Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are post-draft power rankings buying the Vikings? (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Matthew Coller and intern Clay dive into power rankings around the NFL and what they are saying about the Vikings. Are they down on them like last year or buying after a 14-win season? Plus Vikings fan questions...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Coller here, and I think my timing is actually really good tonight because you've got a couple of hours to sit and listen to me while you wait for a single NBA review that's going on in the Knicks and Celtics game, which I have on here in the studio. And I think that the NBA playoffs have been defined by how many reviews there are and it has become absolutely exhausting. So if you're not watching that, welcome in then let's have some fun football talk here tonight as always this is the time of year for you guys to ask whatever you like throw stuff out there give hot takes give

predictions projections whatever you like and I'm happy to react to all those things intern Clay is going to join in just a second and he has gathered a bunch of rankings and lists around the NFL, whether it's a crazy wide receiver, all time list or the power rankings, which we will get into in just a moment here and also strength of schedule, which is funny because the schedule hasn't come out yet. And it was pointed out. I saw our friends over at bring me the News pointed out that we have been discussing how difficult the Viking schedule is expected to be this year. But last year they were also projected to have a really, really tough schedule. So I guess maybe in May it is not so easy to figure out, but that's another thing

that's coming right around the corner. I'm very excited for when we get that first schedule and we get to pick it and break it down. That's always one of my favorite times of the year. But David mentions the Ireland thing that is out there and it's not official that the Vikings are playing in Ireland, but there are some reports that they are going to be there and a little disappointing to me because Pittsburgh was one of those trips that I wanted to go on.

But I'm sure that the Vikings have a huge contingency of fans that would like to go and not only that, but also I think one of the bigger international fan bases in the entire NFL that would get to see them in a different place in Ireland if that's the case. So I'm sure a lot of you would be excited to get tickets and fly over there or just if you happen to be an international fan, then you know, enjoy the game in Ireland. So good for you. But I just kind of wish that it was like the Jaguars or something that they had taken the

game. I know that they're not playing the Jaguars this year, but you understand my point. Like last year they took the jets game and that was fine with me. And that's totally all right. Okay. They're playing the jets. They to me were not that exciting of a team, but with Pittsburgh, I also don't know how exciting they're going to be and maybe they'll have Aaron Rogers and maybe they won't, but it was more about the city, the stadium, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

We just don't see them a lot covering the Minnesota Vikings. The last time the Vikings went to Pittsburgh was back in 2017, the game where Ryan Quigley threw a pass for some reason and Case Keenan played so poorly that we thought they got to go get another quarterback somehow. And then he won every game after that until the NFC championship, except for one in Carolina. So, you know, that's the last time. It's been a while since they've played in Pittsburgh. I was looking forward to that.

But if you're not somebody who wanted to make that trip like me, then you're probably pretty excited about them going to Ireland, or at least that is the report. We do not know that for sure. So don't mistake me that it's not confirmed yet, but it's a report that the Vikings will potentially be that team going to Ireland. And that's really all we got as far as news goes, is a Pittsburgh host saying the Vikings are going to be their opponent in Ireland, which means you've got to find other things to talk about and that was intern clay and his Homework assignment for today. Hello clay. How are you? I'm good. How are you? the homework assignment for today was find rankings and stuff that we can talk about and then we'll see how

listeners feel about those rankings So you've got power rankings what some quarterback rankings some, some fantasy rankings involving the Vikings. You were you were grinding today. Yeah I got a little bit of everything. It is officially ranking season and people are throwing everything out there. So I wanted to start with some of the power rankings for the Vikings and ESPN in their recent power rankings. They have the Vikings at 9 and then NFL.com they have the Vikings at nine and then NFL.com. They have the Vikings at 10. So how do we feel about these rankings?

I think, uh, and if you got questions, comments, takes toss them in the chat, like we'll weave in and out of answering any questions that you have and also your reactions to any of these power rankings. And I do want to say that it is probably the thing that I take the least seriously in all of my life. So we're going to try to have fun with rankings and not get to like ninth, why aren't they 13th? Like just, you know, I just can't muster

the amount of energy for that. But it is something interesting to talk about right now because we're coming out of the entire off season. So in a lot of ways, a ESPN and an NFL.com ranking your team is really giving you a reflection of how much better they think you got. Do they think you got better? Do they think you got worse? Where do they see you? And I would be pretty curious about how these match up with over unders in the NFL. And I know the Vikings over under post-draft did not move shockingly a guard did not move an over under that usually

doesn't happen. I did see a few people talking about that. Like why didn't they, you know, give us a little more credit after we solidified the offensive line? I'm like, I don't know that it works that way. Uh, exactly. But ninth from ESPN and 10th, I think is fair of where they have them. I expected in part maybe to see them lower because there's quarterback

uncertainty. But I think what they proved last year is that even when they have quarterback uncertainty, they are still capable of winning 14 games and still capable of competing for a division at the end of the day. And they've gotten better. The problem is with ranking ninth or 10th is that it's not extreme enough to have a hot take on because it's not quite high enough to go. Whoa, these power rankings think that you're going to be a

legend this year. You're winning the Super Bowl like well that kind of if you're ninth, that means they think you are a first roundout type of team or they think that maybe you can win around in the playoffs and you're going to be hanging around in the race, but you're not the most serious contenders and it also thinks that they need to take you seriously as a team that's going to be in the hunt and in the mix. And I guess my reaction on this is that they needed to be better than that in order to have a successful season.

Because I was just working on an article today about what Jonathan Grenard said the other day talking about how more is required is the shirts that they're wearing after getting knocked out in the first round of last year. And that's their big mantra this year more is required which means more than just ending up at the number nine spot in the NFL at the end of the day. So even though there isn't some blazing hot extreme take here from either one of these major outlets I think it says if they think that you're barely in the top third of the league, that's not where the Minnesota Vikings are expecting to be at the end of the year based on what they put into this roster. Yeah.

I like both of these Vikings ratings. It's hard to really give them any, get them any higher on these lists because of JJ McCarthy's lack of experience. But it's also a top 10 rating that going into the season is not bad. It's not it's not where you don't want to be. Right. And honestly, the bigger thing that shocked me about these lists was the Packers rankings. Both of these lists have them inside the top 10.

I think it was eight and nine. And I know the Packers are always a 10-win team it seems but the NFC North is stacked this year and I think teams like the Rams Broncos and Bucks I think they they should kind of squeeze in those seven to ten range so I don't know about the Packers but I think the Vikings rankings is very fair I think so too and I also think that it's very Vikings-y to be ninth and tenth I mean that's just who they've been for a long time is well, no one thinks that they stink, but also no one thinks that they're a favorite to go and compete for a Super Bowl. And what you're doing or aiming for as the Vikings by drafting JJ McCarthy and putting the amount of money that they put into this

roster is you're trying to make the case to the world. No, actually we are more than just that team that is the first round out. We're more than the team that just finishes with the ninth best record. And I was thinking along the lines of would it be a successful season? What how many teams make the playoffs? We have what season? How many teams make the playoffs? We have, what is that? 14 teams make the playoffs. And if you end up with the ninth best

that would put you at drafting at what? 22nd, no, 23rd. You'd be drafting 23rd, which probably means that you either are first round out or you win a playoff game and then lose. I think I'm doing this on the fly, trying to figure this out, but that's about right. If the Vikings were to finish ninth or 10th

and draft 22nd or 23rd next year, I don't think that's good enough to say that this all worked out the way that they were aiming for, which really speaks to where the expectations for the Minnesota Vikings are going into the season locally and for everybody in the fan base that is watching closely with this team versus the outside world. I think when you debut a quarterback, the rest of the league says, and everybody who's

making these rankings says, that's cute. You probably won't really be a real team this year, you probably won't really be a real team when you're debuting a quarterback. I think they should be looked at differently than that. I don't know about top five, you have to earn a top five label by maybe winning a playoff game last year.

But when you take where they were last year and then add without them losing a whole heck of a lot. Cam Bynum, Patrick Jones, a handful of role players there, but the core being entirely here, Justin Jefferson, the top receiver in the league, getting Christian Derisaw back coach of the year, like 10th isn't good enough. 10th to me is not where the expectations inside the locker room, but especially locally are going to be. And I don't think it's unfair for an ESPN or an NFL.com to be saying, all right, well, look, you know, uh, you got JJ McCarthy and he's never played before.

But at the same time, he's not a rookie quarterback. He has been around the team. And if he had zero playing experience without having a knee injury and had just practiced, I think that this number probably would have been higher. I think a lot of it is just based on nobody really knowing what to do with the fact that McCarthy has not played. Yeah, I think 10 is fair and good for right now.

But again, if they come back, kids on paper, you see all the additions they made, you see the situation in the culture that's built in Minnesota. So you would like to see them keep improving on that ranking and get into that top five. So if it's the same ranking or worse next year, people are going to look back on the off season that the Vikings had and think about it a lot differently than we might think. How how it is right now. David says you're the only guy that would rather travel to Pittsburgh than Dublin. Well, I don't know. I like Pittsburgh. I've been a bunch of times when I used to live in Buffalo and Pittsburgh's not very far from there.

It is a beautiful city. I mean, if you haven't been, it really is incredible. Matt says, I think the roster strength is better than ninth or 10th, but I feel the schedule difficulty makes the ranking pretty fair. That's my point about the schedule difficulty is I tend to agree with when you look at the opponents

that they're gonna face, there aren't a lot of breaks in this schedule, and they do have to play super hard divisions. At the same time, I mean, think of what we thought Jacksonville was going to be last year. I thought Jacksonville was probably going to be a playoff team last year, and they were horrendous. Like they were borderline playoffs the year before, and Trevor

Lawrence got banged up and they fell off. I mean, I think we all knew the Titans were going to be pretty rough, but aside from that, we could have never figured just how horrific that com or that division was going to be the Texans. I had the Texans last year as the team to go to the Superbowl and many other people did either. And how about even like Cincinnati last year was like a very popular Superbowl pick. We don't really know until it happens.

I think there's a lot of teams that you would project because of their quarterbacks to be tough. So I'm not saying it won't be a tough schedule. It's just if we rate it based on that, and then we look at the past of preseason versus actual strength of schedules, they don't really match up. I think I wrote an article about this last year. They just don't match up all that often. So it could be terrible for the Vikings or it could be fine depending on how you play those teams,

when you play those teams, which quarterbacks get hurt. Half the league's quarterbacks get hurt every year. And if you face the Philadelphia Eagles with Kenny Pickett last year, you didn't face them with the same level of strength as you did with Jalen Hertz. So I'm not dismissing that point. It's just the other part of it too is so what if you have a difficult schedule, you built this team to be able to beat those teams. Like that was the point of this before when you had Kirk Cousins and half a

team, then you couldn't have a difficult schedule because you just weren't strong enough. But now you're supposed to be able to go roster for a roster with just about anybody. Son of a Beavers wants to know your power ranking. How about we do this? How about we go back and forth and we rank them at NFL teams until we get to where we think the Vikings should be. So if we're going to start out, I mean, I think that the number one pick is pretty obvious. It goes to the Super Bowl champs. They did not have enough happen to them this off season for me to say, boy, they're going to fall off and disappear. So who would you pick as the second power ranked national football league team behind

the Philadelphia Eagles? Um, part of me wants to say the Ravens, but I feel like no matter if Patrick, my homes is out there. I feel like I got to put him at two, especially with Chris Jones still on the team, him like my homes on offense, and then Chris Jones on defense with the coaching staff they have, it's like, they're, they're going to be competing every year with just that. So I have to put them at two for me. I think it's fair.

And I also think they weren't that good of a team that totally got away with one in Buffalo with that team kind of melting at the end and giving up the blitz and throwing it up in the air and all that sort of stuff. Uh, but that's fair. I mean, just based on the results that Patrick Mahomes has had in his career and they're going to get receivers back. They're going to be stronger than they were last year in Kansas city. And when you already have Mahomes finding ways to win, it's just, they're not as strong

as they have been in the past. And I wonder if I would put Baltimore ahead of them or even Buffalo ahead of them. Where do we want to put the commanders who are in the NFC championship? It's a little bit tricky there. I think I would go Buffalo though, after either Buffalo or Baltimore.

I think I would go Buffalo after Kansas City. So if we're doing like one, two, three Philadelphia, Kansas City, and then Buffalo, do you want Baltimore after that? Yeah, yeah, I'll take the Ravens after that. OK, Baltimore after that. And they yes, they cut their kicker today for football reasons only. I'm sure I'm sure what a well, you know, it's it's the franchise that had to really be pushed to get rid of Ray Rice and then having this happen

to them. And then they drafted Mike Green, who also had a background of some similar types of problems. So, you know, that's Baltimore for you. But I don't think their improvement at kicker changes much on the power ranking. So we got that. We basically just picked the best, the best overall team and then the best quarterbacks after that. And I would go where it gets tricky is when you have the commanders, the lions, the Vikings.

And I'll include the Packers in this. I mean, the Packers were a good team last last year had to play some games with missing their quarterback They also lucked out with the AFC self. I think I would probably go after After this I think I would have to go with Washington because of what their quarterback means to them if you can be a rookie and Take your team to the NFC championship and then improve on your roster around that, the fact that the Vikings quarterback has just not played a game yet, it's hard to put them ahead of the Washington commanders. So we would have just to reset the list. It's Philly, Kansas City, Buffalo, Baltimore, Washington. Now is there another team that you would clearly take over the Vikings here? Would it be Detroit?

Yeah, I think we have to go to Detroit here. I feel like the roster is just just got even better. And I know a lot of their players are coming off injury. So it'll be interesting to see how they come back after that. But it's just such a stacked roster. Jared Goff has been playing great football and it's hard to see them not be a good team next year, a top five team next year. I think you can make an argument then after that, that the Vikings belong, Cincinnati has got to be in the conversation because of Joe Burrow. The Chargers were in the playoffs with 11 wins last year. The Broncos got a little better, maybe not as much better as I thought

they were going to get. And then. Where do the Packers go? I mean, do we have to put the Rams ahead of the Vikings because they beat them in the playoffs? I don't think we do. I don't think but the Rams did get Devante Adams. They still have their defense stacked. Do you have that ESPN ranking up? I'm curious if they had like where they had the Rams in this mix.

Yep. So ESPN had the Rams at seven. OK. And then NFL had them at eight. And I I also have so my seven is the Rams. And then I have the Broncos at eight and invite. Oh, nine. OK. I mean, the Broncos could have the best defense in the entire NFL. Yeah. And that's going to matter. They can run the ball probably a little better this year. They didn't at all last year.

I don't. That's that's the thing. I don't think that any of this is unfair. But if we're looking at just from an NFC perspective, though, because we talked about it as ninth, so that gets you maybe a first round out. Philly, Washington, Detroit, and the Rams, because they beat the Vikings and they got to Vonte Adams and then the Vikings are right there. So if the Vikings end up as a top four team, I mean, that's what the expectation is now that they've built this roster over three years.

It also says that the competition is going to be stiff. I mean, there's now a couple of years ago when the Vikings won 13, I mean, the entire NFC North was horrendous. Now it's the toughest division in the entire NFL and the fact that the Rams didn't go away Seattle for whatever you think about what Sam Darnold is going to do there. They won 10 games last year. They're not going to be a joke.

Tampa Bay is still good. And I think Dallas is going to bounce back a bit from where they were last year. They had catastrophic injuries all over the place and they are only one year removed from what a 12 win season. So they should be a little bit better and that goes to the conversation about the Viking schedule, because they're going to have the NFC East on it. So, you know, I think that it's fair where they're at. But if they're not in the five or, well, really six final teams

or play or at least the final eight teams, then it's been maybe not the successful season that that we're looking for. What else did you come up with? Because I said to you any type of ranking, whatever you got, if someone's ranking the best uniform colors in football, I don't think they did that. But if they are, then let's include that. So what else did you find? So CBS is Garrett Podell.

Podell, sorry, sorry, Garrett. He ranked his 10 worst quarterback rooms in the NFL and the bottom three, the worst was the Steelers and then the Colts followed by the Browns. And then the Vikings were ranked fourth worst. How do you feel about this ranking? Okay, that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense because again, I think we all understand

that JJ McCarthy has not played any football yet. So we have to have a healthy amount of skepticism of what JJ McCarthy has is going to be. But at the same time, how can you ignore the fact that Sam Darnold won 14 games for this team last year? It cannot be overstated how bad of an NFL quarterback Sam Darnold had been in his career. And if you took out a microscope, you could find, well, he was good in this little run with Carolina and it wasn't too bad in those games with San Francisco where he came in as a backup. But I remember looking at this quarterbacks who had played 50 games or more since 2018 and all the quarterback ratings. He was like the second or third worst out of anybody in the

NFL and last year with this setup that was actually a worse setup than this you could even say significantly after Christian Darasaw goes down. It was significantly worse than the offensive line. He's going to run out now and significantly worse in the backfield. Jordan Mason versus some tie Chandler and then cam acres after that. And the fact that they've even added, I'm not saying tie Felton is going to be the difference between whatever

number of wins, but even just adding another weapon that they did not have last year with Sam Darnold. I don't know how you can just do this exercise in a bubble. And if you'll allow me to give my sort of annual rant about quarterback rankings, I don't understand why they're done without any sort of context. Like, oh, this is where the guy was drafted and how much raw talent I think he has. So I ranked them. I don't really get that because

they play real football on real football teams with real football coaches in real football stadiums. And every single one of those things is not just decent for JJ McCarthy. The sliders are up to 10 on every one of those things. He's got the most favorable stadium to play quarterback in the NFL. He's got the best receiver. He's got another top 25 receiver in Jordan Addison. He's got a top 10 tight end. He's got a top 10 left tackle. He's got a top 10 right tackle. He's got 17 mil at right guard, first round pick at left guard, and one of the better centers of the last decade. Like that matters to how he's going to perform as we saw so much from Sam Darnold last year. So I don't know how you can look at that and put that in a bottom ranking. I mean,

there's it. If we're talking about what the performance is going to be, isn't that what we're trying to get at? What are they going to do in 2025? He's not going to be. Is that isn't that what we're trying to get at? What are they going to do in 2025? He's not going to be on par with the Steelers. I promise you that. I mean, that he would have to break his hand and stay in the game to play quarterback like the Steelers are going to get. You go around the league. I mean, you know, Carolina's made some improvements.

We don't really know what to expect from Bryce Young there. We still don't know what to expect from Caleb Williams. Theants have were they one of the bottom ones the Giants? Let me do what if they weren't if they were if the Vikings are lower than the Giants I mean they were number nine. Okay, stop right Just stop ranking stuff if you're gonna tell me that Jamis and Russell Wilson and Jackson Dart is a better room than last year's first round pick with all the things the Vikings have, like you just need to just do something else. I know rankings do clicks, but try something else. Try writing a real article because that doesn't make any sense. The Giants quarterback room is laughable. I mean, even when we go to like, OK, they had Indianapolis, right?

That was one of them. But was Tennessee on there? So how would Tennessee not be on the on the bottom of the list? How would Tennessee be higher when their quarterback has never played and has a horror show? I'll tell you the whole list. So 10 was the Seahawks. Nine was the Giants. Let me see. Eight was Denver.

Seven was the same. These are the worst. So you're counting down the worst. Denver is one of the worst. Their rookie quarterback through for 29 touchdowns and went to the playoffs. Yeah. Then the Saints, then the Jets. And then we. OK, Saints, Saints and Jets.

And then the Titans and then it's. So they're saying they're saying that the Vikings. Coordinated the Titans are better than the. I just said that I would not get annoyed with any rankings, but this person with a presumably straight Internet. Did I write this because that that doesn't make any sense. The Jets have Justin Fields as their quarterback.

Yeah, it is. It doesn't make any sense to me. And I think they're really playing on this. He hasn't played before, but it's like if McCarthy was playing, if this was like Road to Glory on the NCAA video game, he's not playing on all Madden. He has a turn to like pro or superstar. playing if this was like Road to Glory on the NCAA video game. He's not playing on all Madden. He hasn't turned to like pro or superstar. It's not, it's nothing crazy because he has all these resources around him. So he doesn't have to go out there and be Tom Brady, uh, Peyton, man.

He doesn't have to be anything crazy. He just has to be pretty much what Sam Donald was last year, or at least close to that. I mean, son of a beaver says, who wrote this? I mean, I don't recognize the name, but maybe there's a reason for that. That just makes no sense at all. And the thing is, too, that we it's not that we've seen J.J. McCarthy play in real games, but we have seen J.J.

McCarthy in training camp and in the preseason. And I know those are not real games and nothing happens until you've actually proven it, but he was not only competent, but actually good in those situations, usually playing with the second team. And we also have to factor into that the Vikings have the coach of the year because he got the most out of a quarterback. And when, okay, maybe when Josh Dobbs was the quarterback, they didn't win a lot of games because that's someone who's barely in the league.

But even when Kirk Cousins is the quarterback, he's getting the most out of him. That again has to be thrown in the pot here. How Justin Fields is barely a starter in the NFL and it would be cool to see Justin Fields succeed and be better. But all the evidence says that guy cannot play at all and putting him ahead of somebody who's in the environment as the Vikings, the Vikings, by the way, their whole history is making quarterbacks look good the entire history. It's Kirk cousins got to play with

digs Thielen and then Jefferson. And then before that case, Kenan, uh, Teddy did not have very good wide receivers, but you go back a little farther than that. And then you get into that Gus Farat was winning games with the Vikings receivers. Brett farve has one of his best years of all time. Like this is what they do as a franchise is make quarterbacks play better. And I, maybe if he's including the backup, Sam Howell is certainly not great. Shakes. When you look at his career as he was playing for the commanders and won four games with them or Brett Rippen.

But to me, when you say quarterback room, if you don't weigh the starting quarterback, 96% of that, then I'm not sure what you're actually doing. So where would where would we really rank him in a non like this person did LSD and made a list type of world? Where would we actually? Yeah, I think he just like weighed in the backups way too much. That could be true. That could be true, which also makes no sense. I get the Giants have like three potential, maybe competent quarterback on the roster. So maybe that makes them better than one, perhaps potentially really good quarterback, which makes zero sense to me.

But maybe maybe that was his process. I'm not sure. But I think worst, I'm not sure. But I think worst, I'm still going with the Steelers. I think he got that one right. I appreciate Sean saying that he got rid of the the clickbait stuff. And this this is one of those conversations where like we're going to have some stuff on the way, which is,

you know, many camps and OTAs, and I'm really excited for that. But we're also in a situation for right this moment where like, all right, let's let's play in the mud. Let's play in the mud a little bit. Let's see what everybody else is saying about the Minnesota Vikings and then weigh what we think against that. If. If we're looking, there's a clear top, I would say 10 in the NFL of quarterbacks who have proven that they belong in that category and that's Josh

Allen, Lamar Jackson, Joe burrow. I think CJ Stroud, that team was horrific last year and to get them to the playoffs was quite an accomplishment. So I'll still throw Stroud in there. Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen hurts. Jayden Daniels did enough for me. Deck price got still a good quarterback, uh, even though last year didn't go so well, Jared Goff, but aside from that, everybody else still has either a lot to prove or I'm not entirely sold on what they're going to be next year.

So we don't know about like Matthew Stafford. We all think that Matthew Stafford is a very impressive quarterback for his career and was great against the Vikings last year. But I mean, if age comes for him, if injury comes for him, there's a good chance that he's not as good as JJ McCarthy and his numbers were nowhere close to Sam Darnold last year. Baker Mayfield, I think is established himself as belonging in this discussion, but everybody else. I mean, would you be it kind of comes down to would you be shocked if JJ McCarthy was better than

blank? I mean, if he was better than Purdy, of course not because Brock Purdy's had a lot of his teammates leave him better than Kyler Murray. Nope. Better than Sam Darnold. Nope. Wouldn't be shocked at that. Better than Bryce Young.

No. Pennex. No. Caleb Williams. No. Wouldn't be surprised by that. Whoever plays for the Giants. Of course not.

Geno Smith. He could be better than Geno Smith. So I know that a lot of it comes down to who stays healthy, whose team has everything fall into place and everything else. But I think it goes into that second group of quarterbacks. We've got the clear best of the best who are going to be there every year. And then if we were trying to project McCarthy fairly, it would put him in that sort of 12 to 14 range, which if he does, they

have a good enough team to have them right in that race that we were talking about to start. Yeah, I think he is bound to be in that middle of the group range just because we haven't been able to see him play yet, but there's, there's no, there's no problem with being optimistic for J.J. McCarthy. It's just such a good situation for him. And he has the quarterback guru in his ears

coaching him everything he needs to know. So, I don't know. And just his mentality, just the way he holds himself, the way he talks. And yeah, it just all adds up to seem like it's gonna work out. But I guess we won't know till we know. Is the writer from Ohio? Yeah, I mean, I just that one's hard to wrap your head around.

But maybe if they're weighing Sam Howell as the backup, I guess we can understand. And it's not even clear cut that Sam Howell will be the backup. I would also leave the door open still for Brett Rippon to potentially win that job because he's been in Kevin O'Connell's offense for a couple years and if he knows it better than Sam Howell then they could pick him and that would not be one of the but if you're going to do that then rank the backups and if you want to weigh the backups I don't understand the whole quarterback room thing.

Maybe it was just to make sure to get the Giants in there because they've got a whole room of guys that I wouldn't want as my quarterback. What's, uh, what else did you have for rankings? You went, you went in search of the internet for people rank and stuff. What else did you find? Yep. So former Patriots and Eagles cornerback, Asante Samuel was on Twitter a few days ago and he posted his best receivers of all time. And at first, not gonna lie,

I thought it was one of the worst lists I've ever seen, but I missed the part where he said, it's not in any order. So Asante, you still have your list privileges. So here's who he had. He had Jerry Rice, Terrell Owens, Isaac Bruce, Larry Fitzgerald, Randy Moss, Marvin Harrison, Tim Brown, Julio Jones.

And then he left nine and ten open initially But in later tweets he he came back and mentioned Chris Carter and Anquan Bolden. So how do we feel about? This group of players. I would not put Anquan Bolden is the tenth best receiver of all time I mean that is pretty nutty I think I also think that maybe a Santa just just went to the all time receiving list in terms of yards and just made his list the all time receiving yards list. If it I'm looking at a pro football references hall of fame monitor, which does a pretty good job of evening things out by a score that's supposed to project whether you would

go into the hall of Fame or not. And that is Rice, Randy Moss, Marvin Harrison, Larry Fitzgerald, Terrell Owens. But one of the biggest issues is with this list is that it doesn't include anybody old. I mean, even going back to Chris Carter is about as far back and you kind of think, oh, Asante Samuel, did you just also name guys that you went against and then threw in Jerry Rice because you knew of Jerry Rice? That's what it also sounds like. But guys like Steve Largent, James Lofton, Lance Allworth, there's a lot of receivers. Paul Warfield ends up on this list as well, but he was catching 40 passes in the 1970s. Don Maynard.

We have to even out for some of the best wide receivers of all time. Fred Boletnikov is clearly one of them. Stallworth, Lynn Swan, West Chandler. Like these guys did not, Chandler caught a lot of passes, but a lot of these guys played in an era where they just didn't throw as much. I mean, the Pittsburgh Steelers were averaging 20 yards of pass down the field, uh, 20 yards of completion or something, because they're just launching it up because it was 1972 and they were running and running and then just throwing a bomb all the time. I think that he had

to do a little more research to toss in some of those great receivers. There's no list that cannot have Steve Largen in it because when he retired he had every record and Someone like Lynn Swan John Stallworth. I mean those are Super Bowl driving Successful guys, but if we're doing even just of that era, did he have Reggie Wayne on there? I think Reggie Wayne is probably the most underrated wide receiver Statistically in NFL history and probably belongs in the discussion a little bit more. See on there.

No, he's not on the Santas. OK, didn't have like Michael Irvin, who probably belonged in there as well. Andre Johnson just went into the Hall of Fame, probably not quite top 10. Art Monk was another guy, old school guy that belonged in the list. Did he have Kelvin Johnson was Kelvin Johnson on the list? See, that's what I don't get how you have a top 10 receiver list and you leave Calvin Johnson off of it. I know he had a short career, but he had people run in pump return defense against him. It's like, come on, man. You have to have him on there. Yeah. Leaving off Calvin Johnson is absolutely insane.

I think my brain just wrote in Calvin Johnson on his list because it wouldn't make you kind of just assume he's on there. It's like, all right, Jerry, right. And Quan, but the Torell. Oh, wait, Calvin's not there. Like, what are we doing? Yeah. To include and Quan Bolden. Just again, if you search by receptions, Anquan Bolden just comes up

because he played for 14, 15 years, whatever it was. And obviously, you're going to rack up a bunch of receptions just by existing in the league for that long. What is really actually a fun exercise is ranking all time Vikings receivers because they have so many good ones. Randy Moss is the goat. Justin Jefferson has a chance to knock him off. Chris Carter has to be number two. I think Jefferson is already number three in history. But then after that, it gets very interesting because you have Ahmad Rashad, you have Adam feeling Sammy white. If you're going like way back, uh, Anthony Carter is one of the best

Viking receivers of all time. I think the Vikings have the best receiver history out of any team in the entire NFL. Well, you also have fun guys like Percy Harvin. Yes. Or, or I mean, I like Sydney Rice when I was growing. I don't know how good he actually was, but Sydney for one year. Yeah. And then I don't do we do we count Stefan Dierd?

There's like the six receiver. Yeah. The seven receiver. Yeah. I mean, Minneapolis Miracle and one A or one B, whichever way you wanted it for an era where they were really good. If he had and also he got them Justin Jefferson via trade, which deserves to go up there. I think the only other teams that would be on the list if you were comparing best teams of all time for your wide receiver history or like your wide receiver Mount Rushmore, it's probably Pittsburgh.

Antonio Brown may be crazy, but he belongs as one of the better receivers of all time. And then Stallworth and Lynn and you have Plaxico, Burris, Hines Ward. I mean, just a bevy of guys who were there throughout their history. So those are probably them in San Francisco, probably the only other teams. But San Francisco's top heavy with Terrell Owens and Jerry Rice. But after that, I don't know who is comes after that.

That's such a nice one, too. It is right. That's a hard. But then again, Moss Carter, Moss Carter probably matches up with that. Yeah, it's a close it's close up there. So a Sunday, Samuel, not bad, but you need to fight a little harder. You need to if you're if you're going to make a that's like the the lesson for tonight's list makers like let's let's dig deeper. Let's dig deeper on this as opposed to just Googling

and having the whatever AI come up with the best receiver and guys by receptions. What does Mike Evans have to do to make this list? Oh, Mike Evans. Yeah. I mean, Mike Evans being one of the most consistent ever. He he belongs somewhere in this ballpark. I don't think that Mike Evans quite has the level of. Seasons that go over the top crazy. Let me see where he is. A lot of like just around a thousand yards.

It's he doesn't have a lot of like the 14, 1500 yard seasons. One of the things that I love the Hall of Fame Monitor for on pro football reference is making player comparisons. So Mike Evans career is compared to Jimmy Smith, Rod Smith, those are some my era guys and like Brandon Marshall, you would have seen Brandon Marshall, right? Maybe not quite as much.

Yeah, Brandon, yeah, for sure. When you said you grew up watching Sidney Rice, that kind of broke me a little bit. Yeah, I mean, NFC North was a lot different when I was growing up than it is now. It also has his career pretty close to Heinz Ward and Devontae Adams. I mean, it's a Hall of Fame caliber career. But yeah, I agree with Panucci that he never had some absolutely insane.

Can you believe this guy's from this real world? I mean, his top season was a 1500 yarder, which is good, but just one of those and one 1300 yard season. And then every other year is right around a thousand, which is incredible, but it's not like when we go to Randy Moss's page and you see leading the league in touchdowns, one, two, three, four, five times, 23 touchdowns, 13, 1400 yard seasons left and right. Just doesn't have to put you in the all time discussion.

I think you have to have those above and beyond. Holy bleep. How do you do that? The Justin Jefferson every year we're talking about new records that Justin Jefferson sets. That's not something that Mike Evans has really done, even though he's been a franchise caliber receiver. Yeah, I agree. And that's Justin Jefferson.

It could be like in just four more years, I think, and he could crack this list. It's cause he has those 1400 plus yard seasons and you same with Jamar Chase. Jamar had 17 and 17 last year. That is ridiculous. So if he has like three of those sprinkled along ten other thousand yard seasons like these guys are gonna easily be in this list and maybe even in the in the top five when it's all said and done. So, so Jefferson has played half as many seasons as Plaxico Burris did, and he already has the same hall of fame monitor score. He's already had a career through five years as good as Plaxico Burris. Other guys that are in that range

that he's already matched and he's gonna blow by in the next couple of years. Guys like Greg Jennings, Marcus Colston, Amari Cooper, Antonio Freeman, T Y Hilton. Like these are good receivers that he's right there. Jordi Nelson, Eric molds at McCaffrey. He's already done what they've done in their careers and he's already surpassed guys like Des Bryant, Emmanuel Sanders, Julian Edelman, Odell Beckham. It's crazy that he is only a couple of years away from having enough

to just put him in the list of the Hall of Fame monitor players. That's just crazy considering he's played five seasons. What else you got? Got more rankings? Want to rank some more stuff? Yeah. So PFF put out their rankings for the top 500 fantasy football players going into the season. 500? Are you going to read them all? Yep, every single one. Get ready. No. So they had Jamar Chase at one, and then the highest rated Viking was Justin Jefferson at two.

The next highest rated Vikings players were Jordan Addison at 62, Hawkinson at 66, Aaron Jones at 69, and then Jordan Mason also cracked the top 100 at 93. How are we feeling about these rankings and what's your personal fantasy football strategy? What do you like to look at? And if you had the number one pick, who are you picking this upcoming year? Yeah, sure.

I mean, Justin Jefferson being top two, I guess that would be the one that I wonder about with Jefferson because They did bring in Jordan Mason. They do want to run the football more often. So is Justin Jefferson I guess the answer has to be that no matter what it's just not gonna matter Like Jefferson is the number one ace of this team He is regression proof because even when it was Nick Mullins throwing him the ball that no matter what, it's just not gonna matter. Like Jefferson is the number one ace of this team. He is regression proof because even when it was Nick Mullins throwing him the ball, he still put up a thousand yards in,

I think it was nine games, which is crazy. He's gonna do whatever it is, 1200, 1300, 1400 yards. There'll be three games where he doesn't have big games and then we'll have to surround him on Thursday and be like, why didn't you have a great game? That's always a funny thing. Like last year they had one of the best performances in franchise history offensively versus the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field. And it was I think it was 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing, whatever it was.

And Jefferson was the decoy in that game. And the next week it's just so what happened? You know what? What happened? Like what happened was they sent the entire platoon at one player and then got destroyed. That's what happened. But I think it's fair to set it just from the beginning at 12 1300 yards and it could go up from there. As far as Addison goes, there's always going to be a ceiling on that, but the ceiling is still good cause he can score a bunch of touchdowns. Um, the, the really intriguing one for touchdowns would be someone like Jalen

Naylor when you're deep in the woods, deep in a draft that's got 12 people and you're trying to figure it out because there's so much attention that just goes to Jefferson and Addison in those situations They're probably also thinking the Vikings will run the ball at the goal line this year That's maybe why Jordan Mason gets in that conversation I think that TJ Hawkinson probably deserves to be higher because my feeling is that JJ McCarthy is Good at seeing the middle of the field.

He understands where his weapons are in the middle of the field. Sam Darnold was much more of a, I'm gonna go deep, deep, deep, and then get sacked if I don't throw it down the field. And oh, maybe I'll find TJ Hockenson after I go through my deep reads. And I don't think that McCarthy operates that way.

I think he's gonna be much quicker to get to the underneath stuff, which is a compliment, uh, because I think he sees the field a little bit better, which could result in TJ Hocketson having a bigger season. Not to mention he's coming off of the ACL injury. Um, but your question about how I handle fantasy is I just lose. That's, I don't really, just last year was the first year that I really played

because we had an underdog fantasy sponsorship and we loved them. Underdog fantasy, please come back next year. We loved them. But I was a bit of a fish out of water trying to figure out how to win at fantasy. And I actually did in one of my leagues, I did finish second. So I didn't completely fall on my face.

But strategically, it was just like, I like this guy. Oh, I think this guy's going to be good this year. Oh, I like this guy. That was really the strategy. I don't know. Am I supposed to have a more detailed strategy than that? I mean, some of the people I've been in leads with, they have whole spreadsheets and stuff. And I don't do all that. Cause I feel like no matter who I draft,

they always get hurt and I feel bad because I feel like it's my fault that I put some kind of bad juju on them. But I don't know as a Bears fan, it's not common that I could get excited about drafting players to my fantasy team, so I'm jealous of all the Vikings

fans out there that get to pick up their guys and root for them like more like two times. I don't know. Actually, I don't even know if that's a thing. But well, last year, the reason I finished, the reason I finished high was I picked Sam Darnold. I was draft. I was drafting actually even before McCarthy got hurt. But I knew that Darnold was going to be QB one. So I just I just picked Sam Darnold at the end of the draft. And then he I think I don't remember who my other quarterback was.

Probably got hurt. But then he had a top 10 fantasy year and he or whatever threw for 35 touchdowns. I'm like, oh, yeah, well, genius, obviously genius. But you're right about the Bears. Hey, look, you can draft Colson Loveland. He'll get 97 catches for 680 yards and it'll be awesome for you. Give me six points a game. That'll be awesome.

But the biggest thing that confused me about this list and it must. I don't know really how QBs are valued in this guy's mind, but JJ McCarthy was ranked 217 and that's the QB 21 and puts him behind pretty much every kicker and defense. So I'm assuming it's just how quarterbacks are valued. But I thought that was pretty pretty crazy. There's a few different things with that. I mean number one is if you're looking at a Jalen hurts or Jaden Daniels like those guys are going to

rack up rushing yards. And if you rack up rushing yards, you're going to be a fantasy freak. are going to rack up rushing yards. And if you rack up rushing yards, you're going to be a fantasy freak. Even if you're an Anthony Richardson that can't throw the ball from like me to my camera, even he's going to get a lot of points just because he runs, he gets touchdowns, he gets at the goal line and he's going to get those. I don't think McCarthy is going to be a running quarterback. I think he will scramble and he'll get first downs, but I even saw some chart

today that was percentage of points in fantasy that were running and it was only 8% from Sam Darnold out of all of his points. I don't think that Kevin O'Connell wants to have a running quarterback. I think he wants to have escape ability and playmaking and get out of there if you want to, but Maybe 200 yards from JJ McCarthy, maybe a couple of QB sneaks into the end zone But you're not talking 50 touchdowns because he's doing the cam newton runs into the end zone all the time And he's probably going to have touchdowns stolen from him from Aaron Jones And Jordan Mason that could be part of the calculation as well that if this is why touchdowns can be such a silly stat sometimes.

It's like if you're Sam Darnold and he threw for 35 touchdowns, which he deserves all the credit for doing, but they couldn't run at the two yard line, you have to throw in the touchdowns and you're putting up this big number when some other teams, the quarterback might throw for 26 touchdowns, but your team scores the same amount. And I think the Vikings had 47 touchdowns last year as a team. A couple of those went to Andrew Van Ginkle, but that was a pretty good number for them.

So it wasn't like he wasn't leading a good offense. It's just a funny thing about the fantasy stats versus actually how you're going to play. But I would guess that's why that McCarthy will not be that popular of a pick versus quarterbacks who run. Yeah, it's crazy thinking back, Anthony Richardson was like a top 10 pick in every draft last year. And we saw how that ended up.

So it does just show how much the running trait is valued in fantasy. So, all right, you got anything else? Any other rankings? Um, does just show how much the running trait is valued in fantasy. So. All right. You got anything else? Any other rankings? Yeah. Rank sock colors, face mask colors. No, not.

We're not that. That's July. We'll have to do the show again in July. I do have the strength of schedule rankings without the schedule. All right. Yeah. Warren Sharp put out his rankings for who has the hardest strength of schedule and who has the easiest and the Vikings were the

fifth hardest schedule. And he did this based off the projected win total for next year somehow. That's one way to do it. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I don't I don't know how to feel about that. But how do you feel? The doing it off of the projected win total is just as flawed as any other method that you could do right now. Actually, the best way to do it might be if you took like Mike Sando's quarterback tier thing is really great article every year because he talks to a bunch of executives and coaches and they rank all the quarterbacks. And after doing it for a long time, you get a lot of different data points on that. Like even last year, I remember talking about how some coaches or executives had Sam Darnold was maybe 24th or whatever. But in the quotes, they had said, Hey, he could be a second tier quarterback

under the right circumstances in Minnesota. And that's exactly what ended up happening. But I would bet if you took the quarterback tiers and just ignored the whole rest of the roster and made that the strength of schedule, that it would be more accurate than trying to take the over unders. We saw what can happen with over unders and this is why gambling is really hard.

And if you do it, you should do it responsibly because last year the Vikings over under was six and a half and they got 14 wins and every year there's I went through this when the over under came out and I looked at how many teams had outperformed that six and a half. And it was a lot. A lot of teams had even made the playoffs at six and a half. So the games that this method of doing it are putting in as the easiest games.

They might not be those might be 10 win teams that the NFL gambling community just doesn't realize are going to overachieve yet. Or a lot of it too, is just based on confidence. Like if you have last year, a very good Vikings team, a very well coached Vikings team, but you have no confidence in the quarterback, you're going to just throw a six and a half or seven and a half on them because you're just like, I don't know. I don't know what they're going to be. And then they end up being a really good team.

So I think that's extremely flawed. But also, I think it's accurate. I do. Because if by my method, the Matthew Coller method of figuring out strength of schedule, which is just take the opposing quarterback schedule, it's going to be a journey for the Minnesota Vikings unless some of these guys get hurt. Because if you're talking about the Eagles commanders, cowboys, just alone with those quarterbacks, I still have a lot of respect for Dak Prescott, uh, who has beaten up the Vikings sometimes.

And then you have golf Jordan love. If Caleb Williams takes another step, you got to play those guys a bunch. That's not going to be easy. And then Lamar Aaron Rogers, I, I guess, for the Steelers. Then Joe Burrow and then Dylan Gabriel maybe. But there's still, there's a lot of good quarterbacks that are on the Vikings list. Now here's a question for you on this.

So he did this just based on opponents, but obviously we don't have the order of the opponents. Do you think the order of opponents when it comes out matters to you and how hard you think the schedule is? Yeah, probably depending on the team, I think for teams probably like the Vikings or the Bears or other teams with more unproven quarterbacks, I think if you get a front-loaded schedule that looks scary with the Ravens and the Commanders and the Lions and all these teams, then you might be

like, oh god, like this might not be good for us. But if you're an established team, you've proven yourself as a quarterback. And I don't think you like, I don't think you get worried about seeing certain teams come up, maybe for other reasons, maybe a defense or something, but I don't think it's just because your quarterback or whatever. So I don't know. I think if you're front loaded with a young quarterback, then yeah, you might be scared. But like you said earlier, your strength of schedule, you should be set up to beat every

team in the league. So I don't think teams really look in or like shaking in their boots too much. No, that's a good point that if you have a young quarterback in your first three or four games or against elite defenses, that might be a rough go. There's also competing thoughts on this for me because I would, my first answer would just be no, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

The order we'll find out, not if we're trying to do it right now But where it could matter is let's say you start the season as the Vikings and you have to play Philadelphia the Lions and then Washington right off the bat Because if you although hey, we said that last year and they went five and oh to start the season So again, it all goes out the window when they start to play the games. But because we thought San Francisco was going to be way better than they were. We thought the Texans were going to be way better than they were. And then when they actually played the games, they weren't.

But let's just suppose we'll go down this road anyway. If you get to Owen three in the NFL, your chances of making the playoffs are basically nothing. I mean, even Owen two is tough. They call it Owen Tombstone because of how few teams make the playoffs after Owen two. So if the very beginning of your schedule is extremely hard, I think that can put you in a hole that then makes everything else harder. And later in the season, you start to feel like every single game is a playoff game. There's also those runs of road games. I mean, if you have three road games in a row, which was it last year or two years ago, the Vikings had three road

games in a row and you just go, why did that happen? The Vikings might have to go to Ireland if they have to go to Ireland. And then there was a Ben Lieber tweet that kind of looked like maybe they might also play somewhere else in London or something, which if I don't know how to interpret the tweet, but the point is if you're going over there, then you're having to come back, then it's, it's hard on you that road schedule. But I do think it matters less than it ever did. Like they have such nice flights these days and road stadiums are not as intimidating as they used to be.

If probably at the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter. You got to play everybody on your schedule. But I do think when a team feels like they're buried and they're trying to dig themselves out of a hole, that everything becomes harder after that. Yeah, I'll revise my initial statement. I think regardless of your quarterback, that early part of your schedule probably matters a lot

because confidence is huge for NFL teams. If you start out two and oh, three and oh, you're like, okay, this might be the year we're feeling good, we're looking good, and that can lead to more wins. But like you said, you're looking at oh, and two and oh, and three. You're like, what do we spend the whole offseason prepping for? You're questioning yourself and you might not be in the right mindset

that you've got to be for the rest of the season. So I feel like those first four or five games probably matter. But after that, it's it's kind of just is what it is. Very good. Well, intern Clay, great job. We start off the show with you tonight so you can get back to your studies. You got finals and final papers and all sorts of stuff. And you're in Eastern time, so it's already late enough. But I appreciate all the homework that you did gathering all these rankings.

And we'll have to see what we can come with with for you on Thursday. So thank you for your time, sir. And enjoy the rest of your evening. And it looks like the Knicks have made things interesting in this game. So you have to catch the end of that as well. Yep. Sounds good. Thanks for having me on.

Come on. Football. Okay. My gosh. What have I done here? All right. Thank you, Clay football.