as we're heading in, you know, a month away from the draft, but also like remembering where new players are, because there's been so much movement. Well, why don't we play your intro first, and then we can get into some stuff, some competitive rebuild talk. And then I just want to do a mock that leads up to the Vikings pick, but I've got a twist to throw in, but first this.

Good evening, and welcome to the NFL Draft. Draft season is here. Come on, come on. There you go. To break down every need. They're not going to pick a quarterback. They need offensive linemen. They need defense.

Every pro day. He had a phenomenal pro day. Explosive, really good in the three cone, the broad jump. And every mock. You could probably tell me if you think the Vikings would actually do it. I can tell you as a draft analyst that they absolutely should. Welcome to the Chris Trapasso Draft Show on Purple Insider. This is a good podcast to listen to leading into the draft yeah i love my little cheesy obvious statement at the end that just says this is a good podcast to listen to leading up to the draft like that was something i actually

said in an episode but it looks like i just couldn't come up with like a tagline for this and you guys pulled it out and it's like a funny ending to that awesome intro yes uh manny hill who's the creator of that just uh he really gets it he really gets how to put all that together especially with the roger goodell booing and everything else it's his his super talent. So, okay, here's what I want to ask, because you introed by mentioning like, hey, I've got to pay attention to every single team in the league, which is not always easy, and you do radio hits, and you go on CBS, and they just go,

Chris, this team, what are they doing? And you're supposed to know. So here's my question. As you look around the league, there are teams that are trying to do the same thing as the Minnesota Vikings, which Kweisi Adafo-M really bad and some teams that did competitive rebuilds where they tried say, keeping Matt Ryan in Atlanta, for example you know, there's other teams that have tried to do this Pittsburgh, even going back to another year of Ben Roethlisberger. Can it work is my question. I'm not trying to make this a leading question. I just want your opinion of Ken, a team philosophically speaking, stay competitive,

play for the playoffs, and still rebuild its roster for the future? So I think it can work, and it leads back to the point that we've really hammered home that you and I can sit here and say, swing for the fences, shoot for the moon, and just gut your roster and just, it's either Superbowl or broke, but these are real people with jobs that want to keep them. And if the Vikings winning nine games, you know, gets this new regime off on the right foot in what right now looks like a relatively weaker NFC, especially with all the, or most of the player movement going from NFC to AFC,

a lot of the quarterbacks, then I think that's completely fine. And then you can figure out what to do later. Um, maybe you're not going to have that high draft pick to pick a CJ Stroud in 2023 or whoever that, you know, top tier quarterback is, but not every single quarterback was, uh, that became good was the number two or the number three or the number four overall pick. A lot of times Josh Allen was the seventh overall pick. Yes, the Bills traded up for him. Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes picked later. So I like the fact that it's a new regime starting this and they're younger, smarter people running this Vikings organization. And again, I don't think really any coach or any GM wants a three and 14 season on

their resume, even if it leads to a brighter future teams are always trying to win every single season. Okay. So lots of follow-up questions. One being how will they do it or should they do it to make it new and progressive? Because at the moment we haven't seen the signs and that doesn't

mean that uh i think quesadilla fomenta should be fired i just want to see something that i can grab onto to say oh now i get what they're doing because you mentioned that there are some sort of avant-garde approaches to this where teams like the rams kind of go all in and make some crazy moves and blow everybody's mind and then it eventually works for them there are other teams that have done that that have not had it work so much uh when the Cleveland Browns were being run by Sashi Brown they did some kind of crazy stuff they were a team that said we'll acquire somebody for you to take him off your cap situation. Oh, if you just give us a draft pick or something like that.

And I think when Kweisi Adafo-Mensa took over, my feeling was that they were immediately going to do some stuff that we thought, okay, hacking the system. They've got it all figured out and they're finding all the edges. And so far, what we have is extensions for players who they would have extended otherwise. And we have, um, nothing that's been done to the rebuild part of it. And I do think that you can play the middle. I think that's possible, but I think what you brought up is that it almost has to go along with drafting a quarterback. If you're going to use the word rebuild, because otherwise there hasn't been any rebuilding part. There's no evidence of anything

rebuilding. And so drafting a quarterback would have to be a big part of that. I guess I'm just waiting on, like, I agree with you that the sentiment was you're bringing in an outside the box thinker, but yet we have not seen any of the outside the box thinking. Yeah, that's a really good point with that. i guess i mean like not that we're totally disagreeing here but that my thought of what the vikings have done as kind of an outsider is it's not even going to be a rebuild i know he said competitive rebuild which is kind of like a seems like an oxymoron but i think that now being in that everything is instant and we've kind of been in this era for what the last decade now so to say just in 2022 we're in the

instant gratification era is kind of uh not correct i i just think that they're gonna try to just be decently good every year and hope to hit on their draft picks to say hey we signed zadaria smith he seems pretty ticked off at aaron rogers the Packers. We want to have a great pass rush. We have a, you know, elite young wide receiver. We have the twilight years of Adam Thielen. We still love Delvin Cook. The offensive line's a little better. Let's try to get into the playoffs, maybe get a few bounces our way, win a game or be competitive in the playoffs. And then next year, just keep going from there. I could see a young GM being so interested in gutting the roster and trying to hack the system. And I can also see him saying, look, I don't want to go into year two with, like I said, a 4-13 season.

Let's just try to be good every year and maybe not, you know, shoot for the raw upside players at every position, including quarterback. Next year, if they're picking 16 and Bryce Young is there, the Alabama quarterback, or even if he needs to be traded up to select, trade a second or a third runner to get that quarterback. I could see them just being like, hey, let's try to be a decent team. We don't want to do this three to five year rebuild because a lot of times, like it was the case in Miami, those GMs and coaches don't last as long as the vision ultimately was at the outset of a rebuild. Right. And the last general manager decided to do this and this got him fired. So to stay where they were at, as opposed to tearing it all down.

And so that is what I think makes it tricky to understand is if the last guy who just lost his job was doing what you're doing, the competitive rebuild, they sort of tried this. It doesn't mean that it can't succeed. It just means that I have a tough time finding examples of it succeeding. So if you're going to try something new and something outside the box, I want to see what

that is. And otherwise, it's going to feel like the old general manager. But I think the point you're kind of getting to is like, look, it's been several weeks since he's been the general manager. Like, we cannot just say that everything that he was ever going to do is done today. And I think that's fair. You know, even the Buffalo Bills, an example that comes up a lot because they are number one in the Superbowl odds at this moment of a team that's had a lot of success in rebuilding that first year with Sean McDermott.

They kept Tyra. Yeah. Tyra Taylor, they went nine nine and seven and then they eventually had to live in reality about what tyra taylor was and so forth it just felt like that was last year for everyone of the we've got to live in reality now and this year i'm not so sure i feel like you're just on a path to end up as the falcons but now let me ask this question to follow up because you said that you really have to draft well. They have not drafted well in recent years outside of Justin Jefferson. And that could be the difference. I mean, if you're talking about how you could stay in the middle, this would be the New Orleans Saints thing. And of course they had Drew Brees. That's not like having Kirk Cousins, but they drafted what? Lattimore. They drafted Elvin Kamara. They drafted Michael Thomas. They just hit on a bunch of guys that turned out to

be really, really good. I don't know if relying on that is a great idea, but that would be the one way you could see it aside from just drafting a quarterback and then trying to set him up with a good team when you eventually turn it over to him. Yeah, definitely. And it's another reason why I'm super grateful. And I love being a draft analyst because I really believe that the draft, regardless, like we're in this era now of every team is trying to trade first rounders and get that marquee talent. Drafting is the most important thing any team does. Like even looking at the Rams, looking at the Buccaneers, oh, they traded for Matthew Stafford and Tom Brady. Well, yeah, they drafted Mike Evans. They drafted Chris Godwin

in the third round. All those secondary members, Jamel Dean, Carlton Davis, Antoine Winfield Jr., all like not even first round picks that ultimately are really, really good players. And I think the Vikings are closer to that than a team like the Falcons that you looked at that Falcons roster last year and you're like, okay drafted a tight end a really good tight end inside the top five and there's Grady Jarrett and then who else like AJ Terrell played pretty well at corner but it's like man that was a pretty barren roster that's why it seems so strange for them to restructure him and they were on the cusp of doing it again before trading him I think like I mentioned with Justin Jefferson Dalvin Cook Brian O'Neill we don't know what Christian Derrissaw is going to be, but he flashed a little

bit early. You still have Eric Hendricks. You still have Harrison Smith. I could see them going in saying, hey, we could make the playoffs this year. We could be the Bills of 2017 that just goes above 500, makes the playoffs. All right, successful year. Okay, Kirk, maybe we got to figure things out with you. And then you can just look at your roster contract-wise as we've seen so many teams restructure and cut players unexpectedly and trade guys when we never thought it could be possible. The Vikings could have that next off season. Maybe it does take a step back. Maybe it's quote unquote a wasted season. But I think again, these general managers and coaches, and I think the fans would like to see a winning team I think yes there are some other fans that would say

I'd rather see the team go 3-14 to get a tie draft pick and do the long rebuild but I think it's a little dicey to go to an ownership group and say give me four years it sounds great at the beginning but I think like we saw with Brian Flores, Chris Greer in Miami, a lot of times that's not going to be how long you're going to get if the results are not quick. And it, to me, puts a huge emphasis on the draft. Yes, you want more roles at the table, but then if you have nine picks and you only hit on two of them, then your roster doesn't get that much better. And then you pick the wrong quarterback, 2-0 over Justin Herbert. Then you're kind of hamstrung a little bit.

So, yes, the draft is the most important. And I just think that they're like, hey, let's maybe just figure out this rebuild if we need to do it into the future. But this year we still have enough good players to be competitive in a weakened NFC. Yeah, and I think that trying to sell the ownership of the Vikings on taking the thing apart, which I think they clearly did since they took offers on everybody. I mean, it was out there that they were taking trade offers

on Daniil Hunter, on Kirk Cousins, on Adam Thielen, and Harrison Smith, and they ultimately ended up with, we can't really get anything for these guys except for future cap flexibility. And I think that's where it's criticizable the most is that you didn't help yourself down the road. Should you end up in that situation that you laid out? Should you go nine and eight this year and say, I mean, nine and eight's a coin flip to make the playoffs. So let's say you don't and you just lose out on tiebreakers or something. Then what did you accomplish for this year aside from void years down the road that don't make things easier on you? Because I think that if they hadn't done that part, if they hadn't extended Cousins, and I know they needed to create cap space,

but if they didn't do it by hurting themselves potentially down the road, which even could have included extending Daniil Hunter, as opposed to just transferring his roster bonus over and kicking some of that down the road, which even could have included extending Daniel Hunter, as opposed to just, you know, transferring his roster bonus over and kicking some of that down the road. Then I think I would have got it more. And I would have understood there's another part of this. That is the fans have been watching this middling thing for a long time. And I think that when you're a new GM, like you probably don't get that. You're like, well, I'm new here. So I get whatever number of years, like when a college coach takes over a program, like you can't judge me in year one, but this is year five and you extended cousins to year six. And so, you know, you just sort of go round and round in this conversation.

But I mean, I think that you're being very, very fair to say like, hey, you know, they might try to make the playoffs and then like look forward and see how they do in this draft and see where they are. Because if they bust out on every pick in this draft, then it's then it's going to force them to do a complete rebuild next year. It just feels so much like kicking the can down the road again and not seeing the instant results of what you expected when you moved out the old guy and moved in the new guy yeah it definitely does and i'm certainly not

going to assert that i have this figured out and you don't like i'm just trying to kind of paint of like paint the picture of what could be going through their minds yeah um and yes a lot of what you said about like kicking the can down the road, extending older players. I think too, there's a thought and maybe this is hubris. Maybe it's, it's, it's wrong for these guys to think this, but for a new GM and a new head coach,

new coaching staff to come in to me, it's not crazy for them. I mean, a lot of times in those situations, those new pieces say, Hey, I want my own guys, get everybody out of here.

Yep. I could see Kevin O'Connell saying, Hey, I can get the best out of Kirk Cousins. We haven't seen the best Kirk Cousins yet. Is that probably wrong? Yeah. I mean, we, we know who Kirk Cousins is at this point, but coming from the Sean McVay system, that's very quarterback friendly.

I could see them saying, Hey, we don't want to trade Eric Hendricks for a sixth round pick. Like what does that really do for us? Like you mentioned, if they were, you know, getting those trade offers, but they just didn't accept any because the offers weren't good enough, I can see them being like, hey, let's see, let's use this, our first year as the evaluation year for some of the 28 and up, like players on this roster, guys 28 years old or older,

and say, okay, after this season, should we keep Eric Kendrick? Should we keep Harrison Smith? Should we try to trade him? Should we just move on? What should we do? That's what I kind of think they could be doing just from a coaching perspective as well, just to see how these new coaches,

the, the impact that it has on some of these established players. Yeah, no, I appreciate your perspective on this because you know, I think that there's a lot of frustration from fans in looking at it and saying, we've done this, we've tried this competitive rebuild,

it has not worked, and why is this going to be different? I think that those people are making a very, very fair point. But I do think there's another half of the audience that is saying, okay, let's not throw Kweisi overboard just yet. Let's not decide that this era has failed before it even gets started. It's just that a lot of people will send me messages of like, talk me into this work. And I'm like, you know, if you look at Atlanta

or some team that's sort of similar to you, it's hard for me to talk you into how this year makes you better now or later. So anyway, well, we've got some other fun things to do. I've got scouting report, mad lips that I need you to fill in and we're going to have some fun with,

but I also wanted to do now that there's been some changes around the league and I wanted to throw in a twist, a mock draft leading up to the Vikings pick, and then we can decide who the Vikings will pick. So here's how I want to do it. You'll make the first pick, then I'll make the second, and then we'll go on from there back and forth until we get to the Vikings. Okay?

So let's start off. You go first, Jacksonville Jaguars. Who will they pick? Aiden Hutchinson. We should call it the Purple Insider Mock 1.0. There we go. Purple Insider Mock 1.0 there we go purple insider mock 1.0 with the first more intense say it more intense with the first pick in the purple insiders mock draft 1.0 1.0 the jacksonville jaguars after franchise tagging cam robinson select aiden hutchinson the edge rusher for michigan hey everybody i've been making my meals from HelloFresh,

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So go to HelloFresh.com. That's HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. Use the code Insider16 for up to 16 meals for free and three free gifts hello fresh america's number one meal kit yeah your intensity is like a three out of ten right yeah i got turned up i just can't get that excited about the jaguars i think uh but you can't get excited about purple insider mock one point oh uh all right so here's the twist here's the twist the twist is that the lions are picking malik willis with the number two overall pick that's the twist. Here's the twist. The twist is that the Lions are picking Malik

Willis with the number two overall pick. That's the twist. All right. Because that's what I wanted to talk about and why I did this. Good idea, you think? I think it is. I had this in my latest mock draft. I have, I think, four or five more to go. I'm very excited once I do my last mock draft, every draft cycle. It makes a lot of sense. You're picking number two overall. You don't want to pick there again. You have Jared Goff. You have the infrastructure to not start Willis right away. He is that talented, big arm, athleticism quarterback that everyone's looking for. I think learning from Jared Goff, who's kind of the opposite quarterback as him, is great.

And you have that pick at number 32 overall. So you can still get like a quality, you know, technically first round player at the last pick in round one. Pick Malik Willis and he could move the needle more for you than an offensive lineman here. After picking Penny Sewell, they have Taylor Decker too. There's not really a guy. I mean, I love Kyle

Hamilton but I don't know if you want to pick a safety that ran four five nine at number two overall for as good as I think Kyle Hamilton is Sauce Gardner you just picked Jeffrey Okuda at number three two years ago another big over you know oversized super clean film corner that's not was not good as a rookie and then got injured I think they should just pick Malik Willis and just say, hey, look, if eight games in Jared Goff looks terrible, we might start him. But we are truly trying to do the Trey Lance, Patrick Mahomes, red shirt for Malik Willis if you're the Lions. And my thing on Willis for why this is a good idea is the ceiling is super,

super high and you'll get a year to see him in practice, preseason, all those things to get a feeling for how far away he is from that ceiling or if he'll ever reach it because in reality these teams know at the end of having a year from having somebody in practice every day um that whether they can do it or not like they usually have some sense for it how far that player has come if he doesn't grow at all then you know it's probably not going to happen. And then they could draft another one if they have to down the road. It's always better to draft a quarterback before you feel like you absolutely need one. And that's where the Lions are. And being able to push on their timeline sort of down the road a

year, develop the players they have, your Amon Ross, St. Brown type guys who sort of showed up on the scene last year, whoever you draft 32nd overall, I think it's just the right thing to do for them. And are you overdrafting him by like, I don't know, whatever, you know, whatever ranking you probably have, right? Like, yeah, sure. Like there are better prospects with fewer flaws, but there's nobody who could have a bigger organizational impact, right? Then Malik Wilson. And the thing with his running is, and we've seen this from Josh Allen throughout his development that, and even Jalen Hurts last year, even if you're behind in some of the other stuff,

you can make up yardage that way. And Allen got them to the playoffs at 10 and six, not even throwing the ball well. And the same goes for Jalen Hurts. to me. It's a perfect fit for Detroit. And then if you're the Vikings, if that happens, you're going Justin Fields and the other guy in my week was, they better not be good. So I almost think it's almost like, you know, how we do the, like, should you go for fourth down? Like, well, what does the other team want you to do? If the other team wants you to kick the field goal, then you should go for it. If I'm Detroit, if the Vikings wants you to do if the other team wants you to kick the field goal then you should go for it if i'm detroit if the vikings want you to not pick the high ceiling quarterback you should pick them yeah yeah absolutely i think all those points are spot on uh and it's more so too and i

was kind of leading into it who are they going to pick there like it would make sense it's like oh like if they didn't pick penesua last year it, it's like, okay, they'll pick Evan Neal. They'll pick Icky Aquano. I get that. There's just not that alignment of the top tier prospects, non quarterbacks and what the lions technically need. I, you know, they're still rebuilding. They really have holes everywhere, but after just picking pen a Sewell and having Aiden Hutchinson likely go in front of them, I don't think they want to roll the dice on cave on Thibodeau there. Just pick Malik Willis and then see what happens.

Okay. Number three pick. We'll work our way to the Vikings and then make that selection together. So let's see. You picked Aiden Hutchinson, one. Malik Willis, two. On the clock is the Houston Texans, who are still apparently an NFL franchise.

Yeah, barely. With the third pick in the Purple Insider mock draft 1.0. 1.0, the Houston Texans select Trayvon Walker, edge rusher, Georgia. Oh, wow. Okay. Trayvon Walker. I'm not a huge fan of him, but it feels like he's going to go super high. Really?

Because of the combine, Georgia, all that. He's just been shooting up the draft board since the combine. You'll hear people say, like, Oh, look, it's the tape. That's number one. And then they're like, Oh my God, look how fast he ran. Exactly. Every time. I don't want to spend a lot of time on the Texans need.

So I'm just gonna, I'm going to do like LeVar Burton and take your word for it. Uh, all right. Well, I will go the New York jets with cave on Thibodeau here. They've got their quarterback for right now and they just need ball players. So I like Kayvon Thibodeau a ton. I think he's the guy that is going to slip a little bit just because he was always talked about as the top guy and we sort of overanalyze people like him. So the Jets are going to take Kayvon Thibodeau and we go on to the New York Giants. Okay, with that happening, the Giants are going to pick Evan Neal,

the offensive tackle from Alabama. They have Andrew Thomas at left tackle. Malik Willis is gone. I think had he been there, they maybe would have thought about it, even though they've been weirdly very much behind Daniel Jones at this point. With Evan Neal, I think his film was better in 2020 when he was playing right tackle as opposed to last year at left tackle. He's plug and play. He looks ridiculously skinny for 337 pounds.

He can probably add 20 pounds to his frame without losing any athleticism. Evan Neal to the Giants at five. Okay. Like it. Giants are another team that you could pick a lot of things and it would make sense. Honestly, the Giants need to set up their offense for the next quarterback. It just feels like this is the year that we go, OK, Daniel Jones is a backup quarterback and that's fine or a journeyman, but he's not going to transform your franchise because of Brian Dable. All right. With the sixth pick in the Purple Insider Mock 1.0, I i'm gonna say that the panthers trade their first

pick for matt liner no wait they already traded picks for a huge bust for no reason let's go yep exactly uh let's see now this is a little hard because they're bad and uh they could do almost anything so i'm gonna go with they will take Derek Stingley jr. The corner out of LSU with the sixth overall pick. They don't have a quarterback. So I'll kind of like nothing else matters, but I don't think that they're stacked at corner either. They traded for Stefan Gilmore last year.

That didn't work out really at all. So I'll go Derek Stingley jr. To the Carolina Panthers at six. Yeah. One note that i'll say it kind of feels like the panthers whatever happens at number six it's going to be looked at in a bad light because they need quarterbacks so bad and if if it's not malik willis so like if they pick malik willis i think people would be like okay good job you know there's your guy if they like really reach quote unquote on Kenny Pickett and

there's like the oh well Matt Rule knew him from their time together at Temple or when he was a Temple recruit it's gonna be like really he signed another guy that he knew from Temple or you know drafted it in this case and then anything else they do it's like they they just drafted JC Horn do they need an offensive lineman yes but is that really going to help sam darnold be good or cam newton if they resign him no so the panthers are have been kind of run into the ground by matt rule and whatever they do at six i think it's going to be just looked at in a bad light yeah offensive line would make some some sense for them uh yeah but but they have painted themselves into a corner with this quarterback thing almost like they put their eggs entirely in the Deshaun Watson basket and now are just lost. And I saw the greatest headline was the Baker Mayfield and the Panthers have mutual disinterest

in each other. It was just like, and so does everybody else in those two parties. All right. So number seven giants again. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So this is weird how this is kind of unfolded, but we've seen crazier things happen on draft night. Number seven overall, New York Giants.

They're going to pick Kyle Hamilton, the safety from Notre Dame. I think they would have loved Kayvon Thibodeau to fall, maybe even a corner potentially, but I think Kyle Hamilton gives them a lot more versatility, and Brian Dable and Joe Shane coming from Buffalo having you know interacted with Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde and have seen how important safety is today they pick Kyle Hamilton at seven okay I think there's some big giant angry offensive linemen who can't believe that they have not been drafted yet on the board this always

happens where we name far too many people as top five picks than are actually going to be. Or first rounders. There's like 50 first rounders. Right, right. Next pick is the Atlanta Falcons, and this is one where they might trade down or something. But I'm going to say that they take Matt Corral with this draft pick because they have Marcus Mariota as their quarterback.

He's from Ole Miss. I don't know. Just put two and two together. They can start to build their roster with Marcus Mariota, a competitive rebuild, so to speak, and start with a developmental quarterback. Is he being overdrafted? Of course he is.

But this is kind of how you have to do it if you're going to take a quarterback here because the teams on the way, Seattle Seattle and Washington also are quarterback needy. So I'm going to go with Matt Corral as the, a little bit surprising number eight overall pick. Okay. So for the Panthers at six, you had sauce Gardner. No,

I had a Derek Stingley jr. You had Derek Stingley. Okay. So, so number nine with the Seahawks, we have two quarterbacks off the board. I don't think they're going to be that excited about Kenny Pickett at number nine. I think again, if Malik Willis was there, there's similarities to Russell Wilson. So at number nine, the Seattle Seahawks are going to

pick Iki Aquanu, the offensive tackle from North Carolina State. They finally address offensive line, strangely, after they trade Russell Wilson, when they kind of ignored that position, or were just very bad at drafting it during the Russell Wilson era. Yeah, that's a, that would be some, some sweet irony for him,

but I mean, that's the thing is that one of these positions and probably offensive line is it is going to see some of these guys slip to the middle. So now we're with the jets and I'm going to go sauce Gardner here. I can't tell you what the Jets secondary looks like because I have but I'm assuming it's bad. Yeah, right. The cornerback room is like it's literally guys that you think are like

made up like in year seven of a like Madden diamond. Okay, then. All right. Well, well done me. Then I am now the GMm of the jets just picking random corners but sauce gardner goes there so vikings fans are crying some sad tears that the top two corners are off the board and now we are on to football team um do you believe that they would take a quarterback here i don't think so i i mean maybe this is a little bit of my bias liking uh

malik willis more than any of the other quarterbacks i don't think so. I mean, maybe this is a little bit of my bias, liking Malik Willis more than any of the other quarterbacks. I don't think they would, again, view Kenny Pickett as that much of a potential upgrade over Carson Wentz. I would have them picking Ohio State wide receiver Garrett Wilson here. This feels like with the Jets at 10 and the football team, I'm not calling them the commanders yet. I'm not ready for it. That feels like where the first receiver could come off the board.

They have Terry McClure, and he's, I think, a borderline superstar. So, so underrated. They need someone else. Curtis Samuel was hurt all last year. I don't really know if he can be that even high end number two. Get Carson Wentz, the guy that you traded a boatload of picks for and honored his monstrous contract. Get him a wide receiver.

Yes, it's a good wide receiver class, but don't wait around. It's kind of how it's fallen. They have a wide receiver need, Garrett Wilson, to the football team at 11. Makes a ton of sense. All right, now we've landed at the Vikings, and we need to have some discussion here. Yes. So the Vikings do not need a tackle,

and even though I am Mr. Don't Draft for Need, if you have two young, very talented tackles, you don't need Charlesles cross uh here's the top guys just by pff simulator which i'm tracking all of our picks with trent mcduffie george karolaf this drake london um there's some linebackers i'm not going to name uh jameson williams uh davante wyatt taylor linderbaum jordan davis chris Alave Sam Howell is here um Jermaine Johnson people some people are very high on I mean there are so many options here man that you know I think that like trade down is probably the right choice even though that would drive some Vikings fans crazy

but if we're not trading down where would you go out of all of these top prospects? Okay. So in this scenario, I think Drake London would be my highest rated player left. But what's interesting about him is that, and you kind of have to play the game of like where players will go. Like I think last year, the Vikings did a great job trading back, knowing that, or hoping or having good intel that Christian Derrissaw was still going to be there after they traded back instead of just picking him in their initial slot. I think Chris Olave is going to go really early. I have like a, I think like late first or early second round grade on him. But he's going to go earlier than that. He's going to go top, at least top 20, because he ran as fast as he did. the Ohio State pedigree that the route

running ability he tracks it well down the field I would be okay even though it wouldn't align with my rankings uh if the Vikings went Chris Olave for all the points that I just mentioned I'm not as high on Trent McDuffie he's more of like a zone cornerback it was kind of hard to get an eval on him because they played so much zone and it was like he didn't allow any catches and and it was only you know eight yards per catch well it's like yeah everything was right in front of him and he tackled it right away because he wasn't asked to play a lot of man um i'm not as high on jermaine johnson they just signed uh zadaria smith they have danelle hunter still i i would just go chris olave or drake london here because like we've said you know it's quarterback and after that wide receiver moves the needle more than anything else.

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Sort of your two sentences. Why you wouldn't do it here. Jordan, Jordan Davis, the absolute freak interior defensive lineman. Because he is a nose tackle who doesn't play as explosively and athletically as his combine indicates. And just not, it's not the right value. There's better value at the nose tackle spot later in the draft. I didn't even comment on your pick.

I love your pick. Like, just get somebody who's going to change your game early on, like right away. If you want to get people a little bit back on board to your we're going to do things different, Chris Alave, somebody who can just be explosive for you and exciting right away and help long-term when Adam Thielen eventually is not here, I think pairing him with Justin Jefferson, like I love the pick and I'm a hundred percent on board with it.

How about Tyler Linderbaum? Why wouldn't you pick him here? Because I mean, talk about hearkening back to the past. There is some Garrett Bradbury to him. I think maybe because of the Iowa thing that we all just assume that every Iowa offensive lineman is super good, that people aren't really alerting the masses to that, that he had shorter arms than Garrett Bradbury.

And he weighed 10 pounds lighter than Garrett Bradbury, who when Garrett Bradbury was three Oh six at the combine, whatever, 2019, everyone's like, Oh my God, he's so light and his arms are so short. Is he ever going

to be strong enough and i wrote that in my scouting report for tyler linderbaum athleticism through the roof technique the handwork all like nfl level but the power limitations you even saw in the big 10 so i think if they went tyler linderbaum i think if you watch it on nfl network they would all say oh my god what a great pick but. But I think Vikings fans would be like, oh my God, did we maybe just draft Garrett Bradbury 2.0? Well, there also seems to be free agent centers available pretty often every year. Any of the quarterbacks, any of the quarterbacks, Desmond Ritter, Kenny Pickett, Sam Howell, any of them?

Because, you know, we were talking about earlier, take a quarterback that's your long-term type of thing. Several are available, but you nodded your head no. I don't think any of them have the upside that would be worth it. Like for me, for the Lions, yes, definitely, because it's Malik Willis. And I think that's why the general population is like, oh, it's kind of a weaker quarterback class, because it's hard to really envision, for as much as like kenny peckett he's my quarterback too it's hard to

envision him as like a top five quarterback in like four years like i don't know if that's gonna happen malik willis is the only one that i think has a reasonable chance to do that maybe desmond ritter but like we've talked about uh in this series the last couple uh weeks he doesn't play to the athleticism that he showed at the combine. He had a quote unquote wide receiver caliber combine, and it was just on paper looks like he's the most or one of the most athletic quarterbacks ever. He's not that athletic on the football field. He's not that natural of a playmaker. So when it comes to the first round pick, even if they were to trade down or do it at 12 if they take a

quarterback i'm instantly in full support of it just because of the logic of transitioning to a quarterback i totally get what you're saying about the upside and everything else um but you know being that it hacks the system i'm and that we're so bad at picking out which ones will be great i'm all in for it but if they're not going to do that, love the receiver idea. All right, let's do a scouting report. Mad lib before we wrap up.

Great stuff on the, uh, Mark draft 1.0. So, uh, 2.0 will come whenever we decide. Uh, all right.

So anybody who doesn't know how mad libs work, uh, I, I've taken parts out of a, uh, single words or phrases out of a scouting report for Patrick Mahomes from 2017. And you're going to fill in words and then we're going to read it. OK, so there's seven different spaces in the scouting report.

So the first one, you need to name something that you would bring to a party, something that you'd bring to a party. First thing that comes to mind, an object you're saying. Yeah. Any, anything that you would just bring to a party except for, yeah. How about an object? Don't say a friend. How about a six pack of beer? All right. Pack of beer. Great. Okay. A disease that you could develop. Diabetes. Okay. A little dark on that one. Sorry. Uh, the, a thing that you repeat over and over something you do over and over again, uh, brush my teeth in the morning. Okay. About, uh, something you do impromptu, like you're, you didn't plan to do it, but you just do it.

Man. I'm pretty planned out these days, so that's kind of hard for me. Think about maybe like if you heard some music, maybe what we would do. Impromptu. How about... I'm not trying to give a leading answer, but that's sort of what I mean. Like something that would just come to you. Read a book okay big big impromptu book reader all right a good sometimes before about it happens sometimes

this is all fine uh i don't know if this is gonna work or not just so everyone knows i've not really tried this out i just don't i don't know how if it's gonna be funny or not could be the worst thing we've ever done so we'll see a good personality trait um selflessness selflessness all right uh a kind of animal any kind of animal you want wolverine wolverine. And something you wear. T-shirt. Okay. All right. Let's read the scouting report now.

Again, I've never done a Mad Lib before. I don't really know how it works, and I'm going to try it because we were just – I was reading one, and I said to Sam Ekstrom, boy, this reads like a Mad Lib. And I was like, you know what? We should actually try that. All right. So here's the scouting report on Patrick Mahomes with our med lib. All right. Mahomes is a big, confident quarterback who brings a variety of six packs of beers to the party. He's developed,

he's some, he's developed some bad diabetes and doesn't have a very repeatable toothbrushing, but he will have to prove that he can operate uh with better selflessness oh that's good uh and the ability to read a book that sounds kind of insulting that now also true for maybe like jamarcus russell or something uh and he has to be willing to take what the defense gives him in order to win from the pocket but holmes will be a wolverine but he's high ceiling low t-shirt prospect that is actually really good that was solid especially because it was like leading responses in like that was a very weirdly written scouting report in the first place one thing that was fantastic yeah

i'm gonna do one yeah like i i'm fine ending episodes like that um i have a random pet peeve about scouting reports and i try never to do this if you ever read one of my reports or whatever and and you see this please call me out that's for any listener or you matt in the strength section you'll see athletic uh burst off the snap is great and then literally in the weaknesses there will and then literally in the weaknesses there will be the opposite in the weaknesses there will be yes um burst leaves burst leaves a little bit to be desired uh a little bit stiff and i'm like it happens a lot and i'm not calling out anyone individually there's not like someone that i know always does this i'll just be like interested reading some scouting reports and it's like they almost are doing mad lives like

grabbing from a little chart and saying stiff athletic and just moving them into the sections where it's like you can't be athletic and explosive and then stiff and have no burst and i see that way too often during this time of year i I mean, aside of the, you know, his medical issue and the toothbrushing accusation, and he can't read, it doesn't, it doesn't read that much crazier than some of the scouting reports that are just like, well, you know, my biggest thing with the scouting reports is, can you just tell me what might make him good or not good? Like, that's really all i need to know here um i you know all these like crazy details on certain players uh i remember i quote tweeted something

from matt bowen that was a very concise scouting report on malik willis and i was like here this is helpful and of course draft twitter was like how dare you how dare i like a you know six sentence scouting report but i'm like look man i, if you're giving me every detail of everything the guy's ever done, I might as well just watch all of his games back myself. Like, here's what correlates to success in the NFL. Does he do it? What could work out? What could not work out?

That's all I really need to know here. Yeah, I try to get down to the bare bones. Like, in my scouting reports, I, like, like never write, like in my scouting grade book, I'm never writing like was very productive in college or like was a three-time all Big Ten player. I just write like the traits that he has and where I think he has weaknesses. I never talk about anything else. Now, of course, we've talked about with quarterbacks a few episodes ago that like personality, how insecure you are, how confident you are.

Like that certainly factors in. But yes, I've definitely beyond the kind of oxymoron strengths and weaknesses section. There's a lot of times where I'm like, I feel like I'm reading a novel about a offensive guard, about like everything that he's done off the field and do his teammates like him or not. And I'm like, just tell me his traits that he has. And then, like you mentioned, then if you're the Vikings, you can say, okay, this guy is not a fit in his own blocking scheme because he's a little bit slow and he's, he's not good getting lateral. Like that's what I try to think of someone either of a, uh,

like a scouting department or a fan, they want to read it and just say, all right, what can this guy do? What can he do? Not like all these random throw-ins that like in that Bob McGinn series that he always puts out there with all the scouts. Some stuff in there is like, what in the world are these? These scouts seem like they're bored and they're trying to just add in little nuggets about these players that are completely irrelevant. Yes. I did have a director of player personnel, former director of player personnel on the show. And he said that he always thought with scouts, the more you write, the less, you know.

So I will take that to heart. Anyway, next episode, we'll do scouting reports on each other. And yours is going to say lax intensity when he screams that it's a mock draft. So because I'm not excited about mock drafts, I've done 25 of them. I mean, this is this was 1.0 for the Purple Insider. One last point before we go. Yeah, seriously, one every week since the start of the football season. So I'm worn out on mock drafts.

So I wrote the NFL draft bust comparisons today. It went live on CBS Sports. I'm sure that's going over great with all the fans. Check that out. I want to read someone. I didn't get a lot of traction in the morning, which I was actually okay with because I figured all the Twitter responses would be very nice. Someone who I think is a Bills fan because he has a picture of Josh Allen.

Usually the Bills fan followers that I have are usually pretty cordial. He wrote, I like you, Chris, but this article needs a punch in the face. So people were not too happy about, even though I put a disclaimer and said, you know what, these are not my actual comparisons. This is just for fun. This is just if these guys bust, because like you mentioned in last episode, every comparison is always to a star and like half of the first round is not going to be good. They'll be on a different team in two or three years.

So I thought it was a smart article to do, but some people were not too pleased with the idea. I can't believe the internet would lack a sense of humor for this. I'm shocked. I'm totally stunned. Well, I love the article. I thought it was great. CBSSports.com and your Twitter at ChrisTrapasso is where you can find it.

Go check that out. And honestly, I think for real teams, they should do it. They should do, hey, how could it not work out? Because there are a lot of different ways. So great stuff, man. We will get together again next week for the Chris Trapasso Draft Show and work on my scouting report. Okay.

All right. Thanks, Matt.