Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Do the Vikings have an advantage playing back-to-back overseas games?

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Matthew Coller discusses the Vikings playing two straight overseas games this season before he answers a handful of your Vikings questions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Coller here, and I've got a lot of fan questions to get to, but first, the biggest news of the day, the NFL officially announced that the Vikings will be playing not one, but two international games and they will be back to back. First in week four, they are going to Dublin to play against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then in week five, they just travel over to London to take on the Cleveland Browns. Now, this is very exciting news for the fans overseas. The Vikings have a huge overseas fan base that will get to see a lot of their football,

a lot of opportunities over two weeks to go to those games, and for fans from America that want to travel over, maybe the journey of a lifetime to see the Vikings and Steelers in Dublin or London against the Cleveland Browns. But for 99.9% of the audience here who is not going to end up going to either one of these games, I know what your biggest question is, which is, how is this going to affect the Minnesota Vikings and their chances? So I saw a tweet today from a good friend of mine, Chris Thomason, that went semi-viral because he was getting roasted for it, and Chris said, with all due respect to the Vikings,

seems like quite the unfair advantage in the NFC North that they will play in 2025 eight home games, seven road games and two neutral site games while the other three division teams play eight home games and nine road games. And I think that that is of course a fair point. But my question is, well, how much of an advantage is this really? It's a neutral site game. And does that mean that you know they're getting a big edge by not having to go to Pittsburgh or Cleveland or do those teams play mostly the same as they would have at home versus on the road so I started to do a little research about London games in the past because those are the ones we get the

best look at I mean Dublin's not far enough away for there to be a huge gap there, I don't think. So I looked at all the London games, and then I also looked at the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers home versus away splits to try to figure out are they that much better at home? Would it have been that much harder on the Minnesota Vikings to go play them at home than it would be for them to play in a neutral site.

Now the first thing that I noticed from the London games is that when a team is favored massively, they usually not only win, but they usually win in blowout fashion. And I'll get you the number here, it was 8 out of 21 times that an underdog even managed to cover a spread of more than 7 points. So if you were the much worse team going over to London, it was pretty rare, only about 1 out of every 3 times, that you were even able to cover much less win. Now I think we can apply this much more to Cleveland than we can to the Pittsburgh Steelers, that there is an advantage there when you go to a neutral site of nothing closing the gap.

So if you go to Cleveland, maybe the crowd is able to close the gap a little bit with the difference between the two teams. But when they go to the neutral site and fans are on both sides, but not making a ton of noise for either side, then it tends to turn out the way that Vegas expected it to between those two teams. The thing about Cleveland, though, versus Pittsburgh, the big difference is that Cleveland is not a team that in recent years has done a very good job of covering when they are at home. In fact, they're one of the worst teams in the league at covering the spread at home, which you could say, wasn't that just because they've been bad? And the answer is mostly yes, but there are some teams like the Vegas Raiders who cover more than half the time, but they

haven't actually been a good team. So they're playing a lot of close games and they're not favored maybe that often, but at least they're closing the gap more than Vegas expected. Well, Cleveland has been worse. They have been sub 500 at covering and 30th in the league at covering at home. So I don't think that already they had a very big home field advantage, but I did find one area where the Vikings are going to get a big edge that we can actually point to on paper in the numbers. And that is with the sack artists that belong to the Cleveland Browns

and to the Pittsburgh Steelers. That would be Miles Garrett and that would be TJ Watt. Now, both guys could be injured by the time we get there, but assuming that they're healthy and in the lineup and ready to go, the difference between TJ watt career wise at home versus the road is 27 and a half sacks for miles Garrett. It's a little bit closer. It's more like eight but 27 and a half sack difference for his career home

Versus on the road and Pittsburgh is a very difficult place to play in their defense at home versus the road in sacks. It is wildly different in Pittsburgh. They are one of the best teams in the league at sacking the quarterback on the road. They are a very average team. So now you are bringing JJ McCarthy into a space in Dublin where it's much less likely that that Pittsburgh defense is going to rack up the number of sacks that they would have at home. And you can see why. They won't need a silent count, more likely than not. I'm sure there's a lot of fans in Dublin of Pittsburgh that will be there, but more likely than not,

they are not going to need the silent count. It will not be anywhere near as easy for TJ Watt to jump the count and get into the backfield and the other rushers that they have, of course, to go along with that. Does not mean that they are a bad defense when they're playing away from home. They are just not the same. And that goes for Cleveland as well, one of the top teams in sacks at home, but mostly just okay on the road. And Cleveland over the last five years has a crazy gap in

their defense between home and the road. They are dead last in the entire NFL on the road, and at home they're seventh in points allowed. That is way different over the last five years. Now look, this year it's a new year, it's a new defense, and every year it changes and these are small sample sizes, but just a little bit of interesting research there that both of these defenses are different when they are not at their home stadiums. Now it's hard to do the reverse for the Vikings because it's not a road game, but that doesn't

mean they're going to play exactly like they played at US Bank Stadium because that is their friendly confines, one of the I think best stadiums in the NFL for offense and defense and when they have gone overseas It's been pretty gnarly all the games since I've been covering them 2017 2022 2024 I think the one in 2013 was pretty exciting between them and the Steelers But both teams weren't very good at the beginning of that season But for the most part it has not been the prettiest football

So it is hard to project but here's an interesting stat for the Vikings offense That when they're at home since Kevin O'Connell took over they are the eighth best scoring team on the road They are the 16th best scoring team since Kevin O'Connell took over. That's a pretty decent sized gap. Now, maybe that one time where they scored zero points in Vegas played a little bit into this statistic. But the point just being that already we're talking about Cleveland and Pittsburgh who are much better defenses at home versus a Vikings offense that under O'Connell has not been as good on the road and that playing field gets evened now that they are in a neutral site.

So I do tend to lean toward agreeing with what Chris Thomas said that the Vikings have an advantage by going overseas. But I do want to point out that, and he calls it unfair, well, you know, you take them where you can get them, I guess. There's lots of little edges throughout a season that get thrown out there with the different travel schedules and when you're on national TV and, well, sorry Detroit, Green Bay and Chicago, but the Vikings, I think, at least by the numbers, do get an edge here. The one thing that I would say though is we're talking about two single games, and anything

can happen in single games. I counted it up, and of all of the London games that have been played, nearly 60% have been a one-score game. And what do we always talk about with one-score games? Just how random and strange those one-score games can be. So you never really know how it's going to go. If the Vikings come away 2-0 and then don't have those road games traveling to at least one of the two difficult environments in Pittsburgh, that is a pretty big edge for them and a good break for the Minnesota Vikings. I think in past

years maybe they haven't always gotten it in these things, even out over the years. I mean, remember in twenty twenty two, they came back from London and they didn't have their bye week right after. So they had to play two more games right after they got back from London, but they won both of them and then went on with their season. So there's always these little nuances to it. I don't think the NFL went out of its way to say,

you know what we're really gonna do? We're gonna give the Vikings a big, I mean, the NFL, if they've been doing that, then the Vikings have been screwing up their advantages over the years. I don't know if they say that, but I think that there's a reasonable case that you could make that he is correct.

And of course, the Vikings do not have to apologize for this advantage, but there are some other small factors that I thought of that go into this. I mean, one is that the Vikings, it's only going to be their fourth game and their fifth game, do not have a whole lot of run-up here with JJ McCarthy as their quarterback. And even though I just gave you the numbers, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are not two defenses that are just gonna say, well, hey, we're overseas, so we're just not gonna play today. I mean, they are talented, very, very good defenses

against a quarterback who is still going to be in one of his first starts ever of his career. And then they are tossed this big, do you call it a distraction or just something that is totally out of the ordinary and think about how all these NFL players, the way that they function on a week to week basis and now you're tossing them for two weeks into a totally different world than they would normally be in with a quarterback who just started starting a few weeks before that I think that does make it a little bit harder if this was weeks eight and nine then maybe JJ McCarthy's a little more established within the offense I don't know how much that hurt Sam Darnold

going to London or if it was just the rain last year for why he didn't play all that well but it is I think a little bit of a factor where you're going right into something that's totally different than what you would normally expect with a brand new quarterback. But besides that, it does seem like, oh, there's another thing too, just another factor that I wrote down, which is the Vikings will have another additional edge by the fact that they get to stay there and completely adjust to the time change before playing the Cleveland Browns. The Cleveland Browns are in Eastern time and then they're traveling over, they're just getting there and getting unpacked and getting their bodies right and all that where the

Vikings will have been there already for an entire week and then get to play against Cleveland. And I'm not a body clock expert, but I've got to think that that would help the Vikings for having enough time to fully adjust to that time change before playing a team that's just showing up. So they will have to play the games, they have to win the games. I think for both of these ones, no matter who's playing quarterback for Pittsburgh You're gonna look at them and say these should be W's Especially against Cleveland, but also you if they were going to Pittsburgh

I might have said that's what gonna be a tough one to win regardless of who's a quarterback because it's Mike Tomlin It's a tough defense. They're gonna take the ball away They're gonna get sacks Pittsburgh's a hard place to play the grass and all that sort of stuff And now a lot of that advantage for Pittsburgh is thrown out the window So these are two games that the Vikings should win Let me now get to and we'll have the whole schedule break down Game by game on Wednesday night and then more on Thursday night as well So that should be really fun to break down the schedule and take a look at all the different factors game by game on Wednesday night and then more on Thursday night as well.

So that should be really fun to break down the schedule and take a look at all the different factors. Do our first run through of picking the win losses. I'm really excited about that. So that'll be a lot of fun. But until then, I've got a lot of questions that I have been either tweeted or emailed that I want to get to. And if you want to get on the show for a fans only episode, send me a DM on Twitter at Matthew Coller or Matthew Coller at Gmail is a good place to reach me there.

If you want to get into one of these episodes over the summer, there should be a good amount of them. So let us begin with the first question on the list. Folks, I'm trying a new thing to try to stop going to fast food restaurants all the time with my busy schedule. It is called Tempo Meals. Tempo is a weekly delivery service that delivers chef-crafted meals

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which comes from Matt D says, which non Vikings win total over under seems crazy to you. 10.5 for San Francisco seems high to me and how they played last year. And with all the players they lost, uh, totally agree on San Francisco. I have a lot of respect for Kyle Shanahan's ability to bounce back from these bad years. He's done it many times, but that team does not look like one that I would say is going to be winning 11, 12, 13 games as you would have expected a couple years ago. They look much more like a team in a division

that's pretty tough. All the teams in the NFC West, we can look at them and say, well, they're mid or they're not that great, but they're also not that bad. I mean, the Rams were within one drive of beating the Eagles. Arizona has significantly improved their defense this off season and then Seattle getting Sam Darnold. I think they could already win 10 games last year with Geno Smith, but their coach getting an opportunity to build on what they did last year. That should be a formidable team as well, and they have their home field advantage and so forth in Seattle.

So there's nothing that's going to come easy to San Francisco. I think your choice is a good one at 10 and a half with the players they've lost. Just looking at it here, the one that surprised me a little bit is the Carolina Panthers. In the second half of the season, they really picked it up and played good football at times and showed to be an average bad team in the NFL, but nowhere near what they looked like

at the beginning of the season, where it appeared that it was going to be a historically bad year, but maybe not factoring enough just how good Bryce Young was down the stretch gave them chances to win. They've improved their defense and their win total is six and a half which is the same as the Saints. Now I haven't seen if this is moved or not with Derek Carr but there was already the news out there that Carr could miss the season when these win

totals were posted. So it doesn't look like it's much different. I don't see Carolina and the Saints being on the same level. I think Carolina is the classic team that tanked and lost a million games and then started to spend money in free agency, drafted high. They took Tep McMillan all of a sudden. Xavier LeGette, like they've got some guys there. Adam Thielen is still there, who can catch the football and make some plays.

They have a good offensive line that performed pretty well last year. And if they even up themselves to the 20th best defense in a very mediocre division, they should be able to get to seven. I don't think they're going to win 10, 11, 12, but getting to seven, I don't think is much of a stretch. The Saints getting to seven, I think is going to be very, very hard for them. A brand new quarterback and no matter how old he is, I don't know that age prepares you for playing in the NFL, especially when your team, they've got a brand new head coach.

I think he's a good head coach or he's going to be Kellan Moore, but that team is just kind of in shambles at this moment. Those two having the same over-under is just weird to me. How about the Pete Carroll Raiders at six and a half? That one, and I'm going by vegasinsider.com by the way, I mean that's a really hard division. Very, very hard. The Broncos are good and the Chargers are good, but six and a half for a team that went from having about the worst quarterback in the entire NFL to a quarterback who regularly wins nine and 10 games in Geno Smith with a coach who may not be the most modern at this moment, but I think knows what he's doing

to at least get them to be around 500. I would have them missing the playoffs at maybe nine wins or eight wins, but to go six and a half, I think I would go higher on that. The other one too, I mean, again, a very difficult division, but Dallas should bounce back a little bit. They're at seven and a half. At the top though, most of these make a lot of sense.

Bills, Eagles, Chiefs, Ravens, the 49ers do stand out there. Chargers and Rams, maybe the Commanders is a little low at 9.5, that's still a fairly high number, but when you look at the other teams with the Commanders, Texans, Broncos, Packers, Bucks, and Bengals, I think that the Commanders deserve a little bit more respect for going to the NFC Championship and then bettering their team in the off season than being listed with some of those teams that I think are kind of outsiders. But you know, that's Vegas knows what it's doing most of the time. But when it comes to these over unders, because last year when it came up all the time, hey, the six and a half-under for the Vikings, I did a little research on it and looking back and they are accurate probably about half the

time and I mean that's pretty good in itself but it's not like Vegas knows what NFL teams are going to be at this time much better than you or I do and I remember seeing that a lot of 6.5 teams, now they didn't win 14 games, but a lot of 6.5 teams had actually gone on to make the playoffs because they were just taking a step forward but they weren't getting real respect from the gambling community. So always something that I like to get as a baseline expectation going into a season. What does the world think of your team? Right now, the Vikings are at eight and a half, which is fair.

I would go over from that, and we probably will in our predictions for the season when we do the schedule, but it's fair in just that they have a quarterback that's unproven. And as long as you have a quarterback that's unproven, the over-unders are going to hedge. But yeah, that San Francisco

one is a great pick for a surprise. Kip says, speaking of surprises, any good guesses on a surprise under the radar player who could make the 53 from the undrafted or mini-camp invites? Yeah, this is always a very tricky question because I'll throw out a few names but you don't really know until these guys get out on the field and we start seeing them. And even at OTAs and mini camp, pretty hard to identify. I can't say that I am a good enough scout to have seen it coming that Ivan Pace Jr. was going to start for the Vikings in 2023. Now we noticed in OTAs and mini camp that he was getting some good reps out there, but

you know that's hard, it's hard to end up picking out. And then there's other guys like Najee Thompson, Dan Tresenna, where we went really? Like that guy ends up because they were just really good at special teams. The guys that stand out to me from the undrafted class are Logan Brown, the offensive lineman, because he has a lot of athleticism and good numbers from college. And it seems like there were some other reasons that he was not drafted outside of his actual performance. And that's always a guy that I'm paying attention to, right?

Like, okay, what happened in college doesn't matter once you get to the league, athleticism and your performance are what are going to stand out there. Trey Stewart is somebody that I've brought up a couple times, but I think that he's got a decent chance to make the roster as maybe a kick returner or the third running back. It's always hard though.

I don't mean to cop out on that. I just think it's a really tough thing to go from the undrafted free agent to make it, but it's even tougher to know how they're going to look when they get in that environment. Like everyone loves that quote about, hey, you got to plan until you get punched in the face. Well, sometimes people get punched in the face and they're like, all right, let's go, let's punch. And that's how some of these undrafted free agents can be where they don't have the best stats or anything like that in college or the best relative athletic scores, but they're just built for the environment and Theo Jackson is someone who comes up all the time. But I think of him as a six round pick that they just grabbed off a practice squad.

But then he gets here and he seems to really fit in quite well. So those are a couple of names that are on my mind. People have brought up the punt returner. to really fit in quite well. So those are a couple names that are on my mind. People have brought up the punt returner. Let me pull up the entire list here. And there was a few other guys that I thought maybe just based on the circumstances with the roster that they could have a chance because there was one safety that kind of stuck out to me as well. Oh, you know, I thought Tyler Batty an outside linebacker I mean if you think about the outside linebacker position

There's the three guys who are clearly there and then there's two more in Gabe Murphy and Bo Richter who should be on the roster But I mean, it's an open competition there behind Dallas Turner Andrew van Ginkel and Jonathan Granard So Tyler Batty, a very productive, kind of tweener type of guy, listed as an outside linebacker, but might play multiple positions. I know Silas Bolden is the one a lot of you are interested in because he's only five foot eight and 160 pounds.

And every once in a while, a guy like that becomes a very good punt returner. I was thinking Max Brosmer could end up being somebody who is a practice squad quarterback after the other day. The other outside linebacker is Chaz Chambliss, who comes from Georgia, 6'1", 242, but the Vikings tend to love these guys that don't just fit into a box.

And if you can play, then you you could play and he was pretty productive at Georgia so that might be something that stands out to them. The one other guy was the safety, although I'm scrolling to get his name, oh the tight ends for sure, the two tight ends, Bryson Nesbitt and Ben Jurasek, both those guys have a chance. Michelle Powell, that's the one I was looking at, from Miami, a guy who will have, I think, a chance to make a depth spot just because, what else do they have? I mean, they have J Ward, Theo Jackson,

Josh Metellus, Harrison Smith, but then there's nobody else on this roster at safety. So I know I just named a bunch of guys, and it's just true that a bunch of guys and it's just true that a bunch of guys are going to have their chance. But if there's somebody who has the easiest path to maybe grabbing a spot, it's probably somebody at the safety position. Our next question from Masaki says, what does it exactly mean when people refer to chaos sees offenses as quarterback friendly?

I've heard it so many times over and over, I think Rich Eisen mentioned the phrase in his most recent interview. If it's so quarterback friendly, why did it take Kirk 1.5 seasons to finally feel comfortable? Well, I think that it is morphing. It's something that's not ever the same two times in a row. And what we saw from Sam Darnold last year was not the same exact offense that we saw from Kirk Cousins. Uh, Kevin O'Connell, I think had a different version for Darnold.

You could see it show up in some of the stats, like how often he was under center, how often he was running play action. Darnold ran play action a lot more. fact early in the season when they start off that Five and oh start Darnold got a lot more run support because they were ahead in games Whereas Kirk the defense was so bad They were having to stick him in shotgun and have him gunsling all day long which did result in We know this about Kirk as the volume goes up the efficiency goes down But when he only threw 400 somethingsomething passes in 2019, his efficiency was crazy good,

but they were building off of a run game. So the Vikings were able to build a lot of their stuff off of a run game. It wasn't, by the end of the year, it wasn't great in terms of the running numbers, but early in the year especially, before he could get totally comfortable. I, when I think of quarterback friendly, I think one is that it's shaped to the quarterback you have. So I don't think we're going to see a wildly different offense with JJ McCarthy. But I do think it's going to be tailored to the throws that he makes the best

and for the route combinations that he sees the field the best and then there's playing off the run in the pass and everything else I also think that with Kirk there was a lot of pre snap stuff that was motions movements and everything else and something that was key that happened last year is I think it was after the Jaguars game Justin Jefferson went to Kevin O'Connell and said they told us this in press conferences, and said, okay, we need to just line up and play much less than asking so many different things at the line of scrimmage, because I think they had botched the end of the Lions

game, right? At the end of the Lions game, there was a pass that if it was completed, they would have won the game, but they ended up having to punt, Lions end up going on to win, where there was some confusion. And I think what Jefferson was looking for is, let's simplify this and just let our guys win. So listening to the feedback from the players also definitely helps.

I think what's so friendly about it is that Kevin O'Connell came in fully understanding what Justin Jefferson does to a defense and then built a lot of things off of that magnetism that Jefferson has So if Jefferson is running a certain kind of route now one of the things they love to do is just I'll call him a post so you understand what I'm talking about like routes that kind of go over the middle and deep and Just bring the defense with him They bring a safety a corner is probably running with him which leaves a lot of vacated areas

And this is where I think it's easier for the quarterback is when Jefferson brings the defense in a certain way There is a lot of vacated space for the quarterback to find guys So when it was Kirk underneath to TJ Hockinson, which by the way, when you talk about a year and a half to figure it out, not really. It was really the first half of 2022 that was pretty rocky. But once they got Hockinson, and as always, the players, not the plays, right?

When they got Hockinson, all of a sudden Kirk was a different quarterback because his guy was there underneath. And so you'd have a lot of space get vacated and he would rest on Hockinson. What Darnold would do is still throw it to Jefferson or he would push it deep to somebody like Jordan Addison down the field because a lot of those things were built to put a safety in a bind. Well, if you go with Jefferson, then somebody else is coming into that vacated area.

So quarterbacks don't necessarily in this system. This is just my understanding. Have to drop back and go, all right, one to two to three to four to one to two. Like that instead they can look for. All right. If the defense handles Jefferson this way, there's going to be space in this area and there's going to be. And I know which player is going to be there and even for a play like how about when Nick Mullins came in and completed the third down pass but think about what

happened was they pushed everybody deep and then Aaron Jones came across the middle vacated space we saw another first down from him in the I think it was the Chicago game same sort of story from Sam Darnold so there's just a lot of space out there and it starts with number 18 If they didn't have Justin Jefferson, this would be a lot harder to have the most quarterback friendly system. So weapons is number one. But I think that if you understand that general concept,

and it's also taught that way by O'Connell, is every play has a reason and a thought process that he can explain. They're not just out there running plays. And so when you're putting somebody in a bind, the quarterback can understand better, all right, this safety, he has to either go one way or the other. And whichever way he goes, he's gonna be wrong

because I'll throw it to the other guy. And every once in a while, they get tricked on stuff like that because the defense shows them something that they're not doing. There was a Jalen Johnson interception where he showed Josh Dobbs something, Dobbs threw it to the right spot, but Johnson faked him out and just went and got the interception. It happens. But I think that that's one of the main things it refers to is just the ability to understand

what the concepts are for the quarterback because they are taught so meticulously. But I think when I think of quarterback friendly system, it can mean a lot of different things. It can mean the Gary Kubiak, the play actions, the bootlegs, everything's kind of laid out there in front of you. There's a lot of different ways to have it. The Vikings wouldn't have it if they didn't have two of the best receivers in the NFL, though. I think number 18 is the main reason they are quarterback friendly.

Not not to not to not give the head coach credit, but he knows how to use that advantage to its absolute maximum. And that's where the the friendliness comes from. Angelo Vikes says it is too soon to declare the winner of the Titan 3 competition as being Mr. Mankato 2025. Yes, it is a little too soon, but the way that it sounded when I asked Kevin O'Connell about it at rookie minicamp between Brison Nesbit, Ben Jurasek, and Gavin Bartholomew is that he said these are going to be our guys who are battling for that spot and off we go into that competition and a sixth rounder versus undrafted there's really not a big gap there now on the first day

I thought that Bartholomew and Yurisak looked pretty good Yurisak's a bigger guy than maybe I thought Bartholomew's a little bit on the faster side as very natural hands these are small things you can figure out just by watching a slow motion practice that is rookie minicamp where you can't really take a whole heck of a lot away, but I did notice that the tight ends looked pretty good. That battle right, because it's got all the markers of a Mr. Mankato. The guy's gonna catch passes, he's probably gonna to be gritty if he's a tight end. He's going to be gritty.

Bartholomew has a big beard, so that helps his case for him. If you got anything that makes you stand out a little for Mr. Mankato, but they're going to catch passes and they're going to catch touchdowns and they're going to be standing out if they've got a chance there to win that job. It also could be for nothing. I mean, they could get to the end and decide that none of these guys are really fit to be tight end three and then just go out and sign a Blake Bell like they did one year at the end of it.

But I do think yes, that the, that would be the favorite. Aside from that, uh, anybody who's a depth wide receiver now, Ty Felton, in my opinion, does not qualify. I think it's gotta be fourth round or later into undrafted free agent. Aside from that, anybody who's a depth-wide receiver, now Ty Felton in my opinion does not qualify. I think it's got to be fourth round or later into undrafted free agent. So they've got outside linebackers. If you have an outside linebacker and they're getting sacks and stuff, that's a, you know, you get one of those interceptions, dropping back as an outside linebacker.

You can become a hero like Audie Cole once upon a time. There will be lots of competition We keep mentioning Trey Stewart because he's got speed and he's intriguing But a running back who's gonna get a ton of reps when it comes to the preseason because they're not gonna play Aaron Jones and They're probably not going to play Jordan Mason either. So if you're a running back, you're gonna get a lot of chances There's always though, always a shot that a wide receiver steps up and I'll toss Max Brosmer into this competition for Mr. Mankato. If he comes out, plays really well and he ends up as quarterback three or something,

that has got Mr. Mankato written all over it. It technically begins in training camp, but we set the stage for the Mr. Mankato competition coming up when we get OTAs and minicamp. Next question comes from Aaron J. Last year the commanders made a jump up and the Cowboys fell off the map. Which teams would you choose from the NFC to fall down this year and which could make the biggest jump? That is a good question. See gosh, it's always so hard because you can't look past what they did last year.

So I mentioned Carolina. They were five and 12. If you look at their division Tampa Bay won the division at 10 and seven and Baker Mayfield through 41 touchdowns and they still only finished 10 and seven. Now. That's a good team Tampa Bay. I think they are a good team, but there's opportunity in the NFC South and I don't think that New Orleans is

going to take it. So if we're talking about a number one overall quarterback who played really well in the second half of the year and they've loaded up this off season with a top draft pick receiver and defensive players, they've got a chance in a very mid division to be that team that takes that big jump forward. As far as a team in the NFC who could fall off, Detroit is the obvious pick because they won 15 games last year and they lost their offensive coordinator who had been so important to them.

That's an obvious pick. Philadelphia is just hard to take there. I mean, Philadelphia is such a machine. How do you pick Philadelphia? I guess you would have to say the Rams. Now the Rams are really well-coached. Last year, they struggled out of the gate, and then they end up winning a playoff game

against the Vikings and coming close to beating the Philadelphia Eagles. But you are one Matthew Stafford injury away, he has been injured a lot in his career or just him falling off the side of the earth. What happens so often with quarterbacks is they just hit a wall and then it's over and that's it. And if that happens to Matthew Stafford at his age then the Rams are going to fall off pretty significantly. But yeah, Detroit seems like the obvious pick along with the Rams to fall. And then the other team that has to be mentioned and look, I know how many off seasons in a row they have been

celebrating their off season championship. And now they're celebrating the Pope being from Chicago. I don't know if that helps you with football. They seem to think it does, but Chicago has got all the markers of a team that takes a big step forward. They just do. They tanked. I was having a discussion the other day with someone about how the Vikings didn't tank Chicago did. And it was kind of like, well, man, I mean, I guess the Vikings were the smart team there and not Chicago. And my thing was, well, let's find out first what Chicago is. I don't fully buy into Caleb

Williams taking them to the promised land. I don't fully buy into their defense and the way that they've added some pieces, but not enough to scare anybody. The offensive weapons are very good. The offensive line, maybe some older guys there that if they have injury problems will not be as good and they don't really have a running back that scares you right now. Still, when you draft number one overall, that's the same reason I would say Carolina, you can go from bad to very good, very fast. So those are the teams that have the markers at least of teams ready to take a big step or potentially fall off.

Couple more here from Ace Deluxe on Twitter. Kicker, are the Vikings all in on Will Reichard? The answer is yes, they are all in on Will Reichard. There is no competition whatsoever. Will Reichard is the guy. The only thing is they might bring in somebody else to be on the practice squad because that paid off for them last year to have another kicker that they were familiar with. Even though he wasn't on the roster, John Parker Romo, they still didn't get rid of his number and were able to bring him back in. And he was a huge factor of them winning 14 games last year, had some game winning kicks and I think what was it 12 for 13 or something

like that. He did a great job for them last year. So they might bring in somebody else to be around to have on call if Rikert has another injury issue. But he did a really good job overall for a rookie season. Most rookie kickers do not come in and just set the world on fire right away. And from what I've seen of him, yeah, I think he has a chance to be one of the best kickers do not come in and just set the world on fire right away and from what I've seen of him, yeah I think he has a chance to be one of the best kickers in the league if he

stays healthy and if he doesn't try to play through injuries which it seemed like he did last year. Ryder Churchill says how long do you see CJ Ham continuing to play and to be a useful part of the offense? I think CJ Ham is one of those guys. It's a little bit like Matthew Slater was with the New England Patriots that you just don't move on from because he's always going to bring something valuable to you. And it's just hard to always fully explain if you're not in the building, right?

And I mean, like, if you're not the coaches, the players, if you're them, you fully get it on CJ Ham. There are very few human beings who can play every single facet of special teams. Now that doesn't mean a whole lot to you if he is a special teams blocker, because you barely even notice that guy on a punt, but somebody's gotta do it, and somebody has to be a leader of that unit,

and to do it at a high level for so long and have so much experience, you just write that person in and never have to worry about it. And the fullback position, we're going to see this year how much they're going to use that. Last year, Kevin O'Connell used it more with CJ Hamm and it seemed like Aaron Jones liked running with a fullback in the backfield that could change for this year and if it does, if there's some signs that it's changing and they're not using him in the run game really at all then maybe that timeline becomes shorter but last year they were still using him and then it's another way to get Aaron Jones off the field if you are facing a team that blitzes a lot and you need somebody to pick up those blitzes in the backfield.

And I still think every once in a while you need to pop them a little pass and let them run with the football. Just every once in a while catch the other team by surprise. But I think they're still finding ways to use CJ Ham and he's been useful in pass protection. I don't think that he's a dominating run blocker, as in he's just throwing people at the fullback position. Like you might've seen back in the day with the huge guys like John Richie and Sam Gash,

but he can still get in there and take on a linebacker, take on a safety clear space and give them an opportunity to be a little bit tougher in the run game than they were last year, because I think toughness was lacking for the offensive line, and if you've got an improvement in that, Josh Oliver, CJ Hamm, you can do a little more imposing of the will. So I'd like to see it first before we talk about, well, does he still have a role? Is he still useful?

We'll see, but I think he's going to be on this team for as long as he wants to be on this team Because of what he's proven throughout his career Let's see and you know sometimes every once in a while We're always looking for well shouldn't they have this guy and shouldn't they give somebody else this roster spot? And it just reminds me of like Brian Robinson and when they let him go in 2018 That you brought in somebody else oh we've got this younger player, he's the next man up, that kind of thing, and it just wasn't the same as it was before with the dynamic inside the locker room and having that little extra area of depth.

And I know B-Rob was a better or more impactful player, but just the point is I think you want guys like this on your football team. And there's value there. Let's see. Skoldoc says, utilizing the benchmarks that you use for Super Bowl caliber teams like past game EPA, 12 wins, etc. Is this roster Super Bowl caliber if JJ McCarthy plays like an average starting quarterback like Brock Purdy in his first year? For example.

So yeah, in the past, I've looked this up and it didn't actually match up with the Eagles they were not one of the top passing EPA teams because while Jalen Hurts missed a few games and He was efficient when throwing the football But they just didn't throw it enough because they were running down people's throats like crazy with Saquon Barkley So last year did divert a little bit from some of those benchmarks. But certainly 12 wins has always been the number for me. If you enter the playoffs with 12 or more wins, you got just as good of a chance as anybody to go to the Super Bowl.

So really, the question is, can they be? And usually you have to be a top notch passing game. Last year was just a little bit different. Or you have to have a cheat code as far as your run game Which I don't believe the Vikings have so we agree that the Vikings if they're going to make it would have to be an Elite passing EPA team they were close to that last year the last game of the season knocked them down from I think Maybe five or six down to something like ninth But they were one of the best passing attacks last year.

I think they still have to do that in order to be a Super Bowl contender, but can they get there if he's average? No, if he's average they can't get to that benchmark, and they're not going to have a good enough run game to just run all the time like Philadelphia. This there is a lot of pressure on JJ McCarthy to be really really good from that perspective because I think the run game will be better but I certainly don't think that they're gonna run 30 times a game and get a bunch of 50 yard runs. What was it that Saquon had like half the league's 40 plus yard runs or something last year just by himself. That is something that's a total outlier historically. He probably won't do it again.

The Vikings certainly are not going to do that with Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason. So I don't think that he can be the 16th best quarterback in the league and then we're going, okay, they're going into the playoffs as a Super Bowl contender. Even if you have a very good defense great pass catchers and a good run game but the pass catchers got to be thriving they have to they're going to be a pass first team forever with Kevin O'Connell and still even with the emergence of a little more run first teams last year still it's passing that mostly is driving the success then hey look you know, the Eagles get to the Super Bowl

and Jalen Hurts is going off. Well, they aren't running the football very well in order to win that game. So McCarthy has to be better than average. He can't just be okay. But what you're looking to do, you use Brock Purdy as an example. I would say also Jared Goff,

is if what you want is him to be above average, but not have to do anything that is beyond the realm of possibility for him in a first year as a starter and still get those types of results. And I think that's what you mean with Brock Purdy is that he didn't have to do anything otherworldly to be very, very good last year. He just had to be the guy who could execute and the guy who could make a play occasionally, get it to the receivers that are there, and their offense was good enough to be great and be a step away from the Super Bowl.

I think the Vikings have most of that. I don't think it's quite as good as what San Francisco was with Brock Purdy. That's Trent Williams, you know, and his peak still as maybe the best left tackle to ever play. And then Christian McCaffrey is, and I know that was the next year, but you know, MVP level, Debo Samuel, Brandon Iuke, George Kittle is the best tight end in the league. Like, I think the Vikings are in that realm. I don't think it's quite to that level where, hey, if you just roll the ball out and the guy does the right thing then you'll be fine. I think McCarthy will have to be really good in order to get to 12 wins and compete for a Super Bowl with this schedule but I also don't think it's unrealistic that

they could meet those markers considering what they have around him. Hopefully that answers the question. Alright, one more question. This one comes from Jacob Hills 15. What is a reasonable expectation for Dallas Turner this season? How do you view the secondary right now? There seems to be a lot of unproven or developmental corners. So that's two questions, Jacob. We'll start with the first one, which is realistic expectations for Dallas Turner are that he's gonna play a lot

And he's gonna play in a lot of different ways And we're gonna have to work on how we evaluate that because is it just a pure sack number I don't think we can do it that way if he's going to have a dynamic role So how many plays is he making that are impact plays on a weekly basis? And sometimes, I mean, I remember last year against Indianapolis, there was a run play that came his way, and he stuck somebody right in their spot, and they didn't move at all, he just stuck them on the edge,

and then a linebacker came and made the play, and well, that's an impact play, but it's not really showing up in the box score for, hey, give this guy an A-plus for that, And well, that's an impact play, but it's not really showing up in the box score for, hey, give this guy an A-plus for that. You're not getting a tackle for loss on that play someone else did, so we're going to have to watch and see how often he's making impact plays. But he does have to get to the quarterback.

He does have to make a play in coverage if they're going to have him drop him back in coverage the way he did last year. Reasonable expectation though for me would be 600 to 700 snaps and to just be somebody who can make a difference on this defense. Not necessarily the superstar, they've got lots of superstars, but be a difference maker on this defense and don't, just all of us, don't worry too much about well he was drafted here he's drafted they one of the best defenses in the league and if he becomes a 650 snap player this year who gets seven sacks and an interception and some big tackles for loss and is a big rotational player for them filling in

for Van Ginkle moving and rushing from other areas dropping back in coverage like that's a good thing that's a really good thing and I think setting the bar filling in for Van Ginkle, moving and rushing from other areas, dropping back in coverage. Like that's a good thing. That's a really good thing. And I think setting the bar at a big step forward is fair for Dallas Turner. As far as the secondary, what was the question again? It was, how do I view the secondary right now? I view the secondary as having some very solid pieces in Byron Murphy Jr. and Harrison Smith, and then a lot that

I need to see how it's going to play out, because I think I know what Theo Jackson is. I think I know what Mackay Blackman is. I think I have a good sense for what they believe Isaiah Rogers can be, but let's see it on the field and then we'll kind of figure that out. Now last year, this was very much in flux at the same time of year, and they did figure it out. And we know that Brian Flores tends to have the capability to do that. But I think that I might frame it as there's going to be some competition

there that will be really interesting to watch. And we're going to know if it gets halfway through camp and it's not working. We're going to start saying, all right, do they have to go get somebody else? Or we're going to say, wow, they've got a gem in this Isaiah Rogers guy or Mackay Blackman is bounced back really nicely. I think we'll get a sense for that as the summer goes along because I would just say I'm uncertain. I think I know, or I think I have a good feeling for how good it can be, but right now there's

just uncertainty and potential, but it's not as rock solid as a lot of other parts of the roster. All right, thanks for all the questions. Again, feel free to shoot me a note, Matthew Coller at Gmail or at Matthew Coller on Twitter. My DMs are open. I get a lot of crypto spam or whatever at the moment, but feel free to jump in there with an actual Vikings question. That would be great if you wanted to that.

So thanks everybody again for watching slash listening. And again, keep an eye out for our show, breaking down every game on the schedule, probably in about three different ways. So look out for that and we'll catch you later. Good Paul. football.