Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Drew Magary of Defector makes a list of Vikings things he's excited about

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Defector's Drew Magary joins Purple Insider live to give his list of six reasons he's jacked up about the 2024 season and promote his Vikings version of "Why Your Team Sucks" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, a very special episode. Matthew Collar here as always, and Drew McGarry of Defector, who has just dropped his Why Your Team Sucks Minnesota Vikings version. I just got done reading it. I thought the Patrick Royce drive-by was inappropriate. Patrick was a great man, but your uh your framing of Vikings fans was pretty good a lot of great stuff but within that good morning sir how are you folks we all have cell phones and we all love looking at them for boobs yeah how you doing I am good I'm good I uh when I wrote the the post this week I had to I don't I don't know if it was my best effort because I'm so jazzed about what they did in the offseason. Like and it's funny because it's like they're not going to be good.

But it's like it's the first year I'm like, it's OK if they're not. I know I say that now. Like if they go seven and ten, I'll piss and moan for a million years. You know, but, you you know right now it's like yeah okay all right there's a little bit of house money right now i did think there was uh less violence in this one than there has been before you could uh in previous iterations you could really feel your tension inside you the the bubbling over of rage and frustration yeah i wonder who might have caused that rage.

I wonder what, you know, I wonder what hardworking professional guy who goes three and out in clutch situations might've spurred me to be a little angrier at the Vikings than I usually am. There may have been a fourth and a check down that could have caused some angst within you, but you know,

what's funny is that I, I, I remember I was at that game. I've told you this. I was at that game, and I was behind Kirk. My vantage point was behind Kirk on that play. And I saw, I think it was Dexter Lawrence who was in his face. Yep, yep.

And I saw him. I saw Lawrence in his face immediately because our interior line sucked and still does. And he just got rid of it. And I remember being like, oh, yeah, he had to like I just remember the play failing. Like it wasn't just Kirk failing. It was everybody failing. So I don't also Ezra Cleveland on the left side as well, allowing Dexter Lawrence.

However, I did see something that really blew my mind the other day in training camp practice. OK, listen to this. This is some real insight here uh someone broke through the line and and jj mccarthy ran away and threw it what yeah i know it's nuts wow yep absolutely wild concept it's amazing uh it's amazing how how much interior line play only matters when you have a quarterback who is slower than an eggplant and what i would give to kirk is that he didn't select drew samia to play guard he didn't pick uh you know dakota dozier tom compton mike remmers etc etc or i don't i don't cleveland but i don't have to do the thing it's not kirk's fault right. But I don't have to do the thing. It's not Kirk's fault anymore, right?

I don't have to do that anymore. I can just say he sucks. That's true. So normally I don't give homework to guests. I try to set up the show to where I will guide you through this football talk journey, and you don't have to do anything except for be yourself. But this time I decided to give you a little homework, Drew. And because your series is why your team sucks, I wanted to go the opposite with you and talk about the things that you are excited about.

So you have made a list of things that you are most excited about 2024. Since we've known each other, this is as enthused as I have ever seen you about this team with the fact they moved on from cousins draft JJ McCarthy and off we go. So we'll begin with your list and folks in the comment section. If you want to ask Drew any questions or heckle him, both are very much. Oh yeah. These people, you know, comment sections can be, there's some rascals in there uh but what all right let's start let's go through the list let's start with the things that you are the most excited about for vikings 2024 okay i was gonna order these but then i realized i just i didn't

really feel like doing that although i do have i do have a number one number one is the wideouts so like anytime you have justin jefferson on a team like that's great like if we go seven and ten but justin like catches for 2 000 yards that's a fun season right so so justin and then also also addison like i know especially now that we know that there's a suspension coming down the pike like in my brain that matter's settled it is not settled at all like in real life he could have a drinking problem he could have he certainly has a car problem he should basically never

drive again they should just give him a driver and he just goes around with a dude driving around in a navigator or whatever but him and then also Naylor this is the year the one completely stupid delusion that I have is that Naylor will become a star will get close to,

you know, he'll catch 50 or 60 balls and be the kind of guy that like, he gets a really fat deal to go somewhere else at the end of his rookie contract. And then he sucks in that place. But like for now, he's going to be like really good. That's what I think.

Okay. Well, just to your point with Jalen Naylor, I think Kevin O'nell has been thinking the same thing for about three years with him that he would be yeah and then he like then he tears a pinky toe and then you know yeah right uh yeah it's those guys who like when they come off the field and it doesn't look anything's wrong with them and they don't even say why the guy is wrong and you know why the guy's messed up and you're like, does his wife just die in a car accident or something like that?

But it's just like, no, he just turned out he had a little tummy ache or something like that. And it's like, I don't know about this guy. It's a violent game out there. It's not as easy as it looks to take those things. Well, yeah, that's the other thing is I can't be like, he shoved an NFL player. A person who plays, like if I stepped on an nfl field i would be vaporized in five seconds right he could snap your head off and beat you with it uh but to your point though uh the wide receiver group with justin jefferson i i think that the potential

with the arm talent of the quarterbacks for justin jefferson to make downfield catches and also insane catches is something that is intriguing here because we were joking around about fourth and eight and the check downs and and so forth but also there was a lack of dgaf throws towards Justin Jefferson and I think that he got frustrated over the years of just like can you just throw the ball somewhere in my direction and then here comes Nick Mullins and says I'll do it right and for a couple of games uh he ends up with I don't know 180 yards a game just because Nick Mullins agreed to sign that contract to just throw the ball in the direction of Justin Jefferson and so far what we've seen in training camp is that Sam Darnold seems willing to do this same exact thing because he's been hitting Justin ball in the direction of justin jefferson and so far what we've seen in training camp is that sam

darnold seems willing to do this same exact thing because he's been hitting justin jefferson repeatedly in the last couple of practices as they've gotten going and even some catches where you're like justin don't don't jump for that there was one the other day where he rose up grabbed grabbed it kind of went down to the ground he's just no that's okay uh but the potential for absolute wow plays from these wide receivers very high when you have a quarterback that's not the most accurate and is willing to put that ball anywhere right he's gonna be like presentable nick mullins uh darnold you know i i think that he'll he'll see the bench pretty soon into the season um but yeah i mean he's it's not gonna be it's not gonna be a

situation like you know sort of uh late late dobbs mania era or jaron hall where like you just can't move the ball at all right like that's not gonna he'll throw for yardage and that will like that'll be nice to watch even if that yardage also comes with three picks a game which probably will yeah well it's very possible that it will i don't have a lot of else to say about the receivers they're they're awesome they're always awesome every every point in vikings history there's awesome wide receivers one thing i'll say is that um is that addison like he has been targeted as like a regression candidate by a lot of people particularly because he scored 10 touchdowns.

So like, oh, that'll go down. But I think he will be a better wide out this year, even if he misses games because of the DUI. I think he is going to be a very good receiver for a very long time. He was a great draft pick. I did read something from a lawyer the other day about Addison and the potential for a suspension. And my takeaway is it's just not clear.

It's not clear what's going to happen still from the legal system, even though he's been charged and with the NFL, it seems that the NFL waits until these things are wrapped up in before they bring down the suspension. This could get moved back. We might not be talking about a suspension until even next year. But as far as addison's ability goes he had a 50 yard catch yesterday he's getting open all the time in training camp it didn't

affect him on the field last year at all and it probably won't this year as well what else is on your list i mean one more thing about asm is that maybe there is i don't know if they've obviously i don't know if they've had this dialogue in team headquarters, but maybe there is an inclination to get his suspension over with because if he gets suspended late in the season and they're in, you know, like it's going to be another year where they're in the hunt in December, but they're really not like, but they still might want to win anyway. And if they don't have the asking for those games, well, that's worse than not having them at the beginning of the season when the schedule's brutal anyway,

and you're starting a guy who's on borrowed time like Darnold. And then you don't really want to spend them in 2025 if that's going to be like the beginning of your money years where you want to go for it every year. You don't want Jordan to have for that year. Maybe that's in there. The second thing on my list is McCarthy.

I had to put Justin number one because Justin is the main draw. That's why I watch. McCarthy, it's one of those things where I was on here with you and I gave the take where it was like, we're trading up to get me. No doubt about it no mccarthy and of course that didn't happen because it was never gonna happen and now i'm fully in the like ah drink me as a bust and jj's doing

everything right and uh you know so i'm i'm very interested to see like i still think that there's a very good chance that he eats your pie chart. And if he doesn't start week one, like the second, like, I think, I think there's, I think there's a mindset with O'Connell where it's like, let me put Donald in there for as long as I can tolerate.

And then once I can't really tolerate it anymore, I know the kid will probably be pretty good. Like it'll be all right. And honestly, that could happen after like a half it could happen after three weeks but like it could happen very very fast i wouldn't be surprised because sam darnold can't be anything other than sam darnold i haven't bought into the sam darnold thing at all like i mean just think about just think about it just think about if you're talking to like a random nfl fan and you tell them you're getting really hyped for Sam Darnold, they're going to laugh for eight unbroken minutes,

and then they're going to shove you off a cliff. It's not going to happen. I'm excited to see the kid. I'm excited to see him move. I'm excited to see him run. I know practice footage means nothing but i loved seeing you know him making accurate cross body throws and being you know a creator that's a that's an overused term but you need someone back there who can make

something out of nothing kirk could never do that because he was just he wasn't talented enough and he was very very by the book it was just. It was just everything had to go the way that he had been told. He is like, I'm Ron Burgundy. That's the kind of brain that he had. Where you need someone who has their – they have been coached to the point where they essentially are able to coach themselves and coach the people around them. That happened with Brady.

That happened with Aaron Rodgers. That happens with a lot of great quarterbacks. It takes time to get to that spot. But I'm interested to see how McCarthy gets there because I told you this over text, but the knock on him coming out was that he was inexperienced because he was the youngest QB in the draft, but also because, well, he didn't throw a lot of passes when he was in Michigan. Well, he still started two full years at Michigan and he won every game except for one of them. And that matters. Like it matters that he was put in charge. His job was to keep that offense

running smoothly and keep it humming. And that's exactly what he did and that i think is i think that says a lot even if he wasn't throwing for 500 yards a game it doesn't mean that i i he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy where he's throwing for 150 yards a game and i'm just sitting there dying because it's third and three and it feels like third and a million like i think i don't think i'm gonna get i know that you have compared it to what was it teddy's 2015 season was that the season before he got hurt 20 yeah 2015 yeah i remember i remember having to talk myself into teddy a little bit more than i should have right because like teddy was like a great leader and you know, he was accurate and all that stuff.

But there were still quite it still felt like he was not. It's kind of like Kirk where it's like he's not in that. He's just below the top level of talent. And I'd like to see if McCarthy is in that top level of talent, even if he's not, you know, posting the numbers that we want him to post. Because this entire season, you know, I'm going to go through the list of all the other crap I want to see, but if the kid's good, the season's a success. That's it. That's the entirety of it.

It's a reference on if the kid is good enough that we know he's going to be here for five to 10 years, forget it. That's a success of a season. Kwesi and Kevin will get extended, and then we can go into 2025 just absolutely fired fired up and already what we've seen from JJ McCarthy in training camp is starting to make this a success just because of how comfortable he's looked with the offense and how much he's developed his accuracy since minicamp where he was doing a

lot of things that he had never done before he was lining up in the shotgun a way that he had never done before and he was trying to get down this footwork and was really struggling and throwing the ball all over the place and then he comes back after working super hard at it and suddenly it looks like all right well now he's throwing the ball a lot more accurately and now he's getting the guys to the line of scrimmage and it looks like he understands play calls and you don't see kevin o'connell throwing his hands up or running over to him after every play he looks like somebody who should be an nfl quarterback which is already a step forward and the thing that i didn't maybe realize about jj mccarthy having watched him just on television is the physical talent that's there.

Because when you hear a guy constantly talked about his win loss record in college, I think, oh, is it like Ken Dorsey or something? Right, right. Great. But when you actually see him show up and you look at him in person, I was talking with Nate Tice when he was out at training camp and we were talking about how funny it is that the listings height, weight, and then you see him in college. It can be different when they arrive and they're actually in front of you. Does he look big? Does he look physically gifted? Does he look fast? Does the ball come out of his hand quickly?

And all of those things are first round boxes that have been checked. And because he's done that, because he's looked comfortable, I think we will see him this year. I'm just not sure exactly when, because I know that Kevin O'Connell wants to give Sam Darnold every opportunity to be that reclamation project. I also know that they want to win. And we heard from the owner that we want to win. We want to be in the playoffs. We want to be in the division race and all that, even when it is a rebuild the type of year, but to have already made this much progress with JJ McCarthy, uh, and how much he has improved himself in a short period of time. First of all, it made me wish for being 21. Like, Oh, remember when you could stuff like you would have time to do things. And then your body worked, right. Uh, like you're still getting carded and like your girlfriend's hot.'re like oh life was good then the wife is still hot but i'm just uh that is true yes uh but i even mean like if you wanted to learn a new skill your body still works that way it's not like totally set in

its ways and he just has figured this stuff out uh no i'm i'm awful i've completely bought all the like like when i read the report that he was staying at winter park oh yeah when everyone else had pissed off for like to go you know to go to the beach and stuff like that and he was like learning the offense i was like this guy gets it this guy knows what and like this is already the time like where i had to like mute ty dunn because he's already like on jordan loves jocks super hard which totally totally fair for a national NFL reporter to be impressed by Jordan love. But it's like, wow, you know, there's shades of Tom Brady

in there. And I, I just want to tear my own eyeballs out when I see that. So, but if you say about JJ McCarthy, I'm like, Ooh, wow. That's, that's, that's why you're here. Uh, but, uh, as far as the, how he's handled it, that's another thing that from my experience why you're here uh but as far as the how he's handled it that's another thing that from my experience you just have no idea every kid comes out of college and 95 of them you have pretty high character but it is such a transition into a different lifestyle yeah and i've brought that up a bunch of times that he stuck around but i think it's a huge deal he understood i have an ocean of information to learn from this head coach who has a lot of layers to his passing game so i can't go to cabo i need to get with adam thielen although it is it's almost like two two purple

two vikings two like oh you know he got together with adam phelan and they threw the ball and everything but it's that's that's a really big thing uh when do you think he'll play what week do you think he'll play i i think by october he will be playing um i i don't think there's really much much doubt about that i just like i said sam donald is sam donald and you know he'll give us some some, you know, for a little bit. But then, you know, nature will take its course. Yeah, probably. I did ask.

I have an uncle-in-law who's a Jets fan. And I said, what do you think? Is there any chance here with Darnold? He just responded, no. No. Okay. You know how many awful quarterbacks He's seen in his life. Speaker 1 Oh, that. And, and he's older. I mean like

going way back to have seen Namath. So he probably was bad. Right. Good quarterback. But he saw like one good year of Namath and then his knees fell apart and then the rest has been a travesty for this entire man's poor life uh so it could be it could always be worse questions you have one question here uh Matt says uh the safety room seems pretty deep how will they all fall off a cliff and end up ruining the defense oh listen people know your brand get out of here okay so the safeties are great. And the one thing that I thought,

again, I texted you on this. It was an idea I had. I don't necessarily endorse it, but I thought perhaps by the end of training camp, because the cornerback room is so screwed, I thought that they, and because the safety room is so deep, I thought that they would trade one of the safeties away,

maybe combine them to get a corner, you know, so that, so that the talent in the secondary is more spread out because right. It's all concentrated in the safety room right now. And I have complete faith that the safeties will be good. I don't think they will fall off a cliff because if Bynum sucks, well, Theo Jackson's pretty good. Like we've already seen him play well in regular season games. So I don't really have much of a problem with that. And then of course, Josh Metellus is excellent. well Theo Jackson's pretty good like we've already seen him play well in regular season games so

I don't really have much of a problem with that and then of course Josh Metellus is excellent so you know it feels like Flores wants to essentially make the defense out of like multi-tools and I'm fine with that um but you know the corner room's gonna bite us in the ass and that's really that's really the worry and that I think is that and the quarterback situation are the reason why everybody including myself are going to pick this team to finish third or fourth in the division it's just there is a glaring talent hole that that they are not going to be able to fill even if they were to make a late train camp trade or to get some guy who the turk visited on another team and they bring him in late or somebody like, like, it's not like Fabian Moreau is not going to suddenly be, you know,

in all pro that's just not going to happen. Right. I think to your idea, sometimes when you send me trade ideas and stuff, I'm like, well, I don't want to hurt his feelings and say that I hate this idea. You're like, Oh, he took a gummy. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of do hate the idea of trading Cam Bynum because they want to win. But I'd see your point with Theo Jackson and they're trying to get him on the field more often. And if they're not going to resign Cam Bynum, it kind of depends on that. But I like the depth of that group and people

always get banged up and so forth. So if you it's it's funny that they drafted Louis scene and Louis scene is Lucy is, is terrible and unplayable, but, and yet, and yet the safety room is like their best defensive position right now. Uh, what's the next thing on your list?

Okay. Uh, the next thing is, uh, hang on. I have to consult, uh, Turner.

It's Dallas Turner. Yeah. And I am already trying to train my brain. So I don't call him Dallas Hunter because the D in the earth thing. And in the position, Hunter, I got, I know.

I didn't know if Dallas Hunter was like a celebrity that I didn't know about. No, no, no, no. That sounds like a soap opera star, but no,

like, or maybe, yeah, maybe it's like a sitcom from, or a network show from the nineties. Remember how all the shows were very dark and it was always like murderers and stuff like dallas hunter and it's like no i watch all the old games and when al michaels is doing the reads for the upcoming shows like man that sounds like a terrible terrible

show anyway because i was always so enthused to do those promos, too. He loved it. Anyway, you know, I was so used to the defense for years and years now being Daniil and nobody else, right? It was like Daniil and Harrison and nobody else. Those were the guys I always focused on, right? Like, they're just the guys I would always watch on the defense. And I think Turner is essentially going to slot into that position. Like, in my brain, like, the stupidest fan I think Turner is essentially going to slot into that position. Like in my brain, like the,

the stupidest fan boy in me is like, Oh, he's Micah Parsons 2.0. Like that's already like in my mind, there's no guarantee of that. Right. Like he could suck, like he could be bad,

but I don't think so. Like, I'm excited to see, I am excited to see a team that has more than one pass rusher, and I'd like to see if they can actually finish the job once they get to the quarterback. Because you know that the play where they get to the quarterback and then Russell Wilson is like,

and then throws a 30-yard bomb and completes it. Those are the worst moments as a fan that you have to endure. So if he and Van Ginkle, who's also on my list, and Grenard can get to the quarterback and bring him down, that's going to be a lot of fun too. Like we might not have a good defense, but I do think we'll have a defense that makes plays, and that is exciting to me.

Well, the depth of pass rushing changes the game from what Flores had to do last year. As fun and comical as it was where they were blitzing every play or dropping eight every play, that's not really what you want to do. And eventually teams figure that out. Right, it's got a wildcat energy to it.

You know what I mean? Where it's like, it works for only so long. And then it didn't, especially when they played good teams but now grunard and uh maybe grunard is so funny grunard will walk off the field and walk right by the media nobody talks to him the guy is a 20 million dollar year signing but because there's a quarterback and a first round edge rusher and all these things he's just like okay well i'm just living my life here but that guy in any normal off season would have been the biggest signing he's been i think really good in this training camp van ginkel is a versatile player and you could put all three on

the field at the same time which we've seen them start to do yeah he'll do that i also think that with turner it's the simplest thing but but Brian Flores giving praise and specific praise to someone is usually a good tell like, like coaches praise a lot of people, but you have to kind of listen to what they say exactly. And then having him have all the first team reps, like it's telling because clearly Brian Flores does not care about draft status since ivan pace jr made it as a udfa so the fact that he's rotating in already the quickness that he has the movement skill that he has and what i didn't know about him when he was in alabama is that he's a very very bright guy which if you can be that combination of things that's where you make superstars out of so he's looked really good

and the returns are good and you don't want to go over the top and say they have the next Vaughn Miller here. But considering his draft status, his college production, how he's fit in so far, like all of that looks very good for him. Yeah, and you know, I remember in my experience playing football,

you're exactly right. If a coach acknowledges that you exist, that means that they care about you and they like you. That means you're exactly right if a coach acknowledges that you exist that means that they care about you and they they like you that means you're you're a player it's when they don't talk about you you may as well not be on the roster like right that's that's kind of how it goes so if they acknowledge your existence okay then there's something there i think that that is that is accurate that's not that's not an overreadingreading of tea leaves when that happens. I can demonstrate how we analyze praise. You say to me, what do you think of a player? And then I'll tell you if I like him, if I don't like him.

Go ahead, ask me. What do you think of LDR? Oh, well, look, the other day we were in a meeting and the three coaches pointed out the way that he had his hand movement on the inside shoulder of this guy, pushed him out of the way went in got the quarterback he's got the deepest drive i met his family he's my best friend i've ever met that's when i like a guy now if i didn't like him i'd be like you know what we got a lot of guys who are doing a lot of good things out there and he's oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i can i can parse those quotes that's's the difference. I'm good with Kevin O'Connell.

He's now to like I can tell like he'll just talk for paragraphs and paragraphs. And like you have to like extrapolate like the one. The one thing where he's the one like sentence where he's set, you know, he's conspicuously not saying something. And that's like where your copy comes from. So I think that with O'Connell quotes, you could create an AI model that identified the one sentence that matters out of the entire answer. He sounds like an AI model. Like he sounds like he says a good chat GTP when, you know,

by the way, this show has sponsors. And so when we do it live, I have to read them. So I appreciate the great folks at US Cellular. US Cellular noticed the way that we use our phones has gotten ironic. We try to put our phones down for dinner, but the menu has a QR code. That's ironic.

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All right. Let's see here. We got a question from Mike. What drew, how do you feel about our linebacker room for this season? Granted, we haven't seen them in full contact yet. I love pace. I assume Cashman will be pretty good. And that's like, that's kind of it, right? Like Flores only uses two linebackers and like we can call Metellus a linebacker essentially because he's doing that a lot. So I worry about depth.

You know, I worried about like, it's no coincidence that we had issues last year when Jordan Hicks had his medical problem, and then Byron Murphy got hurt, and then everything fell apart. So the depth there, the depth at corner, and the depth at defensive tackle, those are all very, very serious issues that in a 17-game season, they are inevitably going to present themselves to. You're going to have to deal with them.

And so if Pace goes down, it seems like he's made of adamantium, but we're all human. If he goes down or if Cashman goes down, then yeah, then I'm concerned. And of course, I was already concerned about Van Ginkle because he had the Liz Frank injury. And I'm so used to NBA players whose careers are just like the second they hurt a foot. I'm like, I'm freaked out by that. Even though I know it's a different injury in football, I'm still like, I'm a little skittish, you know?

I think, I think I got a little, I got a little PTSD from Kirk going in green Bay. Well, all three guys that they signed do have injuries as football players do. If Cashman were to get injured, they did sign Kamu Grugier Hill, who has been around. Uh, he's played a lot of snaps in the NFL. It's not like he's been a well above average player. Otherwise he'd be starting. He's an innings eater, right? Yeah. Right. They do have more depth than they did at that position for last year where they had to go out and sign uh anthony bar if you're just joining us live drew mcgary defector why your team sucks is out the vikings version it is as good as you

would expect i tweeted it i'm sure he tweeted it uh as well so go check that out and we are running through drew's list of things you're most excited about for the 2024 season all right so you have the wide receivers jj mccarthy dallas turner and i had andrew van ginkle after that and we sort of talked about that but i think i'm more excited for him as an edge as a i I shouldn't say edge rusher. Cause he's all going to be all over the place. I'm more excited for him as a multi-purpose rusher as opposed to Grenard. I think Grenard is just going to be a higher quality innings eater than some of the people who have come before. Like he'll be better than DJ Wanham. Like I know,

I have no doubt about that. So that's really cool. But I think he's going to be very workmanlike and how he, and that's why he doesn't get much attention. Right. that. So that's really cool. But I think he's going to be very workmanlike. And that's why he doesn't get much attention. And I think that's really good. Someone I don't have to worry about. That's actually going to be my approach with Will Riker. I'm not going to worry about this guy until I have to worry about him. I think that's just the better way to go. I'm not going to pre-freak out about kickers.

Because I remember you said, and this wasn't that long ago, that's just the better way to go like i'm not gonna pre freak out about kickers because i remember you said and this wasn't that long ago but you said you felt that the kicking curse and i'm air quoting of this team was was overstated because it was it was tied to gary anderson missing and it was tied to blair walsh missing and it was tied to you know all the all the stuff that's happened in the interim but it wasn't it's really not been that bad of a run. And I agree. Ryan Longwell was a perfectly good kicker. Kai Forbath was a perfectly good kicker.

And Greg Joseph made kicks. His PATs were always a surprise party. So I'm not as doom and gloom about the kicking game with this team than than a lot of people because it's like blair walsh was like nearly a decade ago like it's it's been it's been a while so yeah and i think that it's kind of like if you were dating and you had one lady that really broke your heart and the whole rest was kind of normal for dating you would say i'm just always getting my heart broken i'm always because that one was so big in your life that even normal dating otherwise sometimes kickers miss an easy kick to lose a playoff game and then

sometimes kickers melt down and overall i think their percentages are probably just okay over the last decade since Since then, the Dan Bailey thing was kind of weird to tell you the truth because he was one of the best kickers in the league and then just, right. But that happens constantly. So yeah, it's a kicker thing. Right.

With Riker, it was, did Riker make your list or you're, are you just, you're not excited about the kicker, but you're no, I, I deliberately left record off the list because I don't want to have to

worry about kickers either way. But I did have, after Van Ginkle, I had all the other rookies. So, you know, obviously Kyrie Jackson would have been on this list had he not been killed by a drunk driver. So we have Rouse, and I think Rouse will be shockingly important because I'm a little skittish about O'Neal's health. I'm always skittish about Derisaw's health. Yeah. And I'm interested in Juergens because I still think that the interior line is bad.

And I think if they see a chance to improve it with Juergens, and if it's not now, it'll be a year or two, there'll be a developmental curve with him. But I'm interested to see about that. But then also LDR, probably because my friend Kalen Kaler did the whole profile of him about Prospect X. And I was like, this guy wants it, even though there's no guarantee of it. There'll be anything.

But of course, he's also got the John Randall pedigree, where he's like a school in Texas you never heard of, you know, basically undrafted. But I mean of you know basically undrafted but i mean seventh round undrafted you know nearly the same thing so i'm excited to see him and then also the the udfa so mcglothern uh murphy gabriel yeah murphy and then uh uh joshua joshua oh joshua jones yeah joshua jones i mean, now you're getting a little deep in the weeds here with the players who we'll see. We'll see. No, but I, I thought, you know, look, you kind of mean all the underdog players. Yeah. Yeah. All the underdog players,

because I think I'll be interested to see if, you know, we, we say it and you're right to say, you know, someone like Ivan Pace happens once in a blue moon, right? Like that's just not, that doesn't usually happen. But were someone, one of those sort of no-name guys, were they to emerge and be a significant contributor this year? It would suggest to me that Quasi in the front office found a market inefficiency well worth exploring because you've talked about Brad Johnson. Well, Brad Johnson was drafted. Brad Johnson would have been undrafted today because he was, what, a ninth rounder? Ninth rounder, yeah.

Yeah, so he was a ninth rounder. There is no ninth round anymore. in the undrafted free agent pool, and because they go undrafted, well, part of it is a function of their ability, but part of it is also a function of the fact that the draft is much shorter than it was, particularly from its original inception. Like Johnny Unitas was like a 69th round pick or something. I can't even remember, right?

So if they are able to find a way to, you know, hack the draft by scouting undrafted free agents really intensely, giving them good deals and then having a developmental system in place at team headquarters that, you know, that gets the most out of them. I said, I'm always like when I'm high and stuff, and I always pretend I'm like the owner of the Vikings because I'm old enough now where I can't pretend. I can't even pretend I'm the coach. I'm older than freaking Kevin O'Connell, right? And I'm always thinking like, you know, my philosophy would be I want to set everything up in the building so that every player who comes here has the best possible chance of succeeding that they're going to have

in their career and i think that actually is happening in the building i i think i i i'm sure it's i'm sure i'm still high from getting rid of kirk i will always be high from getting rid of kirk and i mean i don't mean like the actual high i mean like a metaphorical high i don't i i didn't pop a gummy before it's too early you have to go back and forth between you you have to clarify there yeah yeah i have to i have to clarify i'm i'm not stoned at 10 38 a.m well when it comes to this though there there were lots of times throughout the uh last couple of years where fans would get excited about a late round pick or a UDFA Jalen Twyman or something. And I would go, I don't know, guys, my rule used to be, I'll learn their names when I have to, when it comes to the UDF phase. But I think when I asked Flores about it, he did such a good job

of explaining that they intensely focus on guys who would fit or have something that they think they could get them to do. So this is what we do. Can you do that? Not we're just going to grab guys and then try to teach them. Hey, this is our system, whatever. And his point was that players can fail when they could go one way or the other if they just don't fit or if they're asked to do everything. If you say to Gabriel Murphy, you have to be a complete player.

You have to master every part of this. Well, he's a UDFA for a reason. He's probably not going to be able to do that. But can you do one thing that's pretty good? Can you for Dwight McClothern? Can you play in one coverage? And I think for Ivan Pace, he is the total outlier because he could do absolutely everything. And they just didn't like him because he was short in the draft he could captain the defense and the other part is too that uh the wilfs will give them the money to spend and so instead of well we'll just get

whatever off the udfa market here's three hundred thousand dollars to make that guy the highest paid udfa that's going to give you a higher chance of success too. Yeah, I agree with you completely. I used to be very much, I used to look very much down on coaching staffs that were more fit to scheme than scheme to fit, right? I was always like, oh, they care so much about their scheme. They don't actually care about having good players.

It's just like, you know, sort of like a Josh McDaniels type, type of guy where it's just like, we, we, you know, I,

I'm only going to, I'm not going to take, you know, I'm not going to take Caleb Williams. He, he improvises too much back there. He's off my draft board. Like guys like that.

And it's not, it's clearly not, it's not an either or thing, right? Like you, you know, when you're Kevin O'Connell, you have a very good idea of what your offense should be

and what you want to be. And you already have the player sort of in place for that. So you already have this, you know, pie. That's a crappy metaphor, but like, because you are, it's already overused, but it's like, okay, I already have this sort of, I have the scheme and the talent in place. And so now I need someone who has a specific talent for this specific situation

and all that stuff so that it's a lot more obviously ornate than I thought because I'm just a fan, right? So the idea that they would, you know, zero in on someone like McClother or someone like Murphy who they think they can do as Flores said, you know, one thing. Well, like what, what do you do? Well, okay, here's where we can use it. Here's, I, I think that I have a lot of faith in them to be able to be able to do that to a limit, obviously, because if, if they have to elevate McClother and, you know, to be

the starting outside quarterback this year, there's a very good chance that he is not ready to assume those responsibilities. Right. Yeah, correct. With McClothern and Murphy, they fall into the category of, hey, they've caught my eye. Not what is happening at linebacker with this little dude who's destroying everything out there. He played, Pace played the first preseason game with what? Like this, he's a monster. So I don't expect that. Yeah, he looks like destroying everything out there. He played a pace, played the first preseason game with what like this disease, a monster. So I don't expect Sam Mills.

Right. Exactly. Little London Fletcher action from him. But as far as their philosophy, it's what's been a little bit weird is an adjustment. When you have someone like Flores is we got used to kind of questioning everything that the coaching was doing for a few years. And then when Donatello comes in and it's a total disaster show and you just, okay. And then Flores seems to have such a good idea of what he's

doing, how to construct the roster. He's a former scout, all the schematic stuff that he is inventive with. And then I think that if you were paces and then i think that if your pace isn't even the guy that you would circle if you were trying to explain to someone why brian flores is so good at his job it's josh metellus yeah because he was a sixth round special teamer who played like 200 snaps and he looked at this guy and said this is one of the smartest football players i've ever met and he's tough what can we do with that and they invented an entire role for him that Durante Jones, the DB coach told me the other day when we were talking about Theo Jackson, like that's what they call it.

They don't even, they call it linebacker. They don't call it safety. They call it the Metellus role because it's so specific to him. If you could do that as a coach, that's, that's pretty special. I mean,

he's a Rover. I mean, right. I mean, he's a floating defender one and they never actually do it that's the thing oh we want hybrids we want big nickel uh yeah okay but it's hard to find a guy who can actually do that so the fact that he was able to work it in anyway well it also used to be a liability like i remember you know like

you know when they drafted duane clemens and the knock was, oh, he's a tweener, right? Like he's not quite a linebacker. He's not quite a defensive end and he sucked. And, but that's not those sorts of limits seem to have been, uh, handled by smart coaches. Right. Exactly. Okay. What else we got? I don't even remember what that was on you oh that was uh underdogs the underdogs of the uh yeah yeah yeah the other one was uh how how flores speaking of flores how he uses jay ward and theo jackson because jay ward was basically a non-entity last year the only thing i remember about him was like committing a really bad special teams penalty penalty in a game um was he uh offside i think yeah yeah like i was annoyed at the time but like

it wasn't something where i'm like cut him cut his ass like if he lined up offside didn't he didn't he line up that's pretty bad that's pretty bad but uh you know if he ends up being a capable defensive back that would be that would be cool i'd be interested to see if, you know, if some of these early seeming mistakes in the draft from crazy actually pan out. So that's nailer. That's Jay Ward. Ty Chandler.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Chai Chandler is already good. So I, and he was a fifth. So it's like, I consider that pick already a success.

Like he is a, he's a capable, productive back that you can put into a game. He's not a slob. So that's like, I consider that pick already a success. Like he is a, he's a capable, productive back that you can put into a game. He's not a slob. So that's good. Right. If he plays more this year effectively, and you got a right guard who can play more effectively than he did last year and a Caleb Evans contributes, then the draft class is still bad, but it

isn't as bad. It's still bad, but it isn't as bad. It's still bad, but it's not as bad. If you got three starters out of it, then it's less tragic. Yeah, and I mean, every team screws up a draft pick. Like the Chiefs drafted Sky Moore. He sucks. Like, it happens. It's okay.

Yeah, he thinks you suck as well. So what else we got? You mean Temecula Sky? Oh, my last one was Ivan. I want to see Ivan in his second year because I think he will get better. I think he's legit. And I think there were times last year where he would get a little lost because he was a rookie, right?

Like he would get a little like just he would, you know, or he would overshoot a play because he's a bowling ball and all that stuff. But I think he will be a little like just just he would you know or he would overshoot a play because he was because he's a bowling ball and all that stuff but i think he will be a bit more refined this year and i'm excited to watch that like he is a guy that your eyes just go to on defense because he's moving around he's always around the ball you know those guys who are just they're always around the ball and then collinsworth is like i've been looking at i'm in pace wow what he has done for this organization like you know that sort of thing like I I'm excited for that we're talking about

a guy here that's a linebacker guy he is one of the things about Ivan Pace always one of the things he just reminds me of the underdog linebackers when I was growing up and there's something to that because they had kind of disappeared I mean Kendricks was undersized but he wasn't this undersized uh and the way that he plays now we talk about uh well he's got to be good in coverage and sideline to sideline and the Brian Asamoah draft pick is well we want this safety slash linebacker up there and so to have a guy who well he is short he still weighs like 235 240 pounds yeah so there's there's a break your hand punching him right there's a lot of muscle in that little body and to have someone who plays in the style that he does one thing that's fun to watch on tape is when a guard goes to hit him and he will aggressively just attack the chest of the guard with his entire body.

You just throw himself. And a lot of times the guard is like, ah, you just didn't expect it at all. He just expected he was going to swallow up this little guy and you're going to move on. And it's kind of stunning to them how aggressive he plays. He's a he's a fun one to watch so him taking another step this year or even just being as good as he was last year with a little progress is worth watching as well one more question for me though uh what is a successful 2024 season in your mind for the minnesota vikings oh i told you if it's the if it's the kid is good if that's it there's nothing you don't need anything else. No, I don't, you know, I don't,

because you know, what'll happen is, all right, let's say the kid is good, but they go six and 11, right. Which is altogether possible because again, the schedule is, is very, very hard. Um, you know, the last game of the season, I'll be like, you know, just like I was a season ago. But then a few days will pass and I will, you know, I'll simmer down a bit and then I'll sort of see the big picture. And I'll be like, OK, the kid's good. We got all the cap room in the world. We can start building around them. This is this is going exactly where we wanted it to go. And I will be I will be happy.

But will I like watching them suck for a year? Of course not. That's why Mark Wilf was like, we expect to win. He's the owner. He's got to sell the team, right? He's got to sell,

you know, he's got, he's got to sell customers on wanting to watch this. He's not going to say like, yeah, I'm all right sucking this year. You don't have to come to games. Like he's not going to do that.

And nobody on the coaching staff or in the locker room is going to be like yeah we're fine having a losing record this year they're not nobody's wired that way they're just they're not they're going to want to win if they fail then everyone will be disappointed myself included but then you know you go back and you metaphorically watch the tape and and you go from there because if you still have the pieces and you know the if you know the bones of the house are good, that's pretty cool. So how would you feel about this scenario? McCarthy doesn't play, but the final game of the season, they are going against the Detroit lions with the playoffs on the line. How do you feel about that? Is that, is that good to you good to you or is that uh you wanted to see McCarthy and eight and nine or nine and eight isn't good enough to justify him not playing or

how would you feel about that so it would be Darnold starting all the way through McCarthy doesn't play a single game final week of the season they fly to Detroit with a playoff spot on the line when in your in I think I'd be fine with that if darnold did enough to keep the job so let's say let's say and i don't i do not think this will happen let's say he throws 25 touchdowns in 15 picks right like that is i think you're saying he's gonna say good go 35 and 10 that's not that's not gonna happen happen it's really not he's not going to turn to mark ripon it's not um but if he has a passable tannahill like resurgence um and you know and they go into the playoff game or they go into the you know win or go home game like that i'm fine with

that if he sucks and they're still in playoff contention and they're still not playing the kid that means the kid sucks and that's bad and i will be irritated so you know i'll want them to make the playoffs but i'll know that it's a bit hollow yeah i think if they were out of the playoffs the moment they were out even if darnold had played well for the whole season it would be jj mccarthy time my guess is that we end up seeing him before that also real quick isn't it funny how our brains always go back to a certain point in time when we're making references off the top like oh yeah you know this guy he's kind of reminds me like a tony banks or something like that he immediately goes back 20 years as opposed to something you said brad johnson earlier when like anthony har Harris was right there for a UDFA who had emerged, but let's just a late round pick. Oh yeah. It's just a Brad Johnson from when he, you know, 93 draft or whatever. I like the, I like the curiosity of

the longer draft back in history. So that's why I think that's why the nine round. Yeah. Why your team sucks is an incredible series of articles i thank you try to read every one but i especially read the minnesota vikings version so that is out now people can go to defector check it out go to nfl or go to your twitter or whatever you want to go find it it's great and i always enjoy all of our conversations and i gotta say i am do you want to just swear at the end here i'm impressed i said hey you know we try not to cuss too much on the show and uh you went the whole episode yeah fucking a man i'm pretty good there there you go okay thanks for doing that pretty good drew will talk probably a lot uh about the team as this goes forward so thanks so much for your time as always

thanks everybody for watching and listening and uh we'll catch y'all later thanks all right skull Viking see you guys football all right thanks for that I have to you you