Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Drafting Vikings players in a best ball fantasy draft

Episode Date: July 6, 2024

Matthew Coller is doing a live best ball fantasy draft while answering questions from Vikings fans. Where should he pick Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison? Who should quarterback the team? Matthew has never done fantasy football before so here we go Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, putting a bow on Fantasy Football Week as I will attempt to live here on YouTube, do a best ball draft, maybe two, maybe three. I don't really know how these work, how long they take. I am just getting started in this because come august underdog fantasy is going to be a sponsor of this here show so i'm going to incorporate more fantasy football content and try my own hand at playing fantasy football but what i really like about the idea of best ball fantasy football. And I know that some of you who are experts on this are like,

is this guy serious? This has been going on for years, but this is like me. If you ever see a YouTube video or something on social media, child tries chocolate for the first time. That's kind of me with the fantasy football world, because I have been out on it for such a long time, which is not because I don't enjoy it, but more just how the schedule works. We didn't have a fantasy sponsor last year.

We had one where we kind of picked players for the week and then looked back at it. But in this case, I get to have a little more fun with it. So I'm giving it a try here with a best ball tournament for the first time or a best ball draft. And I'm going to try to pick Vikings players. We're going to see where they go. We're going to see how a draft works out. I've got to jump into one. So I'm going to share my screen here. Let's see. There we go. Share my screen. And hopefully the audio version of this is enjoyable to listen to as well as you hear me panic trying to figure out how to draft players win to draft players so let me jump into one here a 12 person draft for three dollars that you can win 32 that sounds my speed that

definitely sounds my speed so hopefully you guys can get a look at this and we'll see when it begins looks like all the spots are pretty well filled and i can get going with this and what i want from you guys is to give me feedback in the comments heckle me for my terrible draft picks uh tell me what i should be doing otherwise. And also ask questions about the Vikings because between picks, I'm just going to be talking about how this is going. So it's something completely new. If we have fun with it, maybe I'll try it again. And we'll definitely talk a little more fantasy throughout the season.

But if there are Vikings things on your guys' minds, how many people are we waiting for? Five more people to fill up this humongous draft. So that means that I might end up having to look very deep into this draft. When you have 12 people, if you get something like five or six, you end up with some sort of, you know, like super team is every single team. But in this case, I'm going to have to use my knowledge of teams, practice squads or whatever. So I'll call that back up onto the screen when we're ready to go. Um, so are, are you jumping in? Uh, are you jumping into this draft? Um, dark side that if you're, if you're in this one, that would be great. Then we can go back and

forth about it. But yes, guide me. All of you are going to have to help guide me in this endeavor here because I haven't done it before. But the idea seems pretty simple and pretty directed at people like me that are beginners at fantasy because my understanding is I don't have to do anything that the best ball tournaments, you just draft your team. And then whoever performs the best on your team, it slides them up into being starters or whatever. And then you get, you know, okay, do we got everybody filled? Oh, we got everybody filled. Are we starting? Oh, we're starting. Okay. Hold on. Let me put this on the screen all right we're starting am i on the clock it doesn't look like it yet okay it looks like i have the third pick here who do i want to take at the top now what my strategy and you can

tell me uh okay go receiver first you can tell me if it's a good idea or not but i feel like in a best ball tournament it's a good idea to go a little I feel like in a best ball tournament, it's a good idea to go a little bit on the different side, or maybe I, maybe you think I'm wrong, like a little bit farther down the list than other people want to go to get an edge because everybody's going to be drafting those players. I could be completely wrong about this, but I'm thinking just because this is purple insider and we cover the Vikings that it would make sense to best ball draft Justin Jefferson here. So, uh,

okay. Draft starts in nine seconds, but that's going to be my first pick is Justin Jefferson. I'm third on the list and the fantasy people all week that I had on the show, there was a lot of debate over Jordan Addison and even a little bit of Justin Jefferson's fantasy ceiling. I think that his fantasy ceiling is totally fine. No matter who is playing quarterback, the ball is going in the direction of Justin Jefferson.

And something that I did notice, okay, I'm on the clock. Here we go. First ever best ball draft pick. I am going to go with Minnesota Vikings wide receiver, Justin Jefferson. There we go. So there's my first pick. That seems pretty safe, but they, uh, the fantasy experts were concerned about the quarterback situation. Okay. You're in the same draft. That awesome great to see great to see that somebody watching the live stream is in the same draft uh so we can compare our drafts at the end of this and again i'm gonna have time here because there's 12 people so if anybody has any vikings questions they want to throw at me while i do this draft go ahead because i'm sitting here just watching draft picks go by and thinking about if I

have a strategy for doing this draft. I'm going to look at running backs probably next. But to finish the point on Justin Jefferson, I just look at Sam Darnold's past where he was playing with DJ Moore. And I ran this number and I'm going to probably botch it, but it was something like DJ Moore had three times as many targets as the next best target of Sam Darnold's for his entire career. So he worked the ball to DJ Moore constantly. And I imagine that's going to be the case with Justin Jefferson as well. And it will also be curious to see how he performs with Justin

Jefferson throughout training camp, what kind of chemistry they can get going on and so forth. But I don't think that anyone will have any trouble throwing to Jefferson or that he'll have any problems putting up huge point totals. But this is a really good time. I think to do this because it's July 5th and everybody is away and I'm just playing around here on YouTube. So, uh, but you guys can make this fun by asking some questions. Uh, Evan says last year, the Vikings were number one in receiving yards with 4,700 with, uh, Nick, and Josh. And so I was curious why everyone had JJ and Addison falling in fantasy. Yeah. Also curious to me. I don't understand that either. I think that they're going to get the ball a lot. The question for me is who's going to catch the rest of the passes. If TJ

Hawkinson is out, are we going to see Robert Tunyon season who I may draft later? I mean, this is a 12 person draft. So I have my eye on these running backs coming up next. Uh, we're still quite a few picks because I had was number three. Then now I have to wait a really long time to get my next draft pick, but I've got my eyes on the, uh, the running backs here. Oh, you, you think that, uh, they don't like McCarthy in the fantasy world. Well, that actually does make sense dark side because the rookies are so unpredictable. And in the past, how many rookies have had great fantasy seasons? I mean, some rookies have had great seasons where they win a lot of games, and I'm sure Stroud did last year.

But actually phenomenal rookie seasons with big fantasy numbers. Justin Herbert maybe was probably one. The Darnold thing is kind of fascinating to me because when I go back and forth, you ask some people, every fantasy person is like, no, stay away. Wouldn't touch him with a 50 foot pole. And every football person that I ask says, well, wait a minute. And I was asking around, uh, some people who would know a little better than me about what it's like to be around Sam Darnold. That's the best I can do with that. And there's some belief within the league that he could do it here in Minnesota and improve and play really well. And what I saw in mini camp and in OTAs made me think that as well. And even I talked about

this on another show, but Kevin O'Connell called Rich Gannon to ask him about Sam Darnold and his progress. And he told Rich Gannon that he was very high on the idea that Sam Darnold could be good here. Okay, I'm next up and I'm thinking running back. I like Kyron Williams. Is this too early to take Kyron Williams though? We got Devante Adams here, Jalen Waddle. I've got 20 seconds and I'm totally panicking. What do we got for tight ends? Sam Laporta too early to take a tight end. Um, average draft position is 35. You know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go Williams

here. Cause I, I want to make sure I get a running back and I think he's going to get the ball a ton. So I drafted Kyron Williams from the Los Angeles Rams. He averaged like five yards of carry last year. Derek Henry might've been a good choice, but let me just get deep fantasy for you. And I liked that more of you were jumping in here. Let me get deep fantasy football for you. Is Lamar Jackson just going to take all of the touchdowns? Whereas if the Rams need a running touchdown, Kyra Williams is going to be their guy. What do we got for wide receivers here?

Mike Evans, I'm coming up quick again. So it's going to be long breaks and then quick. So use the long breaks to ask me Vikings questions. Mike Evans, Mike Evans is going to get the ball a ton for Baker Mayfield. What do we got for tight ends? Sam Laporta is still there. Okay. I'm picking Sam Laporta. He's going to get the ball a lot from Jared Goff and we're going to go Sam

Laporta here. Okay. So I've got Justin Jefferson, Kyron Williams, and Sam Laporta. I feel like we're off to a pretty good start here. Uh, Evan says, are there any rookie quarterbacks you'd consider drafting tonight? Someone is going to have to tell me when to pick a quarterback because this is always confusing to me in real football. I would pick the quarterback first, but all the fantasy people say do not draft the quarterback early. As you can see the, the picks going by,

can I make it so you guys can see the picks better from the other players? I don't know if I can or just who's on the board. So here's I'll, I'll pull it up so you can see the board. Hopefully you can see that. Okay. Um, can you see the board? Yeah, you guys can see the board. Okay. I think, let me see. Yeah. Okay. Other than Evans in the way, but you could say, okay, you could see who's available to me. That's good. Anyway. Um, are there any rookie quarterbacks? only one i would say is caleb williams no one wants to hear that but the best chance to have a really good season as a top draft pick is the guy who was drafted number one i mean there's just kind of no way around that uh he has a really good setup

and i mentioned the other day on one of the shows with the fantasy guests, I think it was with Ian Harditz. And I said something like, you know, JJ McCarthy is set up as well as any quarterback for a rookie. Oh no, I wrote about it. I wrote about it on purpleinsider.com where I was talking about how PFF had graded the different supporting casts through the years. And if you look at the article, JJ McCarthy, maybe I'll pull it up after the draft. JJ McCarthy is going to have by PFF's projections, one of the best supporting casts of the last five drafts and Caleb Williams also will. And so of course, Caleb Williams is going to start right away. He's got a good situation with wide receivers to go into. And Bears fans were unhappy that my tease for the article said something like JJ McCarthy

has this great setup and they wanted more credit for the Bears. But truly with Keenan Allen in the mix and DJ Moore as well, they do have a great setup for him. The only concern I have with Caleb Williams, as far as drafting him for fantasy, is that he will probably turn the ball over a lot. I don't know, do fumbles matter with this? They should.

I don't know if they do, if sacks and fumbles matter. But I think he's going to have his fair share of mistakes in the first year. And it's just hard for me to see him playing at a level where you could compare him to some of the other quarterbacks. When I look at the quarterbacks, no one's taken Lamar Jackson. Anthony Richardson is the darling of everybody's drafts. It seems like these days, CJ Stroud's still there. Dec Prescott, Jaden Daniels. Also, you might have a chance to rack up a ton

of rushing yards. So I might be intrigued by him as far as a rookie goes. Uh, Evan says, I don't remember who said it on your show, but interesting to see the downward trend of running quarterbacks after the first few years. So Henry depends on what you think of Lamar. Great point. Great point. Lamar Jackson will probably run less. Should I get a quarterback here? I think I should. I could get Anthony Richardson. He is very valuable, I think, to a lot of people in their drafts.

He's going to run a lot. He's probably going to score a good amount of touchdowns. CJ Stroud is hard to turn down, though. Richardson or Stroud? Let's go Richardson. Let's go for the risk here because it's a $3 draft. So why not go for Anthony Richardson? And longtime listeners of the show would recall that I had a lot of appreciation for Anthony Richardson when he was coming out in the draft.

And I really liked the way that he looked last year. He looked like he was in command of their offense. He was aggressive in running the ball, but didn't seem to be panicked running the ball too aggressive and got himself hurt. All right, what are we going to do next here? Running backs are probably getting a little sparse. There's a lot of wide receivers I can take.

I'm on the clock. James Cook, Joe Mixon, Rashad White, Kenneth Walker, David Montgomery, Elvin Kamara, Aaron Jones. Should I take Aaron Jones for the vibes here? I think I could get him later. I think I could get him later. Joe Mixon's going to catch passes out of the backfield more than James Cook,

or is James Cook going to get passes because Diggs isn't there? I have five seconds to decide. Let's go Joe Mixon. I think James Cook is a better player, and Joe Mixon might be victimized in the same way that Delvin Cook was by, oh, it's too early for the quarterbacks. Oh, well, that's too bad. Hopefully the running works out for me with Anthony Richardson,

that that makes him half running back, half quarterback, because he can rack up a lot of points that way. And his average draft position was 57th and I got him pretty late. I feel okay with that. I feel okay with that. But as far as Anthony Richardson goes, there's a lot of opportunities there for him to thrive. If he could stay healthy. That was the big concern. Horse feathers, this makes me too tense. This makes me too tense. This is 30 seconds on the clock. I got to make decisions fast.

I don't know how NFL quarterbacks do it. You go up to the line of scrimmage, you got to get that play call out in 30 seconds, get everybody lined up. It's difficult. It's not easy. It's practically the same thing. Me doing a best ball fantasy draft and playing quarterback in the NFL. We know the same exact feeling. I'll tell you when I play chess online, the clock, it really makes me nervous.

It's my biggest weakness is that clock. Once it starts to wind down, I become much worse. I cannot stay cool. And the same thing is for this draft too. But Joe Mixon versus James Cook is an interesting fantasy question because Cook has not been as much of a receiving threat as he was expected to be, which is just like his brother who's always talked about Delvin Cook as being this receiver slash running back. When he came out, he's going to be versatile. He's going to be Marshall Falk. And it just never

really happened. The bills should lean on the run game more this year, but Joe Mixon should have a lot of opportunities with all the receivers that Houston has. And I like to factor this in when I'm thinking about how somebody's going to play is how afraid of the receivers is the defense. How much do you have to dedicate to the wide receivers? Imagine if Adrian Peterson had played on the 98 Vikings, how terrified they would be of the receivers going deep. And you saw Robert Smith had a ton of success in doing this. If you were around in 1998, watching that team, but Robert Smith over his career had a lot of success because the corners were 30 yards downfield. The safeties were playing in the parking lot because they were afraid of the deep ball, the dedication of extra corners. You can't put linebackers or bigger players on the field.

Mixon is, has a pretty decent record of health. So I decided to go with him, but I don't, I don't feel necessarily great about it because his production hasn't been tremendous in the past. So now is a good time. If you want to throw out some Viking stuff for me,

I've got a few picks to go before i am up next if anybody has uh any thoughts uh dark side says that i can get mccarthy or sam darnold in the last two rounds uh get either or or uh not both yeah uh i i feel like just because of the nature of this draft and what we're doing here having a live best ball draft I should draft Sam Darnold if I'm the one telling you guys as a reporter out at TCO Performance Center that Darnold looks pretty good. And every XM fantasy show that I'm going on, they asked me, well, is Sam Darnold going to start 17 games? And I say, maybe it's possible. Then I have to be held accountable for this $3 best ball draft. And I have to take him at some point, but I agree with you dark side. It probably could be the last pick that I end up taking. Okay.

On the clock again, I need more wide receivers. Chris Godwin's going to get the football, right? Oh, well we've got Jordan Addison here, Jefferson and Addison, anybody against it? Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's, let's compare after I take him to the other receivers, Godwin Hopkins, Rasheed Rice. Let's take Addison. Godwin's probably a better pick though, right? We agree with that. Godwin is more banged up throughout his career. Addison is younger, but Godwin, oh yeah, the bi-week. Yeah. I never thought about that. The bi-week issue. I don't even look at that. Maybe that's something that people who are good at this yeah mixin and richardson are both bi-week in 14 jefferson oh of course you're right jefferson and addison have the same bi-week naturally playing on the same team uh but chris godwin versus deandre hopkins rashid rice lad mcconkey is up here as well b well Brian Thomas so we're in the rookies I would rather have Addison

than Godwin or Hopkins because I'm worried about injuries does anybody want to say it with Rasheed someone just took him but not necessarily my favorite pick there because of the possibility there could be problems I'm gonna have Aaron Jones on the board here to potentially pick but I think I could I could go with a wide receiver all right Hopkins Brian Thomas Christian Watson Jackson Smith Najigba is gonna get the ball a lot right I'm gonna go Jackson Smith Najigba this is a breakout year for him Tyler Lockett's getting on the older side they're going to transfer those targets over to him and not only that but Seattle has to throw the ball a lot because they are not that great I think defensively and that's their offense with Geno Smith oh bye weeks don't matter okay well good that's good to hear because my guys

have the same bye weeks Evan says what do you think of McConkie? I liked him at the combine and he's the only weapon. That's the biggest thing. I don't know as far as how good he is. I've seen a little bit of him, but I was looking not at receiver very much in this draft. I know that he's a really good route runner that he's sort of being presented as a quick Keenan Allen type of wide receiver that he's really, really good at route running. And if that's the case, then he's going to get the ball because Justin Herbert doesn't have anybody else. And I really should look back at Herbert. I think that he was one of the lower ones as far as supporting casts for his entire career that he's had one of the poorest overall supporting casts so maybe lad mcconkey will turn out to be a top receiver for him but if you can

get open at all he's going to get you the football because they're going to throw a ton of passes i don't buy at all that jim harbaugh is going to go out there, take over a Justin Herbert team, and then hand it off all the time. I think that that's going to be a passing offense. I don't think they can fix their defense, which always matters to me for how much you have to throw. Oh, okay. So it's total points. So you're not playing wins and losses here. This shows what a noob I am at this, but I'm having fun. I'm having a great time. Uh, and you guys are making this good. Uh, Lambo moon says, I think Addison should be a better best ball wide receiver. Uh, yeah, I mean, Addison is going to get the ball because there's a inexperienced quarterback and JJ McCarthy or B Sam Darnold is a, uh a newer quarterback to the team, but has not been

a starting caliber quality quarterback. And usually with those guys, they push the ball to their top wide receivers. Not only that, but the number three wide receiver spot right now is Brandon Powell. And that being the case, and TJ Hawkinson is out too, the first few weeks of the season, especially teams are going to load up on Justin Jefferson, lots of opportunity for Addison. And what I think that people aren't maybe factoring quite enough with Addison is I know that Jefferson was able to thrive with Nick Mullins. Jefferson is when people say generational talent, they use it too much. Jefferson is that, but Addison is very good and was very good with Kirk Cousins. And when he was

Kirk Cousins main target, he had a great time. And it was just when the, you know, the quarterback play fell off that we saw Addison not get as much work. But the other thing is too, that Addison had to get bigger and he had to work on parts of his game and he went into the off season and did that, which I liked hearing from him that he had specifics in mind that he was going to change and that he was going to work on this off season, specifically getting off the line of scrimmage, because that was the biggest concern about him when he was coming out in the draft was our team's going to be able to take him away. All right, I'm coming up next here. Good opportunities. Jamison Williams,

not fully buying that yet that he's going to be a star for them. Curtis Samuel is interesting. Talk about a guy who's had bad quarterback play. They don't have many wide receivers. Cortland Sutton, rookie quarterback. I like Jalen Warren too. I think I'm going to go another wide receiver here though. Oh, Cortland Sutton or Curtis Samuel. I'm going to go Sutton. I'm going to go Sutton. Bo Nix is going to throw the ball to his number one wide receiver. And remember what Michael Thomas did in his early years with Sean Payton. Like that's what they do. They throw to their top wide receivers over and over and over. I agree. Samuel would have been a good pick though. Samuel would have been a good

pick because Josh Allen doesn't have too much else. Can I still get him or is space Duddy who's before me? I should have made a cool name. I just used my name, but a lot of people have other names that are more clever or something like that. I'm going to get both. I don't know how many wide receivers versus running backs versus tight ends are a good idea to take, but I'm taking Curtis Samuel here as well. And I think I just got two guys that are underrated for target share because of the rest of their team that Jerry Judy's gone. Who else are they throwing to in Denver? Who else are they throwing to in Buffalo outside of their rookie receiver that I don't really trust. I'm going to need another couple of running backs though. Uh, so I'll have a few minutes here.

All right. Let me go back. Evan says hard to decide on drafting rookie wide receivers this year. If they're the only weapon for quarterbacks, I'd rather have faith in Herbo getting the ball. You call him Herbo getting the ball to McConkie than Daniel Jones to neighbors. Yeah. Any rookie receivers that you would draft. So you're right about that. But I also was thinking with neighbors, who else is on the team? Wandale, whoever his name is, Robinson. I mean, they don't really have many other options. And when a team doesn't have many other options, then I tend to lean toward that guy, but I would take Harrison. I would take definitely take Harrison or neighbors.

I just wouldn't take them over proven people. If we were talking about going Justin Jefferson versus Malik neighbors, uh, or whatever, you know, one of the top wide receivers versus neighbors or versus Harrison, I'm going to pick the guy who has the proven track record because we don't even know. We only know the hype, but we don't know if they can really play in the league. Not until we've actually seen them do it. So I would be very hesitant unless I could get some sort of steel with somebody like that. Dark side says Addison is an elite route runner. he's going to be around essentially a living legend he's only getting better oh right and the living legend's gonna

get a lot of attention that's the biggest thing uh is that jefferson is just going to get so so much attention this year early in the season particularly that addison will be there uh lambo moon problem with addison is dependency on touchdowns which will probably be less yes this came up pretty consistently that it's hard to repeat uh having touchdowns like that over and over again which again is me learning more about this fantasy universe and how to predict and project that if somebody has a ton of touchdowns one year, they probably won't again. But I do think that his receptions and his yardage will go up because of the reliance on him.

I mean, KJ Osborne, even though he had a tough year last year and I thought well underproduced what I thought he was going to is a good wide receiver overall. He's a tough year last year, and I thought well underproduced what I thought he was going to is a good wide receiver overall. He's a pro. He's a wide receiver three in the NFL. Brandon Powell has been a punt returner until last year, and we don't know if Jalen Naylor can stay healthy long enough to play. So I think that Addison then becomes the guy that you have to look to so much. And Hawkinson was very much a security blanket for Kirk and especially Dobbs,

who loved throwing to TJ Hawkinson. He had huge numbers with Dobbs going his way, but he won't be there. So are we thinking Robert Tunyon or Johnny Munt takes away all those targets? Probably not. Evan thinks that Sutton is going to get tons of points just for the check down receptions. It's going to be a quick passing game. No doubt about that. All right, I'm up next.

Oh, the running backs. We are down to it with the running backs here. Oh man, I may have waited too long. Ty Chandler, Jalen Wright, Chuba Hubbard, JK Dobbins. I may have made a huge mistake relying very much on one or two running backs. What do we got a tight end still? Dallas Goddard, Dalton Schultz, Cole Kmet. Could I take Hawkinson and get later numbers in the season? That might be a strategy. I don't know if that's a good strategy or not. Let's go Blake Corum, Gus Edwards. Let's go Gus Edwards, Gus Edwards. That's who I'm taking here. I don't know what the situation with Gus Edwards is, but they don't have other running

backs. Did I blow that? Or is that an okay pick? Yeah. Okay. Gus, get Gus. All right. Good. Because they don't have uh Austin Eckler there anymore he went to Washington so who's running the ball for the Chargers and we know that Jim Harbaugh is going to build things around the running game all right who's up next I can get Dallas Goddard here that might be a good one uh Jerryy is still around i could i only have one quarterback tua is still on the board oh no two just got taken romeo dobbs i'm not taking mitchell he's a rookie brandon cooks is old ontavian wicks is everybody's favorite we're getting down to it now how about justin herbert let's take justin herbert he's on the board. People don't like drafting quarterbacks. So I went with Herbert. We were just talking about how much he's

going to throw. Stafford is still there. And then it gets a little rough with the quarterbacks. After that, I did promise to take a Viking quarterback down on the running back group. Romeo Dobbs is the top wide receiver. There are some tight ends left. My next pick might be Dalton Schultz or Dallas Goddard. The tight ends get a lot of action when it comes to teams with a lot of good receivers. That's the Jay Novacek type of effect. Lambo Moon says late round rookie wide receivers. I'd recommend Jermaine Burton and Cincy and Roman Wilson. Oh, I like Roman Wilson a lot for Michigan. They should have an opportunity and have great talent. No, that's true. Darkside says, do you think KJ will be wide receiver one in New England? I do.

I do think he will be. Who else? Is Smith Schuster still there? It's not a good group. I haven't looked at it recently, but it's not a good group. Jerome Ford won you games, huh? Evan. Okay. Jerome Ford. Is he still there or did he get taken? Looks like a Jerome Ford may have been taken.

Yep. Unfortunately, this is, this is my longer wait, but I've got my eyes on tight ends here. Maybe Romeo Dobbs, if he's still around, but I think I'm going to have too many picks. Yeah, he just went off the board. So I'm looking at a couple of tight ends. Friermuth might get a lot of targets, just considering who the quarterbacks are. Ty Chandler is still here.

Ty Chandler could get a lot of work. Maybe it's not crazy. In a best ball where you're talking about the best guy for that week is the points who is counted. Then, uh, maybe it's a good idea to take TJ Hawkinson because if he comes back in week six or seven, you get the whole rest of the season with him. If it's, I mean, if you're talking about the other guy is healthy and good to go and then a hockinson can pop in in the second half of the year and have some big games maybe that's a good idea uh dark side says that kj is going undrafted because fantasy bros don't see the vision yeah i

i with uh osborne it's just who else are you throwing to? And if you're talking about a rookie quarterback or Jacoby Brissett, Jacoby Brissett does not push the ball down the field. And KJ Osborne is a yards after catch guy. Where is KJ in all this? Is he still, he's got to be still around. There's Adam Thielen. There's your guy, Roman Wilson.

He's on the board. Michael Wilson from Arizona is kind of interesting to me. I liked him at Stanford. Yeah. KJ Osborne must be weighed. He is. Wow. He is way down here. I don't even know how many picks I have left. How many, how do I find that? Cause I want to get KJ Osborne. I think that's going to be a good pick, but let me go back to Ty Chandler. Might be a good idea here tj hockinson dalton schultz or tj hockinson is a discussion we'll see who's there on the board when i get there but i think hockinson is a good idea yeah kj is way down there it's kind of ridiculous because these fantasy

people are supposed to factor significantly who else is on the roster, who's going to get catches. Maybe I could take a second and look up. Let's see. Maybe I can look up Patriots depth chart. Patriots depth chart. Let's find out. Let's find out who's on the Patriots depth chart. And let's try to not miss a draft pick.

Okay, I got time. The the stress the stress is real they have Hunter Henry uh Jalen Polk DeMario Douglas Kendrick Bourne and KJ Osborne and then Juju Smith Schuster Jalen Rager uh Taequann Thornton yeah I feel pretty good about the possibility of KJ Osborne, you know, getting catches. Darkseid says, you know, actual football fantasy bros, no fantasy. But that's what they're supposed to understand where KJ Osborne should go, right? Okay. Oh, someone took Hawkinson. I thought I was being very clever with that. Cole commit. Is he going to get checkdowns? Hunter Henry is Hunter Henry hurt all the time

because I just read off that list. And now it seems like a good idea to get Hunter Henry, considering that the Patriots don't have a whole lot to do. I'm going to go Hunter Henry here. His projection or his last year had 42 catches. He'll get catches. Let's go Hunter Henry. There's no one else. Oh, you know who might've been interesting there is Ty Conklin, former Viking, in my attempt to draft a good number of Vikings players. Now we've got a lot of wide receivers. Matthew Stafford's still there, quarterback. It's not a bad one. Um, Gino Smith still there. Quarterback. He's known to have huge games, but I do like Ty Conklin is kind of a

clever pick and I'll try to take, are we buying into Quentin Johnston at all? Did we just decide that Quentin Johnston is not good at all at football? That's probably the case, right? He can't catch the ball. It's a Troy Williamson thing. DeMario Douglas is good. Yeah, I agree, Anthony. I agree. DeMario Douglas is good, but they don't have a whole lot of places

to spread the ball around. Okay, Quentin Johnson, I'm just going to pass on. Jermaine Burton, you mentioned is interesting. Well, DeMario Douglas is here still. He could be a big target for them i have a good number of wide receivers already but maybe i should go with someone like him demario douglas because i don't don tavian wicks everybody's talking too much about i don't i don't know that he's going to be their guy quentin johnson i just i'm not not buying. Let's go to Mario Douglas here. Let's go to Mario

Douglas. And then I'll keep my eye on the tight end situation because I think if Ty Conklin gets overlooked, he's got a good chance to catch a lot of balls this year. Yeah, Quentin Johnson is not good. I agree, Lambeau Moon. He's just not good. How did the Packers get Marshawn Lloyd? Because they're obsessed with running backs. If you're obsessed with running backs, then you could get good ones. I don't understand the Packers approach to their running back position, where if they had just drafted Marshawn Lloyd, and that was the only move after letting Aaron Jones go, that would have made sense to me. Okay. You got AJ Dillon, you draft Lloyd, you take a shot at a couple other guys,

maybe pick up one more free agent, but they go get Josh Jacobs and spend a good amount of money on him. I just don't really get it. I'm a little puzzled by the team building strategy there. Although what I would give, and I don't know if you guys saw some of the highlights from hard knocks off season version to two observations from hard knocks off season version. Number one, they talk about these guys in the same way that you do. And so sometimes we give maybe football people a little too much credit. We think that they have some magical answers that we don't have, and they do have more information than we have. But then you hear the GM say,

we don't have an identity if we don't have Saquon Barkley. And you go, well, what the heck? Your identity needs to be passing the ball better and having a better football team. How did Saquon Barkley give you an identity that people were afraid of Saquon Barkley when they faced you and weren't that great? But that was interesting to see those discussions and how they talked about it. But one thing that they mentioned was just what's out there on the market for running backs. And

this off season, there were a lot of running backs that were out on the market that were pretty good. And just overall with the draft, the same way, Marshawn Lloyd's a great prospect. And what was it? Was he second or third round? I mean, if you're seeing great prospects drop to that point, then you might as well draft them because you're going to need a good running back and running back matters. As we saw from the Vikings last year, it matters how talented your running back is and how much they can do with good or bad blocking that we've now gone so far away from running backs that we undervalue them. It's kind of like how bunting

and baseball would still be good in a few instances, but no one can do it anymore. And so it's just kind of gone. But if you're the team that does invest a little bit more in the running back, maybe it'll end up working out. Lambo Moon wants to know, how will KJ affect the Mario Davis opportunity? Is KJ going to play outside? Douglas is a slot only. I'm not sure. I don't know what their plan is for KJ affect the Mario Davis opportunity? Is KJ going to play outside? Douglas is a slot only. I'm not sure. I don't know what their plan is for KJ Osborne. He's just seems to me at his best when he's running underneath stuff. When he's, he's not a deep threat. He's made, he made a few good catches deep over his years in Minnesota, but he's not really a deep threat. He's more of a

ball in the hands kind of guy. And with their tremendously bad offensive line, I think both him and Douglas should be getting the ball quick out of Drake May's hands, but it's probably going to be Jacoby Brissett, right? Or is Drake May going to start there? Evans says the Packers always do something absolutely ridiculous in the off season and somehow it works out. Everyone laughed at them for moving up for love, including me. Yeah. When they drafted Jordan love, I didn't know how to feel about it because fundamentally I really liked the idea of drafting quarterbacks. I mean, even when it comes to Michael Pennix, I would defend the heck out of Atlanta, even as crazy as that was. Okay. I'm on

the board here. Darnell Mooney, Roman Wilson, Wanda Robinson. I've got a lot of receivers. Bucky Irving is kind of interesting in Tampa Bay. That's a little bit of a roll of the dice, but I kind of like it. Bucky Irving. You might get some chances there. What do we got? I'm down to the final seconds here i said i was gonna take let's take conklin okay i'm gonna take conklin tight ends can be good red zone lots of uh ppr as you folks in the fantasy world say points per reception so i got tyler conklin and when this is over i'll go through all the picks and we'll analyze my team. And you guys can give me a grade for my draft. This, you know what, when we do draft Sims next year, during the draft,

what they should have is a clock. That's the next thing I'm going to contact the PFF guys about this because putting an actual clock on the draft, when you simulate it could make things a little bit more dicey and maybe doing draft simulations with other people the same way where you join a room and then other people are drafting at the same time. That could be pretty fun picking other teams and drafting. Oh, I'm on the board again. Roman Wilson, somebody suggested that. I like it. I think he's a good wide receiver, good prospect. He's going to get opportunity. They've got pickings, but they traded away Deontay Johnson.

Rashad Bateman, we kind of keep waiting for that one last year. I think he had a pretty good season, but if we're going to go a rookie, why not go at this point in the draft? So let's take Roman Wilson there. That might be my only rookie, and I don't know how many picks I have left, but we are getting down to it. When you're talking about, should I take Rashad Bateman or Wanda Robinson? I like it this way, by the way, I like going deep. I mean, I don't know what the maximum for number of people in a draft is on underdog fantasy, but if there's 15 people, people in a draft i would do that because then

we have to look deep onto the rosters what do we got for quarterbacks left someone's going to take gino i think derrick carr russell wilson the rookies i kind of promised to take sam darnold but back to the point about jordan love Michael Penix, fundamentally, that is a good idea. And if you do it when you have a quarterback, one thing I know is you'll always get criticized. And if you look up what people said about Jalen Hurts, a lot of criticism. When you look at what people even said about Patrick Mahomes, I don't know how many would admit that they gave bad grades to the Kansas City Chiefs for drafting Patrick Mahomes, I don't know how many would admit that they gave bad grades to the Kansas

city chiefs for drafting Patrick Mahomes, but they did. Well, they've got Alex Smith. They can win now that kind of thing. And with the Michael Penix pick in the light of day, when it happened, it was very shocking, but in the light of day, if you think about how delicate that health situation might be for Kirk Cousins, if he gets hurt, you've got your franchise quarterback going forward. And he's somebody with a ton of experience who can step in fairly quickly with a lot of playmakers. He's got a great arm. And if you really love him, then you want him to be with your team for a long time and not so much worried about that next year. When a lot of times that guy you draft the following season is rookie year is not going to make the biggest impact. You're really drafting. I've always

thought this you're always drafting for two years down the road. And when the Vikings got themselves into the biggest problems that they ever had, it was when they were drafting the Irv Smith Jr. and Garrett Bradbury's for right now, as opposed to looking down the road, what they were going to need in terms of premium positions. I mean, they didn't draft AJ Brown in that draft, even though they had to know that Diggs was not happy at that point and couldn't look one year in the future and say, we're going to need a receiver. Instead it was, we need an outside zone blocking center. And Bradbury over the years has turned out to be an average player, but not in the same way that a receiver could have impacted them.

We've got a ton of receivers. Running backs are very light at this point. We're down to Alexander Madison season quarterbacks, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr. I could take McCarthy or I could take Sam Darnold tight ends. Do we still have anybody there? Gisicki? Maybe I guess when in doubt,

take a wide receiver. So let's take Rashad Bateman with two seconds left on the clock. I took Rashad Bateman someday, Rash rashad bateman it'll happen for you i think he had an okay year last year though but it's just never i mean with zay flowers it's just never gonna happen so now we are really down to the nitty-gritty here how many picks do we have left you can't i can't have many many. I think I have maybe two picks left. Two picks is what I have left. So one of them has to go to Sam Darnold. And who will the other one go to? Deep cut. How about Jatavian Sanders? How about Jatavian Sanders? Carolina, check down to the tight end. Got any running backs here who might get in the game?

All right, I got 30 seconds. Damian Pierce for Houston? Kind of interesting. Keaton Mitchell's coming off that injury. What if Alexander Madison plays great and totally revamps his career there? Jamal Williams was not good last year. Miles Sanders?

Let's go Miles Sanders. I'm slightly intrigued. Miles Sanders. Let's go. Miles Sanders. I'm slightly intrigued. Miles Sanders. Two years ago, he was good. That might be a horrendous pick, but who's even left here? Oh, I should have taken. I should have taken KJ here. If he's still on the board.

I don't know. How far do I have to scroll? Yeah, I should have taken KJ. So do I only have one pick left? Okay. So I think I only have one pick left and it, so I think I only have one pick left, and it has to go to Sam Darnold because I promised. Sorry, KJ Osborne, you're getting left out of this one,

but it's going to Sam Darnold. Where did he go? Did someone take Sam Darnold? No way. Okay, if it's not Sam Darnold, then it's going to... Oh, there he is. There he is. Okay, I panicked for a

second uh yeah you're right evan that rashad bateman is with the theme that's correct lambo moon clearly a experienced fantasy player lambo uh rb sleeper tyrone tracy from the giants converted wide receiver explosive productive just needs to beat out blanking on the name right now of whoever's in the backfield, Devin Singletary. Uh, you might be right. And we know Daniel Jones is going to check down. So we got one more pick left. I promised it's going to Sam Darnold. I appreciate your deep sleeper, but that's how it's going to be. And not, uh, KJ Osborne. And if KJ Osborne is the difference between winning and losing this draft and I lose $3 because I didn't pick KJ Osborne, I will be devastated. I will be crushed, but there's a lot of opportunity to do a lot more of these. If you guys enjoy them, because the price is not high and the entertainment

is this has been really fun and i i'm excited to look at the team i think i may have taken too many wide receivers and not enough quarterbacks i probably wanted to have more than just richardson and herbert two guys with injury histories and sam darnold might not play the entire season should i take their Carr instead? I'm not taking Wilson or Fields. I don't know who's playing there. Minshew's not a good fantasy quarterback. I guess I got to stick to my promise and go with Sam Darnold, but I kind of want to take Derek Carr because I'm so short on total quarterbacks, but couldn't we see Sam Darnold at least owning a couple of weeks? I could see that, that he plays a few weeks and one or two of those games are really good. Okay. So coming down to the last pick, and then if anybody wants to talk a little

Vikings, maybe throw comments in there now, and I can look at them after I look at the entire team and you guys can grade. You got too much exposure to the Patriots on offense. Oh, you're right about that. You're right about that. With Hunter Henry and Demario Douglas. But both of them are going to get throws, right? They are not going to go the whole season without throwing the football to someone. And if it's Jacoby Brissett, he's going to throw it short.

He's going to throw it to his tight end. I think, what did Henry have, like 60 catches last year? I don't know if tight ends are undervalued in this type of thing. It seemed like people waited a long time. But tight ends catch touchdowns. They're in the red zone. They get a lot of racked up opportunities. It seems like my opponents here have two quarterbacks too.

So maybe I don't feel so bad about that. All right. Final pick Sam Darnold. It says we'll head to camp as QB one. That is true. Kevin O'Connell told us that. So there you go. The final pick. So now we get to look at the entire team and you guys can grade the team. This has been fun. I've enjoyed this. The off season, we have a good time in the off season. I think we've got two more weeks and next week, I'm not going to be on YouTube too much next week. And then after that, it's hardcore previews.

I got some plans for some more porch podcasts, and I'm going to dive all in. And on the written side, I'm already starting them. I'm going to have a position group per day. So we're getting there. Camp happens fast. It actually begins, I think, the 23rd, which is maybe a week earlier than usual. Okay, let's view my entire team here. Let's take a look so quarterbacks of this here team

anthony richardson justin herbert and sam darnold i think that's concerning that i ended up with those three guys herbert was banged up last year richardson was banged up last year sam darnold might not make it past the buy or might get beat out in training camp, but the high end of this and go big or go home when you spend $3 as an entry fee, uh, go big or go home on this. Anthony Richardson could be one of the top fantasy quarterbacks this year. If his running is prolific and if he could stay healthy. And I think the passing will come along because he showed some promise with passing the football last year to the point where it's playable and

you could still succeed to some extent with him throwing the ball I think he'll improve maybe in Josh Allen like fashion I really like what I saw from him for his command of the offense so I'm high on him there Harbaugh's going to throw the ball with Justin Herbert. My guess is that's one of the reasons he went there. And the Sam Darnold pick was just because it was the last pick of the draft. And I've been saying that he looked good in minicamp. So why not? My running backs, Kyron Williams, I really like. I really like Kyron Williams for this year. He averaged something like five yards a carry for last year. Joe Mixon, Gus Edwards, Miles Sanders. I don't know what the deal with Miles Sanders is. He might get cut out of camp. I'm not sure. My wide receiver group is the one I'm the most happy with.

Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Jackson Smith, Najigba, Corlin Sutton, Curtis Samuel, Demario Davis, Roman Wilson, and Rashad Bateman. That is a ton of talent and a ton of production there. I think I'm going to be happy with, and I have a great trio of tight ends, Sam Laporta, Hunter Henry, Tyler Conklin for a 12 person draft. You're going to get down to the bottom of the barrel at some point, but I think i did really well at the most important position if that's true about wide receiver but give me a grade what do you guys think what's the grade for this draft did i do well did i struggle should i feel confident here that i what's the total the total prize of this thing is like 20 so am i gonna win $20 probably not oh uh DeMario DeMario Douglas did I say DeMario Davis

yeah that would be a terrible pick to take a linebacker DeMario Douglas B plus okay for my first try at this I think I'm pretty happy with a B plus of uh going through my first best ball. And I really love the concept and love the idea. Again, I know that that's not new, but I had a good time. I hope you guys had a good time and we'll see if the Vikings come through for me here and win me some, uh, very small amounts of money in this best ball draft. And I I'm really excited just over the season to add this element to the show that has been missing for all this time. And I've always been a little bit, you know, I'm a reporter. Do I want to have too much fantasy on the show? But what I realize is

it just ends up being, Hey, let's all talk about football players. That's really what the fantasy content is. And so I'm hoping to have a weekly guest to do fantasy each week, just one show a week to look forward to the games, maybe help some people out who, you know, that's why I bring on a guest, not myself helping people out. But Horse Feathers says,

now that you know what you're doing, will you make another $3 team? Oh yeah, I'll keep going with this for sure. So as part of the sponsorship underdog gave me a little bit to play with at not a huge amount, but a little bit to play with. So I can get into a more $3 leagues and I'll do some stuff like this as we go along. And maybe that will be a thing that we do each week. I assume that you can do these things by the week and jump in, in the middle of the season. And so I'll try to do that for some shows and so forth, but it's turned out to be really fun. I had a great time with this.

I hope you guys did too. And I hope you're all having a good summer. I can't wait for training camp. I was just formulating today, my strategy from the written side of how I'm going to preview all the positions for the Vikings. And so I have the starters, the depth, the bubble players, and the storylines for each position. And with each one is going to come the sort of write up of where the player stands in their career and everything else like that and what their projection is for training camp are they going to make the team what's the role

going to be maybe a stat or two from the previous season and when i was getting to the storylines part every single position had at least three storylines that easily came to me that i didn't even have to think of or stretch. I mean, just look at wide receiver, wide receiver three. Is it Brandon Powell, which undrafted free agents going to pop up at the tight end position? Who who's going to step into Hawkinson's role? How far along is Hawkinson going to be? So once this next week goes by, then it's hardcore preview time here on the show. And there will still be some fantasy elements. But I wanted to do this while we had time, while we're just hanging out and waiting for football.

So I really appreciate you guys that came in, helped me out, played along. I hope it was fun for you to watch and to listen and make sure that you join the live shows in the future. Because when training camp comes around, when it actually starts, we're doing this every night. After every single training camp practice that the Vikings have, I'm going to be going live from this here studio. Probably, although I'm getting a little sun, you can see, I was looking at an old video and how much less tan I was.

It only gets worse. I am the farmer's tan hero when it comes to training camp. So I'll be sweaty and sunburned and so forth from standing out there watching from the sidelines, but I'll hopefully bring you a lot of information and discussion about what's going on. So look forward to that. That'll be really fun. Evan says, are you able to go to more camp practices than what's available to the public? Yes, I will be at every single one. Yep. So they open, I don't know, a dozen

to the public or something like that out of a total, I don't know, 20 something, I'm at everything. Every single practice, every single availability. I will be in Cleveland when it comes to the joint practices that will be a huge part of this summer. Every press conference out there, interviewing players, writing stories, purpleinsider.com. So go check that out as well. But yep, yep. I will be at every practice that they have and they're all open to the media all the way through the summer so the first i think handful are not open to fans and then there's two weeks where they are and that's it they don't have a ton it's only 10 or 12 that are open to the fans and i i think maybe they've reduced the number in part because a lot of fans video the plays and tweet them out,

which I don't think Kevin O'Connell really loves. So maybe that's part of the reason there's less than there used to be. But nope, I will definitely be there and I will bring back on a nightly basis all the information from TCO Performance Center here, as well as from out there. I'll be doing podcasts as well with all the other beat reporters. So I'm just excited. It should be a good time. So thanks for everybody for playing along. I really had a good time here and we will do it again soon. Take care, everybody. Football.