Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Bisi Johnson is out for the year, what will the Vikings do at depth receiver?

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Matthew Coller talks about receiver Bisi Johnson tearing his ACL and what that means to the Vikings' depth at receiver and what they could do to replace him. Plus fan questions, including whether the Vikings should be looking to target Odell Beckham and spend the last few dollars that they have with the salary cap, also why the center position is an obsession of Vikings fans and how teams use numbers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. This episode, my house has power. So I don't think it really affected the podcasting ability because of the hot spot and our internet was able to work. But now it's a little better because my refrigerator is going and my house has power and I can see things. But other than that, no real changes from yesterday. But we do have some things to get into and we'll go to also a bunch of fans only questions as well. So we need to start out with BC Johnson tearing his ACL.

We talked about this to open the podcast a little bit yesterday, that the injury didn't look great for B.C. Johnson. And then it was reported by NFL Network Tom Pelissero today that B.C. Johnson is going to be out for the year. So a couple of things to think about with this. The first being that this is just awful for B Johnson. I mean, this is a guy who had an ACL tear last year, early in training camp, worked his way back and had become the Vikings most reliable and effective receiver in training camp, not named Jefferson Thielen or KJ Osborne. He was getting a ton of praise from Wes Phillips, from Kevin O'Connell, from Kirk Cousins. And it just seemed like he was going to provide them with some of the depth that they were missing last year.

When Adam Thielen went down, they could have used BC Johnson because even though he's not this next level explosive freakish athlete, he knows where he's supposed to be how the offense works and has good hands and Kirk Cousins brought it up multiple times but I think he was right to do so in the game in 2020 against Carolina they don't win if BC Johnson doesn't step up and have a good game and get seven catches in that game playing the role of essentially Adam Thielen and they won't have that now and it really does affect their depth because this is a team that's going to run three wide playing the role of essentially Adam Thielen, and they won't have that now, and it really does affect their depth because this is a team that's going to run three wide receivers all the time.

If this was a couple years ago when they were running more two tight end stuff with Kyle Rudolph and Irv Smith Jr., Irv Smith was basically wide receiver three most of the time, and they didn't really require a ton of receiver depth but in this system they do so now it's walking on thin ice a little bit i think amir smith-marset has shown some that he's made progress and he certainly has the physical ability to beat somebody to go up and make a really nice catch even in the preseason game there was a bit of an inaccurate throw by Sean Mannion he went up and got it he's got skill

but the reliability factor really went to BC Johnson which is why he was wide receiver four and why Kevin O'Connell when he talked about it after the game seemed pretty shook up so now there's the question of do they just go with Amir Smith-Marset and possibly Jalen Naylor and I'm going to go through my toughest decision at each position as we go into the final 53 which will be set on Tuesday they'll have cut down day I guess I shouldn't call it the final final 53 because changes can be made but the cut down to 53 which will happen on Tuesday. And of course we'll have a reaction here, but I'll go through some of their most difficult decisions

at each position in just a second. But to finish the point on BC Johnson, they may have to look for other answers there because right now the depth chart is probably after KJ Osborne. It's probably Amir Smith-Marset and either Jalen Naylor, who also got hurt in the game, had a concussion, or Tristan Jackson, who's been with the twos a lot. He is, I think, more likely to end up on the practice squad because somebody else is not going to pick up Tristan Jackson. But that kind of leaves you to start thinking about, you know, is there somebody on the free agent market? And, you know, the guy that

is probably the most capable receiver on the free agent market is somebody that you might not really want on the team because of things that he tweets and the way that he talks, which is Cole Beasley. I saw that he was kind of tweeting up a storm today about still being a free agent and still being a good player and so forth, but he kind of ran himself out of the league with a lot of really silly comments, which is I think a major part of why Buffalo wanted to move on and so forth. And he is very skilled though, and a good receiver. There's also other guys out there that have not declared that they're not playing. Like Emmanuel Sanders is another one who wasn't great in Buffalo last year,

but might be a serviceable wide receiver. I haven't seen anything said by Deshaun Jackson of whether he's going to play. Didn't really work out for him in Los Angeles last year, but he would know some of this offense. But do these guys want to be a depth receiver? I don't really know. I got a question on Twitter of whether Odell Beckham would be interested in coming to the Vikings. That is a tough sell. I don't think that Odell Beckham is coming to a team to be wide receiver four. It Seems more like he would go to a team where he could be the number two receiver. Plus he's not going to be able to start off right

away, but anyone they pick up, we've kind of done this dance before the late pickup wide receiver usually has a pretty tough time making any difference on the team. I mean, Josh Doxon, I specifically remember an entire Kirk Cousins press conference dedicated to Josh Doxon being added to the team. And Kirk talked about how they had great chemistry and all that from Washington. And he played in one game and had zero targets. Aldrick Robinson was the best version of this. Again, another guy that Cous cousins knew he had five touchdowns but he only had 17 total receptions on 35 targets so normally if you don't go through camp with somebody at the receiver position it's really hard to add them right at the end but the vikings have to consider

this with bc johnson going down so kind of a crushing injury for him i think really disappointing for everybody on the team since he had a good story of coming back from that ACL and a reliable and effective wide receiver who knew the offense very well and added a little bit of grit to his game as Wes Phillips talked about that they could throw in there at any time and he would know what he was supposed to do in any role. Now you don't really have that. And so even though they did everything they possibly could to prevent injuries, 33 guys sat out and still they ended up with at least one that could have an impact on the longterm. And that's why you don't play your

starters in preseason because BC Johnson, it could be a loss for them and you have to feel for the guy, but that wasn't Jefferson Thielen or KJ Osborne. It's not one of the top starters. That's why you sit them. If you're going to lose those guys, you're going to lose them in the regular season in the games that matter. I mean, even TJ Watt was playing just a little bit and he got hurt. And I know Mike Tomlin said he was okay, but like, why is TJ Watt playing in this game? Did TJ Watt need a tune-up? Like, probably not. So I think this is sort of evidence that the Vikings made the right decision. But even BC Johnson kind of had to be out there because some other guys were banged up

and he ends up being lost for the entire season. So not a great situation there with the depth receivers now for the Vikings. So let me run through a couple of these tough decisions that they're going to have to make. And then we'll get into fans only questions. Lots of good questions still to go. But if you want to join in the party, I'm hoping to do a few fans only this week to catch up on some of the questions that you guys have asked. And I'm sorry if that they've kind of, if you asked one, but then they did something or we kind of know the answer to it now. And then I didn't answer it.

So I apologize for that, for getting a little bit behind. We had a lot of guests and a lot of things happening to break down. So let's just, I'm going to go just position by position real quick on the 53, and then we'll get into those questions. Purpleinsider.com, go to the contact us if you want to send a question, or go to my Twitter. Feel free to send me a DM or even just a tweet and let me know it's a fans only question. And don't type in only fans, because that's kind of the joke, but that will send you to some very, very, very interesting corners of the internet. Uh, anyway, so a quarterback, I am assuming Nick Mullins is going to be the backup quarterback. We could always be shocked here, but that's the assumption I'm making. I think that they will put Sean Mannion

on the practice squad and have him be the backup quarterback for the first few weeks. But it is not an easy decision. Anytime you have a young player of whether like Helen Mond, you should cut them because the last thing you want is for that player to get cut by you and then go to another team and turn out to be a good quarterback. That's the last thing you want to see. But with Mond playing in the fourth quarter and still having his typical struggles, that usually means that the experiment is over. Running back, people have asked this question and maybe I'll get to it in a fan question here shortly, but the only question at running back is whether they need a fullback because I cannot see any of these other running backs being cut. Kenne Wongwu is one of the best

kick returners in the NFL. He's going to be on the team. Ty Chandler was just terrific. They're not getting rid of him. Do they need CJ Hamm? I think that they do. And I think that they will keep him not just because he's CJ Hamm and he's awesome and everybody loves him, but he plays all the special teams and you can put him in at a lot of different spots and do

different things with him. So even if you were only using CJ ham for eight plays a game, those are eight plays that the opponent is not necessarily preparing for when they're looking at your offense, when they're going through those preseason games and analyzing, all right, here's all the Rams stuff that they're doing. The C.J. Hamm plays are not really in that book. They did cut their backup fullback, which somebody asked about Jake Bargis. Like, do they need a backup fullback? And the answer is probably no. I'm sorry.

I forget who asked that question. But there was like good intuition there of like they don't need necessarily a backup fullback or even a fullback in general. But since Ham does a lot of different things, well, he's kind of a different story and a player that you want to have on your team. But that would be the only challenging question when it comes to the running back position at wide receiver, who takes BC Johnson spot behind Amir Smith-Marset? Is it Jalen Naylor?

Is it Tristan Jackson? Myron Mitchell didn't show a whole lot in his second straight preseason, not a lot to talk about, but who's going to be behind Amir Smith-Marset to fill in that spot for BC Johnson on the initial 53? And then will that player be there after that? I'm guessing that it's going to be Jalen Naylor because you don't really want to cut a sixth round draft pick. And it's not like Jalen Naylor

was horrendous. Like he showed, uh, you know, a play here or there, but he didn't make a big difference where you said, Oh, they've got this like next Stefan digs or something. But I think that it makes sense for him to make the team in the same way Smith-Marset did last year or KJ Osborne did the year before. Have him on the team, have him be a developing player and a potential depth guy. And wide, or I'm sorry, a tight end,

it comes down to Ben Elfson or Zach Davidson. I believe that they will keep Ben Elfson. I might be surprised just because Zach Davidson. I believe that they will keep Ben Ellefson. I might be surprised just because Zach Davidson has more speed and could be a downfield threat, but he hasn't caught the ball very well. And I think Ellefson is going to be looked at as more reliable on the offensive line. Does Jesse Davis or only Udo get cut aside from that? Like, I think they might have Vidarian low make the team, but I'm not really sure. But one of those veteran or experienced players, will they cut them?

I mean, it could be Chris Reid if they like what they've seen out of Jesse Davis, but I don't think it's been all that good. On the defensive line, are they going to cut Asasia Tomowo is a question because they drafted him in the fifth round, but he was on the third team the entire time. I was projecting the defensive line to still include James Lynch because he's been with the second team and they need some big guys who are somewhat experienced, I guess. But T.Y. McGill is certainly another question. I don't know how hurt he is after getting injured on Saturday night, but T.Y. McGill had a great preseason. Did he do enough to earn a spot? Jonathan Bullard is definitely in, so I don't know if McGill is going to make it. He might be the veteran practice squad guy. Linebackers, I initially had six on my

first projection before training camp, but I can't find six players that they would want to keep here. I can only find four. So will they only keep four linebackers? And really there's only three guys that actually made a case. And that would be Kendrick's Hicks and Brian Asamoah. I think Troy die had a pretty tough preseason, but, uh, die got the second team reps. And I would guess that he's going to be that guy beyond that. Didn't see a lot of Blake Lynch. He's somebody that's made the team before has had his moments, however brief, but when he had to get in the game, seemed to know what he was doing.

Seemed like a guy that Mike Zimmer liked Chaz Surratt. That just doesn't seem to be working out. So I think they're only going to go with four linebackers here. As far as the corners go, are they going to keep a backup nickel, which would be like Perry Nickerson as opposed to Chris Boyd? But Boyd's a special teamer.

Yeah, I'm not really sure on that. Like who's going to be behind a Caleb Evans and Andrew Booth Jr.? Who's the next guy? Is it going to be Chris Boyd? That's who I have now. They also brought back Ty Smith briefly. Is he going to be that Boyd? That's who I have now. They also brought back Ty Smith briefly. Is he going to be that guy?

Not having a nickel corner aside from Shandon Sullivan is a little bit playing with fire there. So do they keep somebody who has played nickel before? Safeties just make sense to have Harrison Smith, Kambine, and Lewis Seen. I've got Josh Metellus making it, special teamer. And then, of course, know, that the punt off, we didn't get a punt off. So there's, there's no big question of which punter they will keep why they had to wait or why they couldn't wait until final cutdowns to give us the extra pop of great punter drama. Maybe it was to help Jordan Berry be the first guy out there to get a job that's

probably it uh because he because Jordan Berry punted fine during the preseason it just turns out that Ryan Wright is a complete freak show from what we saw the other night so there's kind of a rundown of what I'm thinking and none of that is all that dramatic I mean like if you've paid really close attention to all these things, then you probably knew what I was talking about just there. But if you didn't, there might've been some names where you went, who's he talking about? Who's he going there? This is one of the least dramatic cut down days, unless they totally shock us with somebody.

And then we'll have a ton to talk about, but we will break down the 53 when it happens. I just don't expect that there's going to be anything crazy that makes us go, what? You know, that kind of thing. All right, let's get into fans only. And I do have a Diet Dr. Pepper with me. So let's crack that open. And there is a Diet Dr. Pepper question that I have here. So Kevin, via email, asked about what we think they're going to do. He says, what do you think Kwesi and Kevin O'Connell will do with the remaining cap space? Any chance of signing Odell Beckham with the unfortunate BC News?

I don't think so. I think that if they were going to look at Odell Beckham, there would have had to have been a bigger injury. It would have had to have been Thielen or Jefferson or KJ Osborne. And since those guys didn't play in the preseason and they avoided that, which is the best news that they could have walking into the season with their top three wide receivers healthy. If I'm Odell Beckham and I'm not going to be able to play maybe even until what, October or November, I don't know what his injury timeline is. I'm looking for a team that is going to be in the race that needs a wide receiver to throw to very similar to what he did last year. Maybe he'll be the renter receiver for all Superbowl contenders going forward. That was Andre Rison back in the day where Andre Rison like ends up

on the Packers and then, you know, whatever, right. Would be on a bunch of different teams trying to win and did win, I think with the Packers in 96, but Odell Beckham doesn't really have a lot of incentive to come here because he would want to roll. He's going to want the football. And that's fine because I'm sure by October or November, there will be a situation where somebody's wide receiver got injured and they're a competitor and he's going to go there. But until then, I don't see much incentive for him. He just got a ring. He's got plenty of money.

Like he could sit back and rehab and work himself into 100% before he has to make that decision. I do think some of the other guys I named could be possibilities for them to look at some veteran wide receiver to come in and just be depth and get to know the offense. And then ifasley necessarily, but he is a very gifted slot receiver. The slot receiver is a huge deal in this offense. So if they did it, you know, I guess it wouldn't be a move that I said, like, what are you doing? Because, I mean, he is a good wide receiver. So that's kind of that. As far as remaining cap space, I looked at the cap space they have, and it's really not all that much. Like when you hear 10 million, you're like, wow, you could sign anybody you want, but not really because every team needs to have some leftover. So you would have to make sure

that you only are spending a couple of million players that are still out there at this point, too. There's always the question of like, do they want to play? Why are they still out there at this point too there's always the question of like do they want to play why are they still out there we've talked about and dominican sue sheldon richardson and just to illustrate the point there's only one team in the nfl with less than 5.4 million dollars and the vikings i think are like 18th or maybe there's been some shuffling then they're even lower in terms of total cap space. So there's tons of teams with more or the same amount of cap space as the Vikings. It's very routine to have somewhere between 5 and 10 million in reserve in case you have

a serious injury and then you need to make a move. And the Vikings have often used this extra cap space, like when they traded for Yannick Agakwe, like that was using their extra reserve. So I guess if you're going to use it, then now is the time to use it because once you get to the regular season, you're probably not making some big trade or something like that. But yeah, I think that when you look at the list of players who are remaining, there's very few signings that

you think would be a difference maker. And the guys that could be, we've kind of discussed a little bit, an extra wide receiver, an extra pass rushing defensive lineman. They could, yeah, they could go out and get somebody last minute. The only thing is I thought they would have done it by now. If they felt they really needed to get someone. If they needed to get an additional center like JC Tretter, if they wanted to go down that road, then they would have done that by now. And I think at this point, they should probably just carry over the salary cap to next year, the salary cap space, or use whatever is required and just go from there. And we go off the overthecap.com numbers and they're as close to accurate

as you're going to find, but there may be other things mixed in that we don't know about that would be reasons they couldn't spend it. I don't know, incentives or contracts that they don't have exactly a hundred percent. Right. So yeah, I don't know that they are going to say, Oh, we've got five bucks in our pocket. We better go spend it at the 7-Eleven or whatever. Like, I don't know. But it wouldn't be a shock if they looked at the roster and said, all right, well, there's one guy out there that we need to fill this extra position that we've evaluated everyone and we're a little weak there. So we're going to sign someone. But as far as the names, you just wonder for a lot of the guys, if you're still a free agent, are you planning on playing this year?

Because it kind of looks like you're not. Someone like Deshaun Jackson or Emmanuel Sanders kind of looks like you're not going to play if you haven't signed yet. And I get asked all the time about the week one thing. After week one, you can sign guys and you don't have to have it guaranteed. That just doesn't happen a whole lot anymore. I mean, it is an option. It is possible.

But I don't think that the Wilfs are too concerned about handing out dollars to somebody. If you want to sign them, you really need to sign them before the end of training camp. So I wouldn't expect that they're going to say, we've got a few million left. We absolutely have to spend it. Um, I guess I'm waffling a little saying that I wouldn't be surprised either if they made one more signing, but I don't think there's like too many difference making moves that they can make here in the last minute. And maybe they'll surprise me. Uh, okay. This comes from, uh, Mersh Jeff on Twitter. Sell me on Dr. Pepper cans versus bottles is the taste difference or the sound it makes when opening hot take glass bottles, rain King. I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't think I've ever

had a soda out of a glass bottle. I mean, it's like a classic thing, but I can't say that I remember ever doing it. Like the, uh, Len Dawson passed away and there's that picture where he's got the fresca. I I've never like, you know, glass bottle. I honestly don't think that I've ever had a soda out of a glass bottle. So I believe you that it probably gets the coldest in that way, but I've just, I'm sorry. I've just never tried it. Um, as far as cans versus bottles. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that bottles maybe have a, like preserve a little more flavor, but cans get colder and such as so many things in life, there are just sacrifices to each. Maybe cans are a little easier to recycle or get rid of. I tend to have cans as you guys can hear. It is a very satisfying sound when you

open it up. You guys love it for fans only, but I think I'm going to go with cans because of that. But there is something to like a cold bottle does kind of have that extra little classic diet, Dr. Pepper taste. So, I mean, either one is really fine with me, but I tend to lean pretty heavily toward the cans because I like it ice freezing cold. Okay. This comes from atro28. Fans only question for you,

which rookie quarterback was the NFL completely wrong about? I know it's early in the pre or it's early on just the preseason, but I don't care about his stats. Malik Willis showed me athleticism and adaptability in his brief appearance. Will Minnesota come to regret not taking a third round flyer on him? And also with our lack of depth at tight end, is it possible that the versatile CJ Hamm is given tight end like responsibilities and playing time over less

reliable options. I think that they hope they don't have to do that. But also like Johnny Muntin has played in the league for a while. I know he's only got a handful of catches, but he's a guy that can play the tight end position. Ben Ellison seems to be able to do that as well. If one of those guys got down, I think you are probably elevating Zach Davidson from the practice squad. It's my assumption that that's how it's going to play out, that the fourth tight end is going to get cut, put on the practice squad, and then that person would be elevated. But mixing CJ Hamm into a spot where he's going to block and line up a tight end would not be unusual. It's kind of part of the reason that they like

CJ Ham so much is that you can line them up at different spots and you can look at the defense and go like, Oh, okay. Well, they've got a linebacker out over CJ Ham who's lined up at receiver or tight end or something that probably means it's man coverage. Or if they don't, that probably means it's zone coverage. So he's kind of his own little like coverage indicator by himself. I don't think that he would really be considered the backup tight end though, because that is a lot of different responsibilities that he's not used to. I think in a small sample you can, but you'd probably have to prepare him for it before you go into the game.

And then he's probably the emergency, like fourth tight end in a game if you have to. But to your question, will they regret not taking any one of those quarterbacks? At this moment, I would still say the answer is no. Would be my guess because I don't want to overreact to what we saw in preseason games. Now, the one exception to this is Kenny Pickett. That's the exception. Because if Kenny Pickett, who was absolutely phenomenal in preseason, if he turns out to be the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise quarterback, then yeah, regrets for sure. Because he was right there and you could have taken him. And the whole thing with the Vikings was on draft night. Well, all right.

None of these guys thought that, uh, or none of these teams thought that these guys were worth a first round pick. So if the league doesn't evaluate any of them as a first round pick, the odds just plummet that there'll be any good. And look, I mean, there were people who fell in love with Kellen Mond and really loved him in college. All of the third round picks have their own story of why they're worth being an nfl draft pick but like davis mills is another example people in houston are kind of excited about davis mills

more likely than not the guy's probably not that great right and they're going to draft high and they're going to take a quarterback and that's going to be their franchise guy going forward. Because that's just the history of what happens with third and fourth round quarterbacks in the NFL. It's not like they're all just completely lost and useless once you get past the first round. There's always a reason to like a Desmond Ritter, a Malik Willis, even a Sam Howell, who had some pretty good moments in the preseason, but that's a totally different universe of being a franchise type of quarterback. Malik Willis certainly has the physical gifts and I saw some of him playing in preseason. He made a really awesome, you know, sidearm throw and his arm is extremely strong. He's incredibly quick.

There's probably two quarterbacks in the NFL who are better runners than Malik Willis. And as a backup quarterback, that is great because even if the guy can't throw, he could come in and make plays with his legs. This was always the reason to draft Jalen hurts, right? It's like, maybe he's just okay as a thrower, but he can win some games based on his legs. He could be like a Vince Young or something. But at this moment, I would not be willing to say, oh yeah, they screwed up. They should have taken him. Now, if there is a counter argument, you could say, well, they took a linebacker. So if Malik Willis turns out and they took a linebacker, then they took with quarterbacks on the board, a position that was a gajillion times

less valuable. And they should have taken a shot when maybe the league missed something. I am just based on the entire history of drafting quarterbacks in the mid and late rounds, just not going to go there as far as second guessing that because every team in the league had reasons not to do it. Pickett is the one. If Pickett becomes a franchise quarterback and the Steelers saw something you didn't, I mean, the same with sort of the Mac Jones conversation last year, though, we're going to talk to Chad Graff later this week, Matt Patricia and Joe judge running the show in new England. It's just bound to implode. Right. And it doesn't look like it's been very good in training camp,

but I think Mac Jones is a good quarterback. So you've have Mac Jones right there on the board. You take a tackle who looks good, but what difference will it make right? Versus a quarterback that you can build around and put a bunch of money around. So with Pickett, if he becomes good, it's very similar to Mac Jones, where you can look back and you can say, you guys looked for perfect and didn't understand that good enough actually works when someone's on their rookie contract. A good enough prospect can get you deep in the playoffs or to a Superbowl. I mean, Jared Goff did it. Carson Wentz did it,

got his team there and put them in position to go to a Superbowl with the rookie quarterback contract. And even Baker Mayfield won 11 games. Like even average is really good when it comes to not paying anything for this quarterback. So that that's the one I would think about a lot more than when it came to, uh, Malik Willis, but I mean, Malik Willis is a really fun player. And I thought when he was coming out after watching him at the senior bowl, that he would

be a first round pick and his talent was kind of insane when it came to his physical gifts. But, uh, the NFL did not agree with that, which is usually a sign that it's not going to work out. So, I mean, I appreciate that question. I think that if any of those guys does become a franchise quarterback, it'll be more under the, so there's different umbrellas, right? It's like the Michael Thomas, this will be under the Michael Thomas umbrella. A lot of teams passed. You totally understood why, but still it's kind of classic Vikings of like, Oh no, they missed on this player. Right? They, they didn't take Warren sap when they should have, like, it probably falls under that category. It was understandable and justifiable why they didn't, but had they been the team who did it go, it will go under

that category. Their process was not horrible to not draft Malik Willis. But if he becomes great, then you'll go, oh, come on. He was right there. Folks, want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. SodaStick.com has all of your great Minnesota sports designs, whatever sports you're looking for, but specifically for this show, football. They have John Randall, Randy Moss, Adam Thielen, lots of great designs there and everything with the word skull written on it. So make sure you go to SodaStick.com. Great hats, t-shirts, hoodies. I've got a bunch of them in my closet. So make sure you check that out. S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K dot com. All right, next question here.

Let's see. This is Peter via email. There's been much talk again about Garrett Bradbury in the center position. Do you think that some of the fan dissatisfaction with him is because we have been spoiled with previous incumbents such as Tinglehoff, Burke, Sullivan, Christie, and Loudermilk? That's going back some time there. They have been hard acts to follow, so maybe we need to temper expectations and realize that he will never reach such heights, and so be prepared to move on. Loving the podcast from the UK. Thank you, Peter. Yeah, no, I don't think that that's why though.

I think it's because we have PFF. I really do. That if we didn't have PFF, we would notice that he was getting beaten a lot, but I don't think we would have quite the sharp number to use to be able to look at it and say, no, this is not how centers are being beaten in the NFL. This is the worst graded center in the league at pass blocking that, you know, maybe even five years ago, the team might've been able to be like, well, you know, yeah, he's, he's got a little, you know, some weaknesses, nobody's perfect, but you know, most centers are like that. And Kevin O'Connell kind of tried to go there a little bit when he was talking about it

earlier this year, where he said like, well, most centers when they're isolated are going to struggle. And that's true, but we can come back and say, not that much though. They don't struggle that much because this guy has the worst grade in the league. And when it comes to offensive line grades, like these are credible. People ask me this sometimes about using the PFF grades. And what I've tried to do by having all the PFF guests on and talk through a lot of different things involving this team is get an idea of what we should use as like the best indicators with the greats.

So when it comes to a linebacker grade, for example, there's so many things that impact that. You know, there's like how the offense schemed against you. There's who's playing in front of you. There's, there's all sorts of different stuff. So if a linebacker has a year that's down, you don't necessarily say, well, that guy was horrible because there might be context to that, that you need. So Kendrick's last year is just a good example.

They didn't do a good job on the defensive line because Michael Pierce wasn't in there and the guards got out to block Eric Hendricks. He's undersized. Like you can kind of get that right. Xavier Rhodes, phenomenal corner for a couple of years. One of the best shutdown corners in the league was being asked to Island the best receivers, which is unusual in the NFL today. There's only a few guys who can do it. And every so often he would get penalized. It was more than a lot of the average corners in the league. So Terrence Newman would end up with higher grades because those penalties are negative grades against your guy.

But in context, if Terrence Newman had been facing off with Mike Evans one-on-one or Julio Jones for an entire game, he would not have performed as well, right? So the competition is not equal between every corner. So you have to take that context into account. When you're talking about a center pass blocking, they're all facing beast defensive tackles. They all have similar responsibilities. You either got beat or you didn't. And he's getting beat too often, far too often at a rate that would indicate he's more of a replacement level player in the past blocking. So I don't think it's just because like louder

milk was good. I think that it's because, uh, uh, the rest of the league is just performing better. So you're looking at that and saying, well, this is an area that is a supreme weakness. And the other thing is too, that if the Vikings had a mobile quarterback, if they had Russell Wilson, this might be less of a big deal because if he got beat, your guy would run away. Kirk Cousins doesn't run away. It impacts Kirk Cousins. Like I would love to see this. Maybe I'll, I'll pitch this to the PFF guys to run numbers on like which pressures affect their quarterback rating or their, you know, expected points or whatever the most, like which pressures allowed for each individual quarterback? And I think the answer for this one is with middle pressure coming up, you know, right

through Garrett Bradbury probably impacts Kirk Cousins more than more than half the league quarterbacks. Because when you look at Cousins numbers under pressure, they just plummet from where he is when his pocket is clean. So I think that's why people obsess over it, because we've sort of grown up with the numbers we have and with the information we can use to understand how these parts work together, we could see that weakness. And especially since these are weak, weak link systems, we can see that weakness and

how it's directly impacting the effectiveness of the offense. And that's why it frustrates the heck out of everybody that they didn't get someone better at that pass blocking. Right. So I think that's the answer. And I appreciate you listening all the way from the UK. All right. This one comes, well, this is kind of in the same ballpark here. Uh, this one comes from at J R G underscore 2154. Have a question for fans only series. Uh, let's

see. Can you give listeners an example of how analytics are used in football. Whoa. Uh, that is like a 12 part podcast series. Um, but I'll try to, uh, give a quick synopsis. So let's say that, um, I mean, well, the third down or the fourth down and field goal stuff is really the easiest example that like Frank Reich, somebody told me this about Frank Reich, that every time there's a fourth down decision to be made, the Indianapolis Colts analytics people are in the box with the headsets on and they will tell him their opinion of what he thinks they should do. Uh, like based on the analytics, all right, this is one you should go for. And I just read the other day about a company that works with college teams that invented an

entire chart to deal with all in-game decisions and that they can just look at the chart. And I think they call it like the book or something like that. They can look at the book and say, all right, this is what we should do here. We're going to go by the book, by what the analytics say, and we're just going to do it. Right. That's maybe the easiest one, but I mean, this exists on a thousand different levels. I mean, when you talk about coaching, I mean, how about being able to take a situation?

Let's say you want to look at how Tom Brady performed when he had pre-snap motion. Like you can look at that, how he threw the ball. Was he effective? Was he not effective? Where he threw it, who he threw it to in every tiny little situation and scenario, You can break that down and teams absolutely do to the letter of, you know, how effective teams have been and what type of schemes they've run. Have they run too deep? Have they run cover four? Have they were all those things down to the letter by using data. And that's why all 32 teams have contracts with PFF, but they also have lots of other contracts. I mean, analytics usages is health and data science too. It's the reason that some guys get veteran off days or, I mean, probably not playing in the preseason is a broader one, but they have trackers on the pads for every single practice.

And they look at how far everybody ran, how much workload they've had. And they're trying to use that data to keep their team as healthy as they possibly can to manage workload during a practice, how many reps somebody gets all those things like it's being used on every single level of football all the time from front office decisions to how about agents using data to try to make their case for their players to on the field, to game planning, to scheming. I mean, these teams, these teams print out like analytics reports after every game that show

like their opponent and what they did and the tendencies and the situations and all those things. Uh, Gary Kubiak actually was the guy that one of the oldest guys out there, Gary Kubiak was like, Oh yeah, we get these reports after the game and they tell us how we did and all these situations and tendencies and everything else. So yeah, I mean,

football is an analytics game. Maybe not quite to the point of baseball, but it's on the way. Yeah. It's being used all over the place. So it's not, I think that's kind of the hilarious and ridiculous thing is you really could tell when somebody doesn't know what they're talking about when it, and this is not for fans. This, I mean, for like media people who should know when you see media people on Twitter

being like, oh, the analytics lost today when they went for it on fourth down. You're like, bro, the analytics are everything. Okay. Have you seen the next gen stats where the trackers in the game can show you every movement by every player and those things can be studied. So yeah, the analytics are everywhere, man. It's really cool. I mean, I love that part of the game, but those are just a couple examples of how teams are using them to succeed, but it's, it's all over the place. Um, all right, let's see here. Um, okay. This from, uh, Gerard Tolosa, uh, asks, sorry if I botched your name, the teams have any say in which teams they face in the preseason? Or is that something given by the NFL? I think that they do. I think they do.

I believe that they submit before the season, like who they would want to play or list of teams. And I know that they make asks of the league when it comes to the real schedule. So Kevin O'Connell talked about this in the lead up right after the schedule had been released actually about London and how, you know, people were saying that they kind of got screwed when it came to not having a buy right after London. And Kevin O'Connell said, no, actually we asked for that. We didn't want our buy that early. So they're, they're always communicating with the NFL on these situations.

I don't know if it's exactly like, here's the teams we'll play, but maybe teams that have plans to do a joint practice and they'll submit to the league. So I think they do, but I've never really asked. So I can't say for sure, like with 100% certainty that I know the answer there. All right. Next question from Brian via email. Says, self-proclaimed friend of the show. Fans only question.

During the previous Vikings administration, we heard a lot about how Rick would pick a player either in the draft or free agency and how Mike would not like that player or didn't think that player was a good fit, Kirk being the biggest example. Just a side note, the more we know, the more I think that it was the ownership who decided that Kirk Cousins was going to be the quarterback of this team in 2018.

That's just a, that's not a hundred percent. That's just kind of a guess. But now that we know what we know, I think that's probably it. Anyway, in my mind it seems like the gm would want to work with the coach to find players the best fit of their scheme and plan we know things got toxic toward the end but it seems like this kind of thing went on in the early days and it feels like rick was just doing his own thing and mike had to deal with it i guess my question is how much does or should a GM and coach work together to

build the roster? How do other teams, front offices and coaches work together? Yeah. Um, so the way that Rick described it to me once we had to sit down on for a story about the defensive line in 2017, and I just went through how it was built. Cause I thought it was interesting that it was built like through not all high draft picks and things like that. Right. I believe there were no first round draft picks on the D line. So I went through player by player with Rick, like, how did you get Linval?

How did you get Tom Johnson? And the way that he described it was that to use the bill Parcells comparison, Mike Zimmer would make the list. So I want players like this. I want a massive nose tackle. Who's going to eat gaps. I want, and that's Linval. I want a interior pass rusher who can rotate that's Tom Johnson. I want right. And then the front office would go and try to get players of the specs that Mike Zimmer wanted and that that could fit. And in the early days, that seemed to work out pretty well.

They had Captain Munderland worked out and Terrence Newman. That might have been a Mike Zimmer one. And it seemed like they were mostly on the same page. I mean, they drafted Anthony Barr. And when Mike Zimmer would talk about that, he would say, I drafted Anthony Barr, meaning that Zimmer wanted him. And even when they talked about defensive linemen being picked, He would say, I drafted Anthony Barr, meaning that Zimmer wanted him. And even when they talked about defensive linemen being picked, that they would rely on Andre Patterson.

And when running backs were picked, they would kind of give the list of guys that they like is how it sounded anyway, to the running back coach, Kennedy Palomaro. And he would go back, watch the tape. He would decide which one of those guys that he liked the most. So I, I don't, I don't think that in the earlier years of building the team, that it was entirely Rick, just like going rogue and doing whatever he wanted. I think what ends up happening is that when things go wrong, everybody wants you to believe that it was everyone else's fault, right? Like there, there was no reason to trade a fourth round pick for Chris Herndon or a fifth for Corey Vedvik or, you know, the Yannick Gagakwe thing, which what wasn't there, there was some implication

that maybe Mike didn't want him and Rick wanted him and you know, whatever else, like there was some disagreement about that. But I think that at the end of the day, when you don't win, everybody wants to say, oh, I was handcuffed by this. That's why I didn't succeed. And hey, by the way, I noticed you have a GM opening. Would you like to interview me for it? Or I'm going to do this interview and strongly suggest it was ownership's fault. But look, it's your job as the GM to work with ownership

and guide them to the right decisions. And if you can't do that, then quit, right? Like then go work for another team. If you can't deal with how your ownership is managing. I mean, I don't know. Like I, I just don't have a whole lot of excuses for either one of them. I think that Mike was an extremely, extremely good football coach who alienated everybody around him by the end. And I, and I don't think that Rick Spielman is a complete fool or anything. I think that he made desperate moves to try and save his tail that blew up in his face a bunch of times. And I also think that cousins didn't come through when they needed him to, and that he costs too much and handcuffed them to the point where they couldn't go get more expensive players.

And the most expensive player in total dollars that they signed after Kirk was Michael Pierce. Like, I mean, there's only so much you can do there. And when a draft pick blows up, nobody wants to take responsibility. If Wyatt Davis was the next Steve Hutchinson, I guarantee you everybody would have wanted to tell you how they were involved in the Wyatt Davis pick. But instead, they want you to know that they had nothing to do with the Wyatt Davis pick. So when it comes to that stuff, I kind of think it's everybody's fault. And I think that like a lot of teams have, if not all teams, have the collaborative mindset and they have a lot of people working on these decisions. And ideally you want the coach and GM in lockstep. But I've also had people tell me,

you know, it actually might be better if everybody just kind of minded their own business because, you know, when they're not on the same page, that's when you get the toxic environment. But really it's like losing, losing causes everybody to look at everybody else and say, Nope, it wasn't my fault. It was actually your fault. So that's kind of how I get down to the brass tacks of that sort of thing, as opposed to looking at it and trying to parse through like, Oh, they did this or they did that. Okay. Let me just do, let me just do one more just cause we've got some time here. Uh, let's see. This comes from Sarah and I hope Sarah is still listening at this point. This is

where I get hesitant to answer more questions at 47 minutes. Um, but if you could be part of an NFL team personnel, instead of reporting, what position would you hold? Well, I mean, the natural one that everyone would say is probably GM. So I get to make all the decisions and then I get to get blamed for them and get fired. Um, but you know, I mean like if you're the person who's making the draft picks, that's pretty cool. But I think for me though, if it's not the obvious one, like let me be the head coach and call the plays, that would be awesome. I'm so good at it on Madden. It would probably be something that I could reasonably do as a person right now. If, if they said to me, Hey, you can have a job in the organization. I have never managed more than like three people for purple

insider. I manage Paul and there's no real management there. Uh, my social media guy, Jonathan Harrison, who's the best. And like, that's it. Jeremiah Searles. I mean, these are the people, I mean, I don't really want to be the general manager and try to be in command of an entire organization. I think that being a pro scout would be pretty manageable for me. Like looking at tape, trying to look for players skills, evaluating them, looking at a lot of different factors, trying to find those guys who fit,

trying to look for those diamonds in the rough that, that Tom Johnson like player that, or the Anthony Harris like player or something like that. Somebody who, you know, maybe doesn't get the most money, but just is a, does something really well that fits perfectly with, you know, what doesn't get the most money, but just is a, does something really well that

fits perfectly with, you know, what, what this team does, like that kind of stuff that would really interest me, like writing reports, looking at analytics, doing analysis and trying to find those guys. I think that would be my answer more than trying to manage, because I think what Kweisi Adafo-Mentz is finding out is that that GM spot, you don't just type a few things into a computer and then make all the moves. There's a lot that goes into that. But I think that a pro scout would be a pretty, a pretty interesting job. And I'm sure you would come away with so many stories of going to different places and getting to know people. And you always want that

one player who you're like, yes, I was responsible for this guy. I made that decision. Like who was the pro scout who said that the Eagles should sign Nick Foles? Like that guy every day is that guy day, whoever it was. I'm sure there's an article about it. The pro scout who said, you know, Nick Foles would be a good backup for us for the Eagles or Jeff Hostetler when he's with the New York giants or something like, cause he won the super bowl in 1990 and I'm a million years old. But anyway yeah. And you sort of are the unsung, a little bit unsung type of person. I think that would be fun. That's a good question. Um, so anyway, well, thank you all for those questions. Keep sending them. I've got a lot more to get to. There'll be more episodes

this week. We've got a lot to do with the cutdowns and everything else. And then we are really, really close to week one Vikings and Packers. So thanks everybody for listening and we'll catch you next time.