Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can Dalton Risner make the Vikings' offensive line good?

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about how the Vikings' analytics on their offensive line says they have been good so far this season and how removing one weak link might make that true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Great to see everybody again live on YouTube. And we've got a lot to talk about. I've got a bunch of emails that I want to get to because I always want to make sure that the people who email in go to purpleinsider.com, send me emails there through the contact us or who hit me up on their DMs that I get their thoughts into these shows as well as all of you folks who are kind enough to join live and comment. And I've got a lot of really interesting stuff that people have sent me this week to talk about and some notes to go through. But I want to start the show in an interesting place. I saw something on the internet that I want to talk about and that I have been getting a lot of questions about. And since you guys haven't heard me mention,

I wrote a book on Pro Football Focus. I've gotten some questions about how PFF could be doing their grading to show something. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. So right now, as of this moment, PFF and Ben Baldwin of the Athletics accumulation of offensive line scores has the Minnesota Vikings as a good pass protection team.

If you're watching on the screen, you can see this, that they are ranked fourth in the NFL by his metrics. And if you look real close and squint, you'll see that PFF has them graded pretty highly there, as well as several other analytical metrics. Now, this goes against something that I've gotten a lot of emails and notes about, about how the offensive line is struggling and how they'll never do anything until they fix the offensive line and yada, yada, yada, and everything else that we have been over many, many times in the past. And I wanted to

kind of talk about why this might be that as you're watching games on Sundays or Thursdays, and you feel like the Vikings offensive line is having a tough time, but yet at the same time, the metrics are coming out showing that their offensive line isn't all that bad. So here's the major thing that's happening here. One is that four out of the five Minnesota Vikings offensive linemen, even Austin Schlotman have performed pretty well in terms of pass protection, but one has not. And I think you guys know exactly who the one that is not is, and that is Ed Ingram. And when we go to dive even a little bit deeper into this, Ed Ingram has a 49 pass blocking grade.

Everybody else is in the 70s for the Vikings. Ed Ingram has given up 13 pressures. The next most pressures by any offensive lineman on the Vikings is seven. He's given up three sacks. The whole rest of the offensive line in total has given up three sacks. So the shortcomings of one player on the whole in grading it out for PFF or whatever else are not showing that the Vikings offensive line is giving up a lot of pressure or is a big problem. And yet with Ed Ingram specifically, his issues have resulted in multiple big situation sacks that are pretty memorable. And the other thing is too, that when you're constantly playing in games, as they have the last two times out where you're down by two scores and

they weren't down by two scores for all that long, but you're playing in kind of a shootout, you're trying to come from behind. Well, what ends up happening is the opposing team is rushing for they're playing prevent defenses more often. And so they've played a lot of snaps while. So I'll close out some other things that are up on my browser here. Maybe that will help us a little bit to get the Internet going. But sometimes when I do the screen share thing, it uses a little bit too much internet so anyway um when you look at the offensive line situationally that kind of plays into it as well is that they're playing in a lot of spots where they're only rushing four guys and the other part of it too is when kirk cousins is your quarterback and he doesn't escape the pressure a lot of times you're talking about the offensive line might grade pretty well on a play, but they are asked to hold on for longer than you'd expect. So there was a couple of times against the Chargers where it's one, two, three, three and a half and Kirk Cousins gets sacked because he's not a guy that's going to take off.

And he was waiting and waiting to see if someone would come open on a particular play. They're not going to grade badly on those that some of his sacks have come after, you know, three, three, four seconds. And that plays into it as well. But here's the point of showing you this and talking about this is the one player who is essentially causing the major issues in the memorable plays is probably not going to play after this week. Now, I don't know that for sure, because it still hasn't been made completely clear to us whether he's going to play or not at right guard or left guard for Dalton Reisner. We talked to him today. He said that he's very comfortable doing either and that he's been preparing even when he was a free agent, that he was preparing to play either right guard or left guard. So I'm assuming considering the numbers and how bad it's looked at right guard, that he will be playing right guard and that

they're going to have him ready for this week. mean they really need him to be ready for this week like it's time everybody um for him to play that if he were just to play okay football as opposed to ed ingram being graded as one of the worst offensive linemen in the league this vikings offensive line could actually be good and i I know that that sounds totally crazy considering where we've been over the last number of years with the offensive line, but that seems possible right now. You know, when we look at how everyone else has played, except for one player that has destroyed a lot of plays. And Ed Ingram has already given up. Let me pull it back up. He's already given up six quarterback hits on the year.

I mean, that's a ton. There are full seasons where an offensive lineman does not give up six quarterback hits. So I think that the other part of it too, is we have also been watching the offensive line so closely for so long. And we've been watching Kirk cousins get pressured for so long over the years or so many times in so many key spots that we just wait for it to happen. When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? And then when it does, we go, Oh, again. But there's nothing that really backs it up that it's been holding the offense back,

including the fact that the offense has pretty good numbers. So I thought that you guys would find that to be interesting, an interesting place to start the show, because I do think that if Dalton Reisner can step in, then you go across the offensive line. Garrett Bradbury back at practice, by the way, Christian Derrissaw, one of the premier players at his position has been totally fine despite the ankle injury, if not good. And then at left guard, Ezra Cleveland, I would not say is super reliable, but just looking at his numbers so far, he has given up. Let me see here. Cleveland has given up six pressures and zero sacks and grades out to be a 76 by PFF. I mean, that's pretty good. Like that's actually quite good so far. And that doesn't mean that you trust them always in forever, but it's so much better than what you've gotten from the right guard position. If they bench Ezra Cleveland and not at Ingram, then I'm going to have some serious questions about what's going on. But if assuming Cleveland has looked

at least competent this year, Garrett Bradbury coming back from the back injury, there's some concern there, but he took a step last year and was considered, you know, a middle of the pack center. Reisner has been an above-average blocker. O'Neal is an elite player at his position. They could actually have a good offensive line here. I mean, I really think that. And sometimes we have to keep an eye on just how much the pocket presence is making a difference, the escapability.

I mean, you saw the other day that there was a breakdown for the Chargers and Justin Herbert ran for 10 yards. There was a breakdown and he rolled out to his left and on third and 17 flipped it across his body, you know, to the other side of the field. So the quarterback is always going to be a major part of how we think about the offensive line and how the quarterback reacts to it. But I think they not only have a good offensive line for this year, but if Reisner works out for them, if he's a fit for the Vikings, they've had him in

their building. He's been in the building. They can always resign him for the future. And then everybody is staying, except we'll see about Ezra Cleveland. But if they like what they saw, they could resign him as well. So there you go. You could have a good offensive line. I wanted to start off there, and I want to answer some emails as well, because a lot of the emails are a little dour. So I want to start off in a place where after talking to Dalton Reisner today about how he's coming along and he's taken huge leaps and bounds from last week in terms of his progress, that just looking at it from left to right and looking at what the data says, it could be good. Or at least it could be a lot better than it's been.

I think it also tells you another thing as well, that when you watch football that is not the Minnesota Vikings, you probably watch the quarterback and eat pizza and have a diet Dr. Pepper and talk to your friend and whatever. And you find struggling. And sometimes you don't. But when you are watching Vikings football, you are studying every part of it. You are watching super close.

You're watching for every pressure. And you don't realize how many bad offensive lines exist in the entire NFL. So, um, I, yeah, I think it, it, it has a chance and this is where it, what ties into another topic here. Um, another chance, uh, the, the, the main topic is that it has a chance to be, you know, important, um, for this going forward forward if they get a win against Carolina. I am sorry if we're having trouble here still internet-wise. Are we good? It's showing me a little bit of problems with the internet.

So that's almost never an issue here for us on the show. I'm trying to figure out why that would be. So let me know in the comments section if it's okay. But I'm just going to carry on here and we'll just hope that it picks up. So I wanted to get to some emails though. So let me know if that continues to be an issue. But I want to get to some emails here. Yeah, okay. So even my mom is texting to say that it's freezing up a little. I apologize for that, everybody. I think it'll probably get going here up a little. I apologize for that, everybody. I think it'll probably get going here in a second.

I started off with the screen share, and sometimes that screen share thing really throws it off. But I needed to show you a chart that said the Vikings offensive line is doing well. All right. Well, let me get to some of these emails. I want to start off here with Micah, who sent me a note and just the whole note just says best 0-3 team ever. And this is a thing that is really messed with my brain because when we cover games and the team doesn't win, we're always looking for everything that went wrong. Right. We're going to point the finger at whoever caused the loss. We're going to talk about the last minute where they didn't spike the football. And I don't know, the crowd was too

loud to hear, or there was some issue in the headset and the coach not making the decision. And that's just how it works, right? When a team loses, we go, you did everything wrong. But then when you look at the way that the offense has played, the numbers they've put up, and it's hard to reconcile how good the offense has been. Kirk Cousins leading the league in passing. Justin Jefferson with 149 yards, just short of whatever record he was about to get with 150 for every game to start the season. And even the offensive line outside of the right

guard position being competent and effective and then moving the ball as well as they have. It's hard to sort of reconcile that with the fact that they've lost these games and lost them to probably two opponents that they should have beaten. And so we talk about the defense and, you know, we can break down and I got a question later on Brian Flores' blitzes and everything else. So we can talk about all that, but there was a metric out there showing that they had lost the most win percentage out of any team in the NFL due to random bad luck. And it's just like classic, what a classic Viking thing to go from last year, having so many, um, you know, things break their way to having this, this season start that way. I could not rank to you every team that started 0-3 ever, but I've got

to think that considering the offense, that there have been very few offenses that have put up numbers like this for a team that started 0-3. So if you're trying to talk yourself into, and some people are, turning it around, making making the playoffs then i think that's the place you start is this this is probably a 95th percentile or higher oh and three team which doesn't make anybody feel any better i'm sure but it's i thought it was an interesting question because of all the teams that start oh and three they're probably mostly horrible teams that end up you know going three and 14 or whatever. Right. Although the bears, this shows you how long the season is. The bears went,

I think two and one last year or three and two. And there were tweets about like, Oh, you people who picked the bears to win three games. And then they did. So it is a long season, but that really stuck out to me. I was like, well, how good of an Owen three team is this versus all the other historical Owen three teams? I would guess probably pretty good. But if you give up 40 completions on 40, was it seven passes and 259 yards rushing? You know, that's, that's a way to go. Oh, and three as well. But I just thought that that was kind of an interesting take from Abhi. He emailed me hot take Vikings would be seven and six or eight and five before the Cincinnati game. That is a hot take seven and six. And let me pull up

the schedule here. Seven and six is going to require an upset somewhere. I mean, this is what it really comes down to, right? It comes down to this week, beating Carolina, beating the team you're supposed to beat to at least start out to have some sort of season. Right. And then after that, it's going to require an upset against Kansas city or San Francisco, assuming that they're not going to do anything, you know, crazy like trade Kirk cousins, but we'll see. So let's say that they beat Carolina. I think you have to upset Kansas city or San Francisco because Chicago at green Bay is tough. Atlanta, new Orleans, Denver, Chicago. I mean, there's a lot of winnable games in there. And then Vegas after the bi-week

is also extremely winnable. Like, I mean, if they beat, if they beat Carolina, the easy wins there to Chicago, Denver, and Vegas, there's like four games that they should be pretty locked into winning. It really, you have to pull an upset against one of the teams. You're not supposed to be in order for that to happen. The hot take that's what they would have to do. And Hey, maybe at some point, Taylor Swift becomes a huge distraction. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to try to work Taylor Swift into the narrative. Kansas city is going to be pretty tough to beat because their quarterback can do everything that Justin Herbert did the other day to the Vikings. But it's not the most insane take that I've ever heard,

but it also gives them a lot of credit to beating all the teams that they're supposed to beat the rest of the way. And I think that's where it's going to be pretty hard is that they have to beat all the teams they're supposed to beat. All right. Let me get to Alex here. And you guys just keep me updated. Let me know how it's going. And if it continues to struggle, then we might have to call it. And I'll have to see what the problem is. That's weird because we've been doing this for weeks and haven't had any issues. And maybe it's what, what did somebody say earlier? Solar flares. Maybe that's it.

Maybe that's it. Bob says it's not bad. Okay. Keep me updated. Keep me updated guys. Otherwise I'm just going to keep carrying on. All right. Alex says there's a long suffering Vikings fan that wants nothing more than

to see them be competitive over a long period of time. 2022 was in no way worth it. They will not be contenders for three years. Uh, yeah, the 2022 conversation is kind of come back into the, uh, do I have anything running in the background? It's a good question. Do I, nothing except for prize picks. If you guys watch all the time, you know, the prize picks thing. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. I'll, I'll keep an eye on it. But as, as to the 2022 conversation, there, there is a discussion there that we had at the end of that season of like, was it worth it for the longterm? And here, here would be my case for, it was fine because they were going to tear down a lot of pieces anyway. Uh, the, the Adam Thielens, the Eric Hendricks, Delvin cook, so forth. And they also were never going to

be as bad, uh, to get one of the top quarterbacks unless they had traded Kirk Cousins and played Nick Mullins. And I'm not even sure then because Nick Mullins won some games with San Francisco when he was out there and Carolina, I mean, maybe you could have been Carolina and traded up to get CJ Stroud, Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson, but considering like, let's just say that the Vikings were just what they actually were, which is probably like a nine win talent team last year. If they had gone nine and eight, eight, nine, if they had missed the playoffs, even if they had gone seven and 10, if they'd had bad luck last year, they're still not drafting in the top four and they, and they didn't get fooled by it.

This is, this is an important point, by the way, that every night when we log on, we talk about the general manager, the front office, the decisions that were made. And I don't want everybody to lose sight of how bold it was to make all those changes after winning 13 games that when we talk about the overall direction versus the micro Davenport's not practicing again 2022 draft whatever but the bigger picture in what they did last offseason and moving on from those players when in past years all they did was extend extend extend kick money down the road and everything else. And they didn't do that. So if they did, then I would say, yes, you should regret 2022. You

should be mad at 2022, but they didn't, they still acted like they had been an eight win team. They did not extend Kirk cousins for five years. Like most teams that won 13 games would have. So I think it's fine. I like, I don't think you should look back at 2022 and go, Oh my gosh, it ruined our future. I don't think it did. And in fact, because the NFL is obsessed with height and weight, Jordan Addison falls in your lap at a pick that you would never expect Jordan Addison, a player of his talent, to be available at because I guess he was too skinny or whatever. And now he's a good player in the NFL and we'll see where his career goes if he becomes really good or just effective. but you got a nice weapon in the first round

with your pick anyway. So it's not like if you had picked 11th or something, then, you know, it would have been a lot better. It only would have been better if they were able to get Richardson, Stroud, or Young. And I'm not ready to call it on Young, by the way. I see people talking about, I really like what I've seen from Stroud and Richardson, but talking about Bryce young as,

as if he's like a bust or something. And it's been two games. I guess that's the NFL for you. And I'll, and I'll be curious. It looks like he might play this weekend against the Vikings. I'll be very curious to see how that goes. But so I, I think you should look back at 2022 fondly as a season that included a lot of totally impossible things happening and was entertaining to the bitter end every single week in week out, even the playoff game. I'm not saying you should love that, but even the, the playoff game was exciting and fun and they weren't going to, you know, win the super bowl probably. So you should look back and say, great, we enjoy it. Good stuff. Not that it destroyed your future. Now the idea that there'll

be contenders within three years. I mean, yeah. So this is the thing. Like I, I, it's hard to find comparisons of teams that were in the middle and then went to the top because a lot of teams just tank. So, I mean, imagine, think of it this way, like the Pittsburgh Steelers right now, now they're hard to compare to cause they have a pretty good defense always with Mike Tomlin, but the Pittsburgh Steelers have been a team that never wanted to tank, right. That wanted to always be Mike Tomlin, but the Pittsburgh Steelers have been a team that never wanted to tank, right? That wanted to always be good. So they draft Kenny Pickett and he's like, okay, but not somebody who's going to really elevate your franchise. Well, think about it. If you were a team in the middle, like them, a nine and eight talent type team, but all the quarterbacks in this draft class that are going

to be in the first round are better than Kenny Pickett as a prospect. It's kind of the same deal where Pittsburgh has some good things. They have some weaknesses, they have some things to fix, but the quarterback they picked is probably going to keep them in the middle unless they have a lot go right for him. And he, you know, elevates his game beyond what I think he can. But if you're able to draft someone better than that or get more out of them, and also their offensive coordinator has some problems. I mean, I'm just using a team that's in the middle. But imagine you put a really good quarterback on that team

and then you're able to spend a bunch of money around it. You could be good, right? I think that we've seen this at least a number of times where a team, how about Dallas when they drafted Dak Prescott? There's another example of a team that was pretty good. Tony Romo was toward the end of his career. They had a lot of weapons on that team. They had built up their offensive line as the Vikings now have, we need to like start talking about it that way. Uh, and then they dropped Dak Prescott in and they're good. I don't think that it has to take forever to rebuild

or to competitively rebuild. I just, I don't think that you have to work on those timelines in part because of how quick a draft picks play. and also because of the free agency and how fast you can take a huge blank check into free agency and, and fix major parts of your roster. I mean, the Cincinnati Bengals were so bad in Joe Burrow's first year and the next year they end up, you know,

in the super bowl. And, And that's not what always happens, but they were able to get cornerbacks. They were able to get defensive linemen because Joe Burrow and his contract gave him a great advantage and he's a great quarterback. And it shouldn't be missed that when Tua is good, when Joe Burrow is good, when Justin Herbert is good, when Jalen Hurts is good. What in that draft class is common about all of those teams? And they all have been pretty good just a couple of years separated from those drafts. What is it? Weapons, offensive minds, offensive coordinators, but mostly weapons. T two against Tyreek Hill. He's a different guy. And also McDaniel is, is very, very smart. We even saw it from Keenan Allen the other day,

but I put that on a little bit of a different level, but you can't tell me that Jamar chase and T Higgins have not played a huge role. And Tyler Boyd in the fact that Joe Burrow is good. So does it have to take three years if the Vikings draft a quarterback next year? I don't think so. To be competitive? I don't think so. I think that they can do it on a faster timeline than that. But there's more questions I want to get to here.

From DJ, we're going nowhere unless we have a top 10 to 15 offensive line and defensive line. Only then does skill positions come into play. I mean, I don't think they had either one of those things last year and they did win a lot of football games, but the defensive line is definitely problematic here.

I don't think the offensive line is anymore an issue if Reisner steps in and is okay. Yeah. To a made Tyreek. I don't think that's true. I think Tyreek was pretty good before that, but you know, on the defensive line, this is going to be the biggest challenge though, because I think they do have a top 10 to 15 offensive line. It's probably not as good as those stats say because of some of the situational stuff, but could it, could it be the 12th best by the end of the year? Yeah, I think so. If Reisner is what he was before the defensive line is where the concern lies for the future. Cause the quarterback is of course going to determine everything. And there is a

cap advantage. And I know I talk about it as if it's just snap your fingers and good to go and everything is fine. Of course, that's not the case. It is not easy, as they have shown, to just snap your fingers and rebuild. I mean, at one point in 2021, they're signing Sheldon Richardson back. They're signing Everson Griffin back. And you're going, OK, are these things really going to work? And they did for a little bit, but that's, that's not like patch working. Your defensive line is a hard thing to do when you don't have cap space, but also they will have to draft defensive linemen and, and have them succeed at some point. It's not that easy to just snap your fingers.

And yes, I am aware that in 2022, they could have drafted a fat guy who was probably a lot better than the person they actually did draft. You can also do that for every single draft all the time. They should have drafted that guy. You know what? The Vikings could have drafted Aaron Donald.

That would have been something. I mean, you could just always do that for everything. They also needed to rebuild a secondary that was pretty pathetic at the time as well. So I understood those picks, but the defensive line has to, at some point fall under the category of that's where you're going to spend your free agency money. And now how they work out different contracts around that is going to be a big challenge because whoever they draft at quarterback is not just the fix here. It's not that you draft whoever, and then everything goes magically poof and you're good to go because Jefferson is going to cost a lot of money and because you're going to have Derrissaw that has to get a contract extension. So there are definitely

things that they're going to have to address. But that defensive line, I mean, I do think that that is a massive issue, especially if Daniil Hunter does not end up signing. And we're only going to know when we get to next year's free agency, the year after's free agency, how they're going to address that because they have no one on the current roster that you would look at and say, wow, those are people for the future. Like, no, you're good. Those are guys for the future. So I totally agree with that.

I think they can go forward with a lot of the pieces of this offensive line and be a good enough. Miles says, did you see the stat that since 2012, 113 quarterbacks have been drafted. Only one has gone on to win a Super Bowl. Mahomes. I mean, one of them was also playing him in the super bowl, right? I don't know. I mean, there's only one team who wins the super bowl every year. And a lot of those years were Tom Brady. I mean, stats like that are just ridiculous. Would, would you be okay? So, so you're saying no other quarterbacks worth drafting. You just like through all that, you just throw them all out. Sorry. None of those quarterbacks. I mean, that's funny. I love factoids like that, but that's funny. I mean, Jared Goff was in the super bowl, right? Um, uh, I actually, you know, that Carson Wentz

won a super bowl, uh, with the Philadelphia Eagles. He was just injured at the time and, uh, foals took it the rest of the way, but when Scott them to the number one seed that year, because his roster was incredibly stacked. So, yeah, I mean, when you have a league that was dominated by Tom Brady every single year and my homes, uh, we haven't had the whole lot of diversity and who's going to the Superbowl. So yeah, I guess so. But I just named a bunch of draft picks from one draft,

Joe Burrow also in the super bowl. If I remember, well, I mean the Vikings haven't been there since 1970. If you can, or whatever, whatever 70 was, but if you can,

the seventies, if you can say that they're going to go to the Superbowl and they might lose like, okay, well that's better than they've done it any other time. I mean, well, Dante was in the NFC championship. I don't know. Anyway news on Garrett Bradbury returning. Yeah. He's back. Yeah. He, yeah, he's, he's back practicing this week. So it is, it's a, it's a fun fact, but it also needs a lot of explaining. I mean, you know, Dak Prescott has how many, or is that since that does it count Dak? I mean, he's got like three 13 win seasons or something, you know, it's like, I don't know. I don't want second place. Okay. I don't know. Get Tom Brady in his prime. Then that's probably

the best option. Actually, instead of drafting a quarterback, we should do is go back in time, kidnap Tom Brady, bring him to the future and put them on the Vikings and never draft a quarterback. So where, so where should you get a quarterback? Where should you get a quarterback? Just keep running Kirk cousins. Well, that's definitely winning the super bowl that's come on guys uh that's funny though i mean that is definitely funny that's a it's a good little fact to it actually i got i gotta get to some ad reads i've been so yesterday i i tried running like recording and running them but i look too ridiculous uh with that so i'm just gonna read them to you guys and be patient. We got to pay bills.

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I can get through those like a professional. All right, back to your comments. Pizza, yes. Yeah, you guys are great. Maybe they'll have a deep dish element. Miles says, could you sleep last night while picking Justin Fields? I got a message about that from a fellow prize picks player

that said that he picked Fields last week, thinking they would be down 40 points and fields would have to throw. So he was right, but it just didn't exactly work out. Is Joe Thomas still retired? Can we bring him back in? Oh man. It's funny. Yeah. I, I, I love, I love the factoid. The factoid is funny, but I don't know how they reconcile Carson Wentz in that mix or the fact that, you know, there's a lot of quarterbacks who have had a lot of success. So, um, you know, that, but there's always going to be that thing that someone says when you're going to draft quarterback, which is that he might not work out and you might be right. And then I don't know what to tell you. That happens

sometimes. But I do think, and I had a question about this, about, you know, the timeline, everything else. Let me see if I can, uh, can find that question because there's, there's a lot of questions about that that come up all the time. Yeah. Okay. Dan asked me this question, sent me an email about the contracts of Kweisi Ad-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell. They were given four years to start, which is shorter than most, and it's looking like after this year it's going to be one fluky good season. So my understanding, at least, is from listening to Kwesi Adafo-Mensah talk about the timeline and all that sort of stuff, is that they all agreed on the timeline and all that sort of stuff is that that they all agreed on the timeline

and how they were going to approach the roster from when they were hired. And that timeline was to play out 2022 and see if they could turn things around. And then it was probably to move on from Kirk Cousins after that. But then he played really well and they won a bunch of games. And so they didn't want to completely tear it all down. Although from all the reports out there, there were discussions about that potential this off season. And then 2023, you draft the quarterback. But what I was talking about with Dak Prescott, if you go back a ways, Ben Roethlisberger, there have been quarterbacks to make the playoffs as rookies.

Didn't Kenny Pickett have a winning record last year? And he's not even good. So if you put this rookie in the right situation and he can play, it doesn't mean that that third year of the timeline of those guys has to be like an epic disaster. It doesn't have to be. I think with the offensive players they have, it can still be a competitive year in 2024. And then it's really 2025 where you are talking about this is where you should be competing for a Super Bowl. But when you ask about the Adafo Mensah, Kevin O'Connell era, from a perspective of an owner, what they're going to want to feel like is that the team is in good hands and the team is moving in the right direction. And then they will extend them if they think the answer is yes.

So if this year and this is what I mean, they probably will not trade Kirk Cousins because they don't want to end up with a three-win season or something. I don't know. I mean, who knows? We'll find out as we go forward. The person who thought they're going to be seven and six by the time they play Cincinnati might be right. When you look at the schedule, it's plausible that they could be right and that the Vikings could get back in the playoff race like Detroit did last year after starting one and six, it is plausible. And so I think that they'll keep playing that out anyway.

So the point just being that, you know, you draft a quarterback and then it looks like you're moving in the right direction as a team. And if you have stability as a roster and all that, then they're going to extend you after those couple of years. I think with a first time GM and a first time head coach that they wanted to give them shorter contracts because there's more of a risk involved with the, with unproven guys in both situations. Right. And that's probably why they wanted to do that. It doesn't mean that you get a four year box to accomplish everything you're supposed to accomplish that you have to have a Superbowl in four years or get out, but you have to be moving in the direction. So think about like, think about Spielman and Zimmer.

So they come in in 2014 and their first year was kind of like this year in 2014. Like they were they had talent, but there were big holes on the roster. And there were some things they could do and some things they couldn't they went seven and nine. And they lost close games and stuff like that. 2015, which would kind of be like next year, then they've got the young quarterback, they're in the playoffs. 2016 was supposed to be a big jump,

but they went back because of the injury to Teddy. They didn't fire everybody because they had one year. They kept everybody employed. And then the following season, they end up going to the NFC Championship. And it took from 2014 getting hired until 17, 18, 19 to create a window. It does work that way that it's hard to just snap your fingers and solve all the problems. And, you know, David says there are sure big holes on the roster.

There are. Absolutely. You talked about the defensive line. I totally agree with the person who emailed me and said they can't go anywhere without a good defensive line. 100%. I think in today's NFL, you aren't going anywhere without that. But that doesn't mean that if it's bad by the end of this year laid out are you meeting the expectations that you set when you got here which i think would be next year drafting a quarterback and then steadily improving the areas that they need to improve i think this year in part was about finding out a lot of stuff finding out um you know finding out do you have defensive linemen young defensive linemen that you could build around?

So far, the answer has been no. Finding out what you have in the secondary. Are these going to be guys that you can go forward with? I think the jury is still out on that. Certainly did not look good on Sunday, but I wouldn't say that's a complete indictment of all the defensive backs. So, you know, I, I think, um, you know, I, I, I think that the taking a part of a lot of pieces of the roster has resulted in them having a lot of weaknesses that they have to rebuild. Um, the other option was keeping, uh, you know, Eric Hendricks being way overpaid. So I don't think that those were good options. I got this note from Derek, and maybe you guys will not be thrilled at this one. It says,

have I lost my mind for thinking the Vikings should draft a quarterback next offseason and extend Kirk? Well, yes. Yes, you have lost your mind. I don't. Well, for one, I don't think that Kirk Cousins would want to sign an extension with where this team is at unless they could show him that they were going to have a plan to work around his money. I also think that with Kirk Cousins, there's just been too many times where they have given him short extensions. And I'm not sure that he wants to, you know, continue to do that. Right. So I think with cousins, he wants to find his probably last big contract and doesn't want to just live in this year to year. So if you were going to draft the quarterback, you'd be only talking about extending Kirk for one year. And I don't think that he wants

that. The other part is we've just been through this. If they don't make the playoffs this year, it'll be six years, two trips to the playoffs, one playoff win. I mean, what's, what's the purpose because look terrible. I mean like that, I, that kind of matters, right? That the totality has not been a success. So yes, I do think you're crazy. I really, I really think that just like with the guards, this fan base was severely damaged by Christian Ponder that drafting a quarterback that didn't work out was really miserable and it has created a lot of fear. But I also think that there's a lot of fans as well,

who sort of see the benefit if it does work out unless Tom Brady comes back and wins all the Superbowls, then, then you're in a lot of trouble. Oh, I be strafing asked on Twitter asked said, I think Brian floors through the first three games needs to be discussed. The choice of blitzing any quarterback 85% of the time is hilariously bad, let alone Justin Herbert, who is good against the blitz. So I went back and watched the tape, the entire game on the all 22. And what really blew my mind is how quickly Justin Herbert got the ball out, but also how many opportunities were there for someone to make a play on the ball, and it didn't happen.

And this is Byron Murphy, who was playing banged up in that game, got hurt early in the game and then played through it. They attacked him over and over and over again. And I also thought that when Fl know, when, when Flores kept going back to it, he kept changing coverages and giving different looks and they just had answers for it. And a lot of times it required some really great plays by the quarterback. And there was only a handful of times where they didn't blitz. And when they didn't, Justin Herbert sat back there for four seconds. Like sometimes there just isn't an adjustment or answer

because of your personnel. And I think I want to at least at this moment stand on the side of, yes, that's kind of crazy to blitz that often. But when I watched it back, I thought, well, they forced Herbert to throw a lot of quick passes that if they were able to make some plays on and they were close on a lot of plays that they could have gotten at least a couple of stops and had to go different.

But he just did not miss on a throw. He was as accurate and sharp throughout that game as you ever could have expected. And I don't know. I have a tough time being like, even though I did think my initial thought was the same thing. Like, why aren't you changing? Why aren't you making an adjustment? But after watching it back, it's like, I don't know. I don't know what the answer was supposed to be. And when the Vikings play good offenses this year, we're probably going to run into this. Jim asks, what are the PFF grades for O-line and D-line? Is it terrible this year? Feels like O-line

is not bad for my eyes. Yeah. So Jim, at the beginning of the show, and my understanding was a little glitchy on the internet, so I'm sorry for that. I talked about this with the grades for the offensive line, that they've actually been good except for one player whose mistakes have caused a lot of the problems that you see but for the defensive line i could take a look here uh i don't i mean i don't think you need a whole lot of extra pffing for this the vikings are dead last in pass rush grade dead last it's going to be pretty hard to win if you are dead last in your pass rushing grade um okay got to do another one of these ad reads hold on uh you guys i know all of you now maybe when i'm glitching with the internet my skin does not look perfect and

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Not too bad on the live stream, even with some internet glitching. So anyway, all right. Well, let me get back to, I've been trying to answer all these emails. You guys are giving good comments as always. Oh, okay. This one from Lee. Is it just me, but why isn't KOC, Kevin O'Connell, not getting heat in the past few games? Yeah, I think in the first, well, in the first two games,

there were so many fumbles that it was hard. It was hard to evaluate. I mean, they passed the ball well, and there wasn't a whole lot of decisions to be made from Kevin O'Connell. It was kind of like they fumbled. And what are you going to do? Or, I mean, even in this game, the defense was struggling so much that you're going to look more at the defensive side. And I don't mean to sometimes I feel like this year I've kind of been an apologist for the GM, the head coach and the defensive coordinator. And maybe you can't apologize for all three at the same time, but I think I kind of am being more understanding about where they're at because of where they are in the roster timeline and what

they went through this off season. So Brian Flores inherits a team that he thinks is going to probably have Delvin Tomlinson and Zedaria Smith, and then it doesn't. And then it's like, well, why is he blitzing so often? Because he has no one who can sack the quarterback, and he didn't do that. And that was the strategy he came up with. And I don't have a better plan because Ed Donatel didn't have a better plan, and he had a better roster last year. Kevin O'Connell, I agree with this from Tang here, is that a play calling on short yardage is awful even last year. Kevin O'Connell, I agree with this from Tang here, is that a play calling on short yardage is awful. Even last year, there was a third down. So this is what I wanted to get

to as far as like, how much do we apologize and everything else? Like when we're talking about certain parts of Kevin O'Connell's offense have just been absolutely phenomenal. I mean, the way that they've used Justin Jefferson this year, no complaints. I mean, no complaints at all. They've been in these games in part because Jefferson has been so dominant and getting Addison and Osborne was involved with a big touchdown the other day. If TJ Hockinson doesn't fumble, you know, then we're talking about Hawkinson the running game got back going once they weren't facing the Philadelphia Eagles like there's a lot there to point to on a play-to-play basis you could be pretty dangerous and they've dialed up some explosive plays but

there are some details that have been I think problematic And short yardage is one of them where sometimes it's like, how does Kirk Cousins end up throwing the ball 30 yards down the field over Justin Jefferson's head on third and two like that, like that just should not happen. You know, I was looking at one of the sacks that they had on third and relatively short, and there's a lot of guys going down the field. And it kind of reminded me of the fourth and eight check down where even though Kirk cousins should not have checked the ball down, there wasn't really a lot of great options for that play because multiple receivers were going deep down the field on fourth and eight, where maybe you just need to get eight. The clock wasn't running out. And then at the end of the game, not clocking the ball is a very basic type of play there.

It's, you know, right? You complete the pass. You clock the ball. You got three shots at getting in the end zone. They went from 41 to 12 seconds. That can't happen. So there has been like details, I think, with Kevin O'Connell and calling plays and managing the game and everything else is hard, as Andy Reid showed us over many years. But it was kind of like in week one where, you know, you're throwing passes to CJ Hamm.

Like, maybe don't do that. It looked like by design, you know, last year there, you know, at least they haven cj ham like maybe don't do that it looked like by design you know last year they're they're you know at least they haven't done any goofy trick plays i think i will give kevin o'connell credit that they have thrown out the trick plays they're not doing that uh so far um scott asks does someone go to jail for the first quarter of no jj targets no because they were running the ball well. And they should have had a touchdown drive on the first drive if Hawkinson doesn't fumble there. So I didn't have to put him in jail. I don't think, but it was until they got down. No, well, you know, it was only seven, nothing

when, when Jefferson had a dominant drive for the first time before his 52 yard touchdown. So no, I don't, I don't think so. I think that each game plan with Jefferson has been very good and we haven't had any of those long periods where you go, what is going on? It was really like that one drive. They used a lot of time on the clock by handing off a bunch of times. And I think that was the main reason it was one quarter. And they're going to have that with everybody. Every wide receiver is going to have one quarter. So Tang says, you think an offensive minded head coach should use less long developing plays behind interior offensive line that can't stop a nosebleed on short yardage? Well, yeah, I mean, so it's kind

of hard, right? Because if you don't feel like in short yardage, your offensive line can get the proper push. Then you're not just trustfully handing off every time and saying, oh, here you go. Easy first down. We got Derek Henry and a good offensive line or something. But I also think that when we're talking about third and short, if it's a clear out route, okay. But you should be able to get the ball out quicker on third and short. And that has been an issue. You go four for 14 on third down. It's not very good against the defense that's been pretty terrible.

So, yeah, I think that there's some criticisms. But what I'm always trying to do is lay it all out there, right? So instead of just saying, well, the offensive line's been terrible, let's talk about the whole thing. Or the general manager is terrible, let's talk about the whole thing. And we'll talk about the things that work and don't. I think that's with Kevin O'Connell. There's some tiny game management elements.

Even kicking a field goal from the six-yard line against one of the worst defenses in the league. Didn't love that either. You know, you could maybe ask, should they have gone for two? I don't know if the numbers said that, but if they were kicking a field goal at the end of the game, it would have been different than if they had to score a touchdown. So yeah, I think that there's some details there that need to still be improved from Kevin O'Connell. But I also think that so and I don't think you could put him in the Shanahan yet type of level or McVay type of level for offensive minds. But I also think that a lot of receivers are getting open and he's maximizing Justin Jefferson over his last two years. And that's what's ultimately going to drive your success. Uh, David said, did, uh, Kirk's throw to TJ even reached the goal line.

It might've been a few inches short. Is that worse than simply throwing it out of the end zone? That's a good question. I couldn't see on the all 22 film the inches. Cause you get, uh, if you've ever watched the coaches film, you get a view that's kind of over the top and a view that's behind. And the over the top view was not quite, it wasn't quite like good enough for me to see how close that was. I assume if he caught it, he would have fallen into the end zone. That's the interesting play to talk about because I thought Kirk made a really terrific throw that Hawkinson was able to reach out and get his hands on. I mean, he put a dart like right there. There was also three guys in the area when he threw it, which does make you kind of question,

was that really the right thing to do was try to just like force that in there. It probably wasn't. It was probably a fail from just about everybody. It was a fail from O'Connell. It was a fail from Kirk. It was a fail from Hockinson. It was a fail from a headset. Apparently, I mean, that ending was not good and neither was the red zone.

And that's why right there, you know, when earlier the commenters talking about, well, could they turn it around and get to seven and six? It's like, yes, but also there's too many of those moments to think that it's just a little bit of a random thing. That's kind of happened over the years. So Jim says, can we get one jet sweep per game? Thought we had some fast guys. Seems like we usually get yards on them. Yeah. Jalen Rager was kind of your jet sweep per game thought we had some fast guys seems like we usually get yards on them yeah

jaylen regger was kind of your jet sweep guy jaylen nailer is also another fast guy he's heard so you're probably talking about giving it to kj osborne's good at it yeah they can mix that in um i wouldn't be against that there's not like the thing about this offense is it doesn't look crazy at any time. It doesn't look like, whoa, there's people moving all over the place. There's, you know, all these motions and everything else and whatever. Right. It's, it doesn't look like that. It looks more like here's a bunch of route combinations that are going to design specifically to beat the defense. But sometimes I think there's a little bit of a forest through the trees element of like every, every play does not have to be the most like perfectly designed. Let's run this guy

this way, clear out underneath this way, whatever. Like sometimes it can just be, and I love this about the Chargers the other day, let's just get seven yards and get moving, right? It could be a quick slam. It could be a hitch. It could be, like you're saying, like a quick little jet sweep or something, like just to get the wheels turning because sometimes it feels like the degree of difficulty is hard because the players are talented right and and that makes a lot of sense that they have talented receivers a talented

quarterback but sometimes you go it might not have to always be this hard and that's why you know I did think that some of the play actions that they did against Philadelphia were a really good idea because of that um let's see Joshua Joshua says, Davenport, will he play? Do you mean ever? Because I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And, you know, the thing about that is this offseason when they signed Davenport, what we knew is that it was a swing. And there's a reason we call it a swing because in baseball, you miss seven out of 10 times, right? You swing and miss a lot. That's what happens with, with guys who come for relatively cheap and have high pedigree and have reasons that you think it could be good and reasons that you think it could be bad. I mean, it hasn't worked out so far.

And I don't know if it ever will with Davenport's health. His health has been a career issue. And I think when the Vikings do get more cap space and they're not just taking swings, but they're actually like going after certain players, health in the past has to be a major consideration because it's blown up in their face quite a few times now. And, uh, you know, if he doesn't play for a fourth week, I mean, that's, that's pretty tough. That's a lot of money to be handing out for a guy who's not playing. And I, and I feel for Davenport, I'm sure that he wants to play. Um, as far as I know,

it's an ankle issue and I must be not healing the way that they want it to heal, and that's all I can really say. I mean, I'm sure that he wants to play and that they thought it would work out, whatever, but that is how it goes sometimes with guys who have significant injury history. T. Kubler says, why did the Vikings hand off about 8 to 10 yards deep

from the line of scrimmage on a third and one by the time the running back gets to the line, the push has been stopped. Did they do that? I feel like they, I feel like they don't often run the ball on third and one. It feels like sometimes Kevin O'Connell just overthinks it and decides to have receivers going all over the place. And sometimes maybe it would be a good idea um to do that it that's a that's a hard one i mean sometimes some of these blocking designs are specifically based on um the timing of the play so when the running back gets it they're supposed to be opening the hole so sometimes you see that but uh that i think that that sounds like kind of an old uh old school madden like type of point. So I appreciate that.

All right, let's see. Well, it has reached 9 o'clock. So send Johnny Munt on his screen and confuse the defense. I'm telling you it's not a bad idea on 3rd and 1. David Morgan style. It's not a bad idea. Let's see. Tang says, how many times did the Vikings use the quick

slant? I've only seen a couple to Osborne. I mean, that's, that's what I'm saying. And this is, yeah, miles, you make it a good point as well. And this is why like overall, overall the, the Kevin O'Connell results have been very, very good on offense, but there's these, these little elements of continuing a drive, keeping drives going, like getting into a rhythm where there has been no screen games, zero, absolutely none. And maybe that's offensive line. Like if the offensive line is not healthy, it's harder to run these screens, but come on, you got pros that you should be able to run, hit on some screens and run some screens. I mean, those are easy yards if those hits. So yeah, I mean, I think those areas where you could just kind of,

as you would call it, like get a bucket for this offense are missing. And a lot of times they're having to score on 52 yard touchdowns and things like that. Like that's, that is absolutely the reality of this offense. Tang says, I saw PFF grade. Somehow Ingram was the best rated offensive lineman on the team. No, that's not, that's not it. So what happened with the last game? And I, and again, I watched this back on the all 22, and this is why a little bit of PFF grades is a dangerous thing because they can be very misleading. He was by far the worst pass blocking offensive lineman for the Vikings against the Chargers. But when you watch back the run blocking, and there were far fewer run blocks than there

were pass blocks, his run blocking was really good. It just was. I mean, they dominated the line of scrimmage. Everybody did. But he really pushed some people around in that game and had some really good run blocks. And so he graded high on a run blocking, which moved up the overall grade, even if the right guard play was pretty, pretty, you know, bad and it messed up the offense. So the pass blocking is a way, way worse issue. But sometimes I think personally,

they should be waiting those grades toward the pass blocking because it's so much more important, but they don't. So if you just see the grade, that's the accumulation of all the plays run or pass, but you have to break it apart. And to me, I don't even really look at the run block rate as much. So yeah. Um, it's starving fat guy says it's a bad idea to call any screen with this line. I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. I mean, when Garrett Bradbury is back, you have two of the best tackles in football. Do we like not remember this?

I mean, and tackles can be used on screens. They can pull, they can get out. Like they are some, Ezra Cleveland is a heck of an athlete. Do you remember when they threw that screen to Delvin cook and Ezra Cleveland was running down the field right with him because he's fast as heck. Like, yeah, they actually do. You know, they, they actually do have some offensive linemen that I would love to see used in the screen game because I think that the athleticism is there. Let's see. So Tang says,

do you mean a Herbert didn't get dinged for the fail interception by PFF? No, he would have. Yeah, he would have. That's, that's the thing about like the, the system,

the interception that was supposed to be for a Caleb Evans, that would have been a major negative grade for Justin Herbert. That was terrible throw. It was way under thrown, basically threw it to Evans as if he was the receiver. That would have been a big negative grade. Steven says, Ezra Cleveland's having a great year by his numbers.

He is. Yeah. I mean, by this PFF numbers, I think that you have to really be careful with like three-game sample size for an offensive lineman because you can have a couple of good games, but it's not over 17 weeks. But so far, I think that he has not been the issue.

Let's see. Tang says, I remember once Ezra was drafted to be a left tackle and ended up being a left guard. Yeah, I do remember that as well. And I still never understand why it didn't happen, but your left tackle is pretty good. So I'd rather actually have Christian Darasaw left tackle. Starving fat guy says they only have one positive screenplay last year. You're right. You're right. I don't know why this is. And we've asked numerous times. And you know, one thing that her cousin said is that screen game is either kind of boom or bust, which I agree with, but it's been all busts. And I'm not really sure why that is. Uh,

Al says it's promising that Ingram was so good at run blocking. Can that success teach him anything that will help him in past blocking? I think he's going to be past blocking nobody on the sideline from this week on. And I don't know about that. I mean, there was just one game that he was, I think, in a favorable situation with run blocking last week and did well. But, I mean, the accumulation of what we've learned about him at right guard is that he's a liability.

I mean, he's, over the last two years, one of the worst right guards and pass blocking. I don't know if that could translate because the thing is that like run blocking sometimes is you're just overpowering somebody. You just shove them back and get a great run block. Pass blocking is always more nuanced than that. Right. And not that run blocking is easy. I'm not saying that it is. But sometimes with the PFF grades, if you steamroll somebody or have a few of those huge pancake blocks in the run game, you can grade pretty well. But in the past game, it's a lot of nuance there. It's a lot of stunts and twists and blitzes and reads and matchups and those things. I don't think it can be fixed. I mean, he is so far and away the worst Vikings offensive lineman.

It should be an easy choice to put in Dalton Reisner there. So, yeah, I mean, this is always a question about the running and the play-action tang. If the run-blocking was good, then how come play-action, Kirk was getting immediately pressured by the Chargers. So the play action game, I remember this from the Gary Kubiak era, that a lot of times with the play action game, if teams send their defensive end, see what happens is when you have everybody kind of pulling one way in a play action play, then are not pulling, but moving one direction, it leaves somebody unblocked.

And what you're hoping for is that the play fake has that player kind of coming up the field and you roll around them. That's kind of on the, on the bootleg. So they're out of the play because they're chasing the running back, but some teams will run them straight up the field to anticipate the play action. So if a team is playing it that way, you can't run those bootlegs all day. So I think that's probably why I was wondering if this would show up tonight. And I'm glad it was after nine o'clock because that's when things get weird on the show here is what's up with the whole JJ thing. Does he want out far be it for me to tell you that a wide receiver posting cryptic things on social media doesn't mean anything because of the recent past where it did mean something, uh, with Stefan digs, but with, I don't know, with Justin Jefferson, I, I, I can't try to interpret that anytime

something comes up like that, somebody posts something on social media, people are going to freak out because of the situation. You know, so, oh, you're talking about Tang. You're talking about straight play actions. I don't. Yeah, I'm not sure on that. Why they didn't work. I mean, because if one person makes a mistake, then you're just getting pressured. That's the best I can come up with.

I don't know. I mean, I also think that there's no, here's another reason the Vikings running game has not made anybody scared. So you don't really have to worry about it if you're in the opposition and until it does, I think it will affect some of the, you know, just the general overall proficiency of the play action is, are you getting the looks that you think you're going to get from the defensive line when they're not scared of your running game? But anyway, yeah, I mean, the thing like with Justin Jefferson, it is very much like the guard situation where you're just looking for, if you're looking at his social media,

you're looking for anything to try and be like, is he mad at us? He's got a contract. They've got fifth year option. They've got franchise tags. They're going to pay him a lot of money. Like, you know,

Jade says, why don't they roll Kirk out of the pocket more away from the interior pressure? Yeah, they did that against Philly at times. And I think that the Chargers were playing it a little bit differently, more of like wider to the outside. So if you roll them out, you're kind of rolling them into somebody. But I mean, you just can't do it all the time, right?

There's different viewpoints on that type of thing. I think that's the type of thing you have to do. You have to really set up. You have to work hard to set up when you're going to do that because if you just roll somebody to one side of the field, if the other team does come up field with their edge rushers or if they anticipate it, it can be pretty ineffective at times. But, yeah, I mean, I think that the bootlegs are something

that they wanted to do more this year, and they've done effectively at times, but yeah, I mean, I think that the bootlegs are something that they wanted to do more this year and, uh, you know, they've done effectively at times they've been more effective overall with the play action than they were last year, but it's still kind of a shortcoming. Um, Tang, I'm more confused about why the Vikings don't use more RPOs. So Kirk doesn't have to have eight step drop backs and get killed. So that's the, that's the thing. I mean, that's why they went and got Dalton riser. I mean, I think that this offense with Kevin O'Connell is eight step dropbacks receivers running deep down the field, looking for an explosive place. And it's not the quick game. It's not the screen game. Like it's not the RPO game. Like John D Filippo had them going on.

It's really, and I think that Kirk is not really twitchy enough, like quick enough where it's like pull it and fire it. Like, I don't know if that's really his game, like RPO quarterbacks, like, you know, and there's no threat of him running. So that also kind of plays into it as well. I think they've like, they know what they are. They're running a lot of route combinations. They're looking for intermediate and deep plays down the field, intermediate, especially, uh, and it's mostly effective. I just think there are times where they could just get, get a game, get rolling. So, um, anyway, Rich says, if you were the front office, would you have signed Bradbury back to the team? That's a hard one because I worry about the back issue.

I really do worry about the back issue. I worried about it last year. The only problem is that a lot of times when we talk about the defensive line, like Bill Belichick today, he was asked about replacing a defensive lineman. And he said something like, you know, guys, there's not a lot of hall of famers available right now. And I feel the same way about Garrett Bradbury. When you go to last off season, go look at free agent lists and you look at his contract. It's pretty reasonable. It's not a long-term deal. I mean, it's, it's kind of hard to, it's, it's kind of hard to say who they should have got, you know, instead of Garrett Bradbury. So that's, that's the thing, but yeah. Is it a concern for me about the back

issue? For sure. Absolutely is. Although I got to say like Austin Schloteman, I think had a really tough time against Philly, but he's not a terrible player. I think he can, he can be okay. Like he can be reasonable. Um, so anyway, well, I apologize to everybody that the internet's been glitchy and in and out tonight. And I appreciate all of you who hung through any sort of glitches that were here. Uh, and again, sorry for that. I have not had that issue before, but sometimes things happen. Maybe there's a storm outside and I don't know it because I can't hear from here in the studio, but thank you all for the chat. As always, I feel like we covered a lot of very interesting ground and a lot of discussion and people can always email me at purpleinsider.com.

Shoot me a DM at Matthew Collar. I'll try to get it on the show as I did for a lot of you today. And tomorrow night it will be Manny Hill back here on the show. And I apologize to the podcast listeners. Sometimes the Manny episodes have not made it up on the podcast feed, and I'm going to try to be better about that. It's kind of been like a YouTube-only thing so far, but I'll try to make sure to get them up there. But that will be Thursday night.

And, hey, by the way, you got some Packers and Lions action to watch, so that will be Thursday night. And Hey, by the way, you got some, uh, Packers and lions action to watch. So that should be very interesting as well. So you can turn on the TV, listen to Vikings talk. It'll be great. So, uh, anyway, all right, let me, uh, let me quick answer these questions before I go. How would I grade the special teams? I think it's been, um, the fumble was bad. The offside penalty was bad. Otherwise, it's been fine. I mean, I think Ryan Wright's been great. I think that it's been all right. It's been non-impact is kind of how I look at it.

Is there enough cap space to help bolster the D-line for next year? No, no, there's nobody out there. That's the problem. There's probably enough cap space but who who's to sign i mean is endomic and sue going to impact you you know probably not so uh i think there's enough cap space if they wanted to but there isn't really adult and rise their version so anyway all right thanks so much guys we will talk to you all tomorrow night football