Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Does DeAndre Hopkins want to be a Viking?

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Matthew Coller talks about TMZ catching up with DeAndre Hopkins at the airport. Hopkins said that he wants to help Kyler Murray in any way possible and hinted that he might be interested in playing for the Minnesota Vikings. Is that a good idea? Plus the Vikings have a new offensive tackle Ryan Van Demark and Chase Daniel says that the Vikings are done with JJ McCarthy after signing Carson Wentz to a $3 million contract. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here. A lot to get to on the show. We've got a DeAndre Hopkins update, a new tackle, Carson Wentz's money, and a crazy mock draft. And more. Let's get into it right now. All right, I would like to make two shoutouts to begin the show. First, to TMZ for talking to celebrities and athletes while they get off their airplanes.

and second to all the people who sent me TMZ's intrepid reporting with DeAndre Hopkins and catching him off of a flight and those who sent eyeball emojis, you get extra bonus points of being true Purple Insider fans who wanted me to see this and talk about it. So DeAndre Hopkins, yes, was getting off a plane and someone who works at TMZ interviewed him for about three minutes as they walked through whatever airport, DeAndre Hopkins was in, and he discussed with them where he stands on his future. And it sounded like from what DeAndre was saying is that he was interested in continuing to

play in the NFL. So eventually the person interviewing him gets around to asking, well, hey, what about Kyler Murray? What about Minnesota? Would you think about a reunion there? And the first thing I found that was interesting is that he said, Kyler Murray is like family, and he said that he's been in contact with Kyler a lot. And basically, if the Vikings need him, feel free to ring up the old cell phone.

Now, one thing that that comes to mind is with Kyler Murray, just like with lots of different players, some people have closer relationships than others. And DeAndre has made it very clear that him, as a former wide receiver won for the Cardinals, had a close relationship and a very good relationship with. Kyler Murray. And as we've tried to project, well, what is this going to look like with Justin Jefferson? DeAndre has been the closest test case that we could possibly get to what it would look like with Justin Jefferson because most recently he really didn't have a number one wide receiver that was proven. We can't say that about Marvin Harrison and Michael Wilson, I think,

is a good player, but I wouldn't put him in Jefferson's category. And Tray McBride is clearly a tight end. So we had to go back to DeAndre Hopkins in order to find someone who played with Murray that could project similarly. And Hopkins more or less said, yeah, if the Vikings want me, it's something that he would consider. I'm paraphrasing that, but that was the big takeaway from this. So here is the question then. Should the Vikings be hitting up DeAndre Hopkins? Now, last year, Hopkins played for the Baltimore Ravens and he caught 22 passes on 3,000. 38 targets. So he did not get a ton of work. He did appear in all of their games, but was not their number one wide receiver anymore. One thing that did stick out to me, though, statistically with Baltimore. Because remember, Lamar Jackson was in and out, didn't quite have the same year, was playing injured. There was Tyler Huntley as the quarterback for a little bit there. One thing that I noticed, though, is that D'Andre still has a certain skill that he's always been very, very good at. And that is contested catch. Last year, he had 17, according to PFF, contested catch opportunities and pulled in 11 of them and only had one drop last year.

And overall, got graded very well by PFF, caught a couple touchdowns, 81.3 grade, average 15 yards per reception. It's hard to deny that somebody who could come in and give the Vikings 25 or 30 receptions and make a handful of contested catches and be a red zone weapon. There's been plenty of situations throughout history where we see a veteran wide receiver go from an absolute superstar to much more of a role player late in their career and still have a good amount of success. The one that always seems to come to mind for me is Anquam Bolden who just kind of kept going. Larry Fitzgerald, these are guys with Arizona connections who were still very effective. And Hopkins kind of falls under that Larry Fitzgerald type of category is someone with absolutely free. Greekish hands and a ton of knowledge and intelligence to go along with it and a built-in chemistry with Kyler Murray.

The Vikings wide receiver three spot is wide open at the moment. And we wondered as different guys went off the board. I've done what? Two or three. Here's the remaining free agents or probably more than that. Podcasts looking at, oh, and I always include a hey, me, what about this receiver? What about that receiver? And so far, absolutely nothing from the.

cash-strapped Minnesota Vikings, which is maybe what this comes down to. How much money would D'Andre Hopkins play for? Or put differently, how little money would D'Andre Hopkins play for? How much does he want to really come back and move to Minnesota and be away from his family for another year, despite the long history of success that Hopkins has had over his career? And he does mention in this short interview that, you know, he is having a good time with his family and he is a guy that has always seen himself as being more than just a lifelong football player. So he doesn't have to commit to continuing to play. It seemed like

he would be at peace if this was the last year of his career was 2025. But how little money would be enough to get DeAndre Hopkins into the Vikings building? Because when we start to look around at other wide receiver three options. Now, if they're planning on drafting someone in the first two rounds, then this story is a little bit different. And that person would be immediately projected to be wide receiver three for the Vikings. And we'll talk a little more about Ty Felton eventually. But, you know, Ty Felton's in the mix as a draft pick from last year,

but is certainly not locked into that spot as someone who barely played last year behind Jalen Naylor. so a one-year duct tape type of solution with someone who could still catch the ball and knows Murray extremely well and could maybe even help Murray's transition into Minnesota, it checks a lot of boxes. When we look elsewhere at other veteran wide receivers who have signed for not huge amounts of money, not Mike Evans caliber type of money, the going rate for the Hollywood Brown or somebody like Christian Kirk is kind of six to ten.

million dollars, do the Vikings have six to ten million dollars? Because when we look at the salary cap situation right now, I mean, they have run it up to the very last dime in order to just get a punter and a backup tackle. That's how little money the Vikings are dealing with right now. So how will they make enough to even give DeAndre Hopkins a considerable offer? I don't think that you would have to come to him with $18 million a year, but you might have to come to him with seven and a half to 10 to get his interest to be a wide receiver three. And that is about the going rate, if not lower than the going rate for wide receiver threes in the NFL anyway, even if you took another player who got 20 something catches and average 15 yards a catch and

had some contested catches, they're probably pushing about $10 million. I mean, Jalen Naylor didn't even have 30 catches either of the last two years and got a big deal from the Las Vegas Raiders. So that has to be considered when we're talking about DeAndre Hopkins. But in terms of an actual fit, a possession wide receiver for a quarterback who likes to get the ball out of his hands quickly, it makes a lot of sense to me. There would be one other question is just if it's someone Murray is so familiar with, is it possible? And I don't think that this would be the case because Hopkins, even, even.

when he was tweeting the other day, said that he doesn't want the workload of a wide receiver one anymore and that he couldn't handle the workload of a wide receiver one. But would there be any feeling from Murray of trying to get the ball to his guy and maybe not building as much chemistry with Addison and Jefferson? I don't think that that would be a big concern. But it does come into your mind that the Vikings have three weapons already that want the football a lot. So would Hopkins be comfortable with the idea of, hey, you might catch one?

You might catch three. You might have one play where it's a three-yard touchdown, and that is your only target for the entire day. Overall, though, I think that it is a good idea for the Vikings to check in with Hopkins. If he wants to be here, he's been a solid role-playing wide receiver for a couple of seasons now, which is always another question. I mean, do you go from being a superstar wide receiver to somebody that can handle that type of reduction in role? and I think he's already proven that he can.

So there you have it. DeAndre Hopkins may be an option, but the Vikings need to do something to create some cap space first, whether that's extend Brian O'Neill, extend Blake Cashman, the Jonathan Grenard thing continues to linger in the back of everybody's mind. Something would have to happen, I think, in order for the Vikings to be able to afford DeAndre Hopkins.

And one of the reasons for that is they have a new tackle in the building by the name of Ryan Van Damark. The Vikings pick him up as an RFA. They gave him a one year $4.2 million contract. And Van DeMarke comes from the Buffalo Bills as a development project by the bills, undrafted free agent in 2022. And he has gotten better and better over the last couple of years. Last season, he played the most football that he has played in the NFL,

312 snaps, 74.4 PFF grade, 74.9 in the run blocking, and 65.6 on the pass blocking side. A little bit of that at left tackle. Most of that on the right side for Ryan Van DeMarck. And he is, let's see, 2022. So this would be the fifth year that he has been in the NFL. And specifically at the end of the season, he had a very, very good game against the New York Jets where he gave up. He started the game, didn't give up a single pressure. So the Vikings have landed their swing tackle. This was really important, as we saw from last year, where Justin's school was experienced. And at times, school played just fine. But there were other times where it was not anywhere close to just fine.

And the pressure was coming fast and furious from his side. Now, there was some extenuating circumstances there where Christian Derrissau, would play half of a game and then come out of the game with the knee injury still recovering. And we don't expect that to happen again. But should this issue with Christian Derasaw's knee persist, they needed to have a better backup option than a true backup type of tackle. They needed someone who could possibly start in multiple games and you feel relatively okay about that.

Now, Vandemarks past protection numbers are not pristine. They're not phenomenal as of this moment. I think one thing the Vikings are hoping for is that he is continuing to develop. But another thing is that he is younger. He's got size, wingspan. It's a big guy. I think he goes 6 foot 7, 300 and almost 10 pounds. And the size is something you can't replace.

But maybe looking for somebody that you feel a lot more comfortable with if Christian Derisaw was having problems. The other thing that came to mind for me is, well, one, if you really started to love where the guy's trajectory was taking him, I mean, maybe you could end up with a future right tackle. It depends on how much longer they're going to extend Brian O'Neill. Does he want a three-year extension to retire as a Viking? Does he want to become a free agent after this year?

We don't really know. I would assume that he wants to continue to be a Minnesota Viking, but this is somebody who has experience as a right tackle and has been growing year after year in Buffalo. And the other thing, too, about his run blocking ability that came to mind for me is the Vikings very clearly want to improve as a running team. And they may draft a running back. Could be in the second round. Could be in the third round.

But whoever that running back is is unlikely to be Adrian Peterson right away, which means that the Viking success on the ground is going to have to have to do a lot with how they block. Could Ryan Vandemark be somebody that they use as a sixth offensive line at times? We haven't seen a ton of that from Kevin O'Connell, but the Buffalo Bills did it pretty darn often. And maybe he's somebody that you can bring in along with Josh Oliver in certain circumstances. Let's say, let's just throw out one, just random in general. Oh, how about like second and one inside the 10 yard line or third and one or fourth and one anywhere on the field that you need to convert with a handoff, it would be nice to have another run blocker.

Now, I don't think based on his profile, based on what I've read and what some people have said, that he's going to be someone you'd want right now to start over a long period of time from an athletic perspective. It's very hard to be a left tackle in space. there's a reason why Christian Derisaw gets paid, what he gets paid. But at very least, the Vikings have solidified a swing tackle position with maybe a little bit more upside than you would normally get from a David Kwestenberry or somebody like Justin's school. So this is a younger player who has a chance to maybe be here over multiple years if it goes well. But for now, one year, $4.2 million, a relatively big investment to get Vandemark.

out of Buffalo. Speaking of investments, the compensation for Carson Wentz is out. And this comes from Tom Pelliserro. He said that Carson Wentz gets a one year $3 million deal and 2.6 of that million is guaranteed for Carson Wentz. Now, I will continue to go back to this time and time again as the quarterback situation comes up. I don't think that the current situation is all that confusing. I don't think it's all that dramatic. I don't think that Carson Wentz arriving here as QB2 or QB3. Maybe that's where the real battle is. Has a whole lot to do with J.J. McCarthy and his future to begin with because I think Carson Wentz wanted to be in Minnesota. I think he enjoyed his experience last year with Kevin O'Connell as the backup quarterback.

It's a team that he grew up rooting for. He, if you haven't heard, is generally from the area in the Midwest. And the Vikings, two different times, have gotten to their number three quarterback in a season. And those last two times, it did not go very well. So now if Carson Wentz or J.J. McCarthy is your quarterback three and you have multiple injuries, well, you're going to feel like you could still keep the train on the tracks. And considering all the pressure that is on, this team to get back to the playoffs, Kevin O'Connell to have another winning season.

Yeah, I mean, you'd want to have somebody like Carson Wentz around, not to mention that he's another top draft pick who's gone through it all. He knows the offense. It can help Kyler Murray with it and also can help guide J.J. McCarthy and push him as well in training camp. It's much better than just having Max Brosmer. No matter who you got, you wanted to have somebody with a lot of experience. And I don't know, maybe Nick Mullins wasn't available. so here you have Carson Wentz.

I don't see the controversy. I really don't. But that doesn't stop people from trying to see the controversy. I saw this pop up from Chase Daniel. And it did kind of make me chuckle a little bit. But maybe he's right. Maybe he's right. Chase Daniel tweeted,

The Vikings aren't giving Carson Wentz 3 million to be QB3. This will be really interesting to watch unfold through the draft. If JJ's available, there's one obvious fit. And he included a bunch of lightning bolts. So I assume that you mean probably the Los Angeles Chargers. And he was quote tweeting himself basically saying that Carson Wentz coming to Minnesota again means that the Vikings are done with J.J. McCarthy. And I clicked his little video. And that's pretty much what he's saying over and over is the Vikings are done with McCarthy.

It's over. Good night. Goodbye. Because they have Carson Wentz here now. And I just cannot personally get there. respect all journeyman quarterbacks like Chase Daniel and he does really, really good content. He's done some great stuff on Kyler Murray on his page. So no disrespect meant, but I just don't see it that way. They may trade J.J. McCarthy and they may trade for Anthony Richardson and a bunch of other stuff could possibly happen, I suppose.

But I just don't really see the connection. I mean, he's saying they're not going to pay him $3 million to be QB, Is $3 million a lot of dollars? Because I don't really think it is when the salary cap is 300 million. That sounds kind of about right for a veteran QB2 or QB3. And we're going to have to find out whether McCarthy can take the QB2 job. I don't think there is a competition for the QB1 spot. We're going to have to see how it all plays out.

But we are so far away from these things actually happening. And again, he could be right. The Vikings might trade J.J. McCarthy. I don't think that the bolts, again, assume he's referring to that that's the lightning bolt in his tweet there. The Chargers, I actually think Cleveland or Pittsburgh would make a heck of a lot more sense since neither one of those teams actually has a quarterback. And they might come with legitimate draft capital to try to get J.J. McCarthy to maybe take a swing at him being their quarterback. I mean, it happened with the Panthers trying to get darn old, trying to get Baker Mayfield. And if they had stuck with it, they probably would have ended up being right.

And instead, you know, they moved on pretty quickly. But we saw Miami do this with Josh Rosen. It's happened many times where teams acquire somebody else's quarterback and just roll the dice. Also, heck, the Arizona Cardinals would make a lot of sense for J.J. McCarthy. But I don't see where it really fits to trade him right. now or trade him at the draft unless you got an amazing offer that you just couldn't turn down. A, the Cardinals are offering a second and a third or something like that. Okay, well, that's a lot for a guy that you might feel like since you're already turning it over to Kyla Murray,

the odds are pretty strongly against. But here's one thing we know about Viking land is that Calamity can strike at pretty much any time. and the quarterback position is very unpredictable. So why would you make a move when Kyla Murray's on a one-year deal? And what if he comes to training camp and tears his ACL? I mean, it happened before, you know, knock on wood on that. But if he suffered a serious injury and then you're looking at Wentz and J.J. McCarthy is your quarterbacks again.

I would much rather have McCarthy start than Wentz. Wentz knows the offense better, but if McCarthy makes some progress from what he did at the end of last year, and then there's, there is the find out element at that point where you're just saying, what can we find is a silver lining, but he could also take a big step forward. If that were to happen, you certainly don't want only Carson Wentz there trying to save your tire chop, which is why I guess I would put right now, J.J. McCarthy is QB.2. Now, on a game day, on a game day, you might want Wentz at this very moment, before we've seen them in mini camp or OTAs or whatever. At this very moment, you might want Carson Wentz, just assuming that he is more experienced than can run the offense.

But over an entire season, clearly, if Murray got hurt in training camp or early in the year, you would want J.J. McCarthy to be your quarterback. So I think the goal here is to have a highly competitive quarterback room, meaning three, guys I could trust to actually play football and that they are not at this moment giving up or getting rid of J.J. McCarthy. However, it does, you know, make for a cool video. So there is that. I just don't see it. It feels like there's a lot of attempts to make this interesting.

And it's just really not that interesting. They brought Kyler Murray here to be their starting quarterback. And the backups are going to fight it out. And if J.J. McCarthy takes huge steps forward, this year in training camp, then he can make things interesting for the future. He's probably going to get in some games. It's, I don't know how likely it is that any quarterback starts 17, but, you know, Kyler with injury history has only done that, uh, what, twice in his career, played the

entire season. So there's a lot to still be determined. I think bailing on McCarthy now, if they were to, it would mean that they are really super duper out, but I just don't see that exactly. but Carson Wentz will make a very solid $2.6 million to be the Vikings backup quarterback. All right, let's get to a blazing hot mock draft by our friends at the Athletic and Alec Lewis. And just in terms of things that I'm a little perplexed by, but also maybe kind of fascinated, is the idea that the Vikings should try to get Jeremiah Love.

So this is in Alec Lewis's latest mock draft, and we'll talk to him on the show very soon. And he's got the Vikings in this mock trading up to the 11th pick to take Jeremiah Love. And they are giving up their pick number 18 along with a 2027 third and a 2027 5th to move from number 18 to number 11. Now, there's a few different parts of this that I would maybe a little bit shake my head at. I mean, number one is, does Jeremiah Love get to the 11th overall pick? Adam Schaefter the other day was saying that he doesn't think that the Tennessee Titans are going to draft Jeremiah Love. Here's what we know about the draft. Schaefter can be trusted, Rappapur, Pelliserra, all those insiders with their breaking news,

but no one tells anyone who they're going to draft. This is a purple insider thing, always in forever. put it on the t-shirt along with, you know, draft-wide receivers and we love fullbacks or whatever. Teams don't go up to NFL insiders and tell them who they're going to draft. I get the sense that Jeremiah love, though, it's maybe a 50-50 shot that he makes it out of that top 10 because teams do believe in positional value. They are well aware that running backs, if you eventually have to pay them down the road, are not the greatest investment on their second contract.

They are also aware for a team like the Dolphins that's totally rebuilding, but there's a lot of teams at the top who are that trying to build the whole thing around a running back doesn't exactly work, which is how the Vikings actually ended up trading for Herschel Walker, is that the Dallas Cowboys knew they needed a lot more draft capital. So is it possible that he gets to number 11, yes, but you know, you do look at teams like Tennessee, like the Giants, like Washington,

especially Washington, that it might make sense to draft a running back. But okay, I can see it. You never know. We always think that we know a lot more than we do, even with the consensus boards and, you know, things like that. There's always some guys who slip through the crack. So maybe he'll get to the number 11 pick.

The price tag that we're talking about for the Vikings to trade up to get Jeremiah Love is to 2027. draft picks. Now, would Miami have better offers is question number two, because I have to think that somebody else might go crazy if they started shopping that pick and you can move up and get Jeremiah Love. So would somebody else be willing to go up for me than farther? What about, I don't know, like does Seattle give up a first from the following season because they lost Kenneth Walker and think about that offense, that offensive line, and Sam Darnold, the Jackson Smith, the jigbo with Jeremiah love, right?

There's got to be other teams who are having the thought, hey, what if we got the best running back? So I think that offer is a little on the underwhelming side. And I just don't generally love the idea of trading 2027 draft capital because you see, this type of move going up to get a running back is capital that you don't have for next year if you have to move up and get a quarterback. I mean, there's certainly a scenario where the Vikings are not in love with any of the quarterbacks that they've had. Let's say Murray goes 9 and 8.

He's just okay. They don't love what they see from Kyler Murray and they don't love what they see from J.J. McCarthy behind the scenes. Well, then what are you doing sitting on your hands? Let's say you win, you know, nine games. I mean, are you drafting, you know, 18th again and you've got to try to trade up? but oh, no, you don't have extra draft capital that you needed. On the other hand, if they were to pull off something like this and you start looking around the offense, your backup running back is all of a sudden Jordan Mason, which feels pretty good,

and your weapons are probably among the best in the entire NFL. They have, I think, when healthy, a good offensive line, they've added a little more depth to that offensive line at tackle. We'll see what happens at center. if this was the price tag, if this was the player, fundamentally, probably not the best idea. But for 2026 entertainment, oh yeah, this is a great idea. And also, Kyler Murray, you know, how often has he ever had a great, great running back in the backfield? The answer is not that often, you know, David Johnson and that whole trade for DeAndre Hopkins once upon a time.

but I mean, he has not had good running backs. James Connor is solid, and I would put him under the same category as a Jordan Mason. It's pretty good, but nobody like this who could potentially be a top five running back. And we are getting to a world where you start to go through the top running backs. And most of them are first or second round draft picks. We haven't seen as many. There was a real run there of fourth, fifth, sixth round, undrafted running backs who were thriving.

but we haven't seen that as much lately. It's been a lot of the top draft pick guys. So I would be very conflicted on this, and I do not expect them to sell out the future. But if the price was only a third and a fifth to move up, okay, maybe you might be able to convince me that Jeremiah Love would be the right move over whatever defensive player you can get.

But they do need more capital, more young talent, not less. So I don't know if I'm totally on board. with this one. All right, let's get to a couple of fan questions. Let's start out with this one from Sean. And actually, let me stop real quick and say, fan duel question of the day. DeAndre Hopkins, we're talking about him, other acquisitions. We've been waiting and waiting and waiting. The mock draft we just discussed. So here's your fan duel question of the day. The Vikings over under is 8.5 wins on fan duel. Is there anything left this offseason? They've added a quarterback, but not much more. anything else that they could do in the draft or any other move that would bump that up by a single win to get them to nine and a half.

Is there anything that they could do? Give me one move that they could make, a trade, a draft pick, a signing that would bump up that number. That's your fan dual question of the day. Okay. Speaking of fan question, let's get to Sean's question. He wrote, I see two likely outcomes for 2026, both of which make trading Jonathan Grinner. now a good idea. First, we win 10 plus games and we need the salary cap space that would go to J.G.

to sign Kyler Murray. Second, we are a disaster. Kyler gets hurt. JJ plays and is ineffective. So paying 30 plus year old pass rusher $25 million is a poor allocation of resources when we could have had a young top 100 pick in the building. So he's not quite 30 yet. So we need to keep that in mind that he is still in his late prime.

we see lots of pass rushers go into their early 30s if they were to extend Jonathan Grenard or potentially just give him a salary adjustment because he is under contract through 27. That's something to keep in mind here when we talk about the Grenard trade possibilities. So at least from my read on over the cap.com, it looks like his guarantees have run out so he wants more guaranteed. He probably also noticed that Jalen Phillips got a huge contract and so did. Adafi Oway. Those guys are good players. Are they way better than Jonathan Grenard? No. So you could see him

looking for, hey, get me closer to those guys because that's what players at my position in that tier are getting paid, which is fair from Jonathan Grenard's perspective. You're always looking for guarantees and you're always looking for your performance to match what others in your field or in your caliber at your position are getting. So Jonathan is coming from a very fair position in wanting a contract adjustment from the Vikings, but also the Vikings are coming from a fair position of saying, we don't have a lot of money to give you right now.

And also, is it the best allocation when you have Dallas Turner who's kind of waiting in your position right behind you? And do we think into the future that you're going to be worth $30 million over, as you said, in an intriguing draft of edge rushers. I wouldn't say a mind-blowing draft of edge rushers, but there's a lot of guys who have a good case for maybe being rotational players

or potential starters. Would you rather just pick one of those guys, even at number 18, and go from there and use the extra cap space to bring in DeAndre Hopkins or whatever two or three other free agents? Totally get it. Where you're coming from, working on the timeline. The one thing about that is that they could still do this next year. year. Now, he's got more value when he's under contract through 2007, but since a team would

have to give him a new contract anyway, that's kind of negated. You also earn, you know, by cutting him if you want to next year, if you couldn't make a move to trade him away, then you earn your cap space by doing that if you needed to sign Kyler Murray. So they can wait on this and let it play out through next year and decide where they think they're at. Because if you play Jonathan in Granard on his current deal. And let's just say that he gets, gosh, 12 sacks, 75 pressures. He's an absolute monster. Well, then you're going to be wanting to resign him and thinking about going forward,

you know, in your scenario of they win 10 plus games, well, you're going to want to run it back. And you're going to want to spend a lot on the roster and try to get every ounce out of, you know, Kyler Murray and whatever contract that you want for him. And if it doesn't go well, you could still move on anyway. But, you know, I don't disagree totally with your point that Jonathan Grenard, being a really good player, carries value that the Vikings could use spread out to other things. So whether that's cap space to spend or just draft capital. I mean, I just was talking about when it comes to the mock draft about this team needs younger cost-controlled players because they just don't have very many of them. They're all Jonathan Grenards.

They're all paid very well to be here, which is fine if you can afford it. But at some point, you're getting close to not being able to afford it, which is right now. So if you were thinking about a now and later type thing, you can add to other positions where you feel like you're weaker and you can get more draft capital to build for the future. What I come back to, though, is let's not forget the most common sense and most obvious thing we can say about Jonathan Grinard and his situation. should. He's good. And you just brought in a quarterback who throughout his career has had times where he's good. And if you're going to set your expectation bar now at 10 plus wins, if Kyler Murray plays the way that he did in 2024, only with a much better team or the way that he did in 2021 with Justin Jefferson taking the role of DeAndre Hopkins. And I also think that the

the schedule is easier. I mean, you're playing the NFC South, you're getting more home games, you're in a pretty favorable situation to get to the top of the NFC North. What I'd like to do is see first. With the NFL bumping back the trade deadline, you can really get a good idea of where you stand

before you have to make decisions like this. So let's just say, if the Vikings go out right now and teams are saying, you know, how about like a third round pick? We're not really sold on the idea of giving you a second rounder for Jonathan Grenard. Well, for me, that's just not good enough. Okay, well, you know, just getting the cap space and a third round pick, not going to cut it for me. But let's say you have the trade deadline and things aren't going that great.

And you decide, well, you are three and whatever, three and four and teams are calling, but now they're desperate. We need a pass rusher. This year's our year. One more piece. Can you get a second then? That might be more possible that you could get a second then. It could be that you could get a second for Jonathan Grenard if you wait. So I'm in favor of waiting to see how this thing plays out and then deciding with Grenard then.

Rather than doing it now, getting halfway through the season and going, oh, Chas Chambliss is now playing outside linebacker. you know, I like Chas Chambliss, but I don't think he's quite on Jonathan Grenard's level at the moment. Okay, one more fan question here. This one comes from Axel says, Hi, Matthew, thanks for this space as always. When are we supposed to expect something from Ty Felton? Stepping up to wide receiver three is entirely out of the question.

And that's with a question mark. So let me try to say that the way that he means it. stepping up to wide receiver three is entirely out of the question. It's not entirely out of the question, Axel. I think that Ty Felton has the talent to be able to step up to a wide receiver three. I also think that it's relevant that the Vikings have at least four tight ends right now on their team. We'll count Ben Yorosik and Gavin Bartholomew, who unfortunately got hurt before he even got a chance to get into mini-camp and OTAs and training. camp and all that sort of stuff last year, but they did like their very early impression of him

and they certainly liked him coming out of college. They could use a lot more 12 and even 13 personnel with Justin Jefferson out there. I don't know if they're going to get a fullback so far they haven't. Maybe they'll have some development fullbacks in camp or something like that. But as far as a wide receiver three goes, I mean, we do set the bar fairly high because, well, Nailer was good and also K. J. Osborne was good. But when we consider the actual target share, if Addison is healthy and has no other

off-field issues, and Justin Jefferson is healthy, you know, you're only talking about 30 receptions from that position. And I think that Naylor did a great job with all the stuff, with the blocking, with clear-out routes, with knowing everybody's position if somebody got banged up in the middle of the game. And that, to me, is why you need to have another veteran-wide receiver who could hand handle the entire playbook and not just say to a very young Ty Felton, hey man, just like go be Justin Jefferson because he tweaked a hammy.

So now you have to pretend to be him. I think that would be a lot to ask. But I saw some good things for Ty Felton last year, both in training camp, but really on the special team side of it, which I know no one ever gets excited about. Oh, yeah, congratulations. You were on that kickoff thing. I was at the refrigerator. But it is not easy to be a special team's gunner.

And I think Felton, if somebody got hurt, was the next man up and would have gotten more opportunities. But he showed physicality, ability to defeat blocks, ability to defeat somebody pressing up on him. And they had one of the better punt units in terms of stopping teams returns in part because of Ty Felton. And also when you look at his college profile, he did not have a ton of experience. So he's still developing. But he was really good with the ball in his hands. And this is something that I'd like to see some Frank Smith influence to this offense of somebody who can really be a playmaker on underneath stuff. That even with Jalen Naylor, while I think he was maybe a little more competent when it came to ball in his hands than he was given credit for.

Felton, like that's his thing is playmaking with the football in his hands. So I would like to see him get at least an opportunity, but along with a veteran wide receiver. So maybe there's a rotation there. have to be one, two, three, four forever. It could be five guys. And you're working in the guys at the back of the rotation into different spots for different situations. I don't know if Felton can block at the same level that Naylor ended up being able to block.

And, you know, they used Trent Sherfield. So maybe they could bring him back in 2024. But I think the idea of people writing off Ty Felton would be very, very unfair to Ty, because he does have a lot of talent as a third round draft pick. But we have to remember he's the last pick of the third round. It's not like we're talking about somebody who we should expect, oh, he's going to walk through those doors and be the next top wide receiver. It's taken those guys time.

It's taken KJ Osborne time. It's taken Jalenaylor time. And this is another development project of Keenan McArdo. So pair him with a veteran wide receiver or, you know, potentially draft someone that could ultimately take over if Jordan Addison leaves or is not given the fifth of your option and see what happens from there. As many young receivers as you can stack up and develop, the better.

So that's how I feel about Ty Felton. All right. That's everything that's going on in Viking land. I appreciate you all checking in and watching another episode here. We've got, we'll see, about this week, what comes up. If there's some slow times and a lot of time for more questions and comments, live streams or if we have another Viking surprise and we get a Jonathan Grenard move or something else and then we'll have the owners meetings in Phoenix the week after that so I will be there

in Phoenix for that and hopefully the airport and travel situation is cleared up by then so thanks everybody for watching slash listening and we will talk to you all again very soon football