Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are the Lions a threat to the Vikings in the NFC North?

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

Can a team coached by Matt Patricia actually make the postseason? What factors might change for him as a coach in Year 3? Do the Pride Podcast guys think Matt Stafford has improved into his 30s and how might his supporting cast help? Who is the most important offensive weapon on the Lions? And what's the best argument for them being better than the Vikings?  Check out Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com  And if you get a chance, fill out the Blue Wire survey:  https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=BugBBZdAw0aNFUvtuGkgyhnTao1hdWxOjJwTA2fwHGJUN0hUNEhaSExWN0RRRFdCV1ZOTkdHR1IwOCQlQCN0PWcu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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 there. Because you're listening to this podcast, we at Blue Wire want you to know this. Golden, Colorado, and a pair of AirPods. We appreciate you, hope you're staying safe, and want you to enjoy this podcast. Alright, welcome to a very special episode of Purple Insider, in which I have welcomed three Detroit Lions fans onto the podcast. They are the hosts of the Pride podcasts, and their goal over the next 30 minutes or so is to convince me that the Detroit Lions deserve to be considered as NFC North favorites.

Not just, hey, maybe the Lions, I don't know, but NFC North favorites. That will be the goal of these three gentlemen. So why don't we go around the room, and I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. Tyler, why don't you start? Yeah, so we've been doing our own podcast for almost two years now. I've been working for the Blue Wire Network for now almost two years. Yeah, right now I'm currently a college student at Oakland University,

a school in Rochester, Michigan. And I'm currently about to enter my sophomore year of college in the fall time. So that's pretty much about me. If you want to find me on Instagram, you can find me at underscore Lions Nation underscore. He's got the self-promotion part down. Pierre, how about you?

Yeah, so like Tyler said, we started the podcast about a year ago. Currently I'm in accounting school. I want to become a CPA. And I've been covering the Lions since I want to say 2013. So, yeah, and you can find me on Instagram at Detroit Lions fan page. So, yeah. And we have the OG of the program, Malcolm,

who I know that you can't be the same age as these guys because of how much you struggled to get on the Zoom call. No, I'm a little bit older. What's going on? I'm Malcolm. I am the editor of the podcast. All right. So you can edit out the parts where those guys gave their Instagrams. out right from the very beginning with the biggest question with the Detroit Lions because I think that on paper there are a lot of reasons to think that they could be a contender for the NFC North

and I'll let you guys present them but I think everybody has this same sort of feeling if Matt Stafford is healthy the whole year they've got weapons they've got improved roster on defense all those check marks that you say oh this looks like a team that would go worst to first in the NFL. But I'm going to give you your toughest task first, guys, is to tell me why Matt Patricia can get a team to the playoffs. Because from my perspective, when Jim Caldwell was coaching a team against the Lions, you thought, well, at very least, they're going to have a pretty good offense because Jim Caldwell is a good offensive coach and they probably won't have a good defense but Matt Stafford might throw for 350 yards and they are a dangerous team even if not a Super Bowl contender necessarily I go back to the 2016 games against the Vikings where they beat the Vikings twice and both times you know

Stafford is good there's some close moments they come through Golden Tate has big games things like that and then the last two years it's just more or less been a joke when the Vikings play against the Detroit Lions with Matt Patricia as the head coach who was supposed to turn around the defense that has not happened so who wants to take the first swing at convincing me Matt Patricia can go to the playoffs? I'm not your person, so one of those two. I could go. So recently they had Jim Bob Cooter, right? Last year they bring in Darryl Bevel, more aggressive, more running the ball, kind of controlling the clock, play action, deep kind of taking deep shots. Defensively, they've been a mess, right?

They fired their defensive coordinator, Paul Pascalone. They hired Corey Unlin, who Patricia worked with in New England. Unlin comes from Philadelphia. We know Philadelphia loves to blitz, right? So I think they'll add a little more blitzing to their – they drafted Julian Acquara, an athletic edge rusher, something Detroit has not had. They signed Danny Shelton.

You know, Snacks was injured last year. So Danny Shelton's 26, a lot younger and cheaper. They signed Nick Williams, who I'm sure you know from the Bears. Trey Flowers is healthy. Jeff Okuda is a great man corner. Desmond Trufant, he's not Darius Slade, but he's still a pretty good corner. They're healthy. They're healthy. So I think, and also Swift, you know, DeAndre Swift, TJ Hawks are coming back. So they have a lot of weapons on offense. Defensively, I think they're going to change up their scheme just a little bit, more blitzing, and I think they'll improve.

So those are mostly, like, roster things that I totally agree with. You add these players that are good, but Malcolm, help me out here. I mean, you have a guy that Darius Slay leaves and he says, yeah, I just didn't want to be anywhere near Matt Patricia. And Snacks Harrison, which I know that that signing did not work out very well for Detroit, but basically the same message that he didn't even want to play football anymore after being with Patricia. And then Slay mentions situations where he would get called out in meetings, even though he's one of the best players in the NFL, that he would get, you know, shouted down in meetings by Patricia. Even from the very start of the Patricia era, you have him

have, like, making guys run wind sprints and things like that, ridiculous things for guys who are in NFL shape, and I don't know that there's been a whole lot of evidence that he can grow as a coach. Was there last year? Because you guys would have watched the David Blau era closer than me. Yeah, so Matt Patricia's first year didn't go as planned. I mean, you see all the reports with Darius Slay and stuff like that. So, I mean, year two, I mean, he looked like a different coach. I guess personality-wise, I mean, a lot of players that we had on the podcast, they would say the same thing, that he wasn't the same guy as year two than he was in year one.

I guess year one, he had that Bill Belichick mindset of it's my way or the highway, you're going to do it this way or you're out the door. And you could see a lot of players that we had are actually out the door. So I do believe a lot of it was because of that. But, I mean, I think this team could turn it around. I mean, health is a main thing. I mean, I do think Matthew Stafford is one of those quarterbacks that could take a team to the playoffs.

And I think his problem has been the supporting cast. So we'll see what year – was it year three for Matt Patricia? We'll see what year three brings. Tyler, you're just – you're remaining skeptical with me about Matt Patricia then. Yeah, I mean, the only thing I could see maybe being a difference is, you know, I think Patricia kind of has his guys this year. You know, obviously it's always been the joke around the league. Every time Adam Schefter or Ian Rappaport tweets about something,

who the Lions sign, it always seems to be a former Patriot or some guy that's ever, ever played in the Patriot system some way or some way for him, you know. You know, I think that's been one of the biggest problems with this team is everybody buying in, all 53s. So guys like Darius Slay, guys like Snacks, guys like Kowandre Diggs, you know, they just were never fully bought in. If you look at the approach they took this offseason, you know, they brought a lot of

former Patriot guys, guys like Jamie Collins, guys like Danny Shelton, you know, who never played with Matt Patricia, but they kind of know what to expect already. And obviously, with all this, you know, quarantine going on, a lot of facilities are closed down, which are slowly opening up now, you know, guys, we kind of have an advantage right now, because most of these guys already know what to expect. You know, they know the defensive scheme, there's not much learning. And if you want to go extend it a little more to the draft class we drafted Julian Aquara which we have his brother Romeo Aquara so you know as the facilities are closed you know Julian is already getting a head step you know his brother knows the scheme you know he's been

with Matt Patricia the last two years so he's getting a head start before all these rookies so and before any rookie that's been drafted this year, cause you know, I don't believe there's any been any connection, you know, of a current player and his brother on the same team. I think we're the only guy that has that right now from the draft class. I might be mistaken on that. Don't quote me on that, but you know, I think that's where our big advantage is. I think everyone, everyone knows what to expect now. Guys who have been in the locker room, it's now year three and we got guys that are bought in i think the only thing we're missing now is winning and i think you start winning you get you get guys to change because we have guys that are bought in we know we brought in a guy like trey flowers

we brought in a guy like danny amandola they've been bought in since they've been here and i think now we're just bringing more of those guys that know what to expect because those guys were huge for us and i think now that we're getting more guys that know what to expect. Cause those guys were huge for us. And I think now that we're getting more guys that know what to expect are going to mold to better together, more guys are bought in. And that's huge because when you're not bought in, you're not a hundred percent on the field. So, and it didn't seem like Darius Slay was a hundred percent on the field, you know, with Matt Patricia, I just didn't like the scheme.

I've saw on Instagram live, him and Quandary Diggs were talking for almost about two hours, how much they hated the defensive scheme. You know, now these guys have excelled in this scheme before, guys like Jamie Collins. So I think that's the only difference is because they know they can excel in this scheme, and they're more confident in this scheme than maybe guys like Darius Salerno and Quandre Diggs, who thought they excelled better in the previous scheme, in Terrell Austin's scheme, or, you know, et cetera. So I think that could be the difference is everyone just bought in, essentially.

What you're saying is the best argument for Patricia is the people that hated him are gone. Yeah, 100%. Yes, yes, 100%. All the Twitter guys. Yeah, I was going to say, which, you know, there's something to be said for that, and there's also something to be said for coaches having to learn. I mean, even with Mike Zimmer, he came in, and there were some comments that he even into his third year as an NFL head coach that you said, you know, that's not going to sit very well with your locker room. And that could be a problem for you going forward.

The one that stands out to me is when he said that Anthony Barr had a tendency to coast and Barr was playing through an injury that year. And that really upset some of the guys in the locker room. So you have to be careful with that, and I'm not sure that first-time head coaches realize it, especially if there are head coaches that they've worked with before who have much more clout, who can say things, who have been proven, or who can say, we're on to Cincinnati or whatever. Like, you can't do that if you're a first- or second-year head coach, like Bill Belichick would have that type of leeway to be able to do. Let's talk about Matt Stafford here.

One of the most interesting quarterbacks in the NFL for me to analyze because he's super fun. And when he's on, he throws it all over the place. You mentioned the system change with Darryl Bevel. It worked for far of an 0-9 to be with Darryl Bevel. And it worked for Russell Wilson, except for not running Marshawn at the goal line. And it worked for Matt Stafford except for not running Marshawn at the goal line, and it worked for Matt Stafford.

Year two with Beville, Stafford was on pace to have a Pro Bowl type of season, borderline, maybe MVP if they end up going 9-7 or 10-6, considering he was leading the league in touchdowns when he got hurt. Is the expectation that Stafford picks up right where he left off? Because I think that that might be all of your guys' best argument for the NFC North belonging to the Lions. Pierre, you can begin on this one. Yeah, so they actually came out and said if the season starts today,

he'll be ready to go. He's 100% right now. So the expectation is he'll be what he was last year. That's the expectation right now. So what about him as a player, though? Because you have ridden the wave of Matt Stafford through the years. I mean, you have 5,000-yard seasons. You have other years where you think, eh, it's time for him to go.

And even his wife, I think, said something about looking at places in L.A. or something like that on Instagram when people were talking about the potential to trade Matt Stafford. But, you know, he only has like one Pro Bowl of all the years that he's been around. And what, is it no playoff wins the entire time he's been around? So it's interesting because it's always talked about with the supporting cast or the coach or the organization or something else. But he's been a common denominator for a lot of great stats and a lot of fun throws,

but not a whole lot of wins I mean how much of that is on Matt Stafford um not a lot of it you know if you look at his like how many times that 100 yard rusher in his career I think number is only like 12 Malcolm knows that number I'm not sure so like it's 10 10 okay so it is like there's 11 years of playing he's only had 10 times like over 100 yards in the game for a rusher. That speaks to his supporting cast. I think if he put Stafford on the Chiefs, say he was on the Chiefs instead of Mahomes or something, or give him the Seattle Seahawks, I think he'd have a ring or two.

It's just that the Lions haven't done a good job with surrounding him with talent. Well, Malcolm, he is better than Scott Mitchell and Andre Ware and Eric Kramer. Oh, God. But where do you land on that as somebody who has seen the darkest moments of the Lions quarterback situation? I think a lot of it goes to the organization, the Detroit Lions organization. As far as you're looking at, you know, awards, like as far as like Pro Bowls, it's extremely hard for a Lion player to actually get to the Pro Bowl. When Stafford, you look at 2011 Stafford,

when he had his probably best statistical stat, 5,000 yards, 41 touchdowns, he didn't make the Pro Bowl that year. So, I mean, it is, when fans vote for Pro Bowl, they look at, a lot of what they look at is, you at is are they winning? So the team is not winning much. The chances of them going to a Pro Bowl is not... I mean, you got to do something amazing. Slay, when he started going to a Pro Bowl, he led the league in interceptions.

When they saw that, they were like, okay, we're going to vote for him. But Stafford, I mean, he has grown so much as a player. If you look at the younger Stafford, the gunslinger Stafford, when he was just throwing everything at a hundred miles per hour, making some weird decisions. I mean,

he wasn't, he was still winning games as far as like in 2011, took you to the pro bowl, but he was missing something. And I think what he was missing back then, he hasn't now. Like he's definitely matured as a quarterback. You look at the throws he's making now,

there's a lot of touch on the ball. He's actually hitting the open receivers. And you just see he's playing at a really high level. So I'm a Stafford lover because I've seen the Jory Harriton, the John Kintnas, the Dante Culpeppers. I've seen Scott Mitchells. I've seen them. Charlie Batch?

Yeah, Charlie Batch. Once upon a time. What was different, Tyler, from last year when he performed so well? I mean, you go back to even the Vikings game, the Lions defense couldn't stop anything that Kirk Cousins was throwing at him. But Stafford kept them in that game. That was a legit shootout game. And not too many times since I moved to Minnesota in 2016 to cover the Vikings have I seen a quarterback light up the Vikings defense like that where you felt like no matter what

coverage the Vikings defense went with they could not slow down Matt Stafford he's always given them some problems but that was probably his best performance against a Mike Zimmer defense so what is the difference and why does he fit so well with Daryl Bevel? I think it's because Daryl Bevel lets him use his arm. You know, we've seen in the past guys like Jim Bob Cooter, who was our offensive coordinator, or even Joe Lombardi, who was before him. It was a lot of like short passes, kind of Tom Brady-esque, you know, just like quick slant routes. Let's do a wide receiver screen. Let's let like our yak guys do everything. They were just relying on Golden Tate essentially to to do everything now we got a guy that uses our big physical wide receivers kenny galladay marvin jones you know you could throw the 50 50 ball and you know they're most

likely going to catch it because they're one of the two better physical wide receivers in the league right now so i think the fit with daryl bevel actually letting stafford use his arm is going to help him so much more and you saw that his first year and then now we're going to the second year what's another thing Daryl Bevel loves to do run the ball and what do they do they drafted DeAndre Swift in the second round to go along with the another second round pick in 2018 with Kerryon Johnson so you know I know Malcolm said we only had 10 100 yard rushers in the Matthew Stafford career, which is mind-boggling. But I believe Matthew Stafford's record – 8-2.

8-2, yeah. I was going to say, I believe it's 8-2. So every time he's had a 100-yard rusher, or at least close to a 100-yard rusher, he's most likely going to win you the game. Now I think we got arguably the best running back in the draft class. We got another guy who was really well, went healthy with Kerryon Johnson.

And then we had another guy that kind of stepped up when needed, Bo Scarborough. So I kind of like our running back tandem right now with our team. And Stafford obviously coming off a back injury, so it's relieving some pain off him where he can hand the ball off to these three running backs. And when needed, he could sling that ball to one of those physical wide receivers in Kenny Galladay or Marvin Jones.

So that offense, that passing offense was top five before Stafford got hurt. I want to follow up on that, what you're saying about the supporting cast here, because I want each of you to pick a guy that's going to be the swing player for if this guy steps up or if this guy succeeds, then the Lions offense will be one of the best offenses in the NFL. But if he doesn't, then probably not. Like who would be that guy? We can go in reverse order here if you want, Tyler.

Okay. I don't think the offense would necessarily be bad if he doesn't step up, but this would definitely help so much. TJ Hawkinson, most definitely. If TJ Hawkinson could develop to be the guy that he was drafted to be, we were getting like a George Kittle to our offense. And imagine adding a George Kittle or a Rob Gronkowski to Kenny Galladay and Marvin Jones. So if TJ Hodgson gets it going, I think he could be the needle that this

offense has been totally been missing. So, yeah, because who was the last good tight end the Lions have? I don't think any I've watched. Brandon Pettigrew. Brandon Pettigrew. It was Brandon Pettigrew. Brandon Pettigrew. Yeah, I was going to say, who was the last good tight end the Lions have? I don't think any I've watched. Brandon Pettigrew. It was Brandon Pettigrew. Brandon Pettigrew. Yeah, I was going to say, who was the last good tight end I've watched?

It was the Colts version of Eric Ebron. That's who it was. I was going to talk about that. Ouch, ouch. Or I was going to say, like, what, Joe Fourier's three-touchdown game versus the Browns in 2013? Like, who was the last good tight end we've had? So I'll say TJ Hockinson could be that moving needle. David Sloan. David Sloan was your last good tight end we've had? So, I'll say TJ Hockinson could be that moving needle.

David Sloan. David Sloan was your last good tight end. Wow. I don't even know who that is. That's a Lions poll from somebody who played with the Lions with Barry Sanders in Madden all the time when I was a kid. Who's your choice, Pierre? If it's not TJ Hockinson, who is it?

I'm going to go with DeAndre Swift just because, like, he's a great receiver out of the backfield. Oh, Pierre. If it's not TJ Hawkinson, who is it? I would say my guy. I'm going to go with DeAndre Swift, just because he's a great receiver out of the backfield. He's a good back. He can run the ball also. He got comparisons to Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Camaro. If he could bring that type of

play to the Lions offense, I feel like if the running game's successful, then the play action game opens up, and defenses don't know what to do. You've got Haas. You've got Marv. You've got Ken. Even Dola. I mean, Dola is a good quick pass.

So, defense will have their, like, they'll have a headache if we get the running game going. Well, let me ask you this, Malcolm, since they took your guys. Yeah, you see that. Yeah, you saw that. That's how it is. What about the offensive line? Yeah, I was going to go there.

That's the person I was going to pick. I was going to pick somebody from there. Okay, yeah. All right, go ahead. I was going to say pretty much our big signing that we had this offseason, Big V, Holote Vate. I'm not going to try to pronounce the name. Holote, is it like Holote Vate?

I don't know. I have no idea. He used to play for Philadelphia. Big V. Big guy from Philadelphia. He was the play for Philadelphia. Big guy. Big guy from Philadelphia. Yeah, he played the right tackle. Hopefully, I mean, if he steps up and he plays at a high level and he could be that centerpiece into that running game,

I think that would be huge too. Yeah, and Frank Ragnow, take another step forward. He was a guy that I know the Vikings absolutely loved when he was coming out. And I think that they would have picked him had he not gone to the Lions a couple of picks earlier. Speaking of the Vikings, now this might be a little more of a challenge. Talking about how Matt Stafford is good, all right, that's not too hard. But why are the Lions better than the Vikings for 2020?

I don't care who wants to start. Just somebody. I'll start off with this one. Go ahead. One thing that's huge that's different for the Vikings this year is the defense. We don't know what to expect from this Vikings defense. I mean, obviously, they still have Daniil Hunter.

They still have Anthony Barr. But you got to factor in, as of right now, you guys don't have Everson Griffin, who was an absolute Lions killer. You guys got rid of a Lions lover, Xavier Rhodes. We love Everson. Yeah, that was our saying from one of our podcasts. That hurt.

That hurt, yeah. Yeah, so him being gone kind of sucks. But Xavier Rhodes is gone. Trey Wayne, your whole defensive back room is basically gone and the cornerback room. So I think the difference that why the Lions could maybe be a better team, because we mentioned how good this offense could be maybe if this Lions defense could mold together maybe Corey Island was that x factor that we've been missing if this Lions defense could build together with

that offense they had last year with Matthew Stafford we're talking about a pretty damn good football team right now I mean that that's if everything goes well that's where I could see the difference why the Lions could be better than Vikings just just from defensive because I think right now personally the Detroit Lions offense is better than the Minnesota Vikings offense with you guys losing Stephon Diggs with Kirk Cousins I think Stafford is an improvement and upgrade over the Vikings and I like our offensive line better than Minnesota Vikings so I like our offense in general more than the Minnesota Vikings. But I think there's a slight chance, there's a slight chance that the Detroit Lions defense could potentially be better than the Minnesota Vikings with guys knowing the system

and year three of Matt Patricia, rather than a team that's kind of retooling their defense right now with losing like I mentioned almost every corner on their team and losing two stars on their defensive line Linval Joseph and Everson Griffin so you know if this line's defense can mold together and become a top 15 unit or at least a top 20 unit I think that's why I reason the lines could be a better team than the Minnesota Vikings this year all right Malcolm make your case we'll let you go second instead of last this time. Okay. I kind of just a little disagree with Tyler as far as the offense.

I mean, the reason why I don't think the Detroit Lions offense right now is better than Minnesota Vikings because Minnesota Vikings could do whatever they want on offense. They need to run the ball. They can run the ball. They need to pass the ball. They can pass the ball. They can play action.

They can do whatever they want right now. Until that happens and Detroit is able to run the ball, I can pass the ball, play action. They can do whatever they want right now. Until that happens and Detroit's able to run the ball, I can't say that our offense is better than Minnesota Vikings' offense. But can it be? Absolutely. If we do get the running game going, if TJ Hawkinson does take that next level from his rookie year and play like week one of last year and play all year like that, it's going to be crazy.

So I do think they could be better Minnesota Vikings. And then Tyler was saying about the secondary, playing with a lot of rookies on the secondary is, I mean, it's tough. I mean, because they're going to have a lot of growing pains. So, I mean, playing a lot of teams like the Lions, the Green Bay Packers, who has Devontae Adams, the Lions, they have Kenny Galladay. It's going to be tough for the rookies. So I think we could definitely – there's a chance that we could be better

than the Vikings. Pierre, your turn. You have young corners, Stafford and Beville. They're just going to circle them and target them until they improve. That's basically – I mean, that's how you look at it. But the Vikings still have like a hell of a front seven. You know, they got Barr. They got Kendricks, two of the best linebackers, in my opinion.

Daniel Hunter is a top five edge rusher. Michael Pierce, the guy you signed, is really underrated. I liked him a lot. So, I mean, the Vikings are still pretty damn good, but like they're vulnerable in the secondary. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. They just launched their partnership with Michelob Golden Light for the Mick Golden Light Fishing Club merch line.

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Yeah, and I think if we're talking about what wins in football, it's passing successfully and stopping the pass successfully. And the Vikings last year, I mean, it's one of the reasons that they weren't better, even though they had a very favorable schedule, was that, like you guys mentioned, Xavier Rhodes couldn't stop anything. He was literally one of the worst corners in the NFL last year when it came to completion percentage against quarterback rating against all those things. the Lions absolutely had his number even throughout his career when he was at his best it seemed like Matt Stafford would always complete a big pass or two against Xavier Rhodes the only thing that I would say to that is just the camp get worse than what

they had there last year even at the other position, Trey Waynes struggled at times and Mackenzie Alexander was mostly solid, but your position as a whole did not give them a lot last year. So if the young players are just as good or even a little bit better, then you're talking about probably the same defense because they have kept Anthony Harris, brought in Michael Pierce and that sort of thing. But I think you guys make an overall strong case, and I tend to agree with it. That's why I actually wanted you guys on, because I think the Lions do have an argument for having a better offense. If DeAndre Swift can be their Delvin Cook,

then everything changes for the Detroit Lions offense. So, all right, before we wrap this up, it's been lots of fun, Tyler, Pierre, and Malcolm, but I need some help here. I looked back through some things in Lions history, and I just want to ask you about them in a segment I'm going to call What Happened There. So I'm going to ask you about a thing in Lions history and then just ask what happened. Oh, no. Barry Sanders randomly retired in 1999.

Oh, no. What happened there? He was my favorite player as a kid. Sanders randomly retired in 1999. Oh, no. What happened there? He was my favorite player as a kid. I think I should probably answer this because they didn't see too much of Barry. I wasn't born then. Yeah. My work doesn't want. I mean, so many things, man.

Like, he couldn't get up the first round of playoffs. He's just, I mean, maybe. It's just tough, man. I mean, he's just, when you know that you're doing you're putting everything on the field and everything you're that you could possibly do is just not good enough i mean i don't know i don't want to live relive this memory you can hear the hurt uh well you know the running game has done fine since, so no big deal. What?

Extreme, extreme sarcasm. I don't know where. All right, next one, maybe you guys, some of you were born at least by this one, but this might be for you again, Malcolm. In 2002, Marty Morniweg gave the Chicago Bears the ball in overtime after winning the coin toss and, of course, lost the game. What happened there? Anybody?

Can we even explain that? Like, how do you explain what Morni – I mean, to this day – I don't understand it. Like, I've seen every – like, I've never understood it. I've never understood it from this single – Was Windy in Chicago? Was that the thing he wanted, the wind?

Remember, you ever heard the thing, the same old lines? That was, like, that time. Like, the same old lines. That's when it was big. Like, oh, everything was like, oh, same old lines. Like, it was around that time. Yeah. Yeah, and speaking of that, Matt Millen drafted Charles Rogers,

Roy Williams, and Mike Williams in back-to-back-to-back years, which we know now drafting three wide receivers in the first round, not a bad idea. Like, statistically speaking, a very valuable position, yet all three of them were bad. What happened there? I can answer this. And I kind of see where he was going with this because when we drafted charles rogers um charles rogers only

played like two games and he got hurt broke his collarbone out for the year and then the receiving core at that time we didn't have nobody so i guess we were looking at like all right if charles rogers doesn't go down again at least he'll have somebody else to play with him so at the second year after he drafted he drafted Roy Williams. And Roy Williams, actually, he made it to the Pro Bowl. He played well with us. And then until, you know, we ultimately got Calvin, and then they traded him off to Dallas. And then before that, they drafted Mike Williams.

I'm not sure what they were thinking with Mike Williams. That was just a horrible pick. Was there a situation with him where he didn't play? He didn't play. Yeah, he didn't play the year prior. So he took a whole year off, and they dropped him. I get it. He was a beast the year before.

He did play in college, but he didn't play for a whole year. He came back, and it was just, what were you doing? All right. Well, I had a different question written down, but I want to get our Gen Z guys involved more here. Megatron decided, Calvin Johnson, that he just wasn't going to play anymore. So the way Malcolm felt about Barry Sanders is, I'm sure, the way you feel about him.

What happened there? So the Calvin Johnson thing was his body was breaking down, essentially, and the organization just, don't know man you hear everything kelvin says now like if he joins a talk show or a podcast or whatever it's like never anything positive about the detroit lions just saying yeah i mean i don't know it just seemed kind of like very standard you know we just weren't winning you know and you're not winning you're putting everything on the field you know what, what's the point? You know, I either want to be traded, go to a different team and succeed, or, you know, to hell with you.

I'm retiring. You know, like I'm not going to keep putting my body on the line consistently every year for us to go 79 or for us to go 6 and 10 and get a middle of the draft pick and not improve any what someone just stay mediocre. Like they never in the Calvinvin johnson era really showed to push the needle to take the next step they were either really mediocre or just really bad and we never saw and we still have never seen a team where we're like wow the lines could be a suitable contender going to the year we've never had that unless, you know, you have some people in Detroit, you know, they call it Kool-Aid. We drink a little bit much too Kool-Aid. I don't know. I think he

just saw there was no direction with the team and I can't blame him, honestly, because, you know, if I wasn't from Detroit and I wasn't an Alliance fan, you know, I didn't know the struggle. I'd probably quit on that team too. Wow. Wow, Tyler. Wow, you'll quit on us. Okay. I think with Calvin Johnson, like if you notice that game when we played against the Packers in 2015 when Aaron Rodgers threw that Hail Mary, and you've probably seen the memes of it with Elf, when Calvin Johnson looked like he's going down in the elevator.

Yeah, yeah. I think that game sucked everything out of him. You know, you kind of tell, like, that game was, like, probably, like, what else do I have to do? You know? But just like Barry, I mean, with him, with Calvin, though, you could kind of tell. Like, you look at his fingers.

His fingers were doing, like, a whole bunch of crazy stuff. Like, he was banged up. And I think, like, he look at his fingers, his fingers were doing, like, a whole bunch of crazy stuff. Like, he was banged up. And I think, like, he just had enough. Yeah. Do you have a third inside, Pierre? So, like, the Lions, I would assume, were winning. Calvin had, like, injury issues. I feel like if the Lions were winning, he would have played longer.

And also, the one thing I hate is the Lions made him pay, like, $1.5 million back. You don't do that to your star player. You just don't. That's why the relationship is like really bad. I mean, it's a million and a half to billionaires. That's nothing. You know, you don't, you don't do that to a player like that. So they're like trying to mend the relationship there, but Calvin doesn't want anything to do it until they pay him back. It's one and a half million.

Well, I feel like I have, that is hilarious. I did not realize that. I feel like I have perspective on this a little bit with the Timberwolves here and the fact that Kevin Garnett will not allow his number to be retired because of some beef with the owner of the team all right well Pierre since they took all of your thunder I'll let you finish off on this Dan Orlovsky ran out of the back of the end zone just rolling out like a general average run-of-the-mill rollout play and ran out of the back of the end zone I too would be terrified of Jared Allen, but maybe just throw it away next time. What happened there?

I don't know. I mean, he laughs about it. Dan Orlowski laughs about it. He makes fun of himself. I mean, a stupid decision, you know, by a quarterback. But honestly, that year we went 0-16, so everything was going bad for the Lions. I guess I could have gone there as well with the 0-16 season.

Well, Tyler, Pierre, and Malcolm, you guys make up the Pride podcast covering the Detroit Lions in a fun and hilarious way. And so it's a little different than Purple Insider, but I think all Detroit Lions fans have to be self-deprecating or you just could not possibly be a Detroit Lions fan. So you guys are great, and I implore people to go check out your podcast, the Pride podcast. And thanks for all of your time, and I'm a little sorry.

Like I gave you a chance to convince me, and you did a good job, that the Lions should be considered for the NFC North, but the tenor of the second half of this thing was a little sad. My energy just fell right now. I was like, oh, TJ Hawkinson, DeAndre Swift, we're going to kill it this year. And then Dan Orlowski starts on the end zone. Calvin Johnson retiring.

Wow. We suck. Well, it's an assorted history. But anyway, it was really great to catch up with you guys. I also appeared on your podcast, Breaking Down Everything Vikings, so people can check it out. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that there is no shortage of action going on right now at our exclusive partners at betonline.ag.

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BetOnline, your online wagering experts. All right, before we wrap up here on Purple Insider, we have another version of Five Questions with Intern Paul. Intern Paul, how are you? I'm doing great, Matt. How are you doing? I am fantastic. So where would you like to begin with your five questions? All right. Well, first one will go off of last week's podcast episode when you had Sage and Jeremiah talking about the best players they played with. Great podcasts. But I want to ask you, who have been the best players you've covered in your career? Maybe not five, maybe name two of them. I know you've been in football, you've been single A baseball, maybe there's a

really good hitter back there that you want to talk about. But yeah, who have been the best players that you've covered? Well, okay, I'll start with single A baseball. I've got two for you that came through during my time as the play-by-play broadcaster for the single-A Batavia Muckdogs. Lucas Giolito is one who Twins fans remember smoking them this year. Well, he did the same thing to the Batavia Muckdogs. He was a really big prospect, but he was coming back kind of on a rehab thing, so they sent him down to the lowest A-level, and he pitched against our team twice, and I think he allowed three hits in 11 innings and, you know, more than a strikeout an inning or something. There are not too many pitchers at that level who are throwing 97, 98 miles an hour, so that was cool, Luke

Stiolito. The other one is Mookie Betts, and Mookie Betts played about as bad as I've ever seen anybody play in a weekend series, and he weighed, I want to say, about 160 pounds. He might have been 18, might have been 19. He was in over his head a little bit there, and then he took a huge, huge leap forward and became one of the best players in Major League Baseball. So those are two guys that I called games for in single A that became stars, that sort of came by, played our team, and then moved on.

In football, i think the answer is harrison smith is the best player uh a guy who is absolutely brilliant in the intellectual part of the game in the physical part of the game he can intercept passes sack quarterbacks rip running backs down in the backfield cover wide receivers if you needed to cover tight ends and i think he's really been the quarterback or the centerpiece of the Mike Zimmer defense for this entire time. And he would get a little more pub if he was more outgoing. But he's kind of a to-himself type of guy.

You don't see him on social media. You don't see him in the media a whole lot. When you talk to him, he's very soft-spoken. And I think that those things kind of play into him not getting the attention he deserves. Even though I put him right up there at a borderline Hall of Fame level, maybe someday we'll think of him as Hall of Very Good. I don't know if he's on the level of a Troy Polamalu, but I think he's close. And maybe there's just so much other talent and so many other high draft picks on the Zimmer defense through these years that has kind of kept him from being that. Hockey, it would be Jack Eichel. I was in Buffalo during his time and when they drafted him number two overall. Easily the most gifted player that I've been around. I think any sport

in terms of just natural skill, skating, explosiveness, the velocity of his shot, all those things from the very first day of training camp that he's out there he's the best player on the ice as a I don't know 18 or 19 year old so those stand out but there have been a lot of players with the Vikings over these last few years I mean Stefan Diggs certainly goes up in that category Adam Thielen is in that category as well and the player that I was most blown away by on a regular basis was probably Everson Griffin. Just his consistency, his drive, his violence of the way that he played. So all of those guys, I think, are Hall of Fame or Hall of Very Good type of level talents that I've gotten to cover.

And one name that Sage mentioned was Brett Favre. You guys had a great discussion about Brett Favre. And that got me thinking back on the 09 Vikings, how close they got to the Super Bowl, and then trying to compare them to the 2017 team that made it, obviously, to the NFC Championship game. And so that made me think in my head, well, which team was better? So second question, who would win in a head-to-head matchup between those two years of Vikings teams? I don't think this one's even close. I think it's the 0-9 Vikings. I mean, you're talking about one of the best quarterbacks of all time playing at the highest level. See, that year, Case Keenum was very good, and he was a borderline top 10 quarterback,

but in a season where a bunch of quarterbacks, including Aaron Rodgers, got hurt, the schedule kind of fell favorably for them, and really the defense was at the center of things for the 2017 Vikings and a lot of games where Case Keenum just kind of had to exist and not turn the ball over and he had some really good games that season but Favre was maybe the best quarterback in the NFL in 2009 so you have that you have Adrian Peterson at the height of his prime a great offensive line that was much better than the Vikings' offensive line in 2017, and then a reasonably good defense with a lot of talent on it. Not that long ago, ESPN played the game where Favre played against the Packers

at the Metrodome, and watching Jared Allen get off the line of scrimmage was insane at that point in his career. Antoine Winfield, Jr., so they had their – or I'm sorry, senior, Antoine Winfield, Sr., they had their, or I'm sorry, senior, Antoine Winfield Sr. They had their stars as well on defense that I think was in the ballpark of where the 2017 Vikings were on defense. But the offensive side, I don't even think there's any competition. And you look at the NFC Championship game,

the Vikings did everything they could to give that game away and still were within field goal range there. They fumbled a bunch of times, made a lot of mistakes. They were the better team than New Orleans by quite a bit in that game, and, of course, blew it at the end. But the 2017 Vikings go to the NFC Championship in completely no-show. They did not exist in that game. So I think this one is an easy answer.

Now the question between the 98 Vikings and the 09 Vikings, that one's a little bit harder. I might lean 09 because of Favre, but 15 and one, man, and Randy Moss just lighting the league on fire. Plus a good defense in 1998. That one is a lot more, a lot closer, I think, than 2017. Well, maybe I'm just showing my age a little bit with that one then uh i wasn't even born in the 98 viking season um yeah shifting to it yep shifting that is why you're in turn paul my god correct not born shifting to another old quarterback who moved teams late in his career uh photos were released a couple days ago of tom br Brady in a Bucs jersey. And when I saw the tweet from Adam Schefter, it looked just weird. And then they did Gronkowski, I think today.

Um, what current Viking would look the weirdest in a different jersey? I think we're going to see Stefan Diggs and that's going to be pretty strange since he was a Viking for his entire career. But part of, you know, Adam Thielen going to Mankato, being from Detroit Lakes, like he is fully 1,000% a Minnesotan. And if he were to play for the Jaguars or the Seahawks or something, that would be a really, really strange look. I could not imagine Adam Thielen playing for any other team than the Minnesota Vikings.

And you think about it, with Mankato, he's never worn anything but purple the entire time he's been an NFL player. I think that he's the one that comes to mind first. And a lot, I mean, a lot of these other guys have not played for any other team in their career. We're going to see Everson Griffin probably signed somewhere else. And he's a guy that played for the Vikings for a very, very long time. And wherever he does sign, that will look pretty strange too. Harrison Smith would be, I would bring him up again, someone who's been with the Vikings for such a long time,

going all the way back to 2013. Anybody who's grown themselves all the way up in a franchise to play somewhere else would be pretty weird. But I think that Phelan is the most Minnesotan thing that has ever happened to the state of Minnesota. Yeah, I was going to mention Harrison Smith. That one would really catch me off guard. Next question.

In lieu of what you did last week with your Responsible Expectations series, I wanted to turn it on its head a little bit. Give me one unreasonable Vikings expectation that you still kind of believe is going to happen this season. Okay, that's good. I would say that maybe I'd start with the defense as a whole, that you would be unreasonable in your expectations to have the Vikings as a top five defense, but could you still see it happening? I think you can because of the

superstar level talent that they still have on this roster. I mean, we've seen Anthony Barr before have amazing seasons, 2015 specifically, but even 2017 and 18, he was good. Last year, I thought that he slipped back a little bit, but if Anthony Barr kind of rises to the challenge, you get the same version of Eric Hendricks, you get 15 sacks out of Daniil Hunter, Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris are the same guys they were last year. It's not insane to think that they could still be a top defense, even though they have

inexperienced corners. And I would also leave the door open to them still signing a player or two in the secondary, you know, to come in with that young group of corners to give them a little more stability. Maybe even if it's just a nickel corner, who's a veteran and who has been around, that's probably one. The other one, too, that should be unreasonable and expecting but is possible is that they actually, and I know this would be shocking, have a decent offensive line. I'm not saying great. I'm saying good, though.

I mean, Brian O'Neill has progressively gotten better. If Garrett Bradbury takes a big jump forward in his second year and you have some of these guys fill in at the guard positions who are better than what they had last year, which is about the worst guard play in the NFL. So if they're even average at the guard position, let's say Dakota Dozier wins a job there or Ezra Cleveland, they move him over to guard and he plays well. Or Cleveland plays left tackle and Riley Reif is in at guard and he's actually good there. You could see a scenario where they have a fringe top 10 offensive line that would be absolute best case but not impossible and the one other one that came to my mind was revolving around Irv Smith I think everyone's expecting a big jump up from Irv Smith but like an all-pro jump something that maybe

could happen if he's number two in targets behind Thielen, maybe number one in some scenarios. I'm thinking back to Kubiak's days with Owen Daniels, Julius Thomas. Those guys didn't do much when they went somewhere else, but with him, they did really good. So could we see Irv take a huge jump? That's one that maybe I would think of. And then, yeah, last question.

I think that's a good one, though, for Irv Smith is that my reasonable expectation for him is let's say he gets 50 catches, and then you see Kyle Rudolph get another 40, and they kind of split that roll up. But would you be shocked if he became basically the number two wide receiver and he started to mold himself into a Travis Kelsey type of player or a George Kittle type of player? I mean, that's getting a little too high on him after his first year,

but I liked a lot of the things that I saw out of him. Not only can he play in the slot, but he can be moved outside, and he really showed that in line is a tight end. He can block, and they didn't even use him in the backfield for little screens or anything like that, like he actually was used occasionally at Alabama. So you could see him becoming basically a centerpiece of this offense this year in the best-case scenario.

I would not put that under being reasonable for your expectations. It would be through the roof, but certainly within the realm of something that you could see. And now before we jump down here, we were talking about the Zoom calls that you guys, the media has been doing with offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, different players, and that's just one of the changes that we've seen

kind of with COVID and how the Vikings are doing their job and how people are doing their job. And so I wanted to ask you, do you see any other changes that have been made this off season, you know, the virtual draft, the virtual OTAs and mini camps? Just a couple of days ago, I think they might, they said they might expand practice squad rosters. So of all this stuff that's kind of changed, do you think any of it has a chance to stick beyond in a post-COVID world? That's a good question. I think that what you mentioned with the expanded practice squad rosters would make a lot of sense. I mean, there are just so many talented players in football that you could form spring leagues,

and it's not the talent that brings down the spring leagues. Usually there's a lot of very good players in the XFL or the UFL from years ago, the AAF, that you see some of those players transition in the NFL and have good careers after that. So what that tells you is that there are other players who maybe need development or are young and have the talent to do it, but just don't have a spot at that moment that get cut and end up out of the league and playing in spring leagues that I think teams would rather keep. And we always get down to these position battles at the very end. And there's four or five guys who get cut and maybe aren't eligible for the practice squad or something, but even young

players who get cut seventh round picks or something that were drafted for good reason, and they just can't figure out a place to put them. So that's something that I could see. Definitely could see more virtual teaching in general now that everybody knows how to do it. Think about the way that you and I are recording this right now over a Zoom call. This didn't even exist or was not even in the realm of what we knew how to do even six months ago. And now I use this all the time for recording this podcast. And so these types of advancements that have made it easier for teams to connect with their players, to teach their players, to share their screens and show them what's going on, that could be something that they do a lot more often to connect with players, even at

the draft. I mean, they're flying these guys all over the country. You go visit the Jaguars, then you go visit the Panthers, then you go visit the Vikings. Well, I mean, wouldn't it be better to just get the guy on a Zoom call and not have him flying all over the country if a team wants to meet with him? Those things, I I think could change. And we'll see about just fans at sporting events. I don't know how long this is going to go.

So there might have to be some advancements when it comes to sporting events, even for this year or beyond, because the way that we're trending with COVID is not toward this thing being eliminated even by the end of this year and they talk about the possibility of it coming back and things like that I am no epidemiologist but it just doesn't seem like it's ready to disappear so there might have to be measures that they take going forward to keep players safe and healthy and to keep fans safe and healthy when they are allowed to come back to games and then one more thing I just want to circle back on was the expanded practice squad thing. I think they're at 12 right now.

The proposal would go up to 16. Is 12 just an arbitrary number that they put down? Like, is there a reason they don't want more people on the practice squad? Yeah, it was 10 before, and they were already going to expand it to 12. But yeah, I think it's kind of just random. But also it has to do with how much you have to pay, because every one of those players, and yes, NFL teams are very rich, but every one of those players has their own salary. It's usually between like 60,000 and 100,000. And if you've got 16 of those guys, I mean, that adds up. That's like a free agent player.

And it doesn't count toward the salary cap, but it still does for your ownership having to flip that bill. So I don't know if they would want to do that because of how much more they would have to dole out. My guess is that they just picked sort of a cutoff of what helps you practice team on team. Because what usually ends up is you have the scout team offense versus your regular defense, scout team defense versus regular offense. And you need enough

players to be able to fill in those spots to make it two offenses and two defenses to practice i'm guessing that that's where they settled with 10 or where they settled with 12 but maybe it was just kind of pulling out of thin air all right matt those are all the questions i had okay i didn't realize that we just just went right through them. Intern Paul, very good questions. We will get together and do this again very soon. And if you see any tweets you like, favorite them because they are very likely Intern Paul. So thanks, Intern Paul.

Thank you.