Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about the Vikings' thought process taking Kellen Mond and where the draft picks fit

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin get together to talk about expectations for Christian Darrisaw and how the offensive line is going to play out. They discuss the post-draft comments from Rick Spielman about Kellen Mond and what his potential outlook might be going forward and what it says about Kirk Cousins. Plus they discuss the Day 3 picks and what their outlook might be for the future and how Central Missouri has a very unique mascot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here along with ESPN's Courtney Cronin. And let me just give the applause, Courtney. It was weeks and weeks ago that you wrote an article about how the Minnesota Vikings would be looking at quarterbacks. You specifically targeted the middle round quarterbacks. You specifically targeted the middle round quarterbacks and the day of day two of the draft. You were on with me on the WCCO stream talking about how Kellen Mond was probably going to be the guy if they were going to do it. And here we are, Kellen Mond, Minnesota Vikings.

Great work, Courtney. Thank you. I can't take too much credit for them picking Kellen Mond. I didn't get into the draft scout room that we thought we were going to be able to get into. I know that you and I had talked about my shirt and maybe that would have given me permission to enter. But it turns out you actually need to be a full-time, 24-7, around-the-clock, glass-eating to to uh get into the draft room to make those calls but no i mean what was i surprised by it absolutely not were you and i talking about this ad nauseum for weeks that this is probably going to happen they're probably not looking to add a quarterback via the nate stanley route? Yes. Like it makes complete sense. And no, is it, it's not Justin Fields. It's not an immediate contingency plan that puts Kirk Cousins on borrowed

time. It is a flyer on a third round quarterback who there were a lot of people, you know, reputable draft analysts who thought he might've been and still consider him the sixth best quarterback of this class. I was surprised that Kyle Trask went where he did. I really was. I know the Vikings did not think of him as highly as other teams.

But where Kellen Mond went in the third round, at worst, it gives you somebody that you could potentially trade in a couple years if Kirk is awesome, balls out, you know, forces your hand to give him a new contract or prices himself out, whatever. At, at, at best, you know, you have, you've started laying the groundwork to have a contingency plan in place. The one thing you've never done since you've had a quarterback, who's been the cemented embedded starter for a number of years. So you've got to give credit where credit's due

that they started looking beyond just like the the short-term window that Kirk's contract has them in like they started looking beyond into the longer-term future of how do we really want to construct this roster and Calamond is not a threat not a threat to Kirk Cousins right now 2021 it's over it's Kirk Cousins job we know that but contractually in 2022 and you start thinking about the future and what after what happens this year it's all going to depend on how Kirk plays but they started building when they like this is the one you know what's the draft for building for the future getting better um taking a shot on guys who might not be ready right now, especially with like early round draft picks that, you know, you may, you know, taking the

best player available, even if it takes like one or two years, something like that, but you know, you have like a true gem and a great player. They are a team that typically looks for draft picks to start immediately or try to contribute in some immediate form or fashion, whether it's in a rotational role, a backup role, a special teams role, or a starters role. You know, they did the opposite of what they typically did when they picked someone like Kellen Mund. And I think it's a good pick. I really do. I appreciate the idea that you can think beyond just this, like, span that you're in right now and build for the future. So for me, it's all about separating it from the not picking Mac Jones decision.

And if you take that out of it, which, of course, is very difficult for me, I'm sure as listeners have already discovered and I've gotten some bizarre iTunes reviews about but uh if you just look at the prospect that you got and the process of taking someone who has more upside but also experience to where you believe they could be a decent backup right away but the athletic upside to potentially become a starter, you pick the right guy. Like you mentioned Kyle Trask. I did not have any interest in Kyle Trask. Davis Mills, I was very mad on Davis Mills. The Jamie Newman thing never came to fruition and nobody drafted Jamie Newman. I thought that his senior bowl really wrecked his chances at ever, you know, getting a job as a draft pick, as a starter, as a backup. I mean, now he becomes a super long shot. So he's never really buying that one.

So they take someone that had success in college, did not put up insane numbers, but had a really good pro day, has a strong arm, has athleticism. So they kind of checked all those boxes of someone that might have a chance. And if you look through quarterbacks who have made it from the second to fourth round, if you're going to get someone who might have a chance, it's usually Colin Kaepernick, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson. What do these guys have in common? Even Derek Carr is a very good athlete with a strong arm. Those guys all have in common, and Jalen Hurts falls into this, that they have a different level of athleticism that gives them a chance to overproduce for where they were drafted.

And I, let me circle back real quick though, because I did want to say that people don't know the work that you put into learning things like that and writing things like that. So that's why I wanted to emphasize it, that you put a lot of work into understanding what this team is going to do. And that's why a lot of times things we talk about end up coming to fruition, right? Because we do background work on it to understand what we're talking about. So anyway, I just, I wanted to say that. So last thing kind of on Mond here, what did you make? Because I kind of made a lot of it on the show of what Rick Spielman said after drafting

Mond. To me, bringing up the name Teddy Bridgewater was interesting and also talking about how the offensive coaching staff agreed that having someone with a running ability could be great in this play action system. And I'll tell you, pro football focus is Seth Galina, who's an X's and O's freak show. He brought this up, I don't know how long ago on the show, about how this Kubiak system, if you put an athlete there, like San Francisco is now going to, can really go to another level. And it seems that the offensive coaches think the same thing. But all of those comments also, if you read them the right way, are kind of like, yeah, the things that Kirk kind of isn't. So I thought that was very interesting. And that's why I prefaced a question to Rick Spielman about when you were going to find a quarterback,

was it important to get somebody who's not a carbon copy of Kirk Cousins? Because you could have had that at 14 in Max Jones, and they chose not to. Now, we will always look at that pick and wonder if Max Jones ends up becoming awesome. And then you look at Christian Derusissaw and if he becomes great awesome himself um or if he's you know just a just a tackle that's a guy like you're gonna have to weigh what you could have had versus what you took like you're even no matter what Christian Derrissaw's career becomes uh that's always going to be the case especially the quarterback but as it pertains to the skill set like he has a different skill set than Kirk Cousins.

Like, and I know the Teddy comparison. Like, Teddy was better on tape coming out of college than Kellen Mond, just from what he did at Louisville. But I get the comparison. And to me, he's kind of like a Teddy-esque quarterback, which that's something that Mike Zimmer loves. Because Kellen Mond isn't going to, like, wow you with a lot of things that he did, at least at Texas A&M.

And he's got to be better at taking off and using his feet. I mean, he got sacked quite a bit because he was, like, waiting back there too often behind a pretty bad offensive line at Texas A&M. So I think that that's something that will become a bigger part of his skill set. But with all of the mobility that's required with the play action game and the bootlegs and changing launch points and all of that, it doesn't hurt to get somebody who identifies more as an athlete in certain respects to play that position. Now he has a lot of accolades. Like there's, you know, there's a reason.

He's all time passing leader, all time, you know, touchdown. I think touchdown's responsible for he and Johnny Manziel are tied at 93 for Texas A&M's like all time record. So, I mean, he has the skillset, the pedigree all of that to to pan out to something but I think it was interesting what Rick Spielman said about him and just like the comparison and all of that and what the skill set could pan out that it is different than what you have with Kirk Cousins because do you want like why would you go get another Kirk Cousins when you already have a Kirk Cousins who's under contract?

You own $56 million over the next two years. Like, that's just not, like, it's just not smart planning if it hasn't worked out to the degree that it's led you to a Super Bowl. But, you know, I think it's important to have a varying degree of skill sets. That's why Justin Fields, you know, they wanted him. It just kind of the way that the board fell and the way that Chicago came in and, you know, just like annihilated everybody by giving them a first and a fourth next year. Like there's no doubt in my mind that they wanted a different type of quarterback than what they currently have. And they did get that in the third round in in calumet and that is so

interesting to me because i think that it's a life thing and i think that it's a football and sports thing that goes across is whatever you feel like didn't really work you kind of go the opposite way and that's what that's what it says to me is that they feel like this hasn't really worked with kirk cousins and i think when you look at i mean the win-loss record versus what they expected the win-loss record to be, but it sort of tells you how they feel about those box score stats is that, look, I mean, they're great and you destroyed the Lions in week 17. But, you know, when it comes to those better teams that you're playing, the shortcomings start to show up and are really highlighted. But it is fascinating to me that, you know, it's like if you dated someone who was an athlete,

then the next person you date is more artistic. Or if you have like a players coach like Les Frazier, then you get a hard ass like Mike Zimmer. You know, I guarantee you the next coach of the Minnesota Vikings is an offensive mind. Absolutely. No, I mean, you go opposite. And I don't know if that's the right process to pass up on Mac Jones because he is a pocket quarterback. I mean, there's just so many differences though, like under a microscope, it's, you know, Mac Jones is a better athlete by a lot from what Kirk is when it comes to their, um, like relative athletic scores. One is in the 70th

percentile, which is sort of where Jared Goff was. The other one's in the 40th for, you know, Kirk Cousins. I mean, didn't Mac Jones run something like a 4.7 and Kirk is more like a 4.9, which is a pretty big gap in terms of how quickly you can just move in general. You know, we also don't know Mac Jones's leadership. And I think with Kirk Cousins, that's always been something that's questioned a little bit. And the other point for me is just when it comes to the contract, if you had Kirk Cousins play in production with a cheap contract, you might have gone a lot farther and you wouldn't have to rip apart your team. So those are kind of the points that I end up focusing on when I think about the process. And I just want to say, because I will try to not beat this to death as we go forward, is just that everything for me is always an odds play. It's Super Bowl

is your goal. What are your odds of X, Y, and Z? What are your odds of putting one foot in and one foot out with Kirk Cousins and one foot with Kellen Mond and seeing how that works out? What are your odds versus taking a first round caliber quarterback that Bill Belichick believed in and then building around him? And I think one is clearly higher than the other. But let's talk about the offensive line here because throw a party, everyone. I mean, just, like, have your celebration. It's a nice weekend for the draft, and you get two beastly offensive linemen that, Courtney,

I think both are tremendous prospects who can step in right away and be very good. Yeah. No, I mean, Christian Derrissaw, the fact that they got him where they got him at 23, it was the prospect that they had their eye on. Certainly there were others. But being able to move all that way back to 23 to get him from 14 was, you know, really important for them. And that's not like, you know, I've been watching a lot of like discourse on Twitter about, you know, the offensive line.

Did they finally fix it? And the fact that like they're going into training camp effectively with this thing set. And I actually agree with it. Wyatt Davis, though, was, when we talk about steals and what can we call an actual steal and what can we not, at 86 to get somebody who I did not think would be there, a lot of my mocks had him gone by the mid-second round.

That's huge, and he's huge. That's a thing like they they've been so like dead set the last couple years on like these offensive linemen who are zone blocking scheme fits so basically converted tight ends who can get out to the second level and I'm not trying to like be a complete like completely flippant about it but like they wanted athletes playing on the offensive line they don't want hog mollies and this is somebody who is a hoss who can move he's a big boy and that's the quote-unquote directive that we heard Mike Zimmer gave the scouting department like hey find me size on the offensive line don't just go out and get me guys who are like like, good athletes that we think can pass protect.

Go get me somebody that can surround Garrett Bradbury because you guys drafted him and you realize he was undersized and he has, like, T-Rex arms and all these other things that don't help when you're reaching in this zone blocking scheme where you're supposed to be out in space and block. Like, you know, there's a reason that they put Ezra Cleveland next to Garrett Bradbury and they think he's a good fit to keep him there there's a reason that they went out and got Wyatt Davis who was a big old dude who looks probably more traditionally like somebody would fit in like a power scheme that um you know doesn't require all the pulling and the movement and getting to the second level and all that. But apparently he can do it all. So I think that's really important because where was the biggest issue last year with pass protection? Up the interior. Interior pass protection has been the bane of Kirk Cousins' existence since he got here in 2018.

And now they're finally able to say, hey, we think we may have addressed it to the point that it's no longer going to be an issue because we have an upgrade and I don't think it's uh unfair to say that you should go ahead and probably pencil Wyatt Davis in as a starter at guard day one I mean 86 getting drafted there there are a lot of offensive linemen some really good ones who come in that 80 range and start you know pretty pretty immediately I covered one of them and Gabe Jackson uh who played I believe seven years for the Raiders now he's off to Seattle like he started right away at guard was drafted 81st overall like you can find some really good value there in the third round um and I think that's exactly what they did and plus it's also probably time to retire the notion that this team doesn't address the offensive line. Like, yeah, they went and prioritized defense first in free agency, and that was their prerogative. Like, was it the best moves? Did they make the best moves for their defense? They made some good ones. I think that there's also some ones that you're going to like have to see play out first before we can truly judge whether bringing Patrick Peterson in and guaranteeing him eight of

that ten or whatever it was if that was worth it but you know by and large they did exactly what we thought they would do they handled one one side of the ball in free agency and then that allowed them to go into the draft and say hey okay now that defense is handled we can focus you know two of our top four picks on offense. And being able to do that with the offensive line is important. Hey, everyone. Anybody who listens to the show knows that Sam and I may not be scratch golfers, but we love to have a great time playing golf.

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You will love it. Plus, keep your eyes and ears out for our giveaways going on on this show as well on social media. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter and at SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. I gave the Davis pick an A+. I felt that that was their best pick in the entire draft, even though, you know, Derisaw plus extra picks is good.

That's very good but to get davis a guy who like you said in all of our draft sims was not in the third round usually available especially in the mid or back part of the third round we were usually looking at kendrick green who i think still will become a good player and has talent and if they had picked him it would have been a good selection but the fact that davis is bigger and mike zimmer talked about that, or I think it was Jamal Stevenson said that Mike Zimmer talked about that, that it was a directive to get bigger guys. That's an acknowledgement right there that he was not okay with watching them get pushed

back into Kirk Cousins, which we did wonder about. There were times where we said, I mean, we keep watching them run back the same strategy for several years in a row of handling this guard position. And with smaller guys like you laid out, like they were trying to find a bunch of Nick Eastons. And, you know, finally they sort of flipped the switch. And now their two guards are very big. They're both over 310 pounds. And Ezra Cleveland. They have legs too.

Right, right. Ezra Cleveland 6'6". And Wyatt Davis, I think, is 6'4", 6'5". they're both over 310 pounds and uh as we're playing too right right as we're cleveland 66 and wyatt davis i think is 6465 so you've got some huge huge players now at the guard position and i remember uh alex boone telling me that when it comes to the zone blocking it's not like you have to be small to be good at it you could still be good at it if if you're gigantic so we'll see how wyatt dav Davis fits in right away. I would assume that means that the starting offensive line, Courtney, is at left tackle, it's going to be Christian Derrissaw, then at left guard, Cleveland, center Bradbury, and then at right guard, Davis, and right tackle, Brian O'Neill, right? I mean, that's by far favorite for the start of camp? I would think so because Davis played right guard in

college and you know Cleveland was a left tackle but he also spent training camp as a second team left guard so the way that I look at that is that he doesn't don't keep moving guys around and I know that Wyatt Davis was asked about can you play play both? He's like, yeah, you know, she's learning different footwork, whatever. It shouldn't be a problem. Play him where he played in college. Like, don't just, just, you know, keep it simple. Try not to like overcomplicate this and be like, well, Ezra was at right guard last year. I'm like, well, he also had him at left guard during camp. Moving back there,

maybe he's more comfortable anyways on that side of the line, considering that's where he played in college. So I am in full agreeance with you that that is the day one starting five. Let's talk real quick before we move on to day three and get your opinion on that and where some of those guys might slot in. So they take a left tackle in the first round when they took a left tackle in the second round last year and gave him no chances to play left tackle. If we were doing this a little bit different, would you at least, if we were doing like the hindsight kind of thing, would you look back and say, trade Riley Reif at the deadline, play Ezra Cleveland at left tackle so you know what you need because if we kind of reworked this and Ezra Cleveland was a guy who looked like he could play left tackle for a long time you don't need Christian Derisaw and instead you're taking

your edge rusher there when all those edge rushers went flying off the board toward the end of the first round and so even though I think Derrissaw is a great prospect, I think he's by far a better prospect than Ezra Cleveland in terms of his chances to be a great left tackle long term. The fact that they never made any real effort to find out if he could play, not even in week 17, to throw him over there and see how he looked, that is, I guess, kind of odd to me

that you would draft a guy who was pegged as a left tackle and the draft analyst said he looks like a left tackle, his athletic profile says that, his size says that, and they just said, no. So maybe because guard is so important to this team with their quarterback, I'm not saying that it's not going to be valuable. Cleveland could end up being a very valuable pick if he plays well at left guard. I guess I just wonder about why they never gave that a shot and then decided he absolutely can't do it and you need to spend another first round pick on the tackle.

Well, if we're playing the hindsight place, because then that created the domino effect of, you know, you could have, you know, if you needed to, you know, you wouldn't have had to be moving around the offensive line and having all of this uncertainty about where Riley reef, you know, is he going to be there? Is he not, you know, what does this mean for Ezra Cleveland, you know, taking it back even a step further, I would have, you know, I would have traded Riley reef during the draft last year, figured out somewhere else for him to go.

And I do think it's kind of unfair to Ezra Cleveland because you mentioned all those things about where he, you know, all the places that we thought he was going to be also had like a three year career left tackle at Boise state, never played anywhere else on the offensive line, like especially not a guard, maybe played played a couple games at right tackle, but I know it was a majority left tackle career. So he was never given the chance.

And I just think that they had to move on so quickly from that decision and be like, all right, well, we know we can do this, so let's just keep him here. It's fine. Like, just do that. Because once again, it's like put something in place and just kind of like pin it there for now. They don't want to be dealing with another thing because what if, what if he was, what

if they moved him this year to left tackle and took Elijah Veritaker and both ended up not being very good or capable of playing right now, then, then you're in trouble. Like, that's not a good spot to be in. And it's like, you fill one void by opening up another hole somewhere else. And I think that hurts you. So, you know, the biggest thing to me is that, you know, what would they have done over again? You know, have a situation where, you know, the writing was on the wall when they drafted Cleveland last year that, you know, Reef was not going to be there much longer. And once, you know, let's say that they couldn't change what they were doing because they couldn't

with the unique and Gakwe thing, then trade deadline comes around. You try to get some sort of value for Riley Reif because all you got this year was cap savings. Like you didn't even get a draft pick out of it or anything like that. You try to trade Riley Reif to the many teams at that time that needed left tackles and not try to double down and say, okay, we started out really, really bad. We're going to try to pounce back and come up short. You could at least then have half the season to see if Ezra Cleveland was your left tackle. But something tells me, too, maybe there's probably quite a bit that we don't

see with what's going on behind the scenes maybe they were trying him out at left tackle in practice at some points and we didn't get a chance to see that and maybe he just wasn't doing well against the second team whomever he was going against a defensive end um that could have been a struggle I don't know yeah it just seems to me that at 1-5, you would look at any 1-5 team and say, let's think only about the future here. And if you work your way back into the race, then congratulations. But here we are. The two players that got talked about at the trade deadline that didn't move

were Anthony Harris and Riley Reif. And even if they were going to bring back small returns, and even Kyle Rudolph. So there's three players that were talked about that could help other teams that would have brought back small returns but let's say it was a fourth fifth and sixth that you brought in well that would have been more capital to move up if you wanted to at any point in this draft maybe to get back in the second round because Rick Spielman mentioned that you, it was too expensive to get back into the second round. Maybe they would have taken Mond anyway with that pick.

I don't know. But those players seemed very important to them to not give away for a small draft return at that time. And I guess it's one of those things where this team hasn't done a whole lot of putting on their binoculars and looking down the road and saying, you know, next year at the draft, this could actually help us by moving. And there's additional value in finding out if Josh Metellus could play and putting him in there with Harrison Smith.

There's additional value of finding out how Rashad Hill or Ezra Cleveland looked at left tackle for an entire half a season. And then you can decide, you know, do we want to go forward with these guys and change our draft strategy and so not knowing on Ezra Cleveland if he could play left tackle and I'll throw Rashad in there too not knowing if either one of those guys could be a starter made it so you kind of had to grab Christian Derrissaw there and again really really like the player really really like the position and no one's going to complain with the offensive line it's just that there have been so many times over the last couple years

where we've looked at things they've done and gone, gee, if you took the little bit longer approach with some of these decisions, then maybe you could have ended up, like, getting it right down the road as opposed to worrying about, like, trying to get the right now. Yeah, and that's been the draft strategy, too, of, like, worrying get the right now yeah that's that's and that's been the draft strategy too of like worrying about the right now and Christian Derrissaw does address the worry about the right not right now need he's your starting left tackle day one they called him a pure left tackle we know that they're not going to try to take him out of position um and do that nonsense again that they do with Ezra Cleveland because it was a need so you know it feels like

a lot of that could have been alleviated. And some of that is just part of their overall strategy where they're not like other teams that use the draft and take best player available and be like, all right, well, this, we already have other, you know, people at this position, but like, this is the best defensive end where we're picking it X, Y, Z spot. We're going to take him, you know, a year from now, he'll be a starter or whatever. Like they, they don't have time to waste.

I think it's kind of their theory on this. So that's the mentality that they carried into this draft again. And they addressed it, but you know, with the offensive line, I think now what you have to hope for, because, you know, I mean, go back to that Bradbury thing that I mentioned a couple minutes ago, that was to fix an immediate need, but it was also a really weird pick because it was like you just had Pat Elfline at this position I know he's been hurt and he hasn't been the same player

but like why like that's just like a weird pick um and then it kind of bits you and now you're like trying to like you know figure out like what the best way to fix that is and I think that they fix that issue but it like think about how many years that it's two years from now it's up to like fix big all right more size we need these guys we got them in what and Wyatt Davis um and by moving Cleveland over but in keeping Cleveland there but I just it's like such a secure circuitous route to go when there's probably an easier way to get there that would yield the same result in the end it It would be interesting to kind of go back and even look at things that we talked about at certain decision points with this team and the way that they went as opposed to the long term. And you

mentioned the Garrett Bradbury. They knew at the time they drafted Garrett Bradbury that Stefan Diggs wasn't happy. And after that pick, pick after 18 you have debo samuel is taken you have dk metcalf is taken you know so it's kind of like uh aj brown is another one who's become a superstar now it's worked out that they ended up with justin jefferson and that falling into him but it's just interesting to look at the comparison of are you going to look at down the road and what you might need versus what you're trying to accomplish at this very second. And yeah, I don't think their binoculars have worked in quite some time. So let's talk about day three, kind of an odd day three, I guess I would say.

I was looking at a chart of draft position versus the consensus board of all of the draft experts. And the Vikings were quite a bit below overall, meaning that they overdrafted guys. And I think that Kene Wongwu was at the very top of that list where he was projected as more of a sixth or seventh rounder. He gets taken in the fourth. Robinson is the same thing, right? Right. And some other guys they got good value on.

So which day three picks stuck out to you? Well, are we looking at it through that lens? Are we looking at it through just like general which ones stood out to me? Just in general. Just in general. I think the Cameron Bynum one's interesting because they address the safety position for the first time in the fourth round in god knows how long um but it's a cornerback that you're converting to safety and i know rick spielman was talking about like got great athletic

traits blah blah blah like usually if you're converting somebody to safety it means they're slow like not a great like not the best of the best athletes because you know at best if he were to have stayed at corner he probably would have just like his ceiling would have been as like a boundary corner probably an outside corner um so and he would need that boundary to play effectively but um he's ran a 4-5-8-40 uh the ceiling of his athletic ability was a concern so they're going to move him to safety but i'm curious to see a how that pans out and b what that means for the the secondary like is this where's the sky going to be your best fit like as far as a depth piece will you actually use him so that one was kind of interesting and he said like every team

had asked him about this and it's like oh so everybody sees it so that's kind of that's kind of funny um so there's that one and then i guess like because everybody's got a these guys have interesting stories just as far as like you know the special teams like tie to most of them like a lot of them are returners you know kenny wong woo uh was you know terrific for iowa state uh last year i believe he is a kickoff returner and he said that he'd be open to you know returning punts so that'll be interesting um you know same thing with amir smith marset you know his return abilities yeah he's got straight line speed and and can be your wide receiver number three potentially but he also is a returner um I think that Zach Davidson you know I I want to see this story through because of the special teams stuff that I love with he's a punter who was strictly recruited as a punter into a division two school and then didn't have a chance to become a tight end until, like,

a couple years ago, and he's still very raw. I'm curious what that becomes, because this guy's an athlete. Like, it just kind of seems like he's a freakish athlete who was drafted at 168 overall. I mean, you don't get drafted in the fifth round, you know, especially that high, because that's, you know, more than 100 picks from the end of the draft. You know, if you don't have, like, true legitimate upside, will this guy make the roster? I don't know. Is he better than what they have? You know, like, I guess is your depth chart, you know, with Dylan Mitchell.

Excuse me, not Dylan Mitchell. Wow. That's how tired I am. Brandon Dillon, yes. Brandon Dillon. You know, we'll see. But I'm just curious to see this guy get out and run around like it is cliche and football-y as that sounds i'm he had 800 like nearly like a thousand receiving yards

in 2019 and 15 touchdowns like the dude was just smoking all of these division two linebackers um that he'd you know run routes against and guys couldn't, didn't stand a chance. So I think that's going to be a really fun one to watch. As far as like, you know, the depth that they brought in the defensive line, like, do I think that Janarius Robinson and Twyman, Jalen Twyman are going to like amount to anything, you know, at best their ceilings probably as backup players.

Do they fit like the athletic traits, especially Robinson of what they want at the position? Yes. But like the guy has not been able to put together all of it consistently. So this is a project. It's a project defensive end and a project defensive tackle. Who's very much a tweener and undersized the position. And I don't know how he's going to play the run because he's not very good at it. Hey, everyone.

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Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out scoutlogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. So I look at those picks as not precluding them from still signing someone on the defensive line. Absolutely not. If not multiple players. I mean, I think they could sign a rotational rusher and an interior player

because right now the backups for, you know, Delvin Tomlinson and Michael Pierce are what? Armond Watts and James Lynch, because it's hard to see a sixth round pick playing right away. And I know that everyone gets excited about these late picks and they say, oh, well, this draft analyst had this guy there, that guy there. In the sixth round, though, that means the whole league looked at someone and said, eh, I don't think so. Right. So the odds are extremely low.

And this strategy of drafting, you know, mid and late round defensive linemen has not worked in a very long time. And, you know, I know that there's a ton of respect for Andre Patterson and he deserves that and he's earned that. It's just that he's not a magician. I mean, sometimes the way that he's talked about is almost like he could just sprinkle fairy dust on DJ Wanham and he becomes Daniil Hunter. And it's not really how it works. I mean, your odds of someone later on becoming that guy are pretty low. So I don't mind shots at it with Janair Robinson or with Patrick Jones or Jalen Twyman.

I just think that you can't go into camp and say, oh, yeah, one of these guys is going to work out for us and be a good backup because you are one injury away on the defensive line from, I mean, what, Jalen Holmes or DJ Wanham and James Lynch getting playing time. Like, that's not really a good play. You kind of just hope someone emerges, but I think with their remaining cap space, that's a place they have to look. Oh yeah. And I mean, the best shot that they have is thinking that the third round pick Patrick

Jones, the, the, the defensive end, Patrick Jones, second, the defensive end from Pitt they took with 90 like his college production is better than at that position than they've had with any of the guys they've drafted in the last five to eight years I mean he had 19 and a half sacks I believe um over you know 2019 season uh in 2020 it's just a lot more production that they've gotten at that position in cut from guys that they've actually drafted than guys you know they consider more of a project excuse me 17 and a half sacks i was the tied for second most of any fbs player uh you know those two years but like you know when you bring somebody like that into the fold

and they yeah they all fit the same athletic traits that Daniil Hunter if you're going to use him as the model which you should you know they fit that mold but like how quickly does that translate it took Daniil a second to like become who he is today like do you have the time when you're looking for an immediate starter opposite him so I think what they're going to probably end up doing is even if they're you know yeah they're going to have a competition in camp whatever but like they'll probably end up using a rotation opposite hunter until somebody sticks right until somebody emerges and if that doesn't end up happening then it's just going to be a rotation opposite hunter and

maybe i mean i don't know if that's going to work but this guy has probably the best chance of anybody to to beat out a wanam or a weatherly for the job but still i think there's question marks of it being like how ready are you to do it right now he's a high low risk high reward player all right i have to issue an apology before we wrap up here that uh we had hyped up long snapper carter cheeseman as the potential top long snapper in the draft but instead it went to alabama long snapper thomas fletcher i mean got drafted by carolina Bama is so good that they've got their long snappers getting drafted. What the hell? Like, and you know, I love me a long snapper, but like the school had 10 players drafted. Same with Ohio State. Both, you know, the two teams that met in

the national championship had the most players taken. We shouldn't be surprised. But your long snapper ended up getting drafted. Like, just quit, Nick Saban. Like, let somebody else win. Let somebody else have their long snapper drafted. Serious question, though. How do you think they are handling this kicker situation? Because right now it's Greg Joseph and this other guy, Patterson. Riley Patterson. Yeah, Riley Patterson that they brought in as a UDFA. And that's going to be our kicking competition. Until they bring in a veteran because you're going to let your kicking competition come down to a rookie and a guy who was on a practice squad last year. Right.

Call me in August when there's an actual kicking competition and we see someone like Kai Forbath, not him, but like somebody else, some veteran. There's still a ton of veterans out there on the market. Yes. Okay. So we're thinking the same exact way. Exactly. This can't be it. It absolutely can't be it that it's just Greg Joseph and Riley Patterson who are the only ones who are competing.

Plus, neither of these guys has a slash in their job description. Oh, we forgot to talk about how important it is that the tight end, Zach Davidson, is from central Missouri, and they are the Mules. The Mules, yeah. A great logo. But you told me that for their women's sports, they actually call them something else. They call them the Jennys. And a Jenny is a lady muleule i think it's a lady donkey so um of sorts is there a difference between a donkey and a mule it's the same thing you know i honestly don't know i know it's not a horse

so i mean it's kind of like a broke version of a horse um you can't put like a saddle on it and go ride like a jenny around or go ride a mule i mean i guess you could ride no you can yeah you ride mules for sure but not like you don't like race them it's not like big giant horses but yeah i mean like you take like mule tours of places right or you just ride a mule around how do people get to the bottom of the grand canyon if you don't walk like is it is it mules or is it okay is, is it donkey? I don't know. I wonder if Zach Davidson knows. I mean, the guy was talking about he could literally do anything. He's a tight end.

He's a punter, which they said, you know, one thing to clarify that, like, he's not actually coming here to punt. But then again, you know, the Vikings brought in a k slash p or a p slash k whichever way you want to whichever way you want to spin it in 2019 so um who's to say that that won't happen again this time but you know he uh he has he said he has long snapping ability i would like to see some long snapping done at rookie mini camp when it's just like a bunch of dudes out there in shorts flying around. I very much want to see what that looks like.

Okay. I have two, I have two more things and I'm sorry, cause we're going on forever, but they're both funny. So, um, I want you to tell me your most ridiculous play call that would somehow involve a tight end with punting skills like what would you drop if you have if you know you have a tight end who can punt oh man you know tom tuple was a quarterback and a punter for back in the day he actually started that a thing though a lot of guys were like a lot of backup quarterbacks were the punt like the like they had punting i feel like i've heard that before having punting abilities as a quarterback is there like some sort of reason for that um i don't know like

same size but i think that uh like way back in the day probably a lot of them did the punting but i mean so like otto graham was probably punting but tom tupa played in the 90s and that's what makes it funny is that he was the punter and there's a game with the jets where he actually has to like come in the game and he actually started for Arizona in the 1990s as a punter and started quarterback. So that's funny. But tell me, tell me your play call that would involve a tight end slash punt. Do I need like coming up with like verbiage or like what I would have a tight end do? Okay. So here, here's what I was thinking. It's like,

you could run these like trick play punts where he goes in motion and you flip him the ball and then the the other team's scrambling it's a fake it's fake and then he punts it and they'll never see oh my god like what what just happened well you know plays with like the tight end that end up being fakes like what happened obviously i'm remembering this weird one that happened with blake bell uh in the pittsburgh game in 2017 that was sniffed out right away like they don't work most times i guess unless you have like travis kelsey i'm sure they've run some crazy trick plays with their tight end i don't know if you can punt but like um they're chiefs they do whatever they want yeah i would definitely have something involved like send him out like um i don't know

flank him out wide and like a short a shallow cross and like be like oh wait actually he's gonna punt this thing down the field i don't know if that's even legal um if you could have a player like with two job titles or two things do something like that when it's true you can like why not okay okay i've got another one kellen. Kellen Mond and Zach Davidson are on the field on fourth down, and Zach Davidson is lined up at the punter. He takes the snap to punt, but then pitches it to Kellen Mond, who then throws it to Zach Davidson, who runs a wheel route for a touchdown. I actually kind of like that.

The last one that I was going to say is that – I mean, you'd be out of breath by the time one that i was going to say i mean you'd be out of breath by the time that that shit's over there's a lot there's a lot going on there um somebody asked me how high you would draft a punter if they could punt it to the one yard line every time absolutely that well his question was would he be a first round pick because he could dominate the field position i still feel like coaches would be like, absolutely not. So fifth round is as high as I would go. I would say that if you could punt it from the other 20 all the way to the

other one, every time I would take you in the first round, because field position does matter and your odds. It does, but there's no way anyone could do that. So anyway, I mean, maybe that's Davidson. Okay. That's enough for us. That's too much draft coverage. Her brains are fried. All right, we'll talk again very soon.

And now it is off-SZN mode, so we're here.