Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Diving into Jordan Addison's unique route to receiver stardom with his hometown reporter

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

Matthew Coller is joined by Josh Smith, a reporter from Frederick, Maryland, the hometown of receiver Jordan Addison. He talks about Addison growing up as a quarterback and switching to receiver late in the process but catching on quickly at Pitt and then transferring to USC. Josh also happens to be a Vikings fan so he talks about the Vikings' future, where Addison fits in and what's next at QB. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and a very special guest on the show. Not only is he a Purple Insider newsletter subscriber, a listener to the podcast, owns a Purple Insider shirt, but also is a great reporter for the Frederick News and Post in Maryland. And talk about small world here. That just happens to be where Jordan Addison, the Vikings first round pick is from. Josh Smith, it's great to get together with you, Josh. We have talked many times about the Vikings, but I didn't think other than Chuck

Foreman being from your area that we would ever have a reason to get together on the pod until the Vikings drafted Jordan Addison. So what is up, man? How are you? I'm great, man. This is so cool. It's like I'm having an outer body experience or something. And in line with the draft, in honor of the draft and those incredibly terrible post-draft pick interviews, I want to shout out to the heavenly football father here you know without him this wouldn't be possible I wouldn't be on I wouldn't be on this podcast with you on a podcast I listen to like literally every night on my drive home from work so uh you know thank the good lord upstairs for uh the Vikings draft and Jordan Addison and having this uh this possible for me I mean I remember weeks ago i put jordan addison on the

vikings in a draft sim and you sent me a message you're like he's from here hopefully they do it and i don't think either one of us thought they would i don't know how many i've ever got right i did get brian o'neill right once upon a time in a draft sim but for the most part every year i'm just taking guesses like everybody else but then you know this ends up working out and of course as you know as a long time listener slash subscriber uh the drum was being banged for many years for a wide receiver for the vikings just because i mean everybody knows the argument the value of having a number two or even a number three wide receiver you shouldn't as you have you you know, Chris Carter memorabilia in the background, shouldn't have

to explain that to any Vikings fans, but I would love you to offer some insight having written about him coming from that area about what the Vikings are getting in Jordan Addison and just his background. Yeah, they're getting, I mean, you hear all the words that people are throwing out there about him, you know, polished, technical, savvy is a good word I like with him. You know, you hear people talk about like his short area quickness, because if you look at his speed and his like 40 yard dash times, he's not a burner. He's not going to, you know know tear off straight down the field a la Randy Moss and you know and score long touchdowns like that that's not his thing um and I think

what he does bring is gonna be a really nice uh replacement it's gonna be really hard to replace Thielen obviously but like he can do a lot of the things that Thielen did aside from maybe some of that like red zone expertise that Thielen had and sort of had developed over the years. So I think it's going to be a little bit of a challenge for him physically, maybe. And you hear people talk about his size and speed ratio. I guess you want to if he's going to be a little smaller, you want him to be, you know, like a four, four or four, three guy or something. But I'm really, it's crazy, man. Like I watched a lot of his college stuff. I, you know, followed very closely what he did in college, obviously. And what it doesn't matter, that stuff sort of doesn't matter because of what he does well. Like he is the very epitome of like a student of the game. And a lot of what he does well, the word preternatural, I think is the word, you know, I would use with this.

We're like, he's like, it just comes to him. The way he plays is almost natural. And so I was thinking about him a little bit as we were I was getting ready to do this. And I started I started to remember what you and your fellow reporters would say about like Dalvin Cook when he first got into training camp with the Vikings. And he was just doing stuff that like picking up blitzes. And he just his football IQ was just through the roof. And that is what Addison has. I think regardless of what his knocks might be, what he does well is going to is going to be what carries him. And I don't think there's going to be a situation where he's there's going to be a big learning curve with him.

Another thing about him is that he you know, he he learned how to play wide receiver once he got to college, essentially. So you asked me about his background a little bit, and I wrote about him extensively, I guess, right after his breakout season at Pitt. When he was in high school, he was essentially an option quarterback, and he had come up through the youth ranks as an option quarterback. And he played on a high school team in our county that was just not very good. Like they just didn't have talent around him. And they certainly didn't have someone who could deliver the ball to him if they put him at receiver. So essentially, you know, what the coaches all throughout his youth time

and even into high school, what they thought was, let's get the ball in this guy's hands. He's the best playmaker we have. And let's go from there. And so in addition to him playing defense, he's playing defensive back, too. So he got this vantage point of the game from an early age. And then finally, I think during his senior year, he started to play a little more wide receiver. But quite honestly, it wasn't until he got to Pitt that he could really focus on that craft. And again, like he just had this sort of I think his footwork was something that was very helpful to him. He had you know, he just he was another comparison I can make is like he gives off a lot of Diggs vibes. Like I hate to make comparisons, but like he gives off those vibes because Diggs is not a burner.

You know, he runs in the 4-5 range, 4-4-4-5. But his like short area quickness, his route running, sort of his expertise in all of that is what carries his game. And I think that like with Addison, he started to get some coaching when he got to Pitt. And he had a really good wide receivers coach. His name was Chris Beattie. And Chris Beattie was at Maryland when DJ Moore was there and then he moved to Pitt. And so he got that's who essentially got him to Pitt because a lot of the a lot of the schools, I think about 20 D1 schools were recruiting him. And a lot of those schools wanted him as a defensive back.

And essentially largely because of his footwork and stuff. That's a really difficult position, I think, for footwork, when you're backpedaling, all of that sort of stuff. But this guy saw him at a camp, realized his potential as a wide receiver. And that's why he ended up going to Pitt. And it was almost like, I remember the first, maybe the first thing I read about Jordan at Pitt, once he was there was, was, gosh, their coach, I'm drawing a blank on their coach. He, he likened Jordan to Antonio Brown. And I was like, Whoa, like this kid literally just got into practice.

It was like the spring of his freshman year, literally just graduated from like Tuscarora high school and is, you know, focusing for the first time in his life, like fully on being a wide receiver and he's being compared to Antonio Brown. So again, just a lot of his skills are, they come to him naturally, but he also has this mind for football. And when he's taught something, from what I understand, he can learn it and implement it immediately. Yeah, I mean, I think that all of that matches up with what Kweisi D'Afflamenza and Kevin O'Connell said about him,

which was, I think Kweisi said something like like this guy was born to play football kind of thing. Like he has just this natural way about him and instincts. I think it's really interesting that he did not come from a high school that was a dominant program. And I think he was a four-star recruit, which is still obviously pretty good, but maybe not somebody that was like coming from South Florida as a five-star recruit and going to Bama. Like he kind of had to take a roundabout way around this. I also thought it was very interesting when we talked to him that he said that one of the reasons he wanted to play wide receiver, the way that it came together was one, he was inspired by Stefan Diggs because Stefan Diggs is from Maryland as well and went to Maryland.

And he also said that he had a conversation with his brother, and I understand he has a big family, so one of his brothers. And he said, like, you need the ball in your hands. You don't need to be a defensive back. You need to have the football in your hands. And it all kind of came together. But I mean, talk about, again, like small world stuff, you and I being on the show. Also, the Vikings top pick wide receiver being inspired to turn to wide receiver by Stephon Diggs. Yeah, and Diggs, I believe for a time when he was young, played in the county where Jordan is from. And then eventually, I guess, moved to Montgomery County and started playing in the same youth league that Jordan did. So I'm assuming that Jordan saw him play throughout the years when he was a kid in that league. Because Diggs is, I don't know how much older he is right now.

But, you know, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that Jordan saw him play in youth football while he was in that very same league. And, you know, I mean, it is very cool. And like, again, like they are i think they are very similar athletes and i hate to project that but i really don't think and i think with digs like they gave him a little time uh you know to get incorporated in the game into the on the team until he got i think he wasn't like getting um starts until some injuries happened his rookie year with the Vikings. You know, I'm not sure I see that happening with Addison. I think he's going to be incorporated, like, right away.

And I don't think the playbook is going to prevent him from getting on the field early and often because, again, like, you know, he just has that ability to absorb stuff. And, you know, I wonder if he's – I hope he's talked to Diggs. You know, like, that guy would be – he'd be a great person for him to talk to about the experience of coming into the league, and he could not be, like, a better sort of example as to, you know, how to go about playing that position in the league. And I personally learned a lot just from Stefan Diggs in general.

I mean, knowing him and talking to him, but also watching him about what makes a great wide receiver, because we always talk so much about the size, the speed, what their relative athletic score is, everything else. You look up Diggs relative athletic score. It's like 50th percentile. He's an average athlete for the position. And yet he is one of the five best players in the league. Now, Justin Jefferson's 97th percentile. So it does help to be that fast and that big. But I think that that is such a fascinating part about the position where it's like every edge rusher almost looks some version of the one or two things. Right. They're either like shorter, quicker or they're like super lanky. Every nose tackle is very fat.

Every offensive tackle is 6'8". But yet wide receiver, they're all over the map. And that's why when I was doing the research leading up to this, and I was asking around about smaller wide receivers, and even, you know, Kweisi Adafomenta talked about it. And he's not, I mean, he's not tiny tiny from a height perspective but he certainly is from a weight perspective he's very slender and all the research i could find was basically like look if you're at least 5 11 then you could probably or 5 10 5 11 then you could probably make it and i think it just

really says a lot about how technical this is and digs one with technique. So it's almost like in a way, an IQ test. If someone watches Stefan digs and wants to emulate that, because it's so clear, like he is winning with being such a technical player and not just by running past people. Almost nobody can do that in the NFL.

I would, I would say, yeah, exactly the same with Addison. Like don't look at that relative athletic score for him because I would, I would say, yeah, exactly the same with Addison. Like, don't look at that relative athletic score for him because I think, well, at the combine, like he, he had to bow out. He had like an ankle issue that like flared up or something. So he didn't do most of that stuff. So his relative athletic score from there was like 50th percentile, like you said. But I would

say, you know, just throw that out that out I mean you just have to um you know and throw and also don't worry about how big this kid is I'm serious because like um he's not going to get any bigger like I've talked to his mother about it genetically he's just who he is I think he weighs like 173 pounds that's what he weighed in at the combine um you know as he gets older and matures maybe he puts on like a few more pounds or maybe once he gets into an nfl like training program that's a little bit different and they can figure out ways to add a little more bulk to him but like i don't think that's changing um so and and i wouldn't you know there are certain things that yeah might give him problems because of his uh his frame like a guy jamming him at the line or whatever. But again, like his short area ability and just his ability to like get away from those guys, you know, right off the snap is what he's going to succeed with that.

And, you know, I don't know how often you think they'll have him playing outside. Like, you know, I heard you talking about, you know, how they needed an outside guy. You know, if they're looking at receiver, I mean, I don't know. He can play outside and he'll tell you he can play anywhere and he can run any level routes. But I just I do sort of wonder what you think about how often they'll have him outside. Yeah, I think I mean, when you look at his college usage, he did both. And I think that, well, I mean, how many actual snaps will someone line outside the numbers with press man coverage? I mean, in an NFL season, it's probably only like 20% of the snaps. Teams play a lot of zones.

They play off coverage and you're getting free releases or you're even technically, if you're the outside wide receiver in a condensed split you still have a two-way go whether you can release inside or outside i do think based on the numbers and a great website reception perception uh that's run by matt harman of yahoo sports he did point out that when he was asked to run like a go route against press coverage which is very specific but he was not very successful in doing that which means you have to beat him off the line of scrimmage almost instantly and then get on top of the corner with your speed that might not be his thing but when he was running ins digs you know comebacks stuff like that which is a lot higher percentage of the routes and a big thing

is what you mentioned about just mastering what they ask you to do, because we saw last year that Kevin O'Connell was very good at scheming wide receivers open. And there were a lot of times where we were going, where was the defense on even Justin Jefferson at times? So I think that he's going to get a lot of favorable matchups with Justin Jefferson taking up so much attention. I do wonder what you think about, he talked about this when he transferred from Pitt to USC. It's very funny about the timing of things because he took a lot of criticism for that. And he was one of the first guys that was sort of talked about as, oh, is he doing it for the NIL? Which now, I mean, who isn't doing it for the NIL? but it's sort of a part of his story that he decided to make that

move to USC. And it seems like it ultimately ended up turning out very good for him, despite housing prices in LA. Maybe he didn't factor that versus going to Pitt. But I just think it's an interesting kind of element there that the timing, he was maybe one of the only players to ever actually take heat for doing that. He was a flashpoint. I remember when the news started leaking out, it was leaking out of Pitt because they were mad that he was leaving. My stance on the whole thing, man, I was like, go do what you want to do, man. Go where you want to go. The rules are set up for these kids now to take advantage of that. And I don't know, man, if you ask me, where was the negative in him doing that? He, look,

he was on a successful team that had a Heisman trophy candidate quarterback and that guy left for the NFL and his offensive coordinator left and his wide receivers coach left. So why would he stick around there? Like this was a perfect opportunity for him to say, you know what, you know, I'm going to show you NFL scouts, I'm going to go somewhere else. I'm going to go all the way across the country. And I'm going to learn a new playbook, a complicated playbook, as I would imagine, coming from the coach that was out at USC. And I'm going to master that playbook in one off season and I'm going to put up numbers and I'm going to go to the NFL so he did it and and I don't know what the like look we heard all kinds of rumors we could never get uh any we never heard anything confirmed about an NIL deal from

him and from I have a friend uh a guy who covers uh for, I think it's rivals. And he said, even out there, like, we never got confirmation that he got any big NIL deal, but you know what? If he did good for him, like I wrote, I wrote a column about that. Like, I mean, these kids need to go get what they can get when they can get it. And I don't know. I saw no negatives in his transfer whatsoever. I only saw like, you know, I saw it adding more to his profile.

It's funny because it used to be a thing where coaches would talk about, well, you know, if somebody's transferred, you got to look into that and you got to wonder what was wrong there and why couldn't he deal with whatever this or that. And now it's like try finding a player who didn't transfer from a lot of these schools. Unless you went to Bama or Georgia, you might have a couple of different schools on your list,

which I think is interesting. With Jordan Addison, I guess as far as remaining questions for him, I think it's entirely just about the fit that makes this work for me. But I guess you would wonder about, you know, you mentioned the ankle injury and stuff like that. I guess running through anything that could kind of prevent him from stepping right in and being an excellent wide receiver. But I feel like this is one that just checks so many boxes for all the things that we know about wide receivers and his background. I agree. And like you've mentioned numerous times on your podcast and in your writing, I mean, as a wide receiver too is an incredibly valuable thing to have these days.

And if you can get him under contract for five years as a first rounder and pay him you know the minimum of what you have to pay for a wide receiver too who eventually I think is going to be like a legit wide receiver too who is going to put who's going to catch you know who's going to get 60 70 catches a season and sorry sorry Adam Thielen I love you but you know he would just catch it and go down there was no like yak yardage with him so like you're gonna get some of that with Addison so you know this this season I wouldn't be surprised if he caught you know 50 balls and had more yardage than Thielen had last year just because he can they're gonna get him in space he's got that that quickness he's gonna be able to elude defenders and get some, you know, run after the catch yardage.

And, man, you can't, like, when you have Jefferson consuming so much attention, you have to be able to, you know, have other options. And, you know, even O'Connell will be able to scheme things for Addison just because of his intellect on the field. So, and, you know, paired with his ability. Whereas with Thielen, it was like, obviously he knew how to do everything and he could catch anything thrown his way, but like he was, he has had become sort of limited in terms of his mobility, not mobility, but his speed. So that's not going to be a concern. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that if you get some version of

what Thielen does with fresh legs, it could be a big benefit. And I mean, also, I like just pairing him with K.J. Osborne in general, because I think you can look at Osborne and say, oh, well, he can't be wide receiver, too. And my thought is always, but why not three? And I mean, why not three wide receivers who could do the job? You don't have to dismiss where he fit in I thought that especially when Thielen was a little better two years ago early in the season you saw KJ Osborne where teams could just not keep track of all three wide receivers Jefferson Thielen and Osborne I think last year teams were able to slow down Thielen by themselves

and it took a while for Osborne to kind of get it ramped up in a new offense, but I still think he's a very capable wide receiver. So pairing two guys that are kind of wide receiver two ish together is just what Kevin O'Connell wants. I mean, I never, I never bought into the idea that they signed Josh Oliver. So suddenly Kevin O'Connell could turn into Gary Kubiak. I mean, I think that he wants some shades of that, but I don't think that that's what was going on there, that they were just going to run Byron Chamberlain and Shannon Sharp out there all the time. Now, I know that you have questions for me as a Purple Insider subscriber, so I want to let you do that. But I also want to ask you about Chuck Foreman as well, because you and I have gone back and forth about Chuck Foreman, obviously a Vikings legend

who is from your area that you've written a lot about. Not in the Hall of Fame, but he's right behind you. But if you look at his numbers, his peak, he had one of the great peaks of NFL history. In fact, if you kind of compare his short run to Terrell Davis's short run, if there was a Super Bowl ring there, you'd be like, maybe Chuck Foreman belongs in the Hall of Fame. I want to know your favorite Chuck Foreman story. Man, I mean, it's got to be – doesn't it have to be like the snowball story? Right?

You know that story? I don't know this one. I don't know this one. This was up in Buffalo. This was in Buffalo, man. Gosh, what year – a lot of his prime years, since I wasn't alive, like they kind of get mixed up for me. His best season, I believe it was 75.

There's going to be fans, Vikings fans from that era that are going to get on me if I'm wrong about this. But he was going for the Triple Crown. He was trying to have the most touchdowns scored, the most rushing yardage, and I think the most receptions, maybe. He was trying to do all three of those in one season, and it came down to the final game of the season. They were in Buffalo, and he was against OJ Simpson, of course, and the two of the best running backs or best backs in the game at that point. And he was having a Chuck Foreman game and going off. And, of course, it had snowed or it was snowing.

And someone threw – they were throwing snowballs at the Vikings on the sideline and someone threw a snowball that went through his face mask and hit him in the eye and he had to to come out of he couldn't play after that. So his numbers, he wasn't able to get to where he wanted to. And I mean, that's got to be one of my favorite stories about him. That's probably one of the most famous ones. But, you know, here's a guy who, you know, he came out of Frederick High School where I work. And he was a, believe it or not, he was a tight end and a defensive tackle at Frederick High School. And he went to the University of Miami.

I think initially he was considered going to Maryland. And something happened. The coaches switched. And that sort of swung his decision. So he ended up going to the University of Miami. And I'm not even sure what they wanted him as down there but I think once he got there and worked out I think he even told me once like he ran it he ran to 40 and they were like oh uh I guess we got to get this guy the ball somehow because he was like the fastest player in their camp and so eventually he you

know he played numerous positions in college as well. That's another crazy thing about Chuck Foreman and who he became. He wasn't like some thousand yards but you sort of you know if you look at that you're just like okay well the next year you figure they're going to give him the ball and give him the ball and he's going to become this superstar but that didn't happen he ended up they moved into wide receiver uh based on like matchups because they knew he could catch the ball and he was like a 6-2 guy so there were mismatches in there um there were times when like they had injuries on their defensive side of the ball and the coaches were like hey man we need you to go over and play cornerback and shut down this number one wide receiver. And he did it. This guy could he could literally and his brother interviewed his brother for the story I did last week. His brother said he could play. He could play linebacker if they needed him to. Now, he wasn't like huge in terms of his weight, but he was just like he could have played anywhere and been really good wherever he played.

So it wasn't until his, his very end of his senior year, after his Miami season was over, he started to go to those, to those bowl games, those senior bowls and those senior all-star games. And he got on that circuit and he realized like, he's better than all these guys. He told me he's like I wanted that. He said, I went into this thinking like, you know, I think I can play with these guys. And then after he was with these dudes at these different events, he was like, these dudes can't play with me.

And so, you know, he ended up I think he told a great story about the Senior Bowl. He went in there and Weeb Eubank was the head coach of his team at the time. Jets head coach for Joe Namath, previously the Colts and Johnny Unitas. And he he saw Chuck Foreman at practice carrying the ball, maybe fumbling the ball a little bit. It was like, look, come here. I'm going to show you how to hold this ball and I'm going to showcase you and you're going to be fine. And that's almost exactly what happened. Like he got in, it was the senior, it was the senior bowl. He rushed for like 160 yards. And that was like an early January, I think of 1973.

And that almost like solidified him as a, as a number one draft pick as a running or as a back. And he'll always tell you you, I played fullback. I didn't play running back. I was a fullback. And that was just the way the offenses were built back then. He played really close up behind the quarterback, behind Tarkenton. It wasn't like he was five yards behind him.

Tarkenton would just snap and turn around and hand it off to him, or he'd throw it to him. I mean, I could just go on and on about Chuck. He was like, I've gotten to know him a little bit. I've of course researched his background and his, his, you know, his playing career. And it's just really sad that here, this guy is, he's 73 years old. He can't even get the senior committee to bring his name up for induction.

You know, like his mother just passed away a few years ago. I remember talking to her and how she was like, I for induction, you know, like his mother just passed away a few years ago. I remember talking to her and how she was like, I want him, you know, I want him to get in before I die. That didn't happen. You know, I even saw him, my buddies at work. And I'm like, you know, at this point, like, I don't think he's getting in. Maybe he's going to be dead by the time they put him in. It's really, it's really sad. And you mentioned something that, I mean, that those Super Bowls, I mean, mean Terrell you mentioned Terrell

Davis I was going to say something about that too I remember writing extensively about Chuck compared compared to Terrell Davis when Terrell Davis got in because Terrell had like sort of a short period of time where he was dominant and then he had an injury that cut cut short his career now that didn't exactly happen with Chuck. He just sort of, you know, sort of like war, he just got worn out over, I think it was an eight year career, but anyway, the bottom line was, you know, very similar cases and, and, and very similar positions. You know,

I would have thought that right after Terrell Davis got in that people, maybe that senior committee would start to take a little closer look at Chuck's case. But here's what I think is going on with that. And you can tell me what you think about it. Like that team, the Purple People Leader Vikings have, I think it's six, maybe seven Hall of Famers already. Like they have defensive linemen, they have Kraus, they have Tarkinson they have Yari um I think it's I think it's like 1970s Vikings fatigue like the senior committee probably sees okay they made it to three Super Bowls or you know and lost all three how many guys do we have in yeah that's enough and they're just not willing to reopen the book on that era of Vikings.

And I mean, I don't know, you could probably draw comparisons with those Bills teams from the 90s and how many guys they have. But that's sort of what I think about what's going on there. And it's just, I mean, it's every time you talk to him, he gets, it's almost like he's more and more frustrated about it. You can hear it in his voice, you know? Yeah. And the NFL has such an unbelievably high standard for the hall of fame. I mean, there's just so few players who go in and we talked about this with Harrison Smith. And when I called up the hall of fame monitor, which I just pulled up for Chuck Foreman one of the things that annoyed

Vikings fans to bring up was just that like the all pros and the championship and that shouldn't matter, but it does. And so if they had won the Superbowl, maybe there's a little more willingness to put in everybody involved. I also think that fatigue element is exactly right. The Bills had a center named Kent Hall, who's one of the best offensive linemen in the history of the NFL. Hands down would fight anyone to the death on this. He was the centerpiece of their offense

and deserved every bit of attention that he could get. But if you didn't make enough Pro Bowls, if you didn't get enough All-Pros, which by the way, our ability to evaluate some of these things has gotten so much better with all the numbers that we have. So maybe with Chuck Foreman at a time, we would have looked at the receiving as like, oh, just kind of secondary. But that was a massive part of what made him a unique running back. The Hall of Fame monitor has him as very much a fringe, I mean, as he is a fringe Hall of Famer with guys like Larry Zonka, Corey Dillon, Eddie George, Warke Dunn, Priest Holmes, Tiki Barber. Like these guys get kind of similar scores.

All of them great players, legendary players, but maybe just on the fringe a little bit of the Hall of Fame. And I think that's what happened with Chuck. And the thing is that, you know, longevity, it's like Terrell Davis gets this and no one else when it comes to your peak was just unbelievable and that goes for all hall of fames like this is the Dale Murphy thing right like Dale Murphy was unbelievable for a short period of time and then it wasn't enough but opening a career with five straight pro bowls uh for Chuck Foreman is an incredible accomplishment for him

so he probably will have that label of being one of the best players not in the hall of fame but with football there's probably 25 guys well who was it was it ron santo was always the guy who was the guy for the cubs right who was always known as the best player not in the hall of fame there's like 28 players who could make an argument they're the best player not in the hall of fame in the NFL probably 50 right right but like the thing about Chuck and his game like translate his game to today but he was 6'2 he weighed 200 and whatever pounds he could run a 4'5 he could the dude has more catches than Lin Swan like think about that I mean obviously Lin Swan was it was a flashy deep threat type guy on Super Bowl champion team.

So, yeah, Hall of Famer. No question. But if you're putting him in the Hall of Fame, you got to look at that era and look at the stuff that Chuck was doing, catching the ball that nobody else was doing. And honestly, man, every year another record is another like receiving record is broken by a back that and they're like oh yes and Chuck Foreman previously owned this record like it just happened last year I just wrote about it Jarek McKinnon had uh our old buddy from the Vikings had uh what was it nine receiving touchdowns or something and he broke a record that was hair that was held uh and shared by Chuck Marshall Falk and and believe it or not, Leroy Ford. It was not, yeah, I think they had eight and Jarek had nine. But anyway, like those other guys did it in 16 games.

Chuck had those numbers in 14 games. And he'll tell you this, like I think the people that are examining these cases almost just throw out the receiving part of it. They look at his, they were looking at his rushing yards just really isn't that spectacular. And they look at his yards per carry, which I think is like 3.9 or something. And they just kind of say, man, that's not enough by comparison in that, for that era. So, you know, the whole thing is just, it's, it's disappointing from, from you know from his perspective and from you know

perspective like mine because it would be a lot of fun to you know finally write that story and and have chuck uh get into the hall of fame so yeah it is something that i i think probably won't happen but uh does not take away from his vikings legend at all so um you like i said you're a subscriber and uh your support for what I do is greatly appreciated, man. Really since day one of, since I moved here, I remember we've just communicated on a regular basis and you are a great writer, by the way. I read your columns when you put them out there. You also write some dad columns and stuff, which I cannot relate to, but I think are really well written. So I read them and just your kind of personal experience with sports so people should definitely check out your work as well at joshua r underscore

smith are you serious with the underscore uh but that's you know that's your twitter i'm sure there's a lot of josh smith you got to do something there but i did want to give you opportunities because we have there was a joshua smith i think i found on twitter he's like a writer in england and he and i followed each other so there's a lotoshua smith i think i found on twitter he's like a writer in england and he and i followed each other so there's a lot of us out there for sure that was that's why that's the reason for that it sort of sets me apart a little bit i guess well my friend chris long here in the media also is friends with chris long the nfl player so i guess there is there is some synergy there but um you know we do the fans fans only. By the way, I am not,

I am not the Josh Smith that used to be the slam dunk champion of the Atlanta Hawks. That's not me in case you didn't know, in case you couldn't tell. You know what? I did figure that out. Like I can't tell through the zoom call how tall you are, but I don't think it's six, eight. So I'm just going to throw it out. The camera doesn't add eight inches, unfortunately. So no. But we do the, you know But we do the fans-only podcast,

so I feel like I should give you your personal fans-only for doing this in exchange for all the great insight on Jordan Addison and Chuck Foreman. So what do you got? What, as a Viking fan, would you like to know from me? Well, there's a couple of things i was thinking before we get on here and really just the first one is like does quasi know what he's doing like i mean i just he seems like he's super smart we all know his background um it's just so hard to tell yet if he like actually knows what he's doing um you know obviously this draft class is, we have no idea what's going to happen with them last year's draft class.

We literally like still have no idea. So the quarterback situation for next year, not next year in 2024, after Kirk's contract is up, it's still a complete unknown. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be the BYU kid that they just drafted. Although I did enjoy watching him play a couple of times. I like does he know what he's doing I'm not sure I mean I can't say I cannot say definitively yes but uh let's but let's think about just like this situation in general this offseason they did move on from a lot of old pieces, and the expectation is that they will move on from even more with Delvin Cook. We'll see on Zedarius Smith. He's on a short contract

anyway, so even if he does come back, that's okay. But Delvin Cook, not a great idea to have an older veteran expensive running back. They couldn't really favorably move on from him last year, last offseason with the salary cap, so so makes sense to do it now not keeping Thielen not keeping Kendricks I think those were smart moves I think restructuring Cousins the way that they did didn't love it but also they all didn't have many other options with the salary cap to even get cap compliant so not locking themselves into a long-term extension with Kirk was a really good idea I thought he made a mistake in going into too much, maybe just, what do they call it, like verbal vomit or something when it

came to answering the question about Kirk's situation and saying like, well, we just put it aside for now. And I was like, wait, is that still a a thing so i think that through his press conferences there are times where he wants to explain it to you but he also wants to do the gm dance and he gets caught in the middle sometimes where maybe to that question and i'll take any answer but he should just say like well you know i don't really have much more to say about that at the moment and we'll see how it plays out as opposed to kind of being like well you know we're looking for solutions and maybe we could go back to the table because then everyone goes wait you guys have no plan um but it might have just been an attempt at kind of not saying hey we're done with Kirk because if you say that Kirk's your quarterback

this year and he made a mistake publicly and it's a you know a little, I don't know, weird with the whole interview thing that he did last year. But when he said Kirk was good and it's great quarterbacks who win the Super Bowl, like that made noise right there. So I think that they have gone out of their way to be like, we love Kirk. He's the best. He's so great to try to make sure there's no manipulation there of him because he's got to play 17 plus games next season. I think that was a little bit of a, I don't want to call it a mistake. In chess, they would call it an inaccuracy, not a mistake. So I would call it an inaccuracy, but think about this. They draft a receiver, corners, all premium positions. It had a theme to it. It was sort of thematic to giving Brian

Flores what he wants. And Kweisi admitted that he was much more comfortable this year than last year. And I think it really showed. So if you're saying like rebuild the defense through versatile pieces that your defensive coordinator wants, draft a wide receiver to set up for the best possible situation for your future quarterback. Don't draft Will Levis if you don't believe in him. And apparently the rest of the league doesn't either. I mean, it's hard for me to say the guy is clueless and that they're screwed. It's just that I think we wanted answers. We wanted more answers than we got. And I actually wrote about that today. We wanted more answers than we got. The one big question is not still answered and until it is we can't say wow this guy crushed it as gm or wow he failed as gm you know what i mean i think there's some

impatience there though from us but the overall process of a competitive rebuild it now makes more sense than it did say last offseason right now that answers my question and along those lines like with the quarterback situation should us as Vikings fans just really root hard for quarterback prospects to just come out of the woodwork this season yes yes absolutely or and I don't know who this would be, but like someone great for another team being very mad at their team. I don't know who that is. Like, I will say, I mean, think about this though, just for a second. And I don't love Kyler Murray, but Kyler Murray with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and say KJ Osborne and TJ Hawkinson and a coach who knows what he's doing I never believed that Cliff Kingsbury knew what he was doing so if you know that ends up happening that Jonathan Gannon's a mess there and Arizona screws everything up and he demands a trade like you never know where this is going to go in a year and I think that it was think about this like if we if we did the old um there was the the boy meets world if people watch that back in the day where he

was comparing like two choices and he started putting m&ms on one side of the other like how many m&ms would you put into the side of draft levis or hooker or what's behind door number two for next year and i think that's what it came down to for them is levis and hooker have some major issues not just like oh well every quarterback has problems major problems that they have that you're taking a huge risk on this is going to be your one big choice did you want to make it on do you want to make the bet on those two guys or what's behind door number two which could include spencer rattler if he plays great this year. It's not just Caleb Williams and Drake May.

How many guys, like Anthony Richardson, nobody even knew going into week one, the guy was a prospect. And then he demolishes Utah. And it's like, oh my gosh, where did this come from? So that's gonna happen this year. I can't guarantee it's gonna be an amazing quarterback class, but I think I would take what's behind door number two over Hendon hooker,

Will Levis, which were the only actual options. That was, that was the way I felt about it heading into this. I was glad that they didn't take either one of those guys and use their first round pick on a player that could enhance what they already have, because I just don't feel good about who those two guys are as prospects. And especially with them not having a second round pick, I was completely okay with them not trading like a first next year to get back into the first round or something. I'm ready. I'm waiting.

I'm willing to just wait this season out to see what develops with the other quarterbacks in college. And, you know, I was quite, honestly, I was surprised they took one at all. I didn't think that they would even take a developmental one, but I'm kind of glad they did because I don't think Mullins is even under contract after this year or something. Right. So they need somebody, excuse me, they need somebody behind the, you know, QB one that can be there and maybe develop into a reliable guy. You mentioned somebody earlier that I wanted to ask you about that I'm just sort of, I don't understand it, especially now with them bringing Brian Flores in.

Why does Z'Darrius Smith want out? I mean, I think he even announced that he wanted out before Flores was brought in, and that hasn't changed so and looking at what Flores does with his players and looking at Z'Darrius Smith and his skills should he remain healthy like I don't know man he could be like a player a big-time player in that in that style or that scheme of defense so like why does he want out I'm gonna look this up right now and i'm gonna see how much cash he's actually scheduled to get because cap hit doesn't matter to the player it's only the actual cash and uh it might be a cash issue for zadaria smith more than anything else

because i think that what he what was reported out there was, and I'm having trouble finding exactly how much cash he's got. Oh, cash paid. Yeah, so he's only scheduled to make $12 million in cash, which is not a lot for a dude who was top five in pressures. And I know that the second half was not as good. But still, his totality of his season was one of the best edge rusher seasons last year, probably in overall sacks and pressures in the top 10 to 12.

And if you're going to make $12 million, when the top 10 to 12 guys are going to make $20 million, then you're going to say, find someone who will give me that money, which is why I have sort of left the door open to maybe they just work something out to put a little more cash in his pocket, right? I mean, that could be a possibility, but they don't have much flexibility here to rework his contract or anything else like that, because by, for all other purposes, it does make sense. I mean, he's been here, it's a similar type of pass rush scheme, And he's the perfect guy for Brian Flores. He wants to move players around.

Totally agree with all that. But at the end of the day, I mean, I think Z'Darrius Smith is looking at Z'Darrius Smith Inc. here and saying, or LLC and saying, look, there's, and you know, the same goes for Daniil Hunter as well. It's like, yeah, this is a great place for him. Of course it is. And I thought his adjustment to the scheme last year and maybe after like week four or five was really tremendous but if you're only going to

pay in cash Zedaria Smith and Daniil Hunter combined what one great pass rusher gets in the league they're not going to be very happy and they're going to try to work around that so I don't know how this gets resolved that one one is less confident than Delvin Cook, but I think that's what it ultimately comes down to is I kind of, I didn't know that number before, but I had a feeling that cash paid was going to be kind of the issue there. So he's, I think what he's looking for is to go to another team that will rework his contract and that will put more cash in his pocket or just to be released. So someone else has to sign him. And then if you think about it, he's really on a one-year contract. So if someone else signed him to even like $15 million guaranteed,

to you and I, we might say those numbers and be like, well, what's the difference between $12 and $15 or whatever? That's $3 million, right? Or whatever. I don't know what he thinks he's worth. I think the league probably has concerns about his knee and his back and wouldn't be willing to do that but vaughn miller i mean look what vaughn miller got when buffalo signed him a desperate team went absolutely nuts for vaughn miller and put so much cash in his pocket that it was insane if you're zadarius

you're like i'll wait i'll wait and see if we can work this out but I don't know how that one's going to go but I think that that kind of is the reason if I had to guess yeah that makes sense there I mean there's an expiration date for all of these guys because of this violent nature of the game so like it's not hard to understand why he's if even if it's just three million dollars if he's just trying to get as much as he can because maybe like you said he maybe he knows something about his knee maybe he knows like hey i'm not gonna be able to play this game for five more years even though some pass rushers can last a long time um you know he's just trying to get his or like what i said about jordan addison you know he's got to look out for number one um

how about uh geez the draft is over um probably not too many more guys that are going to be added to this team before say training camp most intriguing position group for you to watch heading into training camp yeah i mean for me it's corner uh running back becomes that a little bit uh because i think have you watched duane mcbride highlights? Yeah, I did. I did watch a little bit of him. I couldn't quite tell how fast he is and I couldn't even find, I haven't spent a lot of time investigating it,

but like what's his 40 time? I didn't find that. I don't, he wasn't at the combine. So I'm not sure like if he had a pro day or what his 40 is, but his highlights are super fun. I mean, this guy like cannot be knocked down. It's he's like Rocky or something. You know, he just, it's amazing.

Like you see like four or five guys hit him and they just bounce off and everything, which sounds like, oh, well, the NFL guys will knock him down. But if there's one stat that actually carries over from college to the NFL, it's yards after contact. And PFF has this thing called elusive rating which kind of combines broken tackles yards after contact and his was through the roof and so there's a lot of fun runs where your eye thinks oh he's just going to fall

down and he doesn't he's like a weeble so I think that that would be kind of interesting but all these like quote versatile pieces um these guys were gonna you know mix into the slot and things like that jay ward um i know that mckay blackman because some draft analysts didn't like the pick then people are concerned about it but i can tell you that does not matter when it's a third round pick uh but you know i'm interested in how all these guys play out with the corners because caleb evans and he tweeted about being in a better mental space this year i mean it must have been so hard for him last year with the concussions uh andrew booth jr like let us not forget that his first impression in camp was really really good and then the injuries kind of came there so

how that all plays out i think is probably and i don't really know a lot about Byron Murphy aside from seeing him play a few times against the Vikings so that whole thing where he plays how Brian Flores uses these pieces and I guess I could say the whole defensive backfield because Lewis seen and does he practice to start training camp could he be ready for week one after his injury is he actually going to win that, or is it going to be Josh Metellus, or is it going to be Cam Bynum? So there is, on that defense, I mean, there's so many open things. I don't know what Marcus Davenport's going to look like. So there's a lot there for training camp.

I'm excited. It's only two and a half months away. I know, right? Be here before you know it. The defensive backfield is what sort of as a fan worries me the most because you mentioned those injuries um booth booth has a history of it couldn't stay on the field evans you know multiple talking about multiple concussions um don't know what you're going to get out of him uh if it's going to happen again and you know if it does you know he's

probably got he's probably got to take some some real time to examine um you know, if it does, you know, he's probably got, he's probably got to take some, some real time to examine, you know, his future in the game. So I'm, you know, I'm with you. That's, that's the position I would be looking, be looking at the most, especially because I don't know a whole lot about these kids that they just drafted or Murphy. So I wonder if it's like, you know, at some point in the season where we're going to have Murphy starting aside, you know, one of these later round draft picks on the, you know, on the other end of the field. So that's kind of, that's kind of concerning to me. Um, the, the running

back, uh, what you mentioned was kind of interesting because he, he breaks tackles and he doesn't go down at first contact. And that's what Dalvin's problem was last year. Like I think age came to get him last year a little bit. And that's why I think most of us are kind of like ready for him to, you know, move on. This kid, I don't know if it signals that that's a, that's totally, that's a hundred percent going to happen, but you know, it's time. It's probably time to move on from Dalvin.

Yeah. And it sounds like a lot of the people in the Vikings room liked him as a higher pick potentially, but he kept falling and they decided to take him. But he was evaluated pretty highly by some people, at least the way that Kweisi Adafomenta talked about him. But that was the right spot. And this is like, does Kweisi know what he's doing? Let's pull back and look at the positions. mean wide receiver corner corner defensive tackle which is important and they need defensive tackle depth and then they wait till the seventh round to get a running back

who slips through the cracks who probably has equal chances to any other running back in this draft of being good if we're looking at it historically. So I think this was a really well-handled draft by Kweisi. The only thing you could draw back is, well, for one or two picks, they went against the consensus board. But if you're telling me that the consensus is good at the fourth round or fifth round, I just don't buy that. I think it's really good for the first and second. I do not think it's really good past that.

How many of those draft analysts were actually watching? But I can tell you how many scouts were all of them. The scouts were really, they were bringing these guys in anyway. I won't rant about that again. You've heard that, but I just think like, let's not overdo it when it comes to third and fourth rounders. So last thing then what, how do you think next season plays out then? Thinking good? Thinking bad? You're not a like roses and flowers guy when it comes to this team. No, I'm a very pessimistic person by nature. And I'm serious when I say this. I think a lot of that part of my personality came from being a Vikings fan

because I became one really young. Even in Maryland, I became one really young. And like the heart punches just like began one after another. And I really think that formed some of my personality. I lost my train of thought as to what I was going to, what was, what was the question? How do I think it's next year, next year, man. I think I even mentioned this to you in like a fan's question or a podcast, and it was really right after the season ended or something.

As much talent as that offense has and still maybe some development to go with the new guard, Ingram from last year, maybe the line solidifies a little bit. Their offense is going to be really fun to watch. But I sort of feel like this is like they're going to take a step down, like way down, not to 9-8 or 8-9. I can see them with that schedule and with having no clue about what some of these pieces are on defense. I can see them losing a bunch of games

to really good offenses that they just can't outscore and then winning five or six games. I don't want to see that happen. Maybe part of me does. I mean, it's sad and sick that I would say that, but I'm ready for a rookie franchise quarterback to come into this organization. Thank you, Kirk, for everything you've done and all of your accurate passes. And last year's come from behinds and everything. That was a lot of fun. But very few of us actually believed in that team. It was kind of sad. But I sort of just see like a natural tank coming and them getting a higher draft pick and then maybe even being able to parlay that into a higher one. So that's sort of the way I feel about it. Like who knows how anything's going to play out.

But that's the way I felt since the since the season ended. And this draft really hasn't changed much for me. But last question for you what's what's um your prediction for Addison's statistics at the end of his rookie year I will go with 67 catches for 864 yards and four touchdowns I think that's shooting somewhere in the middle, somewhere around where Adam Thielen was last year. And I think that he, I didn't do the yards per catch, but I'm trying to project a little more in terms of yards per catch than they got from Adam Thielen. But I do think it's going to be a lot of intermediate stuff

from Jordan Addison because he's not just going to be a blazing burner. But there is an adjustment curve for wide receivers, but it's not as huge as others. I think he'll have to learn to get off the line of scrimmage. I think he'll have to learn an NFL offense, all those things. But he's going to be open and he's going to make some plays. And I could see it going something like Justin Jefferson, you know, 110 catches. And then Addison and K.J. Osborne and T.J.

Hawkinson all being in that same ballpark as we saw them last year, where it's like, you know, maybe 50 something for KJ and 70 for Hawkinson and 70 or 65. But they're going to throw the ball a ton, I think. I mean, this is one of the reasons also to kind of not, you know, keep Delvin Cook is that Alexander Madison, to me, is better at catching actual passes, where Delvin Cook was good with screens when he was really explosive but that didn't really play out um so you know i i guess i i think that they're going to spread the ball around a lot and throw it a ton so i wouldn't expect this is jake reed and chris carter from 1994 but i do think that he's going to be a good contributor right away it's

harder to fail here than it would be if you were playing somewhere else where they were trying to draft wide receiver one like well like what yeah he's not zay flowers is not catching 80 balls or even 60 balls next year probably with the ravens but um i think addison and uh what you mentioned about kj and him like you know kJ may not be a great uh number two option but the fact that they have him is a luxury I think for Jordan because he's not gonna have to come in right away and be that number two guy week one KJ can sort of carry that a little bit if he needs to they can work Jordan Addison in here and there until he like firmly grasps everything. And I can see exactly what you're saying, like both of them getting 50, 60 catches. And then eventually, you know, like you said before,

KJ could leave after this year and then, you know, Addison will be ready to take that next step maybe. So I think it's, man, you were beating the drum for a long time about them taking a wide receiver round one. I was always right there with you on that and was thrilled and even more thrilled that it was the one that they took because that was really cool for me and my job. And, you know, I can't wait to see what he does. Yeah. And very cool to be able to get you on, man. We've talked so many times just through messages one way or the other and can't

say enough how much I appreciate all the support you have for me and like i said people should go follow you on twitter uh because you you are a great writer and i hope to get at some point maybe you're gonna have to write the chuck forman hall of fame argument for purple insider i hope to get a contribution out of you at some point you will talk about that i would love to do that and. And seriously, thank you so much for having me on. I listen to it all the time. I'm not at the level of an Eager or a Trapasso or a Cronin, but this is awesome that I'm on this show and I can feel really good about myself for a day because I've shared a screen with those sorts of uh media personalities and luminaries so i i'm so happy this like finally worked out and we were able to to get together

like this so thanks so much yeah me too really appreciate the time again at joshua r underscore smith on twitter the frederick news post really appreciate it man. And sometime again, the next Vikings draft pick from Frederick, Maryland. We'll do it again. Whatever that may be. All right. Thanks again, Josh. All right. Thanks, man.