Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso gives both Vikings first-rounders an A grade

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Matthew Coller and CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso grade the Vikings' top picks and break down why he was very high on Dallas Turner's potential. Plus Chris goes in depth about Khyree Jackson and then answers rapid fire big picture draft Qs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso for one more show. Before we close the door on draft season, and I gotta say, Chris, what a draft season it was. Unlike any other that we have gone through, we flirted with the quarterback conversation through the years, but this year we knew it was going to happen. We broke it down in every possible way that we could, including an episode people should go back and look at where you talked about J.J. McCarthy tape

and you watched back his best game and we went through it. So that's one to go back and look at for what we said about JJ McCarthy. But this is one of our favorite episodes every year. It's become a tradition where we have you break down and analyze every single pick. Usually the Vikings have more than this, but we'll go through it. I've got some major topics from the draft to ask you about for the rest of the league as well. So I'm excited for this. But the first thing I got to know from you is how do you grade the

vikings drafting jj mccarthy with the 10th overall pick uh i definitely did a twitter thread uh in real time for the first round that i do every year so i just ultimately can look back and say i've graded every single pick uh in the draft because i do those for cbs sports from rounds two through this through mr irrelevant p prisco's on those for the actual website in the draft because I do those for CBS Sports from rounds two through Mr. Irrelevant. Pete Prisco is on those for the actual website in the first round, so I just do it on Twitter. I don't remember the specific grade I gave, but I know it was in the A range. I mean, the trade up one pick and giving away some selections, I didn't just in a vacuum love that, but we've talked about it. Anyone listening to this podcast over the last like you mentioned like three years knows how I think and how you think about hey if you need to get

your quarterback and if it's one pick you don't say oh well we didn't want to trade that 2025 third rounder or whatever uh to move up one spot to get our guy then I think that's kind of silly so I I think a minus you have to give it because he's younger, two years younger than some of the top prospects in this class. The upside is there. I mean, I didn't meet him. I haven't talked to him. I don't know him. But apparently everything that he does with his charisma and his leadership and the X's and O's are all certainly there.

And I think that really aligns well with what we talked about this entire draft process. You know, having a former quarterback, quarterback head coach having Josh McCown there he's going to understand concepts and understand hey look maybe we're going to have this be your first read but maybe the second read is actually the better option given this coverage or situation and he just has big time talent I think he was kind of undersold that oh he's not really that special of an athlete. He doesn't have a great arm. I think he is a good athlete. He can be awkward at times, but then he can also do ridiculous things off structure. And I think he's got a pretty big arm that could only get better because, again, he is only 21 years old.

He comes in, interestingly, that young, but having played a lot of football and played in a lot of big games. And, no, he was never the guy throwing for 500 yards in those games, but there was the throw late in the game in the national title against Washington over the middle. There were big plays against Alabama's Nick Saban defense in the Rose Bowl, beating Ohio State multiple times, never easy, where J.J. McCarthy did make some big-time throws in those games. So I think maybe they wanted Drake drink may maybe Michael Penix.

You can, I mean, you probably know more about that than I do, but I think landing on JJ McCarthy is like a perfectly sound fit for where this organization is and where they want to go. And I was so close. I was so close to nailing it by saying for the last few weeks that they could stick at 11. And honestly, if they hadn't allowed the Denver Broncos. I thought it was going to happen. Yeah.

I know they let the Denver Broncos scare them a little bit into it. Clearly, the one thing we can say is that they were a lot more comfortable with McCarthy than they were Bo Nix. So they decided to make that move and just box out. Like, let's spend a late round pick to move up and box out the Broncos so they don't jump over us. But then the Broncos admitted to like they weren't going to do that. They wanted Bo Nix the entire time. And everybody got to be right in some ways about this draft, which was for a long time. Nix and the Broncos were connected together.

That ended up coming to fruition. The Vikings with JJ McCarthy, all these extremely natural fits. The only one that threw us off was number eight to the Falcons, which we'll get into with you a little bit later. But one thing I was thinking about a lot as they were drafting McCarthy,

talking about McCarthy, is how rare it is that a player without either insane tools or an insane resume comes out at his age. Normally, if it's somebody like him, he would stay in for another year, but he had the, I guess, instinct that, all right, Jim Harbaugh's leaving and we just won the national championship. And this is the best time for me to come out and be in the NFL. Even if I have to sit a year, almost like an NBA prospect would be nowhere ready to play in the NBA at age 18 or 19, but they would rather come out, get into the NBA system rather than running it back with a coach who wouldn't let him throw the ball against Penn state when he was the head

coach for that game. And Jim Harbaugh wasn there. And you lose an incredible team around you pretty much entirely to the draft. So if you come back next year and the circumstances aren't as good, like this was good timing for J.J. McCarthy. But normally when I think of a 20-year-old finishing his last college season and turning 21, I think of, well, the guy's got to have freakish tools. He's got to be massive and, and have, or have giant numbers to come out. And what that does for McCarthy is makes him harder to predict. It's already hard enough for us to predict what's going to happen with these quarterbacks once they get to the NFL. But with McCarthy, that was something that the Vikings talked about is the unknown

element of JJ McCarthy. And they worked extremely hard to try to resolve this within their process, meeting with him, looking at the film in certain ways, trying to section it out and break it down to the NFL throws and all this sorts of stuff that they would do to try to resolve this issue. But at the end of the day, that I believe is one of the main reasons why McCarthy was not somebody who was taken in the top five, why teams did not try to jump all the way up to six or five or four with huge offers. And probably the Vikings as well, based on their comments and how they laid it out is that they thought we probably can stay here and wait for him because if an NFL team is putting a top 10 draft pick down on a quarterback, it's such a

huge investment and other teams were not trying to get that far up for somebody who had so many unknowns. Yeah. And what's, I think that's all spot on. And that is probably why he did drop a little bit because he didn't tick those boxes of, this is just a project with freaky traits or this is a guy that threw for 18,000 yards in college um what's interesting though and I mentioned it earlier uh he still started 28 games this is not like he's Mark Sanchez or Mitch Trubisky that was like an eight game starter a 12 game starter like and barely played and we just saw one year of him producing at a high level. What I do like, and I'm, I mean, this was just, of course, the by-product of COVID.

I like with McCarthy that he's kind of that old school, and I'm using air quotes here, that old school prospect that like, when I first got into scouting like 2013-2014 where he played a lot early showed at like 18 and 19 years old that yeah he can play and play at a high level in a power five conference at a big time school and by the time he was 20-21 he was like I'm going to the NFL draft like if you look back at even pre-COVID to see the 20-21 year olds that look back at even pre COVID to see the 20, 21 year olds, that's usually the,

the first round to see like a, even a 22 year old turning 23, like a fifth year senior was like, Whoa, this guy's kind of old. And now this year it was like, Oh, everyone's 24 and 25.

And it's weird. So to me, like in watching him and pouring over the analytics, factoring in his age, I was like, yeah, if this was pre-COVID, we which I think is a good one that, you know, maybe, and I think you got it maybe from Kwasi or from KOC that like teams, maybe a quarterback like that these guys are older because, you know, Bo Nick started 60 games, like the experience side. And I think that does matter.

But again, starting almost 30 games and the magnitude of many of those games that he played in, I think certainly matters. And to me, as someone that really has always tried to factor in age a little bit, is the perfect blend of fair amount of experience, big game experience, production in key moments. And you just don't know what he's going to become and how high his potential is. Because, again, Bo Nix was kind of waffling at Oregon at this point. And we didn't certainly think of Michael Penix as a potential top 10 overall pick. JJ McCarthy will now be getting NFL coaching and throwing the football to Justin Jefferson. Yeah, that's a great point. And I probably threw out the process said a few times if he had stayed in college for

even one or two more years and if he went to a school that played the spread offense and threw it all over the place what would those numbers look like and that's really the bet that the vikings are making is that he would continue to progress sometimes they do sometimes they don't he is clearly going to have to do that a ton because that the thing with Pennix for me, why I liked Pennix as a fit for the Vikings the entire time, it was just so easy to see it so easy to take him what you saw at Washington and go, boop, here's what he would look like in the NFL because he's thrown 40 passes a game, which the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings is going to have to do. If you think that KOC is suddenly going to switch

to being Jim Harbaugh, I got news for you. He's not. You better be ready to throw and throw and throw and throw. And look, they put everything on Kirk Cousins over the last few years. Kirk Cousins was also 34 and 35 years old and had been doing this for a very long time. So, you know, we saw all the development

that Kirk Cousins made even within the system and how long time. So, you know, we saw all the development that Kirk Cousins made even within the system and how long it took him, where it took him a year and a half to be fully comfortable with everything that Kevin O'Connell wanted him to do. And that's just the point about this development process. And they're going to have to believe that McCarthy can get there to that point within the next two years to where they're going to expect to be highly competitive. Last thing on McCarthy from you, Chris, is what if it works? What if it doesn't? What will have happened if it works? What will have happened if it doesn't with JJ McCarthy? If it works, I think maybe he doesn't start week one but i i'm really not someone and i don't

think you are either but someone that is like hey you draft a guy and we're talking about how young he is and that i think all your points certainly make sense about this is a complex system and even someone like her cousins took time to really get acclimated and fully comfortable but i'm not someone that's like hey you draft you drafted quarterback in the first round, sit them for a year, two years, like that doesn't happen. And I think, I don't want to say throw them into the fire, but just especially in such a, what I think is an insulated environment in Minnesota, um, let him start by week four, week six, week eight, somewhere in that range where you're probably not, you know, oh, and four, oh, and six, but you're kind of, Hey, maybe you were three-3 and we kind of need a couple

wins or we need a spark. If it works out, I think you will see maybe at the start a little bit of more low volume passing or maybe more schemed open throws that more so than what KOC wants. It just gives J.J. McCarthy that confidence to say, all right, look, you can do this. You can handle more on your plate than what Jim Harbaugh gave you at Michigan. Look at the talent that we have here in Minnesota. And then ultimately and gradually increase it from there. If it doesn't work, I think it's kind of obvious. It would maybe just be that J.J. McCarthy is best when he doesn't have a lot on his plate and there's only, hey, can you make like two good throws a game if we need it?

Otherwise we're just going to run the ball and it's just going to be really off you. It's going to be everything screens, RPOs. There's not, we're not going to ask any of that from you, but I really am leaning toward that. I think it will work because of his makeup, the, to me, underrated traits. And like we're mentioning, he's young and the upside, I mean, certainly gives him kind of an incomplete grade because we didn't see it. Like we saw it with Penix, like you're mentioning,

like kind of the pro style offense. It's kind of funny that like Jim Harbaugh five years ago or 10 years ago would have had a pro style offense, but now we're like, no dude, that's not pro style. Like Michael Penix and're like, no dude, that's not pro style. Like Michael Pennington, what Bo Nix did, that was more pro style today that I think that's what ultimately could be, you know,

somewhat of a downfall for him, but I am leaning toward it ultimately working because there's so much untapped potential. And I think this coaching staff in this situation will get the most out of JJ McCarthy. I would like to see, as far as adjustments go, it's funny because we talked about Jaden Daniels as someone that, well, they'd have to overhaul if they ended up with him. I think that there's a bit of an overhaul that has to be done here, whether it's McCarthy this year or McCarthy eight weeks in or McCarthy deep into the future.

And one of those things is to have him on the move, running a lot of bootlegs, running a lot of play action where he was very comfortable under center, doing those things that make life easier on the quarterback. That was a huge Gary Kubiak thing, a huge Sean McVay thing early on in Jared Goff's career. But with Kirk Cousins, there was a lot of straight drop back. It was shotgun, straight drop back every once in a while, but Kirk was actually phenomenal at running the boots and they just did not do that stuff as much. I think part of that was because of at some point, if they ran the defensive end upfield, Kirk couldn't run away from the guy. So McCarthy can run away from the guy. If do that that might help them feel more confident in running those play actions but you you're going to have to lean into the things motions play actions

quick passing game screens to your running back all those things that they didn't do well to help out Kirk Cousins over the last few years under Kevin O'Connell that a lot of teams do use. I look at Zach Taylor and Jake Browning as the definition of how you set up life to be easy for your quarterback to get that out of Jake Browning, who throws the ball probably as softly as anyone in the entire NFL over the last five years was really impressive. And I think there's lessons there that you could take away from that. And if it doesn't work, there'll be two things that happen. One is they push too hard to rely on all the other stuff, the straight drop back, put too much on his plate,

and he starts to lose confidence or doesn't react quickly enough. The other thing is, too, that have you ever seen anybody throw a spear? You ever see what that looks like? It just goes straight right on a line. You can't put touch on a spear he throws spears like he just throws it freaking fast as hard as he can rockets and if you do that in the nfl the linebacker will catch it you have the linebacker won't catch it that's correct unlv's linebacker is not well the other thing too is that Fred Warner's arms are twice the size of my arms they're gonna knock those down they're gonna make plays on the

ball you cannot whip it 10 feet off the ground through NFL players he actually had a fairly high turnover worthy play rate compared to the rest of the guys in this draft class and if he does not learn to throw the football with touch on it, he's going to throw a lot of interceptions if he's doing it that way. And that could be a difficult part of it, even if all the other parts of his game are good. Yeah, and one point that you mentioned early there, that it's funny that when you're mentioning that,

hey, maybe they'll start to use the the boot action and so much play action that to me that's like the staple of the shanahan system that kevin o'connell is running but then you to point out that they didn't really do that a lot with kirk it kind of feels like that's like the last or actually maybe it's like the first part of the playbook that they just kind of skipped over with kirk they're like look you're 34 you're good at it but we don't really want to put you in that situation too often that's going to be what they're going to install instantly because at Michigan, that's what they certainly did a lot as well. And he has the athleticism to do that. So to me, that's why I, you know, partially love this fit because he feels like someone that,

I mean, he did it at Michigan, but is the ideal quarterback to run a lot of those plays and throws where he's on the move. He's very comfortable doing that. He's a natural thrower. He's not awkward throwing on the run. And I think made some of his best throws at Michigan, not even outside of structure within the play structure, but just rolling near the sideline, rolling right, rolling left. So that will just kind of be like, I think for near the sideline, rolling right, rolling left. So that will just

kind of be like, I think for Kevin O'Connell be like, ah, we can get back to like the basics of the Shanahan system, like stretch run to the right, stretch run to the left. All right. Third down bootleg. And there's a wide open TJ Hawkinson or Justin Jefferson, and maybe it will have to be a 20 or a 30 yard throw. But now we have a quarterback that maybe has a little more miles per hour on the pass with JJ McCarthy. It's funny about athleticism and how it works, right? Somebody was talking about this the other night during the Denver game and Jokic and just how he's not an impressive athlete necessarily, but yet all these Twitch things that he does, the smoothness of, of what he's able to do is athleticism and mccarthy

has some of that i think mccarthy was a great hockey player but i bet he's good at everything i bet he's a good golfer i bet he's a good uh baseball player like he's he's got that to him the pass that was thrown inaccurately back to him that he caught really stood out to me was that against alabama like alabama right that's a very athletic play weirdly kirk was a bad athlete in comparison to guys for speed size those types of things but was a good basketball player growing up all those things and the one thing he always had going for him was those throws on the move and it's a bit of a cheat code if you could do those and add a running element to it which of course kirk didn't have McCarthy does.

So anyway, that's 20 minutes of why McCarthy needs the boots. And we'll see if Kevin O'Connell can apply those. But also, you know, Sam Darnold needs them too, based on how he played last year. Let's go to, and we're going to go pick by pick here and break down every pick. And we'll see if by the last seventh rounder, you had heard of the

guy before, because a lot of people had not. Dallas Turner, if the Vikings hadn't been drafting a quarterback and drafted Dallas Turner, we would have said what an ideal outcome for them to get their edge rusher. The discussion has been a lot more about the price than the player. So give me, give me your breakdown of, was it worth it? And then what the Vikings are getting in Dallas Turner. I think it was worth it. I mean, in the draft trade chart that I use, it was a slight overpayment. It was 260 to 268. I think I tweeted that right after the trade. So not like an egregious, like what the hell, why did they give that extra pick? But a little bit of an overpayment, which is fine.

I think when you're getting a premier position, if they were doing this for, uh, uh, you know, run stopping nose tackle or an in the box safety, you'd kind of be like, uh, what are you doing here? But, uh, yeah, I think Dallas Turner, it's kind of funny that both of the first round picks are 21 years old, like high upside. We don't really know what they're going to be. They're not, it's not Liatulatu. It's not Michael Penix where they're like finished products. They played an insane amount of football. They're 23. They're senior

bowl guys with Dallas Turner. It's the final year at Alabama hit the lights came on. And I think I wrote that about 50 times about Dallas Turner during the pre-draft process that I remember watching Alabama games over the last couple of years. And it was about, Hey, Will Anderson is this, you know, number one recruit,

amazing player. And then, Oh yeah, the next guy in line is Dallas Turner. He was the number one edge rusher. And I didn't really see it early on. Like Will Anderson and his first season at Alabama as a freshman was like, Whoa,

this guy's going to be a top 10 pick eventually ultimately goes number three dallas turner it was like okay i can see why he was a you know big time recruit he was the best edge rusher in the nation but i never i didn't see that i didn't see him hit the ground running as a freshman or a sophomore this past season the pressure uh the pressures and the and the pressure creation rate went through the roof. And you saw more bend. What I'm a huge fan of, you saw more pass rush moves. And I think early on, Dallas Turner was like, I'm the best athlete out here. I can bend.

I can get off the ball faster than anyone. And then he was like, oh, in the SEC, maybe I'm not going to be so good at doing that just as my only way to beat blockers. This year, there was a swim move, a swipe move, counter moves where he would try a bull rush. Oh, it's not working. Let's rip to the inside. Let's just fake the outside speed rush, cross over like a basketball player. So I always referred to him as someone that he's finally saw the lights come on and as an ascending rusher because he's so young and the one final year elite production. We've talked so much about the impact of Brian Flores and Jonathan Grenard and Van Ginkle that they brought in to add another like specimen at the edge rusher spot that can move around and has ridiculous length. I think that was a Brian Flores pick and one that Kweisi and KOC are probably like,

look, if anyone's going to get the most out of Dallas Turner in these next couple of years, those cheap rookie deal years, it's probably Brian Flores. And so I don't think Dallas Turner is a finished product. I had him as my edge three. I didn't think he was like, you know, ready to come in and be an 80 pressure guy right away. But I do think because of his length and that what he showed and how productive he was in 2023 at Alabama,

very good signs for his future in the NFL. Folks, we all have smartphones and we know that they are pretty amazing but they can also be amazingly distracting especially when we're around other people so us cellular wants us to reset our relationship with our phones by putting down our phones for five that's right a company that sells phones wants us to put down our phones and see what we can find. Learn more at uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us. It's a great point to bring up the surplus value for an edge rusher as part of the equation for trading up. I think it's very important. If you were to

sign, even let's say he doesn't become miles Garrett, let's say he just becomes good. What does that cost you? Well, Jonathan Grenard gives us a pretty good idea of that. Jonathan is good, but he's not miles Garrett. That was what? $22 million a year, $20 million a year. Well, he's that's at least 10 to 15 million dollars per year during his entire rookie contract that you get as surplus value between what a good player would cost and then if he becomes great then you're talking about 25 million or something like that of that it's one of the most it's the second most expensive position. Maybe wide receiver is catching up, but those two positions are the highest paid in the NFL outside of quarterback receiver and edge rusher.

So that's where, all right, I'll give up an extra late pick to get someone with the potential of being great. And I also think that they probably looked at the board and said, we've got our great tier. We've got our good tier. We've got our maybe tier and there's only one guy left got our great tier. We've got our good tier. We've got our maybe tier.

And there's only one guy left in the great tier. So let's trade up and make sure we get him the way that he fits in the defense. It feels like it, what is it? The rug ties together the room and the big Lebowski. It's like it ties together the room. It didn't quite make sense. This defense until Dallas Turner arrived and his expectation for year one should be someone who develops and comes along and they can rush him situationally play Van Ginkle in different spots

so he doesn't have to take on everything right away but the fact that he's versatile to drop back in coverage he's on the lighter side so I think Flores can use that as more of the 3-4 outside linebacker like that's where his roots are and we've seen so many guys like that in the patriot style defensive system jamie collins couldn't succeed anywhere else except for uh new england you know so we've seen this player have a lot of success that's why to me i thought this was a great pick and then i go to twitter and everyone's saying it's a bad pick. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm, what I'm missing here, but I guess I don't put as much stock into draft value charts as maybe other people do. Oh yeah. I mean, if it was like egregious, if it was 260 points to 310, then you'd be like, they just gave away an extra pick. Like they just were wrong on it. So

to be eight points off is not crazy. not crazy but everything that you said about surplus value with the edge rusher spot certainly makes a ton of sense and what I'll say too is and you mentioning Van Ginkle kind of sparked this in my head that Van Ginkle was so like he got to be so annoying for offenses in Miami like the last couple years but he's not just like your normal three down defensive end and so I think to draft Dallas Turner it's one of two things that they're like you are going to be our other defensive end opposite Jonathan Grenard or Brian Flores was like convincing Quasey of, I want two of these guys that can be a gap blitzers that are going to line up as that old school three, four outside linebacker. They can put their hand in the dirt and like,

we can show offensive line the entire line, not just tackles, like different looks like every single down. If we want to, to have someone, okay, he's going to be rushing from the right defensive end, every single snap, like that can make it a little easier on an offense, on a quarterback with sliding protections, things like that. Dallas Turner and Van Ginkle, not going to say like, like they're the same player, but they're similar stylistically in terms of how you can utilize them.

So that I really liked about it. And one last thing. So I have, and I'll be very short on this. I created a, which you know about this, but I don't think any listeners do. I created a draft model over the last couple of years. It's not perfect. There's certainly misses. It is called resin. It stands for reverse engineered scouting index number. It just popped into my head. That's what it's called. Dallas Turner had the highest edge rusher resin in this class, slightly ahead of Liatulatu and

Chop Robinson. I didn't go with Turner as my number one edge. I have factored it into my grades, but when they're so close, I kind of just let my own observations kind of pick who's one, two, three. But this is like a model that is like, you know, predicted Max Crosby to be really good. He had the third highest resin in 2019. And even if it's not like totally flawless to find a fifth rounder who ends up being good,

what I love about it is beyond that, it validates the really good prospects. There are very few guys that go early that have a very high resident score. Nick Boses was high. Josh Allen of the Jaguars was very high. Micah Parsons was absolutely through the roof so with Dallas Turner even having him as my edge three I think I had him in my top 15 or 18 he feels like someone that I saw it on film and then even maybe more importantly than that the model that I created that you know factors in on-field stuff athleticism like a lot of different things also said like

based on from 2018 until 2023 which is the uh data set that i have like it validated that yeah if he goes early he's gonna probably be a pretty good player because he again the production is there the athleticism is there you just can check a lot of those boxes from film and on the analytic side so you're giving that an a everybody wants to know the letter grade hey let's give it a a all right it's an a for me i i never thought they'd get him i thought he would be gone it didn't kind of feel like he was he was sticking out it kind of was like because forever everyone including myself was like dallas turner to the falcons at a like every mock draft i think my, I was like, I have to change this up because this is just ridiculous.

And then at 17, he's still on the board where everyone's like, he's going to be the first defensive player pick. He was kind of sticking out like a sore thumb. So I think to your point, the Vikings were probably like, this one guy in the great category, like let's go and get him. He's playing a premier position. Our defensive coordinator loves him.

Like it was kind of a no brainer, I think at that point for the vikings all right so then we sat around and sat around for a while and sat around it was the most boring friday night of the draft i've ever had in my life i watched basketball and did nothing and then uh we motored it up again on saturday revved it up right at the beginning of the fourth round when the Vikings selected Kyrie Jackson, a guy with a super interesting background, quit football out of high school, went to community college, got a year knocked off from COVID

where his team didn't play, then goes to Bama, doesn't get much of a chance, didn't maybe get along with Nick Saban the best, goes out to Oregon, finds himself, plays incredibly well by the numbers. Just a terrific player last season and then lands himself here. Unique guy at almost 6'4". What is your take on where Kyrie Jackson might fit in

and your thoughts on him as a prospect? This is very similar to the book on Zavian howard when he was coming out of baylor and again i think there's more of the brian flores footprint that we talk about flores a lot but it feels like nationally or just on twitter it's always like koc josh mccown offense off it's like uh you also have brian flores here who's a former head coach and is one of the more respected defensive minds in the league that that schemes it up as well as any younger defensive coordinator in football. And of course, in Miami, he was integral in Xavier Howard becoming that elite ball hawk that he was with the Dolphins. And when he was coming out of Baylor, he was really tall, like almost absurdly tall, very athletic, just like Kyrie Jackson.

And there were times where he looked like he did not know what was going on in coverage. Then there were times where he was suffocating at the line and the best receivers in college football in the Big 12 then could not get past him at the line. And if they decided to even try to throw in his target area, it was either going to be a pass breakup or a pick. And I remember, I think 2015 class, 2016, it was like he's either going to boom or be out of the league in a couple years. That's kind of how I feel about Kyrie Jackson, that I remember watching it and I'm like, this is Zavian Howard.

I believe I comped him to Zavian Howard in our little spreadsheet that we had that went on the site for CBS. And then when they picked him i was like oh my god like that makes so much sense why didn't i think of that earlier um that great at the line of scrimmage um pretty much everything i just mentioned about zavian howard i i wrote that there were inconsistencies in coverage and that quicker separators will lose him but because of his speed and certainly the length that he has, he can get his hands on the football when he's not right in the hip pocket of the wide receivers. I love his press technique. It could get a little better. He's often maybe a little too

aggressive at the line, but you feel like Brian Flores can probably really hone in on this skill that's there and just his natural assertive nature he's a good tackler which I think is really important and he wasn't thrown at a lot but the ball production was certainly there and that's huge for me um that I mean we've talked about it that it kind of seems like box score scouting but I'm like if you're a corner and you have like oh you had no pass breakups and no picks in college but you're're great. It's like, you're probably not great then. But if you have a bunch of them and, you know, relative to how many targets you saw, then that's usually a good sign. So it just felt like Kyrie Jackson was Zavian Howard 2.0 in the eyes of Brian Flores. And I believe just for the grade, I'll look right here. He was in my top 60. So to

get him in the fourth round, I thought with the size, the length, the athleticism and maybe some inconsistencies, but the high highs, I thought it certainly made a lot of sense for a defense that I think kind of desperately needed that big time talent at the cornerback spot. And also, you know, Brian Flores has made it very clear that he agrees with you and I, when it comes to playing the football, Makai Blackman last year had the same kind of profile. And that one is all of my draft opinions are just common sense based on covering NFL games. And a lot of times the best corners are the ones that make plays on the football. And if you don't make plays on the football with these receivers in the NFL, you're telling me that it's going to go. Okay.

And then just think about the T Higgins play down the sideline over a Caleb Evans last year. It's like make it plays on the ball is just so huge. And by the numbers with Kyrie Jackson, one out of every four throws that went his way, either got picked off or batted down. That's not remarkable. Right.

Right. That's how Xavier Howard was at baylor truly and there's something that you're willing to give up if somebody can make plays on the ball kind of the trayvon digs thing where they wanted and they even talked about this as an emphasis to make more interceptions with the corners i don't remember how many they had it was very few from the corners A lot of times it was the safeties making plays. Harrison Smith, Josh Metellus, Cam Bynum, but not so much the corners. They went looking for that with Kyrie Jackson. Walter Rouse, you put us in a room with Walter Rouse.

Let me tell you, he's going to be bigger and smarter and more successful than both of us by a lot. He can jump higher than us. His arm length is twice the size of we are. This guy is really something. I mean, he comes from a bloodline of athletes, but also went for a biochemical engineering major at Stanford. And because he was committed, yes,

because he was committed to football and wants to do the other stuff after football. He said, let me go to Oklahoma, sort of known as offensive line. You their offensive line coach. There is very good. Gets a lot of guys drafted. And so he decided to go there, had a flat out terrific season at Oklahoma and I think his age, but played a role in it. And I also wonder sometimes about this myself is guys who go to stanford princeton whatever how long is he gonna stick around in the nfl is he gonna want to decide eventually i'm gonna go see a football guy yeah that's right you got you gotta wonder with somebody because this is next level i mean this is this is pastronaut level uh difficult stuff the same as

josh jobs for an offensive tackle but he showed his commitment to it and i think they got someone who in the sixth round gives them a chance to have a rotational tackle right away but what did you think of walter rouse so i just had it up what i gave it a lot oh i gave it a b live um i i thought at his size with over 35 inch arms, which that is offensive line coach is going to be happy when you have 35 inch arms, like that's insane. Six, five, 313 pounds. He has a frame that can add more weight to it. And to me, and I wrote this on the CBS sports draft tracker, there's usually not, it's like you mentioning Oklahoma is like offensive lineman.

You like, they do send like offensive lineman you, like they do send so many to the NFL up front. I almost always write for them, scouting report-wise over the years, that he is a classic Oklahoma blocker. And what is that? That is huge, powerful, clunky feet, not an insane athlete. Think Orlando Brown. I mean, he's obviously not as big as Orlando

Brown but that's the kind of player that he was and what I do like about him is that even though maybe some of the athletic limitations you know against those those super speedy outside rushers he'll get kind of stretched beyond his athletic limit he was better in pass protection than as a run blocker. A lot of the Oklahoma blockers who don't pan out, like here in Buffalo, Cody Ford, the Bills traded up to get him in the second round 2019. He could like pave the lanes for the run, but as a pass blocker, his balance was off. He wasn't aware of stunts, twists, blitzes, kind of really surprised him, got him off balance easily. His anchor wasn't good.

With Rouse, you get someone that is NFL ready as a pass blocker. So I think, like you mentioned, sixth round, you know, to be your backup to Brian O'Neill or to maybe eventually be like that very valuable swing tackle that we always hear about, that I think every team wants to have a very good one. I thought it was a smart pick. I'm just a little concerned again, because he's that kind of that classic Oklahoma blocker that he's not crazy athletic, but the power, the balance in pass protection, and he's just one of the more calmer players or blockers in pass protection that he's aware of where he needs to be. So I think he was well coached at Oklahoma, like you mentioned. Well, and Ryan Grigson brought up something that was smart after the draft about Walter Rouse.

And I think he talked about it with Michael Juergens as well, that with a 17 game season, backup offensive linemen are going to play. They're hugely important. Right. Your quality of backup offensive linemen are going to play. They're hugely important. Right. Your quality of backup offensive linemen. We usually look for rosters at just the starters and go, all right, there's the team. While receivers might play 17, corners get banged up a lot.

You need a lot of them. Offensive linemen get banged up a lot. You're going to need a lot of them. And getting a swing tackle, they have David Questenberry. He's on the older side, kind of a bounce around type of veteran. Having a swing guy could matter if O'Neal gets hurt, if Darisaw gets hurt, that offensive line depth when you're picking in the sixth round, that's something that's worth going after because you're probably not looking at who's going to be our future starter at

whatever position you're saying. How can we stack up some of these positions that I really like how one time Greg Rosenthal on fell.com said he thought in order to win a super bowl, you have to have 40 good players, good or above. I was like 40, man, that's like twice a team. But then as I went through it, when the Vikings have been good, they had about that many they they were at least two deep or three deep at certain positions so if Walter Rouse can be a swing tackle and is effective then it's a home run pick for them here's the uh I want to say most controversial and I use that very lightly of day three for the Vikings Will Reichard I don't know if you scout kickers or if

you have opinions on kickers or how someone scouts kickers beyond just looking at their percentage. Yeah. So I, I don't, I mean, that's a great question. Those are great questions.

I usually don't scout kickers because I think it is a little silly to do it beyond just how many field goals did they make relative to how many did they kick? Now, certainly in nfl teams they have guys that are scouting like their let their form and how strong their leg is but what i like about him is that he's like the opposite the opposite of roberto aguayo who went in the second round however many years ago like i think didn't tampa bay trade up to pick him and he was

he was this decorated kicking recruit. And each year at Florida state, his make percentage went down. Riker's the opposite. He went up every year. Like he was decorated, like Alabama gets the five-star kickers too, during the Nick Saban era. And it was like, I don't know the exact numbers, but it was like 76, 79, 83. Like it went up every year. So he is an ascent. mean dallas turner ascending rusher this is an ascending field goal kicker so i think you mentioned to me pre-draft that you wouldn't be shocked if they pick a kicker right and so to get someone that's was i don't remember i don't remember did we talk did you say that or punt i don't know if you said that or hunter i said i

wanted him to draft the guy from iowa yes but chicago you're right okay um that if you're gonna pick one i used to like always give these like an f grade like i was like why are you picking but i realized teams you know sixth seventh round like you probably do need to pick one in that range to get the best in the class. They're not just all going undrafted. So is it my favorite allocation of a Vikings pick? No, but I do like the pedigree kicking at Alabama and the fact, of course, that he just made a higher percentage of kicks in all of his three years at Alabama.

We can't just say if it works out, it'll look good for them for every pick. Cause you could do that for every team all the time. At some point we do have to break down the logic behind it. The history behind drafting kickers is not particularly great. It's not particularly great for the Minnesota Vikings. The last two guys they picked like this were Blair Walsh and Daniel Carlson. Carlson became a great kicker for someone else. Blair Walsh, we know what happened with Blair Walsh. It always makes me think that when you draft the guy, you're too in love with them. It's harder to objectively analyze him versus other kickers and the sample size is still coming out of college. We're only talking about kind of a handful of kicks per year in college and there's something different i don't know if it's because things get sped up in the nfl i really don't or if the pressure is different

but there is something different between kicking in the nfl in college and he made 84 in college if he makes 84 in the nfl you are are the most meh kind of kicker. You're Greg Joseph. You're just kind of a guy. So there is an adjustment there. I would prefer the asset go somewhere else. They seem to really love him. And what's different is that he's got an extra year to analyze what he could do.

I still am just kind of like, I don't know, man, a kicker. Yeah, it's definitely, I mean, yeah, like when the Bills picked Tyler Bass in the fifth or sixth round in 2019 or 2020, I was kind of like, oh, you could have picked a running back. You could have picked a swing tackle offensive lineman. So like you're saying, if it turns out, if he can't improve, then sure, that's great. But in a vacuum, I mean, we have to be fair and objective with our analysis here that

it probably was not the best allocation, even of a six round pick. Yeah, I think that there's always levels of disagreement that I want to have. It's I like to do a meter on the show. Is it like a yellow? Is it an orange? Is it a red? This is a yellow. Like, I is it a red this is a yellow like i'm not gonna lose my mind i don't know if it's the best way to go about it but i'm not gonna freak out uh michael

jurgens uh what do we know about michael jurgens all right um this is a the bummer part of the episode so the last two picks i did not watch i did not watch pre-draft I watched 285 prospects I am texting scouts and other draft analysts like hey like and this is pretty much all April like like is there any other players that you think I should watch and there were a bunch like there was only maybe five to ten picks that I or no there was it was probably closer to ten ten to twelve that I just did not watch two of them were Vikings and instantly, the second that those picks went in, instantly thought of this podcast, thought of you, thought of all these awesome listeners and viewers, and was like, crap.

But, I mean, if you want to talk to me about them, that's fine. The undrafted free agent class I do think we need to talk about to end the show. Before we go into more general draft stuff, which we can do do as well because there were some that i watched that didn't get drafted that the vikings scooped up that i really liked if you don't have a blazing take on the seventh rounders i don't i wish i did i love to have it normally you're trying to cover the entire league and you missed from texas a& commerce, which I had never heard of as a college, much less a player, Levi Drake, Rodriguez, and Michael Juergens. All I can say really about either one of these guys is right position, right position. They needed interior offensive line

depth. They need defensive tackles who have some pedigree of rushing the passer. And Rodriguez is intriguing because he's the right size normally if you draft one of these guys you're talking about a hercules mata afa and you're going maybe you could be john randall and you're like no it's not gonna be john randall this is not like that this guy is six foot four and 290 pounds and really was late coming on because he was, first of all, never thinking he'd be a pro athlete, but was playing baseball and football at the same time, decides to kind of put the pedal to the metal, and is a late bloomer who dominated at his level,

and that's the best you can do. I don't have any more questions. But from the UDFA perspective, you and I spent maybe five minutes talking about Gabriel Murphy because I draft Simdom. I think I draft Simdom in like the fourth round, perspective you and i spent maybe five minutes talking about gabriel murphy because i drafted symptom i think i drafted him in like the fourth round and i thought everyone thought he was going to go there versatility production all looked great i there you go good fit for the minnesota vikings falls all the way off the draft board tell me if there's any explanation and also is this the next guy that quesadilla

fomenta steals in the udfa mark uh yes i think so and i think i mean we could i mean we're not going to do it but we could have another episode on what the vikings have done uh i don't want to say like they're just copying what pff thinks about these players but like last year like pff loved ivan pace jr i i know your intern did as well um they they get him like didn't andre carter make the team too he did yep he did so andre carter you know had tons of production at army gabriel murphy to to answer your question um pff liked him i liked him a lot too my model liked him he was the number seven edge rusher in my model uh tested really well uh was super productive he's a little older and he has really short arms so that's like maybe those last two things because he's he's a little on the smaller side he's

actually right around the same size as dallas turner he just is like literally has like 10 shorter arms than him like they're not on the same, you know, stratosphere in terms of length, but in terms of being, and anyone could go back to listen to that episode, he's super slippery. Whoever the defensive line coach was at UCLA taught he, his brother and Liatulatu like 50 different pass rush moves. And they were so comfortable with them. They used like almost all of them, every single game. Like he was one of the slipperiest pass rush moves, and they were so comfortable with them, they used almost all of them every single game. He was one of the slipperiest pass rushers in this class.

He kind of feels like the Ivan Pace Jr. where we could look back in nine months and go, yeah, he fell totally off the draft board because of some physical limitations, but he's just a really good football player, And it kind of harkens back to the point that I made earlier about Dallas Turner and Andrew Van Ginkle and moving him around. Like with Gabriel Murphy, that's what you're going to do. You're not going to say you're going to put your hand in the dirt and try to set the edge. It's going to be, you're going to see rushes from him against centers on a blitz

where he can use a swim move or a swipe mover, just his athleticism to win. And then on the next snap, he's dropping into coverage. The next snap he's over the left guard. That is certainly, I don't want to say that they zeroed in on that type because he was an undrafted free agent, but it's not surprising that they brought him in because the production, the athleticism is there and he's that movable chess piece. The philosophy that Brian Fl flores has as he has explained it to us is always looking for what a guy can do so if he can do one thing exceptionally well do that yeah just tap into that right brian flores is interested and he's going to try to

work that into the defense there were games last year where 19 guys hit the field on defense. I mean, under the Mike Zimmer era, they were playing the starters and mixing in Brian Robinson, and that was it. And with this, he was rotating it, and you didn't even know who was going to be on the field at what time, trying to find the right fits to maximize the things people could do. And under normal circumstances, I would probably just shrug my shoulders, but they proved to me last year. All right, I guess we do have to watch these UDFAs. Give me one or two other UDFAs that caught your eye. Dwight McLaughlin from Arkansas. And I usually, I mean, for as much as I respect PFF, being an analyst myself, I don't usually like cite their grades, just a totally different process.

But everything that they do with their analytics, like their advanced stats, I think is absolutely invaluable. You need to be looking at those if you want to be as good of an analyst as possible. But I will, in this episode and to answer this question, kind of go against that and say, I believe he had the highest coverage grade of any corner in PFF. Did you check this? Did you see this yet? I did not.

I did not. Okay. I believe. Can I say something real quick? Yeah, go ahead. If the thing about those grades is if somebody has a grade like that and you're talking about a UDFA,

just do it. Like just do it. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. There's something there, right? And that's why I think that Kwesi and, you know, that he's got the analytics mind and that he's running the show. And then certainly the, I mean,

I'm sure like the coaches are involved in the UDFA process too, but Kwesi could probably very quickly and in a very articulate way, convince a cornerbacks coach, like, look at this, like, look at his grades. He had 21 pass breakups, eight interceptions at LSU and Arkansas. And what's ironic, if you want to just like very quickly get an idea of Dwight, of this player, watch the LSU game, watch him against Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas. He has an interception

of jayden daniels one of only four interceptions from jayden daniels last season now he is like weirdly shaped he's like 6'2 but under 200 pounds um has very short arms didn't test particularly well ran kind of slow but the zone instincts and for someone that is not crazy fast, there were a lot of reps in that game, literally against Malik neighbors who, according to the LSU pro day ran like four, three with a 42 inch vertical where Dwight is right in his hip pocket down the field in the end zone. So to get someone like that, like you're saying, like maybe the rest of the NFL is like, Hey, this guy's not worth it. He's just not a great athlete. But starting at LSU and then playing very well at Arkansas,

I think after the draft, it's certainly worth rolling the dice on it. Again, particularly for a team that needs some more talent at the cornerback spot. Anybody else? Because I have some rapid fire, big picture drafts. Yeah, I'll just be be super quick bo rick richter reicher ricker um of air force he does not have any pass rush moves whatsoever but he was very productive and his ras was like nine point something so i think right there you just

say hey look like let's see you just get around the corner and bend and i did watch him i graded him um so i think he's someone that's just worth that flyer because of the athleticism and that in college, he was able to get to the quarterback and generate pressure at a pretty good rate. teamers and and the next backup linebackers uh but overall uh without a ton of draft picks it's hard to go crazy about anything in the late rounds but i think they did fine for themselves of getting a few spots that they need i would have liked to see a running back just to throw another body in that group maybe even a wide receiver uh let me go through some things just big picture nfl wise with you uh that happened on draft night that will have long-term implications the first obvious now we could spend a lot of time on this so how about give me your uh this is like your play clock you got to get the call in to the

quarterback that's how you should treat these rapid fires michael pennix to the atlanta falcons reaction just my overall thoughts on the pick or what it says about the NFL. What did you think about it? I was very surprised at the Falcons' process. That was the first thing that came to my head. I had him graded, I think, at 28 or 29. That's maybe a little bit more of a reach than I'm willing to give teams at the quarterback spot. There's usually more leeway there but i was just like what they just signed kirk cousins

100 million fully guaranteed i know he's older coming off an achilles it was just way more about the process than anything else with me that was just very confusing for a team that was like you could probably win the nfc south and have the eighth overall pick. You need so many pieces on defense. Your offensive line is not amazing. This is a great offensive tackle class. There's four really good edge rushers. There's some great corners and they pick a 24 year old and say, Hey, if we don't play him in five years, that means Kirk's been really good. It's like, well, that would be kind of a waste of a pick then picking him at eight overall. So that was my overall, just my instant reaction thought to pennix going eight to the falcons i'll give you my real quick 30 second spiel on this in order to pick a quarterback terry fontenot their gm had to stand in a room and tell everybody

including their owner that this was going to be their plan. And in order to sell that to everybody, because GMs people, people seem to think that GMs just make all the decisions and don't ask anybody. I don't know. Howie Roseman just does this. Like that's a whole organization that's working on these things. I don't know.

I don't know. Spend some time covering a team, but the way that this would have to work is he would have to pitch this idea to the owner, to other people in the front office, to the coaching staff, and everyone would have to work is he would have to pitch this idea to the owner, to other people in the front office, to the coaching staff. And everyone would have to say, or at least the majority,

the people who matter would have to say, all right, then we're on board with drafting Michael Pennix and therefore sacrificing potentially picking layout to lots of, or whatever other player they could have taken. Why, why was everyone convinced? This is a good idea.

Is it, is it because they don't believe that Kirk's going to be around all that long with his health? They are concerned about that. I mean, I don't know. I don't know, but there has to be a reason. It wasn't just someone going rogue and picking his friend or whatever. It was like, there has to be a reason. And clearly they're not going to tell everyone the reason i want to know the reason and maybe it will present itself at some point down the road i i want to give them the credit to say when somebody does something totally nuts that isn't washington who's just nuts or

you know a team that we are cleveland this is nuts we should say is there something that they know here that yes i think that's a good, yeah. Yeah. Like, I think whenever something unprecedented happens, it's easy. And I mean, I guess I kind of just did it there. Like, I didn't understand the process, but it's easy for everyone to just jump on and laugh and say, hey, that's unconventional. But a lot of like the best ideas come from unconventional origins. So if you want to look at it that way i don't think it's crazy i just don't

get the giving kirk the money and then picking a quarterback inside the top eight but we talked about dallas turner and like hey the positional surplus or the financial surplus that you get from just picking an edge rusher in the first round you certainly get that at the quarterback spot too yeah it just goes to the and trust me i was shocked as anybody anybody who watched the show i laughed my head off because it was so ridiculous that they would do this uh but then in the days after more than i thought about it it's like you know what the nfl is so crazy if michael pennix started 2025 for the atlanta falcons would you be shocked i would be shocked no what what if what if kirk pops his other achilles and retires from the NFL?

And then we're just going to go, oh, uh, that pick actually looks pretty good. So I don't know. So we look, we criticize the heck out of the Packers when they pick Jordan love. Don't they need a receiver? Aren't they in win now mode? And then now they got their quarterback. Uh, not exactly apples to apples, but anyway, again, I'd said 32nd clock and we've both blown that out of the water.

So let me get to the next one, which just the uh the nfc north it's obvious that the bears had a great draft because you picked twice in the top 10 if you don't get an a then you did something really bad uh they're set up for a while between the lions and the packers who do you think had the better draft packers for sure the the Lions to me they picked that Giovanni Mazu in like the third or fourth round this like British Columbia guy maybe he's gonna be great but they like traded up to get him and I'm like wait a minute what I mean we didn't know about the the quote-unquote league's love of Michael Penix maybe that was the case with this British Columbian uh offensive lineman,

but it felt unnecessary. I think they traded up a couple times. I think the Packers had a much better draft, and I've just loved what Brian Gutekunst has done there the last two or three drafts to go super offensive, to pick offensive linemen. He kind of scatters them throughout the draft, and they're always very loaded with those backup offensive linemen, like all, like he kind of scatters them throughout the draft. And they're always very loaded with those backup offensive linemen where when a David Bakhtiari goes down, it's almost like you don't realize it. And he was so good for them for so long.

I think the Packers had a better draft than the Lions. They picked a really excellent running back, Marshawn Lloyd. Yeah, he's good, man. Where they picked him was the the right spot and they move on from aaron jones they replace him with the mid-round running back which is like picking a first round of almost any other position uh give me uh your takeaway on so it was reported that the vikings offered three firsts and wanted number three and then like some mid-round something back from the patriots that was their final offer to the Patriots.

Do you believe that New England was ever going to move off of Drake May under any circumstances? I don't think so. It feels like, and we asked this question to each other not knowing the answer pre-draft we it like now we know that the patriots are feeling like they can maybe not you know go to the playoffs and be a team that gets to the afc title game this year but we were like do they think like they're kind of close to being like respectable or are they like hey maybe by 2027 will be good we know that they, had a lot of retention in free agency. We mentioned that a lot, a lot more than people expected, and that apparently all the players loved their new head coach, Gerard Mayo.

That's not to say they hated Bill Belichick, but there was certainly some guys that maybe didn't view him as the most gracious players coach. They're like, hey, this quarterback is here. I don't blame the Vikings for being that interested in Drake May because we talked about it. It was like Drake May, just for everything that we talked about with J.J. McCarthy in this offense, Drake May was the number one perfect fit. Probably number two was J.J. McCarthy with all the

boot action stuff and things like that so I just don't think the Patriots now that they got that pretty hefty offer and maybe an offer reportedly from the Giants they just said nope we're gonna stay put we're not gonna you know prolong this rebuild we're gonna hope to start it right now with Drake May yeah I just I had really convinced myself throughout the process that the patriots might be willing to do it because they were afraid of ruining a quarterback but i should go back to robert craft when he first bought the team and he picked drew bletzo and drew bletzo got them to a super bowl and like it's not hard to see drew bletzo and drake may except for he can run a

little bit more a modern drew ble, draft the quarterback first, build around him, made so much sense. They would have probably had to add, I don't know, Christian Derrissaw, Jordan Addison, something that you just can't give up in order to do it and that the gap wouldn't be wide enough between May and McCarthy. And the odds aren't wide enough

between May and McCarthy working out that it would be worth giving up any more than they offered. But I agree with you. I don't believe there was any circumstance where they were going to do it. Okay. So just a disclaimer about all of my snark, some tongue in cheek, some, I really mean the draft season drives me crazy because things that get reported and things that get said, there's no accountability. Once the draft is over it's just ah well who cares if that person got totally misled and who cares if that person mis-evaluated the quarterbacks by five rounds or all these reporters as a reporter i really like facts and all these reporters saying

things that don't come true drives me crazy so i've got a list of that and i also understand the pressure of the insider. This team's thinking this, this team's thinking that when realistically they're not telling anybody what they think always in forever. Okay. Here is a list of all the rumors that did not come true. This is only from the three days, three days of pro football rumors.

I went through these first report and I'm not going to say who did each one. It doesn't matter. The bears prepared to trade the number nine pick. No, they stayed at number nine. Jaguars exploring wide receivers turned out to be true, but the part of the report was they're attempting to move up. Not true. They moved down with the Minnesota Vikings teams wanting Brock Bowers.

We'll need a top 10 pick was a headline. Not true. He went 13th. The Rams are aiming to will need a top 10 pick was a headline. Not true. He went 13th. The Rams are aiming to trade into the top 10. They did not trade up. The Colts are interested in trading up for a wide receiver or Brock Bowers. They sat and took a defensive end. Vikings in play for Bo Nix?

Clearly not, or they would have picked him. Raiders and Cardinals discussed a trade for the number four pick. They may have, but they were never trading that pick and stayed with Marvin Harrison. Giants considering Pennix at number six. Nope. They picked Malik neighbors. And that's another one for me. Nailed it that the Giants were not going to pick a quarterback. Chargers to move down? No, Chargers were not moving down pick a quarterback, uh, chargers to move down. No charges were not moving down. Several teams have a second round grade on Michael Penix, not the Falcons, uh, Broncos viewed as unlikely to stay at number 12. I viewed them staying at

number 12. I watched it happen. Uh uh giants could wait for a quarterback in the draft they did not spencer rattler widely thought to have a third round grade nope wide thinking not true fifth round grade rams could be a surprise team looking for a quarterback in the draft no they were certainly not that's just three days of football rumors leading up to the draft we had months to do it. So there's your old takes exposed on all those reports. Now, let me say this again, the ranting, please take it for what it is. I'm mostly kidding. We had a great, great time.

It was fun. It was so much fun. And you, sir, made it a lot of fun for everybody here and incredibly informative going all the way back to the combine finding new ways to break down these quarterbacks each time the energy was felt from you about this where it was like you were getting as excited as everybody over here yeah viking land as well and and really invested in this your knowledge of the draft your insight your effort as you were just talking about is unmatched. And I just can't thank you enough for doing this again this year. It was an absolute pleasure

to have you on each and every week. And we will check in as the rookies go forward for sure on the draft class and the decisions, but as far as weekly goes the end of the draft. And so I just, I, again, cannot thank you enough you enough well this was really fun for me i look forward to it every single week and like you mentioned like trying to find new angles to cover these quarterbacks like you mentioned at the beginning of this episode i think it's kind of fitting to kind of come full uh circle here that we for years were like oh is it going to be trade lands or is that wilson oh they can't get these guys. We finally knew that they were probably going to pick a quarterback, so got to talk about the most important and most marquee position in the NFL

for three or four months. Only mentioned other positions a little. They ultimately pick another spot in the first round, which is really interesting too. So I thank you and all the new Vikings followers I have and all the people that have reached out to say, hey, you know, I love you coming on Purple Insider. It's definitely been an honor. And yes, I definitely want to jump back on maybe training camp or right before the season or if there's another Ivan Pace Jr.

And then after that next draft season, because the Vikings still have that 2025 first round pick didn't make that trade um i'm certainly already looking forward to next late january early february to uh start this up again why don't you end us on a football football football