Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Do we like the Vikings preseason strategy? Plus, Baker Mayfield is starting vs. the Vikings Week 1

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison talk about the news that Baker Mayfield is going to start Week 1 and then discuss whether Kevin O'Connell is right to play boring preseason games rather than using them more to evaluate players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Jonathan Harrison for another episode of Hot Routes. Unfortunately, we're not live tonight because I am live somewhere else. And though I view myself as being extremely gifted, I can't be in two places at once, Jonathan. So thank you for recording this a little earlier. And we actually do have news to react to, Jonathan. So thank you for recording this a little earlier. And we actually do have news to react to Jonathan. We know who's going to be starting against the Minnesota Vikings week one for the Tampa Bay Bucks. It's Sean King. It's Trent Dilfer. It's Vinny Testaverde. It's, it's Josh McCown, right? Or the next version of Josh McCown, Baker Mayfield. So interesting news for the day. I'm shocked that you didn't get in the Ryan Fitzpatrick mentioned in there.

Of all the past journeymen, Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterbacks, you could have gone Brad Johnson, could have had Ryan Fitzpatrick, and you didn't name either of those guys. I'm very disappointed, but yeah, I'm excited that we know that at least. I mean, I don't know how much of an actual quarterback competition it was down there between Baker Bayfield and, and the rest of their quarterbacks, but I don't know. I I'm excited because that just means we are one step closer to the NFL regular season being here. And that means actual starters taking the field. Okay. It's Josh Freeman. It's Casey Weldon. It's Steve Young was a Tampa Bay Buccaneer. We can go on there. That's the immaculate grid answer. If you need one for Bucs and Vikings is absolutely Josh Freeman. But I do have questions about this among other things going on at Vikings

training camp. And number one is I want you to predict right now, and I want you to write this down somewhere so we can go back and look at it in a few weeks. Predict right now, Baker Mayfield's stat line against the Minnesota Vikings, new look defense with Brian Flores. Give me his whatever yards, touchdowns, picks, even PFF grade. If you want, give me the stat line. And then I want to know from you how many teams Baker Mayfield will play for by the end of his NFL career. Cause he's already on four. And so, I mean, he's on a great trajectory. He's still pretty young. He can play for just about anybody. So answer those questions for him.

I know he's a top draft pick, but if he plays for more than four, gets up to five, does that make him journeyman? I know journeymen usually have are lower in the drafts, but if you play for that many, you got to be on the journeyman list. And I mean, he's already set up setting himself up for a pretty great journeyman career. He just needs to have like more production, but yeah. Uh, stats for that game. I think because it's, it'll be the first week of the Vikings' new look defense, they're still going to have, I mean, we all know that they're going to have a lot of new faces, a lot of young and inexperienced faces. And the Buccaneers do have some threats in the attacking game.

So I think there'll still be some touchdowns from Baker Mayfield. I'm going to guess he'll get 250 yards passing, two touchdowns, PFF grade. I don't know what that would equal out to, but I think he'll still be relatively successful, but I still don't think the Buccaneers are going to win because I still have a strong feeling that the Vikings offense is going to be pretty dang good this year. They will pick up where they left off last year and be very successful with Justin Jefferson, KJ Osborne, and now Jordan Addison in the mix, if he can stay healthy. So I think Baker Mayfield will still have a day, but I don't think it'll be

enough to win the Buccaneers the game on, on that Sunday. You also left out his adjusted yards per attempt, his average depth of target, his QBR, his time to throw his pressure rate, the quarterback rate. There's a lot of stats for quarterbacks. Now I will go with a 20 for 33 day for 214 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, including a back breaking interception to end the game to Harrison Smith, that he tries to heave a ball deep and it goes awry and he ends up not leading a game-winning drive against the Vikings and Tampa Bay loses 24-17 that's that's how I'm

going to play the whole thing out and that his PFF grade will come out to a 68 and because that's what Baker Mayfield is I don't think that Baker Mayfield is ever going to be a quarterback that a team buys into ever again, but there have been a number of these types of quarterbacks who hang around just long enough and they bounce a little bit from team to team. And then they have another year where they kind of get an upswing. This is not a talentless football player. And it's not somebody that the Vikings should think, Oh, we're going to be all set. I don't know that he's very good at dealing with the pressure because he's a guy that can't really freelance. He can't really go off his spot, but he does have a good arm if you let him sit there and throw, and they do have good wide receivers. So I think

he'll put up some yards, he'll make some plays, but it'll be a mistake at the end because of Flores is blitzing and the pressure they can create, throw them off a little bit. It's a new team, a new offense. Maybe the adjustments won't be there, but I predict for Baker Mayfield that at some point in his career, he's going to land with a team that surprises all of us. And he will have like a 12 win season and everyone will go Baker Mayfield. What? Because I because i mean look it happened for geno smith it happened for carrie collins carrie collins was immature and flamed out of carolina and then popped back up with the new york giants and had that one year and there was a 41 donut situation and yep it had to be it had to be brought up at the end of his career. I'm going to say that Baker Mayfield plays for

eight teams, that he will still make this journey around the NFL, that every year there will be a team with a young quarterback that they want to pair with him. He will be the new Ryan Fitzpatrick for somebody. And you know, Ryan Fitzpatrick, he got close to having those years. He had one year with the Texans where he's pretty good. I think one year with the Titans where he was decent, but never quite got over that hump. But I think that that is what is coming for Baker Mayfield. Yeah. I think eight teams is a good number because as we already mentioned, he's already on four, he's 28 years old already. So he'll, he still has probably a good six, seven, maybe if he can push that out, especially as a backup quarterback. If he can get that, if he can keep his career going that long, he's probably got another four

teams in him. I think that's a good number. And just looking at the last time Baker Mayfield played at US Bank Stadium, it was one of the worst games that I've ever seen played at that stadium. 15 for 33, 155 yards, zero touchdowns, zero interceptions. And that's not even to speak of what the Vikings couldn't do on offense that day either. It was just a very bad game. And unfortunately for me, it's the only time I've ever been on the field for an NFL football game. And it was that one. And it was just miserable.

So he could, as his career has shown, he is very boomer bust and can have these moments. And yeah, I definitely agree that there will be a moment in his career. Cause it always seems that way for these journeyman guys that they have this one shot at glory and Baker Mayfield, he's had that. He went in 11, he went in 11 and five, one season already. Has he done that? Or has he used up his one shot at glory already? I don't know. I think he still has more in him. And if he matures a little bit, can get folk, stay focused and not let kind of that outside noise affect him like it has in the past as previous stops. I think there will be some success in his future. So that game that you were on the sideline for you were working,

you were helping out Cleveland radio and you came as close as Odell Beckham did that day to catching a pass i actually think that was the game where back it kind of broke beckham yeah just like i was because he was wide open about three times for huge touchdowns and they just didn't happen but you actually almost nabbed one i almost nabbed a kirk cousins bounce pass that i don't remember who he was thrown to but it came firing towards our way and i had had, I think one of the, one of the battery packs for their sideline for the sideline analysts, I had it in my hands. I couldn't catch it. That's my excuse for not being able to catch the bounce pass. We don't have excuses on this show. I forgot

it was Kirk and not Baker Mayfield, but that's the closest you'll come. And I don't blame anybody for running away from that football. I mean, it comes in hot. You think like, Oh, if it comes at me at me i'll catch it but then you're on the sideline of training camp it's coming right for you like i was shooting a video of naji thompson playing one-on-one with the titans guy and at the end of the video you'll see the camera just goes and that's because it was kind of coming right for me and i was like i'm not i'm not getting run over or have this ball bounce off somebody's fingers and hit me in the face no way that's the one thing they told me the cleveland radio crew when i when i popped in that morning that's the one thing they told me about sidelines like always have your head on a swivel because these guys move

faster than you think it looks faster than it is on tv and yeah as freakishly big as those guys are they move so fast it was like that was the thing that i was nervous about the entire day was just am i gonna get trucked into and just be like a sideline meme and just i don't want that so i was just like constantly just like all right where's the ball where's the players i don't need anybody running into me yeah i i'm always amazed at the sheer number of people let me tell you one funny sideline story they're just people everywhere on the sidelines. I'd love to do an article someday about who all these people are. So

the Vikings played the Rams in the Coliseum a couple years ago before the new stadium was built. And when we went there, it was under construction. So not only are they playing in a different stadium than their home because it wasn't there yet, but it's also being torn down and press box rebuilt and all sorts of things.

So we're kind of in this weird trailer that is so close to the field. It's like a high school game. We are that close to the field. So one, it's cool because that was an amazing game and you could see really close all the things that are happening. But Robert Woods caught a pass and he went out of bounds just regular flips the ball to the referee it's a i don't know 10 yard completion somebody in the sideline i have no idea who it is smacked him on the butt so hard i could hear it in the press box and i was like who who and why why would you do that? Like the guy's going back to the huddle with his rear stinging.

Why would you do that? And the other one that I'm reminded of is when the person who worked for the Vikings pushed the Ravens player and got a penalty. I mean, that was too good. I've never seen that. I've never, ever seen that before. So anyway, this has gone down a rabbit hole and needs to be brought back to life with my next question which is after watching how bad these preseason games are and trust me if we didn't have ice cream the other night i just might have completely fallen asleep

i mean it was really brutal uh and by the way terry mclaurin got hurt for washington last night so everybody's all hyped up about Sam Howell and that's great, but they also got a starter hurt. Not great. I want you to give me a one to 10 on how into Kevin O'Connell's strategy of not playing anyone in the preseason you are. One is you think it's dumb and Kevin O'Connell has no idea what he's doing. And 10 is that you think it's exactly right. Home run. you didn't care about watching the preseason game you didn't care about my feelings spending three hours watching it and then when the titans called the timeout at the end i wanted to throw myself out of the press box i mean it was like

you've got to be kidding what are you doing what are you doing a timeout why uh i'm sure no one was watching at that point so this is breaking news to everyone that there was a timeout why uh i'm sure no one was watching at that point so this is breaking news to everyone that there was a timeout at the end of the game so one to ten okay i i guess i won't go 10 because i do care about the feelings of people who had to go and who are employed to go and watch the game so i'll go nine i i do appreciate kevin o'connell thinking about the starters uh health and safety for the regular season, because these preseason games, they don't matter. Like I, no one really cares about what happens. You want it. Sure. You want to see some of the young talent develop and you get, it's your first

chance at seeing some of these guys like Jordan Addison and seeing Ivan pace and all the, all the buzz that we've heard about him throughout training camp, getting to see him on the field, do it against other professionals. It's great. It's fun. But I would rather see these guys stay healthy for the regular season because we've seen so many times in the past, big stars get injured in preseason games and it tanks entire seasons. I'm happy that all these starters for the Vikings are not playing. I don't want any of them injured because if the Vikings

are going to compete this year, we've seen that their depth is very minimal. They need every single starter to stay as healthy as long as they can. So don't play them in the preseason game, keep them healthy and get the depth, some minutes that they get some minutes and snaps that they don't usually get during the regular season. Let them have as many as they can get in the preseason to get them into game shape and get them feeling what an NFL game is like. So yeah. And on top of it, I just like, I know it's a side point, but I like the idea of giving other coaches the opportunity to call plays because we saw Kevin O'Connell, he came in here and hadn't really called plays in his past. And we saw some of the struggles early on in his tenure last year,

trying to do it. So getting those guys, some of those guys like, uh, Wes Phillips saw some of the struggles early on in his tenure last year trying to do it. So getting some of those guys like Wes Phillips and some of these other coaches chances to call plays, I think that's good. I like what Tennessee did, giving another coach the opportunity to just be head coach for the day and have him basically run the operation while Mike Vrabel just kind of sat aside and let everybody else run the operation. I like that idea and coaches giving other coaches chances to prove what they can do on the football field. So I will go with an eight because I have advocated for it for a long time as

the smartest way to go about it. And when Irv Smith got hurt and has never really been the same since that was to me kind of a peak moment of you played with fire and you got burned for a few years. You played with fire. There was another year where they got Mackenzie Alexander hurt and he was a key starter at the nickel position. I think it was 2018 and he got banged up and couldn't play in the first game of the season. Like, why? Why?

What was this for? What did you get out of that? What did that guy get out of it? And coaches line up to tell you. It's really funny. They line up to tell you that they are not trying and that they are running base stuff and that they're not scheming game planning or whatever.

And then I hear, you know, John Harbaugh ranting at the media about you guys don't care, but I care about these guys in this room. It's like, which is it guys? Which is it? Because if you cared that much about it, then I think you'd be game planning and you'd be playing your starters the whole game and what, right. Or at least the huge part of it. So Kevin O'Connell being honest with everybody and essentially saying,

look, this is for back-of-the-roster guys only, and I also don't think they use it a whole lot in their evaluations for who's going to make the team. I don't think that if you make a couple plays in a preseason game for the Vikings now that you can make the team. I do know that was the case for the Vikings. Now that you can make the team. I do know that was the case for the Vikings of the Mike Zimmer era. It's two different approaches. I prefer this one, but the reason I have to give it an eight is not because of my selfishness. It's not actually

torture to go to the game and, you know, sit and watch it and write a little story about it. That's fine. What I do think about is, I don't know if you have this, if you're this type of person, but when I go into a room, I kind of have a sense for what everybody's feeling at the time, right? You know, just like that way, sort of a x-ray vision. And I look around that stadium and think all these people who showed up to see the Minnesota Vikings who are not seeing at all any version whatsoever of the Minnesota Vikings. What you're seeing is hopefully you showed up in time for the warm ups and what you're seeing is a great stadium. And I've never had the food at the stadium because I'm always in the press box, but hopefully it's good. And but that's all you're getting.

And you could say, look, tickets are like eight bucks and you can go there. And for people who are, you know, they have little kids, they might not care. But if it's like, where's Justin Jefferson? Oh, he ain't here. I mean, he's over there on the sideline. He's technically here, standing here. But if you were hoping to see any version you got your money's worth before under Zimmer and so even though I don't care about that

in the long term for the football team and their success and you can't do it there's also another part of it though in sports where everyone is so terrified of getting players hurt that we don't play players enough. And you see this in basketball. They're just so afraid of them getting worn down. I think we've seen this in O'Connell's training camps where it's, well, we got a precautionary, precautionary, precautionary. Well, the guy missed all of camp. That can't be good.

I mean, I was thinking this for Jalen Naylor yesterday. He missed all of training camp for precautionary reasons. And I don't doubt the abilities of their sports science people. I think it's a huge, huge sea change in a positive way. bit too far to the point where sometimes you got to like find a way to get back out there and actually practice or you're never going to get better at football and sometimes you have to get some of these guys in preseason games that you don't want to so they can get better at football but it's like if they don't care then i don't care and nobody key got hurt so i have to still say that it's an eight but i do look around that stadium and see people making paper airplanes in the stands and think like i'm sorry i'm sorry we tried to tell you they weren't going to play anyone but there's nothing we can do yeah i mean that's that's about the only part of this that i feel bad about of them not playing their starters is all these people who have the

one opportunity a year to go to an n game because it's a cheaper NFL game, that they don't get to see actual stars play. It's a lot of the depth guys, a lot of the guys trying to make the roster as best as they can. And so that part I do feel bad about. But overall, in the grand scheme of how the Vikings do every season and trying to get them into the playoffs and hopefully win a Super Bowl eventually,

preseason doesn't matter. There was all the buzz yesterday of how many preseason games in a row the Ravens have won. And it's like, okay, but has that helped them that much in the regular season and get to where they want eventually to go? I don't think so. I don't think it actually matters. So, yeah, it's disappointing for those fans who attend the one game a year and it's a preseason game because the NFL lowers the prices for those.

But other than that, it really is very meaningless and I don't want to see guys injured because they're not even using their actual offenses and defense. They're using very base packages of those and just trying not to give too much away. And we've seen how cautious this regime is about giving things away. Hence why media can't take videos and photos at, at training camp. And they encourage fans not to do the same thing, even though they're going to anyways. So yeah, it's just preseason games. If you're not going to play players and you're not

going to, if you're not going to play actual offense and defense, it really does not concern me at all. Folks, there is no crazier time in my schedule than the fall season. And let me tell you, it is tough to find myself a good and healthy meal, but that is why I have Factor, America's number one ready to eat meal kit that can help me fuel up with chef-prepared, dietician-approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to my door. Give it a try. It'll save you time, you'll eat well, and you'll stay on track with a healthy lifestyle. Trust me, this is an issue with the number of drive-thrus I have to go through with my schedule. If you're too busy like me, with F factor, you can skip the extra drive through or even just

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The number of different ways that you can customize this just to you. If you're looking to be calorie conscious, they've got that too. Try delicious calorie smart meals with around or less than 550 calories per serving. Head to factormeals.com slash purple 50 and use the code Purple50 to get 50% off. That's code Purple50 at factormeals.com slash Purple50 to get 50% off. Future advice for NFL teams that do not want to play their starters would be to hold a practice beforehand that's open to anybody with a ticket. So you could come in, watch the practice, watch a quarter or two and then go if you wanted to. Maybe those players in the fourth quarter will feel sad,

but what are you going to do? I, I, I mean, you could stay for the whole day if you want to, but if they scheduled it, so they said, look, our starters are going to hold a practice in the stadium at when the game kicked off at seven, they're going to hold that practice starting at three. And so if you show up or whatever, starting at four, you show up at four, you watch the hour long plus practice. Then everybody goes in, they do their warmups and they play.

I think that that might be a good idea or to hold joint practices in the stadium, as opposed to at TCO Performance Center which I know is way easier said than done but you'd like to see that to get more people out to see them because it's the 2,000 fans who get out to a joint practice and that's about it so anyway well we won't have any more pre-season discussion after this and we can all move on but it has been a drag uh espn's bill barnwell wrote an article predicting teams that he thought would bounce back this year from a miserable season last year and the denver broncos he had a vikings opponent as a team that is going to

bounce back and make the postseason after just awfulness last year maybe there's a little bit of nate hackett is Urban Meyer vibe and they're going to bounce back even in a tough division. But who do you think will be the team that bounces back? Do you think it will be Denver and goes from missing the postseason to being in the playoffs? I think of the options that he has in his article, I think they are the best because you look at the other teams he lists.

The Rams, they've got a really tough division in front of them. I don't think the Seattle Seahawks are going to regress that much. And the 49ers are still going to be really good because they have one of the most loaded rosters in the NFL. So the Rams have a tough uphill or they have a really tough hill to climb to get into the playoffs from their division. The Bears, I just don't see it. I'm sorry. I just don't. As weak as the NFC North is, there seems to be with Aaron Rodgers now gone and who knows what the Vikings are going to be because of all the change on defense and we never really know what the lines are going to be. I just don't see the Bears putting everything together this season. Justin Fields took a nice step. I don't think he takes a big enough step.

And I don't think they put enough pieces around him on that roster to get into the playoffs. So it might happen because we've seen crazier things. And I really just don't really want to talk about the Browns for obvious reasons. So they might do it, but they've also got the Bengals in their division, then the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Ravens. So they've also got a really tough hill. If it's going to be any of them, it's going to be the Broncos that do it because who knows what the Chargers are.

You know the Raiders aren't going to be good because Josh McDaniels is kind of a joke of a head coach, and that situation there is really bad in Las Vegas, it seems. The Chargers, Justin Herbert, it feels like this should be the year that he takes that giant step forward finally and really leads them but the Broncos have a incredibly tough division because the Chiefs are there and they're going to be there for the next 10-15 years as long as Patrick Mahomes is there so it's a really tough list that he put together to find teams that do it

of the teams that didn't make the playoffs the Jets are the easiest to say hey you're going to make that jump but also they've got the Bills and the Dolphins in their division too. So it really feels like this year of all years, the only division that could see a lot of change is going to be the NFC South and maybe the NFC North a little bit. Because of Tom Brady leaving the South, that leaves that whole division wide open. We saw that last year as wide open with all teams having losing records. So if anybody is going to do it, it's going to be one of those teams from the NFC South that really didn't have the greatest of seasons, but almost made the playoffs anyways. Yeah, and that's the hard thing is that when you try to answer this question,

you have to identify who's going to fall. And that is also not the easiest to do. New Orleans is definitely a team that you would pick here. He didn't write about them, but New Orleans is probably the favorite for this. And the Detroit Lions. I mean, I think everyone right now is putting the Detroit Lions into the playoffs. And I think both of those teams will be in the playoffs, that New Orleans and Detroit. And then we'll find out how strong they really are, because these are two teams that have had all sorts of offseason hype. But I don't know that any of those teams, and there's

always major injuries that destroy team season, so hard to say with that. But I don't know if any of the teams that you were talking about from his article are actually going to do it. I still don't think the Bears have enough even around Justin Fields. They could potentially have, I don't know, the 12th to 14th best offense. If Justin Fields takes that step forward, but on their defensive side, it's just bad. Like they don't have anybody to pressure the quarterback. I don't think they're going to stop the run at all.

And it's just going to be a problem for them. They, I don't think they can cover like they've just, they're just not good on defense. And so teams like the Vikings and the lions who have good offenses, they're going to shred them. I don't think they can cover. They're just not good on defense. And so teams like the Vikings and the Lions, who have good offenses, are going to shred them. The other answer potentially would be Green Bay if you buy any of the Jordan Love preseason hype. And the thing is, it's always hard because if I was in Green Bay, I'd be doing the same thing as everybody else is doing, and I'd be writing about Jordan Love in the the preseason oh okay sorry i thought a sneeze was coming you can see me twitching i thought it was

coming okay it's not but i would be i would be doing the same thing that they are and be talking about oh here's what he did in the preseason everybody's excited i don't think there's any correlation whatsoever in fact if there was there's less than there ever was because you're a starter and you're playing against all backups. I mean, I don't know that it means Jordan Love is going to do anything. I think that those reps probably help him as a quarterback, but I don't think that they are predictive based on stat lines because one year I looked up a bunch of preseason stat lines and it was hilarious.

Like people who finished as the worst quarterbacks in the league were dominating in preseason. So I don't think that means anything, but they do have the defensive talent. They do have a good running game. They do have a couple of receivers they've been developing and one who might be a star in Christian Watson. OK, I could see them making the playoffs and sneaking in with a, you know, a nine and eight or 10 and seven record. So there are some teams that have a chance, but I agree with you that division in the AFC is just going to be a huge factor and Cleveland put this one on record. I just think Kevin Stefanski is done as a head coach after this year,

not his fault, but I don't think it's coming back for Deshaun Watson. I just don't think so. I think you sit out that long, and it's very hard to just sort of flip the switch and become who you were before. That's kind of been the indication in camp, and we'll see if that changes at some point here. But I'm not buying what Cleveland is selling, except for I do think that their defensive line is going to be fantastic. But that's about it. Mr. Mankcato is decided jonathan it's all set that was the quickest ever

been locked up i think right you're right before even the third preseason game has to be so that's all set no thing to discuss here ivan pace jr is mr mancato i want you to give me the player that we hyped up as either a potential Mr. Mankato or take the next step guy who so far has been the most disappointing to you in this camp. In this camp. Okay. I think for, there was a lot of, it felt like there was a lot of buildup that Dwayne McBride could impress because of what his college tape looked like. And the fact that nobody seemed to be able to tackle him. And then you heard early on those fumble issues and quickly that got wrapped up. It felt like, but then it just, he really struggled to break through in that running back room where Kenny

Wong got injured and hasn't really shown up at camp. And there was a chance that Dwayne McBride could take a step forward in that room now that there was some snaps there to be had for him now that Kenny Wong was gone. And the running back depth has really disappointed me, I think, in camp just because it feels like that was going to be a really fun competition to watch. And it's just fizzled out, and they've brought in Mike Davis now. They've continued to look at a couple different running backs, competition to watch and it's just as fizzled out and they brought in Mike Davis. Now they've continued to look at, look at a couple of different running backs, trying to bring

someone in and find someone that can be a backup, a reliable backup running back. And that concerns me that they're continuing to look for those while they have some, some, what seems like talent. And they spent as many draft picks on that room as they have over the past couple of drafts. So I think for me, Dwayne McBride and the running back that running back depth has really disappointed me. Guess what I'm doing for all my road trips. I'm figuring out what other sports games I can go to. And you know, who's giving me a huge hand with this is game time, buying tickets to your favorite events should not be stressful. And game time is the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all sports, music,

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And images are shown of your seats. You get the lowest price guarantee and event cancellation protection download the game time app create an account and use the code insider for twenty dollars off your first purchase terms apply again create an account redeem code insider for twenty dollars off download game time today last Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good pick because Dwayne McBride, I believe I had him as the favorite for Mr. Mankato. It just seemed right there.

Like if this guy comes in, shreds a bunch of tackles from a bunch of people who will be, you know, we're working regular jobs soon that everyone will fall in love with them. The same way last year, everybody got excited over Ty Chandler. And we tried to say, but it's preseason, so you can't ever say this. But it was like, there's only 15 preseason carries. So maybe don't lose your mind. But, you know, whatever. You're grasping onto anything like what we were talking about earlier. But there just has

not been any sign of life from that group and the offensive line was miserable the other night at run blocking but ty chandler averaging two yards a carry like you're not getting excited about that and with mcbride he's just in over his head is the way that it seems and that's how it usually goes with players who are drafted in the seventh round. Now if they cut him, put him on the practice squad, we'll see in a year or two and see how it works out, see how he develops, and maybe there's something there. We do see players develop when they have to go a long way from UAB to the NFL.

But I think that what Kevin O'Connell asks from running backs is just a lot. He asks a lot of complex stuff when it comes to the pass blocking and specific assignments. And the technical elements of the NFL go down to the very detail, not just give you the ball and see where you run. It's you got to hit this gap with this timing, with this step. Everything is down. It's a very intricate dance out there. It's down to the steps to make it work. And if you can't get the steps right, and you can't get the blocking right, then you're not on the team basically. And that's kind of how it looks like it's going to go. The other thing too, is Dwayne McBride in college looks like Jim

Brown. He's like this big giant guy running over people. He is an average sized running back in the NFL. It's just, I mean, you gotta be Jerome Bettis or Ironhead Hayward to be plowing over people, Mike Allstott size, but he's not that. So yeah, that has been a bit of a disappointment. I would also say too, that, you you know, I'm not really surprised that where Lewis seen has not gone in training camp coming off of his injury. And that's another one where, yeah, you kind of have to keep waiting at the same time. You're two years through a rookie contract now if he doesn't emerge in the season. And that's two years kind of wasted with a rookie deal there that you could have been taking advantage of if he had hit. But so that, you know, when you get into a third or fourth year of development for a player, it's like, yeah, they finally showed up eventually, but you still lost all that other time that was taken to develop them. And that's kind of the league and how it works.

But even more so than Louis seen, who I guess we're not shocked by the the curve for him coming off that injury is Andrew Booth Jr. being behind Jawan Williams so it's not even just that Makai Blackman stepped up to the plate a little bit faster than Andrew Booth Jr. it's that a guy who was signed to a one-year one million dollar deal that wasn't even playing last year because he was out the whole year with an injury and his only never played 300 snaps in a season is ahead of him on the depth chart so that whole thing of oh you know we'll see if he takes the next step we'll see if he's competing in camp and well i guess we thought there was going to be this build up this narrative like oh here we go and the other thing is too that i mean i think tristan jackson has been the guy uh that has like wowed as wide receivers but nobody else has really been

that that chad bb or something where you didn't hear him of him at all like tristan jackson's been around he's been on the practice squad he He's been developing for a couple of years. Now, maybe this is his chance. But sometimes I thought Thayer Thomas might be this person. He's just, oh, wow, this guy never heard of him. And then all of a sudden he's making the team. There hasn't been much of that to show up. And certainly nothing for the backup quarterback realm. We tried to make backup quarterback a thing at the very beginning. And it was just never, never, never a thing.

And then they signed Jordan Tu Amu, whatever that means. So it has been interesting, but there hasn't been any competition for Ivan Pace. He's really the guy who emerged and nobody else. Yeah. And I think I don't, we've talked about it a couple of times of what that says about this team, that a guy who is a UDFA can just a UDFA rookie can come in and take a starting role so that's exciting for many reasons because you feel like you got really the steel of the draft

even though he wasn't drafted because it felt like like you said in another video that we did that there was kickers punters long snappers that were drafted ahead of him for some reason and there's this guy who was who's in college tape was so impressive and his numbers were outstanding. And it's like, okay, this guy should be a draft pick. And because seemingly because of his size alone, he wasn't. And the Vikings just went out, shelled out a bunch of money for a UDFA and they got him. And it seems like they've got a starting linebacker on their hands and they

didn't have to use a draft pick on him. So that's exciting, but it also just says, I think it says a lot about where the draft has gone over the past two years for this team. As we wind down the training camp version and the preseason version of the Minnesota Vikings, and then start to transition into the Vikings versus Bucks version. I need your opinion on this. I think I asked Dane the other night,

I've brought this up on the show, but I haven't heard this from you. Did anything in this training camp move your needle toward predicting the final record? So was there something that pushed you in one way or another? I mean, if the answer is nothing, that's not great, but maybe if there's something, cause then the show just ends. But if, is there something that moved you one way or the other from what we've seen? I mean, it's always hard to tell with how Kevin O'Connell runs the preseason games because they don't play the starters as we talked about at the start of the show. But if there's anything that really stuck out to me, it's the depth issues on this team. There's, it just feels like beyond the

starters, there's not a whole lot you can rely on to produce for you over a number of snaps. And we know that you're going to have to do that throughout an NFL season. This game's too physical, players will get injured. And if anybody gets injured from those starters, you're going to be kind of holding on for dear life because you can't, it feels like you can't expect a whole lot from the depth pieces on this team. So if anybody gets injured, they have to have 2017 injury luck where basically the only guy who got injured that year was Dalvin cook. Everybody else stayed remarkably healthy. You're going to have to have that if this team is going to succeed.

But if any one of those, if any one of the starters goes down for significant amount of time, you're going to have to find ways to kind of get other production from elsewhere because the depth pieces on this team just aren't there it feels like and that concerns me a little bit so I think from seeing that over the past couple weeks over the past month the lack of depth I think I might pull the win total a little bit back because you always have to prepare for injuries you don't want to but you have to so if if the vikings if there's a starter gets injured i think you're you're looking at a couple less wins so i i try to see the forest through the trees here and then the

forest is that they're going to uh save for anything else happening the rest of the way very likely go into the season healthy with their entire offense. That's a big deal. Justin Jefferson has been a monster. We'll see what happens with TJ Hawkinson, but he insisted four different times that he's playing in September. So there you go. But their tackles, Brian O'Neal is now taking more and more reps.

He's going to be good to go. Madison, the running back, good to go. So their whole offense is healthy. Their whole defense is mostly healthy aside from Makai Blackman being banged up. And it's not allegedly super serious, though we don't have a real timeline on it. Maybe we'll find out when we talk to Kevin O'Connell. But the bones of this thing that are going to determine where it goes are healthy. And that would not change my mind. I've liked what I've seen a lot from Byron Murphy. I've liked what I've seen from Marcus Davenport.

I think that they're trying some different things with him. He said the other day in an interview that he had moved inside to pass rush before, but I looked it up and it was like six snaps in a season. So the fact that they're moving him around, doing some different things, he's a great athlete. Like that looks like it's played out pretty well so far. And with Brian Flores, he's been, I think, better than expected for me and how he's used the players to their skills and also just how irritated the offense seems with him all

the time, which I think does speak well to their season. I knew already they weren't going to have as much depth. There has been disappointing results from some players that you thought could make for good depth, like how all of a sudden Josh Metellus just showed up last year and emerged as a good depth player. Anthony Harris, once upon a time. We haven't seen that guy this year, and that has been disappointing. But there's nothing on the starting roster that

has made me say, and this is where, again, we can't really criticize Kevin O'Connell's handling of injuries because the starters are healthy across the board. That's where we have to say, if we worry too much about the depth, there isn't too many teams in the league. There's probably a handful of Super Bowl contenders who have players who can come off the bench and be good. You probably need that to really be a Super Bowl contender, but this doesn't change my mind on a whole heck of a lot. So I think that they still should be in the playoffs. Did you have them in the playoffs when we started the off season? Yeah, I did. I think I had them what probably nine, 10 wins. And I think that's enough to get in the wild card in the NFC because we've seen it's just beyond the, the maybe two or three teams at the top.

It's very, it's a very weak conference. So yeah, I think I had them around nine, 10 wins and I think that's enough to get them in the playoffs this year. And because Jordan love was so good in the preseason there at 14 wins this year, I bumped it up from nine for the Packers. As one does. Alright, Jonathan, thanks for your time. Thanks everybody for watching slash listening as always. It is tomorrow off to Las Vegas for me. I'll be doing a couple

of shows there out from their Millions Contest. That is going to be very exciting. I'm interested. I haven't been to Circa before and so if you have a chance to go out there at some point, especially we're going to be out there. You're coming with actually for the game, right? I think so. I think so. Still locking down babysitting, but we're trying.

Okay. In December, at least as of right now. So look into Circa as a place to stay when you go out to Vegas. It'll probably actually be cheaper than the hotels right next to it. Cause it's a little bit farther away. So anyway, I'm frame on street. We'll, we'll see.

We'll see y'all there. Thanks for watching, listening, however you did it.