Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN ranked the Vikings' offensive weapons 17th, is that fair?

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey everybody, Matthew Collar here. Golden, Colorado, and great podcast for everyone. The final two episodes are live right now, or you can binge the entire season to learn about your favorite soccer stars. Check out Blue Wire's Golden Goal, available anywhere you listen to podcasts. All right, welcome in to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And joining me, former NFL wide receiver Donald Jones for his second appearance here on the podcast.

What is going on, Donald? Oh, man, nothing much, man. Out here in New Jersey just trying to – it's been hot, so it's been a lot of swimming and stuff like that. And, you know, we're not one of the hot spots right now, so everything is good. Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good to hear. The East Coast seems to be doing okay, or at least the Northeast.

Northeast, yeah. When it comes to the COVID. And it's going to be pretty strange when certain NFL cities are the epicenter of the universe of COVID and other NFL cities have no problems really whatsoever. And that was a different podcast earlier this week that we have no idea how the NFL is going to deal with that. But for purposes of this podcast, we're just going to go forward, Donald, as if the season is regular and everything is fine.

So do not look behind the COVID curtain. Everything is okay here. So Bill Barnwell of ESPN did a piece ranking the weapons in the NFL and weapons, just meaning running back wide receiver tight end. So who has the best field position groups in the NFL? And I wanted to get your opinion on this because you said to me, Hey, why do you always have me just break down wide receiver play all the time? So, well, this is kind of that, but a bigger picture here.

So I want to start with your opinion on where the Vikings should land in the NFL because Bill Barnwell has had them in the last two years as the fifth best group, and then this year he has them dropping down to 17th. And I understand that with Stephon Diggs going to Buffalo. But maybe, I don't know, is it a little too far of a drop for them, considering what the expectations might be for Justin Jefferson? I know it's hard to project rookies, but you did replace Stephon Diggs with a very high draft pick who was incredibly productive at LSU. Do you think

that the Vikings deserve to be a mid-pack team when it comes to their weapons? You know, I think when you look at the Vikings and their weapons, obviously every team, when you look at the weapons, you're going to start out with the quarterback, the guy who has to get the ball to the weapons. And I think when Bill Barnwell is looking at just Kirk Cousins and where the expectations coming in, obviously the money that he got, and just what he's done over the last couple of years, I would say a lot of people would say he's kind of a middle-of-the-pack type of quarterback, and I think that's why they would put that team and their weapons around the middle of the Pac-17.

When it comes to Adam Thielen handling the number one role, I mean, that's a huge question mark here. If I'm ranking the group of weapons, I'm going to wonder how's that going to go. But the chemistry between Kirk Cousins and Adam Thielen has been very good when Thielen has been on the field. He was injured a lot last year, but you always liked him quite a bit, Adam Thielen, as a wide receiver, and I think that anybody who doesn't believe that he could step into this number one role hasn't really been watching close enough his ability to catch deep passes by tracking the ball, go underneath out of the slot, move all over the place, but this isn't going to be as easy as the other team just puts their top corner on Adam Thielen and shuts him down. No, I mean, you brought in a very good receiver.

You don't really know what rookies are going to do in the league, but you did bring in a really good one out of LSU and Jefferson. So hopefully he can help to ease that double coverage that Adam Thielen can start to see, which is not something that he might have seen in the past, having Stephon Diggs on the other side. But I think the biggest thing is Dalvin Cook, you know, and if Dalvin Cook can stay healthy and they can feed him the ball, it will take a lot of pressure off of Adam Thielen and Jefferson and the tight ends up there, you know, and Kirk Cousins.

And so I think that's the biggest thing, and I think they're going to want to lean on Cook a lot more to take the pressure off the wide receivers. Adam Thielen is a problem. He's a beast. I don't know what he would be like if he starts to consistently face double coverage and bracket coverages and things like that, and that will be yet to be seen.

But I think that if they can really run the ball, it will take the pressure off of he and the rest of the receiving core okay explain when we talk about double coverage I think of the old Madden defense where you could just click double wide receivers and then it would just do it for you so explain explain how that how that works and how teams break it though because last year Stefan Diggs it seemed like every team wanted to roll a safety over the top of him and it just didn't matter that he could succeed down the field and I've always wondered because a lot of these top receivers they get the double coverage they get all the attention they

get all the game planning and they just win anyway and when Gary Kubiak was in Houston Andre Johnson would get 140 150 targets a year it just didn't matter and they found ways on every level to still get him open in part by moving him around which they're going to do a lot with dealing so is that is that overrated that idea or like how how does that how do you break that when teams are double teaming your top receiver when I think when when teams are double teaming your top receiver, it's really based on – it's a combination of things. So it starts out with the offensive coordinator and his schemes

and the route concepts and packages that he's trying to put together that will help to get Adam Thielen open. I think another thing is moving Adam Thielen around a little bit. You can't just let him be the X and he's on the side by himself all the time. You need for him to move in the slot, number two receiver, number three receiver, put him in motion, shift, all of that stuff so that a team can never really get a beat on what they're trying to do with him. So those are some of the key things to try and eliminate so much double coverage. Teams are still going to try and do it.

He's going to see a lot of match coverages. It's going to look like zone, but it really is man-to-man. And, you know, it's going to be up to he and Kirk Cousins to see it and be able for him to sit in those zones and do what he has to do. And I wonder how much Kubiak will even take from some of the creativeness of Kevin Stefanski last year, because he would use a ton of different formations. He would use a lot of like cut splits and things like that for wide receivers or a bunch formations.

Anybody who knows my work from Score North and 1500 ESPN knows that I wrote a huge piece about bunch formations once. And it was super fun. But they're being used successfully all over the league and that's a way to get somebody off the line of scrimmage or to a better matchup than having just somebody line up like I think that the days of just sticking your Jarrell Revis on the top receiver that offenses have figured out ways to make it a lot harder to do that yeah yeah I, you look at those offenses like the Chiefs offenses, like the Patriots for a long time, even down in Tampa now with Brady going down there and Bruce Arians. Those are the types of offenses that do a lot of motions, a lot of shifts, a lot of bunch formations

with their number one receivers. Those guys are off the ball. And that's so that they're not seeing the press coverage and they're moving around a lot so that teams can't necessarily double cover them. So you get into a bunch formation with three wide receivers and everybody's going a different way. Well, it can confuse the defense. So it's like, okay, if you want to double team this guy, it's more likely a chance that somebody's going to come wide open. And so that's why your bunch formations have become so key in the game.

Now it just makes it easier for quarterbacks to, to really diagnose what's going on, especially with the shifts in the motions. Cause anytime for those who don't know, anytime a wide receiver goes in motion, yeah, they're trying to get to a certain position, but that's also for the offense to see what the defense is doing, if they're in man or not.

If you ever see a wide receiver shift over and the defense doesn't really move, they're in a zone. If you see them go with them, they're in a man-to-man. So that's what the quarterback is trying to get a look at and the offensive coordinator to see what's going on throughout the course of the game. And this thing that you just pointed out is one of the reasons that my buddy Sage Rosenfels gets annoyed when everyone praises Tony Romo for pointing out

the coverage before it happens or where the ball might go. It's like, we all know that. Every NFL quarterback knows that. But, you know, that is the thing. Right. Just to put a bookend on the Vikings elements of the weapons, I think a lot of it just depends entirely on whether guys who haven't done it yet, do it.

Herb Smith, we have not seen him do it yet, but he showed a lot last year that suggests he can. You mentioned being high on Justin Jefferson. That was our first episode breaking down his tape. And if you haven't heard that one, I suggest people go back and find it because we went deep into why we think he could quickly make a big impact. But if you're doing a ranking, you can't count on the fact that he would do that. I want you to guess for me who you think is number one on Bill Barnwell's list.

I would say in terms of weapons, sheer weapons, it's either going to be the Buccaneers or the Kansas City Chiefs, and that's just because of what the Chiefs did last year with those weapons, and then with Tom Brady going down there, with them bringing Gronk back, you know, having the weapons they already had at the wide receiver position, it would have to be one of those two teams. Two very, very good guesses. Kansas City is indeed number one, and Tampa Bay is number four on this list. And number three and four both play the Vikings,

and number two has Kevin Stefanski, former Vikings offensive coordinator, as their coach. He has Cleveland as number two on this list for the best weapons. I think that's worth talking about because Stefanski goes there with, in my mind, a lot of pressure. And we know that that ownership will fire a coach one and done really quickly. But he is inheriting a heck of an offense. Even if you think number two is too high,

it's probably betting on Odell Beckham being the old version of Odell Beckham. But I think it says a lot about if Kevin Stefanski can't get the most out of Baker Mayfield this year one of those two will not be here in 2021 yeah and that and that's the thing I mean see they've gone through so many quarterbacks so many first round quarterbacks in the last decade and a half it's amazing you know and and you bring in Baker Mayfield he doesn't have a really good season last year um The year before, he was decent. You know, so you're talking about year three now, and really expectations are high when you have Jarvis Landry,

when you have Odell Beckham, when you have some good running backs who have now come into their own. I think that, you know, the expectations are high, but I can't see them being number two. I just can't see them being number two. Odell Beckham, to me, is not, even if he's the old Odell Beckham, I just can't see them being number two, and it's really because of Baker Mayfield. I don't think he's that high on my list of quarterbacks, even with

the best weapons in the league. I just don't see him making those plays. I don't care if you have the best wide receivers. As a quarterback, you still have to make the throws. You still have to read the defenses, make the right decision, and actually make the throws. And I just don't see him doing it consistently throughout the course of a year. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you to go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Baseball is back, and Soda Stick just launched its latest partnership with Hormel Foods and the Tommy Watkins Foundation to pay homage to the Hormel Row of Fame. It debuted in the Metrodome in 1992, and though it's been long retired,

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code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. And that's what's going to be interesting is just how much Kevin Stefanski can boost his performance from what it was last year by possibly simplifying things like they did for Kirk Cousins. I mean, for Cousins, a lot of it was not making a ton of checks or changes at the line of scrimmage. It was just line up, run a play action bootleg, and somebody has a deep crosser, you hit them or you don't. And it really worked for Cousins. Now, whether it works for Baker Mayfield

is yet to be seen. I think he has the arm talent to do that kind of thing. And I think we've seen a lot of quarterbacks who are less talented than Baker Mayfield succeed in this Kubiak style of offense. But, you know, the one thing I always wonder with Baker is does he have the head for all this? And I don't know if that necessarily means reading defenses or just the pressure that is on a franchise quarterback seems to get to him pretty badly, and this year that's ramped up because if he fails this year, I think you're talking about looking for a new quarterback already.

And see, and this is why I had a problem with bringing in a Jarvis Landry with bringing in an Odell Beckham. Those two guys as your number one and number two receivers, just the personalities that they have. And when you have a quarterback who has always had somewhat of a hot head, you know, and not really seem to be able to handle that pressure, I guess he did in college.

But since he's been in the league, it's been a lot different than when he was in college, you know. And to have those guys as your number one and number two, we know if you have a bad game, who knows what they're going to say in a press conference, you know. And that can really just spiral things out of control with your team. So I think that they have to, they got to make sure that they can keep those two guys under the wraps in

terms of what they're saying. And if they can do that, we all know winning cures that, but if they can really keep those guys hush hush, maybe Baker Mayfield will be able to relax and just play football. Odell Beckham, fat chance that he stays hush hushed, maybe Baker Mayfield will be able to relax and just play football. Odell Beckham, fat chance that he stays hush-hush. Exactly. I mean, this is the guy who went around handing out $100 bills at the championship game in college.

It's amazing. It's really amazing. If they're having a great season, you're going to hear about it. If they're having a terrible season, you're going to hear about it. If they're having a terrible season, you're going to hear about it. It's like a lose-lose situation for Baker Mayfield, you know. So I don't know if he's going to be able to handle that. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Now, three and four on the list I want to talk about because they're both Vikings opponents.

Dallas is my pick, and I know this might be a bit of a hot take, but they're my pick in the NFC. I think that they have the easy enough division to get that number one seed that last year they were the best offense in the league in terms of yards per play. Their coach coached them out of a few games that they lost. Their kicker certainly kicked them out of a few games that they lost. But when you looked at their point differential, their yards, they should have been an 11 or 12 win team last year. They bring in a new coach in Mike McCarthy. They get another weapon in CeeDee Lamb, who I think is a beast.

They're bringing back still a very good offensive line. And if you look at recent teams that have gone to the Super Bowl, they all rank number one, number two, number three in points for points against goes kind of up and down. Some teams are better than others. But it's usually if you've got the best offense, then you've got a really good chance to go to the Super Bowl. So I have Dallas as a favorite in the NFC.

And it's because of these weapons. Is that too hot of a take, Donald? You know, I see them as a playoff team. I don't know if I can necessarily see them going all the way to the Super Bowl. I just can never sleep on, like, the Saints. I can never really sleep on Seattle, any of those teams. But I can see them as a playoff contending team for sure with Mike McCarthy coming in.

He's definitely going to – that offense, you know, and you think about what they ran out there in Green Bay. It was really kind of hard to know what they ran in Green Bay because Aaron Rodgers just kind of does his own thing. And we'll see if they kind of give the keys to the card of Dak Prescott, so to speak. I mean, they don't want to pay him, so who knows if they're going to do that. But with the weapons at the receiver position and the running back that they have, once again, I don't think they need to, I think they've shown that they don't necessarily trust Dak Prescott by not paying him. Everybody knows if you have

a franchise quarterback, you pay him. Even if you pay him early before his contract is up, you pay that guy. So I don't think they necessarily trust him. I can see them really trying to lean on Ezekiel Elliott and that running game and then play action down the field. You know, I don't see them just going with like he had it in Green Bay with Aaron Rodgers. I think it's going to be more on that run game. If they do that, it will open things up for those wide receivers. Like you said, I mean, C.D. Lamb, he's he's good. One of the best route runners to ever come out. Well, not ever, but to come out of college in the recent years. I see him being a problem if he can continue that in this league. I can definitely see them as a playoff contending team, though, for sure.

And he's a yak monster, too, if you get the ball. Oh, yeah. He's so quick, man. It's crazy. I mean, I wouldn't want to be a defender trying to tackle him once he gets the ball in his hands. And I think that even though that game is being played at U.S. Bank Stadium, that is one that the Vikings should be pretty darn concerned about

with their young rookie corners or inexperienced corners that are going to play against Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and C.D. Lamb if they're all healthy when they play them. But I did think it was a good move from Dallas to keep Kellen Moore as their offensive coordinator and not try to have Dak Prescott and the whole offense learn an entirely new offense after they were successful last season. Now tell me, Donald, are you buying Tampa Bay? Because clearly they belong at the very top with the weapons,

with their two receivers, with Gronk coming back. And even if there's 75% of Gronk for 10 games, that's still a beast, and that's still a huge contributor. But Brady, last year, play slips a little bit, age gets all of us. Are you buying? Just one more thing on Dallas and Kellen Moore. I think it's going to be interesting to see if he allows Kellen Moore to actually call plays or if Mike McCarthy is calling plays.

You know, I think that's something that everybody needs to be watching. We know Mike McCarthy is the one that called plays forever in Green Bay. So, you know, we'll watch for that. But in terms of, of, of Tampa Bay, I think Brady's Brady's play to me in the recent years is everybody was talking about, he was great and all of that stuff. I mean, he's always been great, but he's always had Gronk, and Gronk makes crazy plays. Like, I'm talking, Gronk is one of the top

three, five tight ends, to me, three tight ends in the history of the game, and he makes crazy plays that wide receivers sometimes don't even make, you know? So I think he's been that guy who, when Tom Brady needed somebody to just make a play,

he could just throw the ball up and he was going to make the play for him. And that eased things for Julian Edelman and the rest of the receivers that they had out there, Danny Amendola, as they just rotated around receivers in New England. As long as he had Gronk, he was okay. So I can see if Gronk is healthy

and their line is healthy, I can see them really being good with Gronk coming back. They still have O.J. Howard, you know, Mike Evans, those guys. They'll all be able to have good seasons just because Gronk is healthy and everything is going to rotate to Gronk. What do you think about the downfield passing game and how that might be adjusted? Because I kind of think of it with Arians as,

I know it's got a lot of vertical routes mixed in, but that often also creates a lot of room underneath for checkdowns. And there is nobody in the history of the game who is better at picking the right time and right place to check down than Tom Brady. You look at his running backs, I mean, throughout his history, Kevin Falk made a career on this. And then recently James White, like these guys become really good receiving running backs because I mean, throughout his history. Kevin Falk made a career on this. And then recently James White. Like these guys become really good receiving running backs because he's so

good at getting through his progressions, deciding when the right time to check down. And I think a lot of these deep routes, route combinations will actually help him with that, get a lot of easy yards after catch to his running backs. Yeah, Bruce Arians is one of them. See, in New England, you know, they had their underneath routes, like your little short crossers and under routes.

That's big for Bruce Arians. He loves to run those shallow crossers with the wide receivers crossing in the field, those rub routes, all of that stuff. And I think it's going to be huge for Tom Brady. You know, and to have two tight ends that can run routes, that is going to be huge. And then, you know, if you're running back and really catch the ball out of the backfield, yeah, man,

I think they won't necessarily need to go down the field as much. And you're going to be running so much underneath stuff. Like I said, the defense is going to rotate the ground. And if Mike Evans does what he has to do, he's going to be one-on-one a lot more than he has been in the past couple of years. So the person who's the happiest on that team should be Mike Evans. He just has to go out there, stay healthy, and do what he has to do.

If he does, I mean, you can make a case, really, for Tampa winning that division down there if they can get through the Saints. Yep, and the Saints are another team that is very high on Bill Barnwell's list, and they add a man, Sanders, of course. They are excellent. Alvin Kamara still there. No idea what's going to happen with his contract, but for at least this year that's another huge weapon for them.

I've seen a running back list today, and Alvin Kamara wasn't even in the top five. To me, he's the top five running back in this league just because he can do so many different things. What's your thoughts on that? No, definitely. I mean, I read that Kamara took, now I can't remember the exact percentage, but maybe the second highest percentage of snaps as a wide receiver.

That's a running back. And they were able to use him on the field at the same time as Latavius Murray at times last year, they can line them up outside. They can line them up in the slot and his catch in the Minneapolis miracle game over Eric Hendricks. I mean, the throw is an all timer from Drew Brees, but that's, I believe him lining up as a wide receiver and beating a linebacker into the end zone. I think he's a special, special type of talent.

Last year he was down a little bit because of an injury early in the season. But when he bounced back, he was tremendous. I think it's McCaffrey and then him and Saquon and Delvin Cook. And that's, you know, that's kind of your elite bunch of guys. There were two more teams that I wanted to ask you about on this list. One is Buffalo, your former squad, and adding Stephon Diggs. Now, of course, Stephon Diggs is a kingmaker when it comes to quarterbacks. Here's a stat for you.

All quarterbacks throwing to Stephon Diggs during his career, so that means Bridgewater, Bradford, Keenum, Cousins, and even Sean Hill was mixed in there. All of them throwing to Stephon Diggs, their combined quarterback rating when targeting him is 108.4. So basically, if you throw to Stephon Diggs, you are playing at a Pro Bowl level when you're targeting him. But the Josh Allen thing,

do you become more accurate when you're throwing to Stephon Diggs? Do you not overthrow him? He is good, but he doesn't have 10 feet arms to jump up on some of those passes that have gone over him. So I do think that Buffalo, which is ranked ninth on this list, deserves to be a very highly – or I'm sorry, eighth – highly ranked group of weapons. I just don't know if the quarterback is going to be able to take advantage of it. Yeah, see, once again, I always have to go, when you talk about weapons on an offense, it's always going to start with the quarterback position. And to me, and Buffalo fans wouldn't like this,

but you see some of the same things that you've seen from Josh Allen in college since he's been in the league. You see the same things. You see the throws high over the field, over the middle of the field. You see some bad decisions. He needs to correct some of that stuff. But the accuracy has always been like, man, where was he throwing at? And then he'll make a crazy throw. It's like, yo, that right there was nice. You know, so with Diggs coming in, yeah, he's going to be open. He's going to make things easier for

the other receivers that they have for sure. But it's going to come open. He's going to make things easier for the other receivers that they have, for sure. But it's going to come down to Allen actually making accurate throws. And Stephon Diggs is one of those guys. He wants to catch the ball and run as well. You got to make accurate throws for guys to be able to catch and get those yak yards. You can't throw behind him.

You can't throw too high because when you throw the ball high, especially over the middle of the field, guys tend to want to get down because there's a safety or somebody coming from somewhere. And it might not be, but because you threw it high, I don't know who's around me right now. So it's really up to the quarterback and Josh Allen to make accurate throws on a consistent basis for that receiving core to be able to do what they need to do.

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And Tom Brady would be a good example of that. You know, if he is getting the ball out super quick. And Jimmy Garoppolo with his quick release and accuracy on some of those routes, like I think that plays a big role in the Yak, and so does the scheme as well. I looked up – here's another crazy number for you with Josh Allen. I looked up his first 30 starts in comparison to all quarterbacks for the last 20 years in terms of just quarterback rating, and I know that's not a perfect number,

but his quarterback rating through 30 starts is pretty comparable to J.P. Lossman and Trent Edwards. So I know that Bill's fans are really way up on Josh Allen and they love him and they want to see him succeed, but the passing numbers are not great. And you can only go so long by just being a running quarterback in the NFL. So he's got to take that big step. The other team I wanted to ask you about is the Green Bay Packers. Draft night, we were all shocked, nobody more than me, about the Green Bay Packers deciding to not take wide receivers in a draft that has all sorts of wide receivers to try and stack around Aaron Rodgers

for his final years of his career. They pick a quarterback and they pick a running back. I have no idea what they were doing, Donald, still. They're ranked 19th on this list and it might be too high. I mean, they pretty much have Devontae Adams and Aaron Jones and nobody else. Right, exactly. I mean, that's what I see, Devontae Adams, Aaron Jones, and that's it. And you've got to say to yourself what's going to be going through Aaron Rodgers' mind when you decide you want to take a quarterback in – what, they take him in the first round, right?

Yeah. You decide you want to take a quarterback in the first round. Right. Especially if you trade up for a quarterback. That's like, oh, you guys – that means in the next year I'm going to be out of here. You know, so you've got to wonder really what's going through his mind obviously aaron rogers is always going to come out and and perform at his best but you gotta believe that he's thinking beyond green bay now you know and really just let me make sure that i show and prove that i'm just i'm still one of the best quarterbacks in the league so that i can be out of here

next year. And you guys can go ahead and move on and do what you want to do with this new quarterback. Yeah, this is my biggest disagreement on this list, is he has Detroit at 25th and Green Bay at 19th. And I think Detroit has a much better group of weapons than Green Bay does. I mean, I really like Kenny Galladay is probably the most underrated receiver in the league.

Marvin Jones, when he's healthy, can beat anybody on one-on-one balls down the field. And then what they might have from TJ Hawkinson and DeAndre Swift, I think that they've got a great setup there that Aaron Rodgers would kill for as opposed to having one wide receiver that everybody knows, and then they drafted another tight end in the late rounds. And I think that this is, even though Green Bay has a good shot at winning the division, this is kind of their downfall

is not being able to add someone who can contribute something as a receiver. Because if you draft somebody and they give you 45 catches for 600 yards, at least that's a contribution by a talented player. But what he was having last year with some of these guys was just a replacement level type of play. And I think that Detroit is much better in terms of their weapons than Green Bay. Yeah, I'd agree with you there. I think Detroit, once again, if they can lean on their running game, it will make things a lot easier for the quarterback and the rest of the receivers.

But Green Bay, I mean, you just got to wonder what's going on, man. You move on from, from the coach, you get a new coach. And now it's like,

he's still Aaron Rodgers. Like he still can make plays for you. He's still one of the best, most talented quarterbacks in this game. And really in the history of the game, you know, who can make any throw, you need to be worried about why receiver play and line play, you know,

and really just trying to keep him playing within the concept of the offense because he tends to get outside the concept of the offense. And that's why he gets hurt. The line play has not been good over the years. And that was the problem with Mike McCarthy. They never really got him a solid, solid line out there. And then the wide receivers, you know, and then the defense. So I don't know what they're doing out there.

It just seems to me that they're looking past Aaron Rodgers. And this is just a year where it's like, hey, we're going to let him go out here and do what he has to do. If he doesn't look good, then we'll just go ahead and put our first-round quarterback in there and let him just get his reps and Aaron Rodgers and move on next year. Well, Vikings fans would tell you that the Packers just hold all the time. That's how they play offensive line there.

We get that from Mike Zimmer almost every year that the Packers hold a lot. Before we wrap up, any other team that we didn't mention that you are super excited to see how their offense looks? I think San Fran coming back, you know, with Garoppolo and the weapons that they have out there. It's going to be interesting to see now coming off of a Super Bowl loss for Shanahan again, how he kind of bounces back in this season. So I think that's a team that I'm definitely interested in. And I can't really think of another offense, man.

I would say out there in L.A., the Rams, you know, that's kind of an offense. What's golf going to say out there in la the ramps you know that's kind of an offense what what what's uh golf going to do out there in la this year um coming off of a season where you didn't really hear much about them after going to the super bowl the year before last year was just like okay and they have some good weapons out there you know they won't have girly they don't have girly anymore um so now what do you do as a quarterback? And really for Sean McVay out there. So I think those are two teams that I'll be interested to see. New England, for me also, they're listed 21st on Bill Barnwell's list. The weapons are not particularly impressive, but Cam is his own weapon. Yeah.

If he's right. If he's right. He is. He definitely is. And that's – you know what? That's going to be interesting to see if they go with the same offense that they've been going with all of these years with Tom Brady. Cam is not necessarily – he's not that guy who's going to get the ball

out of his hands quick. So do you go with the same offense, or do you now build something around Cam, you know, if he's going to be the starter? If you hear national reporters talk, they talk about, oh, he's going to have to go in there and compete. And they might be right, but at the end of the day, we know that they brought Cam in because you don't really have anybody else.

Right, right. It's going to be interesting to see what offense they go without there. That was pretty funny for the couple months where Jared Stidham was like, and you mentioned the national reporters were like, no, no, he's way better than you think. And then they signed Cam. And they were like, maybe he isn't then. Maybe you were just kind of saying that because it's the Patriots.

So Donald Jones, one of my favorite people to just talk ball with on retainer, where I just text you and say, you want to talk football? And that is exactly what we do. So this is great. And you text me same day, too. I'm like Amazon Prime. I know, right? You can arrive at any time and for the perfect

price uh so anyway i appreciate your time i'm glad you're doing well and uh i hope you can get your football team back out on the field at some point soon you think that's gonna happen you know i'm not sure we just they sent out an email today in the state of new jersey they push high school football back to october it's not starting till october but pop warner for some reason they're like they sent an email out this morning and they're like um we know what the high school guidelines are but we're not high school and we're going to be starting august 1st and we're like man what are you talking about right now parents are not signing their little kids up to wear masks under their helmets and do all of that stuff. So who knows what's going on.

Well, I wish you the best. That doesn't really make sense. Seems like it would be something you could easily just push back a little bit. Right, exactly. It makes sense. Why do you have to do it now? We've all become epidemiologists recently, so have them wear masks. Socially distance during football seems totally fine.

Man, I'm telling you, they want the parents to stay in the cars. You can't go out there and watch the games. It's amazing some of their guidelines. Well, there are a few things that COVID has done to our world that might be good. Maybe that's one of them. Keep the parents in their cars during the games. Anyway, Donald, great stuff. Great to catch up with you, and we'll do it again soon, man.

All right, man. Talk to you soon. Thank you.