Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Do the Vikings have the best supporting cast in the league?

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Matthew Coller answers your fan questions in this FansOnly edition of the podcast. Where does the Vikings' supporting cast rank among the entire league? How elite is KOC? How important is Flores to the Vikings? And much, much more.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 this is another fans only episode. Reminder, go over to purple insider dot football, sign up for the newsletter there. And you can always get on the show and the fans only episode. I shoot me an email, Matthew Coller, at Gmail or jump in my DMS on Twitter at Matthew collar. So let's fire it up. Got a lot of great questions here.

We'll start with Robert. Robert says the athletic football show podcasts unanimously rated our Minnesota Vikings number one in their NFC supporting cast rankings. Yay. Are you also ready to crown the Vikings and their assessment that the run game will be improved? They forgot to mention Jordan Mason may be way improved. Of course, the McCarthy question was not a part of the calculus, but they rate the offense

quite highly, even though he is only average among quarterbacks. KOC, of course, is what really tips the scales for them over the Eagles. So what are your thoughts about this? I assume you mean that when they're projecting all their quarterbacks, they can't rate JJ McCarthy super high since we have never seen JJ McCarthy. But to the main point of your question, I would completely agree that the Minnesota Vikings

have as good of a supporting cast as you're going to find in the NFL. I mean, I always go back to comparing it to the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles in recent years. And then you could even look at the Los Angeles Rams when they won the Super Bowl or when Jared Goff was a young quarterback where you go through the entire roster on offense. You go, well, where is the weakness? They have three wide receivers. Last year at this time, we were saying, well, is Jalen Naylor going to be able to play at all?

It can be a fairly decent wide receiver three. And he proved that he can play in the league and even take over for Jordan Addison if he needs to, if there is an upcoming suspension and in the backfield. Yes, it is improved with Jordan Mason. There's no question about that. I mean, it's a guy that averaged over five yards of carry last year, a broken tackle machine still in his prime. The coaching is as good as it gets for quarterbacks in the NFL. We're going to still have the questions about can they lean into the run game? Can they make it easier on McCarthy in that way?

But the fact that they have Will Fries, Donovan Jackson, Ryan Kelly, as opposed to Dalton Reisner, Garrett Bradbury, and Blake Brandle, that is such a potential enormous upgrade if Donovan Jackson is ready to go that you're just struggling to find where is the thing on this offense that is even really a question

mark. I mean, Donovan Jackson is probably it. That's another part of projecting who's got the best supporting cast for a quarterback is, well, yeah, you could look at certain teams and say, all right, if Luther Burden and Colston Loveland click, then wow, Chicago's going to be pretty good. Or if Jonah Jackson stays healthy, then they're going to be pretty good or if Jonah Jackson stays healthy Then they're going to be pretty good, but we don't know those things Those are big question marks and then you go to the Green Bay Packers Well, if Matthew Golden is really good then yeah, they're gonna be great Maybe but we don't know if Matthew Golden could play in the league really at all with Detroit

I would say that there's a question mark about that offensive line now that they have lost Frank Ragnow to retirement and whether they can put together an offensive line sans Ben Johnson that is going to be as dominant and can give Jared Goff as much time to throw and Jamir Gibbs as much space to run to get the maximum out of the performance from those players and from the Vikings it's really well can the rookie play but the rookie is a first round draft pick and is stepping in next to two very, very talented, very, very experienced players in Christian Derisaw and Ryan Kelly. So he's set up for success and that's really the only question.

I mean, Derisaw's health to start the season, sure. Ryan Kelly's health long-term, sure. Maybe even a little bit of that question with Will Fry since he missed OTAs in mini camp. There's going to be that, but everything else, right down to the second tight end, I mean, we are talking about in training camp. Hey, what are the big battles on offense in training camp?

Well, one of them is tight end three. Another one is RB three, I guess, Ty Chandler against himself quarterback two. I mean, these are the types of battles we're talking about. Who's wide receiver four, who's going to be kick returning and punt returning. We're not talking about, Hey, it's Jesse Bates versus Ed Ingram here, across the line, across the depth of the roster. And even that fact too, that Blake Brandle is now a backup. Walter Rouse has developed. Michael Juergens has developed for a year. They brought in a veteran tackle who's more in his prime than David

Quessonberry. This is as stacked from top to bottom of a supporting cast as you will find in the entire NFL. I mean, you mentioned the NFC, but I think you could go for the entire league. And I like to look at, I've mentioned before on the show, Mike Clay's positional rankings, just to check myself. Like, am I crazy here? And he had them very, very high outside of the quarterback as well. I think maybe third Detroit got some benefit of the doubt there. And look, Detroit, they got a thousand yards out of Jameson Williams last year. I'm not doubting that Detroit's weapons are really, really good. But if we're doing supporting cast, the Vikings offensive play caller,

we know what he's able to do with quarterbacks. We are not as sure about Detroit's play caller at this moment. And when it comes to Chicago, I think they have as good of a supporting cast, but we're not sure whether some of those players are actually going to step up or not in the back field. It's the Andre Swift and question marks for them in Chicago. And is Ben Johnson as good outside of the Detroit environment, outside of a quarterback who really executes what he asks for or not. And I know that's not exactly supporting cast, but it kind of is when it comes to the play caller, like does he gel and jive with Caleb Williams as someone who's

just showing up this year, whereas O'Connell and McCarthy had an opportunity to work together all of last season. So yes, I do think that it's a best supporting cast in football. And I would even go down to some folks that don't get mentioned very often. I mean, you hear a lot about Josh McCown, but how about Keena McCardle, by the way? At Keena McCardle, there's an argument for him

as one of the best, if not the best, wide receiver coaches in the league. How many guys now have we seen emerge? This is somebody that has presided over Justin Jefferson becoming the most successful wide receiver over the first five years of a career ever. Jordan Addison's development last year, KJ Osborne, once upon a time, and now Jalen Naylor, and he's got some young guys to work with. Ty Felton. We'll see if there's something there with Rondale Moore. I mean, there's just a lot,

there's a lot on this offense. So, yeah, I have no disagreement whatsoever. And this is why it ties back into why the expectations are as high as they are from me. And I know that you could go and you could talk about, well, you know, a quarterback in his first year. And and that's very fair if anybody doesn't want to crown the Vikings because they don't know what this quarterback is going to be. and the schedule is as hard as it's going to be. But if we went through, maybe this is an off season project and looked at going into a season, the teams that rank the highest for weapons, where did they finish? What did their quarterbacks do? I'm guessing that the answer is that their quarterbacks performed really, really well.

And it matters that they're in the NFC, because if they're in the AFC, well, then you have these quarterbacks who could take good teams and make them unbelievable teams like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson. But in the NFC, the team that has the best roster is often King. Last year it was Philadelphia. They've still got a really good argument, by the way. They've got Saquon, they've got AJ Brown, they've got a great offensive line still even though they lost Pekai Bekden. So maybe just because they're the champs and

they won with their supporting cast, they deserve to be higher too. But that those would be Detroit and Philly. Probably Philly is the only team that would, that would really make an argument because Devante Smith is good. I can't probably it's it's close. Their offensive line is a little more proven, I think, as a unit than the Vikings. It's very close. So, yeah, the Super Bowl champion is the only other team that I would say, all right. They might have a little tiny bit of an edge on the Minnesota Vikings because they have a 2000 yard rusher in the backfield.

We'll see if he can do that again because usually 2000 yard rushers, they drop off in the following season. Good question, Robert. And that was not from Robert Mays, who is a friend of this show that was from Robert, a listener, by the way. Next question comes from Braden. We all understand the KOC is one of the best coaches in the league. He is the reigning coach of the year. However, do we not put up enough stock in the fact that he is only going into year four in this role and still relatively inexperienced compared to other great coaches like Andy Reed, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, and Jim and John Harbaugh? I, you know, I, I do think that that is something at this point that should start to turn a

corner. But I thought about that in the playoffs last year with that. I mean, at what point is kind of like a quarterback. At one point, do we stop calling them a young quarterback and then they're just the quarterback? It's probably the second contract for a coach. You don't get any leeway anymore of all. You're a younger coach compared to these other guys. It's true that it did take someone like Andy Reid going to KC,

having Patrick Mahomes and figuring out a little bit more about how to manage a football game to get over the top. It did take McVeigh another bite at the apple after going to the Super Bowl and having Bill Belichick embarrass him. What happened to KOC in the playoffs last year has happened to a lot of really, really good coaches where you go into the playoffs and the other team has a better game plan than you and their roster matches up better against you and you lose. Uh, so I think that there's room to grow,

but I also don't think that that's an excuse anymore. If you were using it even last year, I don't know. But once you've got your big, huge contract and your quarterback that you drafted, it's on. There's no longer the, Hey, he's just young. A lot of these other coaches are more experienced. Like there's that, that glass is pretty darn close to full after three seasons. And he's proven to be one of the better coaches in the entire NFL and somebody that you want for a very long time, like those coaches that you mentioned, like Kyle Shanahan, where the 49ers love a down year and they'll say, okay, let's not be talking about firing Kyle Shanahan guys.

And the same thing with Tomlin over the years in Pittsburgh. If you get one of those guys, you keep them. O'Connell is a keeper, but I don't think that there's any excuse here going forward. You have to win in the playoffs. You have to take this to another level to get in that conversation with someone like Sean McVay, someone like Kyle Shanahan or Andy Reid, or even the Harbaz who have had their own success. So, you know, this this year, next year, like these are the years where Kevin O'Connell can cement himself. A coach of the year is great.

Kevin Stefanski won a coach of the year. I don't think he cemented himself as being one of the best of the best in that same ballpark. But O'Connell can do it over these next couple of years. Got to win the playoffs. Braden adds, says with football being a copycat league, the best teams are the ones that set trends first. What aspect of football do you think the Vikings could innovate in order to get ahead of the league? So I think that the Vikings already have two key

areas where they have been innovating. And that would be very hard to copycat unless you have Justin Jefferson or the defensive personnel that the Vikings have. And this is something that I'm writing about actually, and I think is really important in pro sports in general is if you have something unique about what you do, and I'm stealing this from Zach Lowe and his podcast, Breaking Down the NBA Finals. But if you have something unique that you do really well or you do better than the rest of the league, lean into that. And I think it's very easy to spot on the defensive side.

Brian Flores leans into the Blitz. They were number one in Blitz percentage each of the last two years. He's going to be super aggressive. He also leans into his most intelligent players. And one of the cheat codes of this defense beyond just the blitz is that Harrison Smith, Byron Murphy, Jr., Harrison Phillips up front. These guys are a moving target for defenses, checks and changes

and reading the formations and the tendencies and all the sorts of things. The cat and mouse game that they're playing with every single quarterback. I think that it's more advanced than a lot of teams in the league. And you, you do see more and more teams doing stuff like this and blitzing is going up because teams know that those explosive plays on defense, those sacks and interceptions, those are going to change games and those are going to win games too. It's very difficult, especially if the kickoff is going to take teams to the 35 and kickers can make it from the 50. It's very difficult to just shut a team down over play after play after play after play without getting some big game changing plays.

And every game is a one score game. It seems like in the NFL these days, I think last year was another record for one score games. If you get the one turnover, if you get the three sacks, the four sacks in a game, then you are going to usually come out on top. And I think that's part of Brian Flores strategy that he's taken more to the extreme and also having hybrid players. That's new. I mean, I used to make fun of that a lot because we would always hear about, well, this draft pick, he could be a hybrid safety corner, whatever, and you'd go, yeah, okay, sure. Like how about you prove you could play any position. But with Flores, he's found the Josh Metellus type of role. And there are other guys who have multiple roles like

Van Ginkle and projecting Dallas Turner. This is something that not a lot of teams are capable of doing is taking their edge rusher and dropping them back in coverage 200 times or something over a year. That's just not, people don't have that type of player. So I think that there's innovation there, but it's also paired with the types of players that they have that matters.

And then on the offensive side, I think we know what it is. It's downfield passing that the response by the NFL, and you can see this in average depth of target. When you look at that stat through the years, the response to the NFL, to the explosion of explosive plays and play actions and downfield success in 2020 was to start playing two deep safeties all the time. And even these dime packages. So some teams have decided to run the football lot, play with some bigger personnel and what

Kevin O'Connell and a lot of teams have said, all right, we're going to throw underneath them and we're going to have longer drives and we're going to stay on the field and wear down your defense. But Kevin O'Connell has said, okay, bet. I bet you that I can still beat your two safeties. And he spends, I'm sure a lot of his time, even on vacation, drawing plays on napkins to figure out how to beat these two deep safety, double teaming, Justin Jefferson, all that sort of stuff that defenses play totally different against Jefferson than anybody else.

But the Vikings can actually beat those defenses because they never face anything else. I would actually be interested to see what a single high defense did against the Vikings, but also would not advise because if you put Jefferson one-on-one, he's going to smoke whoever is going against him. And we have seen that occasionally through the years when somebody said, you know what, we're going to play our defense. And then Jefferson ends up with 150 yards or so forth. So I think that that downfield passing attack that they have not had to back off that or change how they want to do that.

And last year really leaned into it, also makes them unique. And I wouldn't be surprised that after a full year of teams playing those shells, so to speak, that we see some of the copycatting off of Kevin O'Connell and the route combinations that he has used because what he's so good at understanding is what defensive assignments are, how the defense is going to handle something.

If you send Addison here and Jefferson there, whose job is it going to be to take which guy and who will get open because of that? I think he has a very deep understanding of that, which allows them to create plays that can throw off the defense based on just what their assignments are, sort of using their assignments against them. So I think probably any of that would fall under the copycat league with the Vikings leading the innovation. You cannot do it without the Harrison Smith, the Byron Murphy, the Blake Cashman, the Justin Jefferson, the Jordan Addison. So as always

with football, it ties together with you can only, you know, there's the whole X's O's, Jimmy Joe's. I've brought that up before, but you can only draw up a lot of X's and O's if you have the Jimmy's and Joe's and Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores definitely do. Let's get to the next question here. Gene says, I retired recently began watching your podcast daily. Thank you so much, Gene. Being of retirement age, I've followed the Vikings for many years since 1967 to be precise. Anyway, regarding the drafts and the draft scouts has the team changed significantly in recent years. It seems different in the past two drafts.

So you know, of course this goes back to that 2022 conversation. I think the biggest difference is, and yes, they have made some changes to a lot of the front office and it's been slow. It wasn't like quasi Adolfo Mensa arrived and then just blew out everybody, but they have had some major changes in their roles and their titles and positions and what different people in the front office do. And they have had some scouts come and go throughout the last couple of years. But you know, scouts, what their job is to do is to go out and gather information. It's not to make the decision. And I had a good conversation

with Scott Studwell about this one time where he explained to me that under Rick Spielman, what Scott Studwell's job as a scout was to do was to go to Alabama and watch practice and watch film and come back with talk to everybody he could come back with a lot of information. Here's what the player does well. Watch him in his games. Watch his film. Here's what I'm hearing about that player. Here's all the information. And then you turn it in and someone else makes that decision. So it's not that the scouts under Spielman didn't know what they were doing. I'm sure that they assessed a lot of the right information and then maybe some wrong decisions were made

around that information or maybe it was just bad luck. And with 2022 specifically, I mean, you look at where those players were projected to be drafted, Ingram was really the only reach. Lewis Seen was projected to be drafted in the backend of the first round. Andrew Booth Jr. was projected to be, by some, be drafted in the back end of the first round. Andrew Booth Jr. was projected to be by some all the way in the middle of the first round,

but had the injury issues. And then Brian Ossomaw was drafted about where he was expected to go as well. And it just didn't work out. Another part of it too, is in these last couple of drafts, because I think you're right that there has been some different things we could point out, but look at who is coaching their defense. It's Brian Flores. It's not Ed Donatell.

And Ed Donatell drafted those players, you know, not to put it on him, but you know, they drafted those players to play in a certain type of system. And then they completely changed the system. And I remember when Dion Sanders arrived to Colorado, there was a viral clip where he said, I'm bringing my own luggage. Well, that's been Brian Flores. He's brought his own luggage. It's been his guys that he drafted, his guys that they brought in his targets and free agency. That's a really good idea since he came up as a scout as part of those behemoth teams with the new England Patriots. But when you draft two players to play totally different than your current DC wants, it's not too likely that it's going to work out for them.

And it absolutely did not. Whereas now we might be saying, well, you know, they nailed this guy and they nailed that guy. Well, in some part might be because that's who they wanted for Brian Flores. And I think this last draft, part of what made it different a little bit too was, Quasidafo-Mensa has talked about this introspectively, and I appreciate that. With 2022, he said, more or less, let me paraphrase, that he was trying to fix the entire roster for the future, every weakness in one draft by trading back and getting as much

draft capital as he possibly could. Whereas this year he made the analogy about keeping the ball on the fairway, not getting cute, just getting the guy that they wanted Donovan Jackson and moving forward because they're not in a position where you want to just be gathering a bunch of draft capital and trading down and trading down and taking many, many swings. Not right now, not when you're in a position to truly try to compete for the Super Bowl. Let's get the guard is was kind of their mentality. Let's get the guy that we really want and we really like. And that's what they did. And so that might feel a little bit different to there's live and learn, but there's also context. The Vikings in 2022 are old, they're expensive. They're looking like they've got a lot of

holes on the roster. So you can see why he would have done that in his first draft rather than now where they had almost no holes in the roster. Take the player that you like, that's going to fill that starting position. So great question. And thank you so much, Gene, for taking the time to listen every day in your retirement. I really appreciate that. And best of luck to you in retirement.

This one comes from, I'm not sure how to pronounce it. I'm thinking it's Yens, but also could be Gens. Sorry if I have this wrong. I know you're a long time listener, but we've never talked about how to pronounce your name. Sorry, you'll have to DM me and tell me how. Anyway, I'm gonna go with Yens. A question I've wondered for a while, and wondering if you knew or have done some investigation

is on the use of AI in developing plays. We have seen games like chess that the computers are infinitely better than the goats like Carlson, that's Magnus Carlson, the best player alive of chess. Have there been studies using AI in a similar way, training it to scheme receivers open? Could there be a revolution coming if AI figures out that we've played football totally wrong this entire time? Well, that's the funny thing about, you know, AI or analytics studies or anything like that is oftentimes what it's found is not that anybody's playing the game completely wrong. It's that they're not doing something enough.

So they shot three pointers, believe it or not. When I was a kid, I loved three point shooters. I loved Reggie Miller and Steve Kerr and guys like that, but they didn't shoot them enough. Imagine if Reggie Miller was shooting twice as many three pointers as he did then. He would have been Steph Curry, right? And I think they didn't fully understand the value of that until the analytics revolution came along. So it's not that I think

AI could solve football, but I think it could really sharpen the eye of coaches. And I will give you an example. Now there's a really good article in the athletic just today. It's funny you asked this question. I got the question from you before this article came out. So that's kind of interesting. But Felkins writer from the athletic actually wrote about AI and what it can do for teams. And he suggested that about I think Thomas Dimitrov, former GM, suggested that about 75% of teams are using it. And I'm certain that the Vikings are experimenting with it. But one of the problems with early analytics in the NFL was, OK, you've got this information, but what does it really mean?

How do you really make use of it? I'll give you an example. ESPN came out with some tracking data with wide receivers, but they had one or two years of data. So how do we know if this is telling us the truth or if there are flaws to this or what we can really do with it? And I think there's some of that with AI right now where it's, all right, we know we've got to harness this and we know we can use it, but how? And the best and most enlightening version

of that would be the Amazon broadcast. So they invented an AI tool, which I think came originally stemmed from the big data bowl. But they have an AI tool that helps show you the viewer who is going to blitz and their percentage chance of blitz based on their pre-stamp movement and where they align. So say you've got a defensive back aligning closer to the line of scrimmage on a particular play than they normally would be. Well, that might be an indicator in a certain situation based on their tendencies that are loaded into this AI program that can

tell you, well, there's a really good chance that that guy is going to blitz. And I think what it could do is it can really help you train quarterbacks. So if you train quarterbacks, hey, and this is how chess works, by the way, where the chess players train using the computer to show them, okay, this is actually how this opening should work. Even if there are some things that are counterintuitive, for example, in chess, where, hey, that move wouldn't have normally looked good to you,

but the computer found it because of this, this, and this. So with quarterbacking, if you have something that can identify, well, here are the main things that teams are doing or the main positions coordinates on the field, where certain teams are blitzing, then that will help you identify them. Of course, also helps with the self scout. So teams could know themselves, oh, here's what the other team is going to be looking at. And this is where it is the high level game of chess, because what chess has become these days in the computer era is how does my preparation for a game of chess match up against yours?

And also how can I get you away from your preparation? So if you've spent hours and hours with the computer and then I throw a move on the fourth move of the game at you that you didn't see coming. How can you adjust and adapt and think on your own? And that will always be, you know, football is it's one team versus the other, putting all their might of preparation into the game. And then sometimes you come out and a team does something you never thought was ever going to happen.

And I thought we really saw the Vikingsikings lose the chess game of preparation to the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs last year and that's where they're going to have to improve going into the future but you know that's something that is coming in the NFL behind the scenes now will we actually notice it because in basketball and baseball these innovations are so noticeable but in football I think watching a game in general, you dive deep into it, you watch the film and go, okay, they did this. And that's why that happened or whatever. And maybe that was some sort of tendency. But a lot of it is you never really know. The only people who know are putting together the game plans behind the scenes.

Maybe we will start to get some sort of, and this is what you're alluding to, some sort of fundamental change that teams will say, this is what's really working against that, because we can see it on the AI, and that's where the innovations will come. Will it ever get out though? Because Moneyball, I'm sure that the A's regret ever telling everybody about Moneyball,

and maybe should have just kept it to themselves. I think football teams are a little better at keeping things hush hush. So I will be fascinated to see where it goes, though, behind the scenes. And if we do see any big, massive type of changes in the way teams play, I tend to think that we won't really notice it, that the only people who will know are behind the scenes. All right. Next question comes from Steve here says, when interviewing players and coaches, how often are you asked to keep answers off the record? Um, not that often.

No, not that often. Uh, usually the way that it works is just, I'll give you an example of training camp. So in training camp, uh, I might schedule an interview with a player, let's say through the PR department. I'll say, Hey, can I sit down with this guy and have a conversation and they'll grab him for me and we'll sit down and we'll, I'll turn on the recorder, you know, say how you doing kind of thing. And then I'll ask them what I need to ask them based on what my story is going

to be about. And maybe we'll chat for a few minutes about different things afterward. There was one player I was doing a feature on who wanted to debate Michael Jordan versus LeBron James with me for a little while. So we did that and whatever. I mean, sometimes I'll ask newer players like what they think of Minnesota. I had a good conversation with Stefan Gilmore.

It was off the record. I don't think he'll mind that I'll mention we talked about Anthony Edwards, like, hey man, I know you love the NBA. So I think you're going to love it here. Get see aunt, that kind of thing. Very rarely is anyone like, Hey, I really want to tell you a secret. That doesn't happen too often. Now, I mean, from time to time when things are going on, you know, maybe you'll chat with somebody for a couple of minutes about something where that'll be a, you know, I'm hearing type of situation, but not too often. Usually, I mean, usually these guys are pretty open, especially

under Kevin O'Connell. You don't have to have too much a whisper hush hush away from the coaches here because the players are in an environment where they are encouraged to be open with the media, show their personalities, tell their story, that sort of thing. And I think that in general, if you have legitimate questions for players, they don't mind asking them or answering them. You know, if I ask just, I've brought this interaction up a few times, but it was just really good. So I'll mention it again with Harrison Phillips last year where I asked him about his PFF grade being the highest of the season. And he was explaining to me what PFF sees versus what they look at in their own room and how

different his assignments are and stuff like that. Like that's not state secret stuff, but it's really good insight. And so he didn't have to pull me aside to say like, Hey, this is how it really works every once in a while, stuff like that, but not too much. Usually what you read at purpleinsider.football or hear me talk about is what guys have said at podiums and on the record. Um, you know, and I give them a lot of credit for that, by the way, a lot of, a lot of credit for the openness of this Minnesota Vikings group. Steve adds a second question, considering the history, heartache, terrible losses and Superbowl records of the Bills and Vikings, which team in your opinion deserves to win a Superbowl first? I mean, Steve, we're

on a Minnesota Vikings podcast. I mean, can I say Buffalo? I mean, I don't know. That's like when people ask me like, who's gonna be better, McCarthy or Caleb Williams? Like if I tell you Caleb Williams, are you going to keep listening? Not that I withhold answers. I just think it's sort of like trap question. He says Buffalo, go back to Buffalo.

I think both teams have been through a lot, my friend. And I don't think I can give you a very clear answer. It's two different versions though, two different versions where the Buffalo Bills have been amazing or horrible, where the Vikings have just always been good, good, good, good, good. I think that the overall sports tragedies that have happened to the Buffalo Bills are probably more harsh. And I know that all of you think that the Vikings were going to win the 98 Superbowl,

but missing a game winning field goal to lose the Superbowl and walk off fashion. I'm sorry it's worse. It is worse than one just to go to the Superbowl with Gary Anderson nor what has it worse than Gary Anderson, both, both horrible, and I don't mean to insult your childhood trauma or anything, but truly, if you have one kick to walk off in the Super Bowl and you miss it, that's pretty rough. Four Super Bowls, and then the 13 seconds thing

against Kansas City, the way Kansas City has tortured them, but in the middle, just an ocean of terrible, where the Vikings time and time and time again have been good enough to knock on the door. They've always been a relevant franchise and then can never quite finish the job. So I think that they are the two most deserving franchises. You know, Detroit fans have been through a lot. There's San Diego slash Los Angeles, but you can kind of take them out of the mix because of that part. The Cleveland Browns, although they've made their own

bed many times, there's a lot of teams that are in this bucket that have had to go really bad. And here's Tampa Bay with a couple of Super Bowls. Like what? So maybe this year, maybe this will be the year of the two team flags behind me here. Buffalo and Minnesota will end up in the Super Bowl against each other and the football gods will decide who deserves it more. This question from Kay Hyzer 12 says if Flores left for a head coaching position this year, I really don't believe we would have handled the off season like we did. I don't think we would have been all in this year. We would have been looking at the next three years,

how important do you think he is? So I disagree with your statement. I think that this was a high level front office ownership decision from three years ago that was decided upon to spend this year. I don't think if it was Big Bird, who was the defensive coordinator, they would have not signed Jonathan Allen when they got the opportunity, but it's relevant. I mean, it matters maybe to someone like Harrison Smith for coming back to play. If they would have lost Flores, I think Durante Jones would have taken over and played a very, very similar style of defense. I know it's always hard to replace somebody that is so unique for Brian Flores, but Durante Jones I think will be a defensive coordinator in the NFL at some point whether it's here if Brian Flores gets a head coaching job

Or if it is somewhere else But they if they had given him the reins and stayed with this system Then they would not have changed anything as far as plans go, but how important is he? I mean, I think he's absolutely vital to this defense and it's not just his ability to dial up blitz's scheme. I think he's connected with his players extremely, extremely well. And he has a communication with them where it's this feedback loop of he's got ideas, Harrison Smith, Harrison Phillips, these guys, these veteran players, Blake Cashman, they give him feedback on what they see out there, what they see in their film studies.

It's a special thing. You just don't see it all that often in any sport, really, where it's a collaboration truly between the defensive coordinator and his players might not be exactly the same without him. And he's got a very natural feel for play calling. He's got a great understanding of player evaluation. I think it's the most underrated thing in football is the position coaches ability to evaluate talent. We see it from McCardell, we see it for Brian Flores. It's big in the NFL and I think it has really pushed the Vikings forward. So he's important, but I have no doubt about it that they would have been

stacking talent around JJ McCarthy's rookie contract pretty much no matter what. All right. One more here. This comes from Echo Warrior with a four and it's part of the Warrior. Tyler Batty seems to be getting a lot of attention more than a usual UDFA. How do you see him fitting in with the edge group short and long term? Tyler Batty seems to be getting a lot of attention more than a usual UDFA. How do you see him fitting in with the edge group short and long term? Well, one thing is just to take you slightly behind the curtain.

Usually the big articles and profiles of the star players and coaches come during training camp, because that's when the interest is the highest. So at this time of year, there are often looks at undrafted free agents or late round draft picks. I myself wrote a piece about Ty Felton, wrote a piece about Gavin Bartholomew, purple insider dot football. Those are kind of the types of guys that you want to be focusing on now because it's Jefferson, it's McCarthy, it's, you know, all the big names when we get to training camp.

So that may be one reason that there was some Tyler baddie buzz. I also think it's because he's a little older, had an incredible NFL combine, was productive in college and just seems like one of those Flores kind of dudes. Stacey just seems like he's a great athlete with some versatility to him where he's a tweener, but Brian Flores likes those tweeners, those 260 to 280 pound guys, the Jahad Ward type of specs to a player that maybe on some other teams as a pure defensive end wouldn't fit in.

But here he might as part of the competition. But the short term is this, he's going to go into training camp like everybody else with a chance to earn something, some sort of role, special teams, backup role. And the long term, there has to be a short term before there's a long term. There cannot be a long term unless there's a short term. He's got to make the team or he's got to at least show enough to be the next man up from the practice squad. And then they go from there. So he's got my attention. He's interesting. I don't think he's going to make my list of the top 25 most interesting players on this team, but he's got a chance. And I like a lot about the way that he profiles with his production and athleticism. And then who knows? And I'll say this many times with undrafted free agents. You just really never know until

they actually arrive on that field. But he's interesting. And I think now all of a sudden in the years past, you guys probably heard me say it. If you're a real OG listener, if you're new, welcome. But if you're an OG listener, I think I probably used to say I'm not learning their names, undrafted free agent until they make me. And that's changed because this team has put so much into, and you know, the question earlier about the drafts and about the scouting. Well, one of the things that's really changed

is just how much emphasis there is on this team trying to land all the best undrafted free agents. And if you figure, hey, these guys are kind of the equivalent of seventh round draft picks, well, if you take enough of them, or sometimes they drop because of health, or sometimes they drop because of an off field thing, and they're actually maybe a fifth round prospect,

but they're not picked because of whatever reason, teams let them drop. So you grab them and see if there's anything there, there might be some hits. I think with baddie, it's probably the age factor that, ah, well how much upside is there really? But if upside is any role at all, then that's a good UDFA pickup.

So yes, I now have to learn about players like him and try to project them, but we'll see when we get to training camp, he will be another guy that I have my eye on. So anyway, thanks so much for the great questions. Again, Matthew Coller at Gmail or shoot me a DM at Matthew collar to jump on the show. Purple insider, dot football, the place to sign up for the newsletter,

read the Friday mailbag every week. I usually grab from there, some questions for the show. So it's a great place to be. And we will catch y'all very soon. Football.