Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - College football analyst LOVES cornerback for the Vikings in the draft

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Matthew Coller is joined by college football analyst for A to Z Sports Joe DeLeone to discuss the upcoming NFL Draft, what positions and which players should the Vikings target in the draft, and much more. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, we welcome into the show. The only long snapper who has actually ever appeared on this show, Joe D. Leone, who does the Rafino and Joe show covering college football in lots of unique ways, I would call it. And also NFL draft for A to Z sports. Welcome back to the show, my friend. How are your fellow long snappers? How's the long snapping business today?

I have to admit, we were just talking about the software, are the contingent of long snappers that in college and those that are still playing that stay in communication with one another. I can't, I don't think I've talked to very many snappers since I stopped playing. I've got one guy that I consistently talk to, Donato Crissanti, who is currently a free agent and he's been getting some looks. But other than that, I don't, I don't keep up with any snappers anymore. It's disappointing. It is. It is. Well, you are a former college long snapper and now have become a great podcaster and a great analyst. And I wanted to talk a little big picture draft with you because we have reached that point

where the initial draft takes start to fire themselves up at the combine. And then we all kind of look at our watch and like, okay, can we draft? I mean, now would be good. But the NFL has to drag out the coverage. So by, you know, the middle of April, we're looking at fifth round quarterbacks and being like, I don't know. I think you could be a franchise guy. But I want to talk a little theory because there's been some accepted ideas in the draft.

universe for a few years after it was initially studied, but I think every draft is its own little snowflake. They're all different and they all have different makeups. I am curious about your thought as a real college football watcher, analyst, draft analysts, about when people talk about positional value, because I spend a lot of time on this in team building and where the Vikings should spend their assets, first and second round draft picks that turn into starters. and I think a lot about the big picture of how much you'll eventually have to pay this player,

how hard it is to replace. Where do you think we should stand within the context of this draft on weighing positional value at, say, number 18 overall versus best player? Yeah, I think that this question is intriguing for this specific draft class because the positions that we don't normally value highly are the ones that have some of most premier players and also has the most depth. So linebacker has two guys right now that are being put in the conversation for the second overall pick with Sunny Stiles and Arvel Reese. And then we've got plenty of other guys that are smattered across other rounds that I think are going to go on

to be great starters in the NFL, which is a bit of an aberration. Safety is the other position, too, that we're in this position where there's three guys that could go in the first round. Caleb Downs is regarded as one of the best prospects in the class. And we also have Dylan Dineman, who's been on the radar for the Vikings frequently as the next white safety to replace Harrison Smith, and Emmanuel McNeill Warren, who is also a really unique, talented player. But in most drafts, those guys fall into the second round because safety is also a premium position. And then lastly, I'd also throw in there, Interior Offensive Line is also a position that a lot of times you wait on and you're not really going to jump to draft those guys early. There's a lot of depth that interior offensive line compared to the tackle class that's quite weak this year. There's a lot of dudes that I watch that would probably fall really late in most draft classes

that could go early on day three out of just pure desperation. So I think within the whole scope of this drafting best available this year specifically, I think that the smart thing to approach here is paying close touch to which position groups are the thinnest. If you're not one of these teams that gets the chance to draft like a really unique premier player that are at these weird positions like we just talked about with down styles and Reese, I think that you got to consider, do you take the swing at a tackle at, you know, in the teens, not specifically for the Vikings, but take a swing of tackle because there's very limited options. Do you take a swing at running back because it thins out really quickly?

If you're a team that needs a developmental quarterback, do you overdraft one because there's really, really no options in this year's class? It's going to be a really weird year. And I think one that's going to turn itself on its head where it's not going to fit the normal expectations that we have for a draft class. So, in your opinion, would taking a safety at 18 because of the layout of the draft class makes sense? Because you mentioned, I mean, these are some really good safety prospects. I'm not sure any of them is quite as good of a prospect as someone like Nicky Menwere,

who last year ends up going in the second round. And I know that he had some people that wondered about certain elements of his game. And we've seen the athletic freak that doesn't, you know, exactly have the reaction or the fluidity or whatever it might be that's a combine animal and doesn't. doesn't apply on the field, but still with someone like Iman Wari, that was considered a very high level prospect. And what I noticed going back through consensus draft boards is oftentimes the consensus in the mock draft universe is higher, almost always actually on safeties where they're super high on Kyle Hamilton. And then he goes, you know, in the middle of the first round.

They're super high on Derwin James. He does not go at the very top of the draft. And I think a big part of that is over the last 10 years, teams have gotten people in their. buildings who have studied this stuff and general managers are saying, look, we can find a safety for, I mean, there were good safeties this year, Jaquan Brisker, who signed for like $6 million. And if you feel like, well, to me, the bar then becomes this guy has to be a freak. He's got to be a $20 million safety of which there's only a couple in order for me to draft him in the first round. But do you think that that opinion would be different because of the way things are expected

to go this year. Yeah, I think that, well, first of all, too, Caleb Downs, I think, is a really interesting just piece for this perspective on what's going to happen with the safeties this year, because he is being discussed as one of the premier players in the class. And there's a shot that it does follow the Kyle Hamilton path where he goes later than everybody expects. I have no idea, though, because as we're discussing here, this year's class is just generally thin. So maybe that gets kind of squashed and thrown away. But I found it so strange that, or not strange, but interesting to what you brought up that you can get value out of spending less money. It's also just like with linebackers where you can get a middle of the road linebacker at

inside linebacker and you can extract a lot of value if the supporting cast around him is really good. If you have really good defensive tackles and edge rushers, you can turn an average linebacker into a plus linebacker. If you have really good corners, you can make. us average safety into a plus safety. It's just like what we talk about running max, if you got a really good offensive line, an average running back could end up being really productive. But the one thing that I think is always foregone with this discussion is that there is a separate bucket of premier elite players at all of those positions. And when you have a guy like that or the opportunity to get a player like that, you need to take that swing. Running back specifically is one of those

position groups where the Saquan Barclays, the Derek Henry's, the Christian McAfreys, that is a massive elevator for your team. You sure could get by with a middle of the road, you know, a Bucky Irving, just a random name to throw out there. But what you're able to produce when you have one of those rare one of one players, it takes your offense to the next level. And the same thing applies for safety here. Because Kyle Hamilton is the leader of that discussion. Nikki Munwari is now in that conversation as well, that if you have these rare elite athletes that are game altering players, you have a very unique and really, really hard to move the ball against defense. So it's a bit of that approach of if you're going to be stubborn with just assuming

that you have to stick to positional value, you need to acknowledge that if you have one of one of those position groups, you are going to be in an elite tier of what your unit is going to be able to produce. Yeah. And I totally agree with that. I mean, if you are the team that drafts Kyle Hamilton, and you're certainly fine with letting everybody else say that you didn't pick a premium position after the guy becomes a monster at free safety, strong safety, box linebacker, nickel corner. You're like, I don't know, that seems like that's doing a lot for us. My issue with drafting, other than Caleb Downs,

the middle round type safety, is that if the guy only becomes good, then that's like $14 million in free agency for someone who's good, and they come available all the time. Cam Bynum got a very good contract from the Indianapolis Colts, but he's a really good player. and he's not an elite player, he's not Harrison Smith in his prime, but if your guy doesn't hit and become great and he's just good,

there are other positions where if you draft an outside linebacker, edge rusher who becomes just good, that's amazing for you. That's worth like $30 million if he becomes just good. The same thing with wide receivers where there are pretty, eh, wide receivers who get $20 million or more. That's more than the highest paid safety in the NFL. So I think we have to weigh that sort of stuff. I love your point, though, that I think there are certain positions that are impacted much

greater by all the other positions. Edge rusher, dude, it's just you versus the tackle. It doesn't have a lot to do with who's playing on the other side. Maybe it helps to have good corners because coverage is going to impact your pass rush for clean up sacks. But I mean, if you're Miles Garrett, it doesn't matter who's around you. You're going to be great. I mean, even the good guys are still going to put up six to 10 sacks a year, even if they're

just good. So I think about that a lot as well. In the context of your bigger team build, you have to have the right setup, the right defense, the right personnel in order to maximize what a safety could do where I wouldn't say that about other spots. Where do you think corner exists in this world? Because there's a lot of free agent corners every year and they don't get paid the craziest amount of money. And at the same time, if you want to trade for Trent McDuffie, it's going to cost you an arm and a leg and then $30 million. in free agency. Do you feel like that is a premium position?

As it was once lumped in with edge rush or wide receiver, do you feel like that falls under the same category of, hey, if you have a safety or an inside linebacker, equal on your board of a corner, always take the corner. Folks, when I first started Purple Insider, I knew I was going to need help. So I brought onto the team producer Jonathan Harrison. And over many years, he has been vital to the company

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Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monocodil and finestriide. Feature products include compound drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. I think that if actually if anything, I think that the value, I don't. much rather have, and I think it's a lot harder to find those elite upper category corners than it is to find those receivers. And what I really mean by that is that like you look across the board, having those guys that are completely shut down and are impossible to get completions against and are just constantly making plays on the ball, guys that you deliberately try to avoid, how many of those are there across the league?

And the biggest issue that we feel like we constantly talk about is how many corners, not only are, there's just not very many average corners. I feel like that there's a lot of bottom tier, low tier corners that end up being significant liabilities. And it's not one of those positions where you can survive and get by with good coaching and you can scheme around having a weakness of corner. If you've got a guy that's tight-hipped and can't move and it's also not reactive and doesn't make plays on the ball, he's going to get his ass cooked.

And when you've got one-on-one situations out on the boundary against good receivers, that is, that's how you lose. that's how you get killed. Allowing for teams to make big plays through the air in one-on-one situations is always going to be the most backbreaking thing that can happen to you in a game. It is the quickest way to score is taking a shot, is just taking a deep shot and being able to complete a big pass like that. So I think that in the conversation of which positions do deserve the top priority,

I feel like corner is the hardest to extract the most value out of it. I think at the very least with edge rushers, you can survive with average edge play. You might not have like a really crazy, disruptive smothering defense, but for the most part, an example is the New England Patriots this past year. They didn't have an elite crazy premier pass rusher.

They got the most out of Caleb on Chase on and company. I think that you can survive with good scheme and aggressiveness and blitz packages if you've got a good supporting cast of other players around them. But Corner not really not talked about enough. It's hard to come by having cornerbacks that are going to elevate your defense because teams are afraid to throw in their direction. This would be the 22 Vikings for me comes to mind right away where they had Zadarius Smith and DeNeal Hunter and those guys were awesome. And it didn't matter.

They were one of the worst defenses in the league because they couldn't cover anyone. Schematically, it was an issue as well. But, I mean, they just, their coverage was so bad that Mack Jones threw for 400 yards against them, despite having two of the best pass rushers in the entire NFL, and I think they were among the better teams in sacks for that season from their defensive line. Again, it still just didn't even really move the needle because they couldn't cover. I remember Adam Thielen saying one time, too, that the key for wide receivers,

which the reverse is true for corners, was at some point in a game, it's going to be third down and seven, and it's going to be man-to-man coverage and you've got to win. And if you're the corner, it's like, it's going to be man-to-man coverage and you've got to win. And when the Vikings had Xavier Rhodes, they won those matchups. And then post-Exavier Rhodes, they've had some good guys. And they did not win. I'd say for Patrick Peterson, he did a lot. But like, aside from that, that's it.

They didn't win those matchups. And they still don't in a lot of the biggest situations. When they played Philadelphia and they needed a defensive stop this year, AJ Brown just beat them. Devante Smith just beat them. And that's something that I would advocate for a cornerback. but let me ask you this question. How in your mind is the cornerback class in terms of strength?

I feel like I see it bouncing around quite a bit. I was very high on Avion Terrell. And then I'm looking at Daniel Jeremiah and he's moved him down his board into like a second round rage. And like, oh, maybe I, maybe I'm wrong here. I like the guy Chris Johnson from San Diego State a lot after watching him at the combine. And then you have Jermad McCoy who didn't play last year because of an injury, then has this great pro day.

it seems like there's reasons to like guys, but also reasons for skepticism, which sort of puts me maybe in a more second round place, but I don't know how you feel about this class. Yeah, this corner class has two buckets worthy of players that you're going to find that are going to be, I think, solid starters. And then there's some shots that can be taken late on day two,

early on day three. The two premier guys for me are Mansour Delane and Jermon McCoy. Dram McCoy's biggest concern had nothing to do with his tape, any of those things. It was the issues with his recovery that he suffered from the ACL injury that he suffered last January. Him not participating at the combine only increased those concerns. I had talked to one NFL scout who basically was just blown away when that news came out at the combine. It was, you know, why the hell isn't this guy participating? What is he trying to hide?

And he goes out there and he tests at his pro day. And I think that all that is now squashed. he now pushes himself back into this upper first round conversation. For me in the summer, he was graded as one of the highest graded prospects out of anybody. I had a blue chip grade on him. I thought that this was going to be a guy who was going to be unstoppable as soon as he got back on the field, but he never did. If there's a player who doesn't go in the top 10 that goes on to become an all pro caliber player, I think it is Jermann McCoy.

Mansor Delane is not far off. He is another player who's an athletic freak. he is super sticky in coverage. Teams just stopped trying to throw in his direction because nobody was separating from him. And I think the thing I love about Mansor Delane is that he's got positional versatility because in his career when he was at Virginia Tech,

he played some safety. So if you want to draft him and get creative and say, you know, we're not going to just use him as an outside corner, we're going to play him in the slot and then we can move him around. Having a really good nickel corner is now turning into a premier position as well to feed into this conversation of value

of just any cornerback. And then that second bucket that we step into are the guys that probably would be a little too early to take it 18. But as we get to the back end of the first and then the beginning of the second with the Colton Hoods, the Brandon Cs, the Chris Johnson's, the Avionthraels, a bunch of guys that are really good solid football players, but maybe aren't as freakish and fluid as the top two guys. But I think are going to go on to have careers, maybe earning some Pro Bowl honors, having chances to show themselves in the upper tier of corner. backs, maybe one of them strikes into becoming a top five corner at the position, but I think that probably mostly unlikely. The one guy that I like the most out of that is the one that you mentioned is Chris Johnson. But there's plenty of swings that can be taken with someone like Trayton Stukes from Arizona, who is a sub-packaged guy, a, you know, role-specific player,

probably not more of an outside corner. And I also really like Julian Neal from Arkansas, who's a tall, long guy, but a bit tight hip to who's going to be a little bit more zone-specific. Yeah, and the Vikings like that kind of guy, or at least they have in the past. I just, the one thing I keep going back to is with McCoy specifically is Brian Flores has done this, has had top-notch defenses without really having that guy. And that is hard to do. Now, Byron Murphy is highly paid and he's a good player. And he's, I think, a really good zone corner, very highly intelligent, can make plays on the football. But he is not that freak who you're just like, go out there.

you versus number one wide receiver and you deal with it. I feel like the defense could go to even another level if they found that player. But that will come down to the medicals and how these teams look at that ACL and that recovery. Because there have been other players in sports who with a recovery from an injury rather than push it to come back have just said, why don't I get to 100% be fully, fully ready to go to the point where I am not like hurting myself. self in my future. And that may have been something that he considered as well. And why don't I do it

on my terms? But that's going to come down to what they know behind the scenes. If it was sort of like Will Johnson. When Will Johnson dropped, we're all like, uh, what the hell is going on here? And then it turns out that there's, you know, medical concerns. I want to ask about the running back position. You said something interesting there about, hey, if you're going to get a life changing running back like Christian McCaffrey, I'm sorry you're not going to get him in the fifth round. And I was always a little it, um, I'm never been in favor of spend the super high draft pick on the running back because the same sort of theory applies to safety. If he's just Leonard Fournett, this is like an okay running back, then you've completely

blown it. And if you get Derek Henry, that's fantastic. But if you don't and he's just okay, then Bucky Irving would have been fine in the fifth round, right? So, or wherever he went, was it the fifth, maybe the sixth, um, how do we deal? It doesn't matter. It's Bucky Irving. So sorry, Bucky.

but when we deal with this, the Vikings need explosiveness in the backfield. They really don't have any. And I keep looking for it and I keep not really finding it outside of Mike Washington and maybe Dem and Claiborne. Where should someone, such as the purple and gold, draft are running back? They have to. But where should they in this draft? I know that this has mixed feelings on, but I don't think it's,

insane to suggest trading up for Jeremiah Love if he is somehow sneaking his way past the team or the top 10 if you just maybe sitting there around number 10 where the Bengals are picking would that be worth a phone call I would hope that it would be cheaper this year with the lack of the class just not being very good that it could be cheaper to move up to pick 10 now you don't want to mortgage your future ridiculously the draft a running back I think that that really digs you into a massive hole. But if you're in a somewhat of a position to maybe take that swing, Jeremiah Love is one of those guys that would be in the upper, let's call it just top seven running backs of a rare

player that takes your offense from intriguing and consistent to explosive and dominant. But if you miss out on the Jeremiah Love train, which is probably the case for the Vikings in this draft. I think that the one player that would at least be worth that selection that could be leaned on heavily is Mike Washington, who you mentioned. I'm a very big Mike Washington fan. I think that this is a guy with his physical profile, his reliability, and his explosiveness as an athlete can go on to become a thousand yard running back in the NFL. I am not in favor of drafting a guy like Mike Washington extremely early at like the beginning of the second round for some of these teams. And but if he's on the board at the end of the second early third he's worth it he can end to becoming

a top tier guy he could end up i'm not suggesting he'll be derrick henry but he could end up kind of extracting that same value where he could be your consistent 1200 yard running back that you continue to feed the rest of this class though to exactly what you're saying and i think we're starting to see more and more of this there's not really a running back that i would be so convinced that you should select somewhere on day two that is going to add that serious explosiveness. I like Judarian Price. Maybe that would be worth the consideration. I really like you mentioned, Demand Claiborne, but that is a day three pick for me.

The last player that I would toss into the mix here, that would be worth a really late round selection that you could end up getting production of a guy that would be normally drafted much earlier is Levion Moss from Texas A&M. He is super explosive. He has the profile in a vacuum of a guy that could go on to be. become really successful in the NFL because he's got juice. He runs hard, but his injury history is just atrocious. If you can get a healthy version of Lev Moss and you spend a sixth round pick on him, I think that that ends up being tremendous value. He ends up going on to become

a really, really good player in the NFL. But it's a little bit of a risk reward there with a prospect like that. I just felt all Vikings fans throw up in their mouth a little bit when you're talking about, well, you know, if he could stay healthy because this has been kind of a thing in recent years for the Vikings. Okay, one more question for you, Joe. Let's say you're picking at number 1849, just, you know, kind of pulling those numbers out of a hat for the Minnesota Vikings. Who would you have as your like A to Z sports is going to give the A when you do your recap? When you guys do the, uh, the podcast, you know, breaking down your draft grades, you're going to say, man, those Vikings crushed it because they grabbed whom?

I think that the crush it pick in the first round would be Dremad McCoy. I think that if you end up benefiting from the fact that everybody else might be feeling a little queasy and uneasy about his medical history and you just decide to take that swing because you know he is a premier player in this class, that to me could end up paying off. There is a little bit of risk here, but it doesn't seem like that there is anything to worry about with his knee considering he just tested off the charts at his pro day you could end up coming away with an all-pro caliber corner that is how good Dermad McCoy is and then I would think it coming back around with some of the other needs we just spent some time talking about running back if you ended up

taking Mike Washington with that next pick I think that that's exactly what you need I feel like recently it was just like looking at the Vikings roster and Aaron Jones at a certain point we need to realize that it's time to find somebody that is going to provide a much bigger impact than where he is at the end of his career. And I think that Mike Washington can be that dude that they lean on, they feed him, and he ends up being a bell cow for this team in the future. But those to me, I think would be the two home run picks because on both sides of the ball, you're getting a shutdown corner on the outside and then on the other side of the ball, you are taking pressure off of assumedly Kyler Murray or maybe if it ends up being JJ McCarthy in the near future, you have

somebody that you can lean on. I think you're exactly right with Aaron Jones. At this point in his career, he is a singles and doubles hitter and they just need, they need home runs. They have not been explosive at all in the run game really since Kevin O'Connell got here. They had one explosive athlete in Ty Chandler and he couldn't really like run the right way when they ran run plays or pass protect or any of that. That's important. It really is. I actually have never seen it happen multiple times in a single game where the quarterback takes the snap, turns around, the running backs on the other side of him. But Chandler was so fast that he could make those into decent plays, but it's not something you really want to happen too often. And then the past protection was an absolute

nightmare. Joe, it was great to connect with you again. If you want to highlight before you go, a quick long snapper in the draft, that's perfectly fine. If you're too far out of the business now to know the top long snappers, that's all right. But it's just your name on Twitter. People should follow you there. Your show is great. Your college football coverage is awesome. And I think you're the perfect guy to cover the circus that is college football.

I would go insane. It's just like the college, whatever level of craziness we have covering the NFL, it's like 500 times as much in the college football world. Yeah, it's a trip trying to keep up with everything that happens. college football. And Rofino and Joe show, we try to bring a very unique perspective with my co-host, Blake, who is very argumentative, and I love arguing with Blake. And if anyone loves those types of discussions and debates over the hottest topics of college football, go and check that out and check out Best Pot available, which is my draft show that I do for A-Z Sports. I don't have any snapper

polls. I will shout out my guy Donato, who was with the Steelers in rookie minicamp last year, and he's been performing well and getting some looks by the NFL. So hopefully maybe somebody signs them. Probably not the Vikings because they're cleared on all their bases with the Palo. But it was great getting to catch up with you. And I can't wait to chat again soon and excited to see what the Vikings do during the draft. We will definitely do it again. Thanks a lot, Joe.