Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emptying the notebook from the NFL Combine

Episode Date: March 1, 2026

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduel. Matthew Collar here, and the NFL Combine has come to an end and made a joke on the internet about how going into this draft, everyone said, this is not a very deep draft. It's not a very good draft. And then by the end of the second day of workouts, it was, look at all these incredible prospects that are now in this draft, kind of a tradition as old as time. And I think my theory on that is that it's probably a good draft, but maybe not at the positions that are as premium, as attractive, or as debatable for television than in years past. You see some great linebackers and a couple impressive, you know, safeties and tight ends. And maybe those aren't

the positions that are going to get talked about the most. But yet, you know, hey, it looks like it's a pretty decent draft class after all now that the does. is settled on the NFL combine, and we will have lots of analysis, draft simulations with all this new information, very exciting stuff. So I'm going to follow along with the tradition here that I've done, I think, every single year following the NFL combine, which is to empty the notebook. I'm going to give you everything that I heard and was talked about around the combine, some takes on different performances in the drills and so forth.

just give you everything that's on my mind following Indianapolis. So why don't we dive right in? And a natural place to begin, of course, is, you guessed it, the quarterback position, my friends. And I want to go through just the things that we're kind of bouncing around the most, some of which is reported and some of which has just been talked about at Indianapolis with the entire NFL there. We're going to start out with this.

the two names that were brought up the most in connection with the Minnesota Vikings were Kyla Murray and Gino Smith. And I'll give you it on the record, one of that, which was Tom Pelliserro. When he was on the Rich Eisen Show, Pelliserro was asked, hey, what are the Vikings going to do at quarterback? And he mentioned those two names. And then Ian Rappaport was also on NFL Network talking about the quarterback carousel. And he mentioned the fact that, that those two quarterbacks, if they are released, could sign deals for the league minimum with whatever team they want to go to and their team, former team, would have to pick up the bill. And if they are released, but with Kyler Murray, he reportedly has asked the Arizona Cardinals to

release him or would, quote, prefer that the Arizona Cardinals release him. And with Gino Smith, it's very difficult to believe that the Las Vegas Raiders could find a trading partner. So considering the Vikings limitations with their salary cap, considering that Rob Brzezinski said at the combine to us that, A, we're not going to sell out the future for 2026. Well, when you talk about threading a needle and what options might work, Kyla Murray and Gino Smith for a million bucks,

yeah, those options financially definitely work. Now, there was some debate over whether looking for another start. and quarterback means that the Vikings are done with J.J. McCarthy or if they want J.J. to be able to compete and realistically have a chance to win the job. I think that there is a difference between Kyler Murray and Gino Smith in this area. Kyler Murray has been a top 12 quarterback in the league in 2004. PFF had him is their 12th best quarterback and he had some spectacular games. He's been a clear cut starter. He's a former number one overall. pick. And I think that if Murray truly had to compete, well, if he's a free agent and can sign

wherever he wants, I don't think he's signing in a place where he's going to have to go battle it out with a former first round draft pick unless he's told you're the starter for our team. So if Kyler Murray ends up here, in my opinion, he's the guy. He's the starter from the day that he gets here. Gino Smith is a little bit different because Gino struggled so much last season. Remember, Kyler was hurt and then they were tanking and he didn't come back. But his last performance was that of a clear cut NFL quality starting quarterback. Gino Smith has had more interceptions and more sacks than any other quarterback over the last two NFL seasons.

That does not scream to these quarterback needy teams. Oh, yeah, come here, Gino Smith, be our guide. That is much more along the lines of J.J. McCarthy would have a chance. to beat out Gino Smith. So those two are being put together, but I think that they are different. Those are, though, by the way, the two names that repeatedly kept coming up.

Now, from what I was told, two different people told me at the Combine who have some knowledge of Derrick Carr that he may want Minnesota and this thing may have been entirely about Minnesota and letting them know, hey, if you want Derrick Carr, I will come out of retirement

and we can make this thing happen naturally if you're Derek Carr and you look around at the other teams that need quarterbacks, it's really hard to find any other team that would be interested in him unless he was going to go to the Raiders and be their bridge quarterback because he knows Clint Kubiak. But at his age, with the amount of money he's made a solid NFL career, does he really want to come back to a team that's drafting number one and is not in very good shape overall? It needs a lot of work to be done. I think you would be coming back, as he said on his podcast, only to try to win.

And that would be Minnesota where you would have an opportunity to do that. However, pro football talk reported that no teams have yet contacted the New Orleans Saints about Derek Carr and his availability. And by no teams, I think that means the Minnesota Vikings. Not that that could not happen into the future, but if they do. didn't have any discussions at the combine about a potential trade for Derek Carr, does that mean that the Vikings are not that interested in bringing Carr out of retirement? I know that my official Purple Insider prediction was Carr to Minnesota as the starting

quarterback for next year, but it might have to shift that back to Kyler Murray, which has been my favorite option all the way through. But I thought Derek Carr makes sense as a KOC type of quarterback as being similar to Kirk Cousins, a rhythm and timing player who could step right in, whereas Kyler Murray would take a little more adjustment. And I also think the same thing is true for Gino Smith, even though he's a pocket quarterback that doesn't necessarily mean he is an under center quarterback or a guy that's going to be out there with multiple tight ends or a fullback if the Vikings get one of those. He has been mostly a shotgun, stand back there, 11 personnel and fire away.

I don't know if that's really a fit with what Kevin O'Connell wants to do. So that's a bit up in the air, but the favorites, it seems, from what most people were talking about, are Murray and Gino Smith. Now, I asked around about Mack Jones because what I was wondering about Mac Jones is, are the San Francisco 49ers just kind of putting it out there, well, we don't want to trade Mac. No way in the world. Here's a decent draft pick. And here's Mac Jones for you, right? Is it the case that they really do want to trade Mac Jones, but, you know, they're just waiting for the price to go up. And what I was told is that the price for Mac Jones is very, very high.

The word's first round pick were thrown around with one person that I talked with about Mac Jones. Now, that's not coming directly from someone with San Francisco, but at least enough knowledge of the situation that I can say, the price for Mac Jones is going to be very, very high. And, hey, if you are the 49ers, why would you give him away? He saved your season last year when Brock Purdy went down. If Brock gets injured again, who's going to come in that could be a better option for you as San Francisco than Mac Jones? So what they're waiting for is, hey, somebody go nuts. And I actually don't think anybody is going to go nuts.

And if the price tag is that high to try to get your hands on Mac Jones, we will not be seeing the Minnesota Vikings making that offer. It is clear from Brzezinski's comments that they want to retain their draft capital. They are not going to sell it down the river for somebody that has probably a pretty distinct ceiling like Mac Jones. Now, that could change. And San Francisco might say, well, we've got another option in free agency or whatever that we like, so maybe we'll lower the price for Jones.

But at least as of the combine, it is astronomical to try to get the backup quarterback away from San Francisco. Speaking of high prices, Malik Willis, this is according to Jordan Schultz, reported that Malik Willis will be earning expectedly somewhere in the ballpark of $30 million a year. The question is, if that's the asking price for Willis, does that preclude the Vikings from being interested? And I think the answer is mostly yes, but it doesn't have to be yes, because you can always design these contracts in a certain way. And I know we're just talking about not wanting to sell out the future, but you can always design these contracts in a certain way to be very manageable in the first year and then go up after that.

So if Malik Willis said, I only want to be a Minnesota Viking, but I have to make a reasonable salary, they could probably. shift things around in that contract and make it work for a single year with plans to move a lot of money off the books next year. But I also think that there's going to be some teams that have very healthy cap situations and our quarterback needy that can say, Malik, you can have exactly what you want in terms of your price. Arizona just makes so much sense for Malik Willis, the Lefleur connection, similar, I'm presuming offense that they're going to run there. familiar with Malik as a person and they do have some weapons. If you go to Cleveland, maybe not so much.

If you go to Miami, maybe not so much. But I think that Minnesota's offer would probably be not that not to the level that Malik Willis wants after the way that he performed in a very small sample size with the Green Bay Packers. And the Vikings may very well want if they're going to make an investment. someone who is more proven, has more experience than Malik Willis. I still like the idea because 30 million sounds like a lot, but when you actually break it down,

that would be 20th in average annual value at the quarterback position in the NFL. And if the guy plays well, then you are getting huge value over what you actually played. If he is even the 15th best quarterback in the league, well, the 15th best makes like 45 million. in the NFL today with the way that the prices are. But I think that Willis being as expensive as he's expected to be might put the Vikings on the outside of that conversation.

It doesn't have to, but it might. The next note is, we talked about this a lot the other day on the show about Anthony Richardson and the, quote, mutual interest. The question that I have that I don't think I brought up enough on the show the other day is whether Indianapolis will actually do that. Because just because someone demands a trade doesn't mean you have to trade them. It's not like, oh, sorry guys, he demanded a trade. So here you go, Vikings for a sixth round draft pick.

Anthony Richardson, everybody. Well, Tray Lance went for a fourth. Do you want to give up anything more than that for Anthony Richardson? And keep in mind that Richardson was better than Tray Lance and actually had some very good games in the NFL before the injuries, the struggles with accuracy, but it's not like he never showed anything. There were times where Anthony Richardson was very exciting. He had 10 touchdowns rushing alone in his first two seasons, is.

It wasn't a lot of actual play in those two seasons. But when he was on the field, 10 rushing touchdowns, his rushing was prolific. And he led the league in yards per completion in his, I think it was 11 starts in his second year for the Colts. So it's not like he did absolutely nothing and never flashed anything. And he is also very, very young. He is younger now. I mean, think about this.

He's younger now than Bo Nix or Jaden Daniels when they were drafted. He's also six months older than Jackson Dart, who was drafted last year and was a rookie. That's how young Anthony Richardson is. So I don't know if Indianapolis is going to trade him or if they're going to say, well, hey, we don't really know what Daniel Jones is going to look like with his Achilles. We might need you to play. So that one's, I think, a moving target.

Also, Ian Rappaport reported that Aaron Rogers is not going to wait around. He's not going to pull a 2010 Brett Fav and make somebody fly down to the ranch or whatever and give him a pair of jeans and convince him to come back and play. It looks like he's going to make a decision very soon, whether he's going to retire or not. I don't think that Aaron Rogers is anywhere near as good of an option as some of the other ones that we've talked about, especially Kyler Murray. I think that there's a huge gap between those two for the ceiling and the high end and just making sense, like as somebody who you could see still ascend in the NFL.

It should be mentioned with Kyler Murray, by the way, that the ownership of the Arizona Cardinals were given in the NFLPA survey that Kay's, and Kaler reported a Vespn an F for their ownership, an F. So that is not exactly the franchise that maybe sets up players the best for success at the quarterback position. Who else would have gotten an F? Oh yeah, the Jets. Who did they have?

Sam Darnold. That's right. Start putting together the connection there. So anyway, Aaron Rogers, I've not really liked that idea for the Vikings. I think that his physical limitations really showed for Pittsburgh and, And well, he had a couple of magic moments for them. It was very obvious in the postseason that he was physically breaking down and not really able to deal with any type of pass rush, which is also why I like the Kyler Murray idea. So we'll find out soon about Rogers.

I don't think he's in the mix. But none of us really know how it's going to end up playing out. And the last note was something that took me by surprise. I had to double, triple, quadruple check to make sure this was actually real. I actually texted Kevin Sefer and said, did, did this really happen? Was it, was it, was it a deep fake that Adam Schaefter reported that there's an expectation that Carson Wentz will return to the Minnesota Vikings. And you may have had the same reaction as me of like, but why?

And then, but you know, you get the wheels turn a little bit. Well, first of all, the Vikings have been connected to seven. 142 quarterbacks and some of them will play here. But I think the answer for why would be when you think about the two seasons where the Vikings had quarterback issues and injuries, they got to the number three quarterback each time. And it was Max Brosmer who was not ready to play in the NFL and it's certainly not ready to play against the Seattle Seahawks. I mean, it's really ironic that Max Brosmer, you know, won two of the three games that he

was in. They weren't spectacular wins, but that did happen. And then the bad loss against Seattle. But I don't think you want Max Brosmer to be the next man up if you get to the number three quarterback. So if Carson Wentz was willing to come back to the Vikings because I don't know, he grew up a Vikings fan, loves the area, loves KOC, and wouldn't mind being QB3 if he had to be, or maybe competing with QB2 with someone. Or there could be the option that if you brought in Gino Smith, J.J. McCarthy beats him out and looks spectacular. Then you trade Gino Smith to someone else, kind of the way that ish, that Cleveland did with Joe Flacco, where when it was time to play the younger quarterback, they said Joe Flacco, go get traded. And then, you know, still had their backup situation.

Well, Carson Wentz might be that where you bring him in during training camp and kind of loser gets traded. I mean, if J.J. McCarthy loses out a camp battle to Gino Smith, who, again, has thrown more interceptions than anyone in the NFL over the last two years and has been sacked more than anyone else in the NFL. I mean, you might consider trading J.C. McCarthy at that point. You may consider. I'm not saying that that's imminent or I was told that. But if it looks like it hasn't made any progress at all, you may consider it and you've still got Carson Wentz as your backup. or if you don't like the, if you still want to hang on to him, but he loses the job and you think Wents is a better option to run the whole offense, then you've got your three quarterbacks there.

Remember, at one time, Jordan Love was behind Tim Boyle as the Green Bay Packers backup. So reliability, knowledge of the offense, I could see it with Carson Wentz, especially since he knows that at this point in his career, he is a backup quarterback. So there is your QB rumor takeaways for the Minnesota Vikings. If no one has contacted the Saints, then I need to change my prediction. Kyler Murray makes the most sense to me. Always has from the beginning as a guy for the Vikings to go get. But Murray and Smith are the ones that have been talked about the most.

Not counting out, Derek Carr, just saying if that's the case, then maybe that starts to percolate soon after the NFL Combine. I think that those caliber of starting quarterbacks, though, are the ones that are being discussed the most for the Vikings. All right, let's get to some other just random Vikings notes from the NFL Combine. Jordan Schultz reported that the Vikings are trying to trade Javon Hargrave, which is usually a last ditch type of throw something at the wall, have an insider put it out there. Hey, maybe somebody calls and says, you know what? We've got 147 million in cap space. Why don't we take Javon Hargrave off of your hands?

Hargrave's cap hit is set to be $21 million. It doesn't seem likely that anyone would make a trade for him, but you might as well see. I think what that tells us is that Hargrave is probably going to be released, which has always made the most sense. And when we look at just the Vikings cap situation overall, there's a few guys that are pretty obvious that are not. not likely to be here.

And Hargrave is one of them. And well, that signing will not go down as a huge success, especially in the middle of the season. They struggled to stop the run. Hargrave was kind of getting pushed around. When you look at how he played down the stretch, it's a little unfortunate that they don't have a better cap situation or contract situation for him because overall,

the amount of pressures that Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave were able to create. if they had had better quarterback play, better offense, the opposing team having to drop back pass more often, based on the rate at which those guys were able to get pressures, probably would have been a different discussion about whether that was a success or not, but it will ultimately go down as not a success if they move on from Javon Hargrave. Eric Wilson is somebody that I asked around about a little bit, and at least from what I was told,

it sounds like Eric Wilson may want to try to test the market, which doesn't mean he's not coming back to Minnesota. It means that he may want to wait until the start of free agency to see what he's hearing and what type of offers come in before he comes back to the Vikings to see if there's a big dollar figure out there. When we look at players who performed similarly to Eric Wilson last year And just based on last season, those guys tend to get $7 to $10 million per year, which would be a lot for a 31-year-old player who had mostly been a special teamer for his career.

And I certainly think that he could do it again. The fact that he goes outside linebacker, inside linebacker can play multiple different, you know, coverages or rush. And I thought he did better against the run than the last time he was with the Minnesota Vikings. In the locker room, he is one of the most widely respected players you're going to find. He was back in 2020, and he certainly was last year. But the Vikings on the shoestring budget may not be able to say, okay, Blake Cashman, you're making X.

And now that means we got to pay, you know, Eric Wilson, the same sort of money because he played X number of snout. Like, it could get a little dicey. So that's not me reporting that he's not coming back. It's just my understanding is from right now that there's a decent, chance he decides to test the market. They may come to him and sort something out before that. There was also, these are moving targets because last year, if you remember, there was a

thought that maybe Aaron Jones would do that. And then he signed at the last second, Byron Murphy actually made it last year to the first day of free agency and then ended up coming back late in the day on a big contract after some other corners signed. So just test the market doesn't mean he's gone for sure. but there may be a domino effect to that, which I was told it's a realistic possibility that the Vikings pick up Ivan Pace Jr.'s RFA tender

because if Eric Wilson goes and they really have no depth at all, I mean, truly no depth at the linebacker position. There's, I mean, they had guys like Chas Chambliss in there. Austin Keys, is that his name? He, I think ended up getting picked up by someone else off of the Vikings practice squad like they got nothing so pace even though he slipped for sure in the snap count and was mostly relegated to being a special teamer uh picking up his rfa tender does not cost a whole heck of a lot of money he knows the defense extremely well and worst case

scenario and he and he has been good at times and i think under certain circumstances he still can be as a blitzer as a run stopper when they you know maybe have a little more beef up front. I think Pace can still make plays that way. But as a special teamer, he was a huge player for them. And when you consider how much the kickoff matters now, that might be a reason alone to keep him around. So just because someone's snap count went down, doesn't mean they're necessarily going to move on from Ivan Pace. A couple of center options popped up in free agency. The Tennessee Titans moved on from Lloyd Cushenberry and Tyler Biotish was surprisingly close. by the Washington commanders.

Now, Biotish had an injury at the end of the season, actually on Christmas Day, that forced him to miss the last week of the year. And that makes me wonder, because he was a top 10, fringe top 10 center by PFF the last couple years. It makes me wonder how serious they think those injuries are and whether Biotish will be able to come back

and be the same version of himself. if a team that really needs offensive line is releasing a good player who's 28 years old, there has to be a reason. And from what I read, they're only saving $3 million on the cap or something like that, 2.8. That's that one's got some serious question marks. And I think they've been down that road with the injuries before. And this is maybe not the offseason to take a bunch of swings with injured players.

Cushenberry has been at times in his career, a above, average blocker, pass blocker, but has never really been a dominant run blocker. So he had one top 10 season by overall grade in PFF, was below average last year as a run blocker, did play for a pretty darn bad football team, but has been decent as a past protector, has a ton of experience. So even if the guy's not perfect, you have some other athletes around on this team for run blocking purposes. Maybe that's a veteran option.

I think it should still be on the table to consider drafting a center as well. So there's kind of your Vikings notes right there from the combine that have, you know, not so much to do with the draft. Why don't we get into the draft here in a second? But let me give you a Fandual question of the day to answer in the comment section. Fandul now has up on Fandul's website the number two, the odds for the number two overall pick. and the top guy there is Arvel Reese from Ohio State at minus 120. Who would you be most shocked at that went number two?

So I'll give you David Bailey's plus 135, Ruben Bain plus 600. And then it drops significantly in the odds to plus 3,300 for Sunny Stiles, who I think made an unbelievable impression at the NFL Combine. So who would shock you that went number two or who is your favorite to go number? Number two is the Fandul question of the day. I think we've got a pretty good sense that Fernando Mendoza is going number one. So here's a few things I want to look at from the combine. The safety position, a gentleman emerged and caught my attention.

Now, I had a sense after looking into Dylan Thineman from Oregon that he might be a good fit. Because when I looked at his NFL.com profile and the main thing they're talking about is He's a defensive coordinator's dream. He could play nickel. He could play deep safety. He could play in the box. And I'm like, okay, well, who does that sound like? And at Oregon, you know, he was kind of their guy, like their Harrison Smith.

And I'm like, okay, I'm following along here. But, you know, what kind of, what kind of baller is this guy? And then he gets out there for the combine and just lights this thing on fire. It is not often that you see a safety run a four, three, 540 and I mean all the other events that he did including the on-field workout were eye-popping to the point where I started to wonder, wait a minute, is Dylan Thieneman going to be available for the Minnesota Vikings? I think those draft simulations that we've done on PFF's mock draft simulator where he's available sometimes at 49 in the second round are probably out the window. And you could say, oh man, well, what are they really going to let the combine change? change this guy's value. Number one is I think teams would have probably already had a sense

for this level of athleticism, but this confirms that there is some true freakishness with Dylan Thineman. And he might be more than just a safety. I mean, he might be a guy who could play everywhere on the field and kind of screams Harrison Smith, doesn't he? As far as Emmanuel McNeil Warren goes, it was not as impressive of an on- field workout. Now, he's bigger, so he was not going to run a four, three, five, but he only ranked 13th in athleticism score when you're coming from Toledo and your quality of competition is already a little bit less than not being a freak athlete may hurt you a little bit in the draft process. Now, I haven't seen people saying they're taking him out of their first round where he's

mostly lived and the Vikings were mocked, uh, Emmanuel McNeil Warren from Toledo by, I think it was Bucky Brooks recently. So he's, you know, still getting a lot of that attention. But I wonder if there was more expectation that he would show up and just run

everybody else out of the building with the impressive size, speed, explosiveness combination. And it was more just okay, which makes you wonder, would the Vikings really go for, a Toledo safety whose athleticism

does not blow your mind and any comp to Nick Iman Wore has to be thrown out. Like yes he's tall but he did not put up Nick Eamon Warray type of numbers and again that doesn't mean from a combined perspective that this totally changes

everything but it could make you go you know the fact that even Worei was a second round draft pick maybe he's more of a second round draft pick than he is a first round investment for an NFL team because even though all these guys got a ton of hype, believe it or not, some of them will drop in the draft from where expectation is. So I'm curious about him.

Some other safety stood out at the NFL Combine, including A.J. Halsy, who did not run a fast 40, but I think we know that the 40 is not, I saw someone tweet that a fast thinker, and I think we know this from Lewis Seen, a fast thinker at safety that runs a 4-5-5 is faster than a slow thinker that runs a 4-3. And that was kind of a cam-bine-um,

not a super-fast guy, yet certainly played at above-average NFL speed. So I don't want to be super down on a manual McNeil Warren. Because of that, I just think it hurts him a little bit or it has to hurt him at least a little bit that you're the Toledo guy

that was kind of supposed to like, this up and you're just sort of okay but a j halsey from ls u kind of a second round prospect was in the four fives but really moved well when he was out there so if the vikings don't want to spend a super high draft pick on one of those top two guys that are other than caleb downs there may be some other quality options down the board at that position now the running back position also interesting uh breese hall is going to be franchise tagged i believe the general manager of the Jets made that clear. So he is off the table leaving Kenneth Walker as the top running back in the class.

Although I've started to just throw out the idea that the Vikings are going to chase any of those day one free agents. I think the free agency special on day one for the live stream may be a little bit slow this year for the Vikings when we do that. I'll still do it. but I think it might end up just being a little bit on the slow side. So, Brees Hall off the table, that pushes everybody else up. And I was throwing out there the name Travis E.TN, but E.T.N might get paid pretty well. I think we know that teams are still not going crazy at the running back position with the contracts. But if Hall's off the table, we'll see about Kenneth Walker, he might work out a long-term deal with Seattle still before the last minute.

the pickens may be slim. And what I was told is the Vikings are really looking for pass protection when they're thinking about running backs to add. So they may be looking and we'll get to some of the guys in the draft that have my attention. But in terms of free agency, they do need someone because C.J. Ham was a big player in that. And Aaron Jones was at least serviceable as a pass protector. Jordan Mason was not.

Jordan Mason ranked as the sixth worst past protecting running back by PFF. That's not someone you can trust back there. We know he can run with the football. But if you're a third and eight, who are they going to find? Now, if there is a split the difference type running back, who has got potential to be an all around type guy that you could pair with Jordan Mason and could pass protect, Tyler Eljir of the Atlanta Falcons has graded well over his career. at pass protection was one of the top guys in the NFL last year by PFF grade in a small sample as all past protection is, but also was pretty successful as a runner as well. And I think you know that you need a duo.

Another guy that came up on the PFF list that I didn't think a lot about was Chris Brooks from the Green Bay Packers, who was used there as a pass protector. So there's some names out there. There's not a ton. Rashad White is another one that would be a good investment or a significant one that could pair with Mason and is a good pass protector. There's not a lot. You know why?

It's really hard to pass protect in the NFL, which is why the Vikings may want to look into fullbacks around the NFL because I think it was the top, the top four or five pass protectors for the backfield were all fullbacks and CJ Ham was one of them. I think that was something that just went overlooked the last two years is how important he was to blocking on third down. So at the combine, a name that we have not mentioned on the show was much more of a later prospect that people were considering is Mike Washington Jr. Now, he may be a guy whose name that you have to learn after this. He ran a 4-3-340 at 220 pounds. And what have we been talking about on the show when it comes to the running back position?

Explosiveness. That is, I think, an absolute must. And with a running scheme that is now going to be influenced by Frank Smith, who came from Miami, what it was it that they did in Miami? They got dudes who are fast as hell. Rahim Moster, Devin A. Chan, and they got those guys moving. So it would make a lot of sense to me to look at someone like Mike Washington. Now, I was looking into his draft stock and where it is.

And a website for that grinding the mocks will show you where guys have gone up and down. PFF has a version of this as well. And Washington was on the move up already going into the combine could now shoot up into, is he a third round player? Is he a late second round type of player? I don't know if the Vikings want to spend a second round draft pick on him, but he did average 6.4 yards per attempt this year was pretty darn impressive. So this combine may have taken his stock up could also be a guy the Vikings might look at

in the third. I like that idea. I like a third round, freaky speed type of running back to pair with Jordan Mason and maybe another veteran as a pass protector. Judarian Price had a great workout. His numbers for the actual events were solid, but in terms of how he actually looked out there, at one point, Daniel Jeremiah said, I think Judarium Price from Notre Dame is having the best day of anyone not named Jeremiah Love. And I didn't put it down as an official note because I feel like this is kind of obvious. Now, Jeremiah Love was not going to be a Minnesota Viking.

and Charles Davis on the broadcast, it was funny because Jeremiah loves out there and he's running routes. It looks like a wide receiver. And he's running 436. And at one point, Charles Davis, NFL network analyst says, you know, I sent him to the Vikings in a mock recently. I'm taking it back. Sorry, guys. He's not going to the Minnesota Vikings. He's not getting to number 18.

Jeremiah Love is going to be a top pick in the NFL draft. And I think he solidified that here at the NFL combine. But Judarian Price is a nice consolation prize as a bigger guy. His movement skills are very smooth. I don't know if he has long, long speed. But I think he has explosiveness from what I saw the 10 yard split was very good, that he could be someone the Vikings might consider in the second round. Now, Emmett Johnson of Nebraska, the big question was, well, what's this guy's speed really going to be?

And, you know, it's funny about how the combine works now because these guys train so much that they put up ridiculous numbers in the 40s and ridiculous numbers in terms of the vertical jump. So they're putting out stuff that's like, wow, you compare this guy historically. He's top this, this, this. I looked back. So Emmett Johnson ran 456, 40, which is certainly. in the range of guys who have succeeded as NFL running backs. It is. It's not Sequin Barclay.

It's not some sort of crazy freak man, but there's a lot of running backs who've been good in the four-fives. Delvin Cook ran a 4-49. It doesn't really tell you exactly how that guy's going to look out there on the field. But I think that Emmett Johnson, who is a very smooth runner, uh, they can catch the ball out of the backfield, kind of an all-around guy.

it didn't take him off the board for me. Because I'm a fan of Emmett Johnson. I watched a good amount of his games this year. I feel like he's got maybe not the highest ceiling in the world, but strong potential to be a duo type running back that can be your guy that learns how to pass protect, that can run the ball, catch the ball out of the backfield, somebody to pair with Jordan Mason for years to come. That didn't take him off the board for me.

I thought his explosiveness was good enough. It is not going to blow your mind. but I thought it all was checking boxes. And somebody pointed out, let's not forget the Bucky Irving thing, that Bucky Irving had a bad workout and he dropped in the draft and they overthought it. And he turned out to be a good running back. This underwear Olympics or what everybody calls it,

it doesn't always tell you all the answers, even though it's the last thing that we saw. On the other side of that, two guys really stuck out to me. Seth McGowan from Kentucky had, crazy explosive numbers at 223 pounds. And that is impressive because you're talking about somebody with the size to run over people. And even though his 40 was not insane, it was good.

But the numbers on the vertical and the broad jump, those are going to tell you a little bit more about someone's explosion abilities to hit a hole quick and then get out. I mean, think about where does most of a running back success come from? It's within the first couple of steps, right? and then you're off and running and maybe you could take it to the house maybe not but explosiveness is probably more successful than long speed and set mcgowan was a guy who's a projected maybe third round draft pick that really showed out here and one of my favorite players of the draft who i'll probably make a list of guys that i like the most i saw eli heid and rike play i don't know three four games this year for navy and i loved one of watching this guy. But always your thought is, well, he goes to Navy. Can he really, you know, stick with the big boys? Is he really athletic enough? And then he comes out and runs a 4-4-2.

You go, okay, Eli Heidenreich. And his numbers were right in the range of these other guys. Now, he was kind of a hybrid running back slash wide receiver. A David Palmer, if you will. I kept thinking David Palmer with Eli Heidenreich, because when he was running his routes, it looked like a receiver. He caught a ton of passes for Navy, but also was a quality runner for them as well. Could he be like a slot receiver who can go into the backfield and return punts? I love the idea of this guy as a ball player. And oftentimes when you see a guy, Cooper Cup was this at one point, who just is a ball player and then does meet certain caliber of, you know, athleticism to play in the league. If they put up numbers like that, you know, there's a

chance. So I was intrigued by him. There was a lot of freaks in this combine, a lot. And I'm going to go through a couple of them and then we'll get some final thoughts. Kenyon Sadiq, holy cow, this guy, the tight end from Oregon ran a 439 at 241 pounds, which is one of the craziest performances ever at the NFL combine. And no one is shocked because they knew Sadiq was really the only guy that is thought of in the tight end class to be a first round pick. Now, I mentioned, I think if I didn't mention, then maybe I want to mention. I don't think that the Vikings are going to cut T.J. Hawkinson. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to draft Kenyon Sadiq if he's there. I mean, I guess it does because maybe you're moving on from Hawkinson after a year and Josh Oliver's a blocking tight end.

that is a crazy amount of investment at the tight end position. I mean, trading for Hawkinson, making him one of the highest paid tight ends in the league, first round pick, and paying Josh Oliver would be absolutely wild for that position in terms of investment, especially since that's a spot that tends to be like a development thing where guys will show up two, three years later. But if the Vikings, if they decided to do it, if they decided to draft Sadeek, keep Hawkinson, play three tight ends and Justin Jefferson or two tight ends sets and flip them back and forth between who was out there with Addison and Jefferson.

Seattle did it a lot. The Rams did it a lot. I think that this league loves big personnel right now. And then you can move on from Hawkinson after this year and go forth with Sadiq and Josh Oliver. It's not the craziest thing I've ever heard. It's not likely, but it's not the craziest thing I've ever heard. I've ever heard, especially after seeing this guy's athleticism. This is someone who has a chance to be special in the NFL.

Talen Green, shout out to quarterback Tailing Green of Arkansas, who is 6'4-6 and ran a 43640. What in the world? Also has an absolute canon. And I know I saw the comparison to like Randall Cunningham for the, I think Nate Tice threw it out there for raw skill. And it's probably right because Cunningham was that kind of top speed when he was at, you know, Philadelphia early in his career, his agility, his speed were through the roof, absolutely outrageous. I mean, if you were talking in the sixth round, I mean, how many how many quarterbacks

are legally allowed to be on a roster? Kevin O'Connell may find out that they may have one linebacker on the entire squad, but like seven quarterbacks. So it's not that likely that the Vikings would take Taylin Green. And he's being talked about maybe as moving positions like a Terrell prior kind of thing. He did have, you know, good numbers in terms of throwing down the field. But this is a big time type of project. But I could tell you this, that if Taylor and Green had been around when I was playing Madden back in 05 and you could make players better with the training camp things,

I would have been getting him and making him the best quarterback in the NFL. So that'll be a guy that's interesting to see what happens with him. Like, does he become a receiver? Does he become a tight end? Does he stash on someone's roster and maybe come in in the goal line or something? I don't know, but you got to do something with a guy that has that crazy of athleticism. Bryce Lance, Tray Lance's brother, had the second best athleticism score. And I think one of the trends also, uh,

wide receiver, Brendan Thompson ran a 4-340 and was absolutely flying. You know, I think that this is a draft for the wide receiver position where there's a lot of guys that I think will be available in the second and third rounds. So as you know, no one's shocked to hear me say it. Advocate of wide receiver always, always pick receivers. Doesn't mean you need to always pick them in the first round if there are intriguing guys. and I think someone like Bryce Lance, someone like Brennan Thompson, these crazy speed guys or great athletes, if you're not going to invest a very high pick, there were a lot of receivers

who stood out for their explosiveness, their speed, their quickness in potentially day three type of area that I think we could take, you know, we could see the Vikings taking some shots at that position if they are not going to just say, hey, we're done with Jordan Addison after this, we're going all in on this guy or that guy, one of the top players at the receiver position. So those guys were some freaks there. Eli Stowers, the tight end, jumped 45 inches. I don't know if the guy could play at all, but that's insane.

Michael Jordan's vertical was allegedly 46 inches. And Eli Stowers was 45. This guy's Michael Jordan in terms of jumping. And someone who could be interesting for the Minnesota Vikings, Caleb Banks, who, uh, weighed in at 327, 6 foot 6 and 11 inch hands, or almost 11 inch hands, which is insane, insane size for this guy. He ends up with the fifth best athleticism score among DTs. His production at Florida, not mind blowing. And he did end the on field workouts a little early due to what they said was a cleat issue.

I assumed he got like a blister or something, which would be a nightmare to try to do that. If you've ever had a blister, you know, don't, you know, try running on it. It's horrible. So I don't know if that was the problem or, or not, but overall showed the potential probably that is the highest of anybody in this draft. But I also think that he's on the raw side. Do the Vikings want to do that in the first round with an investment for a guy who could be a monster, but also might take some time to get to monster level that I am not quite sure?

So there's the notebook. There's everything I thought now. Look, we're going to have a deeper analysis with Chris Trapasso, the official draft analyst of Purple Insider and formerly of CBS Sports. We will have that on Monday. But these were a bunch of things that popped out to me that I was thinking about. We could go position by position 40 players that showed something over the last couple of days at the NFL combine. But those are just a few and a bunch of stuff that I either talked about. with people or reports that were out there.

And my final thoughts coming out of India are this. It, it does seem that the Vikings want to start in quarterback for 2026. It does seem like their best case scenario is maybe developing J.J. McCarthy for another year. But here's what I'll say. I wouldn't count out anything. Any option is on the table because where you think you've kind of settled on one thing, there are moving parts.

There are other teams. There are other things that can happen where someone might come and surprise you with an offer for a quarterback or, you know, someone might become available that you never expected to actually be available. There was another report that the Texans are absolutely not going to trade CJ Stroud. That's probably true. But my point is that this thing is happening and it's going to be a circus when it comes to these starting quarterbacks all finding different spots.

And one of them will be in the Minnesota Vikings uniform. Who that is will tell us a lot about what they think of J.J. McCarthy's future. I just got the sense, just the feeling that they'd like someone with starting experience to be the guy or to set a very high bar for J.J. McCarthy to jump over. That was the feeling there. And in terms of draft needs, how they're going to approach. the draft, the only thing I could say is there's a lot of players in this draft that I think

makes sense for the Vikings. In some previous years, there were times where I thought, well, it's either guard or corner and that's what they're going to do or it's either receiver or edge, you know, right, right? Like, this is not one of those years. I think that there's a lot more positions that I'm going to have to prepare for to talk in depth about, uh, which makes it more interesting for sure. And as far as the Vikings free agency approach, my expectation is, and we're going to do this this week, it's going to be a lot of fun.

I'm going to do the ethical offseason this week. Because in previous iterations, what I've tried to do is let me create as much cap space as possible with every restructure and squeeze as much talent into the roster from free agency. That's been my approach because I thought that was what they were going to do. but after Rob Brzezinski said, eh, maybe not. There's a future to this team and I'm going to protect it.

Well, what would an ethical offseason look like? It just may not be a mind-blowing free agency, which believe it or not, could work out better. Sometimes when you have to be more shrewd and less throwing everything at the wall, you end up making better decisions. So that could be the case that is on the docket as well. It's going to be a fun week breaking down. And look, Ian Rappaport said it on TV.

And I totally agree. He said like, hey, don't turn, don't tune out. Don't, you know, go somewhere off the grid where your phone doesn't work. Because these movements with quarterbacks could happen at any time. So, uh, don't tune out of Purple Insider because we're going to have a lot of stuff. Again, Chris Trapaso is going to break down his favorites from the NFL Combine. We are going to draft sim. We are going to simulate the offseason again.

and we're going to keep our eye on any news. I will be right here if anything comes up as always. So thanks everybody for all the kind words and support for my work at the NFL Combine. I had a good time there. Meeting a lot of people. If you didn't hear the interviews that we did, go back and check those out. Try to do my best there to get as many people on the show as I possibly could. Ben Gessling, Dane Mizatani, Q Myers from Raiders Radio.

So had a good time there. I think we took away a lot. And now it's time for dominoes to begin falling. So another reminder that Fanduil question the day, the favorite to go number two is Arvel Reese. Do you think he'll go number two or you think it'll be someone else? Let me know in the comments. Thanks everybody for watching slash listening.

And we will see you all again pretty much all the time. Pretty much all the time from here on out. It's off season, baby. Off we go. Football.