Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can we read in between the lines of the guard situation? Plus, Brian O'Neill returns

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about Kevin O'Connell's interesting comments on Ed Ingram's preseason game and the backup running back situation. Plus a discussion about whether the Vikings will be too good to set themselves up for a QB of the future and how long before we can judge Lewis Cine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and the Minnesota Vikings practiced on Sunday. Unfortunately for fans, they were not able to come out because the team had to move their practice up because of the weather. And eventually the skies opened up in the afternoon here in the area, but they practiced instead earlier and had a padded practice, the usual kind of thing, and then we'll practice tomorrow. They'll have a day off. Then they'll get into the hardcore practices against the Tennessee Titans, of which we will have recaps each day of those practices

that are talked about by the team as being very very important to the evaluation so we even though it feels like we've been doing this like for quite a while now with training camp uh it's we are just in the middle portion i suppose or even still beginning ish i guess more middle portion of training camp and there is still a ways to go two more preseason games and then we finally get into the regular season so this is the uh the dog days of summer this week and just to go through a couple of the things that uh happened out there today i mean as far as from a who made a big play and stuff like that i mean i can still bring you guys that it becomes a little less important until

we get to those joint practices going through kind of the recap of this guy was playing well today and so forth. It wasn't the most intense practice. And then tomorrow, I believe it's going to be another walkthrough and they're going to give them plenty of rest heading up to those intense practices with the Tennessee Titans, which I'm sure Mike Vrabel is going to have his team ready to come here and bring it. But there was a couple of plays that stood out to me today. I mean, number one, Tristan Jackson was back. And I'll tell you, when I saw Tristan Jackson go down a couple of days ago, I guess maybe

a week ago, two weeks, I thought that man's season is over and this may be the window that he misses in his career to have a chance to step up and make a roster and so forth. So he was back and made two spectacular catches right off the bat. And I just continue to think that Tristan Jackson is making a push to make this roster and somebody asked the other day like will they keep five or six wide receivers and even though I think five does make a lot of sense and having one of them being a kick returner you know either Powell or Rager I guess right now probably trending a little toward Jalen Rager based on what we saw in the preseason game although that could change as well and it could end up being Powell but I think they'll keep one of them

to be their punt returner and then the other four wide receivers the three that are obvious and then Jalen Naylor is the guy that we had penciled in from the outset but this is part of what i wanted to talk about tonight that we just are not getting a lot of very uh precise i i guess information when it comes to some of these injuries and or detailed about when guys are going to be back and it's kind of vague of well you know we expected this guy to be back but it's a little more precautionary and I'll go through some of the lists as we go on. But Jalen Naylor had a really great spring and then we've seen him for exactly one practice. So Tristan Jackson has had his opportunities until he got hurt. But pretty much every time he's out there, he's making plays, including today. So I don't think that that means jaylen naylor's not making the roster but they might be a little less apt to just say oh all right jaylen naylor we're good like you're

our guy you're the number four wide receiver all set when he's had this issue and if i had to guess i think it's a nagging calf injury just as a guess based on what we saw happen to him and then uh you know kind of how these go. When you talk about a lower leg, if it's an ankle, usually it's healed and it's healed. And again, I'm just basing this on what I've seen from injuries over the years is the calf injury can kind of linger with you. And they keep talking about just keeping him out, not wanting to re-injure it,

but he's also missing a ton of practice as this happens, and this is a really big year for him. We will see if he comes back during those joint practices. I think that would be ideal to get Jalen Naylor back at that point, but Jackson has had a chance to step up during that time. I think the injury could inspire them to try to keep six wide receivers and Naylor it was a big reminder today in practice that he is you know really good at tracking the football and has been a guy that has stepped up and you know the fact that he didn't go down with an ACL

or something more serious that would have kept him out is a big boost for him and his career that that didn't happen, but also could potentially be surprisingly good depth for this team. I mean, with the top three wide receivers, it's going to be hard to get opportunities to mix and match, but people get banged up along the way. And if somebody's out and you can trust the next man up, well, that's something the Vikings haven't had in a long time and even last year when there was just a couple plays that Justin Jefferson was down against Indianapolis they ended up putting in Rager and throwing a couple of interceptions his way I mean it just they need other receivers that they can trust in case of injury and we've seen Jackson kind of emerge as that guy. So that's part of it, that he was back. Brian O'Neill was taking his first 11-on-11 reps and sitting here still about a month away from that first kickoff.

That's big for them as well because as the time was going by and he was only working off to the side, like, okay, where is this going? Is this going to be more of a delay? Is he going to be ready to play delay? Is he going to be ready to play week one? You start to wonder as the days go by, but then he was making progress doing a little bit of one-on-ones the other day. And then now we see him full 11 on 11 reps. He didn't take all of them. Well, we still saw only Udo getting into the mix quite a bit today, but the fact that he's out there ramping that up,

it looks to me like everything is on track for Brian O'Neill to play in week one. That's a big one. Brian Asamoah did not practice again today. And here's the one that's a little strange. And what Kevin O'Connell said about Asamoah to give you that update is just that he, they thought that there was going to be a chance he could play in the preseason game and they had planned for him to play in the preseason game, but just decided that it was probably a better idea not to have him play and risk any sort of further injury. But then he didn't practice again today,

which kind of leaves you again in that mystery land of, all right, is it going to be soon? Is it really precautionary? Is it something more serious? But, you know, we'll see on that. It doesn't seem like it is something that is going to keep Asamoah out for much longer. And again, they put so much emphasis on these joint practices that I think that with a lot of guys, the way that they've handled their injuries is,

okay, we're going to wait until we get to the joint practices. And then that's where everybody's got to be back as opposed to these walkthroughs and these less intense practices. So that would be kind of my expectation for him as well, based on the way Kevin O'Connell has talked, still no clear he will definitely be back this day or that day. For him, Jaqueline Roy was working off to the side. He is a guy I think could really use those joint practices, but hard to say if he's going to be someone that's back in. So that's kind of where we stand on a lot of these guys. And then the mysterious one is TJ Hawkinson.

TJ Hawkinson has gotten all dressed up and then he has uh gotten out there done the warm-ups and then left the field uh or not participated in any of the 11 on 11s and we saw that today where he was out there he was doing all the individuals and then he left and hard to know exactly what's happening with TJ Hawkinson. Again, an injury that or an issue that has been presented as not being serious at all. And I don't know, the conspiracy theory would be is Hawkinson very close to a contract extension. And the reason that they are doing this is because they don't want him to participate in 11 on 11s and get hurt just before he's about to sign an extension. That's the conspiracy theory. But if it's not that, then I'm not sure. Maybe, I mean,

they called it, I think an illness at some point, someone said illness, but it's quite the illness if it's gone on for this long and he hasn't been participating in full. So I'm not suggesting that I know that an extension is coming, but I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to do 11 on 11s if that were the case. Or maybe it is just something lingering with him. And again, there's always kind of like a time period that you put on these, where is it something that I'm going to think is serious or not? And the fact that he's putting on the pads, putting on the helmet, doing the warmups, same with Asamoah for a lot of these practices has been doing at least some stuff that makes you think that it's not like that serious and isn't going to be something that lingers throughout the rest of camp,

but it is worth kind of the day-to-day update. Here's what's going on out there and so forth. And I mentioned as far as plays go, it was not the most intense 11-on-11 practice, but we did see a really nice interception from Andrew Booth Jr. who needs it after the other night how meaningful is that in comparison to getting roasted by the sixth wide receiver from Seattle probably not that much but someone who needed a bounce back practice after a very ugly performance against Seattle and Wilson Huber put his name on the map with a finger quote pick six

of Nick Mullins it wasn't a great practice for the second team but that's kind of the just the couple of plays that stood out today in practice also poor William Kweimku is waived and will go on IR because he got hurt the other night and then the Vikings signed a special teamer as well that will probably end up on the roster, I would assume, just to play special teams because that was William Kwemku's role as kind of a special teams linebacker. But really unfortunate for him, a guy that ended up on the field last year after being a UDFA, and then he has this pretty serious injury

that looks like it's going to keep him out for quite a long time. So the other things I want to talk about before we get to questions, comments and all that, and we have our usual chat is a couple of things that Kevin O'Connell said on. Would it have been Saturday, I guess, that we were out there for a walk through? Yeah, I guess it would have been Saturday when Kevin O'Connell talked. But I wasn't on last night because it was just a walkthrough and there wasn't much to update you on. But he talked about a couple of, I would say, controversial topics, as controversial as it could be.

Oh, I didn't mention Kenny Wong wasn't practicing either, and we haven't seen him for quite a while, so we'll get to that. But sort of the topic du jour coming out of the preseason game was Ed Ingram and his performance. I give you my opinion on this, that it's more notable that he was even playing than it is how he played. The Seahawks, you know, are they given 110%?

Are they throwing everything at you? Of course not. But there was debate about did he play well did he not play well why did he play why didn't he play i think that it's not a big reach to say that him playing means they want to get him as many reps as they possibly can going into the regular season and obviously that would be out of concern that he's not ready to go. Because if he was rock solid and they were good and all set and ready.

I mean, think about Christian Derrissaw. Year two, last year, Christian Derrissaw played that first series of the first preseason game like the whole line did. And then nothing else. Because he's Christian Derrissaw and they were really happy with how he was playing. So they're handling this one differently.

And that's more notable than how he played. But Kevin O'Connell was asked how Ed Ingram played and why he played. And I'll give you I'll give you his full answer. So we're not just taking a little clip. I'll give you the whole thing and then we could talk about. Yeah, first and foremost, Ed played a lot of football last year, but he's still in his second year. There were some other second-year players out there as well to make sure

that we're doing our part to get those guys primed and ready for the season and all that will entail for them. Ed really wanted to play. He was fired up for the opportunity. Ed graded out pretty well across the board. There were some communication issues that took place on a couple plays where there might not have been a protection call, and it might have looked maybe worse from a fan's perspective

than what it actually was, but there was also some really positive stuff on the tape, and Ed has shown improvement throughout training camp. Hopefully we'll continue to see that throughout the joint practices and whatever work he gets the rest of the way in the preseason. But Ed's played a lot of football really next to a guy like Brian O'Neal and Garrett next to him, so he's out there with some new guys, and continuity along the line is a big deal.

But as coaches, we look at it from a standpoint of each individual player what could they control based upon all the determining factors involved and then they get their grade that way and then sometimes with a player like Ed you're asking for a little more hey make that right you know you know that's that call can't be made in that moment. We need a call, make a call. It doesn't always have to be Garrett or those tackles, echoing calls from outside in. And that was a great experience for Ed that he wouldn't have gotten had he not played. So it's just about the repetitions we're trying to get certain players,

and we truly have an individual plan for every single player on our football team from the 90th man all the way down to Justin Jefferson, as far as what we think is most important for him, for those guys to be ready for September 10th against the Bucs. That was a winding answer. And I know that that went in a lot of different places, but I think what you can take away from that is that they thought he played okay and they wanted to get him the reps to get him as much experience as possible at the same time there's some of the details that they wanted to be better and he sort of devolved into that into the well you know we need him to actually communicate on some of those plays and so forth and when you looked at the pff

grade this is an interesting thing about offensive line because you looked at the PFF grade and the pass blocking grade was not very good. It was only on nine snaps though. And if you have one pressure allowed on nine snaps, no matter if it was communication or if it was just getting beat or whatever reason, that's going to get a bad grade

because if you gave up a pressure every nine snaps, you'd be giving up five or six or seven per game. So, you know, the rate is kind of, can be a little bit twisted. If you make one mistake in a preseason game, your grade can end up kind of not being good from PFF. But I think that that really speaks to the offensive line position and the issue

with ed donatel what i'm sorry ed ingram sorry i've been saying there's issues with ed donatel for so long that uh ed ingram is that he has talent and he's good enough to be in there uh but it's really about the one mistake here or there that ends up being the problem. And those mistakes add up that if you start to think about offensive line, how crazy it is, if you make two or three mistakes a game, you're going to rank toward the bottom of the league. I mean, that's how precise that the offensive line position has to be, or at least not getting beat all the time. And it feels like those stand out so much as well when there's a mistake.

So we all take notice, but that's just the thin line that you walk. So with his answer, it was interesting because it was, oh, he graded out pretty well and we were happy with it. But, you know, there's this and there's that, and he needs to do this, and he needs to communicate. And so I think that that's why he's out there, is that they're trying to squeeze out every bit that they can, and he wouldn't be out there if they felt like it was solid. And we heard a lot of, well, he's improving throughout the training camp,

but not the, hey, this is our guy. There's no one else in the world for us except for him. And, you know, that goes along with what we already know, I think, about Ed Ingram. So even though you could say, well, there's been debate over why he played, whether he played. I think that we also have to use our common sense when it comes to this position. And to me, it says they're concerned about some stuff and they're trying to work it out and they wanted those reps to try to work it out. And they're probably going to continue to give him these reps to work it out. And we'll see if Dalton Reisner shows up here at some point and ends up competing for that spot. But if that doesn't happen in the next couple days,

it's very hard for it to happen. Offensive line is a position that I think you need a lot of practice and a lot of chemistry to step in to the offensive line. From Gary here, bottom line, is he going to be serviceable this year? That's the thing. I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not confident in that at this moment with him playing and them talking about how he needs to communicate and talking about how they need to still get these reps in there, even though he's played a lot of football. That doesn't really make you think it's going to be that much different than it has been. But just to continue on that road of, it's really about the mistakes. If you cut it down by one mistake, a game, you go from being the worst tackle with, in terms of sacks and pressures allow or guard in terms of pressures and sacks allowed you go from the worst

to being just okay and just okay would be pretty darn good compared to what it was for last year uh noren says it's ed's second year what's ezra's excuse as ed over ezra i don't know if i mean i i don't know if ed ingram is better than ezra cleveland i i don't know if, I mean, I, I don't know if Ed Ingram is better than Ezra Cleveland. I don't know if they ever will be. And the thing is that you can say, yes, it's his second year, but we've heard this many times with these offensive linemen of like, well, Wyatt Davis will take the next step. Drew Samia will take the next step. Sometimes there's not a second step to take with an offensive lineman I mean you are talking about a guy who graded all the way at the bottom of the league in this in the same range as Dakota

Dozier the same range as TJ Clemmings last year I mean it wasn't good and it feels like it's beating you know uh beating the subject to death about just how much this matters and focusing on this one guy, this one guard. But it can't be overstated that you need to take a humongous step forward, not just a tiny step forward, not just a little sharpening of some techniques. I mean, this is a big leap forward that they need to take a guard. So I thought it was a really interesting step or a really interesting comment from Kevin O'Connell to explain how they feel about Ingram at this point and how that answer went from

we graded him pretty good, but, but, but, but, but, and sort of went down this other path from Skull for Life, Barber 1975. There you go. We need Reisner. What's the deal with him? I don't know what the deal is with him. I saw our friend of the show, Brandon Thorne, tweet out that he's working with Duke Manyweather, who is one of the top offensive line trainers. And so I imagine he's staying in shape and that he's ready to go. And it just needs to be a matter of, do they want to pull that trigger or not? Because once you sign Dalton Reisner,

you pretty much have to put him in, or at least give him a really good opportunity to compete with whoever is starting, which means if it is the right guard, and this is kind of a hint that it is the right guard, although Ezra is questionable as well, Ezra Cleveland at left guard, so it could be competing with both of those guys. But once you bring him in, you have to give him an opportunity to compete with those guys legitimately, and then you risk him winning the right card job, which to me, of course, is not a risk.

But think about from their perspective, they drafted a guy. They've been working hard on developing him. Are you ready to just say, all right, this isn't working. Let's get a free agent who's going to compete for this job. I think it's always a little more complicated. Some people in the organization probably believe that he's going to compete for this job. I think it's always a little more complicated. Some people in the organization probably believe that he's going to take a step. Some people might not if they're looking at Dalton Reiser.

And that goes for both guards, that you always have a lot more at play than just sign that guy and how much he wants, what position he wants to play. Like all these things are factors. But I actually just kind of agree with you. Like just maybe probably just sign Dalton Reisner. Joy practices will help a lot. I don't know if they will. That that's always the hard thing to tell, like,

because the margins are so thin and so small that you can watch the all 22 from the other night and you can try to break it down. You can watch all of the practices and say, you know what? I'm seeing some good stuff here and not great stuff here and all that. But I also think that in terms of like, is it going to be one mistake or zero or three during a game is so hard to figure out from these tiny sample sizes of things. They're going to play against what is jeffrey simmons the guy from uh tennessee is that gonna help or is jeffrey simmons just gonna maul him and it's not gonna help like i don't know um let's see from from alexander don't you preach

that offensive line takes three to four years do you propose that ingram takes a year on the bench yeah i well i do i think that it's more of you don't know for several years because the development curve is so difficult. And this has been proven. It's not just like my thought. It's been proven by the numbers. And Timo Riske was the one from PFF that studied this a few years ago

about the development curves for every position and found that offensive line, the thing is that we're not sure about who you're going to be for three years. And the question is, are you rolling the dice on Ingram for this year? Because if you roll the dice and it comes up the wrong way,

well, you're going to get Kirk Cousins hit a bunch of times. Do you want to do that? I do think that you can bench a guy and then bring him back and see if he develops. But there's also an element of once you bench him, it's kind of over. And you've sort of decided like this isn't going to work out. And then we'll hear the next year. Oh, well, no, actually, he's going to compete for a job again. But normally it's it's pretty tough.

Once you've decided to push that button, it's kind of tough to come back from that. But it is always possible over a couple years. And we saw it with Garrett Bradbury. He's great evidence of this. It was so bad for Bradbury that he was benched in 2021 and then comes back last year and is what I think 10th by PFF overall average in terms of pass blocking there's a lot of factors that go into it and you can take a step forward still do I know whether he's going to or not I mean the signs right now don't point toward yes early in training camp but it's getting late early i mean we are we're coming

along here i mean we've got you know less than a month to go so they've got to be confident coming out of these joint practices and that's my suspicion is that they want to see the joint practices but i also think that if you're in a position where you're saying we want to see nine pass snaps against the seahawks we want to see a handful of joint practice i mean if you're saying we want to see nine pass snaps against the Seahawks. We want to see a handful of joint practice. I mean, if you're in that spot, it's already time. This is like my relationship thing. Like if you're telling your friends, I'm thinking about breaking up with them, then you've already broken up with them in your head. If you're thinking about a new guard, you just should go get a new guard. But this is a great question here from Gary at this stage of

the game. What do you do to fix it and the answer if it's not dalton reisner the answer is there is no answer there's not another player and chris reed is not even dressed yet so i would say and i wondered last year what about chris reed and because when you look at his numbers throughout his career he's been a serviceable guard much better in terms of pass protection than ed ingram but he's not even practicing and this is why you do have to start looking at other people so you have you know austin schlopman is a center not really a starter at center or guard in the nfl ollie udo has been tried at guard before that doesn't work so you really don't

have i mean the blake brandle experiment i don't think that he's ultimately a starting type of guy it has to be someone from the outside and i think it has to happen within the next week or so in order for that to to get the ball rolling not that you can't sign him later than that but in order to start week one and go forward from there. From Curtis, between signing TJ and JJ to extensions and signing Reiser or Hunt, which order do you think it needs to happen? Well, the Jefferson and Hawkinson extensions can happen whenever. I mean, that doesn't really matter. I think that a running back probably needs less time in order to be ready to play with a team than an offensive lineman.

Chemistry is just so important. We've also seen, I mean, it's funny, like Latavius Murray shows up with teams and then plays the same week. Or Christian McCaffrey was able to do that in San Francisco. I think that running back is one of those spots. That's why you see at the deadline, like a Jay Ajayi. Remember that? The Eagles traded for him. You can get those guys in and they can play pretty quickly.

So that one is, I think, less urgent. And they can also see how it plays out with Kenny Wong Wu and Kenny Wong Wu's health and maybe get him an opportunity if he can return to participate in some joint practices, get in a preseason game game get a little more look at him as a backup running back because we haven't seen much and uh then you know you could solve the other extensions anytime before the start of the season once you get in the start of the season though and for me at least i don't know that i've ever seen since i've been covering the team them sign an extension mid-season there's just so much going on. Players want to focus on, on the games and preparation and not worry about their contracts.

So there's a pseudo deadline, but not exactly a deadline. I do think that the Hawkinson thing, it's very plausible to me that he hasn't been doing 11 on 11s because he is closing in on that extension. And that would be a huge step for him if that is indeed the case. And something that we've advocated here on the show every day since they got TJ Hawkinson and he lit up Washington last year, like this guy's a great fit. And I think you should want him to be a fit for a long time. That one is easier to me than Jefferson because with Jefferson, the Jefferson side is in such a strong position that they can ask for the moon and say we're only moving if you give us the moon. Where TJ Hawkinson, it just makes a lot of sense for him to look at other recent contracts

and say, all right, I know what Evan Ingram got. He's kind of comparable. Maybe I'm a little better, so I need to beat that contract, but maybe I'm not going to quite hit Darren Waller. And there you go. There's your deal. He has fit so well. He seems to be a Midwest type of guy, really embraced Minnesota. He's 26 years old. He's just starting in his prime for tight ends. Like everything aligns for TJ Hawkinson and I could very much see uh him signing very soon but I think that in the order of those things if I were to guess like well you know which one happens first it's probably

Hawkinson and you need to get Reisner done if you're actually doing that and then but you could sign Kareem Hunt a week before the season it would probably be okay that's kind of how i view that uh speaking of the backup running back situation by the way this is another point of curiosity that we've had we all saw ty chandler we all watched him run i thought it was good i bet you thought it was good but yet they're still bringing in Kareem Hunt for a visit so why is that well Kevin O'Connell was asked that very question and here was his answer it has not been an issue I think it would be unfair to you know he's just in his second year and we're asking a lot of him um and he's in uh he's he's getting reps with with our first group where we're moving

pretty quick we're getting you know the full Brian Flores experience on a daily basis. So there's a lot of moving parts to that. And the consistency factor, it's one of those things that that's how you ultimately prove that last phase. It's clear Ty has unbelievable physical talent with his speed and his vision and his burst and his ability to make defenders miss, which he's proven time and time again in those competitive situations. I always joke with our defense, when they go running by, tagging off, and start hooting and hollering, there's always a tackle to be made with that. And that's what I was happy about our defense the other night, making those plays.

But Ty clearly showed that. It's just every facet of the position. And it's showing day in and day out that you can have that ownership of it to truly be trusted in any moment. Because that position, especially as that potentially a number two type back, it's not like you can control when Alex needs a blow. It might be a, you know, he might rip off a run on a second and long, but he might need one on a third down,

and then you're coming into maybe the most critical snap of the whole game. It's a little different than some other positions when you're kind of in a role where you're getting ready, but you don't know ultimately when you're going to be called upon, and that could be snap in and snap out based upon, you know, the rhythm Alex has, and it's nearly impossible to play a running back every single snap, even when they're 100% healthy. So you just have to have that feel as a play caller and really our offensive staff that, you know, Ty's going to go in there and we will not

miss a beat with what we want to try to do schematically and take, you know, take that comment for, you know, what it was. But I'll say say this ty's having a really good camp he is right there as far as taking that next step to that consistency and performances like the other night only confirm what i already believe about ty chandler so that sounded like a lot of he doesn't know how to pass protect yet which pass protection is very complicated and not easy and especially when you're facing brian flores's defense every day which he mentioned and you do have to trust that your running back is going to be able to come in i mean he kind of laid out the scenario right if alexander madison needs a rest or is banged up and ty chandler's got to go in can you trust

that he's going to be able to pass block and go out for the right routes and do everything that they ask him to do correctly, but also to point out that his physical talent is absolutely terrific. And I think that's what you see on display much more during training camp. And that explains why they would be looking at a veteran running back like Kareem Hunt. That makes a lot of sense. And I don't think that it's overrated in this offense. If this was Mike Zimmer's offense, maybe it would be a little less important.

The third down stuff with pass protection always is. But they're a pass first offense. They're going to play a lot of shotgun on first down and just, you know, get they're going to get blitzes on first down. They're going to get, you know know some complicated looks from time to time and they have to trust that ty chandler is going to be able to handle those things can they trust him right now it seems like the answer is we're not sure but we like what we see physically from him and then you know you might have to bring somebody else in if wong woo just is not healthy or ready to go at the beginning of the season.

Let's see from Dave. There are 31 other teams that could show interest in Reisner. I mean, that's an interesting point. But at the same time, Reisner over the years has been a solid offensive lineman. And sometimes these guys end up just falling through the cracks where they think and look, Delvin cook is Delvin cook, not a good NFL running back. Doesn't have a job yet because sometimes they think that they're worth more than they're worth. And when they don't get it, they just get left out on an Island. But if you go back through the years, some mid training camp acquisitions for teams that have won games have ended up being important. So I wouldn't look at Reisner and go, oh, well, no one else has signed him, so he must be not good.

But also a lot of teams usually at this point in the game, they've already got their plans. They've already been working since minicamp and OTAs on their offensive lines. I do question, though, I do wonder, yeah, like why didn't he get a job so far? Is it something personality-wise that he wasn't a fit with Denver? There was that scuffle that he had with the backup quarterback last year, or is there an injury that people know about that they're not confident in? Is it that he wants way too much money?

Like what is it that is keeping Dalton Reiser off a team? That is a great question, Dave. So I'm not going to downplay that. I guess I just look at his history and go, I don't know, man. Like, that's pretty good pass blocking history versus last year, literally the worst in the league. I'm kind of willing to roll the dice on that. Alexander, is there a reason not to restructure brian o'neill's contract in order to sign some of these free agents yeah by getting rid of uh delvin cook and zadaria smith

they created enough cap space to be fine there uh to be totally fine uh at the moment to be able to sign these guys it would not be an issue if they needed to sign dalton risner right now he's only going to get a couple million. It's not a problem. They could probably backload it a little bit to next year. Kareem Hunt's going to cost like $3 million probably and maybe some incentives. So I don't think that that's a problem. And then you would still have a little bit of cap space to push into this year if you

needed to. They could push that button, but I don't think you want to. I mean, one of the things that Kwezi Adafo-Mensa this year, outside of a little bit, a little bit of a touch of those void years with Marcus Davenport and Byron Murphy Jr., but nothing super serious, I think has set themselves up for cap health really in two years from now is to be very healthy by the salary cap. Once you get past, if Kirk Cousins leaves, once you get past that big $28 million chunk of dead cap, if he goes, of course, there could always be an extension. But once you get past that, then you end up with pretty good cap health. And I don't think they want to hurt that by restructuring a contract, pushing money down the road. That's what got them in a lot of tricky

positions the last two off seasons. And one of the reasons a lot of guys aren't here and that they're in the spot that they are. So I think that they want to be careful about how much they do with that. And there was some evidence with the way that they handled Adam Thielen. They could have post June 1st, Adam Thielen, and they decided not to in order to do better down the road as opposed to right now. And this kind of speaks to competitive rebuild. And I also think they want that in their back pocket just in case, as you mentioned, if something comes about where you really need that cap space,

okay, then they have that button, but you don't want to, unless you have to, uh, from Gary, I don't have confidence in Bradbury, your thoughts. Well, I mean, PFF grades from year to year with every position can change and there can be small sample sizes. There can be circumstances that play into certain things. So you could have one year where Garrett Bradbury was pretty good last year by his PFF grades and by all of our eyes to much better. It's not just, you know, what their grade was, but what everyone said, the fact that they brought him back, all the evidence pointed to this guy was a really good fit with the system, but that doesn't mean that it's just a guarantee that that will be the case every year that he'll end up with a solid performance. And especially based on what we saw from years past, you do

have to still ask that question of like, can he repeat it year in and year out? But I tend to think that he can because of how they play. So they're in the shotgun more often, which means a little bit more space for him to get depth when he's anchoring, which, you know, football, right? But you know what I mean? Like taking the snap, being able to really set himself and deliver, you know, kind of a little more power into the guy who's coming at him. The other part is that I think opposing teams attack the guards quite a bit, which could have played into it. Your schedule plays into this. So I don't think anything on the interior

is really solid yet that it's all going to have to be proven in order to have any sort of trust and belief that their interior offensive line is going to be good. And Bradbury is a part of that. It's just that Ingram has been so much more of that discussion because he didn't play well last year as a rookie. And now this year, there's sort of a little hint of, we're not sure he's going to take the step that we're talking about. From Bland Toast, with these late round picks, UDFA is performing well.

Is Kweisi going to adopt Spielman's collect all the seventh round pick strategy? No, I don't think so. I don't think he's going to. But I think, and really it's Ivan Pace is playing well. And Caleb Evans was a fourth round pick from last year. And, you know, Jaqueline Roy, I've liked what I've seen from the fifth rounder. But always, always, always in forever, what UDFAs and late round picks are going to be is random swings with hopes and prayers. That's what Stefan Diggs was.

If they knew that Stefan Diggs was going to be that good, they wouldn't have drafted Michael Pruitt ahead of him in the same round. It's always just going to be, it's not that Casey like had some better, way better vision with Ivan pace. The Vikings did that a lot. I mean, in recent years they brought in even with Spielman, they paid guys a lot as UDFAs. But I mean, I think that a lot of teams take that strategy where, hey, like this guy fell through the cracks, but you never know. So let's get in the best UDFA and take a swing at it.

And maybe he becomes something. Probably he doesn't. And you spent $300,000 on it. So who cares? That's both before the previous regime and this regime strategy. And it's going to be total luck, whether those guys work out or not. I mean, it's luck enough to talk about first rounders, much less the late round pick. So I, but I don't think it's going to change Kweisi Adafomenta's draft strategy that he's like had a couple of guys work out that are in the middle late rounds or at least like

we think work out uh from leonard if we sign reisner how much would that swing competitive versus rebuild uh not much i mean because you know i think that it's important to mention that when we look at what they've done as far as competitive rebuild of allowing guys to have their chance in training camp to earn their jobs. So if they just went out and signed Dalton Reisner and didn't play at Ingram for another year, I might've gone, Hmm. Okay. Um, are you sure? Like you don't want to at least find out with Ed Ingram, uh, you know, right. Like, don't you at least want to see what's happening there before you just replace him with a veteran and I probably would have said if they had signed him in the

offseason like okay that's a really bad sign but it's also maybe a little bit reactionary or a little too much but if you have given a guy you know OTAs minicamp and then and then this goes for Ezra Cleveland as well uh assuming that it was not that we're not 100 sure it was just because of ingram that dalton reisner was brought in here for a visit but i think that giving them weeks to show you hey i've taken a next step i'm getting it with this offense i'm gonna be better this year or at least show the coaching staff, give them a reason. I think that they gave everyone an opportunity to do that. Even the running backs, but Kenny Wong, we've got hurt and Ty Chandler.

It sounds like they don't really trust the past protect, which is a big deal. And then you end up in this position where you're saying, all right, well, we gave you your shot and it's not where we want it to be. And now here we are. I also think that when your team looks pretty good and they've looked good in training camp, look like a good offense and like an improving defense that you start to say, okay, well, look, I mean, we, we were always going to try to be competitive, but now we, you know, we might have a chance to win this division. So let's bring in one more guy. I don't think that that destroys competitive rebuild or moves it one way or the other. It's just, Hey,

if you're going to play that competitive side, you got to try to win. And so you should sign adult and rise there and try to win, uh, from what about Bob an all-time great movie? Why is this team in denial that the interior O-line and interior D-line is bottom five? Trenches win the war. Teams like Philly believe in strong lines that will destroy the Vikings once again. It is hard to disagree with you there, WhatAboutBob, that, I mean, they've spent a lot of draft capital on the offensive line. And that was going back to Rick Spielman, and mostly Rick Spielman, actually, spending all that draft capital to build up the offensive line.

That was a very obvious strategy and they drafted a second rounder. So it's not like they didn't invest in that position recently before when you're talking about Dakota Dozier, Tom Compton, the career backups who are just being tossed in or guys moving positions. You know, I don't like that very much. That I think was a product of salary cap. And they just had to decide which positions were not as valuable to spend money on. And I think that they missed on that. I think that guard is one of the valuable positions when Kirk Cousins is your quarterback because of where the pressure

always comes from. And it tends to always be from the offensive line and the interior that you can't just sort of hide that or protect that. And I just, I just wonder if they sort of missed the ball there and then sort of tried to rally by drafting a bunch of guys in the high rounds. And the fact that none of them have turned out to be elite players, Cleveland, Bradbury, Ingram has left them in the spot to scramble. And if you look around the league, there's probably 20 teams that are scrambling the defensive line. And it does go back years. There are very few guys who are great at pass rushing and on the interior. And that's why the ones who are get paid a ton of money, but they haven't even really

taken shots at finding those guys or even found rotational guys who can rush on the interior since Sheldon Richardson. And I don't get it either. That's been a very questionable strategy in my mind is continually bringing in guys who are just sort of grinders on the interior and not game changers. And I know from this type of scheme, you want guys who can push the pocket, create gaps for blitzers, things like that. But I also think, you know, watched christian wilkins last year eat up the vikings interior offensive line we've watched it before a bunch of different players and you know grady jarrett who they're going to play again this year kenny clark akeem hicks through the years like these guys become household names in minnesota because of how problematic they are for the quarterback and they just haven't had that since really Tom Johnson in 2017

and Sheldon Richardson in 2018. And I agree with you that when a team has an elite offensive and defensive line, I mean, you've got a chance. And they don't have that at this moment. And on the defensive line, there's just going to be limitations there in general. That's where Flores is going to have to make up for a lot of that so yeah i mean i i agree with that criticism and it goes back uh over you know quite a ways i think and it's very much fair and it could be costly for them uh david says reisner is the move i want if garrett bradbury regresses again we might have three turnstiles in front of

cousins yeah it's much harder to see Ezra Cleveland improving than it is Ingram and that's sort of part of this conversation is all right well if Bradbury it was his outlier season that you're counting on from last year and Cleveland is kind of gone so far in his career that how much progress is going to be made there. I guess it was Bradbury's fourth year that he made the jump, but it just seems to be a fundamental issue with having these really bad games. If you look at his grades from game to game, it's wild. And again, it's not just his grades.

I'm just using that as like, here's an objective measure. But obviously for myself watching back, it's great games from him. Sometimes. I mean, like he's just stellar. And then other times where it's three, four or five pressures in a single game. However, the defense is playing. I think physically he's got the talent, but this is a guy who didn't play guard before. And I don't know if it's ever really clicked in for him with what defense is due to attack him. And that, you know, that's ever really clicked in for him with what defenses do to attack him um and that you know that's been an issue but you're but you're right that if you get a veteran in there who is

proven over four years to be a good pass blocker you do feel a lot more secure i've always felt like you can have one weak link on a d on an offensive line and make up for that and work around it. But if you have two, then it's just too much to try to handle and to try to scheme around or try to give help or whatever else. From Dave, it sounds like Duke Shelley won't make the Raiders squad, and I guarantee there will be an MN mob saying sign him. No one wants Reisner so far. Why? Yeah, well, that's the question is why no one has signed Dalton Reisner so far why yeah well that's yeah that's the question is why

no one has signed Dalton Reisner is a very fair question I think it's probably price tag it's the same thing with why hasn't anyone signed Delvin Cook it's probably the price tag but Duke Shelley I would welcome Duke Shelley back I mean look at this quarterback group if you're going to give Duke Shelley a depth spot on this team if if he gets cut by the Raiders, okay, that sounds good to me. I mean, I know it was a small sample size thing, but I mean, the guy did fit in pretty well. It doesn't always work to bring somebody back. I think we know that they tried to bring Tom Johnson back.

Wasn't quite the same. They tried to bring Mackenzie Alexander back. That wasn't really a thing. So that it does. Yeah, that is something that the previous regime really loved to do. And there's not always a guarantee in a small sample when a guy made a bunch of plays that he's just going to do that again. At the same time, we're talking about like Jawan Williams, Tay Gowan, players like that.

I think I would be OK with Duke Shelley coming back. If I might agree with the mob, as you called them in this one, not that I think that he's going to start, but if he's depth, that's okay. Alex says, do you believe the interior offensive line struggles with twists, stunts, splits, pickups is more mental or skill related? Can this be fixed after one off season? I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't know. It crushed them last year. It absolutely crushed them.

But there is an element of all this to how quick can you process what you see and react. And when you hear the couple of little hints, and this is what I do. So there's like all I do. So maybe I do this too much read between the lines, pick up the little hints or whatever. But Wes Phillips at one point mentioned with Ed Ingram, the word false step, which means you kind of have this like a little, I don't know if it's like a hitch you would call it,

or it's just not exploding immediately to the right spot with the false step. And that's usually a hard problem to fix with offensive linemen. And then you have Kevin O'Connell talking about communication, which is an understanding of the offense and defenses and how they work. And can you train somebody at three people to communicate better to all recognize better and not make mistakes but also they do also just get beat right off the line of scrimmage as well so you kind of add that in and that's a lot to overcome but if we just go by the grade and say well he was a 42 out of 100 last year that's That's really bad. If it's a 60, then you're like

in Josh Klein range and you're much better. So that's the question they've got to ask themselves is that they think it could be just this much better. And I, uh, I, I don't know. I don't know if it can, uh, from Davey, instead of talking about bringing in a particular player, we should stick with the guys we know who can contribute and focus on depth. Plain and simple, our depth sucks. It's not good. I mean, with Chris Reid, it's really not good. I thought Chris Reid was a very solid signing for them last year

and that he would be the guy they would go to if Ingram wasn't ready, and they just never did that. It was very similar to Ed Donatel, where they just never did that. It's, it was very similar to Ed Donatel where they just never changed. It was like, they just let the bad thing keep happening and did not change, did not change, did not change. And then it got them ultimately at the end of the year. And, you know, I look, I mean, I don't know. So, you know, I guess I just think that this would be a little bit different if they did say we're going to make a change. But their depth is not good because Chris Reed is hurt. And I think that if he was healthy, that he would be competing legitimately for this job. But he's not. Norid Noriniver is kirk kirk's best friend yeah the only thing is that um

you know with josh oliver there's only so much you can do as a tight end which is uh you know to to chip on on the edge like there's not a whole lot of tight end can do with that interior pressure that's why i've always been advocating for better guard play and and look you know when you spend that many draft picks on interior line and you get this out of it what they've gotten so far it's certainly uh concern so uh matthew why has no one asked koc his concerns on interior pressure i miss thomason's straightforward questions um didn't i just play earlier in the show what what he was saying about uh ed ingram uh is that was that not it um look i work it's fine uh are we afraid of uh getting zimmer's uh stink eye i i mean kevin o'connell is one of the easiest people to ask questions to

in the universe he will answer any question very nicely there's nothing that is like a worry about asking him any questions we we did it we asked about ed ingram and why he played and whether he thought he played well i i don't know what else is supposed to be asked there so um i don't know every once in a while that comes up like why don't you guys ask like harder questions? And I just want like, what? What exactly is it you're looking for? Are we supposed to yell at him? It's weird.

I mean, Chris was a great colleague, but I don't understand where this comes from. I also don't understand why people watch press conferences. That's weird to me as well. So anyway, anyway, what about Bob says, what do you think? After 20 months, I have still no idea what Quasey's plan for this team is. It seems like the competitive part is offense and the rebuild is defense. I think his plan is quite clear. I mean, I think he's laid it out clearly and they've executed it clearly.

What they did was when he came in in they laid out a plan with the ownership this is going to be a three-year window and we are going to execute the three-year plan the first year is we're going to load up as much as we possibly can by bringing back Patrick Peterson by getting Zedarius Smith by changing the offense changing the culture we're going to try to win and they won 13 games. But the year two plan may have included moving on from Kirk Cousins initially. I don't know if Kirk hadn't played as well as he did last year. But the year two plan was a lot of these older guys, we're going to move them out.

And they moved a ton of them out. That if you're not going to be part of the future, then we're moving you out. And we're going to draft the heck out of the secondary on defense and sign younger players like Byron Murphy and Marcus Davenport, who are still very much coming into their primes by their age and could be a part of this for multiple years. And also keep the offense together because when you have Justin Jefferson, you can't tank and you have an ownership who doesn't want to tank anyway. So you bring back Kirk, but you don't commit to him long-term. You leave the door open for your next quarterback situation for the next guy to come in to a really great offense.

And you hope that the defense peaks at some point with all the draft picks that you've put into it. And those two things converge and then you compete for a Superbowl. Like that's the plan, whether it works. I don't know, but it's, I think it's, it's right there that in all of the moves. Now, if they had kept like Eric Hendricks and Delvin cook or something, I'd be like, okay, I don't get it. But all the players that they brought in aside from like Dean Lowry,

but that's not any sort of big deal. All the players who they brought in are guys that are, I think, going to be a part of the future. And so I feel like Kweisi's plan has really played out quite well for someone who wanted to do a competitive rebuild. Personally, I think that tearing a lot of it apart before last year, they still could have been competitive and then they'd be a year ahead in this thing as opposed to where they were. But that's not the plan that they worked out when he took the job. So David asks, what's the asking price for TJ Hawkinson? Have you heard anything? I haven't. I mean, I haven't heard exactly like what the price could be, but we can all figure this out by looking at recent contract extensions.

It's probably going to be between $15 and $18 million a year. And what the Vikings like to do is they like to give a five-year contract extension that allows them to be done with the guaranteed money after three so they can renegotiate or they can restructure or they can have some power in that deal. That's why they like to do it that way. And that would be my expectation of what they're looking for with Hawkinson. Given his age, it makes a lot of sense. I have estimated around $30 million guaranteed. So if it's a five-year deal at say 16 to 18 million a year and 30 to 35 guaranteed, that to me would be a very reasonable contract for TJ Hawkinson. Alex is excited about the idea of Asamoah and Pace as inside linebackers going

forward. Important to find players at less premium positions without forking over a lot of capital. I agree. I am really curious about where the Asamoah thing goes from here though, because he got banged up. But even before he was banged up, he was taking not as many of those key reps and those big situations in practice as Ivan Pace. Does that mean that they think

that he's not as good of a fit as we expected him to be? Cause it looked like he would be the perfect fit for Brian Flores. Or is that just because Ivan Pace has been so good and that they're going to, you know, want to pair one of them with Jordan Hicks and there's only one position. That's something I really don't know. If they've just

been unhappy with Asamoah versus Pace or they've just been so happy with Pace, I guess I will have to ask that at some point. I mean, I think we've been asking about Ivan Pace and that linebacker situation, but maybe there's an update to be had at some point about just where that whole competition stands and where that's going to go if asimo is healthy this week we will really know though because if he's healthy they'll have the joint practices and the preseason game so we're going to get a real look at who they want out there on the first team and which one of those guys it is but that doesn't mean asimo is a bust it might just mean that they really like what they've seen from Ivan Pace and

that it's possible that going forward, those are your two linebackers. And I totally agree with your thought process that if you have starting linebackers that are a UDFA and a third round pick, that's pretty good. You didn't have to give up a lot of capital there. Hunter says, I'm a little worried that the Vikings will be too good this year to have a realistic chance of drafting a quarterback. What do you think their backup quarterback plan is for 2024? Oh, I assume you mean backup. Yeah. Backup plan at quarterback, not plan for backup quarterback. Cause I, you know, Nick Mullins again, probably for their backup quarterback next year. That is a very interesting question.

What do you do if you don't feel like you can draft one? Now, one thing I would say is that there are quarterbacks that always surprise us and become first round talents through the college season that we did not expect to happen. Players that we didn't hear before, players that, you know, sort of take a big leap forward at quarterback. This is Joe Burrow, and nobody thought Joe Burrow was going to be a first-round pick, and then all of a sudden he's the first overall pick. Everyone thought it was going to be Tua. It was tank for Tua, not tank for Burrow, or even tank for Herbert.

So, you know, I think that there's always quarterbacks that show up. It's not just two. And can you get those two? And if you give up enough, you can trade up far enough. The question is, do you want to actually do that? So if you are 26th or something, do you want to trade all the way up to 10th or 12th to take a quarterback that you know is very far down the road but to your point they do look like they're a pretty good football team and they do look like they have a chance for the playoffs which puts that in question about whether they can make that trade up get a quarterback that they want to be their future quarterback

but you know i mean look the patriots were able to draft a quarterback and make him their guy. The Steelers were and Mac Jones and Kenny Pickett jury very much still out on both of those guys. I mean, Mac Jones made the playoffs his first year and Kenny Pickett had a winning record his first year. We'll see where those things go. It's just that there's been a lot of recent history of teams that haven't needed to draft at the top and Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes,

even Josh Allen was Josh Allen, a trade up. I think Josh Allen might've been a trade up as well. So, you know, I, I do think that it's, it's not like if you win 10 games, it's over, you'll never get a quarterback ever again. Uh, from what about Bob? The guy with the most pressure at Saturday is Jack Pudlesny. Yes, that's true. Matt Daniels said that, uh, their kicker Jack Pudlesny, uh, is going to be the kicker on Saturday night.

And I mean, Greg Joseph has been fine in training camp. It seems like there is a real competition here. We've still sort of been debating that, but it can be proven on Saturday. If Jack Bud Lesney gets three, four opportunities to kick and he's terrific, then okay. Then it's on if, you know, I mean, shanks a couple and so forth. And also, again, joint practices. Matt Daniels said today that the joint practices, they're going to do a lot of kicking. So this is the accumulation, not just Saturday. It's a really big week.

If Jack Pudlesny wants to be a part of this competition, he's going to have to have a really good week. So, yeah, that's a good point. He's one of the low-key, important people to watch for this year. Alex says, fully prepared for the Vikings to trade multiple first-round picks to trade up for a quarterback next year. Would you endorse a massive trade-up? I would. I would because there is nothing more important. And you probably get one chance to draft a quarterback if you are a regime,

probably, right? You basically get like one chance to trade up to get, maybe you get two if you're really lucky, but that's mostly it. And they have been drafting a lot of players over the last couple of years that are young players that should be coming into their own the you know the caleb evans who i've got a story coming out on uh mckay blackman ivan pace the udfa you know guys like that they've been building with these young talents and they do have a great circumstance set up already on offense so if you're worried about the draft picks and this is like the san franc thing, Trey Lance did not kill San Francisco because they had already drafted their stars. And on offense, you've already drafted your mega stars, Christian Derisaw and Justin

Jefferson, and possibly Jordan Addison, another star on the way. And then you spent a second round draft pick to get TJ Hawkinson. These are players that you'd be hoping to draft if you were really short, because a lot of times if you're drafting a quarterback high, if you trade up everything and you've got nothing, you end up with a Justin Fields situation. They traded up, but they had nothing. Their roster was terrible. This is not a terrible roster. So I would endorse exactly that, which is if you got to do it, then you do it. And there was even a little bit of buzz,

even a little bit of buzz that this year they would have considered it. If they had any chance of moving up to get one of those quarterbacks, either Bryce, you know, I think Ben Gessling said that on the show. If you want to listen to that episode from a few days ago, check out the podcast feed. But they made a couple of phone calls to see, is there any chance we could trade up to try to get some of those, you know, one of those three quarterbacks that were drafted high, but they were just drafted so high that they were not able to do that. Plus, they didn't have the draft capital to do it. 12 pick and selecting three underwhelming prospects so far.

Well, one prospect they drafted in that draft is a starting outside corner right now. That is Caleb Evans. So that does have to be factored. And we'll see what happens at guard. It looks like the first two picks are not going to start. That's not good. I don't think that it's worse than 2016.

I think 2016 was probably their worst draft. I mean, they drafted a receiver who couldn't play at all. And then what? A one good the best left tackles in football and then like a bunch of third rounders that they cut. So it's that way. I think that next year we'll really be able to be sure about that. It probably is a three year thing, but right now that 2022 class is looking pretty rough. And that's where, you know, we were talking about just the other day, like 2023 is looking strong. 2022 was rough, but I think a lot of people will always go back to what happened with that trade down. And I can't disagree with you. And, and I think that if Kweisi Adafo Mensah had a year, I think based on what he said, like if he had had a year in the job already, maybe he doesn't do that. I'm not really sure. Uh, and, and that's not to make any excuse for that draft, but I think that it's, we all kind of like saw this coming, but the randomness is,

um, when it comes to, uh, when Lewis seen specifically when, um, Lewis seen specifically when Lewis seen specifically, if he was good, then we would just talk completely differently about this. Right. I mean, that's what it really comes down to is Lewis seen is really the center of that draft because we all know second, third round picks late seconds, even drafting a guard that you never really know. Right. Once you get past the first round, but the expectation is if you have the 12th overall pick, you better turn that into something really good. And what they turned it into is a guy who's not even playing and that's not good. So do I have another project or book in the works? Well, I have not started anything else. No, because this one isn't even out yet. And it's over my shoulder here. Football is a numbers game. So that's coming out October 3rd, by the way, pre-sale is on now. It's behind the walls of PFF and the analytics

revolution in football for two years. So if you guys want to check that out, I'd appreciate it. I need to be better at promoting the book on the show, but you'll hear more about it as we get closer. I'll have some interviews and things like that that kind of take you behind the scenes, but I it's been, it's been all training camp. It's been all my nights spent here with you guys. So, um, from Dave Trey, Lance started for the Vikings viewing today. Uh, yeah, it's, um, the Trey Lance thing keeps kind of coming up. And I just don't know if it's a thing. I mean, some people are still sort of endorsing that idea.

And I think that if you were going full rebuild, that you would endorse that idea of trading for Trey Lance. They went competitive rebuild. Okay. If you could trade up, if you could trade next year's fourth round pick for Trey Lance to be your backup this year and see what's there and maybe you like him. Okay. But I don't think you're doing anything more than that. If he loses this job, like he

should win the job in San Francisco. And if he doesn't, that is a big problem. And I'm pretty much out on the idea. If he doesn't win the job, I was only into the idea if they were going to go full rebuild, get rid of everybody, bring in somebody who's not proven, go from there, right?

Okay. That's totally fine. And then if it blows up, then you draft high, like we were talking about, but now that we've gotten this far down the road and he's going to be a couple of years into his rookie contracts, you end up in a Jordan love situation. I'd prefer that you just draft somebody else, but if you want to take a shot on him for a late, late pick, if they're trading him,

okay, fine. But he, you know, and there's always the, there's always the excuses. There's always the, Hey, you know, uh, he hasn't done, you know, he hasn't got enough reps and things like that, but practicing with a team for three years is a lot of reps. And so if he hasn't figured it out by practicing in the NFL for three years to at least look serviceable running an offense where it's the same offense, then I don't know if it's ever going to happen. From Noren, surprise cuts. Can a Hall, would Jaron Hall be a surprise cut? I don't know if Jaron Hall would be a surprise cut. Jalen Naylor, Andrew Booth Jr., Troy Dye, Jay Ward.

No, I don't think Jay Ward will get cut. A fourth round pick. He should probably make it as a special teamer. Greg Joseph, I don't think would be a surprise if Podlesny kicks really well. Is Troy Dye a surprise? I also think that he's a special teamer and backup and probably won't get cut. I think that the one thing that would be a surprise is if it was like Jordan Hicks.

That would be a big surprise. I can't think of anyone else who would really surprise me if they ended up getting cut. I mean, maybe you guys have some other nominations for potential surprise cuts, but, and I don't think Jordan Hicks is getting cut. I'm just saying that if there was one guy who I would really be surprised by a Jaron Hall, I never was really sure whether to put on a third quarterback. And now I'm feeling like he probably gets cut. Kenny Wong Wu is one of the best returners in the league. So he's going to have a spot and,

and the new rule will not affect that. They're still going to return a lot of kicks. Speaking of which Freddie asked, why is McBride returning kicks? If he's never done it in his career, my guess would be it's a way to get the football in his hands in NFL games. It seems like something that Matt Daniels wanted to try and that they're going to try it again. And that's OK. I mean, I want that to happen for him to get the ball, have a chance to return,

you know, make a play in the NFL and preseason games. More touches for him. Totally fine with me. I don't know if he has that breakaway speed to be a great kick returner, but if you're going to just say, hey, who do we want to touch the football more often? This guy. Okay, that's great. Right? I mean, I think that it makes a lot of sense to me. So Bob says the fan base is down on Lance big time.

They say cut and practice squad. Yeah. Oh, you mean San Francisco? It does seem like it just has been a terrible camp for Trey Lance. And it was a terrible game for Trey Lance. And if look, if there's nothing there, there's nothing there. We try always with these guys to try to be like, oh, he just needs more time. He just needs it, whatever.

And nine out of 10, there just isn't really anything there if they didn't show anything. And wouldn't it be funny though, if one of my examples for sometimes there's just nothing there is Sam Darnold and then he wins the job and he's great with San Francisco. If Sam Darnold is great in San Francisco, then I will have to admit that Kyle Shanahan can make anybody good. Surprise cut CJ Hamm, but don't do it. No, CJ Hamm's not getting cut. No way.

Yeah, not a chance. CJ Hamm, I think that Matt Daniels would jump in front of a bus rather than cutting CJ Hamm. He is so vital to their special teams that they're not going to let him go. Let's see. From Dave, I think that Seen is taking a little longer to develop, but that's okay. The injury was bad. No matter how hard he works, it's going to take two years for it to really heal.

I don't disagree, but the thing is that if Louis Seen had won the job out of camp last year and was starting and then had the injury and then looked bad, then I'd be like, oh, okay. Yeah, sure. It's just that injury. But the fact that he was the fourth safety last year, and then like now this year has to, you know, take this position. You know, I, I think that that is kind of concerning,

but you're, you're totally fine in taking that stance though i don't disagree with that stance that if you just want to give him another year like he has a four-year rookie contract and then a potential fifth-year option we don't have to decide it today like that's the thing with the 2022 class in general we spent a lot of time talking about the guard position if it's better it will look a lot different right Right. And if, you know, one year from now, we're talking about a totally different tune with Lewis scene, it'll look different. But at this moment, it really doesn't look like it's going in a great direction. So we can only kind of talk about what we know right now and not, you know, kind of say, well, you know,

if he gets another year, then it'll be like this, or it'll be like that. Like, we don't really know. So right now it's not trending like that draft is going to turn out very well, but that could very much change. And it could change if, you know, a Caleb Evans is, is really good, right? Then you're going to feel like at least they got something out of that draft class. But when you look at all draft classes, they all look like one or two players that became something. A lot of guys who didn't. A lot of swings. It's just that those decisions were his first draft. Very notable and very questionable.

That's how I would say. Gary, Matthew, please explain. You stated, I don't know why you listen to press conferences. I just mean that like press conferences are not very exciting. That's what I mean. I didn't mean that to be like, you can listen to them if you want. I just mean that they're not really very entertaining. They're sometimes a lot of it's like injury updates and stuff like that.

I mean, look, listen to that press conference the other day, you know, we're asking about injury updates and, you know, pass blocking for the backup running back and stuff. It's not like high entertainment. And then we all come out, like, I don't know how many of us reporters there are, but including TV, it's like 20 people. Then we all come out of it. And then we put it on every website in existence, if there's anything important. So a lot of times in a press conference, there's 20 minutes of talking and probably 30 seconds of stuff that's really important. So that's what I'm saying. Again, I don't know. I'm shocked that you guys are taking offense to this. They're just not exciting. Yes, I played clips from the press conference. That's the point.

Clips. I played the important stuff. So you didn't have to. But I mean, if you want to, you can do whatever the hell you want. I'm just saying that this is like why we're there is to talk to these people and then take what's important and deliver it back in these types of conversations. You can watch a press conference. I don't care.

I'm just surprised people do because a lot of it is a lot, a lot of talking and a lot of sort of prodding and so forth. And then we get one or two sentences, one or two answers that we find to be interesting. And then we talk about them on shows like this. So I, I mean, that's what I mean. That press conference the other day was like 20 minutes for Kevin O'Connell. I mean, I don't know. You could be learning how to play piano or something on YouTube rather than spending 20 minutes with a press conference. That's all I mean. You can certainly do whatever you like. That's all I'm referring to.

I didn't mean that to be offensive to anybody. Anyway. So from digits, nice to see a digits scene seems more learned from experience, not film study smart. So he may play a role, but have to inch along this year. Yeah.

I don't know. That might be it. This is why it's so hard when it comes to young players because sometimes you want to say like i think it's over and when do we decide it's over because once we decide it's over sometimes you know they prove you wrong then you kind of feel like you look silly but uh and you don't want to say it's over before it is. So I am not saying it's over with Louis Seen. But when you are in year two and there's really no evidence whatsoever that the guy is competing for a job, it's definitely in the, you know how I like to use the meters,

it's in the code orange when you are two years into a first round draft pick and the guy's not even not even the backup like that's even with the injury even with the other reasons it's still uh a pretty big like question whether they can ever be anything and then sometimes it clicks and i don't know if it will maybe it will uh hunter says i listened to entire press conference uh or listen to an entire press conference and tell me it's boring. It's not that they're meaningless, but you have to do a lot of weeding to get answers. Yeah, that's what that's what I mean. I was just kind of an off comment. I didn't think that that was going to be controversial. I want to say controversial football things, guys, not controversial press conference things.

But yes, that's it. If you listen to a press conference, start to finish, then a lot of times it's all right. You know, this guy from whatever website is doing this story. So he asks about Johnny month. This, this happened right the other day that our friend, Alex Lewis asks about Johnny month. Now look, Johnny month is doing fine in training camp. He's going to make the team as tight end number three. But there are better things you could do with your time, folks. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, look, but, you know, you guys wouldn't be here if you weren't football crazy. So I probably should have considered that, right?

I probably should have considered that you guys are nuts for football because it's 920 at night and we're here talking ball but i appreciate um i appreciate that from from you guys let's see uh from freddie rank our defensive backs currently well byron murphy jr well okay defensive backs all defensive backs so clearly harrison smith is still their best player and i think he's had a great camp i think he looks really, really good and looks like to me, he's going to be back in the position that he's supposed to be in. That is great. And he's blitzing the heck out of Kirk cousins. Like it's just,

it's just a fit. So he's number one, Byron Murphy, number two, again, I think it's been a real fit with Byron Murphy. He is the nickel corner. And that is where he is going to stay. Not this

stuff with Arizona, where he's the, he's over here and then he's over there. And then he's, you know, one year he's outside one year, he's a nickel. I think he's really solidified to what his role is going to be with Brian Flores. I think it's a great fit. A Caleb Evans would be next for me that he's battling Justin Jefferson every day. That's not easy. And so he's ending up on the wrong side of highlight reels, but I think he's been good. And I think that they like the way he's picked up the defense. Makai Blackman.

We just don't know. I like what I see from him though. He's a very physical player. Like, like spunky seems disrespectful, but like somebody who's just on top of every rep that's what it seems like and just willing to be physical but it's hard to be a rookie in the league and cam bynum i think is a fine safety in this system just just fine uh i don't know that he is ever going to have a really high ceiling but i think that he is a serviceable safety that could play, you know, a fine role in the defense. I don't think he's going to be a huge playmaker for them, but he's going to be in the

right positions all the time. So I'd probably still put Bynum ahead of Blackman, who I don't know anything about yet, really, in terms of outside of just that one preseason game and training camp. And then Andrew Ruth jr. Is behind them. Then Lewis scene is behind them or, or somewhere in that ballpark and it goes down from there. So that's kind of where everybody stands at the moment. From David,

I really believe that they will make a move at one or more of these positions. And in this order in Syria, interior O-line interior d-line defensive back and running back yeah that's the one thing that we haven't seen yet is an interior defensive lineman show up jadavian clowny visited with the jaguars today it was in the back of my mind that someone on the defensive line would end up here what would it be you know melvin ingram or jadavian clowny and we have not seen that yet but i think your uh your point your second point is right david that

they're going to make the decisions after the joint practice because you still have enough time at that point to evaluate them versus another team and then also get uh in like get someone in and get them ready to play by the beginning of the season. So, yeah, you make a good point. And there's also that little nuance of if you sign someone after week one, their contract isn't guaranteed, I think. And that could always be a hold up as well where they want to get visits. And then if no one signs these guys, you sign them in week two. I don't really like that strategy though.

Hunter says the, a nice little find was buying them in the 2021 draft class. Yeah, I was that 21 draft class is funny because you get an elite player and a starter and all guys who got cut immediately. That's, that's kind of funny. Leonard says Reisner might be happier to be on his own boss for now

doing the workouts he believes he needs. It's a long season and a veteran guard knows his body and how he can ensure his conditioning. Yeah, that's certainly possible that Reisner might be in no hurry. He may be visiting. I mean, he visited the Vikings. I don't think he's visited anyone else, but he may be having conversations

and just say like, hey, I'll make a decision at some point and we'll go from there. So anyway, wow. I just looked up and it's been almost an hour and a half. And I haven't yet remembered to remind you guys

about the Grillmasters Club, which is sponsoring the show. And if you guys are out there grilling in the great summer weather, you're going to want to try Grillmasters Club. It is, to me, the best thing that I've run into in barbecue. It's fantastic. For any barbecue lover, you've got to try Grillmasters Club i the way that i would put it is like they've sort of cracked the code like they have all these different boxes that they can send you of different batches that they create with their pit masters you can choose to do it monthly every couple weeks

even quarterly uh so it's not like something that just keeps re-upping and you can't make it stop uh like a lot of subscriptions. And I go through that sometimes. We're like, how do I unsubscribe? Well, you won't have that issue. You can do it however you want. You get charged. And a couple of days later, these barbecue, I guess, assets will show up, whether it's marinades, spice rubs, grilling tools that you want.

You can have whatever kind of themed grill master's box that you like show up at your house. And they also have custom recipes that they send you as well. So it's awesome. A subscription is absolutely worth it. It's as worth it as it is to Purple Insider. So go to grillmastersclub.com for grilling and smoking needs that you can take it to the next level. I know that I have so far.

And if you use the code purple at grillmastersclub.com, 50% off. So that is my present to you at the end of the night here is 50% off Grillmasters Club. So do that. There you go. Really? Is that true that you can use it in the air fryer? I guess that is true. Yeah, I guess you don't have to be outside grilling to use like spice rubs and marinades and stuff like that. Just I'll respond to a couple more before we end the show, because why not?

You guys are still here. So we're having a good time. I think Bynum is fine. Hunter says not amazing. A replacement level starter. Yeah, I agree with that. And there is potential that he improves from last year. It was such a miserable system that he could be better. He was playing really well. That position next to Harrison Smith, we talk about it as easy, but I think it takes a certain type of person, right? That you have to really understand where you're supposed to be. Dave says, what's scary is I thought Bynum fit his PFF grade well last year. Yeah, I agree with that. He is one that I think that they should let go unless he's really improved. That, you know, that's why, I mean, they drafted Louis seen because I think they thought they needed a starter next to Harrison Smith and also probably didn't know how long he was going to be around.

But I agree with what you're saying, that Bynum is a solid player who's going to do that job and that you should be looking around like, is there someone better? Is there someone who can step in and be more of a big time playmaker and not just a solid he is where he's supposed to be guy? And we'll see how it develops with Bynum from here another year as a starter. And that's what I'm saying. We have seen guys get better in that position and have better seasons and step up. But there's a ceiling there, I think. That's right.

I mean, you have to pick and choose sometimes what you're going to invest in. And they decided to invest in safety. I thought they probably would have been fine sticking with Bynum in that position, having invested a fourth round pick. But eventually you're probably looking for something else there. David, that was a good counterpoint. After week one, yeah, they also have another $10 million for a Brian O'Neill restructure. Yeah, I think if you're signing someone past week one,

you probably won't need to do any restructures. That's kind of the point about the way that they have handled just their salary cap in general, is I think that they've given themselves an opportunity to sign somebody if they want to. Where is Delvin Cook land? I mean, I don't know. It's getting sort of late with him right uh if i had to guess

i would still say it's probably the new york jets but it's interesting that he hasn't signed yet i don't know like does he sit out if he doesn't get his price he's got to sign somewhere right uh do uh do i really think hall gets cut yeah i could see it i could see it they i mean this team has usually kept um two quarterbacks and not often three. So I could definitely see them cutting Jaron Hall and the way that he played in the preseason, the way he's been in practice. I don't think that he's going to I don't think that he's going to get picked up. And how many times does it happen that someone who's a fifth round or later gets cut and gets picked up immediately by another team on waivers usually

you can get that guy to the practice squad i think that's why that he would be in the practice squad perfect practice squad guy like someone who i think just needs a lot of time um to to start seeing it and i like some of his technical throwing ability but you saw it the other night and i know the offensive line wasn't good but you saw it the other night of holding onto the ball not really sure like how to let it go when to let it go and he's gonna have to figure that out eventually um okay we'll finish finish on a bizarre theme of of the night which was take it easy on press conferences guys they're more like politician speak that that is exactly exactly what I'm talking about is that 15 minutes with a coach can get you a lot of insight. And over the years, tons of insight gained for press

conferences. But a lot of times it's one answer out of 10. So we get answers and get answers and get answers. And then we get, Oh, okay. That's something. And if there's something, then you're going to find out about it like on the show. So that's the whole point. Um, over under eight and a half wins. Let's finish on this. I will say, Oh, uh, well, this isn well, this isn't exactly. Okay. Kellen Mond got picked up last year by the Browns. I mean, he was a third round pick. So that's a little bit different from somebody who was a fifth round pick.

And was he picked up? Was he picked up on waivers? I think he cleared waivers. Because if someone's picked up on waivers, you have to, so that, so the Vikings chose not to put him on the practice squad or he chose not to sign with the Vikings practice squad. That's different. And what I'm saying is if,

when they cut a guy, they go through the waivers process and someone could pick them up, but you have to put them on the 53 man roster. So that's how that works. And with Jaron Hall, if they cut him and then had a conversation with him and said hey we want to put you on the practice squad why don't you stay here then he can sign and stay on the practice squad that's that's the whole point with that uh it

wasn't one of those where they like lost him trying to sneak him through to the practice squad he just chose a different team because he knew it wasn't going anywhere here and i don't even know if they offered him or not but back to that that question, the eight and a half wins. I, I have them over right now. Um, I, I was, he, uh, was he on their roster all day? He was on there 53 last year. I thought he was on their practice squad last year. Uh, but I don't think anyone's picking up Jaron Hall to put them on their roster. And if they do, it's not that big of a concern. So I have them as over eight and a half wins at the moment. I still have them at 10. I picked them for 10 when the schedule came out and I've stayed with that. I haven't seen anything that would knock anything off of that so far. No major injury, no change to what they're doing

schematically. Brian Flores has looked good. So, you know, all those things, I think, have gone the way I expected. And Addison has looked quite good for me to think that they're a 10-win team. And their schedule, based on the other teams and how things are playing out, has certainly some hard parts, but I don't think it's insane. So there you go. Anyway, all right. So great, great stuff. Wow. A lot happened here tonight. And I appreciate you guys as always showing up for these shows. We'll be back tomorrow night. And, uh, let's see, Jonathan will be doing the show Tuesday night, Wednesday joint practices. Wednesday might be a little different for us. Um, schedule wise might be a little later on Tuesday night,

but you guys clearly enjoy showing up for it anyway. So I appreciate your football nuttiness and we will talk again soon. Thanks everybody. Football.