Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso gives a scouting report on every Vikings pick

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso deep dives into every Vikings draft pick, from why Jordan Addison found the best fit team to why he ranked the Vikings DBs lower but they might work here to why he loved DeWayne McBride and sees Jaren Hall as possibly more than a backup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and the time has arrived. A yearly tradition, Chris Trapasso, CBS Sports, who has shed so much blood and tears leading up to this draft, breaking down every possible scenario, traveling to the combine, breaking down the film, doing all the grades, everything else, and then analyzing it live throughout the draft process as it was going on. And we have finally got draft picks to break down. This is the moment, Chris, that we wait for every single year and it has arrived. Are you ready, sir? I'm ready. This is my favorite podcast to record every year for as much as I love all the speculation and talking through evaluations as I'm making them and the combine numbers come in and we identify needs after free agency. what needs were filled what weren't who went too early who went too late who was the steal this is actually a lot more fun for me and probably for you than like talking through mock draft simulations

and rumors in march and april i just i feel like uh if you ever watch one of those disaster movies like twister or something when it's finally all over and the people survived and they sort of like, or like in Speed where I think Keanu Reeves kisses whatever her name is and they sort of like get together or whatever. That's not exactly us here. But, I mean, just like after the storm is gone, it's finally over. The twister has passed. The flaming bus has finally been put out,

and we are the survivors of draft season. So now we get to kind of have all the, the sun come out and break down these picks. I hope that metaphor made some sense. But why don't we do this? Let's go pick by pick for the Vikings. And then we'll circle back and talk about big picture and what you thought

of some other teams and draft picks. But why don't we begin with Jordan Addison? I have spent days talking about how much I liked it. How did you feel about it? Well, this is what I love about my job is that I can't go back and do anything in hindsight with bias because my rankings are out there and the faithful, the hundreds of thousands of faithful Purple Insider listeners probably remember that I believe our first dual mock draft sim that we did, I think what I picked

Nolan Smith and you picked Jordan Addison. And I said it at that time, he was my number 45 overall player. That's where he finished my wide receiver five. So I thought it was a little early, but even on that episode, I said, I didn't like the general idea that in first-round receivers, maybe up until the last few years, if you get picked in the first round at wide receiver, you're the wide receiver one. But I like that in Minnesota, maybe in L.A. with the Chargers, with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, with some other teams, Jordan Addison would be the clear wide receiver number two or maybe even wide receiver three to begin his career.

So because of that, I think it's funny. And I think on that episode, I talked about the parallels between his size, his game, his workout to Calvin Ridley and the Julio Jones situation for Calvin Ridley in 2018. I'm getting a lot of those vibes that we will see someone that won't get a lot of targets comparative to most first round wide receivers just because of the presence of Justin Jefferson, but could have a pretty quick start to his career like Calvin Ridley did, despite not being very big, actually pretty small, and not being, in terms of on paper, a high caliber athlete. He runs good routes. He catches everything yards after the catch is pretty good, despite those physical limitations. So it's just kind of came full circle that Jordan Addison kind of said,

hey, I really model my game after Calvin Ridley. And I got legitimate Calvin Ridley vibes while watching him. Yeah. Give me some more detail on the criticisms for Jordan Addison, because to tell you the truth, since I had targeted Jordan Addison pretty early on in the draft process. I like the pick. I thought that when I watched him at USC and I saw a handful of games just watching Caleb Williams like everybody else and Kenny Pickett, he really made him a first-round pick. I just saw this dude open all the time. And for me, it's really not much more complicated than that, right?

Like route running, quickness, and I know that he's not a burner, and I know that he's not Quentin Johnston in terms of his size or his yak ability like that. He's not going to break a bunch of tackles and be Debo Samuel. But I like this game from that perspective. But also, when we met him the other day, I guarantee you he's the smallest draft pick that's ever stood in front of us. A lot smaller than Justin Jefferson, a lot smaller than Christian Derisaw, for example,

who my first observation was, oh my goodness, this is the largest human being. But very, very small, very slender. And I don't think he has a frame that's going to get bigger. So I could see that, but give me some more details on things that he might have to overcome in the NFL. So here's what I would say with Jordan Anderson, why he, I think was universally liked and why I still liked him, but I was maybe a little lower, a lot of wide receiver prospects. And this is probably the case for any position, but a lot of wide receivers, they can have like a clear flaw. Like some wide receivers are just, they run four, six, two or four, five, eight.

And you're like, that's too slow. He's just going to have no ability to get vertical. Corners aren't going to really be, you know, afraid of that at the NFL level. Some aren't physical enough. Clearly not.

I don't get that sense with George, with Jordan Addison, that he has one clear weakness. It's just that he is a little bit smaller. He's a lot small. So physicality throughout the route, not just at the line of scrimmage, is a little bit of a concern. Yards after the catch, and what I've grown to realize is that in today's NFL,

unless you are the most dynamic athlete out there, a Jalen Waddell, a Tyreek Hill, yards after the catch is most typically accumulated on a consistent level by that contact balance. You mentioned Debo Samuel, A.J. Brown, Debo Samuel, D.J. Moore, LaVisca Chenault. Those are the wide receivers that can bounce off linebackers, corner safety. That's when you get the most efficient yards after the catch. That's not really Jordan Addison's game, but he is quick enough,

and he does have the vision to create after the catch. So I'm a little concerned about yards after the catch and the contested catches because he's pretty small. He's not a 41-inch vertical guy, doesn't have a gigantic catch radius. I'm slightly concerned about if Kirk Cousins does give him a lot of opportunities that he's certainly grown accustomed to doing with Justin Jefferson, you know, on those slot fades or those back shoulders or, you know,

digs over the middle where there's that corner kind of in his hip pocket. How is he going to do in those contested catch situations? A little bit concerned in that area. I don't think he has bad hands. I think he did make some difficult grabs at Pitt and USC. So you combine all those things together, there's three or four components of playing receiver that I would grade him, you know, say at a seven or an eight instead of a nine or a 10 that you would like to see for a normal first round pick. So it's not one thing that I'm super concerned about. It's just, he gets dinged in almost all of those areas, not route running, not getting open, not being quick.

He's very good in those elements. And the fact that he's not, you know, a low four, four guy that is just going to take the lid off the defense with his pure speed. So I like his well-roundedness, but I do think there are some kind of edges that need to be more refined once he gets to the next level. Yeah. And I think in comparison to Justin Jefferson, who was drafted almost at the exact same draft slot, I think one, maybe 22nd versus 23rd, not really close in terms of the caliber of prospect, right? There was some concern abouterson getting off the line his scrimmage outside but one of the reasons he was wide receiver five is that the other four guys were unbelievable prospects like it hasn't worked out for henry ruggs because of an off-field thing i think he was on his way to being a very good wide receiver but one of the fastest best deep weapons

that we've seen in a long time as a prospect cd lamb absolutely dominated college football i have no idea why jalen regger was picked there but he was kind of freakish in his athleticism i i think that this year when you're wide receiver four it's quite different than it was for jefferson jefferson was a 97th percentile athlete tall supernatural basketball player freak catches in contested catch situations we saw it i mean he helped joe burrow become the number one draft pick uh i i don't see those things i don't see magic from jordan addison what i see is a guy who can consistently just get open and catch the ball and to me that is a crazy high value. Also somebody that seems extremely into football. Like that's his

thing from the time he was a little kid and that he understands kind of the matrix of football, how it all works and wants to grow in that way. And those things, I mean, those things are major positives for him, but I don't think anyone believes that in this spot, you're drafting the next Justin Jefferson. You're kind of looking for somebody who can become, I think Calvin Ridley's a great comparison, a quality, quality number two to pair with him. So I guess if you had taken a swing at somebody who had a higher ceiling, maybe like a Nolan Smith, then maybe you could be talking about getting a star there. But I think your odds are very high of someone like this working out like

with this description. Yeah. And I think that last point is spot on because even in that first mock draft sim that we did, I think I went with Nolan Smith. You went Jordan Addison. I did start that with the caveat. If you're, you know, when in doubt, go offense. And we've been pounding the table for wide receiver

so for as much as I think we could all agree probably all the listeners could agree that Nolan Smith probably has a higher ceiling than Jordan Addison because of the athleticism things like that he doesn't play wide receiver and even if he is a really really good edge rusher very valuable probably very close to wide receiver in terms of value. But if Jordan Addison is just a really good wide receiver and he's playing next to Justin Jefferson, that will, I mean, I don't want to go into a war conversation, but that will do more to get more wins for this Vikings team. And to be that when you're in the playoffs and there's a elite corner covering Justin Jefferson to be able to still move the football consistently.

So because of that, we have said, you know, quarterback and high value positions. They didn't pick a quarterback, but not my favorite receiver in the class. But again, someone that plays on the offensive side of the ball that does have, I think, a pretty high floor, even though he's still pretty young because of what you mentioned, he just gets open. Would you have picked Will Levis at that point? Probably not. I was surprised that one of the teams in the 20s didn't pick him. Or that a team traded back into the first. It was weird that the Titans traded to 33, did not get that fifth-year option.

Maybe they just couldn't trade up with the Eagles or the Chiefs. I wonder if they considered it. I don't know if they did. I mean, maybe you know. I would have thought about it because that was the long-term upside play, and that, I think, kind of goes back to conversations that we had all the way back after listening to Kwesi and Kevin O'Connell at the Combine, where they seemed like the, hey, we're not doing, you know, the 2018-2019 Dolphins trying to tank for Caleb Williams.

We just made the playoffs. We want to win. We want our resume as GM and head coach to still be very good, to buy us more job security in the future. So with that in mind, if if that's what you told me, like, look, this team is not trying to go 5-12, then no. I would have picked Jordan Addison, Quinton Johnson, one of the receivers. But if you're just looking at it from way philosophically, probably you should go quarterback at that spot

because of Levis' upside and what you have at the position. Yeah, I think that they viewed him as a Brady Quinn, and they just didn't see it with the throwing. And look, repeatedly through the process, there was breadcrumbs left by Kevin O'Connell when he kept saying accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. It was like, okay, I think we know what you're getting at but i wasn't sure if it was smoke screening everything i heard was that they didn't like either quarterback and uh but i

wasn't like reporting that it was just kind of the buzz and you never really know but at the same time like if if your head coach wants an accurate quarterback and you're talking about a guy who has major accuracy issues and it sounds to me like a lot of teams thought it was major accuracy issues and not just like oh something that could be corrected i think that if any of the top three would have fallen anywhere they would have been making phone calls like crazy and that was the only plan it was like if we can't get those guys if richardson doesn't fall then we are taking Jordan Addison at number 23, and that's how it ultimately played out. And what's good about that is that you and me,

and I'm sure other guests that you have on, talk about this Vikings team or just teams in general, picking in the 20s, or if you have a Kirk Cousins type or you literally have Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, should always be thinking about the quarterback spot. that's good that the Vikings really looked into the quarterback market in this class but it's easy for me now to say hey maybe they should have looked at Will Levis if your quarter or if your head coach or former quarterback is like preaching the importance of accuracy and they do their homework on the quarterback class and just do not like a quarterback again it's easy for me in theory to say hey just pick a quarterback

because you know that's a high high or the highest value position it's another thing to actually be in the war room and say uh we're just gonna pick a quarterback that we don't like at all because he's a quarterback like that is where the football theories the draft philosophies and the logistics of an actual team build kind of clash where I think maybe some GMs and coaches are like look we can't just pick a quarterback that we don't believe in just because he plays quarterback so as long as the Vikings were like all right let's start at ground zero and watch Stroud and watch Young and watch Levis and watch Richardson maybe even Hendon Hooker and then maybe dwindle it down to only the top three

then that's totally fine with me because you can't put your job on the line with the quarterback even at 23 that you don't believe in and if they didn't believe in Will Levis which I don't think is crazy because he was by far my QB4 in this class, then I'm fine with them not taking him. Well, I was just going to say, last year when we talked on this very same pod, you were a little down because you liked Malik Willis more than the league did. And I think that all the other quarterbacks you didn't think were really first round picks, maybe Kenny Pickett, but it was really him who you liked from his tape and then the nfl said no we don't like it for his tape now this year uh you were number one on anthony richardson and he's

picked fourth overall so that's right on and cj stroud i think it was your order was maybe richardson stroud and then young or was it maybe young second okay it was strong okay so um but levis was a distant fourth so you had you very much had this why do you think that the mock universe in general did not like the the espn analytics that they kept showing were not really well explained by the broadcast but part of it is i mean largely based on mock drafts, scouts, scouting reports. And that's why they had expected him to go somewhere between number one and number eight. And when he didn't, it was very surprising, but maybe not surprising to you who evaluated him kind of far beyond the other guys. So why do you think there was that disconnect? I'm not sure. I think we are in a phase with QB evaluations because of a lot of the elite quarterbacks

that if you have a big arm and you're decently athletic, you're going to get pushed up the board regardless of how bad your final season is. And it's kind of like you could look at it two ways and say, hey, look, like when he had NFL talent, Wendell Robinson with him, Dorian Kennard, who was like, I think a fourth or fifth round pick by the Chiefs last year, offensive lineman. Look, he can be like this guy that's on the first round radar. Those guys were gone and he didn't really elevate anyone.

He threw more interceptions, just wasn't as efficient as a passer. To me, that final season is what I pay most attention to. You're not going to say, hey, look back four years ago, he was really good or two years ago, he was really good. So to me, it seemed obvious that he was like a tier below those top three. Um, but I don't know, I guess a lot of other people were just clinging to the upside that I thought was a lot more apparent with Anthony Richardson. Yeah, no, I agree. And, uh, I think I said this maybe on a pod that we did at the Combine, where when I watched Anthony Richardson for one half of football, I was like, whoa, like not not whoa, as in all the stats are perfect or whatever. And sometimes throws would go directly into the ground or sail on him.

But he ran for a touchdown against Utah and I went, oh, my gracious. That is a NFL player right there. And that never happened when I watched Will Levis. I saw a few of his games, and I was like, you would have to tell me. You'd have to be like, oh, yeah, the league is saying he's a – or the mock drafters are saying he's a top quarterback. And I think even just like the smell test, it never quite passed it. But just like with Malik Willis, I think we – a lot of people thought, well, if he's got a big arm and he's got athleticism, the league is going to like him

because they have with guys like this before. But I think we've also seen a lot of similar players drop, and it shouldn't have been that huge of a surprise when it happened. But let's move on to Makai Blackman. If there is any controversy to be had it's this pick however i uh i'm planting the flag on this one chris and saying that i think it's a good idea because um i think that he fits with what they want for brian flores i think that was really important with this guy and that that sort of trumped anything else in their process, which I'm okay with.

But as a player in particular, well, give me your take on the pick. And then as a player in particular, kind of what you see from him. All right. This is full transparency. I always talk about my scouting grade book. It's a formula. It's a Google sheet system that I have created. I've done it since 2019.

So this is my fifth draft class. This is a player and it happens on either ends of the spectrum mckay blackman was a player that and if you i mean i could read my scouting report it's super long it's probably not good for the podcast be boring but in watching him and writing my scouting report it felt like he was going to be like a third round grade he ultimately finishes like a fifth round grade for me so it was like I liked him I was excited when I plugged in because size factors in and he's a pretty small corner and 5'11 170 ish 30 what 31 inch arms um which is not crazy short but it's certainly not that 32 inch

threshold that I think a lot of teams like I think that brought down his grade quite a bit because I did see him he He battles really hard, but at times it's just like, man, he's just too small. And I'm worried about that at the next level. However, in terms of ball production and mirroring ability to follow those routes, especially squeezing those wide receivers out of bounds and finding the football on those back shoulders and playing bigger and playing with that kind of mentality that, hey, I'm this small guy. They're going to try to pick on me and I'm going to be ready for it. I love that about Makai Blackman's game.

And I think that's kind of what you're speaking to with the tenacity that will fit with Brian Flores' scheme. He doesn't look like Zavian Howard or Byron Jones or Jalen Ramsey, but he kind of has that nastiness and he can back it up because he does have smooth movements on the field to, again, follow those intricate routes that we're seeing a lot more frequent in today's NFL. So he graded above 85 in man coverage, above 85 in zone coverage by PFF. Yeah, he was just solid. Solid. 90 as a tackler. So you know who this kind of reminded me of and this is the thing right like sometimes in the third round teams are taking swings at athletes and trying to get maybe a home run he reminds me of like a nickel roby coleman where i mean this is a guy we talked about in vikings land years ago when he was a free agent

as a nickel corner if you're drafting someone who free agent as a nickel corner. If you're drafting someone who's upside is a nickel corner, who is very undersized, that's not exciting to anyone, but also nickel corner is super important. And it's really, really important in Brian Flores' defense. And that's why I like it. I think that, you know, when people on the outside evaluate these things, they evaluate it for the whole league and they look at skill sets and size. Like you're saying, like you looked at his size and thought, okay, this guy's probably not going to be a star outside corner with his size. But if he is a nickel corner, like Nickel, Roby Coleman, very undersized, but kind of a little dog, like a tenacious, you know,

kind of player. I mean, you can make it, you could be really valuable. And so I totally get what they saw. And and that's that's what like there were times last year when we talked about the draft where I said dude I just don't really get it and like this I totally got yeah I think that's a good way to put it and I certainly remember Romy Coleman making the bills as an undrafted free agent and was a good player for them in this lot and I don't remember specifically what his combine workout was, or even if he got invited to the combine, but I know he wasn't, or I'm pretty sure he was not some, you know, 41 inch vertical four, four guy.

He just had instincts through the roof, made a lot of plays at USC and in the NFL. That's kind of the vibe that I got with Blackman. That's a good comparison. The point that you brought up about how he graded in man and zone, it's like watching all these corners. You instantly write in your scouting report like, oh, needs to be in zone or press man only. I didn't get that at all. Like those vibes from Blackman.

He was off coverage, press man, press bail, quarters, cover two. He really seems to understand football. And I think that's kind of a theme early on that you mentioned that Jordan Addison seems like a football junkie I think Makai Blackman because of the tenacity and that he seems to have every style of coverage down playing inside outside all those different styles it it means to me that he's a student of the game and he understands that to be that overachiever at his size, he needs to really master everything.

And I definitely saw that with him. But again, in my scouting grade book, I did have a fifth-round grade on him because of the speed limitations and the size limitations. So it's interesting that when you look at RAS, relative athletic score, the Vikings went against it more than any other team. Now they only had six picks. So if could have, if they had more picks, they could have drafted like four freaks and even it out. But that,

that seemed to be something that was a big change with Brian Flores. Like he clearly had something in mind and that takes us to our next pick, which is Jay Ward, who I guess you would call him hybrid out of LSU. Now I'm really interested in your take on this one because I'm intrigued by a college player. I don't see it too much. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't see it too much where a guy plays all over the field. Normally they play one position if they're going to be a draft pick. And just in general, you don't see too many guys moving all over the field in college football. You do see it all the time in the NFL.

And I got a great question from a listener about like whether being versatile is actually bad because you're sort of a master of none. But I don't think that because I watched Harrison Smith be one of the most versatile players in the league or Tyron Matthew, who was a corner and a safety at different times in his career. Like maybe those are outliers, but I think being able to do multiple things is better on the field especially for a defensive coordinator like that but I'm very interested to hear kind of where you had him and what your take was on him going

into this all right I actually this is two in a row I had a late sixth on him so this is another one that was picked a little early I do give some leeway with grades. Like I don't go like, hey, I have you graded at 200. And unless you're a pick 199 to 201, I think it's a terrible pick. I understand that the league views the players differently. There's needs. So I thought it still was a little early. What I found interesting, and this is the segue back to Blackman, Blackman is such a good tackler.

He's 5'11". He's not a great athlete, 170 pounds. I saw him wrapping up consistently, not a lot of missed tackles. Jay Ward, I think his RAS was pretty high, like in the eight somewhere, missed a lot of tackles. Would deliver that big hit that would get into the highlight reel, but there were times where he was attacking screens and underneath routes, shallow crosses, things like that, slants, where I think maybe he needs to be a little more under control. So it was just kind of funny to me that the smaller, lesser athlete was the more sure tackler. And I think that's what sunk Jay Ward's grade for me, that if you're playing that in space

role, you have to be good tackling in space. And I think he has a ways to go in that regard. But the versatility, I'm certainly of the same belief that you are. In today's NFL, especially a D-back is more valuable than just saying, I am a press man on an island corner on the perimeter. That's all I can do. And I saw him, yeah, I saw him play linebacker. I saw him blitz off the edge. I saw him blitz up the middle, play slot corner, play free safety, play on the perimeter. That's all I can do. And I saw him, yeah, I saw him play linebacker. I saw him blitz off the edge. I saw him blitz up the middle, play slot corner, play free safety, play on the

perimeter. So he is really that chess piece. And I think maybe that's more of a theme that he and Blackman both can really play anywhere. You can be a nickel corner, outside corner. They got just two very versatile pieces. I think that was probably the biggest strength to both of their games. That's not super specific. And I like the fact that Jay Ward made a lot of plays on the football relative to how often he was targeted. A lot of times the linebackers and the safeties that I ultimately don't like are the ones that, you know, were targeted, you know,

quote unquote targeted in their target area, let's say 150 times in college, and they had two picks and three pass breakups. Those guys are just not going to suddenly become Eric Kendricks and Harrison Smith in the NFL. They're just not. You need to have an amazing situation, the best coaches in the league, and they have to get extremely lucky to just find the football. Jay Ward and Makai Blackman did do a great job getting their heads around, understanding, having awareness when the ball is arriving. So I like that about his game, but as again, that versatile kind of downhill

in the box safety more so than anything else, I would have liked to see him be a better tackler, but the coverage and the size and the range are certainly there. Yeah. I mean, I think that they just valued fit so much in this draft and that, that makes sense to me. I also think that for both of these players, you mentioned it with Blackman, but football IQ would be very high on their list of things because it is such a versatile defense. I know that word we're like beating it to death, but that's really true when you look at it, like asking players to line up all over the field, asking lots of players to understand blitzes. And I remember Jordan Hicks told me last year

that to be a successful blitzer, you really have to understand blitzing and understand where you're supposed to be, the techniques, the blocking schemes, the skills of the other player you're blitzing against. And if they're going to do that a lot with guys like this, like Eric Rowe and I think it was Brandon Jones in Miami, they used these two guys as versatile pieces. I wrote about this, how they lined them up. It was like 40% of snaps over here, 20 over there, 10 over there. And when you see Jay Ward doing this, you've got to think that he was able to understand all those positions at a college level. Doesn't mean for sure he'll do

it at the NFL level, but it's not a bad bet that he will with the previous experience. One other player to Javon Holland as a rookie had his best season in the NFL with Brian Flores. And that was one. I remember scouting him and thinking, all right, this guy was best at free safety and they moved him into the slot. Didn't really do as well in that final season at Oregon. Did have a bunch of picks early on. And then in Miami with Brian Flores, he was like a devastating blitzer. Like he would align at slot corner.

He would reduce down from, you know, free safety, strong safety, whatever, and blitzer. He would align at slot corner. He would reduce down from free safety, strong safety, whatever, and blitz. And he was so good in his first season that last year that Brian Flores was in Miami because he utilized him as just an aggressive downhill player. I could see a similar role for Jay Ward, who's a similar athlete to Javon Holland and can be that player because he's done it. He's blitzed from the outside and the inside. And it's not just about how fast you are, like you're saying with Jordan Hicks. It's about understanding protections and the timing of it. Javon Holland got that down very quickly with Brian Flores. And I could very much see and envision Jay Ward being that Javon Holland type player that plays a little free safety,

but then on the next play on third and long, after he's ranging from the deep middle, he's actually blitzing the quarterback. Yeah, I think that in an ideal world, that's kind of what they're looking for. It is Jaqueline Roy. It took me a little bit to master that into my brain. know i've said before like there are players who have complicated names to spell that i will be able to spell when i'm 97 years old because i wrote them so many times like a faddy adenabo could easily nail that uh so with i've seared it into my brain it is pronounced jaqueline roy and uh i one thing i noticed was that like lance zeerlein of nfl.com there were a few other ones

who were actually extremely high on jaqueline roy uh what was your take because this is not a relative athletic score that was impressive and it's not production that it's impressive so i guess you kind of have to look beyond the things we can see right in front of our face with him yeah first off thank you for the pronunciation because I think a lot of people think that with me watching like over 300 guys that I have the time to get all the pronunciations right. And I, a lot of times I'm just watching film either in silence or listening to music. So I'm not like hearing their names. I try to get like the crazy ones, but yeah, that one, I would have definitely said Jacqueline Roy. Anyway. I think why people like Lance Zerline, who's super smart, super plugged in,

were high on him is because early in his career, I believe he was a big recruit coming in there to LSU as a freshman, as a sophomore, you saw those ascending pass rushing moves and like, hey, if this 2022 is big, we could be talking about a first rounder. I think he was in a lot of early, like way too early mock draft first rounds last year. I feel like I put him in the first round last year. I never saw that step in 2022. He kind of looked like he did early in his career. And you figure getting bigger, getting stronger, more experience in the SEC,

that he would have gotten more efficient as a pass rusher. He's an interesting one. Oh, I will say, because I've been kind of listing where i have these guys this is one that i almost hit perfectly i had him as my 164th overall player and the vikings picked him at 141 so pretty close um he's one that the ras is low and and i will you know uh believe in ras more than just my eyes in general. He seemed a lot more athletic than that on film. And just looking back at my scouting report, prepping for this interview, I really liked his pass rushing moves. And I repeatedly wrote like he's got lead pipes for hands, what he utilizes, that swipe move, the swim move, bull rush and counters off of it. There's a lot of pop in his

hands. So even if you're thinking, okay, look, I'm going to pay more attention to RAS below four. It's pretty low. You know that he understands how to beat blockers with his hands. And it's one thing to not be a good athlete. If you're not a good athlete and you're just trying to bull rush your way to the quarterback every single rep in the NFL, you're going to be benched. You're going to be on a practice squad and be on a different team sooner

rather than later. So I think with Roy, you get someone that is definitely advanced in the ways that he understands. You have to do it multiple ways at the next level. And he's got a pretty good NFL caliber frame as well. So he's someone where they picked him, felt about right. Would we have liked to see maybe the Vikings get someone that's more explosive up the field probably just to add some pass rushing juice inside but i do think he has that inside him because again his handwork is so good yeah i think this is the pick that i'm going to be the most skeptical about um because and i could be wrong on this but because pass rush production has so well correlated to what guys do in the nfl except daniel hunter and also i mean somebody lacking that quickness in college with their strength you can usually get away with that but in the nfl i mean the offensive linemen are strong

as heck too so i have questions about this one it's also not like a super high draft pick. It's just, was it the right thing to get someone who could potentially contribute as a pass rushing impact player? I have trouble seeing it, but, you know, that could turn out to be different. I don't know. Like when they took a Sazia Tomo, I was like like okay i i see what you're getting at you're you're you're taking this guy with a little bit of a lightning quickness that you think can be maybe a situational rusher i'm not sure about this some people call them a nose tackle some people said like kind of a maybe somewhere in the four eye or three tech or whatever like i don't know i just see it as sort of a guy that you can get anywhere but But this is, again, not a very high draft pick.

So I'm not going to like over scrutinize it. It's the one I have the most questions about. But let's talk about Jaron Hall. Because this is, I mean, you draft a quarterback in any round. We have to talk about that quite a bit. I was super impressed with Jaron Hall on his conference call, which may sound silly, but you can pick up a lot from hearing a guy talk. To me, he has the vibes of career arc for Jaron Hall is he's a backup.

He gets a handful of opportunities to play in injury situations or something. Can't really physically play in the NFL and becomes an offensive coordinator three years after he's retired. That that's the vibes I get from Jaron Hall. I just not like clearly high intelligence, high character, but I have a tough time seeing with the arm strength. Like one of our colleagues tweeted out a back shoulder throw that he made. And I was like, well, that's a pick six I mean just you know look I I think it's a fine pick I have no criticism for it it's a guy they like that's

totally okay but I think you probably drafted Kellen Moore as a player and that's okay that's a backup and that's somebody who becomes your offensive coordinator someday so that that was my take I'm very interested in what you have to say on this one. The career arc thing I could certainly get. I will say off the bat, he's more physically talented than Kellen Moore was. I know that, like you were just saying, that's like the arc where he went right from, like, back up in Dallas to, like, the QB coach right away. Yeah, with Jaren Hall, definitely physical limitations with the arm strength.

What I do think where he could maybe outplay that is because he has a really quick release. So like if you're thinking of, let's say Anthony Richardson in this class, and I was listening to the PFF podcast, like that his take was, hey, I get Anthony Richardson. I understand everything. But he has such a long release that he thought that like there is no way Anthony Richardson could play as a rookie because corners are going to sit on that. And once they see the long release, it's just going to be too easy for them to plant and drive on the football. In my head, I thought, well, hey, it's it's a long release, I guess, but he can throw like 80 miles an hour. He can throw the football. It's kind of the opposite with Jaron Hall, that he does not have a big arm. It's substandard or sub-average by today's NFL standards,

but I do like how quickly he gets it out. Underneath, intermediate range, I don't think, like you mentioned, that back shoulder, you don't really want him stretching it vertically because those back shoulders will probably be a pick sixes. What I thought was interesting too, for my scouting report and how it pairs with the Vikings, he's mobile. He has good athleticism. I believe he tested pretty well, but I also wrote, he's not a very natural playmaker.

He's not anywhere close to like a Bryce Young or even a Zach Wilson, like Zach Wilson, that final season at BYU, he had some like 40, 50 yard runs where he's making guys miss. That is not Jaron Hall. But I think on the boot action, he's going to be very smooth. He can operate that, get it to the tight end in the flat. That is kind of a staple of the offense. So I think that was another one that was more like, Hey,

this is a nice fit for us. We understand that he's not gonna ever replace Kirk Cousins and be the long-term answer but if we are in a pinch this is someone very similar to Kirk Cousins in terms of what he brings to the table and I had him graded in the 180s the Vikings picked him at 164 so we felt kind of similarly like i thought late fifth round for him yeah i mean i don't want to make it seem like i think that it's a total guarantee that he becomes kellen moore i just i just have a lot of skepticism again when it comes to physical limitation quarterbacks because you could bring up drew breeze or you could bring up bryce young or kyler murray but those guys are the extreme outliers.

Even Russell Wilson is drafted quite a bit higher than Jaron Hall. He's also 25. And I probably exhausted all of my old man jokes on Hendon Hooker. Hendon Hooker is still older than Jaron Hall, which shows you how old he is. But we are not talking about somebody who is 20 years old. And I think you make a great point though, about getting rid of the ball. That's the thing with shortstops in baseball. If you can't have a rocket arm and you're Raphael for call, then be Omar Vizquel and get rid of that ball real quick. So if that's, I mean, that's great. Like I really think that you

probably picked a super high character, high intelligence, quality backup quarterback, maybe for four years, and then you don't have to pay for one, and that's totally fine. It probably ends up being worth it. Somebody else even brought up the idea of him being a bridge quarterback, going like if they move on from Kirk, but the guy they draft isn't ready, Jaron Hall can start for a little bit before you get the other guy ready. But like when you pick someone in the fifth round with an upside that is backup quarterback,

you can kind of go like, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like, am I supposed to have a blazing hot take on this? It's fine. And one last thing I'll say is that I think if he had to play as a rookie because of injury or whatever, or if he did, and I think it would be a pretty good outcome if he had to play as a rookie because of injury or whatever, or if he did, and I think it would be a pretty good outcome if he does become that bridge, there'll be more limitations to the offense.

But I think when we've kind of talked about this differently with putting a, I don't know, let's just say Caleb Williams for the sake of people knowing that name, pluck someone that's really good and putting them in this offense. Holy crap. I think you could also put year two, Jaron Hall and say, all right, we're not going to be that great of an offense, but we're not going to be like the worst offense in the league. Because like I said, the smoothness on the boot action, he played a fair amount of football. He's got a quick release and the

situation, this is another plus of having a offensive minded, former quarterback head coach that I think he would understand inside the mind of Jaron Hall, who I think is a pretty smart quarterback. Hey, I'm not going to try to make that deep throw to the flag route between coverage. I'm going to check it down to the tight end, to the running back, or just find Justin Jefferson or find Jordan Addison. It wouldn't be crazy to see him in an extreme game manager role

to kind of keep the offensive float if he does need to play early. Like Josh Dobbs, maybe somebody. Yes, exactly. Right, right. That's a good comment. It's an athlete, super high IQ class individual, probably not physically gifted enough to start. But if you got to play him, then you're probably not going to want to throw yourself off a bridge watching so um yes the the last pick we have here and these breakdowns just fantastic this is this is uh exactly why you're here chris uh duane mcbride

one of my favorite all-time conference calls this man was through the roof to be drafted by the he was so happy uh it was. It was just fun to see. Like a lot of guys try to play cool, like, I just can't wait to play football, you know, whatever. This guy could not stop smiling. He was so happy to be here. And you know what? Pretty impressive to watch back,

and I know everyone's highlights are impressive, but I feel like the Vikings got someone who can be a part of their backfield right away. So give me your, give me your Dwayne McBride breakdown. All right. When we're talking about value and I'll stress that again, value, this was the Vikings best pick. I had him graded in the one 70, like late one 70s, one 77 overall. He was my number eight running back. So if we're talking about that, I thought it was a steal. And this is someone that I always have running backs push down the board. Quick aside about my position

addition in my scouting grade book, running backs get none. So their raw grade is their raw grade. Quarterbacks get a boost, biggest boost, wide receivers, edge rushers, running backs get none. So to still be in the 170s as a running back means I was pretty high on him. I wrote that he is such a smooth mover and he is the one cut back that I want in this class. Isn't that perfect for a Kevin O'Connell offense? And I think he was probably also happy, not just that he got drafted late in the seventh round, just ecstatic to not be undrafted. The future is kind of uncertain with Delvin Cook I don't think Alexander Madison is like this waiting in the wings like when the Titans had Derrick Henry and they were still playing DeMarco Murray a thing like that or Tony Pollard behind Zeke Elliott so I could see him snatching like legitimate I don't want to say

bulk of the carries but legitimate carries early in his career. His contact balance is outstanding. He has great power in his lower half. He doesn't seek out contact. He's not Todd Gurley that tries to find people to hit. But those diving tackle attempts from safeties, from linebackers, just glance off him. And I thought his film in 2021 was good. I thought it was even better in 2021 got a little bit more juice to his game he's not going to hit home runs but I really liked him in terms of force

missed tackles he was up there in terms of percentage as with a lot of the backs that went way in front of him in this draft class so to me like for value for draft philosophy that we've that I've talked a lot about and maybe it's's kind of silly, this is what you should do. You should look for a Dwayne McBride in the sixth or the seventh round almost every year. And we've seen it a lot with guys. And, I mean, I can't think of them all off the top of my head right now, but even Aaron Jones was a fifth-round pick,

and he's gotten like five contracts by the Green Bay Packers. So I think you can get really good players at that position late. This was one of them. In a situation with the Vikings that they might need to kind of lean on a very talented, fresh-legged running back as early as this season. You know, it's funny because most of the time my rule would be I don't put any expectations on seventh-round picks. If they make the team

congratulations to them more likely they'll be a practice squad guy that has to really hustle to ever have an nfl career that's always been true for seventh round picks with this guy i think it's not even unreasonable like watching players try to tackle him was like trying to if you ever tried to like jump on a basketball in a pool or something where it just like, yeah, very good. Like that's, that's, that's why that's watching people try to tackle this guy. It was, it was exactly like what you would think a great running back would look like in college where no one can really take him down. So I, I mean, I think that, you know, with this versatility probably isn't going to be his thing.

This guy is going to run the football and that's going to be it. But that's OK for where they got him. I want to go ahead. I was I was curious, though, about your overall grade for this, because I am totally fine with people giving grades to teams because we're grading what we think their process was, not what the results are. Shouldn't have to explain that. But anyway, some people get h. Shouldn't have to explain that. But anyway, some people get huffy when it comes to draft grades. So how did you grade the overall thing?

Very quickly. I will say just so it's not just all heaping praise on a seventh round pick did not catch a lot of passes at UAB. That could be a problem. I think you just spoke to that about the versatility and he's not going to hit 70 yard touchdowns, but I thought there was more juice from getting the handoff through the second level, you know, first level of defense, second level of the defense this past season. I actually just did my team by team draft grades for CBS. It came out yesterday or two days ago.

I don't have like an intricate formula, but I do average all of my letter grades and there is higher weight for the earlier picks. They came out right in the middle 85 like or 85 point something so I gave them a B I think in terms of addressing positional needs they drafted a corner they got some beef on the inside they drafted a receiver not my favorite receiver but I'm glad they just drafted a receiver to be that clear number two to Justin Jefferson. He gets open. I think they probably place an emphasis on just pure separation ability more than most other teams that are maybe leaning yards after the catch. Getting the running back late, that's exactly where I think you should pick a running

back. A potential backup or QB3 that has the ability to play right away. I almost like the fact that Jaron Hall is in this high upside project where, oh, my God, he needs to play, and what are they going to do? I like that he's relatively high floor given his age and his experience. So I think it was not the greatest class, not like close to one of the worst classes, just right in the middle, a solid B for this Vikings class. You gave it the same as I did.

I liked a lot of the picks, but I don't think that anyone is thinking right now, oh my gosh, they just forged the path to the Super Bowl. But also it just, to me, like cohesive and thematic. And that was what we were looking for last year from Kweisi Adafomensa and didn't get. And this time we did. It made a lot of sense to me. And that's the best way i could put it so even though it didn't blow

my mind even though they didn't get all 10 out of 10 relative athletic score athletes and somehow they picked two defensive backs that i didn't include in my draft guide which i was like how is this possible i tried to include everyone and they still picked outside of those guys. But I would say solid. How about this? So when I was doing the draft grades, I realized, and this has probably happened before in NFL history, but they had a draft full of abbreviated team name players.

LSU, USC, UAB, BYU. I was like, wow, that just, that means absolutely nothing. But I thought it was hilarious when I was looking at what schools they went to. I was like, is there some analytics to that where they're just picking these abbreviated schools? No, I'm kidding. But it was a good, very calculated draft. I think you saw the GM take that next step and navigate the draft better than what he did last year. Okay. I know that we've gone into great detail here, but we call it the epic for a reason. So I do have just one more question, but I wanted to say that to show the humorlessness of social media, I tweeted after their third pick, I was like, oh, they just picked guys with the letter j and people like well what about memley black is like i meant today but like guys please please get a hold of yourselves i was

you you're gonna be shocked to find out i wasn't serious that they were actually targeting guys with the letter j get a hold of yourself social media people people are like on edge during uh with uh twitter and draft i, they are jacked up. The consensus board. We won't get into that. But it was really curious about your sort of the most intriguing, highest grade, lowest grade. Give me those.

Okay. I'll start with the lowest grade. I could probably go with a different team, but I've mostly said and written about the Falcons, just the Bijan Robinson at eight overall, because of obvious reasons, not the players, the positional value,

the replacement or the replace ability of the position, Matthew Bergeron. They picked right after that. I get it. It's a tackle. It's a premium position. I didn't think he's ready. Like. I didn't think he's ready. Like, I don't think he's ready to be a high caliber player.

I know they have, you know, Jake Matthews and Caleb McGarry there, but it's like, why are you picking a backup offensive tackle at 38 overall? Love Zach Harrison. I'm trying to like remember all these off the top of my head. I like Zach Harrison, the edge rusher from Ohio State. Clark Phillips is a good corner from Utah, but very low-level athlete, tiny, short arms. Maybe he overachieves, but I didn't see someone that was that good in coverage

to pick him in the fourth round. So I just didn't like what the Falcons did. They were in that prime spot to be like, hey, we're going to trade back from eight. We're going to make nine picks here. We're going to still pick a good running back, a Tajay Spears, a Jameer Gibbs, a Dwayne McBride later in the draft, and they pick Bijan Robinson at eight after they just got a 1,000-yard season from Tyler Algier, a fifth-rounder who used to take handoffs from Jaron Hall at BYU.

He averaged almost five yards a carry as a rookie. They have Corderell Patterson. They of all teams should realize like, oh yeah, we can just have anyone back here and get a thousand yards from them in this offense. So I didn't like what they did. And the Patriots class was very strange, not picking a receiver until the sixth round.

Keishon Boutte from LSU. That was kind of strange to me. They traded up for a kicker in round four, which is like a draft, like Cardinal Sin of the draft community. They also drafted a punter. So the Patriots class is like Bill Belichick doesn't really care. He has obscure drafts every year. So those two terms of worst drafts, in my opinion, and I'll be quick on the best.

Denver Broncos, they only had five picks. And I think you mentioned it. It's a great point that usually like the teams that have 14 picks were like, what a great draft. The Broncos only had five. I love Marvin Mims in round two. He's a speedster, good after the catch smaller. Drew Sanders in round three that a lot of us thought he could go in the first round. Not a great tackler, but if they let him rush off the edge, he can be really, really good on that defense and they need another edge rusher. I loved Riley Moss from Iowa as a corner. He's twitchy. He was very productive for multiple seasons. And JL Skinner, the safety from

BYU, big, very explosive, very rangy, also very productive. Just didn't work out during the pre-draft process. So I really liked what they did. Can save the Eagles and also the Pittsburgh Steelers. Darnell Washington, Keanu Benton seems like a classic Pittsburgh nose tackle, pretty athletic, can get up the field, explosive hands. And then Joey Porter Jr., not just because of the story, I think he was kind of worth being a first round pick and technically he was the 32nd pick of the draft. So I think the Steelers did a very good job as well, but the Vikings, again, right there in that, in that B2B plus range. Well, I wanted to say that you have a pathetic relative athletic score yourself. Your arms are short. You have no height whatsoever. I've seen you run. It's not great.

Your flexibility, the oiliness of your hips, pathetic. But, and you're not quicker than fast. You're neither. But here's what I'd write on my Chris Trapasso scouting report. Your work ethic is out of this world, and you bring a ton of heart, and you bring a ton of football IQ and knowledge to this podcast. It has been invaluable throughout this process for me to listen to you and all of our audience to get prepared for this draft. And I just can't say enough how much fun we had along the way.

Loved having you at the Combine. Hope we can do it again next year. Just a great time, man. I looked forward to this every single week and can't say enough how much I appreciate it. We will certainly get together, talk about, you know, preseason camp, you know, rookies who are emerging or whatever and things like that.

But, you know, it's, it's, it's a little, it's like bittersweet to have reached the end of our time. Once again, doing these weekly podcasts. So again,

thank you so much for everything you brought to the show. Can't thank you enough. Really appreciate it, man. Yeah, man, it's been awesome. It's been an honor every week. I've looked forward to it every single week to be able to just rant about draft philosophies and someone actually listens and it's on a podcast has been a dream come true for me. And yes, every year I hope we get to do this and I'll be definitely following the Vikings. They're young players, guys from the last couple of draft classes, and definitely rooting for Dwayne McBride because he was the one that I labeled as a legitimate steal in this draft class. All right. Thank you so much again.

And thank you, everybody, for listening to Draft Season. We will continue to have some more breakdowns from other analysts as well, but nothing quite like the level of detail of this from Chris. So follow him, Chris Trapasso, on Twitter, CBSSports.com. And we will catch you all next time. Thanks again, Chris.