Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Analyzing every offensive training camp battle

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey everybody, Matthew Collar here. Golden, Colorado, and great podcast for everyone. The final two episodes are live right now, or you can binge the entire season to learn about your favorite soccer stars. Check out Blue Wire's Golden Goal, available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with, from The Athletic, Arif Hassan. What's going on, Arif?

Not much, please. I think that we have to ask every guest now what your percentage chance that the NFL starts on time is. So why don't we just get that off of our chests real quick and then we can get to what you've been working on at The Athletic, which is scouting reports for each position you're working your way through the offense. But why don't you give me a percentage as we've had a lot of statements coming out from the NFLPA on their issues with safety and something that I brought up earlier last week on the podcast, which was the football mentality of just, why don't we just get everybody sick and see who gets seriously ill

and then we'll just move forward, which, of course, the Players Association is not going to be okay with. So how are you feeling in terms of confidence level? Two and a half weeks ago, I would have said 55% because billionaires love to make money. But just the fact that the negotiations have broken down so spectacularly and the details and the calls that reporters are getting from the NFLPA, I'm going to say optimistically 15% they start on time. I do still think that they're going to play games this season, but not on time. I think that that is fair for on time

because they're supposed to start training camp July 28th with everybody. Teams are asking their rookies to start showing up, and I think if you're the Players Association, you've got to tell everybody, all right, we're not doing that until we can be sure that there are safety measures in place. And what blows my mind, Arif, is just that they had so much time to figure this out. I mean, we knew that Arizona and Texas and Florida and Southern California were having problems weeks ago, that they were starting to see upticks in COVID again. And why was there not a plan to maybe potentially even have training camps in other places for some of those teams or plans to get players there and have

them completely safe? It seems like from what the NFLPA is saying is that they were just kind of hoping this would go away and they would bury their head in the sand for a while and then just be like, oh, football, it's back. Everybody, you're fine. Just try not to breathe on the offensive guard defensive tackle if you can. I mean, it just seems like they were unprepared for how big of a task this was going to be.

Yeah, and that's the worst part is the unpreparedness, right? Because it's one thing to, a couple of weeks ago, take a look at the trajectory of things and say, well, I mean, it looks like, you know, if there is a second wave, it's not that bad. It's all trending downward and all that. So it's likely that everything a couple of these states that happen to have uh more than one football team in them uh are are trending in opposite directions and then we learn about like hospitalization data and stuff like that um okay fine you you didn't put this on your list of likely the most likely thing to happen but like no one should make plans based off of the the only the

most likely thing that's ever going to happen. Otherwise, rosters would just be like 22 players large. Right. Like it doesn't make sense. Right. Like a football organization is designed to plan for contingency. That's the whole point of of the of the training camp that we're about to theoretically have. And so the organization of football organizations doesn't do this? Astounding to me. I know that Daniel Popper at The Athletic, my colleague, mentioned that maybe the owners were stalling.

And this, I think, is speculation. So I'm not going to say it's like reporting. But maybe the owners could potentially have been stalling because it puts more pressures on players because they want to earn a paycheck to get something done quickly, which would, if they want to get something done quickly, would force a deal that's favorable to the owners, which is basically what happened in the negotiation that occurred earlier be able to get kind of what they want. Although, again, I'm not sure why their incentives would be so drastically misaligned. Because, like, if players start going to the hospital, they don't even have to start dying, right? If players start going to the hospital and having long-term symptoms, if, like, ten players do and one of them is a star, suddenly the brand power of the NFL takes a significant hit and and no one cares more about the brand than NFL owners. I don't know why their incentives are so drastically misaligned

that they can't come up with something. But, yeah, I guess it's all a leverage game maybe. You would think that they would have the exact same goals, to get back on the field as fast as they could, for everyone to stay healthy. I don't think that any owners want their head coaches to get violently ill or potentially die. It just really isn't something that you think would be good for your franchise long term, and, of course, with players too.

But not being on the field, having these delays and things like that, I don't see how this would be good for anybody. And, of course, the players, they want their paychecks. They want to play in the NFL. They don't want to sit out. But if you're the players right now and you're fearing that coaches are not going to take this seriously, then how can you show up for training camp? Because it's very, very obvious from the last few months that this virus will spread very,

very quickly if you mess around. That we've seen, like how about churches, people who go to church inside and everybody sings, and then everybody comes home with the virus, or people who are holding house parties. I mean, if you are inside a facility with 90 players and 20 or 30 coaches, and you're in meeting rooms and you're in meeting rooms and you're in locker rooms and everything else.

It's not just about being out on the practice field. It's really about being inside in that facility, and you're not taking 100% serious. This thing could fly through a team in an instant, and you have to do your best to prevent that when you can't create a bubble as the WNBA and the NBA have done. Have tried to do. Yeah, or tried to do, right.

They've got a lot to still – they have a lot to still figure out as well, and the NFL has a long way to go. But even with all that said, with the CBA, all of us went, oh, boy, this could go out through the whole summer, and then they got something figured out. So it looks bleak now. It looks really bleak in baseball then they got something figured out. So it looks bleak now. It looks really bleak in baseball.

They got something figured out. So I think that the NFL and the NFLPA probably will too. Now we can talk about your scouting reports because we've got that off our chest. So let's start with backup quarterback because I think we know who the starting quarterback is as long as he doesn't get COVID. His cousins. who the starting quarterback is as long as he doesn't get COVID, his Kirk Cousins. But the backup has been, over the last few years, just a point of debate all the time. I mean, Case Keenum started out camp a little slow in 2017.

People wanted Taylor Heineke. Maybe you did. And, you know, then we got into the hilarious Sean Mannion versus Kyle Slaughter, where all the reporters who were there were trying to explain to the outside world Then we got into the hilarious Sean Mannion versus Kyle Slaughter, where all the reporters who were there were trying to explain to the outside world why Sean Mannion is a better backup quarterback than Kyle Slaughter, but the outside world only watched the fourth quarter of preseason games and became obsessed with Kyle Slaughter and very angry online about him. This year, I think we've got less of that to talk about

with the backup quarterback situation. Mannion locked into that spot, and then who ends up getting the practice squad job will be between Jake Browning and Nate Stam. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that the Vikings kind of made their priorities clear on what a backup quarterback is and what their job is supposed to be, and it's not only to be the best available quarterback should the starting quarterback go down. It's to enable the starting quarterback to play better football when he's in because, you know, if you're forced to play your backup, you're probably just not expecting to win games either way.

Sure, it's better to have the better player, but, I mean, how much is that really going to help you in terms of wins? What's really going to help you in terms of wins is enabling that starter to be even better. And so in theory, Sean Mannion is significantly better at that. He does whiteboard stuff really well purportedly. And then obviously he does a bunch of stuff on sidelines during game day that really helps out the quarterback. And the Vikings made that very clear.

But if we wanted to talk about preseason play and everyone wants to talk about preseason play, and everyone wants to talk about preseason play, it'd be very easy to say, you know, Jake Browning is the new Kyle Slaughter because he played significantly better than Sean Mannion in the preseason. And, of course, we can always use 20 snaps in the preseason to project how an entire season of football is going to go. That's, you know, what we love to do around here. Since Matt Barkley was the highest graded quarterback in last year's preseason oh yeah no absolutely and we all saw nothing but but yeah um it's it's going to be easy to get excited about jake browning again especially because like two years before he entered the draft you know he was kind of this rising quarterback in terms of uh you know name recognition he started entering the

draft conversation obviously never ended up you know happening in part because of an injury that he sustained in college, robbing him of arm strength and kind of making him the stereotypical Pac-12 quarterback. But he's fun to watch, and he did a pretty good job in the preseason. So be excited for that to happen again. I don't think that Nate Stanley is going to have a significant chance to unseat him. He's just kind of your typical big, tall, strong-armed quarterback that doesn't do a great job getting the ball to the receiver, which is an important part of the process. But, you know, maybe he could develop accuracy.

So two things. I also like some of the things that I saw from Jake Browning last year, and I think a lot of us were on to the fact that he was going to make the team over Kyle Slaughter last year, even though Slaughter was getting chances to play in preseason games more than Jake Browning. But Browning consistently looked better in the practices, along with Sean Manning, who was worlds better in practice than Kyle Slaughter was, which is what matters to the coaches in the front office and everything else, not the fourth quarter of a preseason game where, I don't know, the offensive coordinator's dog is calling the plays at that point.

I mean, they just don't care about that. So with Browning, though, competing against Nate Stanley, the one thing I think of is why did they draft Nate Stanley? I mean, Gary Kubiak is a genius when it comes to offense, and he's made a lot out of a lot of quarterbacks. But Stanley just didn't show me a whole heck of a lot in college that made me go, oh, look at this guy. He could be interesting. There were some other quarterbacks at the bottom of the drafts who did,

Anthony Gordon and Tyler Huntley. but not so much Nate Stanley. Is there something there that I'm missing with Stanley? I mean, could he overtake Browning for that job? Yeah, so, I mean, that's a really good question. I mean, the Vikings haven't drafted, like, a backup quarterback since John David Booty way back when. And so all the backups they've had, they've either signed in undrafted free agency or signed in regular free agency or were at one point supposed to develop into starters and just became backups like Tavares Jackson.

And so it's fairly significant that they ended up spending draft capital on a quarterback. Part of it, I think, is just they had so many draft picks, and they might as well. But I think part of it is also the thing about Stanley that, you know, if you wanted something to look forward to is, A, you know, he definitely makes kind of the correct reads in that offense, and it's a pro-style offense. It's Iowa.

People are very familiar with the fact that you're typically asked to execute what you typically see in an NFL offense although that distinction is kind of diminishing and has been diminishing for the past like seven years but the second thing is if these issues if his accuracy issues are mechanically related which they certainly seem to be and you've got an opportunity to fix somebody's mechanics I I mean, coaches just love that, right? Like Anthony Gordon just does not have the upside. He is who he is, and I don't think he's going to develop into anything more than he is, right? And I'd love to be wrong about that. I actually really liked him.

But you can't, if you're a coach that's, like, you know, got the opportunity to do multiplayer, you take a look at Anthony Gordon, you say, well, yeah, he's definitely the better player to play right now, but if I could just fix this one thing about Nate Stanley, you know, he's going to be great. And so, you know, he's, you know, he's got, you know, size and durability in theory, and he's got a really impressive arm. And so if you can, because his accuracy is generally okay when he's kind of stepping into in the the pocket and doing things the right way he's just very rarely doing things the right way mechanically and he also just doesn't have athleticism to really make up for it but if you can do that and to some extent i mean the vikings have done that

before i mean teddy bridgewater's mechanics were cleaned up pretty significantly you know between his first year and second year and then definitely between his second year and third year you know before uh you know his leg gave out. But, you know, the Vikings have changed the mechanics of their quarterbacks for the better. So it is certainly possible. But it is a pretty tough ask. But if you were going to ask me to kind of figure out what it is they saw, my guess is that. And I can't scrutinize it too much. I mean, don't take it the wrong way.

I'm not saying how dare you draft a seventh round quarterback who wasn't a megastar in college. I mean, you can do it one of two ways. You can look for somebody who had great production but doesn't have the tools and see how that works out. Or you can have somebody who has the tools and didn't have the great production. And the answer in the seventh round is usually neither or undrafted free agent yeah so i'm not getting super huffy over that pick it was just kind of curious to me that they picked somebody that didn't have great production in college but the arm strength is probably one of those things that was attractive he's kind of like if it works out he'll turn out to be like sean manion where yeah he's probably

not going to be a starter but maybe he could be a backup with a strong arm who really gets the offense uh the running backs are really intriguing, Arif, because, well, we don't know about Delvin Cook's status. If I had to fancy a guess, I would suspect that the day before they report to camp, we have a new deal to announce with Delvin Cook, and he's going to come to the Zoom call and say, I'm happy to be a very rich man now.

That's my guess still. But there is always that possibility that this fight goes into training camp and goes into the season. We have seen that happen with Le'Veon Bell and with Melvin Gordon. So if it does, Alexander Madison, Mike Boone, how would we assess this duo? Yeah, well, first I think we should probably acknowledge that Alexander Madison was, in theory, a little bit more efficient than Dalvin Cook when he was in, which is not to say he's a better running back or anything like that, but more to say that he's capable enough

to take advantage of the same opportunities that Dalvin Cook was given with the same blocking. And so I would say that the offense, and you know, I'm a big kind of running backs don't really matter guy, and I say that a lot less than someone like Eric Eager, who I'm sure has been on the show a number of times already. But our friends at PFF would argue that running back value is fairly fungible, and Alexander Madison is a really good example of that. I would say that that's probably true, but also on top of that, Madison has a lot of individual talent.

And one thing that is interesting about Madison is that you take a look at his, like, combine scores, and you think, man, this guy's slow. He's not athletic. He doesn't have it. And his pro day was actually pretty good. It was really good. You know, he didn't run like a 4-4 suddenly at his pro day after running like a 4-7 at the combine, but he ran a pretty reasonable speed for running back, and then his other workouts were really good.

And that is more representative of what we've seen of him on the field we've seen him hurdle a couple of guys and that's great and we've seen him get chased down so it's not like he's you know this blazer but he certainly has enough initial acceleration and athleticism and enough explosion to take advantage of the of the holes that you'll see and then certainly you know as a as a goal line or a short yardage back he's got a to offer. And then when you need kind of the guy that's better at catching passes, and Madison's hands are fine, but obviously with speed like that, you kind of want a little bit more. You know, Mike Boone, I think, has developed a lot as a running back. I mean, his vision isn't, you know, spectacular. He is actually unlike most fast running backs, a little bit too safe when it

comes to choosing lanes and decides not to bounce it out. But we saw in the Chicago game that when the blocking kind of collapses around him, he can really make, you know, a ton of yardage just occur out of nowhere when he's kind of forced to. And, you know, he was a receiver in college. And so his ability to catch the ball is pretty good. And it's probably better than anyone else at the running back position on the roster. And so the ability to complement those two is kind of an all around slash goal line back and then also to have your scat back I think that if you just don't have Dalvin Cook for a significant part of the season I think that your running game or at least the game that you're going to get out of those running backs is going to be more than good enough to get things going before we get back to the conversation want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get

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We're going to hook you up also with free shipping for your Wiener Winner shirt. Use promo code PURPLE code purple insider for free shipping that's soda stick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com original minnesota sports inspired goods code purple insider for free shipping well i think with madison too something that i really like and he was on this show and so people heard his intelligence and just how smart of a guy he is I think he can in his second year make the adjustments to pass protection if he has to and all of those things that Delvin Cook has to do as a three down back between the two they can make up for that but pass pro is the thing that they always talk about all young running backs they struggle

but my guess is by year two Alexander Madison probably has that figured out, and he's got the girth to be good at something like that. The only area that would be different for me with Madison and Cook, I guess there's two. One is if you get someone instantly in the backfield, making them miss with a juke, something like that, and turning a minus-four-yard run into a two-yard run. I think Delvin Cook is really exceptional at that. And also, if you throw Delvin Cook a swing pass and he is

isolated with a linebacker, that linebacker is not tackling him. He is gaining 10 yards after that. I'm not sure Madison has quite the burst to be able to do that, but I was really impressed, especially late in games, teams loading up the box and madison seemed to find ways to get explosive runs on a pretty consistent basis i mean maybe maybe you would look at all those explosive runs and say well i don't know if you'll be able to repeat that if you're in there all the time but i think it did show us that he does have that capability and he isn't just a really slow running back back there. So I like his possibilities of being good,

but I don't think that these two guys combined give you what Delvin Cook gives. No, I absolutely agree. Like when you've got Delvin Cook on the field, I mean you just constantly have to keep an eye on him. Once the play checks into a pass, your responsibilities are not over with regards to defending Devlin Cook. With Alexander Madison, they kind of do, and the problem

is he last year was just not that useful in the passing game, either as a receiver again, he has good hands, but kind of the rest of that package is not particularly great, or as a pass protector. He only had six pass-blocking reps, and I think it's because of what you said, getting the assignments down, because actually as a pass protector, he only had six pass-blocking reps. And I think it's because of what you said, getting the assignments down,

because actually as a pass protector from a technique perspective, he's actually pretty good at squaring up on someone and shutting them down. It's making sure he understands his role within the design of that play. And, you know, your first year, there's so much you have to learn in an NFL offense that, you know, some of those things that you weren't good at in college, you're still not going to be good at in the NFL. And so that's kind of his next step is if he's going to be kind of an every-down guy, at least offer some value in the passing game.

And honestly, as a pass protector, a running back might offer more than as a pass catcher. I mean, it's kind of weird to think of it that way, especially after we've seen so many receiving backs do so well. But the data kind of bears that out, that if that's something that a running back can do really well, that that's something that they even offer a little bit more because then it gives the quarterback time to go to higher value targets a little bit down the field.

So that's probably going to be the next step for him. But he certainly has the technique of pass protection down. He just has to kind of figure out where in his assignment his role is, which is in an NFL offense, that can be constantly changing after the snap because of the way offensive linemen may react or how a blitz package is done. It's not just simple inside-to-outside reads all the time. I think that what you said about the pass protection makes a ton of sense because a lot of times in key downs, if you are a running back on third and eight, you're probably getting a check down and getting six yards

and punting the ball away, right? But if you give your quarterback more time to throw the ball, he's got more time to find somebody down the field often. And the numbers between clean pockets and pressured pockets are pretty massive in their talenting yeah quarterback rating so that would be where you're like hidden value to latavius murray being actually kind of great at football because he was the best of the best when it came to pass protection and uh maybe oakland wasn't the same after he was gone and maybe that was part of his value in 2017 that we didn't really focus on as much as his running, but it was a huge help. Now, wide receivers are fun

for someone like yourself to dive into so many people battling for the same thing. I mean, what's the game that you play where there's only so many chairs and everybody goes around a circle? What's that called? Musical chairs? Yeah, musical chairs. That's the one. So there's music and there's chairs. I really was blanking on that. I wasn't messing around. This is a game of musical chairs with, like, two chairs and about seven people that could all win a spot.

So give me where you think everyone stands that is not named Adam Thielen, Justin Jefferson, or B.C. Johnson. Yeah, Tajay Sharp I think is kind of interesting. It is, I think, kind of funny that one of the two teams that he ever went off against and had a really good game, one of those two teams signed him, which I think tells you a lot about him. Every time, right? But Sharp is interesting because he's got this profile of, like, larger receiver that's maybe, you know, not a Blazer,

maybe not a 4-4 guy, and so you kind of expect him to be kind of this – maybe this red zone threat or at least a third down threat, and that's not really what he is. He's a larger receiver that plays kind of small receiver ball, and that's not necessarily an insult. He's a very smart, detailed receiver. He's a sharp route runner. He has experience in West Coast-style offenses and Kubiak and Shanahan-style offenses, and so he should be able to kind of pick up the offense really quickly and, more importantly, be able to kind of pick up on the option routes and stuff like that. You know, he has been a very detail-oriented receiver since he's entered the league. Obviously, that hasn't borne out. The Titans have constantly tried to replace him.

That must be for a reason. So it's not as if he's this explosive, super high-value receiver. But as a third receiver, I think he can offer a lot of opportunity, especially in kind of a shortened offseason like that. So that's kind of where he's going to have to win. But he struggles to get separation separation especially when it's man coverage because he doesn't have a ton of speed or honestly not like the explosive style of quickness that you see out of someone like digs uh and uh you know he he doesn't have

like the the greatest ability to to kind of bully other cornerbacks and so he's not really that possession guy chad bb everyone's kind of familiar with i've always been kind of down on chad baby he does generate a lot of separation because of his quickness um but like he can't like catch the ball and so i'm just kind of out he's got hands that are about your size hands yeah it's brutal i can't imagine playing in a professional football game with my hands that's nuts and i'm not even being silly here like every once in a while when reporters are standing on the sideline a football will roll over and i'll pick it up with my very average man-sized hands and i will hold this ball in my hand and be like what the hell it's huge i mean like it's it's gigantic so that's why course, if you're talking about like Stephon Diggs has the most massive –

he's only 5'11", maybe pushing six foot, Stephon Diggs, the hugest hands, if you've ever shaken his hand. And you're like, oh, I get it. I get why everything sticks to your mitts because they're enormous. With Chad Beebe, it's like the same size as a regular person, and I think it honestly – it does sound silly, but it honestly does lead to a lot of drops. And that's what we saw in camp last year.

He was burning people. He was getting open. And then a lot of times the ball would end up on the turf. And then there's also the injury element, too, where it just seems like it's a smaller guy in a huge man's game and it's tough. But I do like him as a guy who, if you have have third and seven can get you eight yards on a slant or quick out or something like that and there is a spot in the NFL for guys who can do that yeah he's not going to get you 18 yards but he is going to get you eight yards because he's not he doesn't win with a ton of speed downfield but he wins with a ton of quickness and he's got an explosive style of quickness like I was talking about earlier where he can just create separation

at the drop of a hat. And then he also happens to understand offensive concepts really well, and so he understands kind of where he can create separation, where he can't, where he needs to kind of float around to if he wants to create a larger throwing window for the quarterback, and that's pretty invaluable. It's really hard to find in the NFL. And so that kind of acumen is really useful to have. He also had, I think, the highest drop rate among FBS receivers when he was leaving northern Illinois.

So it's a problem he's had for a while. And there's a point where there's like a number of people, especially in fantasy Twitter, that say drops don't matter. And I understand where they're coming from. But there's a point where suddenly it begins to matter a lot. And so I think he's at that point. And then the injury concerns, I think, are pretty remarkable. I think he's been injured every year in the NFL. And then he had like a really brutal injury in college, too, that I think has been following him around. So that is kind of where

he is. But, you know, if he ends up on the team, it's because it's really difficult to cut a guy who's always open. And he's got a really great opportunity to take advantage of the space that other receivers create and find that space and maximize the window for a quarterback like Cousins, who does a really good job of finding that. I think of it like errors in baseball with drops, where a lot of people fielding will say, like, oh, you know, the errors aren't really the stat you should look at. You know, they're kind of random from year to year. But if someone makes 40 errors in a season, they're never playing that position again

and probably aren't in Major League Baseball. It's that simple. Now, beyond B.B., because I think he's got a good shot to make it too. So if we have five there, is there a sixth? Is there someone else who has a shot? I mean, I look at, you know, K.J. Osborne as somebody who has a shot because of his punt-returning ability. We saw Davion Davis was kept around.

Dylan Mitchell was kept around as a practice squad. Alexander Hollins got into a couple of games and I think might have been targeted in a playoff game. So where in your mind does everybody stand that's beyond Beavis? I like Hollins the most, honestly. I was, of course, I was watching the All-22, the Chicago game in Week 17, which was useful because they're actually playing against starters despite playing with backups.

And so it's kind of this rare preseason versus starters opportunity you never get. So I'm going to thank the Vikings for like a year for that. I mean, really, though, in in truth the arm on watts tape from that game again starting offense you're like dude this guy can play incredible yeah i agree with you that it was actually helpful to line up some of these guys that we're talking about versus uh real starting players yeah no and it was it was really educational, and so Hollins did just this remarkable job of just getting open, just, you know, first step off the release, you know, finding ways with quickness, with speed, with whatever, like, physical tool a receiver has except for strength. He used that to get open, and he had a bunch of interesting sideline moments,

and he had, I think he had a drop in the playoff game against New Orleans. That's not going to help. But in Chicago, I thought he did a really remarkable job. And he reeled in two of his four targets. One of the targets was uncatchable, Sean Mannion. And another target was just really, I'm not going to say brilliantly defended. I would say probably should have been a penalty. But it was impossible for him to catch it.

And so I thought he did a really remarkable job, and I thought he really separated himself from the pack in that way. I think the fact that Davion Davis and Dylan Mitchell weren't given that opportunity to play in that game, I think says a lot about what the Vikings think these players are. And I think it says a ton because Alexander Hollins is 165 pounds, and I don't think he's getting any bigger. And so for them to be like, yeah, that guy, he's going to play against a 200-pound corner, and he's going to win, and then he does, I think that's pretty great.

And so he's kind of my dark horse to make the roster if they do have, you know, six slots. Of course, I can't ignore K.J. Osborne because I think, you know, the Vikings have made it very clear that there's going to be open returning spots because, you know, Marcus Sheldon's in there, and Mike Hughes sure as hell isn't going to do it. And so there's a ton of opportunity, and Osborne has a really great resume as a returner, especially as a punt returner, I think fifth in the FBS last year. Really not a particularly great receiver. He led Miami in receiving yards, and I think he was second on Buffalo, but Buffalo also had a draftable receiver in Anthony Johnson.

And so he was an important receiver for Miami, but he wasn't a particularly great one, and he led the team with like 600 yards. So it wasn't like he was working with a lot leading the team. And he's also a 23-year-old rookie, and so I know the Vikings are high on his ability to kind of learn the other aspects of receiving and pick up on it. I just think for like a fifth-year senior to not have some of these down, I think if he's on the team, I think he's going to provide a lot as a special teamer, and it's totally justifiable if he's on the team.

I just don't think that it'll be because of his abilities as a receiver. So I think those are the two most likely. And then you kind of get into your Dylan Mitchell mitchell's davion davis you know seventh round pick an undrafted free agent um davion davis has this really remarkable college highlight reel can can catch like these one-handers that are really remarkable dylan mitchell was a deep threat for oregon and you know oregon if if one of those guys is the deep threat he's probably pretty good at being a deep threat and that was kind of the argument for mitchell uh and he did a pretty good job early in camp last year and it just kind of the argument for Mitchell. And he did a pretty good job early in camp last year, and it just kind of faded away.

But, you know, he's somebody that, you know, provides an element that the Vikings just kind of don't have on the roster, which is that deep threat. And so that would be his opportunity. Courtney Davis is a big receiver that plays kind of actually kind of like Tajay Sharp. He doesn't play like a big receiver, but, you know, he's got that frame and he kind of uses kind of like um dodgy sharp it's it's he doesn't play like a big receiver um but you know he's got that frame and he kind of uses it a little bit but more he's uh an explosive route runner that's got uh some pretty good quickness not a ton of deep speed uh and and he was you know an exciting prospect i think he's a four-star recruit uh and the vikings do pay a

ton of attention to recruiting rankings and i'm sure he was on the the radar for a while. And he was a pretty exciting prospect. He kind of fell off, which is why he went undrafted. But, you know, there's always going to be something there. And then there's this, like, super track athlete in Dan Chisna from Penn State. He's only played football for two years, his, like, freshman year and his senior year. And then he was just on the track team. And he was a walk-on in both track and football and earned scholarships in both. When he decided to leave track, he walked back onto the football team and then later earned a scholarship.

So, I mean, that's, like, intriguing. But also, like, he's just a guy who runs fast and is not good at football yet. The hope is that at some point he will be. He's also a 23-year-old rookie. I love these kinds of guys. Oh, yeah. But I have to acknowledge that this is like, he could make the practice squad for two consecutive years and he'd still be a super long shot.

But I love these guys that have, like, no chance. Hey, before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that sports are coming back and so are your chances to bet on your favorite teams and events. There's no better place to start than our exclusive partners, BetOnline. Get in on the action for this week's big UFC fight or check out odds on NASCAR, Formula One, and the Premier League. Can't wait for your favorite team to come back. BetOnline has future odds on win totals, division winners, and even league championships. Or check out our daily simulations of Madden NBA 2K to watch and wager on. Visit betonline.ag. Use the promo code BLUEWIRE to receive your new welcome bonus. That's promo code BLUEWIRE.

Bet online. You're online wagering experts. It is one of the best parts of camp is, hey, this guy used to be the Terrell Sinkfield. This guy used to be a wide receiver, but now he's trying cornerback. I'm like, okay. Good luck. Yeah, this guy was a German YouTube star, and now he's here and can't run a route or catch a football.

Yeah, you keep naming my guys. Yeah, I know. But Moritz Boehringer, my favorite part about Moritz Boehringer is when you look up his athletic similarities, their comparisons to other players in the league. Like Julio. Julio, Andre Johnson. athletic similarities uh their comparisons to other players in the league julio julio andre johnson uh these are the guys like legends come up next to morris bohringer in pure athleticism and then he is the slowest out of a break that i have ever seen in my life and i think that they're

trying to still make him a tight end in cincinnati or something like i believe that that might still be happening i think i think so but for context, the previous couple of years in Cincinnati, he was given essentially a roster exemption as part of the international program. Yeah. So it was kind of free for them, and this year that won't be the case. So he's probably. That's the end of that. But it is, no, you're right, that it is great.

And then I believe there's also a CFL guy. There's always a CFL guy. They love you. Braylon Addison, who undrafted free agent in 2016 at the time, kind of one of those undrafted free agents that everyone thought was going to get drafted, so they called it a steal. And, of course, he was cut right away, as undrafted free agents typically are. It's not like a dig.

Right about like, oh, we got the best undrafted free agents, so here we go. And then there's, you know. Then bye, yeah. I mean, it happens all the time. Whenever I do the consensus big board where I've got like the rankings of like 40 different draft experts, the highest ranked undrafted free agent usually gets a pretty good bonus, right, like a $30,000, $40,000 UDFA bonus, which is usually, you know, among the highest. And then they get like cut right away.

They went undrafted for a reason, right? Yeah, there was a guy maybe two years ago, a wide receiver for the Vikings. Corwin Robinson? Yeah, that's the one. Yep, Corwin's like, oh, man, you got to see this guy. Southern Miss, yeah. As soon as he steps out, they're like, nope, that's not going to work. Like, two days in.

Of the undrafted, he maybe ranks third among receivers. Like, I remember that. Yeah that yeah yeah it took no time yep and then but then there's your alexander hollins who like i think they may have bought mcdonald's for to sign just like you want an egg i'm not even sure he finished the bag yeah yeah that's right yeah he needs to eat more mcdonald's and i'm not kidding you uh your buddy sam extram and i were standing on the sideline watching rookie minicamp back in the day when we could go to stuff and we're allowed near places and uh we're like okay well i know one guy who's not making the team it's the one who looks like a teenager and then he does and he's good so who knows yeah right i mean we're out of camp

we're awful at this but uh the benefit is that we're better than people who aren't there so well yeah well that's what first get before they put on pads though you just you never really know i mean like you mentioned with dylan mitchell dylan mitchell not in pads like oh look at this guy and then as soon as the pads came on the press coverage starts it's like over and then when you got to figure out where you're supposed to line up on every play and all those things, I don't know. Did you have more to say about the CFL guy? There is a CFL guy was my point. Right, yeah, CFL all-star.

The Vikings typically bring in CFL all-stars, so that's like not. Solomon Elimimian was my favorite CFL all-star. He ended up getting like a Defensive Player of the Year award. Emmanuel Arsenault. Well, I love Brandon Zylstra because I would do appearances on Canadian radio to give updates on Brandon Zylstra. Like they would call me to be like, yeah. Yeah, I was on TSN about Brandon Zylstra.

I was on some German TV show. Like I Skyped in and my face was talking in English to a German TV show about Moritz Böringer. It's fun. It's a great time. If we don't have camp or it's messed up or whatever, I'm just going to be so mad. Like I know that they have ways that reporters are going to be out there and everything else. But it is a stupendously fun time of year for these ridiculous stories. So I'm not letting you say anything more about the CFL guy.

We'll talk about that if he's actually good. Ran slower than 4.6 in multiple 40 tests at the Combine and at the Pro Day. Like ran the 40 four times, ran slower than 4.6 each time. So did Larry Fitzgerald. I don't know. That's actually not true. No, it's not. But those are my thoughts on Dylan.

Isn't he always the example, though? It's like Anquan Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald. Like, these guys weren't that bad. Yeah, well, the three examples are Jerry Rice, who didn't actually do that. Right, that's just a lie. That's just a lie. That's not what happened. Larry Fitzgerald, which that's actually just the result of a coding error on the DraftScout website,

which has since been fixed. He ran a 4-4-8. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Everyone always said, like, oh, Larry since been fixed. You ran a 4-4-8. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Everyone always said, like, oh, Larry Fitz only ran, like, a 4-7 or whatever. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't. And it turns out it's not true because it was just a coding error.

And they updated it, and no one has updated their prior since. And then the third one, Zanko and Bolden, who ran it injured. So, great. You should be fast to play receiver, like relatively speaking. I think this is not breaking news. I don't think, like, you automatically are a good receiver if you run a 4-2, but I think if you run slower than a 4-7, your odds are astronomical. They've got tight ends who run 4-5s.

Right. So, you know. Anyway, the offensive line is a house of horrors again. We don't know who's playing guard, but we do know who's playing tackle, so there is that, and we do know who's playing center. So let us assess the guard situation. Do you see any chance that this gets super weird and Riley Reif is playing guard, Ezra Cleveland is playing guard, Kyle Hinton, who's their seventh-round pick.

I mean, what is going to happen here? Because I really think that now there won't be a lot of fans in the stands anyway, but if fans had shown up for week one and Pat Elfline was starting a guard, I think a lot of them turn around and leave the stadium. Like every day, even through the offseason, are they going to get another guard that's not Pat Elfline? I mean, there's, there's just, we've been constantly talking about, or at least I've been constantly talking

about, Hey, they could resign Josh Klein. The reality is if they would have resigned Josh Klein, they, they would have. Right. Yep. And the same goes for a lot of these other guys who are free agents. I still see the door open for adding maybe one guy, maybe a veteran corner or something. But as we get closer and closer, it just seems like they're going to roll to camp with what they're going to roll to camp with.

And, I mean, I think that the door is open for Elfline to have that position again. And I think you're probably signing up for a lot of the same if that's what happens. Yeah, I think so. He's had multiple opportunities to, quote-unquote, rebound. And, you know, credit to the guy. I mean, like dealing with all of these injuries after an up-and-down but largely well-praised rookie season, and then having all these injuries and then just not getting it back.

I mean, I don't want to knock him too much, especially because the way he plays on the field, it's like sometimes it looks like he cares more than the rest of the offensive linemen, which is a pity because he was like the worst one, right? And so, yeah, I don't want to knock him too much, but he just really doesn't have it anymore. And even some of the stuff that you don't think are impacted that much by injury, he doesn't seem like he doesn't play with as much balance as he did his rookie year

or in college. He's on the ground constantly. His athleticism is still there, and that's great. great and you get to see it especially i think later in the season he did a much better job in terms of like getting out and getting ahead of blocks and stuff like that which is fine but he ranked like 81st of 88 guards in in pass blocking efficiency and that's the part of the game that matters just way more uh and so if if you lunge in pass protection and like kenny clark swats your arms aside and you're on the ground and Kenny Clark is on top of Kirk Cousins, you're not good at your job. Well, I mean it's Kenny Clark, but I mean you're just not good at your job if this keeps happening when it's like Christian Wilkins, right?

Like it doesn't matter. It just keeps happening. And so his balance is gone. His strength is gone, and he didn't have a ton of strength entering the NFL anyway. And so to ask him to kind of rely on that again and again when he just doesn't have it anymore, and maybe this is the year it's fully healed and he's just had two consecutive seasons of improper recovery from injury, and that's all possible, but it just seems very unlikely

because a lot of elements of his game are gone now, and even as a run blocker, the thing that he's good at, you know, you still need a modicum of strength to do it. It's not just getting to your spot and just being there. He gets squeezed into the run lane. So there's an opportunity there because he's familiar with the offense. We've had a shortened offseason. I heard a rumor that the Vikings were super high on Drew Samia,

who's like another name to throw into the hat. I rewatched the Week 17 stuff, and I'm not about it. I don't love it. And he was a guy I was super high on coming out of the draft, you know, super athlete, you know, I love those guys, under 300 pounds, at least under 300, you weighed 305 at the Combine. But, you know, this crazy mean streak was probably the nastiest offensive lineman the Vikings acquired that year.

And he just, he doesn't have it all together yet. He's just not in integrated packages. So sometimes he'll flash and that's good. But I think that the odds of something kind of unusual happening, where it's either Ezra Cleveland or Riley Reif playing guard in one of the spots is really high, right? Because Brian O'Neill, really great. He played really well last year. You're playing him a tackle. You don't want to move him around. That's fine.

Now you've got two other tackles. I think it's more likely to be Riley Reif. I think they just want to develop Ezra Cleveland at tackle, and then he's probably better at tackle. I'm totally open to being wrong on that because I've got no idea. It's just kind of like a hunch thing. But Reif, I think, is stronger than Cleveland, and also Cleveland's more athletic. So you put the less strong, more athletic guy on the outside. It makes sense to me. So Riley Reif is an opportunity there. If the clarion call of Brett Jones hasn't been answered yet, here it is.

But it's entirely possible we get Dakota Dozier, which out of 88 tackles, or out of 88 guards, you know, Elfline ranked 81st, Dozier ranked 88th in pass blocking efficiency. Yeah, that's not wonderful. And that's not something that anybody needs PFF grades to have seen either. Right. And I think the thing is they brought him in because he's familiar with Rick Dennison and the system from the New York Jets. But he's just like not a zone blocking guard he just he's an entirely strength oriented guy that's better at tackle than a guard he played tackle in college um and and they're just like

well i mean you play guard now and you play in a system that doesn't work for you and then also on top of that you're just like not like good uh and so uh you know you layer all those things on top of each other and and it's just a nightmare scenario for him but they really value his versatility he's familiar with the scheme uh and so he's got an opportunity to win that spot um i guess the super athlete from washburn that i haven't been able to find film on yeah yeah yeah k Hinton, yeah. Yeah, Kyle Hinton, he could do it. I mean, anybody could possibly do it. Let me just circle back to some of the things you said. With Pat Elfline, he wasn't a monster pass-blocking center,

but a lot of times your assignment as a center in pass-blocking is to kind of see who needs help on either side of you. And he was good at that because he had good awareness. So you could kind of feel out like, okay, we're going to need help over here. We're going to need help over there. But when you go to guard, it's you and Z'Darrius Smith is lined up over you, and he just eats your face and then sacks the quarterback. I mean, it's like he isn't a guard guard but they tried to do something because he had the poor year at center and they thought that bradbury was the solution and a perfect fit for the system

which i think is yet to be seen whether he can pass block either but uh i just don't see elf line as being any other position than center if he's going to have an nfl career going forward because he can't pass block and then when you have edge rushers who line up wide and then there's a lot of space there, and that kind of spaces things out for a three technique, he just is incapable of keeping a three tech in front of him when there's any space involved. So, I mean, to me it's a bad fit for him to continue to play guard.

I love the idea of Riley Reif at guard. I think he's the most gifted player, aside from Brian O'Neill on the entire offensive line, in terms of he was a first-round draft pick, and he's extremely strong. He plays like a mauler, and the only problem that he's really had over the last few years, and maybe his whole career,

is just that when edge rushers have great speed, they can go around him. And we've seen that every time he plays Khalil Mack, when it's the quick twitch or the Jerry Hughes, they could just go right past him. But if you're in that more condensed space with three techniques instead of defensive ends, and you're talking about size and power on power, well, I think he's going to be a lot better than a lot of the other options.

But then you're asking, okay, now, is it O'Neal moving to left tackle in this environment? Is it Ole Udo, who everyone on the internet loves? Is it Ezra Cleveland starting right away as a left tackle in the NFL, which we know is very difficult to do? Can he show enough going from Boise State to the NFL? I mean, all of these things, I don't think there's any answers except for it's center and right tackle.

Yeah, no, everything else is up in the air. It would take a lot to surprise me, right? Like, it would be like both Riley Reif and Ezra Cleveland are guards and Brady Aiello is a tackle. And you're like, oh, well, okay, well, cool. I didn't plan for that. You're calling out Blake Brendel. Oh, yeah, cool. I didn't plan for that. You're talking about Blake Brendel. Oh, yeah.

Another super athlete that was maybe not as successful as Ezra Cleveland in college. But, yeah, he's got, like, matchsticks for legs. That would be a potential disaster. I can't say that I watched tape on Blake Brendel. I mean, I watched a lot because there were a ton of rookies, but I thought, you're going to have to make me go back and watch. It was a part of the offseason where I just stopped watching the Vikings college prospects, but I had to pick it back up for the guide.

So I watched that. And also, it takes all summer to watch all the players that they drafted. So this goes under the category of, hey, the Vikings actually do need those two preseason games. You think we're playing them? Absolutely not. No, it doesn't seem that way. But even if they do, this has been my theory that it doesn't matter that much, because if they do, coaches will just play their starters more because they'll be like, oh, we need to get sharper. You got to get ready for the season. Yeah, exactly.

So we'll see three quarters of Kirk Cousins and these backup guys who are fighting for a chance they won't get a shot anyway. That's at least my theory. Well, your work is great on these scouting reports leading up to training camp, which, again, we hope, really do hope happens. One of the funniest things on earth is when anyone accuses sports writers of their not wanting sports. Oh, my gosh.

I cannot imagine. I don't even do anything else. Why? The only reason I would argue against both my primary hobby and my job would be if something catastrophic was going to – obviously I want sports to happen, man. This is my job would be if something catastrophic was gonna this is like obviously i want sports to happen man i this is my job i can't believe it we also covered a coach death and it was horrible i mean it was just like the anguish that the entire organization went through so you know

if we're going to give opinions on this one even as much as we want to be out there and as much as we spend all this ridiculous amount of time talking football, watching everything else, if it's not safe, then you just can't do it. And there's nothing I can do to convince myself or to dilute myself into thinking, like, well, it'll probably be fine. Like, if it's not safe, then you can't do it. So, anyway, go to your Twitter if you want to read all of them uh that is arif hassan nfl you've got it as your pinned tweet for quarterbacks uh running backs

and receivers now you just have to leave that for a very long time till everyone's listened to this um but but i suggest going there to read all of your work it's terrific uh every year you've done it's always great and a must read and even when i moved here to start covering the vikings you sent it to me your your breakdown of camp is a huge help so i appreciate your time as always sir and your excellent work i appreciate you having me on man