Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin talks about whether Danielle Hunter will be ready right away

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

Matthew Coller, Sam Ekstrom and ESPN's Courtney Cronin get together to continue to preview training camp by talking about the Minnesota Vikings' defensive line. Is Danielle Hunter going to be back to full speed after missing all of last season? Who could emerge opposite of Hunter? Is there any chance Stephen Weatherly doesn't end up making the team? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, before we start the episode, just want to say that we ended up going so long with ESPN's Courtney Cronin that we broke this one into two episodes. So, you will hear the first part in which we talk about the Vikings defensive line and underrated stories, and then on Tuesday, the second part where she picks the entire Vikings schedule, and there's a huge change in her win-loss record from the first time she did it a few months ago. So let's get right into the episode. It's me, Sam Ekstrom, Courtney Cronin. Off we go. hello welcome to a purple insider friday roundtable matthew collars sam ekstrom and espn's courtney cronin joining us this week what is up court not much how's your guys summer been i feel like i haven't seen you enough i know fault is that? That's all your fault. Honestly, it's not my fault. I just run away. I run away from Minnesota in the summertime. You leave. It's not my, I mean, I don't have two little ones tying me down here, diapers, things like that. I

don't have a dog named Nora who runs in circles and keeps you here. So I've just been, I don't actually, I really haven't been that many places. I went to Florida and I've been in and, you know, back and forth from home a couple of times. It's just like these five weeks I looked at my calendar and I was like, no, no training camp doesn't start in two weeks as a farce. That's not true. And it does. And that's really scary.

And it made my anxiety skyrocket. So I went into the fetal position. So, um, I've come out of it so obviously I'm here right now I'm not currently like under my weighted blanket like freaking out that training camp starts and life ends for the next 28 weeks after that but it's uh it's been a summer a quiet summer which I think all of us can certainly appreciate the fact that the Vikings are not in limbo right now with Daniil Hunter and we're on like watch of like you know a there's no franchise tag players to watch for them this year there's no Daniil

Hunter holdout coming out like I mean at least they've solved that temporarily like now it's just kind of like well they've got a little cap space what are they going to do when are they going to do it they've got some extensions to make when are they going to do them and uh full go for july 28th i'm looking forward to it we were calling it earlier this week when we talked uh the camp scaries just like yeah a thousand percent i will be a wreck the night before as i lay out my fanny pack and get my sunscreen my water bottle my sunglasses my binoculars. What else do I keep in there? Gum, first aid kit. Like I'm effectively like a very low budget athletic trainer over here, but I will absolutely be having the camp scaries the day before everybody reports. It hasn't been answered yet

whether the best part of camp will be there this year, which is the snacks because the PR staff was terrific about snacks in the media room before last year when there were no snacks. I think there was bottled water and that was it. So if the snacks are back, that would alleviate my scaries tremendously. If the snacks are gone, then I'm just going to I'm going to be like getting the chills from now until July, what, 27th, 28th. Yeah, if we don't have, I mean, the media room could very well be open to us this year. I don't think that that's been decided one way or the other. And if it is, we're going to have a refrigerator.

Like, oh my gosh, can you, I know this is like a little inside football for people who are listening at the moment, but to be able to be out there all day, because those who know around TCO performance center, there's not a whole lot. There's a union craft house, which is a sit down restaurant. Matt and I have gone there. Many a training camp where like, I don't know if we'll,

we get to see walkthrough this year because remember the old schedule in 18 and 19, when they first started doing camp, there was like walk through nine to 10 AM Zimmerm zimmer and like one player right after then you had this break this massive break for like three hours until like 1 30 or 2 we're like what are we doing like sitting and staring at each other in the media room trying to get work done and you're like man i'm hungry well there's either jimmy john's or the union craft house uh great food but just kind of a faraway place. So I will very much appreciate being able to meal prep, keep some sanity and bring it out and keep it in the fridge. And also, I mean,

sometimes we have people who just bring really weird smelling food to the media room. And honestly, I've kind of missed that because it always provides good commentary when somebody blows something up in the microwave. Or cooks fish on a piece of paper which i believe happened once it was it was on a piece of printer paper and it was salmon we're gonna get so many mailbag questions wondering who that was now oh i wonder who like oh man uh last year i was carrying i was carrying mini gatorades in my pockets just like out just like out there. It's just like, yeah, that's a mini Gatorade. I'm not happy to see you guys. Remember like how far away I had to stand from you guys. Cause like for a while I was the only pool reporter. So like, I didn't even get

one of the cool little beepy guys that, you know, would, if I got too close to somebody, it would just like set off like DEF CON level five alarms. But that was the worst part of training camp last year because all of the nonsense that happens in training camp that, you know, if you're out there for like 16 days straight, you're laughing when like nonsense is happening. And I had to laugh on my own. Like that was a very disappointing part of training camp last year. Me being the like loser standing by yourself while everybody else

is having fun underneath that one little tent that's above like the, you know, the high point where you can look down at the field. Like it sucked. I worried about you. I mean, that was our break from isolation and you didn't have the chance to like speak to human beings like we did. So I actually worried about you. I was basically in quarantine at tco performance center it was honestly kind of sad because you know i'd look over and see you guys like see like somebody laughed like man i missed a joke what am i gonna be out on now does it have anything to do with like stephen ridley it better not they better not be like using my lines and like using them without me um but i think i think think I bounced back. I mean, we

have plenty of jokes from mini camp and OTAs and everything else. I mean, there's always nonsense to go around, but it's just a camaraderie training camp. You're all on a grind. You're sweating profusely for like hours on end. And it's, you know, the, the cuts that they have this year, cause I was looking that up earlier. I was doing some reading this morning, which, you know, to find that there's like three cuts this year, we have to be aware of like just different from last year when they were just trying to figure out how they were going to construct a roster and all the practice squad rules for the COVID season.

You've got a cut from 90 to 85 on August 17th, 85 to 80 on the 24th. Then it goes 80 to 53 on the 31st so there's gonna be there's i mean there's a lot at stake obviously for every team but just like to be able to like for us to keep track kind of of how the roster is gonna get whittled down here um gosh i just can't believe how soon that starts gotta like really like lock in okay caller i'm gonna take over the show for a second here's here's the game name the first five cuts okay um tough borland come on no no way he's taking it all the way to the end are you kidding me um yeah i just threw that out there because that was the first name that i thought of when i'm a grindy linebacker with mike zimmer is taking it all the

way to the end. I'm going to look up the roster right now. Can I do that? Yeah, I get a second to do that too. Okay, I'll get started. I'll get started. I think Amari Henderson. Okay. I think – see, some of these guys are practice-wide material.

I know. They've got so many cornerbacks though like what you mentioned with henderson that that's somebody that you wave and maybe you end up like re-signing him to a practice squad after you know if he clears waivers or whatever they've got like 69 cornerbacks right now they'll be fine that's one of the craziest things about this team this year is that there are so many corners and yeah guys like Henderson like that's not like great depth or anything like that but that's certainly more than they had last year at this time I'm gonna say Bailey okay uh okay yeah the offensive lineman I'm gonna

go with the offensive lineman from UB University of Buffalo that has a crazy last name that i've said like make me learn it guy because i'm not i'm not learning it until you get past that first round of cuts but evan kazar check maybe i was going with caesar chick but that's just my interpretation the k is definitely silent in that it's like sheshezewski. Okay. Just go with Krzyzewski. That's the safest bet. Yeah. Evan Krzyzewski. How about Cole Cabral?

Gotta have center depth, though. He's a center. That's true. They also have Mason Cole, though. Who was the center that you obsessed over, Courtney? Who was that? Who was the guy? He was like the fourth string center,

but he got in because everyone got hurt in 2018. Who was that who was the guy he was like the fourth string center but he got in because everyone 2018 who was that oh I know what we're talking about I know what we called him but I don't remember his real name it was 2018 let me look hold on I've got I think I think I know who you're talking about um Cornelius Edison yes yes. Yes. Great. Great. That was a, that was a good year. I think he's, I think he's stuck on somewhere else after he got cut here. Hey, he played in a game or two, like in his career with the bike. I think he did. Did he actually play? I think so. Wow. How about that? Yeah. I guess you never know who is going to end up mattering in some way or another. Yeah. Cornelius Edison, man, that mattering in some way or another. Yeah.

Cornelius Edison, man, that brings me back to four years ago. Yeah, it does. Great time. Anyway. Okay.

Well, I think we nailed a couple of the people who will probably not be around for super long. I mean, the first, the first cuts, like basically your practice squad guys, anybody that was never,

it was a camp body, but I, I do kind of like that they've established like the multiple cut dates, because I think it makes it easier. Because when you're trying to like project a roster, I wrote a 53 that I think runs on July 21st, which, you know, using the information we had from OTAs, using the information we had from minicamp, potentially who they may or may still sign. I mean, there's several positions with the 14-ish million

that they have in cap space that they could certainly address in the coming weeks. It wasn't really, really difficult. The only position, I know we'll get to it on this episode, that I kind of had some, you know, kind of going back and forth with, mostly just for like depth, is a defensive line because they are fortunate. They have the numbers game works out for them very well, but it's like, what do they do at, you know, a certain, like, you know,

a third string defensive tackle, third string nose, third string three tech. Like those are kind of like the, those kind of tripped me up a little bit when I was projecting that out. But honestly, this 53, truly the hardest one coming down to was, do they keep six or seven corners? What happens with Jeff Gladney? All these question marks around the cornerback position, which is kind of a good problem for them to have when you have like,

man, how are we going to whittle this one down versus like, what the heck do we have to work with here? Which was the situation last year. Which, by the way, our friend Brian Murphy for Purple Insider broke the news of Jeff Gladney's grand jury date, which is in July 22nd. So then after they have their evidence presented against him, the jury has, I think, two days to decide whether they're going to take it to trial or not is how that works. And then if it goes to trial, there is no chance we see Jeff Gladney anytime soon after that. If it does not go to trial, then I guess we would probably see him, but you know, then, then there could be a possibility of the Vikings suspending him of the league,

suspending him. It yeah, there could, there could be a lot of potential outcomes. I wanted to use my best Hawk Harrelson voice here. I don't know if you guys are familiar. Oh yeah. You guys are, he gone, like he's gone. Like, and I mean that to me, like with, with, with the story that Murph put out today, like, I don't see, because that's the one that kind of had, you know, some questions of, because there's a number of layers here. Like, whatever happens in the legal system taking over with Jeff Gladney, like, that's going to be how the NFL, they've been waiting on this. The Vikings have been waiting so patiently to figure out, okay, well, what's, are there going to be charges? Like, you know, is the female accuser, is she going to drop the charge?

It's like, what's happening here? Because you don't, sad nature of the NFL, you don't want to be the team. He has a lot of guarantees left. Remember, he only went through one season and he wasn't even like, he didn't have that great of a season. So it's not a no brainer of, man, we got to hold on to this guy until last minute. It's a subpar first round pick at that,

but there are millions of dollars in guarantees that you have tied up in this guy. If you cut him now, whatever happens in the legal proceedings that he will face, I am willing to take that to the bank. He will face a multiple game suspension from the NFL for the conduct policy. There's going to be another team that's willing to take a chance on him and take him at a very, very, very, very steep bargain. And you still would be on the hook for a lot of that. So I can fully understand why this has taken as long as it has. I feel like that's like a question I get in my idea or my Twitter mentions once a week, like what's going on with Gladney. Well, according to, you know, crime dog dog Murph there because he went and sifted

through the court documents because that's what he's excellent at so great pickup are you guys um that we'll we'll find out soon because of what the court proceeding is going to be but I think the Vikings I mean there's been no resolution to this thing because the legal proceedings have moved so slow but I can't even see this guy take i mean if holton hill got a two two two separate suspensions but back to back eight games wouldn't you and those that was for peds and like um and for marijuana like wouldn't you think that this would be like minimum eight games and why would you i mean outside the fact that he's a first round pick why would you hold on to him like when he's not going to be able to like i mean he's going to go

on the commissioner's exempt list like there's a there's a lot of pick, why would you hold on to him? Like when he's not going to be able to like, I mean, it's going to go on the commissioner's exempt list. Like there's a, there's a lot of gray area there. Well, there's also a Brad Spielberger from PFF was mentioning to me that you can also, if you're the Vikings and he's suspended and you want to get rid of him for avoiding his contract or, or violating his contract, you can go after his guarantees at that point too. And I, and also people have asked this too,

but Brad said you do get a cap relief if he ends up being suspended. So there's a, there is a lot of moving parts to this, but it just, like you said, it doesn't sound like he's going to be here anytime soon. So anyway, well, Sam and I have been doing our underrated storylines. So why don't we begin where you mentioned the defensive line and the underrated storylines so why don't we begin where you mentioned the defensive line and the underrated storylines i'm going to throw one out there and you guys react to it maybe underrated storyline is how does daniel hunter even look coming off of his neck surgery because when he returned with a new contract it seemed that we all kind of went like okay well there's 15 sacks

that the vikings have but i think under storyline is, does he look like he is up to football shape that he talked about wanting to get into? Yeah. And he talked about slow playing that, like in no way, shape or form. Did he say, yeah, I'm trying to rush myself back out there. Like I'm ready to go right now. He said, there's a difference between being in physical shape and having, he said a hundred percent healthy when Sam asked him about that, but there's a difference between being in physical shape and having, he said a hundred percent healthy when Sam asked him about that,

but there's a difference between health and football health and football shape. And I think he is wise to not rush anything. Like if we don't see him full go for a while, I don't think anybody should really be shocked by that. Like, and that's just going off of what he said. Like, do the Vikings expect him to like be ready this season yes of course but like you've got I mean again this is a neck injury like how different is he going to look there's a reason that they structured

when they redid his contract at the beginning of the week ahead of minicamp there's a reason that they didn't just say like all right come on back here's a brand new deal there's a reason they moved some money around gave him no new money. They moved money around to give him some more of his signing bonus. It converted some stuff to a signing bonus to give it to him now, but there's no new guarantees because they want to see how he looks this year. They want to make sure the investment they're making in somebody who just came off of a year missed due to a severe neck injury.

So severe it caused him to have surgery after he exhausted all of his options went remember he went to New York to get the second opinion on the herniated disc um so that's gonna be one like we almost assume like oh it's Neil Hunter two-time pro bowler 15 and a half sacks back-to-back years he's straight he'll be back like we have to like be like really cognizant to watch that closely to make sure like is he the same player yeah he's 26 years old I'm sure an injury like this that he had it's probably better to have it at when he did at 25 versus 32 when a lot of pass rushers are entering their prime so maybe his recovery will be a little bit more I don't expedited or, but certainly something that I don't

think is a guarantee to be like, man, yeah, expect him day one. He's going to be out there, like teaching Christian Derrissaw, like, you know, welcome to the NFL type moment. Like, I think it's going to take a little bit of time to kind of get him in the groove. Yeah. If Derrissaw wants to start week one, he probably doesn't need Daniil Hunter coming at him every play. A couple of things on that. You know, if, if not for the social media videos that have emerged of Daniil Hunter, I might be scratching my head about why he didn't do anything at mini camp. And maybe there was a handshake, you know, when he, when he sort of came back to the facility and agreed to the restructure, maybe they said,

all right, Daniil, we're not going to make you put a helmet on. That could have been the case. But Sheldon Richardson showed up day one in like a bulging number nine jersey that barely fit him, and he was on the field. So I was just kind of surprised we didn't see, you know, Daniil do anything in minicamp. And I guess I don't know if I expect him to do much in preseason either, to be honest that might be the type of player where you are going to handle him a bit with kid gloves you're going

to allow him to go at his pace and if his pace is like a cautious one then I think I think the team has to kind of honor that especially when you know they didn't give him really a raise as Courtney mentioned they just sort of moved the money around So he still probably is a little unsatisfied with what he's getting. I do think Yannick Ngakwe is a little bit of a cautionary tale where he didn't do a lot, you know, last off season. And then I thought looked kind of rusty early in that season. And, you know, Daniil Hunter's probably a better better more disciplined pass rusher than Yannick Ngakwe but there probably is a little concern whether he can go you know 90 percent of the snaps in week one week two week three and with the lack of depth they have at that position

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yeah and if you think about like recent history of guys who have been hurt and are coming back for something like just go back mike hughes spent his entire um offseason working on the side and then when he came back it was a rusty situation this happened with Pat Alfline when he had to be recovering from an injury and even Latavius Murray when he first got here remember how much they downplayed Latavius Murray's recovery and then like week four right that's when we saw finally he got his burst back and how much we can ascertain from even just watching these practices about where Daniil Hunter stands will be interesting because I wouldn't expect to see him in preseason games not coming off the injury and then just you know this team with some veterans in past years has just not played these guys which I think is

smart like you don't want to get them hurt. But also I think us trying to figure out how far along he is will be kind of one of the storylines or one of the things that we're trying to figure out, but maybe hard to figure out during camp. Yeah, that's like and you you heard it from him. Like he was not going to talk about that injury whatsoever when we asked him about how it happened. And that was his chance to be like, no, guys, that actually was a lot more serious than was let on. I think he's trying to play this smart because it was a good faith, kind of like a handshake move with them of like, hey, come back.

Do what you're supposed to do this year. We were going to pay you this offseason. Had you played last like timeline wise, when he signed the extension in 18, this would have been had he played last year, the season, the off season where they would have rewarded him handsomely. Like he has a $20 million a year pass rusher. Like you will eventually get that,

but prove it to us. Like we just have to protect our investment. It's a business. But I think the reason like what Sam was talking about like I don't actually remember did Sheldon Richardson do anything like I kind of felt like he was out there in that very undersized number nine jersey and just kind of like he went through some of the individuals like the patty cake drills I like to call it like whether it's a pass rushing hand drill like I know I'm minimizing it and

football people would probably hate me for that but whatever it's a patty cake drill to me um and then like i mean he did some individual stuff but i don't really remember him out there in any of their sub packages do you like he was there kind of just moving around but no no i think you're right i think he was probably individuals only but he was still a step above what daniel was doing daniel had the vis, which has become very familiar. Anonymous with like, I'm not doing anything. I'm just here so I don't get fined effectively. But no, I mean, I think this is kind of why I anticipate they'll have to sign somebody else for depth

because you just don't know. We just don't know where Daniil is in his recovery at this point and we're not I just I don't think that we're going to end up seeing a whole ton either way um to know like kind of where he's coming off of the injury because they're going to be protective too of we're not going to you know try to get you hurt in camp or hat like because we realize like it literally made it nosedive the season last year after they lost him which is kind of crazy to think about when it's like one usually it's a quarterback losing a quarterback will do that to you while losing your franchise defensive end with this defense team that's predicated on its pass rush did that as well so I think they have to like that's like they've learned from last year that

they have to go really slow and not rush him along with that. Because it's again, it's an injury. He's never dealt with it's your neck. Like it's not like an ACL or an ankle or an Achilles even like, you know, those are all very serious, but this is something that like, literally, what do you do as a defensive end? You slam your body into the quarterback after you bend your body around an offensive tackle to get to the quarterback like there's the movement aspect seeing him go at full

speed and i'm sure he's doing some of that like sam i know what you're talking about with like the training videos and stuff he's posted on social media um that's all well and good but to see him do it against tackles i think is going to be even at like, gosh, even in like that, that joint practice against the Broncos would be probably beneficial. I, I, at this point, I don't know how much he's, we would even be seeing him, um, you know, at full speed or anything like that when they're in pads. Right. Uh, we were going to need me doing a yelling thing for the show, like Daniil watch. So like, that's what we we're gonna do on a daily basis just how much is daniel actually doing uh underrated storyline number two that i have is

you know how they have all these uh little i don't know limericks about uh how you know competition breeds success iron sharpens iron all these silly things um will any of them be true about the depth defensive linemen like will competition ramp up jalen holmes or hercules madaffa or just anyone like kenny willekes is going to be back patrick jones like there is quite the battle but will anyone matter is i think underrated we know like oh they're oh, they're, you know, they're going to be working it out for that other defensive end spot, but will anyone else make us care about that? So when we did our 53 man projection after OTAs, Matthew, I thought in my head, they'll probably keep 10 defensive linemen, but I only put through nine because

I just don't think there's anyone who deserves that final spot until they prove it to me. I'm looking at defensive end. The two rookies I think you have to keep, Patrick Jones, Janius Robinson, third and fourth round pick, Daniil Weatherly, you signed to have a big role and Wanham. Those are five locks. Number six is between Hercules Mata'afa, who is somehow on the team for a fourth year um and I still don't know what position he plays or or what his job is um Jalen Holmes was the most ineffective defensive end on like a sack per snap basis last year because he had zero of them he had zero sacks um Kenny Willekes we have no idea idea. Jordan Brailford is a person. Of those four, I'm uninspired by all four, literally. So then you look to tackle and you say, well, I guess Jalen Twyman, maybe like if he's healthy enough, and that's an underrated storyline for me, is he going to be able to participate from his, you know, the random terrifying shooting that he was a part of can he participate can James Lynch do anything because they kind of you know Richardson takes

up a spot there as well so you've got kind of a lot of fledgling defensive ends defensive tackles that are in that like third year fourth year range who've done very little to this point in their career a lot of guys don't get that kind of leash. I mean, this is the last chance for, I think, a number of them. And I don't know who like deserves it at this point. So it's kind of a war of attrition. Like who's going to be standing at the end? Is anyone going to get hurt?

Are any spots going to open up? Because I don't know if I've seen a lot from any of those candidates that get me excited about like a sleeper kind of stepping up to the plate. Yeah. The day that they signed Sheldon Richardson, to me, that signified if I'm James Lynch, like, damn it. Like I went through all this and like, I thought it would add a spot as like, you know, a backup rotational rusher. And then they go and get this like freakishly athletic three technique who, oh, by the way, is now in a reserve role. Like, you know, that's,

I felt like that was kind of the writing on the wall. So like when I did my 53 and I'll read it to you just for the defensive linemen, like the obvious ones you have, I picked 10 to Sam. I had Hunter Tomlinson Pierce Weatherly so if I'm penciling it in as of right now that would be my starting four then I had Richardson Wanham Holmes Jones Armand Watts and I went Twyman over um I did I didn't write this because we don't do practice squad but I had Robinson going to the practice squad, which yeah, the fourth round pick is pretty tough, but I picked Twyman over,

who was I just talking about? This is like summer mode. Yeah. I picked Twyman over Lynch. Yes. They both got some second team reps. I was really basing this off of what i saw in minicamp and it's like you take the six round pick with higher upside and yeah you drafted him as like an undersized kind of tweener position um and they like that like they like an athletic guy i mean he is probably smaller than what you'd want at that but do they see traits of an athletic interior pass rusher that could potentially play out and if he

does recover within the timeline I mean his agent Drew Rosenhaus said that you know the four times he was shot like let's not underrate that that's like not something just like oh like a week later I'm fine like yeah they said full recovery but like how long does that recovery go like will we even see him in training camp like you've got to take care of that stuff first that sounds like a pretty serious incident that he went through but I think upside wise like over the fourth round pick who kind of struggled last year and James Lynch um that you'd go with like this year's sixth rounder uh but there's a lot that's unknown there like has Armand Watts going into year three done anything to impress you to be like yeah he should get a spot over someone like a generius robinson your fourth one of your fourth round picks from this year probably not but

i was basing it off the fact of like what they like with him and where they've played him before and since the interior was such a problem last year in terms of like the pass rush maybe you bulk up in terms of numbers there of how many tackles versus ends you're going to have on the roster and i still firmly believe that they're not done addressing like the defensive end position via free agency i went and took a look kind of like at who's out there right now it's very very slim pickings but it's totally like you can you can get some like cheap guys out there um to be able to you know you know fill up that spot maybe it's somebody that's kind of that hybrid outside linebacker who could play in this um you know play in in a role like this i mean i went the names are not very good right now um i went through it i mean heck like everson griffin's still out there do i think that

he would end up re-signing with the Vikings? I don't know. I mean, I kind of had heard, you know, local radio and all this stuff around the area that, like, he wants to come back. Like, would they do it? I don't know. But they have the money to go sign another Ed Rusher. And I think that that would end up shoring up the 10 and probably dropping one of the guys that I had on my list. I went through the available free agents just real quick.

And I think the highest PFF grade from last year remaining was like Jabal sheared. And I think he was like 50th. Yeah. That that's support to your claim that it's slim picking. Hey everyone. I want to tell you about our friends. It's scout logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends, they are fans of purple insider it's scout logistics and i really do mean it when i say friends they are fans of purple insider over at scout logistics and since they reached out wanting to support this show i want to tell you about what they do scout logistics is just-in-time transportation for full

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Guys are coming off significant injuries though. That that's the thing. And like, do you want to bring in somebody as sort of a roll of the dice? Now here's another one. And this could be our last one before you pick the schedule because that was, that's the plan because you haven't picked the schedule since they've made a bunch of signings. So we need to do that. The last one that I have is Steven Weatherly. Like, I think he's got a little bit of a target on his back here. I mean, that as we look at these other defensive ends, if Steven Weatherly does not beat out DJ Wanham, you could look at the Patrick Jones, the Janarius Robinson Robinson the Kenny Willekes and say

sorry man we're just gonna have to go with the younger guys as the backups rather than you because look he had zero sacks in nine starts last year for Carolina and if you have him in training camp and I know that Andre Patterson is a big fan but if you have him in training camp and he's not beating out these other guys, we could see it go. Anthony Zettel, Dayton Jones or whatever. You know, this seems to happen with one guy a year that they bring in and we all go, oh, he's going to do this, this, this, this, this. And then he doesn't make the team. He only signed a one year deal and 500,000 of that was guaranteed of the $2.5 million contract.

That's not a lot of money to forego on somebody for like, okay, we had him for OTAs and minicamp. We didn't know what was going to happen with Daniel Hunter, et cetera, et cetera. And if he doesn't perform, if someone like a DJ Wanham ends up beating him out, that could be your veteran on the bubble. Like everybody wonders who are the veterans that are on the bubble. I think it's more clear cut. If you look at like a Drew Samia, for example, like to me, that's a no brainer of somebody that like is at the top

of the list, but Steven Weatherly, you make a good point considering what he didn't do in Carolina last year. And just kind of what, you know, the competition that he has behind him, like if Wanham is as good as they have have touted him to be in terms of his development and being like Daniil Light and and you know panning out to be what they drafted him as what they thought he could be then that could really put some serious competition at that other defensive end spot and you know certainly with Patrick Jones I mean they spent a third round pick on the guy. Like according to Patrick Jones, he watches like 25 hours of film on all like the top pass rushers every

single week and tries to like mimic their pass rushing moves. So I am thoroughly excited for that battle to see what he brings to the table to see like, I'll be like, Oh, I said TJ Watt. Oh wait, that's unique and Gawkway there. No, no wait. It's actually Patrick Jones and he's like combination, like throwing all these moves together. But that one is, I mean, the, that's one Patrick Jones. And he's a combination, like throwing all these moves together. But that one is, I mean, that's one of the top position battles of camp, right? Like if you were to put your top three, it'd be defensive end opposite of Daniil Hunter.

Probably, God, wide receiver three. And then maybe like a toss-up behind like figuring out who starts opposite Patrick Peterson. You know, is it Bashad Breeland? He has a ton of experience. He won a Super Bowl. Is it Cam Dantzler who had like one of the best rookie – seasons of a rookie corner once he, you know, once like he got through kind of like the bumps and bruises and actual injuries like bumps and bruises early on like there's not that many like secure like non-secure

positions except I mean the defensive end ones just like huge and I don't think it's a lock for Weatherly at all right now that he's on this team that he could be on the team in the fall yeah great points all around a couple counterpoints to that that I think will hold some weight number one is that the Vikings tend to have an attachment and a loyalty to their guys Andre Patterson in particular I think will love having Steven Weatherly back because he speaks the language he fits his prototype and even if Weatherly isn't playing well to our eye, that hasn't always seemed to matter. And I'm on record as saying that the Odenabo for Weatherly swap, if you will, was not a good one for the Vikings. I think Odenabo has been a better player.

He signed for the exact same. He's not a fit in New York either. Like, so I don't know what the hell they were doing and like thinking, Oh, this guy's going to be like a three, four outside linebacker. What? Like, okay, that's their problem. Like I'm not, I'm not tripping around and that's their problem. It just made no sense to me whatsoever. He's not a fit in that defense,

but anyways, I digress. Yeah. That seemed like an easy tender to me. It was just to bring back Odenabo at slightly more than, than 2.5 million. And apparently they didn't want that. So that, that did surprise me. Number two, I just think there's too much youth in that group to let a veteran go. million and apparently they didn't want that so that that did surprise me um number two i just think there's too much youth in that group to let a veteran go like weatherly even though he's not stellar when you look at his numbers um or his analytics um if you get rid of him you know you're obviously counting a ton on wanham but then behind that you would have probably a rookie

as your number three or maybe like i guess a Holmes, who I've kind of, you know, pilloried here because I don't think he's very good. I don't think Mata'afa is all that good. And Willekes is a complete wild card. So you have so little that's certain behind Weatherly, who I guess, if he knows the techniques and the playbook, that's something that they can work with. Otherwise, you don't have a lot.

And if Hunter is going to be less than 100%, that's another factor, another reason why you would want to have someone who has institutional knowledge. So while I agree that Weatherly should not be immune to being on the chopping block based on his track record, I think that sort of the lack of depth they built up around him will kind of ensure that he's going to be on the team. And he seemed pretty confident that he was going to have a big role. Like when we talked to him on that introductory presser, he was saying it was going to be different this time around. He felt like he was brought in for a reason. And I know that guys can get kind of filled up with hot air sometimes when they sign and the team can lead them to believe one thing and then totally change their mind.

But I tend to think he's here to stay. I'm about 75 percent on that with the right to change my opinion as soon as I see they sign a defensive end. Yeah. When they bring in my boy Jabal Sheard to to help them out. Yeah. Good, good points. And, uh, also you're right about sometimes they fall in love with certain guys to their detriment and they say, we're going to stick with this guy no matter what. And we saw that last year of saying, no, no, we trust Shamar Stefan to make a position switch when he wasn't really a starter to begin with. And like, okay, he's not even a starting three technique. Now you're asking him to play an even harder position that really did not work at all. And we saw that with them moving on and

increasing their talent at that position by quite a bit. So that's a good point, Sam. All right, guys, hope you enjoyed that. We're going to stop that right there before we get into the win loss predicting from Courtney Cronin. Make sure you listen on Tuesday. That's when that episode is going to drop the second part of our conversation with Courtney. So we'll catch you next time on Purple Insider.