Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Bill Barnwell talks Vikings HOF chances and declining NFL teams

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

Read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go? It's non-stop, from work, to friends, to family, and a million pressing issues. Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button. That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill. Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota again to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch some baseball. Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months. There's only one beer out there that's made to chill. The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold,

and that way you know it's time to chill. Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind, when you want to hit the reset button. Reach for the beer that is made to chill.

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. This is Greg Olson, here to tell you about my new podcast, TE1. On the show, I had a chance to talk to my fellow tight ends who have revolutionized the position from an extra lineman to a dual-threat superstar. And just like my guests have changed the game, this year, NFLSundayTicket.tv is revolutionizing your NFL viewing experience.

Stream all the live, out-of-market NFL games every Sunday on your favorite devices and never miss a moment from your favorite players. Visit NFLSundayTicket.tv and use the promo code GREG88 at checkout and get 15% off your subscription. That's NFLSundayTicket.tv and the promo code GREG88. Subscribe to TE1 and get NFLSundayTicket.tv, an unmatched dual threat. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here as always. We will get to my conversation with ESPN's Bill Barnwell in just a second,

but first wanted to give you an update on Sunday's practice. Notepads again today. Those come on Monday afternoon, but a few notes for you. On the defensive line, Daniil Hunter was not practicing, so Jalen Holmes filled in, while Eddie Arboro and Anthony Zettel were on the second team, and the rookies DJ Wanham and Kenny Wilkes, they were on third team, which is interesting because Jalen Holmes is moving out to defensive end after two years as an interior player, and it looks like they're going to give him a chance to win a rotational role, possibly a rusher there, and we might end up seeing some of

those rookies on practice squad if Holmes can win a job. So it looks like they're giving him a shot. Also, Shamar Steffen was back with Jaleel Johnson on the first team, not Armond Watts. We've talked up Watts a lot on the show. Maybe there's a break pump that needs to come with Armond Watts, or if they're just giving Jaleel Johnson first shot to show them that there's something there and that he can hold off Armond Watts, who they've been very excited about. So that will be worth watching once the pads come on. And as far as the cornerbacks, Jeff Gladney was back after sitting out the first day. He worked with the first team at nickel at times, but Mike Hughes also worked first team nickel. And we saw Cam Dantzler do some outside corner work with the first team. So the feeling on Dantzler was always

that he was drafted too low in the third round because of a poor combine and that they were high on him. And it looks like that's coming to fruition very, very early here, of course. Justin Jefferson also has not gotten a whole lot of first-team work. It has been almost exclusively Adam Thielen and B.C. Johnson, which says to me that they like Jefferson in the slot to get things going from the very beginning here. That's where he was almost exclusively at LSU. And we'll see if that role evolves as we go on in training camp.

So pads come on Monday. That signifies the true start of training camp. That's when we can tell who's really winning the reps and making plays. So I cannot wait to break that all down with you this week. So now let's get to Bill Barnwell. Joining me from ESPN, a guy who writes all the articles that I want to read as if I personally requested them or thought of them. And then he wrote them, Bill Barnwell. What's up, Bill? This seems like an inception kind of situation.

It is. It is like I've had this in my brain all summer long about writing something on whether Harrison Smith has a good chance to make the Hall of Fame eventually. And then it was like, doo-doo-doo-doo, and it pops up that you wrote about Hall of Fame chances for all these different players, which is actually exactly where I want to start with you, Bill. Why don't we get to that? Because that piece was awesome. And I think that Harrison Smith is going to have a great case and not have a good chance. Would that make sense to you? It does. It absolutely does. Because I feel like, you know, if you ask me on first glance,

without looking closer at the thing, yes, is Harrison Smith a Hall of Fame caliber player? I would say so. I feel like he has been consistently one of the three or four best safeties in football for the past four or five years. And that's kind of where you start. You know, it's that question of, hey, could you credibly have a case as a superstar in your position? And the answer with Harrison Smith is yes.

But, you know, you look a little bit closer at the numbers, five consecutive Pro Bowls, that's a great start. That is a phenomenal, phenomenal piece of evidence. But only one first-team All-Pro appearance. And I know, and you know, Matthew, and fans know, the Pro Bowl is not necessarily a great judge at performance. Xavier Rhodes made the Pro Bowl last year, and no disrespect to Xavier Rhodes, I don't think Xavier Rhodes is one of the best cornerbacks in football.

Right. And I think that was borne out by what happened after the season. He was going to get cut either way, but he got a one-year deal. It's just that's not where he was at. But because he had made the Pro Bowl in the past, he was a well-known name, and the cornerback crop in the NFC last year was not especially good. He made it. Other players didn't.

He was not the only one, but that's the first one that came to mind. Now, I'm bringing this up because historically those numbers, those Pro Bowls and those first-team All-Pro appearances are pretty good indicators of whether you have a good shot at going to Kansas or not. Part of it, of course, is your positional value. Obviously, certain positions have better shots than others. But with Harrison Smith, I think he's been very good for a long time

and will continue to be very good for a couple more years and has been on a successful team. But I don't know that he's had those years where he got the recognition he deserved to sort of have a strong Hall of Fame case five or six years from now, unless he does make another first-team All-Pro or two in the next couple years. So this is my question, because I totally agree with the approach of looking at Pro Bowls and All-Pros because those are things that the voters will look at. They'll say, well, you know, he's a Pro Bowl every year and he deserves to be in and so

forth. With safeties especially because it's not always, unless you're Ed Reed, a huge interception position. No one throws interceptions except for Jameis Winston in the NFL anyway, anymore. So figuring out this position, it's kind of like, well, okay, people voted them in so they must have been great. But the landscape has kind of changed over these last few years, and positions like this, because of pro football focus and other advanced data, I think we have a better chance at fully understanding the impact of Harrison Smith. And all this offseason, everyone talked about Tyron Matthew and what a big impact he made for Kansas City. That's been Harrison Smith moving all over the field,

dropping back at the last second, using his instincts to make plays. I wonder if over the next few years we start to understand who the great safeties are better than we ever have before, and that will shine a very positive light on Harrison Smith. I mean, just to start, think about how you watch a football game. Think about what you don't see on the field at the snap. The deep safety is someone you don't see. Now, you'll see Harrison Smith if he's in the box, and, of course, he might drop out.

He might spin their safeties. He might spin down into the box, might spin into deep coverage. But typically, until a pass is in the air, you're not going to see where the safeties are, what they're doing, where they're aligned, which is an incredibly important part of the NFL play. But you don't see at first glance. You have to watch that back on a second glance with all 22 to get a sense of it. And I think that's unique in sports, right? I mean, you're never going to see a basketball play where you're not going to see all 10 players or close to all 10 players. You're not going to see, you know, a basketball player blow a defensive assignment and not have it show up on

the screen you're never going to see a baseball play where a guy hits a home run and it's not shown like it's always on field and safeties are one of the rare exceptions to that so i think uh for someone like a harrison smith if he's going to make a case beyond those lower numbers and i think those lower numbers are not especially good at judging safety performance, to be clear, like you said, I think it has to be through PFF or through a different sort of analysis. And maybe by players like Tyron Matthew or Jamal Adams getting more attention in the safety position, getting more recognition as something that does help teams win football

games. Because historically, safety has not been a position that teams have particularly valued. Now, the great guys are going to get paid. Your Troy Polamalas and your Earl Thomases are going to get in and they're going to get paid no matter what. But, you know, unless you are just an absolutely, utterly transcendent player and you're a player in that tier, those sort of second tier, very, very good players have really struggled to kind of get the recognition they deserve. So I think it would take something like that in the years to come.

But then again, I think about the electorate and there are some smart people in that room. And how can I say this? There are some people in that room where I read them and I think, oh, you don't know anything about football. And I'm not going to say who it is. I'm not going to say which people come to mind. But I think if you're someone who covers the league and has to sort of rely on following people and sort of understanding what they say and what they look at, the reality is some people aren't going to be paying that close attention in the way that someone who might grade for pro football focus does. And PFFs grades have their own issues. And I think they would tell you that as well, especially for safeties. But at the end of the day, I think having a smarter electorate

will help Harrison Smith. I just wonder how long that is going to take. Yeah, that's a great point. And from covering him every game since 2016, when you're there and you're in the press box and you can really see it, and then when you review the tape, you get the full breadth of how much the defense has had this much success under Mike Zimmer in very, very large part because of him. But he also suffers from some other things. Everson Griffin was a star. Xavier Rhodes was a star for a couple

of years. D'Anthony Barr was a high pick and has made a lot of Pro Bowls. Eric Hendricks has developed as a star. When you're on a defense with a lot of great players, and Harrison Smith doesn't have the hair of Troy Polamalu or the commercials, which does matter how much sort of promotion and what your image is. And he's also very quiet. He's not out in the media doing a lot of things. He's not promoting himself or pumping himself up. Not that there's anything wrong with guys maximizing what they can make through commercials and stuff. It's just not Harrison Smith. And then they don't have a Super Bowl and they don't have a Super Bowl appearance, which can keep you under the radar. Bill, I brought up something the other day on the show that got some people a little bit flustered when we were having a similar conversation.

Is Kirk Cousins and whether he has a path to being a Hall of Famer? And the initial response was that I should climb to the top of my side porch and jump off. But the quarterback question is going to be really interesting in the next 10 years for the Hall of Fame because Kirk has some Pro Bowls already. If he gets a few more playoff wins, he could play for 10 more years in the league. And then we're sort of asking the Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford type of question is this guy a Hall of Famer because he played for a really long time and had a couple of peaks.

And with everybody putting up numbers, this one, I think, gets really hard soon. It does, for sure. And I think the tough part with Kirk is that he only really became a full-time starter at 27. And I think that's going to be the difference maker because Matt Ryan, I mean, was a starter from day one in the league. He was 23, I guess, if I'm not mistaken. I'll look it up really quickly. Yeah, 23, his first year in the league. Matthew Stafford, same thing where he got hurt his first couple years, but he came in the league day one. He's a starter. And I think in the long run, when it comes to someone like Kirk Cousins, if you don't have that track record of MVP Kansas City or multiple,

or at least one Super Bowl win, which maybe he'll win one, hopefully for Vikings fans, but you're going to need huge numbers. And I think the reality is when you have guys like Stafford, guys like Ryan, who are racking up huge numbers and getting 500, 600 pass attempts a year to get that to happen, Kirk Cousins is someone who may not have the pass attempts to get that to happen. So I think it has to be one or the other. I think he could play for another decade and it wouldn't shock me,

and I think he could be productive for a long time. But he only threw 444 passes last year. And that's an outlier. It was 15 games. But, you know, I think he has to be a guy who throws 600 passes a year to catch up for those early missing seasons in his career to get to the point where he has the sort of, you know, 60,000 passing yards he might need to get into the Hall of Fame. The way I was looking at it is if he plays for 10 years,

all he would need is to continue at the pace of the Pro Bowls and playing well in that one season, the Matt Ryan 2016 season. If you are one of those quarterbacks who's consistently good a lot and then you have that one year where you win MVP and everything goes right and you end up in the Super Bowl, even if you never do it again, I looked this up the other day, and respect to early Matty Ice, because he was probably better than his quarterback rating, but through that season, he had, I think, one playoff win and a 90 quarterback rating or something like that, and then he has 120 rating in a trip to the Super Bowl and an MVP, and it looks completely different

with the way we feel about him. I think Kirk could be one of those guys who swings like that. Not that I would put it at a very high chance. Yeah, I think absolutely you need that one season where you are the MVP or pretty close to the MVP to have a shot. And I think in both cases, the guys we're talking about, we're going to see players who show up who have that sort of example and we can see how they do in the Hall of Fame. For Kirk, I think it's Philip Rivers. That's the guy who comes to mind for me, a guy who did sit early in his career, had a long career where he did produce pretty consistently, you know,

put up numbers, never got past the AFC championship game. And obviously again, we hope Kirk does make it to a super bowl, does win a super bowl for Vikings fans. But if he doesn't, he might have similar sorts of numbers and have that sort of longevity, but not have that sort of, you know, breakout year where he was the number one quarterback in football or close to it or that Super Bowl appearance.

And that could be a pretty good indicator of what Kirk's chances are. And then for Harrison Smith, the guy who comes to mind is Eric Weddle, a guy who, again, played on some good defenses, some very good defenses for a long time. Succeeded in San Diego, succeeded in Baltimore, had the final year with the Rams, six Pro Bowls, two first-team All-Pro appearances. So sort of if Harrison Smith makes a first-team All-Pro team next year, he would be pretty much in the Saxon situation as Eric Weddle. I don't know if Eric Weddle gets in.

I think it's right on the borderline. And I think a guy who is you know, is a really good player and probably deserves to get in, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know whether he has that resume that sort of automatically gets him in. So I think, you know, if you're a Vikings fan, you can sort of see how those two guys do as you start thinking about, well, what happens if Kirk plays 10 years

and does well? What happens if Harrison Smith does play at this level for a few more years? If Kirk does go to a Super Bowl, it would be great for the podcast. I will say that. Some people will say, oh, you hate Kirk. Like, would be good for the show. Bill, before I move on to another article that you wrote that I loved, who was the hardest person when you were writing this to look at and say,

you know what, I just don't have a good feel for whether they would have a case or they're going to be extremely borderline or just really even the most interesting that you ran across when writing that article. It's a good question. I mean I – someone who came to mind for me as someone I would not think is a Hall of Famer and who is – almost definitely has the resume to become a Hall of Famer was Geno Atkins, a guy who, you know, you never think about Geno Atkins. I don't think about the Bengals all that much. Again, not to disparage the Bengals, they're going to be better this year, but Geno Atkins is a great player, but on a team that nobody really pays attention to outside of Cincinnati.

But, I mean, a guy who has eight Pro Bowl nods and two first-team All-Pro appearances. And since 1970, put this in my column, 55 players who are eligible for the Hall of Fame have had eight Pro Bowls and two first-team All-Pros or more. 52 of those guys are in the Hall of Fame. That's like pretty much as far as a lock goes, as close to a lock as possible.

And the three guys that haven't got in are John Lynch, a safety, speaking of Harrison Smith, and two interior offensive linemen, Alan Fanica and Steve Wisniewski. So, you know, Geno Atkins is a guy who we don't think about as a lock Hall of Famer, but he pretty much is by his resume. And then someone else that came to mind for me in a very short-term period, a guy who's made huge strides, is Tyreek Hill. And, again, I'm looking at pro bowls and all pros.

Tyreek Hill has made it to four pro bowls in four years. He's been a first-team all-pro twice. Seven guys who are eligible for the Hall have done that. They're all in. List of ineligible guys are Hill, Patrick Willis, Joe Thomas, Adrian Peterson, Patrick Peterson, Zach Martin, and Aaron Donald. Those guys are all getting in the Hall of Fame. So, you know, it's crazy because you don't think of Tyreek Hill as a Hall of Famer yet.

You think, oh, he's got a lot more work to do. But he is already on that pace to get in there. And I think there's a lot of guys like that where, you know, we don't think about them yet as Hall of Famers, but they've already done a significant portion of the work to get there. So for Tyreek Hill, you know, he doesn't have to be this guy. He could be a guy who is a, you know, Deshaun Jackson for the next five or six years where he's good, but he's not necessarily a superstar. That might be enough for him to get in.

It wouldn't shock me if it was. Get back to the conversation in just a minute. But first, I have to tell you about something very cool from our friends at Soda Stick. You probably know them for Minnesota sports inspired hats and shirts and hoodies that are screen printed in Minnesota, but Soda Stick also has artwork as well. You're going to want to check out their man cave prints, 20 by 24 prints representing everything Minnesota sports from awesome throwback logos to legendary plays at first base to famous disgusting acts in Green Bay. They are on sale now for just $35. You can't go out to games at the moment,

but you can liven up where you're watching them from. You want to get SodaStick's very cool prints. Go to SodaStick.com, that's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, and use the promo code P Insider for free shipping. I wonder what you think of the Terrell Davis conundrum. It's like if Tyreek Hill got hurt the next two years and then we look back at his career, would anybody say, oh, you know what, he should go in because Terrell Davis did. It's like it muddied the waters for everyone because there have been receivers who

have had, now I know maybe not quite this level of success when it comes to the Pro Bowls for Tyree Kill, but there are receivers who have had really good brief bursts of massive success. I know I'm showing my age by saying like Herman Moore. Herman Moore was unbelievable for like three or four years and then just, you know, kind of after that. Right? But I don't know how to reckon with Terrell Davis getting in the Hall of Fame based on essentially, what, four seasons? Three seasons? Four seasons as a starter, three years at a high level in a scheme that we know makes running backs look great. Let's not be realistic. We can be honest here about the Kubiak-Shanahan scheme. He got more out of it than just about anybody. But still, I mean,

this is a guy who was a six-run pick. He was not expected to be a superstar, and he was. And Phil Davis at his peak was obviously a phenomenal, productive running back. But again, three years really as an all-pro. And I think I'm not going to lie. I am someone who thinks running backs are maybe a little over-represented in the Hall of Fame. I think that offensive linemen are a little under-represented. And I think that's perhaps another conversation for another day. But I do think that you have to be realistic about it. If you're going to put Terrell Davis in because he had three great seasons, you have to think about guys like Tyreek Hill. Because, again, I don't think that if Tyreek Hill retired tomorrow, he would get in.

But if Tyreek Hill has three or four more years at a good level, even not the level he's at now, I think he has a lot. I don't think he has that MVP that Terrell Davis had, but I think he has just about everything else, including his Super Bowl win now. And I think, you know, as the league changes, as players at the top level do have shorter careers, someone like a Patrick Willis is going to get in and deserves to get in because, you know, he was one of those best players in his position, even if it wasn't for 12 years.

In fact, that it was for seven years, he was still one of the best guys at his spot for seven years. And I think that might be, you know, I think Darrell Davis might be an extreme outlier in terms of having a four-year career, but i think we're going to see guys who are great for five years or six years or seven years and call it quits and they might deserve to get in remember when running backs used to win the mvp that was a time that was i mean you know why even have it if it's just best quarterback of the year like we should probably do something about that i mean adrian peterson did win it and and I'm not going to lie,

that year I thought he deserved it. I mean, he carried that team. Christian Ponder was not the focal point of that offense. An underrated quarterback, in my opinion, but still, you know, that was an Adrian Peterson-driven season. And I wonder, you know, I don't know what you think, Matthew, but, like, is that what it's going to take? Is it going to be 2,000 yards to even give a running back any sort of consideration for MVP? I mean, the only guy I could think of

would be Christian McCaffrey if he had 1,500 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards that he would get consideration, but still there will be some quarterback who does Mahomes things and sets records, and then everything's going to be super thrown off when they go to 17 games and how we reckon with you know 5,000 yard passing seasons and that will present a whole new group of podcasts I'm sure. Bill you wrote another article that was interesting because I always love to look at who you think is going to fall off everyone picks games and they think oh my team should be good this year unless you year maybe Jacksonville. But the teams that you listed to drop off are all on the Vikings schedule,

and three of them have Hall of Fame future quarterbacks, and the other one might have a future Hall of Fame quarterback. So you had Green Bay, Seattle, Houston, and New Orleans. Now the Green Bay one, I look at it like their decline is kind of obvious. There's no way that you get all the luck that you had last year. But how much decline is a tough one for me to answer because I think that they're still extremely talented even though they completely botched the draft. Yeah, I think those are two separate things, right? And I think if they do struggle, if they do decline, we're going to see people blaming the draft as the uh the reason why they i don't think that's necessarily fair i think those two things are unrelated but it's tough for me to think they're going to get significantly better

right i mean aaron rogers played all 16 games they were one of the healthiest teams in the league on both sides of the football um they were a team that I think just, you know, they got the maximum out of that sort of style of play. I mean, they won a bunch of close games. They struggled against some bad football teams. The Lions almost beat them in Week 17. Yeah, David Blau, yep. With nothing to play for in Week 17. They almost beat them in the Packers with something to play for.

6-1 in games decided by seven points or less. 6-0 in the NFC North. There's no track record for a team being able to keep that up. And so I think at the Packers, I kind of wonder, okay, well, they have to improve to keep up their record. What are they going to

do to improve? I mean, they have a young defense. Maybe the secondary doesn't get better, but is Darius Smith going to get better? He was a defensive player of the year candidate last year. Is Aaron Rodgers going to get better? I mean, they have a young defense. Maybe the secondary doesn't get better, but is Darius Smith going to get better? He was a defensive player of the year candidate last year. Is Aaron Rodgers going to get better? I mean, he has not been the Aaron Rodgers of old for several years now. He's been good. He's been very good at times. He has

some great games, but he's not the guy who, you know, is a MVP candidate, which he was as recently, I would say, as 2016. He's a guy who is going to was as recently, I would say, as 2016. He's a guy who is going to protect the football, not turn it over, kind of shrug at his receivers a couple times per game and look frustrated, argue with his coach once in a while, but not a guy who is going to be a guy who is absolutely going to terrify you every time he drops back to pass.

And that's fine. You can still win with that guy. The Patriots did with Tom Brady a couple years ago. But, you know, to me, I think, look at that 13-3 record, it's tough for me to see, you know, where they get a significant boost from a year ago to sort of improve their actual play-to-play, stop-to-stop level of play and keep up that record. How do you think it ends for Rodgers?

I mean, not just in green Bay, but I mean these next couple of years, I've been trying to think of historical comps of like who, whose end of career will it be like? I doubt that he has the worst year of his career and wins the Superbowl like Peyton Manning. But I mean, it's been, it's been a steady decline of great, unbelievable to good, and you can still definitely win a lot with this guy.

And I think Ben Roethlisberger has kind of been the same way, where it went from really unbelievable to like, you know, okay, you can win, and he'll throw for a lot of yards and stuff, but isn't as sharp as he was before. But I guess I don't know how this goes. Like, does it just go steady, or does one year Aaron Rodgers just play so bad he just decides, I'm going to go play golf? Well, I mean, I wonder. I look at John Elway, you know, a guy who with the Broncos where he was effective.

He wasn't a dominant quarterback by the end of his career, but he still got the job done. And I think as the Broncos, you know, brought in Shanahan, brought in Kubiak, brought in, you know, that offensive scheme, that offensive Alex Gibbs blocking scheme. You know, they ran the ball more frequently, ran the ball effectively. And I wonder if that's what the Packers are thinking is, hey, you know, Aaron Rodgers is going to be a guy who, you know, a couple of years from now, we don't want him throwing the ball 40 times per game. We want him throwing the ball less frequently. And maybe that, you know, he's going to be a guy who we rely upon to move the chains and a guy we rely upon to make plays when we need

him to, but otherwise it's going to be a run-heavy attack. And I think the moves they made this offseason kind of support that in terms of what they want to do structurally. So I'll be intrigued. You know, I really do think that, you know, he's an effective quarterback and I think he could land on the right spot and still be a Super Bowl caliber quarterback. But I think, you know, he's an effective quarterback, and I think he could land in the right spot and still be a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback. But I think, you know, I wonder if it's going to be a situation where he's not throwing the ball that much and sort of just relying on his intelligence and his wit

to, you know, put the ball in safe places and protect the ball and really, you know, be a run-first offense, whether it's in Green Bay or somewhere else. Yeah, Green Bay's plan would be great in 1998. Like, right on for 98. Best NFL year ever, I think. So great throwback. I think so, like, or at least for my lifetime.

98 was amazing, man. And the Super Bowl wasn't a great game, but I can't put it that way. So many great teams, great storylines. Offense took the big jump forward in 98. Anyway, that's an aside. But, yeah, I'll be really interested. Most Vikings fans think that Rodgers will end his career with the Vikings, of course, somehow.

So Seattle, New Orleans, and Houston, whose fan base was mad at you? It had to be Seattle, right? Like they just traded for Jamal Adams. You go on Mina Kynes' podcast all the time. Like they had to be infuriated. But that division is hellacious, I think, if you're Seattle. What I find funny is that

I have written negative things about every team in the past. I said the Vikings were going to decline. Vikings fans were not happy. And that's fine. That's natural. Being a fan is fine. What I find interesting, and I don't know how you feel about this, Matthew, if this happens to you, is that you have people tell you how you feel about something or how you felt in the past about something,

and it's not actually how you feel or what you felt. Like I've had people tell me I think Russell Wilson sucks. I don't think Russell Wilson sucks. Russell Wilson's great. He's awesome. I've said that for the entirety of his career, including before his career. I think that's the one thing is there's a disconnect between what I feel and what I actually say and what I think is perceived.

But I think the Seahawks fans really, really felt like I was, I've just been down on the team for years, East coast bias, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah. I love the Seahawks. I literally would go to the Seahawks bar in New York with Mina Kimes to watch Seahawks games. Like I, I, I absolutely think the Seahawks are a great organization, a great football team,

but they were a team that last year were incredibly lucky in one-score games. They had Greg Zerlein miss a 42-yarder to win a game in Seattle when the Rams were down two points. They were losing to the Bengals. The Bengals, the worst team in football. The Cincinnati Bengals in the fourth quarter of week one and won the Bengals. The Bengals, the worst team in football. The Cincinnati Bengals in the fourth quarter of week one and won the football game. And I think there is this thing about, you know,

whether it's the Seahawks this year or the Rams last year or the Vikings two years before. Fans always say, okay, well, those numbers make sense, but are teams the exception? Very rarely is a team the exception. Russell Wilson, for example, Russell Wilson was 39-29-1 in games decided by seven points or less. So did Russell Wilson suddenly figure out how to win all of his close games and go 9-2 in those games a year ago, and that's like his new level of play?

Or was it one year because it's a small sample? I'm willing to bet that it's the latter as opposed to the former so it doesn't mean that ursa wilson is a fraud doesn't mean that the seahawks are a fraud or they really were bad last year which is the reality of we're dealing with a 16 game sample and we know i mean base we're going to see in baseball this year we've seen you know if you take a 16 game sample of any sport that has a longer schedule you're going to see wacky stuff like you're going to see in baseball this year, we're seeing, you know, if you take a 16-game sample of any sport that has a longer schedule, you're going to see wacky stuff. Like, you're going to see a 16-game baseball sample where the team that finishes in last place has a winning record. And in baseball, that's just two weeks, and you ignore it for three weeks, and you ignore it and move on, and you have a bigger sample to work with.

In the NFL, that is the entire season. So at the end of the day, as weird as it is, like, you know, you have to sort of make sense of that and just figure out, okay, well, what actually is going to translate to next year and what's not? And historically, the stuff that happened for those teams that I mentioned in my column a year ago does not translate, does not reoccur the following year. We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but first got to tell you about TheraOne CBD, from tight muscles, tough workouts, signs of aging, to simply making it through each busy day, everyone understands what it feels like to be tense and sore, so everyone can benefit from TheraOne's CBD products. Started by Dr. Jason Worsland,

TheraBody exists to provide you with the best scientifically validated natural solutions to help soothe your body and relax your mind. It started with the revolutionary Theragun percussive therapy device. When Dr. Jason saw the benefits of using CBD in his treatments, he created Therawun to bring you CBD products done right. A lot of CBD products claim organic, but still contain up to 30% filler, and these fillers are potentially toxic. TheraOne products test four times before they get to you. Every product is USDA certified organic, grown in the U.S., and their CBD extracts are the highest quality available anywhere. Use TheraOne's warming lotion in your morning routine, the cooling lotion or massage oil to

recover, body balm for targeted relief, and sleep tincture to drift away to a deep night's sleep. And now, through Labor Day, Monday, September 7th, TheraOne is offering listeners buy one, get one free for all TheraOne products, but you've got to go to theragun.com slash bluewire. If you don't love what you get from TheraOne, send it back for a full refund within 30 days of purchase. This is not something TheraOne is likely to do again. Buy one, get one free at theragun.com slash bluewire.

Only until Labor Day. Go right now, theragun.com slash bluewire. Sunday, Sunday, Sundays are coming back in the NFL with NFLSundayTicket.tv. You can stream every live, out-of-market NFL game every Sunday afternoon on your favorite devices, plus Red Zone and DirecTV Fantasy Zone channels. Never miss your favorite team and favorite players. No matter where you live, NFLSundayTicket.tv is your key to the most glorious Sundays ever. Use the promo code BLUEWIRE at checkout to get 15% off your subscription.

Visit NFLSundayTicket.tv and use promo code BLUEWIRE. I will say that after his Mr. Unlimited video that he put out, whatever negative you wrote about him is fine. I mean, that was the most uncomfortable thing I think I've ever watched, and I would have

written that they're going to decline. You laid it out all there, all these reasons they'll decline. I think they'll decline because of that video. That was too concerning for anybody to watch and probably alienated the locker room. It's why the Legion of Boom left. I mean, that's why they won't have fans there this year, not because of COVID, but because of his Mr. Unlimited video.

Oh, wow. Now, the other two are a little bit tougher for me. I mean, New Orleans is going to have Tom Brady in the division. Okay, I get that one. Houston, though, there's this guy at quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who I just think can overcome. Maybe he's Mr. Unlimited and can overcome them trading away his receiver for essentially nothing and too much cap space for a pointless running back.

But I just think deshaun watson in that division that has a lot of things up in the air can still be very good and i i don't know maybe i'm wrong but i think i would still bet the over on them i think they're over under something like seven and a half i'm still high enough on them just because of him because i think he's a top five quarterback i do too And I think there's a middle ground where they could decline and still go over seven and a half. I mean, they were 10 and six a year ago. But the team they remind me of is sort of the Romo era Cowboys. I guess they're both Texan teams.

That's why it starts with. But the real sort of core of that team is there's like seven or eight guys who are superstars. And you have Deshaun Watson, J.J. Watt, Brandon Cooks, David Johnson. Maybe those guys aren't stars, but we know they're at their peak. They are stars. Watt, Merciless, Laramie Tunsil. I mean, they have guys who are upper echelon starters to all pros when they are healthy and on the football field. If all of those guys stay healthy, that's a scary football team.

And we saw years with the Cowboys where they had their eight stars and they would stay healthy, and they were a 12, 13, 14-win football team. And when they don't stay healthy, you suddenly start seeing a lot of Jeff Heath. Nothing against Jeff Heath, but you don't want to see Jeff Heath on the football field for meaningful snaps. You'd see Kyle Orton playing in meaningful games in December. You don't want that. And so with the Texans,

I think they're making a bet that we're going to keep our core guys healthy and we're going to win the division. And that's great, but the problem is, number one, the guys who aren't the core of that team are pretty bad. The secondary is a disaster. The offensive line is still a work in progress. The receivers all have question marks. David Johnson has been very good.

Outside of Watt and Merciless, their front seven, especially their pass rush is very mediocre. Their line is mediocre. They just lost DJ Reeder, who's an underrated player. But at the end of the day, this is a team that's traded with all their draft picks like the cowboys at the very least are a team that has drafted pretty well historically and so they were at least supplementing that roster with draft picks they did trade you know they traded for joey galloway stuff like that but overall they've mostly kept their draft picks and drafted pretty well with the texans they don't have the draft picks to fill in those holes in their roster.

And so they have even less of a shot, to me, of sort of figuring it out if they do lose a couple of those guys. If Watt gets hurt, their defense fell apart last year without Watt. And even in the playoff game, the only reason they were able to stop the Bills was because they brought Watt back into the game on an every snap basis. When Watt got tired against the Chiefs, their defense was drawing dead with the offense. I mean, you don't want to, Deshaun Watson getting hurt.

I mean, every quarterback, most teams are going to suffer if their starting quarterback gets hurt. But if they lose Will Fuller, a guy who's never been able to stay healthy, then suddenly it's Brandon Cooks who's not been 100%. It's Randall Cobb, who was, you know,

a guy who was a free agent a year ago and not really wanted all that much. They're running back. David Johnson's not doing very good. I just like, you know, it's very easy to say, okay, well, if this one guy gets hurt, suddenly there are major problems elsewhere on this roster. If Laramie Tunsil gets hurt, that offensive line is a mess. So I, you know, I see how it could work,

and I see how the ceiling is high with Deshaun Watson, a quarterback, but the floor is also very low for this football team, I think. And from a Vikings perspective, this is the game where Kirk Cousins throws for 380 against that secondary that, you know, Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson just eat them up, and maybe it ends up being a shootout or something, but you could just see it. Like, anytime Cousins faces a really poor secondary, that's generally what happens. Before we wrap up, Bill, I'm sure people would love to know why weren't the Vikings on the list? We have been talking about this all summer long on the show,

just about will they fall off? You got a whole new group of cornerbacks. You have no Stefan Diggs anymore, and we don't know what to expect from Justin Jefferson. I, you know, haven't seen a lot of him in practice yet or anything like that to have any sense for what he could give them. So a lot of people are looking at the Vikings as a team to drift back from where they were last year. Why were they not on your list? Well, I mean, basically, I'm starting with the numbers. At the end of the day, I think the numbers have a better insight into the NFL than my own opinions or my own brain. So, you know, there are cases like the Steelers, for example.

I think if it was just me picking out of a hat with no numbers involved, I'd pick the Steelers to be better because they're getting Ben Roethlisberger back and they had a dominant defense a year ago. And they were, I think, 8-8. And they should be better. I think they will be. But the numbers of the Steelers were about what they deserved last year, so I didn't include them. The Vikings, even though they shed some players and obviously made some changes, and they're

in transition, I think, on defense, it's fair to say, in the secondary, they were better than their record. They were 10-6 by their Pythagorean expectation, which uses their point differential to predict their performance. They were a 10.7 win team. So they were actually even a little better than that 10-6 record indicated. And I think, you know, I don't remember where they were in DVOA, but they were, I believe, pretty high up there in DVOA, if I'm not mistaken. They were 7th. So they were, you know, one of the best teams in football. And I think, you know, even if the actual performance does decline a bit, I think there's a little bit of

a margin for error where it wouldn't shock me if they win 10 and six again. I wouldn't be surprised at all, even given the secondary is going to have some trouble because, I mean, if we're being honest, the secondary was pretty bad last year. The cornerbacks were a mess last year. So would they healthier Mike Hughes if Jeff Gladney does play well from day one, which, you know, Mike Zimmer doesn't always love playing cornerbacks when they're rookies, but maybe Jeff Gladney will be the exception. And honestly, Xavier Rhodes was playing pretty bad last year. Those guys were a mess last year.

You know, it wouldn't shock me if the offensive line was more consistent. That's Pro Bowl or Xavier Rhodes, by the way. Thank you, yes. I mean, the offensive line could be better than it was a year ago. Dalvin Cook, who, you know, really was not healthy for the second half of last year, could be healthier than he was a year ago. Adam Thielen missed a huge chuckle last season, wasn't his normal self, and you'd hope he's going to be healthier this year.

I mean, Kirk has another year of experience under Kubiak. There's all these things that make you think, okay, well, these things, even though overall I would expect them to be a little worse, where it could be one small step here or there to make up for that. And they could be a 10 and 16 again to me. Well, it's interesting and good for the show that there's a wide variance of opinions. One of the guys from PFF thinks there'll be six and 10. Our pale Courtney Cronin has them at 10-6.

So, you know, I think that the door is open for a lot of those things, and part of it might be how many quarterbacks stay healthy on their schedule. Because if every quarterback stays healthy, they have a really hard schedule. But if Tom Brady or Drew Brees just is super old and decrepit and Deshaun Watson gets hurt because he doesn't have an offensive line or something, you never know how these things can change as we go along. Absolutely. Bill, just an absolute pleasure to talk to you.

You know I love reading all your work and getting together, and I'm super glad that we could do it on this show, and I hope we could do it again, man. Anytime, sir, anytime. Sports are coming back. So are your chances to bet on your favorite teams and events. Major League Baseball finally kicking off, and there's no better place to start wagering than our exclusive partners, BetOnline.

Check out all the odds, features, and props to bet on, all available at 24-7. So with the return of sports, BetOnline sat down with former players Eddie George, Harold Reynolds, and seven-time champion Robert Ori. See what they had to say and what it's like playing without fans in a series they're calling Fandemic. Visit BetOnline.ag for all of your odds and up-to-date sports news. And remember to use the promo code BLUEWIRE to receive your new welcome bonus. That's promo code BLUEWIRE.

BetOnline, your online wagering experts.