Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Brett Kollmann dives deep into Justin Jefferson and finds a franchise player

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Matthew Coller and Brett Kollmann, who does a terrific NFL breakdown YouTube, dive deep into Justin Jefferson's game. They look at how he's become a top notch route runner and what that says about Jefferson as a player. How he sets up corners, how the Vikings' offense uses him and how many receivers Brett would take over him. Hint: It's not that many. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Soccer is going to explode, and it's going to be around this kid. We were the Beatles. Everywhere we went, it was the Freddie show. And with that came the expectation, and with We were the Beatles. Everywhere we went, it was the Freddie show. And with that came the expectation, and with that came the pressure. New episodes of American Prodigy drop Tuesdays from Blue Wire Podcasts. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me, the film breakdown god of YouTube, Brett Coleman, who has done an amazing video on Justin Jefferson called

Justin Jefferson is a nasty route runner. And the rules, Brett, are when you do anything breaking down the Vikings, you come on this show. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me back on. Yeah, for sure. And I was just finishing up watching it myself and people go to YouTube, check it out. Justin Jefferson is a, with capital letters, nasty route runner. And I was like, I don't know, is that too much? And then I watched the video and I was like, no, that's not

too much. And you use great examples here. And I think it's a good time to do a little more breaking down of Justin Jefferson not only because he's breaking rookie records but also because Stefan Diggs is playing really well and Vikings fans need something to cheer them up around Christmas time so I want to start since the Vikings are playing the Bears this week with an example that you used against the Bears of some details of Justin Jefferson's route running that allows him to get open, even against very good cornerbacks. Maybe we can start there, that this is not just a guy who is a physical freak and is overpowering people, but the details are very impressive of what he does.

Yeah, and he's, I want to say he's wise beyond his years, which doesn't super surprise me because that's kind of what he was known for at LSU was being a really good route runner. Everybody had a little bit of concerns about deep speed because we didn't see him go deep as much. He was kind of the primary slot receiver at LSU because, again, he ran great routes, showed up at the combine, ran 4-4. Everybody's like, okay, nope, that'll work. Yep, he's lock- in for first rounder and he kind of had everything that you could want in a receiver route running ability uh i mean super quick super fluid he knew what he was doing in terms of the the mentality of running routes in terms of how

to sell dbs and set them up for failure with kind of certain little nods and leans and footwork and everything like that like he was a pro ready route runner, plus great hands, plus the deep speed. Like he, he was really the complete package. He didn't have, you know, the elite speed of rugs because nobody does. He wasn't quite as quick as Judy, um, in terms of post-up ability, it wasn't quite the same as C.D. Lamb. So he wasn't, you wasn't put in that top three for a lot of people, but he was firmly number four on the list for almost everybody, myself included, if I remember correctly. I had him at least five. I think I had him four in the end just because he was that jack-of-all-trades, good-at-everything, no-true-weaknesses type receiver. And then he shows up in the NFL where traits,

I don't want to say they matter less, but route running matters more. And all of a sudden his route running ability kind of launched him to the forefront in the entire rookie receiving class. And we've kind of seen how his ability to sell DBs with those little nods and leans in the footwork, that kind of counts more for getting open and making plays than just being really fast or really big. Yeah, that's a great point. And for a long time, you know, we got to see Stefan Diggs along with Adam Thielen, and neither one of those two is going to, you know, join the Olympics and run the 200 meter or something like they're both

fast, but they're not blazing fast and it was always the combination of ball tracking and separation and then I think really dedication to the craft and you make some points in the video and I totally agree and I honestly like from somebody who's covering the whole league to make this point I think was very smart because it's been my experience covering Justin Jefferson that he really cares about the details he really gets excited about finding new releases learning his routes from Adam Thielen and little tricks and different things that that he can do and how he's grasped the different positions so early being an outside receiver his first start in week three and he hadn't been an

outside receiver since 2018 at LSU. And then all of a sudden, you know, snap your fingers, and that's what you're doing in week three in the NFL with no OTAs and no minicamp. I think it says just a lot about where he's at mentally and maturity-wise as somebody who is as young as he is. Yeah, and there was an interesting point made, and this was, I think, before last draft, because Daniel Jeremiah, draft analyst for NFL Network, and he's also the Chargers play-by-play guy, you know, he watches Keenan Allen every single week because he's a Chargers guy,

and Keenan Allen and Justin Jefferson are basically the same guy, just Justin's a little bit faster. And he made a point before the draft, and he was kind of soapboxing for Justin Jefferson. And he said, if you go back and you look at the top ten receivers in virtually every single category from last year, and if I remember correctly, Adam Thielen was one of them or at least very close to it. He said, if you look at the top ten receivers, you know what their average 40-yard dash is?

4-5-5. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. If you can run a route, if you have good, you know, body control, if you have good hands, like Michael Thomas was not a blazer. He was taken in the second round. He had 1,700 yards last year. Julio's a freak, but it's, you know, Travis Kelsey's a tight end,

and he was fourth. Devontae Parker, again, not a burner, but a really good post-up guy. He was fifth. Keenan was sixth. Kenny Galladay, another guy in the four or fives. The only guys in the top ten that even ran below four or five were Julio, Amari Cooper, and DJ Moore. Everyone else was above four or five. Jarvis Landry was like four or seven, and he was tenth.

So it's very much not about traits as much as it is about can you run a route do you know how a db thinks that you can so you can set him up you know dondry johnny hopkins ran four five seven when he was coming out but the thing is he started as a db and converted a wide receiver so he knew how dbs thought he knew their techniques and he knew exactly what ds hated. And he's used that to his advantage, and Justin Jefferson is very much in that mold. In your breakdown, you really lay out how Jefferson is reading what his cornerbacks are doing that are guarding him. And that's kind of like take it to the next level.

Can you run it with the right number of steps and the right depth? Laquan Treadwell could not uh that was one of his big problems that he was never able to really master in the NFL so that's a starting point that is you'd be surprised how many guys are not able to even just if it's 11 yards you got to get to 11 yards and not 12 and not uh you know 10 it's got to be exactly where it's supposed to be so you can get those details you could chop your feet quickly and all those types of things you could turn quickly but when you're truly mastering it it's understanding how you're being played and for him to get that so early on I mean you make points about the statistics and and just how few guys have done this I think it's because that transition well someone can be effective in their first year you can't master it usually,

and that's where he's so far ahead of the curve. Yeah, like the last, so there's only been five guys to ever get a thousand yards in the first 12 seasons. Obviously, Randy was one of them. You could argue that three of the top six or seven best rookie seasons for a receiver in the history of the league are all Vikings between him, Diggs, and Randy, but Randy was one of them. Marcus Colston was another one. Anquan Bolden, Odell Beckham, and I'm trying to remember the last one, but Randy was obviously the last Viking to do it. Randy was almost the polar opposite of Justin Jefferson, where he was just an absolute freak of nature, and he wasn't quite developed as a rookie. He got there later in his career, and by the time he was a patriot uh you know with Tom in 07 where he was

an elite route runner and still an elite athlete like nobody could stop him but Randy was kind of the opposite where it's like hey I'm 6'4 and run 4'2 and jump 40 inches in the air there's nothing you can do about it you know Jefferson's not quite that blessed and then on the flip side Anquan or not Anquan Bolden um Laquan Treadwell, when he was in college, he kind of did just get by with size and physicality. That's kind of what he did against, you know, 19-year-old true sophomore nickelbacks that did not know how to handle a 220-pound receiver because they'd never seen one before.

And so he was able to kind of, you know, make hay on that in college. And then you get to the NFL, you know, when you're showing up at practice and it's captain Munderland and captain Munderland, you know, absolutely trashes you because he's played in the league for 10 years and he's a grown ass man and he could never adjust. Yeah. You know, it's right. There's sometimes that even somebody is physically gifted as that, or as big as that, or as strong as that. If you can't figure out that what you were doing

in college doesn't work and adjust off that, you're never going to make it. Yeah, and that's to me is one of the more impressive parts of Justin Jefferson is that he didn't seem to come in and think, I know everything. I mean, he seemed to be a sponge and pick up on so many things early that even from the first day we saw him in training camp to the end of training camp it was okay he's really starting to get it here the first couple of days I think he was on the COVID list to start which is very hard and so he gets behind and Gary Kubiak's talking about how he doesn't really know like where he's supposed to line up and what he's supposed to do and for a guy to have that sort of mental capacity and also self-awareness to know what he needs to do, it just all is sort of aligning to this is how you get a superstar. There's how you turn out to be a decent player, how you can make it in the league and hang around,

and then how you become a superstar. And he's in the very rare air. I wonder what you think about the route tree that they've asked Justin Jefferson to run. Because when he runs seven yard out, he's wide open and he catches it every time. Even when Kirk Cousins doesn't throw it accurately, which I'm sure you came across a few of those that were high and outside and he just went up and got it anyway. But they don't do it a whole lot. I mean, it's a lot of deep routes.

It's a lot of max protections and things like that. And it's worked for some big plays, but I think a lot of people are watching Justin Jefferson saying there's more meat on the bone here. And what's interesting is when I was studying him and, you know, Vikings fans can probably attest to this. A lot of his yards, I'm talking like 40% of his yards this year come on fades whether it's when he's lined up outside or when he's in the slot like just Kirk seeing that one-on-one and saying go get vertical I'll get you the ball like that's been their money maker like he's you know they've hit on a few deep crosses off bootlegs which is something that like I kind of I thought they would

do more of was you know booting out Kirk just in true Gary Kubiak fashion. I'm a Texans fan. So I saw it for years with Andre Johnson and later with the Andre Hopkins where, you know, you hit the bootleg, you got one receiver running a deep cross. They've hit that a few times, but not nearly as much. It's when he's in the slot and it's single high safety and they'll run, they call it a Haas concept.

Some teams call it Foxborough because the patriots kind of made it famous but it's literally just a hitch outside and a slot fade the safety's in the middle of the field he's away from it there's nothing he can do about it and jefferson one of the plays i broke down against atlanta how we kind of ran that slot fade in two different ways against different techniques from the corner like they know hey that's a one-on-one that's our shot play we're gonna take it and whether it's against stack technique, whether it's against trail, even if the corner has good coverage, we know he's going to catch it. Like when they absolutely need a play, their call is get Jefferson one-on-one

through formation, call a fade. More often than not, it's going to be big yardage. And they beat the Bears not necessarily all on fades, but they beat the Bears last time basically saying, uh-oh, it's third and nine. Let's throw it to Justin Jefferson every time. I mean, it really it's this is the NFLhawn video where he's like, over and over and over. Throw it at a MF-er's face. Like, that is the game, I think. And whoever can play it the best of throwing it to your best player all the time ends up having the best offense.

I mean, I know that's an oversimplification, but I think it's becoming more true. It's really not. I mean, it's the same thing that, you know, the Rockets do with James Harden. We're going to play isolation basketball. We're going to make you guard James Harden with one guy. And we know he's going to beat you because he's James Harden. Justin Jefferson's the same kind of way. You know, the Chiefs do it as well. It's like, we're going to force you to go one-on-one with Tyreek Hill at some point. And if you commit to that, then we're going to force you to go one-on-one with Travis Kelsey at some point. We're going to play isolation ball.

Like that's why they run for vert so much is because even if you're, you know, playing cover four and you got four guys deep, well, if you got four guys running deep yourself, guess what? All of those are one-on-ones doesn't even matter if it's zone coverage, they all turn into one-on-ones. And if, if they know that Pat Mahomes can retreat 13 yards behind the line of scrimmage and throw up a bomb 60 yards down the field on a one-on-one,

more often than not that's going to work. I want to see the Vikings do that more because they got two guys they can go win on one-on-ones. And Irv Smith, I think, could probably be a third. Hell, you could throw in Dalvin there if you want to count that as a one-on-one on a linebacker. They have the skill position talent to play isolation ball like that. They don't do it enough, but I think if they committed to that from week one,

they'd probably have more wins than they do right now. I totally agree with you, and it is the bane of Vikings fans' existence right now when they get to second and 11 and hand off for four yards, and then they put Kirk Cousins in third and seven. And, yeah, Patrick Mahomes can certainly fade back 13 yards and still fling it 55 through the air. Kirk Cousins cannot. Nope, nope.

Not even close. You know, even just watching Justin Herbert last night, it was like, yeah, there is quite a bit of an arm strength difference between Kirk and some of the most rocket-armed quarterbacks in the league. But with those limitations that he has and the fact that he needs to step into every throw, if he's going to launch it deep, I feel like where they're missing the most is on those quick passes. I mean, even Josh Allen, who has this mega arm,

they a lot of times will have these little screens and quick underneath stuff. And they throw to Cole Beasley over the middle all the time. And he gets yards after catch. These are the things that they're just sort of leaving out to play Kubiak ball, which is very successful on those deep shots, and your yards per attempt end up great at the end of the year, but they're not producing points and touchdowns consistently on their offensive possessions, really until they get down in games and then are forced to throw all the time. I kind of have a sneaking suspicion that Gary doesn't like the quick game

because if you're very successful in the quick game, that kind of makes people play two deep coverages with five underneath because five underneath is kind of the best way to stop quick game. Like if you're in a cover three base and you're dropping a safety down to stop the run, like, yeah, you're getting a cover three base and you're dropping a safety down to stop the run like yeah you get eight guys in the box but you're also very susceptible to quick game because the corners have to play a deep third with no help underneath and you know we see that when the Patriots came back and beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl by the way it's because the Falcons were only playing cover three James White set the Super Bowl record for receptions because it was

check down check down check down quick and quick and know, Gary Kubiak doesn't like that because the way to stop that is you play cover two. You get guys in the flats that can trap those quick outs. You get five guys playing underneath zones. And you can play like a two read where, like, you have the corners kind of like eyeing for smash, which is a certain way to do it. But suffice to say, the reason why Gary doesn't like that, you would think, oh, well, there's two deep safeties. That should help the run game. Not necessarily because they play a lot of outside zone,

and if you have corners squatting on the flat playing a force against outside zone, that gives the safeties extra time to then fill the backside cutback lane. It's actually easier in some ways to stop outside zone from too deep. So he doesn't like to play a lot of quick game passes, my theory at least, because he doesn't want to see too deep coverages that stop quick game. He wants to see the single high stuff where you're kind of trapping a safety on one side of the field or the other to open up those cutback lanes for Dalvin. I know it sounds counterintuitive that you want to see loaded boxes, but specifically for this kind of run game, it actually kind of works out. You are 100% right, and even Kubiak has talked about that himself,

about how, well, you know, Gary in his, as you know, his Houston way, just, well, you know, we know they're going to load the box, and we've got to find ways to run against it. And like you're saying, I mean, Delvin has been very effective in running against loaded boxes. And the other thing is, too, that if you can get the other team to load up the box, play actions against single high safety, you get two guys running deep, and you pick one, right?

Pick the crosser or pick the go route. And it's classic Kubiak, which I totally understand and I think is a great theory and I think it works. But there's also the element of I think that with these skill players they could do anything that they can shape shift however offense they want to play and I know that you know there's only so much you can put on people's plate in a COVID year and everything else but as they go forward with Gary and this is what I was going to ask you about the future of Jefferson I think that has to be implemented more. He breaks tackles of

linebackers, man. Like, you've got to get him the ball. I mean, last week, they throw a little, I don't know what it is, a hit or a comeback or something. It's like seven yards. He breaks a tackle, gets 17. Like, that is Justin Jefferson. So you can use him more in the way that LSU did. There were even times LSU, he would come behind the formation and get a little pass and then run for 15 yards. It's like, these are easy things for Kirk Cousins to do. Right now, you're always asking hard things of Cousins to stand back there on third and seven or to run play actions and throw it deep down the field where he's got to be accurate deep. Like they're not giving him very many easy yards, I think. You're 100% correct, and you're right.

They do have the talent to do that kind of stuff, but they have Gary at OC, and he's just not going to do it. We just know that. We know that at this point. He's not going to do it. And I don't think they're going to switch off Gary as OC right now because who else are you going to hire? Right.

Zimmer loves him. Yeah. Zimmer, you know, he brings an element of stability, but he is what he is. Like, there are some games where it works phenomenally well. You're going to put up 40 points. You'll boat race some teams, delve on and get going. You'll work the deep shots off bootleg. Like, there are some games where it works perfectly, and you're like,

oh, my God, this is incredible. There are some games where it doesn't work at all, like the Atlanta game where you're down, you know, what, 20 The only thing you can hope is that in a less wonky offseason, Gary goes back to the drawing board and kind of takes some cues from guys that run offshoots of his tree, you know, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, because Gary's tree is very far and wide at this point. But all the younger guys that run his stuff, or at least what used to be his stuff, do it better than him because they have more modern concepts thrown in.

Like Sean McVay's terminology is damn near the same as Cal Shanahan's terminology, which is damn near the same as Gary Kubiak's terminology. It's the same stuff. It's just the younger guys have expanded it. They've added more bells and whistles. They've added more tweaks. They've modernized it.

I want to see Gary do the same thing. Got a great holiday deal to tell you about from SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER15, you can get 15% off your purchases during this holiday season when you buy two items or more. Go to Sotastick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com to get your original Minnesota sports inspired goods. So many great designs, especially the holiday sweaters.

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asked him, you know, just your basics. So what do you remember about Minnesota, right? Like, but one of the things he said that was very interesting was he said, you know, I really enjoyed working with Mike Zimmer. It was this old school run first approach. And it was kind of like, is that a little, you would have liked to open it up a little bit more or just, you know, maybe it was just a straight out compliment, but I thought it was telling that Mike Zimmer has his vision of how he wants his offense. And when John D Filippo didn't meet that, then he was out. And, you know, the same thing with North Turner, when he didn't meet that, North Turner ends up walking away. And so Kubiak has probably been around long enough and has enough of his own

things, you know, at least on the same page as Zimmer, where, you know, he's not going to go against Zimmer. But I think that it really starts with the head coach, that if the head coach says, we have to do a little more quick game, we have to get more easy completions, we have to use Delvin Cook in the slot or whatever, like you're the guy with the HC on the hat, you can, you push those buttons, and it doesn't seem like he wants to. I've always found defensive coaches, they tend to be more conservative. And when it comes to offensive football, they stick with what they know. Other than one notable exception, which is Bill Belichick.

And this is an approach that I think Zimmer should be taking. Bill Belichick, one of his old assistants, Dean Pease, who is a D.C. under him, went on another great podcast called the Make Defense Great Again podcast. It was like a two-hour interview. And one of the notes that he had was that Bill Belichick, even though he's a defensive background, he's a defensive coach through and through, he spent maybe 45 minutes a week on defense, like forever. Like he rarely ever actually takes control of defensive meetings and

implement stuff. Like he'll give 45 minutes of like, I like this. I like that, but that's about it. The rest of the week when Tom Brady was there, he spent with the offense. He spent with Tom Brady and he was breaking down with Tom, like, look, this is what defenses are doing to you. This is

how they're frustrating you. Here's how we're going to attack it. He would coach the offense from a defensive perspective. And I want to see Zimmer do something similar to that, where he has some kind of introspective moments and says, this is what I hate that OCs call against me. This is what I hate to defend against. Let's do that. Because if he did that and he would see all these modern concepts that really give him trouble, like in the last few years, why leak off play action was something that's like really frustrated the match

zones of Zimmer. And if you remember the Cooper cup touchdown where Anthony was, that's leak, you know, it's different. It's a different kind of term for, but the concept is leak of like, Hey,

we're going to take advantage of the fact that you have to match the underneath route with a linebacker. We're going to get Cooper cup on Anthony bar and there's nothing you could do about it. Like that call gain prominence because of that, because of that game, because they killed him with it. And I want to see Zimmer look at that kind of stuff and be like, oh, that's really annoying.

Let's integrate that. And the Vikings just for whatever reason don't do that. They don't think that way. Which is funny because Kirk Cousins actually threw a touchdown pass in 2016 against the Vikings on the same exact concept, and then it came up in that Rams game. And I don't know, 2016, I think Sean McVay would have been there in Washington. Maybe if I have my timeline. That was either his last year in Washington or his first year. I can't remember the exact year. Yeah. So he took, he must have

taken over in 2017 because 2016, I think was Jeff Fisher and Case Keenum and all that. So it must have been 2017. So it would have been McVay calling the same thing against him. So anyway, well, I think that it's an interesting point. And I remember, well, Sam Bradford told me this, that before the first game of 2017, he and Zimmer sat down and watched the New Orleans defense. And Bradford came out and had the best game of 2017, he and Zimmer sat down and watched the New Orleans defense and Bradford came out and had the best game of his career. And I've heard nothing about him doing that with

Kirk Cousins. It really seems like he doesn't have any relationship with Kirk Cousins. It's like, Gary, that's your guy. That's your problem. That's you and the quarterback coach. And I'm going to worry about my defense. And I think that that would be helpful. I think it's a great idea if it worked for Bradford. It was weird because bradford and zimmer sort of built this relationship over the year and a half or whatever or two years i guess he was here and then it just hasn't really materialized with cousins so i'm not sure why um i have i find it weird by the way that like seemingly the only coaches that cousins ever was close with were kyle shanahan and sean mcveigh heay. He's their perfect vision of a quarterback, though, isn't he? But they're the only coaches he's ever been close with, and they only coached

him each for like a year. Yeah. They haven't coached him in a long time. But it seems like everywhere that he's been or every coach he's worked with, except for those two, they've never really quite been on the same page or been as close. I don't really know why. Well, the DeFilippo thing was a comedy show each week.

Oh, that, yeah. Well, to go to their press conferences and hear their different explanations of the same thing, it was like, I don't think you guys are on the same page because he's saying something different than you're saying. So something must be missing there. And I think Kevin Stefanski did a good job of managing him. And so is Kubiak,

but you're right about the relationships that, that those guys seem to have with him. I wanted to play a little game with you before we wrap up here, which is how many dudes would you rather have? And so how many dudes would you rather have uh and so how many dudes would you rather have than justin jefferson on your nfl football franchise just for receiver just for receiver sorry yeah oh uh if we're talking only on field talent talent, and I don't have to stomach off-the-field stuff, Tyreek, DK, Devontae, DeAndre. Once I get to Terry McClure, and it's a wash, so he's at least top five. And cheap, unlike many of the guys that you named.

And I think, Brett, I think it's franchise changing. Like to land on someone like this, who is, like you said, I mean, there are not too many dudes that you're taking before him and he's cheap. It goes from, boy, they've got to really rebuild a lot of parts here too well this guy alone can keep their offense cooking i mean i i put out a tweet it must have been three or four weeks ago and i was like you know how many receivers it was the same kind of game you played how many receivers would you take over justin jefferson is it more than 10 and a lot of the comments were like i don't even think i get to five and by the end of it I kind of agreed I was like yeah you're right I when you consider production age contract he's

gotta be one of the most valuable and one of the most bang for your buck offensive players at any position in the entire National Football League, and he's played like 14 games. 2020 has already reshaped how we work, and it's almost over. Businesses across the globe are challenged to be their most efficient, which means every hire is critical. Indeed is here to help. Indeed is the number one job site in the world with more total visits than any other job site, according to Comscore.

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Don't forget to use promo code BLUEWIRE at BetOnline.ag. That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. Like, that's mind-blowing. Yeah, it really is. I mean, because even like though i thought what a great draft pick at the time because i like everyone else watched him dominate lsu no expectation of doing this right away based on no based on history it's like well yeah one out of every how many ever does this and here we are so it's something about uh the vikings and wide receivers i don't know what it is how many dudes would you take over kirk cousins to be your quarterback oh that's a good one um i mean obviously you know you have the top tier of rogers mahomes wilson watson uh you could Wilson Watson. Oh, and Allen. I would put Allen up there.

You could argue Tannehill. Dak, assuming he comes back healthy, I would say Dak. Ah, man. Kyler, when he's healthy, I mean, his shoulder's been banged up for a month, so the last, you know. And then Lamar. These are not in order, by the way, but Kirk would probably be somewhere between 10 and 12.

You can throw him in there with, like, the weird kind of Carr, Ryan, Mayfield group where you don't really know what order they're in, but you know they're somewhere between, like, 10 and 14. So I think, yeah, you could argue he's a top-10 quarterback. The only nine guys I would definitively take over him were the ones I listed. Yeah, I think it either goes to, well, it really comes down to, does someone else have an elite trait or lots of elite traits in Patrick Mahomes' case or Aaron Rodgers' case or Russell Wilson? But even someone like Josh Allen, you mentioned, that one would be tricky for me because I'm not completely in on Josh Allen at this moment. I got to see a little bit of a bigger sample size over a couple years, I think, but he's got... Well, he's going to need

to hurdle Anthony Barr a second time. Yeah, I know. Well, no, I guess I just think like, is this a little Carson Wentz thing that happens here where someone has, or Jared Goff or wherever, where someone is surrounded by everything going right for them for a year and they just kill it and then they go back to earth next year or people find out more weaknesses or whatever, or is it something that's going to sustain? And the only reason I question is because the mega arm that he has isn't really what's driving his success, I think as much as his offensive coordinator. And then he pulls out the mega arm that he has isn't really what's driving his success I think as much as his offensive coordinator and then he pulls out the mega arm on like third and

long so I don't know I'm a little skeptical I am very curious to see what happens when Brian Dable inevitably gets a head coaching job because he probably will like this year like him and the enemy will most certainly get hired maybe Eberflus like, but again, he's one of the top names. So he'll get hired somewhere. God willing, he'll be in Houston with Deshaun Watson because I would love that. But I am curious to see if they bring in somebody else who can kind of keep Josh's development progressing

the way it has been under Dable because Dable has been phenomenal for Josh I mean to see where he was a couple years ago to where he is now it's a totally different player so I think that's a valid concern but I don't know if we'll get an answer for probably two years yeah I agree that especially since Diggs is there Beasley's there they have guys who get open against man coverage all the time and so when you have that you're in good shape it's just do you pay him I'm sure they will but how's that going to work out when they do is always the question all right one last one how many teams instead of dudes um but how many teams would you pick ahead of the 2021 Minnesota Vikings to be Super Bowl favorites?

How many teams would you pick ahead of them if you're betting who's going to win the 2021 Super Bowl? Ooh, okay. Man, that's wild. There is game show music on this show. It goes like this. Doot, doot, doot. Well, obviously the Chiefs are one of them. The Ravens I really like.

The Rams I think are an absolute. I mean, that's a meat grinder if I've ever seen one. The Niners I think can bounce back, so that's four. I don't know about the Cardinals. The Bucs, eh, they're old at quarterback. The Saints are old at quarterback. The Panthers maybe, but I haven't seen enough. The Packers I would say yes the bears

don't have a quarterback so they're out washington doesn't have a quarterback so they're out the eagles cowboys maybe i think the cowboys can bounce back i don't know the guy yeah that's what i was thinking if they move on from mccarthy and then pay him for five years not to work, then maybe they've got a shot. Ben is old and I'm not really – they're going to lose Bud Dupree. Browns, I think, have a stable roster in cap situation. I like their coach. The Bills, same kind of thing. So, I don't know, eight at most. I think the same way.

I mean, I wrote a piece that really angered Packers fans about how the Vikings might have the brightest outlook going forward. And it was mostly centered around Justin Jefferson, no surprise. But in terms of where they're weak, how you can fill those weak spots and where they're strong, they've filled the hardest places to be strong, I think. And so now it's about the rest. Can you get some you know, some situational pass rushers, anyone in the middle of the defensive line, anyone in the middle of

the offensive line, right? Can you find these pieces to be very good? But I agree their 2021 outlook is pretty good. And I think that's, that's because of Jefferson. You did a great job with, with the game. I didn't prepare you for that. I just tossed it at you, and you did tremendously well. Well, I have one game for you. Oh, okay. I'm ready. This has never happened before. I've never been presented by a guest with a game, so this is exciting history on the podcast. Go ahead. And this plays into my ranking of them being eight at best and not higher. How many dollars are they projected to have in cap space next year well that depends on what the cap is I mean it's a great point because the answer is not that many and here's one thing about the whole cap discussion is when you bring this up to Vikings fans what

often their response is well well just you know get rid of Riley Reif get rid of Anthony Harris you got a lot of money get rid of Kyle Rudolph it's all fine, you know, get rid of Riley Reif, get rid of Anthony Harris. You got a lot of money, get rid of Kyle Rudolph. It's all fine. Like, you know, those guys are good at football. Oh, you get rid of all your best players. Well, I mean, they're projected right now to be 7.6 million over the cap. Yes. Which is, I think there's only eight teams worse than that. I mean, the Saints are 94 million over the cap. So at least you're not that bad. But, yeah, like a lot of their cost-cutting measures, as you said, was getting rid of good football players. And unless you plan to replace them all in one draft, it's tough. It's tough.

Like it's very much a top-heavy team to me. Like when everybody's healthy, they can beat anybody. It's like the Cardinals, you know, the Cardinals took four key injuries and that was it. The Vikings, I feel like they're four key injuries away from being a disaster. And that's the thing. When people talk about, hey, they'd be better if they had Daniil Hunter, like are they the only team in the league who lost the guy?

I mean, that usually happens that players in football get hurt. You know, how can you overcome it? And this team does not have the depth. And that's where they've been trying to draft 15 dudes each year and then hope. I respect it. I respect the approach. I mean, once upon a time, if you remember, they had a rotation in that defensive line with the Williams wall. They had Jared Allen.

They had a young Everson Griffin who was getting like 30% of the snaps and still getting top pressure rate on the team. That defensive line was deep. And that's part of the reason why that was such a damn good team. And doing that again is not going to be easy. And that's something that it all ties in that if, you know, they're going to be a Superbowl team and NFC championship team you know, conference winner, division winner, it's got to be probably the offensive side, even though you have a defensive coach. Because to build a defense like you just described or the one that they just had previously,

a lot of things just had to fall magically into place. I mean, Everson Griffin was a fourth-round pick. He becomes a superstar. Daniil Hunter's a third-round pick superstar. They find Anthony Harris undrafted. You know, it's like Kendricks was second round three? Second round? Second round.

But still, you know. But a superstar. You get an elite linebacker outside of the top 50? I mean, come on. That's hard to do. Right. So more likely than not, you're trying to be, like, somewhere in the top 10 and then kill it on offense, not be 12th on offense.

That's going to, you know, that'll get you where you are now, more or less. Yeah. So I implore people to go to your YouTube and find it and watch the videos because I learned so much just about football, watching your videos, even if it has nothing to do with the Minnesota Vikings. So I think people would really enjoy that. It's just Brett Coleman, which is K-O-L-L-M-A-N-N. And on Twitter, of course, you tweet out a lot of your videos and such at Brett Coleman. So dude, it was great to get

together again. Love it. Anytime you could come on. I know you are a very busy man grinding on these amazing videos, but I really appreciate all the time and the super fun conversation. Absolutely. Thanks for having me back.